Gary Gygax was an active user on the enworld forums, under the user name Col_Pladoh. Enworld archived a number of threads where Gary answered all sorts of questions and shared his wisdom with the community.

I wish I had found this while he was alive so that I could have talked with him.

If you go to the Enworld Archived Threads Forum you will find a number of these threads (13 unless I’ve missed some) plus all sorts of other gems that enworld thought were valuable enough to preserve.

To make them easier to find, I’ve compiled a list of links to all of the ‘Ask Gary’ threads :

Enworld

Dragon’s Foot

Troll Lord Games

Few and Far Between

Although magical items are at the core of many fantasy stories, these stories are almost always limited to only one or two such items which are usually in the hands of the main character or the villain. Scrolls and potions may not be quite as rare but even they are always far from common. Some DMs run extremely low-magic games where magical items are more like artifacts and a character is lucky to even see one in her lifetime. I’ve run into players who actually prefer this but for the most part, players want magic and lots of it.

Commonplace

Recent editions have reduced magical items to basic commodities. There is a magic shop on every corner and every item has a standard value. If you don’t like a particular item, you can disenchant it and use the dust thus created to have a vendor create a new item of your own choosing. Feats even allow characters to create magical items themselves. With known values for each item and a steady market, characters could even sit at home creating magical items and make a good living without setting foot out of their front door.

Balance

As with everything else, each group needs to work out a balance that is enjoyable for them. Some players are happiest when they can carry a fully stocked portable magic shop around with them and always be prepared for any eventuality that could possibly arise. Others feel that if you ever hand out more than a +1 weapon you are coddling the characters and making things too easy. The only right way is what works for you.

What I Do

That being said, here is what works for me.

Non-magical alchemical items, supplies, and common components are readily available in alchemy shops in all large cities. Uncommon components must be retrieved personally. Availability of everything naturally drops with the size of the community.

Magical potions and scrolls are fairly common but less available. Healing potions and raise dead scrolls can be found in most any community but many other potions and scrolls are made to order. Quantities may be limited and a waiting period may be required.

Other magical items frequently appear as treasure but are almost never seen for sale. They are rare and mysterious items and as such are coveted by their owners. If a character wishes to sell an item, it is up to her to locate an interested party and to set a price. The value of any given item is whatever the seller and buyer can agree upon. Since there is no standard accepted price list for magical items, buyers are often reluctant to pay exorbitant prices unless they have a pressing need for the particular item. Also, there is a very limited number of people within any community that would have substantial funds available to purchase valuable magic items. This being the case, it is often difficult to sell items for anything close to their perceived worth. With the option to sell items severely limited, other options become more appealing, such as trading items with other adventurers or giving unused items to hirelings, henchmen, or other npcs.

Wizards may scribe any scroll they know (limited only by time and resource requirements). Those with the necessary skills may brew any potion they have the recipe for. Rechargeable items may be recharged through the use of a ritual. That is the extent of a character’s ability to create magical items. All other items are created by magical guilds dedicated to the art of forging these items. The process is lengthy, expensive, and difficult requiring complex rituals involving numerous powerful wizards. These guilds are limited in the number of items they can create due to the time required and what items they do create are usually commissioned for local nobles. Convincing a guild to create a magical item for a character would be an extremely unusual event.

Economic Effects

In my world, the sale of a magical item is an unusual event and the price involved is far less than those listed in the PHB. Therefore, there is little or no economic effect.

I’m well aware though that my game is very unusual in this regard. Most games treat magical items as commodities and the PHB lists astronomical prices for them. Because of the way magical items are presented, most groups assume that there is a ready market just waiting to pay top dollar for whatever the adventurers haul back to town. If items are handled in this fashion, the economy would be incredibly skewed (screwed may be a better word). I wouldn’t even attempt to define an economy around such a system. One possible solution would be to drastically reduce the value of all magical items (although I would suggest flattening the curve of the progression as well). Also, the book suggests a sale price that is one-fifth of the purchase price. I would half that, making it one-tenth instead.

The real problem in trying to reconcile valuable magic item sales with a stable economy is the fact that magic items (in most games) are not rare. The values listed in the PHB are perfectly reasonable if those magical items are extremely rare. The sale of one rare item makes one person rich and has very little impact on the economy. When every group of adventurers returns from every adventure with numerous “rare” items, it is ridiculous to continue to consider them rare and valuable. If the items are common (as is the case in most games), their value should plummet accordingly.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t fit well with the view that magical items are powerful, valuable and rare (even though most characters have armloads). Because of that, DMs are hesitant to reduce the values, and players wouldn’t understand or would be upset. Therefore, I don’t think it is possible to reconcile the two. That’s why I’ve taken the route I have and removed magical items from the marketplace.

Creating Magical Items

There are item creation feats that allow characters to create magical items. I was asked in another post what would keep a character from simply creating magical items and selling them for double what they cost to create? The answer is nothing. If you allow item creation feats, that is a very reasonable strategy for a player to adopt. Keep in mind though that just because a character has created an item doesn’t mean that there is someone willing to buy it. Many get rich quick schemes have been fouled by a non-existent market.

This is a question posed in response to that earlier article (Roughing Out The Economy) :

You say encounters grant a set “loot per level”. Here’s a hypothetical situation to consider – your party of say, 10th level PCs have beaten a dragon who has been terrorizing farmers in the hills but only by tracking it to its lair and getting it while it was grounded. The farmers and PCs rejoice and 550s is due to them – way to go heroes! However, dragons are well known as hoarders and sooner or later a PC will say “hey, don’t dragons have a large pile of gold they sleep on/with? let’s track it down!”

As the GM you’re well within your right to say “nope, no treasure here” but if you do let them find a hoarde how would you manage the economic disturbance when they stroll into town loaded to the teeth with a cash windfall and perhaps magic items?

Preface

Before I begin, let me make a comment on scale. Most DMs use a gold standard where copper is practically worthless and there are other commodities worth thousands of gold pieces (for ease of transport). I’ve chosen to use a silver standard instead which effectively makes all coins ten times as valuable. Copper is now worth stopping to pick up and the need for more valuable coins is reduced. Additionally, I am attempting to create an economy where characters can discover fabulous treasures without requiring an army of wheelbarrows to haul it out of the dungeon.

The quote above refers to receiving 550 silver from a 10th level monster (see the previous article for details on where that came from). A bag full of silver doesn’t sound like much. Keep in mind that we are using a silver standard instead of a gold standard. Still, that doesn’t sound like very much treasure for a dragon.

You Call That a Dragon’s Hoard?

When I think of dragons, I think of enormous piles of gold and silver, gems and jewelry, and fantastic magical items. In short, my vision of a dragon’s treasure is more wealth than you can imagine and probably more than enough to buy a small country.

In my game, the eldest dragon around may have such a treasure. But she would be experienced in protecting her lair and her treasure. The lair would be located in a well hidden and deadly environment, filled with devious traps, protected by powerful guardians. The entire lair would be designed in such a way to give the dragon every possible advantage in a combat, put the attackers at severe disadvantages, and offer avenues of escape (for the dragon) if things go badly. Only a large party of the highest level characters should, imo, have any chance of succeeding in such an undertaking.

Younger dragons, although terrible in their own right, would be not nearly as challenging and would have considerably smaller treasures.

Distribution of Treasure

I have treasure tables that I use as a guideline for how much to place based on the level of the encounter (whether that encounter consists of combat, traps, etc). However, that treasure isn’t always placed with the encounter. In the case of a dragon’s lair (surrounded by guards, traps, etc), I would take the treasure from each of the associated encounters leading up to the dragon and add all of that treasure to the dragon’s hoard. A 10th level dragon might then have ten times the treasure of any other 10th level encounter. Also, as I said I use the treasure tables as a guideline. Not only do I envision dragons as having tremendous treasures, the characters also had to endure all the previous encounters with little or no rewards along the way. Bumping up the dragon’s hoard a bit is, I feel, fair compensation for that.

Answering the Question

The original question asked about the impact of a large dragon hoard upon the economy and implied that maybe a dragon’s hoard should consist of more than is typical for a monster of that level. I wholehearted agree with the latter. A dragon is the single most iconic creature in the D&D game. As such, encounters should be spectacular and treasures should be substantial. As all dragons are solo creatures, they are equivalent to five normal creatures of their level and their treasure should reflect that. They are also well known hoarders which, imo, should increase their treasure as well. Taking the treasure from related preliminary encounters and adding it to the dragon’s hoard increases it further. Although I think it is important to limit the treasure to what is reasonable for the level and difficulty of the encounter, I also think it is important to stretch the limits to ensure that every encounter with a dragon is memorable and satisfying for everyone involved.

Impact on the Economy

As to the impact on the economy, I don’t think that a single large treasure can have any significant impact. A small group will suddenly have the means to buy almost anything they want. They may throw money around, leave enormous tips wherever they go, give out gifts and otherwise make everyone around them happy for a short while. They may create a minor “bubble” of increased wealth but I suspect that it would have far less impact than the recent stimulus packages (if you will forgive the non-fantasy reference).

If there were a large number of such treasure troves coming in regularly and being brought in by various groups, you would then have something akin to the gold rush days. More adventurers would hear of the wealth in the area and arrive to get their share. Merchants would see a rise in demand (and in characters’ ability to pay) and raise their prices accordingly.

A steady stream of lesser treasures would cause the same thing to a lesser extent. I’m actually attempting to develop an economy that takes that into account. At some point, the influx of treasure would stop having any influence and everything would find an equilibrium. The hard part is just identifying all the factors and estimating how they would affect one another.

As I get older, that becomes harder to do for various reasons. Due to medical problems, I can’t even do all the things I used to enjoy on the computer but I do still spend a lot of time there when not forced away to do something else.

Summer is the hardest! There are so many festivals and events that I enjoy going to that I’m constantly off doing something else. Not to complain of course. I love doing those things. I’ve had to cut out some of the more lengthy events but I still love to go to quite a number of them every year.

And there are always projects. For instance, I promised my mother that I would build her a garden shed. Years ago, this would have been a weekend project (maybe a week). Unfortunately, I can’t do that sort of work for more than an hour or so a day which stretches it out over many months.

All these things tear away at my time and keep me from the computer. As a result, I just don’t have as much time to dedicate to my blog in the summer that I do the rest of the year. Another month and things should settle back down to normal. I’ve got quite a list of ideas for posts and am looking forward to having the time to write them!

That’s not to say that I won’t be posting anything for a month. Posts will just continue to be sporadic for another month until things settle down.

Is Death Permanent

Obviously, the first question has to be “Is death permanent?” Some DMs do not allow any spells or magical items that restore life. When a character dies, the player rolls up a new character. As long as you are aware of this in advance, have an experienced group, and have a good DM (that gives enough clues for the party to determine encounter difficulty level and allows ample opportunity for the party to run away when necessary), this type of game can make for a challenging evening. However, even with the best DM and the most experienced players, the party is destined for eventual failure. Therefore, I don’t find this sort of game practical for any sort of lengthy campaign.

Resurrection

The next question then becomes, “How do you resurrect a dead character?” Each edition has included spells and magical items capable of raising the dead. If you have a cleric in the party, of sufficiently high level, or access to scrolls of Raise Dead, then resurrecting dead characters becomes a non-issue. Some parties may not have the resources to handle this themselves. But if the local town has a cleric who can offer this service for a fee, it again becomes a non-issue (so long as the party can afford the fee).

But some DMs do not allow easy access to scrolls, do not provide clerics willing to resurrect characters in all cities, raise the level of Raise Dead, or otherwise make resurrection somewhat difficult. The rational is usually to make character death more than a speed bump.

However it is handled, I think it is important for there to be some method by which characters may be resurrected.

Fudging Rolls

A lot of DMs fudge their attack and damage rolls against characters. Clearly, if the monsters don’t kill the characters, the whole issue of death and resurrection can be ignored. Unfortunately, this method can’t be used heavily or it will become apparent. If players realize that the DM is “pulling her punches”, the whole game loses its sense of danger which, for most groups, takes all the fun out of the game. An occasional fudged roll can be rationalized as divine intervention. But for the most part, I think the DM should just let the dice fall as they may.

Another reason not to “protect” your players is to make them better players. If they realize that their characters can and will die if they are not careful, they will learn to gauge situations more carefully and know when to run.

Consequences

It’s up to each group to determine how difficult it is to be resurrected and what other consequences come with dying. In most MMOs, death is but a minor inconvenience with no real consequences at all. A great many groups adopt this view in their games. It works well and keeps the game moving. Personally, I like Raise Dead to be treated as a lengthy ritual, that requires a monetary expense and forces an extended rest, but essentially lets the game continue without any significant delays.

Party Wipes

Here is where the problem really arises. Regardless as to what resources the party may have available to resurrect dead party members, if they all die there is no one to take advantage of those resources. In most groups, this means that all the characters are permanently dead and everyone needs to roll up new characters. This has a number of problems:

• It’s not fun.
• It’s very time-consuming.
• It’s discouraging.
• It creates bad feelings.
• Players get attached to their characters and dislike losing them.
• This can end the game for the night and even drive players away.

Clearly, party wipes are something that all DMs would prefer to avoid. To this end, extraordinary measures are often employed:

• Extensive fudging of rolls.
• Poor monster strategy.
• Letting player attacks kill off monsters that actually have lots of HP left.
• Last minute “cavalry” showing up to save the day.
• Monsters surrendering or running off (even when they are winning).
• Various forms of “Divine Intervention”.
• Etc.

Players recognize these veiled attempts to spare them. Although most players enjoy not being killed, being saved in this way is demeaning and spoils the game. Even worse, if the players know that the DM will step in to pull their asses out of the fire, if things get too bad, they rely on that. Parties that know they will be saved: never run, aren’t careful, do foolish things, and never become better players.

Alternatives

So what do you do? If the party wipes, it spoils the game. If the DM saves the party, it spoils the game. If there’s no risk, it spoils the game. That doesn’t leave many options.

Honestly, I’ve struggled with this problem for decades and have never come up with a solution that I am entirely happy with.

I always have, and always will, use encounters that are appropriate to the area (not specifically tailored to the party). It is up to the players to determine which situations they can handle and which ones they should avoid. I don’t like fudging rolls or otherwise taking it easy on the characters; every monster should use the best strategy it can (based on its int, wis, etc). I don’t mind killing individual characters if they put themselves in a situation they can’t handle, although I try to always leave avenues of escape available if they so chose.

However, when it looks like a wipe is coming, I am as guilty as anyone of using all the techniques listed above to save them. I just don’t like to tell players to rip up their characters and start over.

As I’ve stated though, saving them is a bad idea. There needs to be something better.

Soul Binding

This is the solution I am currently using. Characters, during their initial training, are given the opportunity to bind their soul to a “bindstone”. Naturally, all characters take advantage of this. If a character is killed, the soul remains with the body for 24 hours, during which time the character may be resurrected normally. At the end of the 24 hour period, the soul returns to the bindstone and is automatically resurrected into a new (identical) body. The remains of the dead body are unaffected.

To avoid having naked people running around town, the character’s new body is wrapped in a death cloak. All possessions carried by the character, when she was killed, remain where they fell (although they could have been looted or otherwise carried off). In addition, the character permanently loses one point of constitution and the associated HPs. There is a portal next to the bindstone that allows a newly resurrected character to return to the location of their demise. A smart adventurer would maintain a backup set (or sets) of gear in town that can be grabbed in an emergency and used while attempting to recover the gear the character was using when she was killed.

Soul binding is available to anyone, not just PCs. However, non-adventurers typically consider soul binding to be unnatural and distrust anyone who has been resurrected in this manner. Some even see soul binding as the first step down the road to lichdom. Therefore, PCs, nobles, wealthy merchants, and anyone else who takes advantage of soul binding, tend to keep the fact to themselves.

I’m the first to admit that this solution is very “gamey”. However, it allows me to run every fight with the ferocity it deserves without having to worry about a party wipe that would end in permanent character death. If an individual character dies during a battle, the consequences are minimal so long as the party has properly prepared themselves. If the entire party wipes, there are significant consequences but the characters aren’t permanently lost. If I need an adventure hook, some or all of the items where the party died could have been carried off, leaving either a trail or clues as to who took them.

Wrap-Up

Is it perfect? Of course not. But it keeps the game moving, avoids permanent death, and doesn’t require me to save the party. This solution won’t work for everyone but hopefully it will provide ideas that lead to something that does work.

In the Beginning

When I started playing D&D, the rule books were nothing more than vague guidelines. Every game was run differently from every other game. Each group had their own interpretation of the rules, their own house rules, and their own unique play style.

Each edition further defined the original rules, added new rules, and incorporated endless optional rules. Still, every group’s game was different. No matter how much was covered by the rule books, there was always endless situations that were not covered or were open to interpretation. Each group continued to maintain their own set of house rules and customized the game in whatever ways made it work best for their individual group.

Usually, this entailed throwing out rules, changing entire subsystems (such as spells and spell casting), and adopting sweeping changes. These changes made every game different and exciting.

Creativity is the Lifeblood of D&D

The creativity and individualism of each group has always been the greatest strength of the game. Each DM, as well as the players within each group, brought along their own creativity and molded their interpretation of the game into something unique. You could play in two different campaigns, run by two different DMs, and feel like you were playing two entirely different games.

We Need Technology to Make it Better

Being a long-time computer nerd, I wrote numerous programs to aid me when I DM’d games. I had character generation programs, treasure generation programs, dice-rolling programs, monster databases, magic item databases, everything I could imagine to make my job easier so that I could focus on the game. And I wasn’t alone. A great many other DMs did the same thing.

When the internet became a household word, many of these programs started becoming available to non-technical DMs as well. Once they had tasted the power of technology within their games, everyone wanted more and more.

The internet also brought us chat rooms and forums. Now DMs and players, from all over the world, could discuss how they ran their games, how they interpreted rules, what house rules they used, etc. This was heralded as a fantastic boon to D&Ders everywhere. Discussion and the free exchange of ideas is generally very beneficial. However, it can also foster conformity of ideas.

The Digital Era was Born

TSR (and later WotC) began developing some wonderful tools. Everyone now had access to a dice rolling program, a character generation program, a leveling program, monster databases, magic item databases, and much more. Best of all, these programs are maintained at the source so (theoretically) they are as complete and up-to-date as possible. And everyone has access to the same information. Thus, the seed of the problem began to take root.

Convert or Die

These wonderful new digital tools all had one inherent drawback. They had little or no allowance for customization. Every DM had to decide whether to continue gaming as they always had, with creativity and uniqueness but without these new tools, or to embrace conformity and play exactly as dictated by the rule books in order to be able to use these digital aids.

These new programs, viewed almost universally as indispensible, swept through the community. House rules were set aside. Custom races and classes were abandoned because they were not listed in the character creation program. Others were adopted simply because they were listed.

In a wider sense, DMs began adopting rules which some didn’t like simply because they were listed in the rule books. The official rules became law. The DM had always been the final word in all matters. That no longer was true. Players began to cite the rule books and the electronic databases as the ultimate arbitrator and tell the DM that she is “doing it wrong” if a ruling deviates from the official material.

The forums, at WotC and elsewhere, serve primarily as a source for new DMs to “learn how to run a game properly”. In the past, each group taught themselves the proper way to run a game. In each group the method they came up with was unique and wonderful. The forums, intentionally or not, curb this individualism and impose the mindset that everyone must run their game just like everyone else.

Don’t Think

The problem has now progressed to the point that you regularly see posts, on any D&D forum, from DMs that need someone to find a rule for them to handle even the simplest situation. These DMs are clearly of the belief that they aren’t “allowed” to make a decision themselves; they believe that they have to find and abide by whatever the “official” stance is on everything that occurs.

Version Differences

As I said in the beginning, this is not about 4e. The problems described began in 2e and became much more prevalent in 3e. However, the advent of DDI has made the problem epidemic in 4e. It doesn’t have anything to do with the version though. If there was a DDI for 3e, the problem would become just as widespread there. Even without a 3e DDI, the mindset is spreading.

How Do We Fix It?

In my opinion, it’s too late. The current generation of D&Ders have already adopted the mindset that the rules books are the final arbitrator and that house rules and customization are evil and should be avoided at all cost. DDI isn’t going away and as long as it’s available people will use it. That means that any meaningful change has to start with a new version of all DDI tools that allow for extreme customization, alternate/optional rule sets, and a searchable library of user-supplied customizations. Unless WotC sees a benefit in developing such an upgrade, I don’t foresee it happening. A third-party alternative would work but I can’t envision WotC licensing such an endeavor.

Conclusion

Sadly, my conclusion is that D&D has contracted a fatal disease from which it will not recover. Find a group that is not infected and screen new members carefully.

Many units of measure vary from system to system. The term ounce may refer to 28.3495231 international avoirdupois ounces or 31.1034768 troy ounces or 28.0668 Maria Theresa ounces. Therefore, before I started, I had to define some basic units. Note that these are simply the definitions that I have chosen to use and any term defined here may or may not match any actual value. Some terms have been adjusted to make the numbers easier to deal with. For instance, a gallon of water has been re-defined to weigh exactly 8 pounds and one cubic foot contains exactly 7.5 gallons.

If using inaccurate figures bothers you, by all means look up and use the true values. This post isn’t designed to be a recommendation as much as simply being documentation of what values I am using in order that I may then reference it in a future post. As such, it may be updated without notice as I add or alter my definitions.

Weight

15 grains = 1 gram
28 grams = 1 ounce
16 ounces = 1 pound
2,000 pounds = 1 ton

Volume

1 dram = ¼ tablespoon
3 teaspoons = 1 tablespoon
1 tablespoon = ½ fluid ounce
16 tablespoons = 1 cup = 8 fluid ounces
2 cups = 1 pint = 16 fluid ounces
2 pints = 1 quart = 32 fluid ounces
4 quarts = 1 gallon = 128 fluid ounces
7.5 quarts = 1 peck
7.5 gallons = 4 pecks = 1 bushel

Volume Conversions

1 cubic foot = 7.5 gallons = 960 fluid ounces
1 gallon = 230.4 cubic inches = 0.13333 cubic feet
1 peck = ¼ cubic foot = 432 cubic inches
1 bushel = 1 cubic foot = 1728 cubic inches

Density of Water

1 gallon of water = 8 pounds
1 cubic foot of water = 60 pounds

Standard Containers

1 cask = 5 gallons
1 keg = 20 gallons
1 barrel = 50 gallon
1 tun (huge barrel) = 250 gallons
1 basket = 4 pecks = 1 bushel = 1 cubic foot

Distance

12 inches = 1 foot
3 feet = 1 yard
5,280 feet = 1,760 yards = 1 mile
3 miles = 1 league

Area

1 acre = 44,605.44 square feet (211.2 feet x 211.2 feet)
1 acre is the amount of land one ox can plow in one day
1 square mile = 625 acres (25 rows of 25 acres)

That Didn’t Work Very Well

After spending quite some time looking at my prices trying to evaluate what I had, I decided instead to completely ignore it and create an economy from scratch. Then I could go back and compare the two and evaluate the differences between them with a better grasp of the matter.

Preface

I wrote most of this very late last night. It was more of a brainstorming session than anything. Instead of re-writing it, I decided to leave it as it is in order to present the thought process and development cycle involved. Although I edited it somewhat, this is essentially what I came up with at three in the morning.

Starting From Scratch

First off, I need to define the coinage and set the standard. I use a pretty standard system of 10 copper = 1 silver, 10 silver = 1 gold, and 10 gold = 1 platinum. Unlike most DMs, I use a silver standard instead of a gold standard. That way, if you think of the standard coin as a dollar, I eliminate pennies and copper becomes worth a dime (actually worth stopping to pick up a bag of those).

Next, I arbitrarily decided that a commoner earns one silver piece per hour. I should state that my game does not include what most people think of as peasants. A commoner is a laborer with little or no special skills but is clean, well fed, and able to secure a modest residence. It’s not fancy but it’s not a hovel either. There is a shanty town but those folks aren’t commoners or peasants. They are more of a group who want to remain under the radar, so to speak, but I’m digressing.

My calendar involves 13 months, each made up of four, seven day weeks. (We should use something so simple). Given that calendar, an 8-hour work day, and a 7-day work week (Ouch!), my commoner who makes 1s per hour would make 8s per day, 56s per week, 224s per month, or 2,912s per year.

His pay should be slightly more than his expenses and enough to go out drinking every night. I decided on a rough budget of 40% for rent, 30% for food, 10% for drink, 10% for misc items, and 10% left over each month. After all, commoners have to have something to hide away under their mattresses.

Rent

Now rent is probably an uncommon notion in a fantasy world. However, I decided long ago that I am not trying to emulate medieval England. It’s convenient for players to have various rental opportunities opposed to staying at an inn until they can afford to build a keep or find a deserted one and fortify it.

At 40%, rent comes to 3.2s per day, 22.4 silver per week, 89.6s per month, or 1,164.8s per year. I don’t envision commoners being able to save enough to pay for a year in advance and nightly or weekly rent is more of an inn sort of thing. Monthly rent seems like it would work best. Rounding that figure to 90s per month sounds like a good starting point. Those other numbers are still pretty useful though. Round those up (and bump them up a bit) to 5s per night and 30s per week and you have a reasonable inn fee.

Other Expenses

A driving factor in setting many prices is convenience. I don’t want a meal to cost 1s 4c. That would be a pain to deal with. I want to keep it simple. One silver per day for drinks and two silver per day for food are easy amounts to deal with. My calendar has 28 days in every month so that comes to 28s per month for drinks, and 56s per month for food. Those are bulky numbers again but here I’m just working out expenses in order to develop reasonable relationships between everything. The 1s for drinks, and 2s for food are things a character may have to deal with so those are what I want to keep simple.

My commoner is making 224s per month, and paying 90s per month for rent, 56s per month for food, and 28s per month for drink. That leaves 50s for misc and saving. Split that in half to get 25s for each of those and everything is accounted for and reasonably close to the budget I set.

Poor Merchant

I want to define two types of merchants. Poor merchants should be making just slightly more than commoners and wealthy merchants should be living well and saving quite a nest egg at the same time. Both should have a building with the store on the main level and a residence above. The wealthy merchant obviously will have a much larger and nicer building with a better location.

To determine the rent for the small shop, I started by looking back to the commoner’s home. That would be a tiny one-room place, much smaller than the residence above a shop. Let’s say two commoner’s got married and had kids. Obviously, they wouldn’t all live in a tiny one-room place. Instead of a studio, we are now looking at a two-room apartment. Instead of 90s per month, let’s bump that up to 150s a month. That two bedroom apartment is more like what you would find above a shop. But the rent has to include the shop as well. Decent shop space is probably more limited than apartment space so that should be taken into account. For now, I’ll assign 500s per month rent to a small shop.

To cover that amount of rent, I think the poor merchant will need to earn about three times what the commoner earns (672s per month).

The noble who controls the town is going to want a cut of all sales. I think half would be reasonable (from the nobles point of view). The merchant also wants to double his investment on every sale. That means that if he buys an item for 1s, and sells it for 4s, he will keep 2s from the sale, and turn 2s over to the noble. Since he bought the item for 1s and kept 2s from the sale, he doubled his money. Those numbers work for me. Now, in order to earn 672s per month, sales must be 2,688s per month. It may be useful later to have some idea how much a typical shop sells in a month.

Our poor merchant is earning 672s a month and paying 500s a month in rent. If he eats, drinks, and saves using the same amounts as a commoner, that leaves him 63s a month for misc items (38s more than a commoner). Being a merchant, he may have to spend more on clothes to look better and have other misc expenses that a commoner wouldn’t have. Maybe he can even splurge a bit once in a while. That works out nicely. The poor merchant is defined and is just slightly better off than a commoner which is what I wanted.

Wealthy Merchant

Now for the wealthy merchant. I’m going to start him off at earning twenty times what a commoner earns (4,480s per month). His shop should probably be about three times as big as the poor merchant, considerably nicer, and in a better location. That also means he will have a larger and nicer residence on top. I’m going to charge him 3,000s per month (six times as much as a small shop). That leaves him 1,480s per month. He can probably afford better food and drink and given his position, he really should be seen in better places that would then have better food and cost more. The commoner is paying 1s per day for drinks and 2s per day for food. Higher quality fare may run 5s and 10s respectively. That comes to 140s for drinks and 280s for food per month, leaving 1,060s for misc items and savings. Given his position, let’s bump the misc expenses up to 260s a month (roughly four times the budget of the poor merchant) which leaves a nice even 800s per month to put into savings. That amounts to 9,600s a year or 96,000s over ten years. That gives a great indication of how much a small “fortune” is.

Housing

I don’t want to make it easy to buy a house within the curtain wall. Space is limited so I would expect the noble to want to maintain complete control. That is part of why I have adopted the idea of rentals. However, I do think that certain powerful merchants would be expected to own a house. This opens the door for characters wanting to buy one as well. That leads to the obvious question, how much do you charge for a house. I just determined that a wealthy merchant is able to save 96,000s over a ten year period (of course he could probably use those savings to increase it faster than just sticking it in the bank but let’s ignore that for now). A 30 year mortgage is pretty common in the real world. Perhaps that’s a good starting place here. Not that I’m suggesting offering loans to get into housing, just using the 30 year figure as a base. We could set the price on a house at 250,000s which a wealthy merchant could manage after 30 years and still have substantial savings left over.

Adventurer’s Loot

The mounds of treasure that adventurer’s haul in is likely to destroy any economy if it isn’t balanced into the equation as well. I want 1st level characters to be able to go out, fight some difficult battles, and come back with significantly more loot than they would have made working as a commoner in town. However, I don’t want a group of 10th level adventurers to go out, loot a dungeon in an afternoon and return with enough money to put a wealthy merchant to shame.

As you’ve seen in earlier posts, I like triangular numbers so I based my treasure tables on them (at least I am planning to do so with my new ones). Therefore, each encounter will yield treasure by level as follows: 1=10s, 2=30s, 3=60s, 4=100s, 5=150s, 6=210s, 7=280s, 8=360s, 9=450s, 10=550s, etc (I’ll save the analysis of the treasure tables for a later post). The question then becomes how many encounters can a group do in a month? Let’s say that our weekend warriors head out every weekend and face three encounters each time. At 1st level that’s 120s for 12 encounters in a month. At 5th level, that’s 1,800s. At 10th level the group comes back with 6,600s. A wealthy merchant earns 4,480s a month and pays 3,000s a month in rent. A group of five 10th level characters collectively earning half again as much in a month as a wealthy merchant, and with less expenses, doesn’t sound game-breaking. In a large city, that shouldn’t have an overly large impact on the local economy.

These numbers fit easily into what I’m trying to do. However, notice that 1st level characters are earning half what a commoner would earn plus they have to split the take among themselves. In fact, with these numbers, adventures don’t earn as much as commoners until level four (12 level four encounters in a month earns 1,200s split between five characters comes to 240s a month vs. 224s a month for a commoner). This isn’t what I envisioned but maybe I should rethink my vision. If anyone could pick up a sword at level one and immediately earn more than working as a commoner, everyone would at least consider it. So maybe not earning as much as a commoner in the beginning isn’t such a bad idea. Not to mention that reaching level four is relatively quick and easy. Plus, we are basing this on three encounters a week. That could be increased.

What About Magic Items

Even low-level magic items can sell for enough to severely affect the economy. Here is how I deal with that. Other than potions and scrolls, magic items are not treated as a commodity. There are no shops or markets that sell them. NPC adventurers that have items they don’t need give those items to loyal companions and valued hirelings (guards if they own a keep and retain a garrison) or donate them to their church or offer them as a gift to their noble in order to buy his favor. Magic items have no listed value (that characters are aware of) so items that characters want to sell are worth what they can get for them. In these cases, they get about a tenth of what the item would sell for if they manage to find it for sale somewhere. Therefore, I completely leave magical treasure out of the equation when developing the economy.

What We Have So Far

We’ve actually achieved quite a bit now! We know how much commoners make in an hour and in a month, what their expenses are, where they live, what they can afford, and how much they can save each month. We know similar things about merchants as well as what their sales are a month and how much a wealthy merchant can accumulate over time.

Expanding on the prices used for everything up till now, I’ve come up with the following:

25c pint of grog

1s pint of common beer

5s pint of good beer

25s especially good pint of beer or glass of wine

1s commoner meal

5s merchant meal

25s especially good meal

5s per night to stay at the inn

30s per week to stay at the inn

100s per month to stay at the inn

10s per night to stay at the inn (room & board)

60s per week to stay at the inn (room & board)

200s per month to stay at the inn (room & board)

90s per month for a studio

150s per month for a 2-room apartment

900s per month for a 4-room apartment

500s per month for a small shop w/ 2-room apartment above

3,000s per month for a large shop w/ 4-room apartment above

250,000s to buy a house

Summary

That covers the basics: what do commoners and merchants earn, what does food and drink cost, how much does it cost to stay at the inn or rent a more private residence. There are a ton of other items that need to be priced now but this fixes the primary costs and sets a basis for the rest. I will write a follow-up, covering some of those things in a future post.

The Cartographers’ Guild Presents Our First Gallery Show!

Terra Incognita

Maps of imaginary worlds

The Cartographers’ Guild has teamed up with the Soho Gallery for Digital Art to present a digital show of fantasy and sci-fi maps from the 16th to the 29th of July in Soho, Manhattan. The show will include maps from Industry Pros, Featured Maps and Challenge Winners from the lifetime of the Guild. The maps on display will be offered for sale as limited edition prints with 70% of the profit going to the artists in question. We have an amazing body of work here at the guild and it is high time it was seen hanging in a proper gallery!

Software Choice

I am so pleased that I decided to design my map in Campaign Cartographer! Although I have used it for years, I’ve never taken the time to develop any real skill with it. It seems pretty intimidating but once I set my fears aside and just started trying to learn it, I picked it up very quickly and feel that I’m really getting quite good already.

Being based on a CAD engine has a number of significant benefits. The greatest of which is the resolution independence. I decided that my map will cover an area of 500 miles square. But I don’t have to even consider the size of the image. I can export the finished image at a size that fits my computer screen, or a tiny thumbnail, or an enormous map that shows one mile to the inch. Each map will have the same quality and no pixilation. If I designed the map in PhotoShop to be printed at a certain size at 300 dpi and then decided I wanted 600 dpi instead, I couldn’t do it. I’d either have a map half the size or resize it and create pixilation. I love working in PhotoShop but I will probably do all my future mapping in CC3.

My Current Map

I am by no means finished. But I think it is really starting to take shape. The large scale design work is done and now I’m working on details to give it a more finished look.

[ Click for Larger Image ]

My biggest stumbling block at the moment is what to do with the “Valley of a Thousand Caves”. I want to create a visual that implies that the area really lives up to that name. But what I’ve done so far ends up far too busy and just looks out of place.

Another feature I’m struggling with is what to do with the forests. I have a bright green background where all the forests go but I can’t come up with a texture I’m happy with to represent the trees. Campaign Cartographer comes with a number of tree symbols and textures that use those symbols to make it easy to map them to an area. But I don’t want the trees to be the size of mountains. If I scale them down to a more reasonable size, the texture just doesn’t have the look I want. I do, however, have a number of realistic, top-down images of individual trees. I’ll try using those, at a very small scale, and see if I can create what I’m looking for. I really kind of like the look of the forest background that I’m using now. I’m considering leaving forests as they are and not bothering to put any texture over the background.

Recently, I added a number of icons indicating something about the area or feature they are next to. Particularly nasty threats have an evil skull next to them. Friendly ports have a ship anchored nearby. Dwarves, elves, gnomes, and hobbits have a symbol indicating their settlements. I’m still debating as to whether I like these or not. Sometimes I think they look great and really add something. Other times I think they just look silly. I’ll just have to mull that over a while.

What Not To Show

The human, and demi-human, civilization occupies the central portion of the map. Major features of the rest of the map are shown but there are vast, fairly featureless sections that are that way intentionally. They are, for the most part, unexplored lands. There are a few tidbits thrown in to pique my players’ interests but they need to explore those areas themselves to see what is there.

I will detail those areas but that work will be stored on “secret” layers that I can toggle on and off. That way I can print maps for me, showing everything, and still have maps for my players that leave those areas as a mystery. As they uncover what is there, I can always print them new maps showing these newly discovered areas.

Where do We Go From Here?

As I said, I have a lot of work left to do. When I’ve made some significant advancements, I’ll post a link in the sidebar to the current version of the map, which I will then update as I go.