As the younger sister of an accountant, and as a number-cruncher myself, I understand wanting some economic realisim in D&D; at the very least, more conomic information.
As someone who has neither the patience or the inclination to become an accountant, I also understand not wanting to do bookeeping.
Thus, I present this basic set of houserules and information to help with the personal-level economics of your settings and games. Much of it comes from the houserues I've presented on these forums before, but now in a single place.
The Lifestyles of The Meek and Sedentary
We know how much it costs for an adventurer to live; it's the Lifestyle Expenses. But its also stated that Lifestyle Expenses include paying for someone to maintain your equipment - in short, a hireling. You're literally paying for two people to live (so ransom them off already!).
So what of people who don't adventure? What about adventurers that are not willing to pay to maintain their equipment, or will take the time to maintain it themselves? They pay half the cost that adventurers do. Or, put another way, a non-adventurer worker can support two people, at the same lifestyle level, on their wages. Thus, the Lifestyle Expenses table will look more like this for such people:
- Wretched N/A
- Squalid 5cp
- Poor 1sp
- Modest 5sp
- Comfortable 1gp
- Wealthy 2gp
- Aristocratic 5gp
- Adventurers pay double if they wish that their equipment be maintained
Independent Income: Investment Shares and Business Profit
This will be more common than you think. Running a business is a popular pasttime for some characters, and the Starter Set adventure includes the possibility of the PC's gaining a 10% share in the local mine. But how much are such things worth? And how do you do them with minimal headache? We have a simple 3 step process that requires knowledge of one new term: Financial Period.
A Financial Period is the period of time over which expenses and income are totaled to determine profit or deficit. The usual Financial Periods in the real world are the Annual Period (The financial totalings are accounted once per year*), the Binannual Period (Two times a year - Once every six months), and the Quarterly Period (Four times a year - Once every three months or 90 days). The usual Financial Periods in D&D 5e are the Day, the Week and the 30-Day Month.
1: Determine Financial Period: I suggest no less than 1 30-Day month, and usually Quarterly is a good idea. The Financial Period chosen determines how long the characters wait between payments; and the size of their lump sum.
2: Determine Investment or Business type: This is nothing fancy, just a basic concept like Lockshop or Mine. This is flavor only.
3: Determine Income: Pick a Lifestlye - and a multiplier if you want. If using the Non-Adventurer Lifestyle Expenses as shown above, pick if the income will support one person or two.
4: Adventure Hooks: This is a connection of the character to the world around them. Feel free to get these things involved in adventures, but don't involve them too much. An Investor should vote once a financial period on shareholder issues, and a business owner should spend 1 day a month directing their business. Neither activity has to be in person, but communications should be clear, and issues dealt with in a timely manner.
Buying Investments and Businesses: These should cost anywhere from 5 to 20 times the income from the investment per 30-day month to obtain or set up.
*Interesting Note; the Financial Year in the USA is 360 days - 5 days less than the calendar year. 5 days are Bank Holidays, where no financial transactions occur except for absolute necessities. It also easily splits into 12 30-day months, with no remaining days.
Your Mother Pays Retail! Markets and Crafting
How much does it cost to make something? Half the market price listed in the equipment chapter. Now how much does it cost to hore someone to make something? 1gp a day, and material costs. Wait... Yep, that's why prices are doubled: Wages, wholesale, and then retail ("Welcome to Swords R Us! I'll be your blade master for today, I'm Ryan, is anything you would like to get started with?"). In most settings, items are made by the manufacturer, who sells them in bulk to a wholesaler, who then sells or distribute them to the retailers. In others, the Wholesaler is a guild, which either distributes goods from maker to seller for free, or allows sales direct from the maker at a guild set price; in either case it takes a total fee from both totaling to 25% of the items market price.
Let's examine the levels of selling and pricing:
- Manufacturer: Direct from the source. The costs of such, either buying or commisioning, are materials+labor. How much is labor? Materials divided by 1gp; so a dagger costs 2sp in labor and 1gp in materials, for a total cost of 1.2gp.
- Wholesale: Wholesalers buy in bulk for redistribution, bringing together the output of multiple craftspeople. They typically buy at the manufacturing cost, and sell to retailers at 75% of the the market price (So a dagger bought wholesale is 1,5gp). Wholesalers typically refuse to sell to the general public, and will usually only sell in bulk (about 50 or more of the same item at a time).
- Retailer: The storefronts, and costs, that adventurers know well.
"Do You Have A Backup?" Means "I Can't Fix This."
Heading courtesy of Howard Taylor's Schlock Mercenary and its Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries. That was Maxim 41.
Sometimes you need something fixed. Not replaced, fixed; and for some things duct tape won't cut it. So how much do repairs cost? As a simple rule, 25% of the market price (50% of materials price) and labor (as talked about above). As a complicated rule, the broken percentage of the item in materials and labor.
By the way, this does not cover maintenance, which is covered by Lifestyle Costs.
Vera In An Alleyway Kiosk: Shoddy and Fine Quality Goods.
So you need equipment cheap. Or you grabbed a blade off some fallen monster. Or you want to own a really fine piece of work. How much does that cost? And is it worth anything?
Object Hardness is gone; replaced wth giving items an AC of their own - representing not just how hard it is to hit them, but also how hard it is to cause them damage. So good and bad quality items have a higher or lower AC and HP relative to the normal quality items. Right now, we have no guidelines on the AC and HP of standard items, so I'm not going to speculate.
But let's say that going above or below standard quality will result in the cost of the item going up by a percentage (Round to the nearest copper or silver, your choice) equal to the percentage that its AC and HP together are modified by (round down as usual, and the percentages should changeequally). An AC 15 HP 5 dagger could be a cheap piece of metal with AC 10 and HP 3 (a 33% price reduction to 1.33gp), or a AC 20 HP 6 mighty fine blade costing 33% more than usual (2.66gp).
"This Razor Blade brought to you by Grandpa's Sword" : Salvage and Finding Materials
So say your players want to go a bit in depth, and have the skills to do it. Might as well turn more of a profit, right? But how to do so? Bring hirelings and wagons, and rent the forges! We're going salvaging! (never mind the fact that we killed the previous owners...)
As stated in the Basic Rules, salavaged equipment, in good quality, can be sold for half-price. Bad quality equipment is considered scrap, and might be salvagable for raw materials. Salvaged trade goods (if they have not gone bad) maintain their full value, as do coins, gems, jewelry, and artwork, as stated in the Basic Rules.
Salvaging requires proficiency in the tools required to make the original item, and takes 1 day for every 5gp of materials cost, as per the crafting rules. However, at the end of it, you have crafted raw materials equal to whatever percentage of the items the DM determined contained salvagable raw materials. For metal items, this is easy: it's the majority of the materials cost. For cloth and leather items, the percentage is smaller. You cannot salvage raw materials from food items. At the end of it, you have a supply of raw materials that will save you money on crafting, and can be sold for their raw value.
Finding materials is used almost exclusively for Alchemy and Herbalism tools - many of their ingredients can be found in nature or defeated monsters (not sentient ones though, unless you know recipes that require evil ingredients). THis requires Proficiency with the tools, an INT/Investigation or INT/Nature check, and 4 hours. Beating DC 10 will gain you 1d8+1gp worth of Common materials. DC 15 will get you 1d6+1gp worth of Uncommon materials. DC 20 will find 1d4+1gp worth of Rare materials. Stockpiling will save you money on future crafting.*
Growing them requires its own set of checks and tools, which takes time away from crafting and adventuring. Try for the low maintainence plants and beetles.
*I rule that Potions of Healing require no magic, but need 10gp of Uncommon materials and 15gp of Common materials.
--More to Come as I Find That Which People Want/Need Houserules For--
Ventures, etc, handled under investment, shares & profit?
bawylie wrote:
RustedKitsune wrote:
It's nice that you're trying to do this, but D&D is not, and has never been, designed with economic simulationism in mind. It's designed with a thin veneer of economy to support the guts of the game, which is heroic adventuring.
The economic 'system' falls apart if you so much as look at it funny, not least because there's one universal worldwide currency...
That being said, giant tables of what things cost can be fun for some people, so if you enjoy it, go hog wild. But don't expect it to actually make economic sense.
She presented this as a set of houserules. So as to support additional layers of economic activity.
Double plus good.
edwin_su wrote:
Besides, it's not like your players are singing
Let's get down to business
To outbid the Huns!
Here I have some figures
and some facts and sums!
It’s the saddest lot you’ve ever bought
but if you bet on this one too
Mister I’ll
make you a buck
or two
Business man!
We must be swift as the stock exchanges
Business man!
With all the force of a great tycoon
Business man!
With all the strength of a thriving market
Mysterious as the Romney’s revenues!
I’m never gonna get this back
Say good bye to my salary
Boy was I fool in school for cutting STATS
This guy’s got them scared to death
Hope he doesn’t see my assets
Now I really wish I knew how to add!
thank you tumblr!
RustedKitsune wrote:
RustedKitsune wrote:
RustedKitsune wrote:
ankiyavon wrote:
RustedKitsune wrote:
ankiyavon wrote:
RustedKitsune wrote:
ankiyavon wrote:
RustedKitsune wrote:
This is great, RustedKitsune!
I have a consideration to add for your example concerning the Baron and his cut of the Taxes. This being that the Taxes gained are more than likely only a part, or percentage, of what he 'earns' when considering the amount needed to support his Aristocratic lifestyle. More than likely, he also owns a good portion of the farmable land in his barony, and so actually receives earnings based off what is produced. It's also very likely he is either an Investor, or outright Owner, of several necessary trades/shops in the area as well, and so gets a cut of those profits. If there is a Market or if he was responsible for building the Town itself, that's another source of Income. Lets not forget that it is possible his own Knights might have to pay him in either Time or Wealth as part of their service.
I only mention this, acknowledging your Example is meant to be a broad breakdown, because I think it entirely likely he's pulling much more than even 40%, maybe as high as 60% (or more if this is a distopian example of all-but-enslaved Serfs, etc.).
LupusRegalis wrote:
There will be an article on taxation and alternate payment methods coming... Soonish. I also have to recover my article on replacing alignment.
Woo taxation. Looking foward to reading that!
These days, I just use the rules in ACKS whenever I want an economic framework; it's the only system I've ever found that actually can create a working economy without being ludicrously complicated, and since it's OGL it can easily be dropped into any D&D-based system. (Although you do have to mess with the demographics if you're not using XP from gold and/or if you're using a game that doesn't have 14 levels, but it's a simple compression tweak, and only matters if you want to maintain your demographics to the level of consistency that they did, which can be summarized as 'wow that's really consistent'; one of my favorite things to do with ACKs is to find the hidden equations inside it.)
ankiyavon wrote:
Screw it, I have barely enough in my paypal.
Then I just need to get on anti-anxiety meds so I can actually handle the thought of applying for a job...
RustedKitsune wrote:
ankiyavon wrote:
RustedKitsune wrote:
I noticed. And I'm in love already.
Apologies for not posting the promised Taxation article. I got sidetracked with trying to convert Birthright and also making a few new rules modules. And homebrewing a few settings.
There is never anything wrong with converting Birthright to anything.
I've run Birthright in AD&D 2E, D&D 3E and 4E, and Hackmaster 4E and new edition. (They really did a terrible job naming the new version of Hackmaster.)
For some reason i was expecting a discussion on the books by Roger Zelazny and ways to port them into D&D.
I was wrong... 
RustedKitsune, All of this is amazing, and to my math deprived mind, rather intense!
I have a semi related question to put forth to any an all who may answer.
Im running a party of four through the Lost MInes of Phadelver (spoilers) and they've now cleared out the Redbrand hideout. I know for a fact they are interested in aquiring the Sleeping Giant tap house, and in the future they may be interested in renovating the Tresendar Manor.
My question is this: How much should I charge for the Sleeping Giant Taphouse (Provided Grista wants to sell)? How much would it cost to renovate said Tap House? How much could the party make by running the tap house?
Additionally How much would it cost to renovate the Manor?
Any thoughts on this would very much appreciated. And once again, RustedKitsune, thanks for this interesting (and confusing) economic breakdown. I'm going to read through it again and see if I can understand any of it :D
Me=Artist not Mathist :D
This is a creative thread. I like it 
D&D can handle all kinds of stuff.
Throw tradition and traditionalists out the window.
jh
we have a fairly limited amount of cannon in 5e to work with so far, and i look forward to where we can go with these ideas when we have the DMG as well. good thread topic.
in 1e, taxation was tied to reaching name level and building a keep. not just the fighter, but the cleric and wizard would do this as well, just at different levels. this continued into 2e. but in 3e, it went away entirely as the game changed in style. pathfinder brought it back with their campaign guide book, which lets you invest in buildings to get income over time. i hope that the DMG (or a similar later book) will bring real estate back to high-level D&D. as the PHB stands right now however, high level alone is not enough to become a lord (but you can start as nobility if you want).
the first real problem of D&D economics, is that we are dealing with pre-renisance guilds setting prices on goods. the artisans have guild membership and apprentices, and the guilds set a very firm price on goods. there is no supply and demand influence on prices, because a shortsword is always worth 10gp, and the materials to make it are always worth 5gp, because the Guilds have set those prices, and this is historically accurate in theme.
farmers, miners, and shepards turn labor and land into gold- they grow wheat and cotton, mine ore, and raise/shear/milk sheep and other animals. thats the first tier of the economy, and the largest because we need a lot of farmers to feed a town. next we have those who work with those materials- the wheat doubles in value when a miller grinds it to flour, and when bakers make bread you double the value again. and because everyone crafts at the same labor value, your economy is limited by how many skilled laborers you have, which is likewise limited by teh number of farmers growing food.
looking at http://www.aqua-calc.com/calculate/volume-to-weight we see that you get 1.74 pounds of grain per liter, and a farmer could grow up to 300 liters of what grain per acre(1/5th of modern yields), or 522 pounds per acre (with 2 crops per year), and a farmer could expect to farm up to 30 acres for one family. now 1/5th of that grain is kept for the next planting, so you have about 417 pounds of wheat per acre, or 25,056 copper of income per year for the farmer family with enough land in a good year. thats 250gp before taxes, to support 4 people through the year. that gives us about 6.8 silver per day, so a poor family of 3 can live at this level... lets assume that the simplified cost of living includes taxes. this would imply by D&D logic that you get 10 acres of farming done per unskilled laborer. it would also imply that crops that produce more weight have less value, and crops that produce less weight have more value.
so, each farmer is producing the wheat for 16,704 loaves of bread, needing 17 days at the mill per farmer, and 33 days baking per farmer, per year. so we need 1 miller and 2 bakers for every 11 farmers, to provide 183,744 loaves of bread over a years time. if we assume 2 loaves of bread per day for everyone in town, thats bread for 251 people per 14 people growing, milling, and cooking bread. thats a very impressive return on investment for the medieval farmers! its also about 120 acres of farmland between 4 families of farmers (640 acres per square mile). so lets assume we end up with half of that on average, due to various problems- bad weather, blight, pests, war, and so on. thats still enough wheat for 125 people, with an underworked miller and 1 baker. it is not enough food for everyone- this assumption is that bread is 2/3rds of a poor diet because its cheap. the rest would be some mix of vegetables, cheese, and meat.
so, lets say we have a town of 1000 people. we need 88 farmers, 4 millers, and 8 bakers to keep up with the bread half-yield(or assume a differernt winter crop), using 880 acres across 1.4 square miles. having 10% of the population supplying food seems odd, but this is only a small fraction of the food supply. we also need pastures for the sheep and cattle, to keep the town supplied with meat, cheese, wool, and leather. you could have 1 cow or 3 sheep per acre of pasture. as 1 pound of cheese is made from 10 pounds of milk, and one dairy cow should produce about 50 pounds of milk per day. 5e does not have a metric for cheese weight, thus we cannot guess at the per acre value of milk cows, or the labor per cow to expect. If a 'hunk' of cheese is 1 pound, then a cow produces 2sp5cp of milk per day at 1cp per 2 pounds(7.4 gallons). ergo we can expect to need 5 unskilled labor per 4 cows (a shepard and 4 milkmaids), and 1 cheesemaker per 4 cows, using 5 acres (theres probably a bull as well, you want to make more cows for extra profit from meat/leather). those 4 cows will fill 4.6 barrels of milk per day.
as a cow is worth 10gp (100sp), and value doubles by processing, then we can expect 400sp of cooked meat per cow. we can thus expect 133 chunks of meat per cow. as about 70% of a cows weight is useful meat, a chunk of meat should weigh 3 or 4 pounds. thats a pretty good steak! but if the meat is 1 pound per chunk (which seems more reasonable), then a cow produces MORE meat than its value as a cow would imply. so at this point the D&D economic system breaks down- your cow can support unskilled labor for milk, which supports skilled labor for cheese, but the system fails to hold the standard of value doubling per crafting when we turn it into beef. so we need 2 more steps- the shepard (raise the cow), and the slaughterhouse(kill the cow, gain xp!),before the butcher and chef. thus we get about 530 chunks of meat from our cow (which probably weighed 760 pounds), and the guy at the slaughterhouse has a few levels after working there a while. we need a chef/day per 17 chunks of meat, or 31 chef/days per cow butchered. the butcher will be able to slaughter about 2 dozen cows per year, so we need 2 chefs per butcher to keep up. we also need more than 24 milk cows to hope to raise that many head of cattle to slaughter every year, so about 30 acres of pasture per butcher, and 6 cheesemakers. we may also get 7 sq ft of leather, which then needs to be tanned, per cow. thus that one butcher will also represent about 160 sq ft of leather per year. there is no metric for tha value of leather in 5e, but this will likely support additional industry.
in reality, these activities would be positive-sum (when things go right anyhow), but in D&D the games economic system leaves the working class with a zero-sum game, where they earn X per day then pay X per day to live. only those who own land have any hope of coming out ahead, and thats mainly due to taxation or rent.
Impalpable wrote:
@Captain_Xenon: You have a very good point, especially about how the working class in D&D is stuck in a zero-sum game - that's why I try to expand the rules so that there is no zero-sum game.
What if the venture is unsuccessful? I might be guilty of a bit too much TLDR here, but from the above thread I scanned it looks like the assumption is that any investment or business venture will always result in at least some multiple of basic living expenses as profit. To be more realistic, I would think you'd need some sort of random element, perhaps something that simulates market forces, to determine the actual profitability from one fiscal period to another. That way you could set it up so there's at least a chance of the venture being in the red.
As a side note, I'm not sure I agree with this:
RustedKitsune wrote:
I wonder how having Clerics of Economy Gods (Like the base setting's Waukeen... Blessed be her invisible hand) working out all the details of this sort of stuff in a simulated time-period long before people were thinking in terms of supply and demand has on the merchant class' operation and profit.
pauldanielj2 wrote:
RustedKitsune wrote: