Economics in D&D
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Why is it your heroes never have to worry about where their next meal is coming from? The amount of money they rake in simply killing a Kobold is more than enough to feed them for a week, leading you to wonder why there aren’t more peasants in the “killing Kobolds” business.
Paul at Blog of Holding has a good commentary on the economics of D&D and it’s, I think, pretty important to look at in your game. While Paul discusses adding poor and fine items into the game, but I’d like to talk about how to actually incorporate all of this into your game.
Let’s take a look at where the heroes start at in 4e: The average peasant is a minion, of no particular ability to do any harm to anyone, while an adventurer starts off as a 30 HP beast of a man (even the wizards) capable of great feats through Encounter and Daily powers. They also start with 100 gp, while peasants work daily for 1 sp. If you do the math, that means it would take nearly four years for a peasant to make 100 gp, if he didn’t spend ANY money on himself, just hoarding it away. With this in mind, no hero can possibly claim to be born of peasants, just starting off his adventuring career with a few items he bought in the local shop.
A sword is 10 gp. What this means is for a peasant to have a sword in his possession, he had to have saved for a half a year in order to afford one, which seems ridiculous to me. Paul points out that even a peasant can’t afford his lunch every day without going into debt. How is he going to be saving up to buy a sword?
Paul suggests having “poor” quality items, and charging 1/10 the price for them, which I think makes a lot more sense. In addition, adding “fine” items to your game, which cost 10 times the price would work out phenomenally as well, replacing a lot of magical items (especially at lower levels) with fine items.
However, you still have a problem: You walk into a dragon’s lair and, after slaying it, come upon a cache of thousands and thousands of gold. Why do you not pull a Bilbo and retire after that? Seems like a hero could have all they wanted for the rest of their life with that kind of money.
And where did they get that 100 gold?! Starting the game off with 10 gp might really be the way to go, I think.
I know this is kind of rambly and unfocused, but I’m just trying to throw my thoughts down on page (or screen, as it were).
Tomorrow, I’ll discuss the use of different denominations of coin, which should be a little more focused.
Hey Mark – good stuff. My group actually does use poor and high quality items, for example we had picked up some daggers off some kills and they were maily poor quality the rogue in our party used them as throwing daggers and twe decided as a “house rule” that on roll to hit’s of 1′s and 2′s there was a % chance the poor quality item would break (or some other way become useless).
Oh and with starting $$$ we routinely start our campaigns at 3rd level to explain away the 100 gp’s.
I think 4E has made a conscious effort to eliminate the need for “common” (non-magical) items. Take a look at their list of goods for sale and the list is anemic, there is very little there. The game is now about high adventure; worrying about where the next meal is coming from is “beneath” the heroes. Scrambling for the gold to upgrade from leather to chain armor is not the goal of the adventures. Magic items have become the new commodity are looking forward too, not a mundane upgrade.
Why do the heroes not retire after their first big haul? Because they are adventures and heroes are there, not for the gold, but rather the adventure…at least that is the default premise for 4E.
However, there is something to be said for the players having to save their coppers for an upgrade in gear. I always liked that style of play. The only problem was eventually money became irrelevant. 4E has essentially upped the need for money by allowing the purchase of magic items. Therefore money always remains relevant.
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A peasant saving up for a year for a single sword is actually kind of unbelievable. Economics an dlords worked very hard to keep a peasant in poverty. They might have to save up for a year or two before buying a knife, and that knife would become a family heirloom. If a peasant was caught with a sword, they’d be strung up, or at least lose a hand for stealing (who would believe a Peasant who says he bought it fair and square?) I would also argue that most peasants cannot afford the lunch at the tavern because the bartender is charging the heroes more than he does his friends, and even then, a peasant traveling would only afford it by saving up. (plus he can’t leave his land without express permission from his lord.
Even though there are a few minor social discrepancies, (if only for story sake) both “Pillars of the Earth” and its sequel “World Without End” by Ken Follet really capture the economics of a medieval country, and make you realize just how rare money can be. Given how much successful dungeon delving if going on in D&D the whole economic structure is probably built around the flood of gold hitting the market (which would break any economy) so a gold piece in DnD is really not worth all that much.
But, apples and oranges can still make juice even if they are not alike.