How do you handle prices?

[bluesguy]

some people seem to have an unhealthy obsession with early feudal economics...

 

[DShomshak]

No offense intended; it's just that "Why play it X way?" is a question I see most often from people who only know one style of play.

 

As for the question you were actually asking, not the one I thought you were asking, that is an answer that varies on setting, as you said. Which is one reason to collect many different game economy styles.

 

Or if you are asking if any game actually needs exact prices, any game played clearly on the gamist axis, because prices are then a function of game balance, not market forces.

Heh. Indeed. It may be relevant to note that a friend of mine told me about a World of Warcraft player who figured out how to exploit regional price differentials in the setting. His character became fabulously rich as an arbitrageur.

 

Mostly, my question is about campaign styles. For instance, in the last FH campaign in which I played, our characters were the neighborhood watch of a working-class neighborhood. Money and prices were quite important, because our PCs were not rich and had no easy, immediate way to get rich. OTOH, the last D&D campaign I ran had the PCs questing to save their little country from conquest, and they didn't much worry about prices for anything less than a unique magic item that became important to the campaign's epic conclusion.

 

I do wonder how much game books need D&D style price lists, though. I thought Markdoc had a good suggestion there for a replacement; I'll likely be using his system from now on.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Christopher R Taylor]

I like price lists for luxuries, oddities, trade goods (making stuff for yourself), weapons, and armor.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Flip open the dnd book. The costs are right there. in my case, i use the costs in the shadow world book, since that is the campaign setting i run. No problemo.

[Markdoc]

Heh. Indeed. It may be relevant to note that a friend of mine told me about a World of Warcraft player who figured out how to exploit regional price differentials in the setting. His character became fabulously rich as an arbitrageur.

 

Mostly, my question is about campaign styles. For instance, in the last FH campaign in which I played, our characters were the neighborhood watch of a working-class neighborhood. Money and prices were quite important, because our PCs were not rich and had no easy, immediate way to get rich. OTOH, the last D&D campaign I ran had the PCs questing to save their little country from conquest, and they didn't much worry about prices for anything less than a unique magic item that became important to the campaign's epic conclusion.

 

I do wonder how much game books need D&D style price lists, though. I thought Markdoc had a good suggestion there for a replacement; I'll likely be using his system from now on.

 

Dean Shomshak

 

Thanks. There was an earlier thread on trade (here: http://www.herogames.com/forums/topic/73009-some-basics-of-trade-and-the-towncity-of-saltmarsh/) which covers the same sort of ground, but for trading goods rather than just buying them. Put those two things together and you are pretty much covered.

 

Cheers, Mark

[DShomshak]

Narf had a good point about some prices being game-based, though. Answers to questions like, "I have 500 gp: How many men-at-arms can I equip?" or "How many healing potions can I make?" can influence characters' power level and tactical calculations. (Especially in a game like D&D which is very much about resource management.)

 

Gotta admit, the one Fantasy game I know of that only uses dot-based pricing -- Exalted -- is also distinguished by the near irrelevance of mundane followers and equipment. Everything that can seriously contribute to an Exalted character's effectiveness, compared to their innate Charms and other abilities, is also not for sale in any ordinary sense. You don't buy a daiklave (big honkin' anime-style magic sword, for those not familiar with the game), you take it or you make it.

 

"How much for flint and steel?" Dude, if you're a Solar Exalt you can learn a Charm to *make a country* with all the flint and iron mines you want, and people to work them. At that point, normal economics goes out the window.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Alcamtar]

I typically just grab a D&D book and use that. It's handy because I have prices for common items memorized, and a decent "feel" for how to ballpark new items. It is also pretty vanilla. I hate price lists with too many coin types (iron pieces??). Real cultures rarely use more than two or three coin types, and sometimes only one (medieval england only minted silver coins). Anyway, you can use D&D and convert gold into silver or whatever.

 

I really liked how it was done in original fantasy hero. 1 sp per kg of armor weight, 1 sp per DC of weapons. So easy!

 

Another good trick I picked up from GURPS (and it might have been used in original FH as well) is to assign a coin value to modern dollars. You already know what things cost in the real world. If a hotel room is $50 that is easy to translate into coinage. You do still need a cheat sheet for fantasy items with no intuitive equivalent (swords, armor, horses).

 

Using modern prices is not realistic, but then neither are our games. The players will probably never notice. Dwarves and magic are going to screw with prices and economies just as much as automated factories do today.

[Markdoc]

I know "Medieval England" is a pretty broad period, but even taking a fairly narrow time frame in the middle of that (1300's-1400's) you have three kinds of gold coin (nobles, gold pennies and florins, all of different sizes and values) and 5 kinds of silver coin (Groat, half groats, silver pennies, half pennies and farthings) - all of different sizes and values). To add to the confusion, accounts were done in marks, pounds and shillings ... even though there were no mark, pounds or shilling coins at the time.

 

In addition, you have foreign coins circulating in daily use. I don't suggest we necessarily use similar arrangements in our games, just pointing out the idea that medieval England had a single simple coinage is not actually correct.

 

cheers, Mark

[Joe Walsh]

Flip open the dnd book. The costs are right there. in my case, i use the costs in the shadow world book, since that is the campaign setting i run. No problemo.

 

Yup. That's what I did sometimes, back in the day. Grab a book from another RPG that had the price of something and go from there. Or use some catalog's prices, adjusted by some factor based on a quick comparison of items that are in the catalog and in the game's price list.

[mhd]

And it's not like the price of silver remained stable, so whether you're going by weight or by denomination makes a huge difference. This year's Venetian silver piece can be significantly different from those minted under the last doge...

 

But as with many things in D&D, the tech level of coins is actually slightly post-medieval anyway. You're closer to doubloons than solidi there.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Yeah I've been working various types of coins into my games (and books) as much as I can.  Just because you found a pile of coins at that dragon's lair doesn't mean you're rich.  The local merchants won't take those funny looking Dwarven coins with the hole in the middle, and those coins from the old dynasty are only worth the metal they're made of unless you can find a collector.  So its off to the money changer who takes his cut.

 

Here's something I wrote in my first book Snowberry's Veil on racial minting in the area (the races aren't homogenous around the world, and have their own subgroupings but this is for the local groups):

 

In the debris I saw the glitter of coins shining against the torchlight, mostly copper coins of various kinds.  Han’Awar was watching me closely as I picked a silver coin up to examine it.  It was dwarven, you can tell by a glance if you know what to look for.  Some people think all coins are alike, but there are significant differences, particularly between races.  Silver isn’t just silver.

 

Elves have the purest coins; they treasure beauty more than metals and refine the ore to its cleanest, most pure essence.  Then, by hand, they craft each coin with artistic care so that each one is truly a work of art, a lozenge with beautiful scrollwork and raised art on the faces.  Human coins are churned out in larger numbers with mechanized dies, discs ridged on the edges to make trimming harder and counterfeiting more challenging.  The silver is pure, but not as pure as elven.  

 

Dwarven coins are the lowest quality metal, which surprises many people.  Dwarves love metals and are some of the finest craftsmen in the world.  Yet they love the ore and the stone it comes from so much they want to leave what others consider impurities in the ore, retaining some of the land it came from.  Their coins are heavier and bigger, with a square hole in the middle where their massive stamping machines hold them for creating each coin.  Seven sided, they are smooth on the edges because while dwarves have their own vices, cheating is not among them, at least in none that I’ve known.

 

 

[Markdoc]

Like all things. how much detail you want, depends on the GM and the group. I admit I've created coinage for most of the major regions in my game world (I've even made sketches, and noted dimensions/weights) so if players ask I can tell them exactly what sort of coins they have just found.

 

I didn't do it precisely out of numismatic geekery, but because I use the coins to both help build immersion in the game and because coins make great clues/plot hooks: they come from specific regions and are usually minted with identifying marks indicating where and when they were made. I can (and often do) use those things as clues or local flavour. In the last campaign the fact that one NPC had a pocket of newly minted coins from a neighbouring kingdom warned the PCsthat he was taking bribes from a visiting nobleman, while in an earlier game, the appearance of a gold plaque-coin alerted the players to the fact that someone might have found a clue to the legendary lost treasure of Shassamanse. And so on.

 

In addition, trading and commerce can play a big role in some adventures: I ran a series of adventures over the course of a couple of years regular play, where the PCs were a group of trouble shooters for a major merchant house, protecting caravans, dealing with criminal gangs, protecting merchants against assassination attempts and ultimately dealing with a nest of pirates. Having some information on trade routes, trade goods and coinage helps me deal with unexpected questions.

 

Of course you can still do this without the need to create detail in advance - I just find it easier to do so.

 

cheers, Mark

[Alcamtar]

I know "Medieval England" is a pretty broad period...

 

I was thinking more of the 8c-13c era, before the gold coins and new denominations were (re-)introduced. Maybe that's more dark ages. The "pennies" weren't identical by any means, but similar enough to basically be variants of the same coin. Merchants would use scales anyway, and when a penny is worth $50 a peasant just sees it as "a lot of turnips" or "new shoes" without caring that this one is a half gram lighter or has Olaf's portrait instead of Eadwig's.

 

I actually deleted most of my post after writing it because the OP asked about prices, not coins. I enjoy working up coinage more than prices, but find that players really don't care. In fact they usually simplify even gold/silver/copper down to a single decimalized "money sum" expressed in gold pieces or whatever is standard, and don't record specific denominations. For that reason, these days I tend toward simplifying my coinage, not for lack of interest, nor because it is historically accurate (RW premodern coinage is incredibly complex), but for my own sanity so I won't be frustrated when players completely ignore all the loving detail I put into it. Otherwise my preference would be to use the non-decimal pound sterling system mixed with marks and lots of foreign coins of varying sizes and values.

 

Because players want to decimalize, I choose a "dollar equivalent", which I usually call a penny: a standard coins small enough it doesn't have to be subdivided. If I set 1d = $1, then all other coins are expressed in pence. I have have a 10d silver coin, a 100d gold coin, etc. Players only need to track pence, and how many pence they have of silver and gold (for weight purposes). It's an extreme simplification, but it worked in dark ages England: money was generic silver "coins" the same size and weight as grandfather's coins, pretty similar to Frankish coins from across the water. Lots of money was not gold, it was a hoard of hundreds or even thousands of sceatas/pennies.

 

Having done that, I express all my prices in "d" as a generic economic unit: an equivalent weight of silver. Those 'd' can then be translated into whatever coinage is on hand, and all coins (domestic or foreign) have a 'd' exchange value. A 'd' is probably close enough to gram that you could just list prices in grams, but I avoid using metric in my games and it's traditional to express prices in silver pieces.

 

In terms of price lists, if you want to go with the tried and true (okay, "familiar" and "acceptable if you squint hard enough") D&D prices, I recommend ACKS as a resource. It takes the traditional D&D price list and rationalizes the economy around it, bringing things like wages and commodities into balance, and using extreme standard of living differences among social classes to make treasure hauls fit into the economy without breaking it.

[mhd]

It takes the traditional D&D price list and rationalizes the economy around it

So the author was either in the military, law school and/or a theology major

[Alcamtar]

And on the topic of PRICES, the Fantasy Hero 1E rules have always worked well for me:

 

The prices are stated in copper, silver, and gold pieces. The exchange rate used here is 100 copper pieces (cp) to the silver piece (sp), and 10 silver pieces to the gold piece (gp). One copper piece is worth (very roughly) one dollar.

 

COST    ITEM

5 sp       Adventurer’s Pack

1 cp       Ale

30 cp     Blanket

1 sp       Boots

50 cp     Cloak

5 cp       Good meal

5-50 sp  Horses

2 sp       Lantern

10 cp     One day’s food, average

20 cp     One day’s horse fodder

40 cp     Pack (holds 20 kg)

1 sp       Rope (30 m)

25 cp     Room & board per day, in the country

50 cp     Room & board per day, in the city

40 cp     Small iron pot

1 sp       Travel by ship, per day, with room & board

50 cp     Tunic

20 cp     Waterskin

2 cp       Wine

1 sp       Weapons (per DC, so a 1d6+1 sword costs 4 sp)

1 sp       Armor (per KG, so a 28KG suit costs 28 sp)

1 sp       Wages (per week, if you make a PS skill roll to find a job)

 

Short and sweet, covers all the basics.

 

STARTING EQUIPMENT

Clothing

A small pack with 3 days worth of food

One weapon for each skill level the character has (the weapon must be one of the weapons the skill level applies to; weapon and shield counts as one weapon)

A suit of armor, up to 3 DEF

A horse if they have Riding skill

1 SP for each Professional skill, if they make their skill roll

 

I really like this, because everyone starts with equipment suitable for their abilities, and everyone starts penniless unless they have some professional skill. Even then they won't have more than a coin or two. Money is a great motive for adventure.

 

FH1 also had a money Perk:

 

Cost of Money

CP          Money

1              1 sp

2              2 sp

3              4 sp

4              8 sp

5              2 gp

6              3 gp

7              6 gp

8              12 gp

9              25 gp

10           50 gp

 

Money was built into the Focus limitation, for expendable foci:

 

COST PER USE

No cost (+0)

Cost 1 sp (+½)

Cost 2 sp (+1)

Cost 8 sp (+1½)

Cost 3 gp (+2)

 

 

This limitation was dropped in 4th edition and all subsequent editions, but it was one of my favorite things about Fantasy Hero.

[Christopher R Taylor]

 

 

I didn't do it precisely out of numismatic geekery, but because I use the coins to both help build immersion in the game and because coins make great clues/plot hooks

 

I agree, giving your coins some variety and depth makes the game seem larger and more in depth than it might initially seem.  The usual RPG route of generic coins everyone uses by metal type is easy but doesn't make sense and feels way too... well, generic.  And you're missing out on so much.  The ancient coins of Kharana were made of felstone and were like little ingots.  The coins of far Ygothia are beads you string and wear around your neck, pulling off only what you need.  Not everyone is going to use a simple system of the same metals.

[Ndreare]

The Palladium fantasy RPG used to have different types of coinage and different symbols and values for each of them it was kind of cool because I had a picture with saying this is what it would look like. It had a lot of depth or feel of depth.

[Lucius]

 

In my Turakian Age game, coins have been used as clues. One of their first hints that Kal Turak even existed was when marauding monsters and savages turned out to be carrying coins minted with his visage and name. Coins of ancient Drakine mintage were a clue that someone had found and opened the sanctuary of Zornwil the great wizard.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary finds a coin with the inscription AVAG CO BEPSIG