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  1. - Top - End - #1
    Orc in the Playground
     
    GnomeWizardGuy

    Join Date
    Jul 2011
    Location
    Babylon 5
    Gender
    Male

    Default The Sufficiently Accurate Medieval Price Lists & Economy

    A while back (before I got burnt out on it) I went and did a bunch of amateur research into medieval prices and made a set of price tables that more accurately reflected the actual medieval prices of goods and services. I did this because I was working on a big custom rpg setting, and I wanted to have realistic prices for things if my players decided to carry cargo from place to place in their boat while adventuring. Towards this same end, I attempted to make a simple economy simulation so that different countries in my world would have different prices for goods, but google sheets proved too unwieldly to do this in, so I abandoned the attempt. I didn't want all that effort to go to waste though, so I figured I'd post it in case others could get some value from it. Thus I present:

    The SAMPLE tables

    Spoiler: How to use the tables
    Show
    Just stick to the first section that has all the base prices for commodities. If you're a GM then maybe check up on the speeds/prices/capacity of the transport methods and the wages of the various professions, but for the love of all that is good don't try to mess with the price calculations. It's been months since I built this thing, and I don't even remember how half of it works. You may also wish to check out the historical source price section if your curious and you don't mind it being in the standardized currency.

    There's a table at the beginning for the conversion of the custom currency being used to a standard cp/sp/gp system, although the value of those coins doesn't actually match those from D&D since all the prices are different
    (ie. longsword in D&D costs 15 gp, and in the SAMPLE tables it costs 8 small gold coins and 5 small silver coin)

    Spoiler: How accurate is this?
    Show
    Not very accurate. I mean, it's more accurate than anything you'll find in a D&D book, and it (arguably) portrays an accurate view of peasant standards of living, but also peasants of feudal Europe wouldn't actually have physical coinage money in the first place (by my understanding), and I'm pretty sure that any historical economist who ever finds this will die spitting in rage as their corporeal form melts from the mere sight of it. Given some liberties I'd consider these tables a useful tool for any GM who wants a grounded, semi realistic setting, but don't ever try to use this to win an argument.

    Spoiler: Methodology
    Show
    I basically grabbed a whole bunch of medieval price lists, used bread to standardize the prices into a single currency (denoted as ✧), then used what historical sources I could find to alter the prices of individual items and propagated the implications of those more historical prices into the rest of the price lists as best I could. This propagation partially took the form of putting as many items into a sort of production flow chart as possible (thread becomes cloth becomes clothes) and comparing the prices of various items to the amount of material and labor (and price of labor) needed to make them to help fix inconsistencies.
    Wages for a large variety of professions were calculated by creating a scale of rough 'classes' from unskilled children to professionals, assigning the historical jobs to a place on this scale, and then using the historical wages to get a value for the income of each place on this scale. Each profession was then assigned to a place on the scale as well, and had its income modified depending on how rare the profession was.
    These wages and prices of food were then compared against eachother and modified until they seemed relatively self consistent, with the assumption that roughly 70% of the population were farmers. This was then further propagated into other factors, such as the average farmer household size, the size of the average village, what portion of the population were knights, the cost to rent an acre of farmland, ect.

    Basically: the calculations are a mess, but the economy is self consistent and arguably matches medieval demographics.

    Spoiler: Problems with the tables
    Show
    I gave up on finding the weight of all these items and materials, so everything just has a default weight of 1 lb. I likewise gave up on trying to figure out how much time and raw materials it would take to make each item.
    The economy simulation tables are... useable. They're big, and unwieldly, but if you scroll over to the right there are columns for supply and demand that you can use to kinda see what the price would be in various locations depending on supply/demand and the transport costs between locations. The big problem with the economy tables is that they are a nightmare to expand, so if you want to compare more than 10 locations, or compare a new item/material not currently listed, it's a huge pain.

    What Next?
    I would like to improve these tables and take this project further, but I have realized that Excel/google sheets just isn't appropriate for a project of this scale. I plan on converting the project over to a custom program, but it'll be a while before I get around to that.

    I would, however, love to hear peoples thoughts on what I currently have, as well as any recommendations for improvements, corrections, or sources I can look at when I get around to making the program.

    As for the tables themselves, I don't think I have it in me to work on them any further, but you may feel free to leave comments or make and edit your own copies.

  2. - Top - End - #2
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    BlackDragon

    Join Date
    Jun 2016

    Default Re: The Sufficiently Accurate Medieval Price Lists & Economy

    Considering the amount of research you did (this looks very impressive!), I imagine you've already come across Grain into Gold. If not, I've found it to be worth the purchase price. It offers several different prices for each item (close to the source, in a nearby city, in a far away city) which would lend themselves to a spreadsheet solution like yours (just toggle that variable for a given city/region, possibly with a percentage modifier to allow a region's products to be of a different quality than the default). I keep those tables in my DMing binder for any unexpected purchases that aren't covered by the system; their gold coin/silver coin/copper coin prices translate well enough for my needs in 5th edition. If nothing else, their presentation framework may inspire you in how you want to evolve the next step of your own model. Thanks for adding your work to the pool of DM resources, and good luck with finding your sufficiently holy grail!
    My 5e Monster Repository (a modest collection)
    5e Quick, ad-hoc task DCs — Simple: 8 | Normal: 13 | Challenging: 18 | Formidable: 23
    5e Quick, ad-hoc monsters — AC: 12 + level/2 | HP: 10 × level | To-Hit: 2 + level/2 | DPR: 4 × level
    1 monster v. 1 PC; for 4 v. 1 Solos — +2 to AC & To-Hit | HP: 25 × level | DPR: 10 × level
    5e Quick, ad-hoc monster treasure — CR2 × tier gp

  3. - Top - End - #3
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    Planetar

    Join Date
    May 2009
    Location
    Perth, West Australia
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: The Sufficiently Accurate Medieval Price Lists & Economy

    Quote Originally Posted by Vegan Squirrel View Post
    Considering the amount of research you did (this looks very impressive!), I imagine you've already come across Grain into Gold.
    He sure did, it's right there in his sources list!

  4. - Top - End - #4
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    Goblin

    Join Date
    Mar 2019

    Default Re: The Sufficiently Accurate Medieval Price Lists & Economy

    Thank you for sharing.

    I suggest some simplification is in order, particularly for your value units. The three divisions (copper, silver, gold) are broad and ignore a lot of factors but allow for rapid conversion. Converting from your iron unit is difficult. Perhaps you can have the bulk of your tables in the three division currencies and have a separate table(s) for converting to other currencies?

    The weights are difficult but important. 1 pound of rubies is very expensive and I don't think your chart accurately reflects this.

    Formatting to make the charts more readable (as you plan to do) is definitely going to be a huge step forward.

    There are non-apparent reasons for some price differences. A dagger, for instance, might contain more steel and take more skilled labor to produce than a cast and welded battle-axe. A dagger is more expensive than a knife because it's all steel versus a utility knife which is iron with a thin sliver of steel plate welded to it (or embedded in it).

  5. - Top - End - #5
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    BlackDragon

    Join Date
    Jun 2016

    Default Re: The Sufficiently Accurate Medieval Price Lists & Economy

    Quote Originally Posted by Saintheart View Post
    He sure did, it's right there in his sources list!
    By golly, you're right! I definitely glanced at the sources first, but I guess I didn't realize the names were in the second column and just skimmed for the words I was looking for in the first column. Carry on.
    My 5e Monster Repository (a modest collection)
    5e Quick, ad-hoc task DCs — Simple: 8 | Normal: 13 | Challenging: 18 | Formidable: 23
    5e Quick, ad-hoc monsters — AC: 12 + level/2 | HP: 10 × level | To-Hit: 2 + level/2 | DPR: 4 × level
    1 monster v. 1 PC; for 4 v. 1 Solos — +2 to AC & To-Hit | HP: 25 × level | DPR: 10 × level
    5e Quick, ad-hoc monster treasure — CR2 × tier gp

  6. - Top - End - #6
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    ClericGuy

    Join Date
    Oct 2020

    Default Re: The Sufficiently Accurate Medieval Price Lists & Economy

    Thank you SO much! I'm helping with a not-quite-grimdark buts still quite gritty world right now. So far we were just going with "1 copper is enough for a day of food or a night's lodging but not both."

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