Fantasy Economies: How closely should we examine them?

[Vondy]

Re: Fantasy Economies: How closely should we examine them?

 

Not so worried about economics. Just worried about getting it to a playable state.

 

Game settings can have fridge logic, IMO.

 

They cannot, however, have plot holes you can drive your suspension of disbelief through.

[Kraven Kor]

Re: Fantasy Economies: How closely should we examine them?

 

Is that a universal characteristic of every religion in every fantasy setting? I think its a rather broad assumption.

 

The Haleans from Harn come to mind. Sure, they might "do it" for free, but a ritual - especially a miracle - that's going to cost you!

 

The initiated will understand.

 

Some religions have temples that are simple, monks that live ascetic lives or take vows of poverty.

 

Some have churches or temples with golden ornaments and rich decor and paid preachers.

 

So "priests do it for free" is not universal

[assault]

Re: Fantasy Economies: How closely should we examine them?

 

Short of a missionary situation, priests are integral members of society, not outsiders. Usually members of the ruling class, at any senior level. Mendicant types can be an exception, but they usually exist alongside more mainstream religious institutions.

 

So who priests "do it for" is usually influenced by that. Whether it's "for free" depends on how the social surplus flows into their pockets/begging bowls.

 

Example: blessing the crops is one of the key duties of the Prince-Bishop of Blah (and his subordinates). Not coincidentally, they get a share of those same crops at tax time...

[Lucius]

Re: Fantasy Economies: How closely should we examine them?

 

Something akin to this just came up in my campaign. Players got to a town that has suffered massive flooding, loss of crops, etc. The Shaman, with her nature and weather magic, asked if she could help with the flooding. As all her spells have concentration and/or END cost, I said "Sure. If you want to stand in this town for the rest of your life maintaining a weather control spell..."

 

 

In other words, "No, your character is pretty much useless for exactly the sort of thing you quite possibly had in mind when you bought all those spells to modify weather and influence the forces of nature for the benefit of people."

 

I know if I were playing that shaman, I'd be unhapy about that.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary notes he'd also probably volunteer to stand around influencing the weather until the flooding goes down some...or until keeling over from END loss

[Ragitsu]

Re: Fantasy Economies: How closely should we examine them?

 

How would integrated and cheap or even free planar/world travel influence economics?

 

For instance: you could do more mining on the Elemental Plane of Earth, and there would be more abundant ore to be had. Of course, there's also the danger of extraplanar beings...

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Fantasy Economies: How closely should we examine them?

 

In other words' date=' "No, your character is pretty much useless for exactly the sort of thing you quite possibly had in mind when you bought all those spells to modify weather and influence the forces of nature for the benefit of people." [/quote']

 

This is a difficult one. I see KK's take on the powers but can see the issue for Lucius.

 

I think my take may have been the approach often promulgated over on the Heroquest forums, the GMs response should, as often as possible be "Yes, but..."

 

As a GM you should see it as part of the job to facilitate what the players want to do, that is the nature of having a good time. The but part of the yes is what makes things interesting. The player can do it but there is consequences.

 

I think, I might have said to the player "Yes, but this has a personal cost to you." We'd have discussed what that personal cost would be - I would be inclined to suggest that the player digs so deep that he loses 2 BODY permanently - a sign of the personal investment in the magic. I would replace that BODY with some kind of perk among the people of the region so zero point cost but a shift in those points that reflect the story.

 

Doc

[Orion]

Re: Fantasy Economies: How closely should we examine them?

 

In other words, "No, your character is pretty much useless for exactly the sort of thing you quite possibly had in mind when you bought all those spells to modify weather and influence the forces of nature for the benefit of people."

 

I know if I were playing that shaman, I'd be unhapy about that.

 

I think this comes down to the expected power level of the campaign. I've never even played in a game where this would have been possible, or allowed. In current main campaign world, a nature shaman could expect to alter the harvest of the area by 5% if everything went right and the deity gave them a boost. They can do a lot better if talking about a single field, garden, or tree. Likewise, they can slightly alter precipitation chances over an area, and only cause small amounts water to move. They cannot prevent the river from flooding, as no one person has that much power (skill, points, endurance, whatever).

 

If my player expects to prevent all these bad things from happening, then I have failed miserably at explaining the campaign background and how magic works to him.

[assault]

Re: Fantasy Economies: How closely should we examine them?

 

Weather control spells would work well in somewhere like the Nile valley, where there would be teams of priests in temples every days march or so. That's *not* a single shaman trying to change things.

 

Of course, in that particular case, they would be trying to influence the rain that falls in Sudan, or further south, rather than the rain that falls locally. Tricky.

 

Oh, and a single shaman trying to compete with the 24 hours a day array of temples is going to lose. Hence the Nile valley is fertile, and most of Libya is a desert.

[Panpiper]

Re: Fantasy Economies: How closely should we examine them?

 

If one assumes that the laws of magic in your world conform to the point system of Hero, and mages can have any effect they pay points for, then yes, your economy is going to be all handwavium. Mages will be able to conjure gold (and anything else) out of thin air and there is no such thing as economics anymore. There certainly would be no currency.

 

On the other hand, if your world is somewhat less magic heavy in that there are laws of magic that go beyond simply whatever a mage wants to spend points on, then it is quite easy to conceive of a functioning economy. The Hero System already has mechanisms in place that helps a great deal from keeping magic from obliterating the economy of your world, delineated by the 'stop signs' associated with certain powers and the suggestion that the creation of permanent magic items (or effects) require character points.

 

In our real history, the feudal dark ages were rife with a poverty we can scarce imagine. 99 out of 100 people lived in absolute squalor, barely able to feed themselves. It was a prosperous kingdom where a peasant farmer family could produce enough to feed itself and one other family. The fantasy worlds we create tend to be vastly more prosperous than this, rivaling periods seldom seen in our own history. My assumption has always been that the effect of magic upon the economy is similar in it's economic effect to that of technology in our world, and that is the source of the greater prosperity.

 

Mages do tend to be prosperous in my worlds, and long lived races tend to be extremely wealthy and skilled (and with very low birth rates).

 

I do not allow transform effects and such except in extremely specific and well justified circumstances. This most specifically includes excluding the transmutation of metals such as gold. Gold remains the ideal barter mechanism (money) because it is both rare and impervious to magics and forgery (among other things).

 

(I did once before let a player find a 'traveler's purse' that gave him a few silvers every day. Unbeknownst to the player, the silver was not being magically created, but was in fact being teleported out of the king's mint. This was not in violation of the laws of magic despite being 'very' much in violation of the laws of the king. And such magic would of course not void the utility of metal as currency or otherwise cause any price inflation.)

 

Magic items while not exactly rare, are not common place, as someone had to give up 'life force' (character points) to create the item. There is in the world however the practice of paying people for the surrender of a small portion of their life force to be used in the creation of permanent effects or items. People are very well paid for that, as it is not something anyone would do lightly or often. But the desperate might on occasion be willing to surrender some of their strength (or whatever) if it means getting out from under large debts or such. So a wealthy city 'might' have permanent lights in special places, but most of the city would still be dark or torch lit.

 

Currencies between nations are not an issue because ultimately a price is simply a weight of gold. If two nations use differently sized coins, the merchant will simply get out the scales. Paper money would only be accepted as long as it truly was redeemable on demand for a specific weight of gold. Anyone wanting a realistic economy should simply leave it at that, unless they have a degree in economics and want to make a political statement about fiat currencies to their players.

 

Diverging now from economics:

 

In an earlier part of this thread, people brought up the question as to the realism of fortifications when dragons and flying creatures might exist. Unless one assumes that such mounts are absolutely common place, they would not render fortifications obsolete for purely economic reasons. A fortified wall will largely neutralize any part of an enemy army that does 'not' fly, and such walls are vastly cheaper than fielding the vastly larger standing armies one would need otherwise.

 

Flying creatures would certainly change the nature of fortifications to a small degree. A castle or fortification would be more likely to have concentric walls and a much greater quantity of separately defensible towers. Those towers would house archers and ballistae. Dragons, pegasi or flying troops should be considered expensive and not to be wasted on mass assaults. They are specialty 'special ops' troops.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Fantasy Economies: How closely should we examine them?

 

Diverging now from economics:

 

In an earlier part of this thread, people brought up the question as to the realism of fortifications when dragons and flying creatures might exist. Unless one assumes that such mounts are absolutely common place, they would not render fortifications obsolete for purely economic reasons. A fortified wall will largely neutralize any part of an enemy army that does 'not' fly, and such walls are vastly cheaper than fielding the vastly larger standing armies one would need otherwise.

 

Flying creatures would certainly change the nature of fortifications to a small degree. A castle or fortification would be more likely to have concentric walls and a much greater quantity of separately defensible towers. Those towers would house archers and ballistae. Dragons, pegasi or flying troops should be considered expensive and not to be wasted on mass assaults. They are specialty 'special ops' troops.

 

This, however, presupposes that magic which can enable flight is both scarce and valuable. With that in mind, and assuming we're not using Handwavium, how is it that those capable of such feats, or even such learning, are nameless adventurers, and are not drafted into the military of their nations? Typically in fantasy RPG's, flight is not an overly powerful magical ability, and is not rare to encounter. Unless we are prepared to make it scarce, and to deal with the ramifications, including that the ubiquitous party Wizard isn't commonplace in adventuring groups, we have the discrepancy that any wizard of low-middle skills is capable of flight and invisibility. Given that, what use are historical fortifications?

[Panpiper]

Re: Fantasy Economies: How closely should we examine them?

 

Well, I should start by saying that in my campaigns, adventurers rarely are 'nameless'. 175 point characters are a significant step above the average soldier. Experienced adventurers are the stuff legends are made of. They are accordingly rare and not easily 'drafted' into some nameless army.

 

It is also the case that at least in my games (over the last 35 years), flight as been extremely uncommon, with flight 'usable on others' vastly more so. Those few mages that might come up with such power 'and' be associated with the military, would be the air support for the special ops unit. They would not be any sort of main assault force that would negate the worth of fortifications.

[assault]

Re: Fantasy Economies: How closely should we examine them?

 

As always, you should decide how you want the world to work, and set the game's parameters accordingly.

 

If you don't, (a) the world won't make sense, and ( your players won't have guidelines for building their characters. That's the best way of killing off your game right from the beginning that there is.

 

Personally, I would never consider trying to do a DnD like game with Fantasy HERO. DnD does DnD better, for obvious reasons, and Fantasy HERO is better suited to more structured settings, IMO.

 

As for characters being drafted - that assumes that there are armies for them to be drafted into. This depends on the setting.

[Teflon Billy]

Re: Fantasy Economies: How closely should we examine them?

 

In my fantasy campaign world there are several levels of stratification that make it unlikely that magic users are going to disrupt the "mundane" economy.

 

The main area that players would be campaigning around is the Imperium, and the economy there is rather advanced, but still keeping the trapping of Feudal European Medievalism.

 

There is no fiat currency, but all currency within the realm is magical, how it works is:

 

There are seven levels of base metals used in coinage:

 

Copper, silver, gold, electrum, mithril, rexorium, and adamantite.

 

And conveniently enough, they are all distinguishable by their inherent elemental color. While in the real world only copper and gold as metal have any really distinctive color (I'm not counting alloys), electrum is blue, mithril in it's metalic form is green, and rexorium (Kings Gold) is red.

 

Adamantite is actually a ductile, malleable mineral that is chalk white. It's metallic form, Adamantium is the usual indestructible comic book metal that we all know and love. Its mineral form is actually the most valuable form, because it is in a mutable form. If you want to make an indestructible sword you have to start off with Adamantite that you can work into the sword, not a lump of unworkable adamantium locked into an indestructible nugget.

 

The base three normal mundane metals of copper, silver, and gold, (and even platinum, really all elements on the mundane real world Periodic Table are included in this) are perfectly influence-able by magic: Transformable, mass producible, etc...

 

But the higher 4 are not, they cannot be mass produced. They are not mundane elements, they don't appear on the normal periodic table. There is no alchemical potion that can turn lead into rexorium, or platinum into mithril.

 

However, they can be magically debased, that is to say, you can magically transform rexorium into electrum, and adamantite into mithril. And this debasement has a set metaphysical conversion rate (to make things easy, its 1:10) So one pound of rexorium can magically be debased into 10 pounds of mithril or 100 pounds of electrum. While in the real world, conversion rates are based supply and demand, in the case of the 4 higher base metals, the conversion between them is set by a metaphysical aspect of the world. So the only real fluctuation is between the low base metals, which are influenced by local variations in supply and demand. But before you raise an objection about this leading to loss in value in coinage, I'll get to that.

 

And as an added aspect in my world, this magical debasement is reversible. If the wizard is doing this spell upon a lower value base metal, if the metal has not had a previous debasement charm cast on it, this will only work on electrum, mithril, or rexorium. But if the precious metal had previously been debased (10,000 pounds of copper that previously had been 1 pound of mithril for example) then this metal can have the charm reversed and get back the mithril.

 

And this is how the Imperium's economy is not effected by every alchemist, sorcery, or adventuring party dumping 20 tons of gold onto the local economy. Raw mundane precious metals are not considered a coinage metal.

 

All coinage within the realm is derived from some quantity of the four high precious metals. So, legal tender, so to speak, is hard coin, that is made of one of the 7 coinage metals, but all coins made of gold, silver, or copper, are actually debased mithril or electrum, whatever.

 

I know this is no different than declaring that gold is magically imutable and be done with it, but I like to add a little vircimilitude to my worlds.

 

TB

[Lucius]

Re: Fantasy Economies: How closely should we examine them?

 

Probably not relevant, but:

 

Electrum is actually a naturally occuring alloy of gold and silver. I remember how surprised I was to learn that. It was used for coinage in ancient times.

 

I still remember when I first read the word, in one of Fritz Leiber's stories of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. It looked so much like a made up word it never occurred to me that it wasn't, and when I ran into it again in D&D I was sure they got it from Leiber.

 

I had toyed with the idea of magical currency too, but in my world it was ceramic coins used specifically by Elves.

 

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Palindromedary Enterprises

[Teflon Billy]

Re: Fantasy Economies: How closely should we examine them?

 

I did actually know that electrum was a real world alloy, but I thought it was such a cool name that I had to co-opt it for something else.

 

And AD&D2E is where I first ran into it.

 

TB

[djkester]

Re: Fantasy Economies: How closely should we examine them?

 

A common criticism of most fantasy settings is that the economy is either not very well defined, or can easily be broken by Precious Resource X or Magic Spell Y.

 

Do you ever put much energy into ensuring your fantasy setting of choice (be it homebrew or already established) makes sense within the realm of goods/money changing hands in the vast scheme of things?

 

I agree this is likely entirely too much work for the small return on fun in my game world.

 

But to give a moment of thought to it. For me the best way to consider this is the following:

 

If a game world relied on gold as the standard of economic value and suddenly every street urchin had a pile of said gold then the system would recover by inflating the value of the good being purchased against the relative value of the money. (See US dollar printing for example.)

 

In a game world where very powerful people rely on a working system to ensure sanity and the like the break down of the economy would result in chaos those said folks would need to make sure that some evil wizard or good intending robin hood didn't mess with said system. They might come asking questions should things get all messed up.

 

The later might be good fodder for many possible adventures ore miss adventures as the case may be. The party either working to protect the local economy or ruin it.

 

For the players in my campaigns there isn't as much interest in breaking the system as they us in maximizing the party's place in it. Typically they want to find a lot of gold and use it. (Which, by the way, might also have a detrimental effect on the local economy. )

 

D!

[Ragitsu]

Re: Fantasy Economies: How closely should we examine them?

 

Anyone want to tackle the planar issue ?

[assault]

Re: Fantasy Economies: How closely should we examine them?

 

Anyone want to tackle the planar issue ?

 

Which "planar issue" is that?

 

If you mean shipping stuff in from other dimensions, well, either (1) it doesn't happen; or (2) you're playing Amber or something of the sort.

 

In the latter case, the economy isn't what's at stake, and all the major players have access to all the resources they want.

 

Once again, the setting determine the mechanical aspects, not vice versa.

[Ragitsu]

Re: Fantasy Economies: How closely should we examine them?

 

Which "planar issue" is that?

 

If you mean shipping stuff in from other dimensions, well, either (1) it doesn't happen; or (2) you're playing Amber or something of the sort.

 

In the latter case, the economy isn't what's at stake, and all the major players have access to all the resources they want.

 

Once again, the setting determine the mechanical aspects, not vice versa.

 

I can see instances in which this wouldn't necessarily be the case. The real trick is determining resource allocation...especially since you've shifted a significant portion of your workforce to another plane of existence.

[drunkonduty]

Re: Fantasy Economies: How closely should we examine them?

 

The planar issue would work much like colonisation in early modern times. To whit: a nation would set up a colony somewhere and begin to exploit local resources. Either through trade or direct rulership and exploitation. The costs of setting up and maintaining the colony and of exploiting and transporting resources would determine what sort of resources are profitable enough to be worth the effort. Gold (say from the Elemental Plane of Earth) would of course be a popular choice. What would happen if everyone got lots of gold?

 

Let's look at what happened when Spain got it's hands on all the gold of the New World: It's economy went to hell. Not at once. And not just because all that gold (and even more silver) depressed the value of the metal. The gold rush devastated agriculture and industry in Spain as so many people ran off to get rich in the New World. Those who stayed in Spain got to charge very high prices for their services. Labour shortages are good for some. Higher wages and devalued gold led to higher costs for pretty much everything. Of course at the same time the gold funded the Spanish armies for several centuries (people running off to fight in the wars was another cause of labour shortage in Spain.) Also all that wealth drew thieves of all types. Most famously Pirates!

 

Now don't get me wrong: individuals can get very wealthy in this situation. And it is an exciting game world to adventure in. But it doesn't really promote stable economic growth. Especially in an economy as laissez faire as the average mediaeval one.

[Ragitsu]

Re: Fantasy Economies: How closely should we examine them?

 

The planar issue would work much like colonisation in early modern times. To whit: a nation would set up a colony somewhere and begin to exploit local resources. Either through trade or direct rulership and exploitation. The costs of setting up and maintaining the colony and of exploiting and transporting resources would determine what sort of resources are profitable enough to be worth the effort. Gold (say from the Elemental Plane of Earth) would of course be a popular choice. What would happen if everyone got lots of gold?

 

Let's look at what happened when Spain got it's hands on all the gold of the New World: It's economy went to hell. Not at once. And not just because all that gold (and even more silver) depressed the value of the metal. The gold rush devastated agriculture and industry in Spain as so many people ran off to get rich in the New World. Those who stayed in Spain got to charge very high prices for their services. Labour shortages are good for some. Higher wages and devalued gold led to higher costs for pretty much everything. Of course at the same time the gold funded the Spanish armies for several centuries (people running off to fight in the wars was another cause of labour shortage in Spain.) Also all that wealth drew thieves of all types. Most famously Pirates!

 

Now don't get me wrong: individuals can get very wealthy in this situation. And it is an exciting game world to adventure in. But it doesn't really promote stable economic growth. Especially in an economy as laissez faire as the average mediaeval one.

 

Off-Plane Farming . Just imagine farmland being set up in a "celestial" plane with friendly weather and no dangerous animals/monsters that attack.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Fantasy Economies: How closely should we examine them?

 

The planar issue would work much like colonisation in early modern times. To whit: a nation would set up a colony somewhere and begin to exploit local resources. Either through trade or direct rulership and exploitation. The costs of setting up and maintaining the colony and of exploiting and transporting resources would determine what sort of resources are profitable enough to be worth the effort. Gold (say from the Elemental Plane of Earth) would of course be a popular choice. What would happen if everyone got lots of gold?

 

Let's look at what happened when Spain got it's hands on all the gold of the New World: It's economy went to hell. Not at once. And not just because all that gold (and even more silver) depressed the value of the metal. The gold rush devastated agriculture and industry in Spain as so many people ran off to get rich in the New World. Those who stayed in Spain got to charge very high prices for their services. Labour shortages are good for some. Higher wages and devalued gold led to higher costs for pretty much everything. Of course at the same time the gold funded the Spanish armies for several centuries (people running off to fight in the wars was another cause of labour shortage in Spain.) Also all that wealth drew thieves of all types. Most famously Pirates!

 

Now don't get me wrong: individuals can get very wealthy in this situation. And it is an exciting game world to adventure in. But it doesn't really promote stable economic growth. Especially in an economy as laissez faire as the average mediaeval one.

 

Historically, the "Price Revolution" has been blamed on the Spanish silver fleets since at least the 1700s.

 

 

But it's most unlikely. And we have two issues that need to be uncoupled and analysed separately. The first is the rise in prices, the second the alleged decadence of Spain.

 

Taking first the rise in prices, we know that it cannot be directly causally linked to the opening of the American mines, because it began in the 1450s. According to economic theory, it must be seen as a rise in demand. Now, the proximate cause of that increase in demand might be an increase in the supply of bullion that leads governments to mint more coins, but this can only have results when there's actually need for the coins, which also neatly explains why Europeans might have begu mining more silver in the 1450s, and why demand might have been high enough to trigger investment in American mines later. Increasing economic activity in the face of a static money supply triggers deflationary tendencies, which drives the ratio between "M1" and "M2--n," or however the economists express the different kinds of money (gold, credit, social capital) before the rise of modern banking, which increases the demand for bullion, which leads to more mining activity winning more bullion from the ground.

 

In short, a strengthening economy is the prerequisite for this increase in mining activity.

 

Second, we have the problem of the "decline" of Spain, supposedly caused by Spain's place as the epicentre of a disastrous inflation. At this point we can have a rousing argument about the actual economic effects of what was, after all, by historic standards, a relatively moderate inflation. Or we can interrogate the evidence for "Spanish decline," which comes up severely short. There's no doubt that Spain was fighting more wars than it could afford in the late 1500s through the first half of the 1600s, but there is precious little evidence that its ability to afford those wars any more rapidly than correlates with the territorial decline of the Habsburg Spanish hegemony.

 

What of the literary evidence of economic decline at home, i.e. Cervantes' description of the abandoned villages of La Mancha? It might be that this is no more than a literary trope, akin to the early Enlightenment's conviction that European populations were declining.

 

Or, we can ask whether the "Columbian Exchange" triggered economic activity in Spain that might be mistaken for decline. There's enough nuttiness going on around the "Columbian Exchange" right now that I hesitate to jump in, but I will note that the spread of plantations of this plant in the Iberian peninsula and the Maghreb obviously cannot have predated Columbus' arrival in Cuba, and it would appear that it began relatively quickly after that. Surely the appearance these plantings had an effect on economies well known for intensifying their commitment to trans-humant modes of pastoral agriculture in exactly this time period [1, 2].*

 

*I'm admittedly in trouble for claiming that the Mesta and the trans-Saharan caravan trade intensified in the early Modern period, but in my defence, this is precisely what Cervantes is claiming happened in La Mancha, while the French experience in the Sahara in the Nineteenth Century was that the region was at or near its carrying capacity for camels. We'll leave the idea that Timbuktu "declined" after its conquest by the Moroccans aside.

[drunkonduty]

Re: Fantasy Economies: How closely should we examine them?

 

Clearly not an argument I am going to win. Frankly one I am not particularly qualified to even take part in, it being over 20 years since I did economics and maybe 5 or 6 since I last looked at Spanish history in any detail. But when I get some more spare time I shall read a little more widely on the topic.

 

But the bringing of pests back from the colonies is a great idea for gaming, considering the sort of pests that can exist in the average fantasy game.

 

cheers.

[Kraven Kor]

Re: Fantasy Economies: How closely should we examine them?

 

But the bringing of pests back from the colonies is a great idea for gaming, considering the sort of pests that can exist in the average fantasy game.

 

cheers.

 

And that is how the great Beholder-kin infestation of '37 started... but don't worry, we have released Null Beetles to deal with them... what do you mean, "What will we do about the Null Beetles?"

[Burrito Boy]

Re: Fantasy Economies: How closely should we examine them?

 

And that is how the great Beholder-kin infestation of '37 started... but don't worry' date=' we have released Null Beetles to deal with them... what do you mean, "What will we do about the Null Beetles?"[/quote']

 

So that's what caused the market crash of '39.