Economics

[[DM] Grinning Death]

Hey there, folks.

So, some of you have noticed that we've been moving towards using concrete numbers in a variety of events. This, inevitably, has led to us pondering the great questions of the universe such as how exactly do dolphins fly, why they enjoy fish so much, and what the heck does 42 even answer?

But more relevantly, it's led us to establish basic economics for each of the main settlements in Sundren that contain over 500 people. I've included the redacted versions on the wiki under the town's page, and a basic economics guide underneath each section.

This should allow PC leaders (and even non-leaders in some cases) to get a fuller picture of where they stand on troop numbers, available tax income, and economic/health status of the places their PC's live and work for. For those people who are able to access more information than provided, we can give further numbers on defenses, etc.

Please keep in mind this is the first time we've made an effort to really hammer in some real numbers for each of the settlements. Some will seem odd. Others, ridiculous. But I assure you, the DM staff has argued over every Platinum Stag used for city upkeep. As such, until we stop getting ideas or people stop sending in very good reasons for why we missed this obvious resource, they won't be final for a small while. But it's pretty close.

Thank you all, and keep tuning in!

[kuscotopia]

the main settlements in Sundren that contain over 500 people.

Damn....Maybe Murin can brew barrels of beer with potent dwarven aphrodisiacs.

In all seriousness though, bravo to the staff. This couldn't have been an easy process.

[[DM] Grinning Death]

We're working on Whurest, never fear.

[cmosier]

Awesome stuff. I look forward to putting this to use. Also, let me know if I can help. I work for a City and have some insight into things like that.

[zypherman]

We're working on Whurest, never fear.

I can't wait to see it! The Stonewall Clan will be very happy. Thank you for all the work DM's.

[Laurk]

I might suggest turning gp to cp.

The amount of "gold" floating around Sundren and in the hands of adventurers makes the economy seem completely unbelievable. One of the most major key components to money in any given economy is scarcety. If its not scarce, it won't hold value. As Abby has been going around trying to get support for her Sanctuary, the idea of cost seemed to be the furthest from anyone's mind.

One thing that I always find lacking on servers is that wealth is almost never even a calculation as you can get "rich" from adventuring. When you turn gp to cp.. even the richest adventurer is still a peasant compaired to nobles and Lords, so to do big things, you really MUST petition to a Lord and sell them the value of what you're trying to do.

Legacy had a good system where each town had a certain number of wealth points they would accumulate each month based on their size, location and influence. They could trade these to grow various sectors of their township. They could invest in defense, offense, fortification, trade, religeon (to safeguard against plague %), education etc etc.

Under this sytem, Abby would have had to convince Lady Meriadoc to spend "X" of her precious wealth points on "religeon" by convincing her that it was in her town's interests to divert a small amount of her wealth away from bulstering defense against the Black Hand, and into preventing the imminent plague that was about to wreck havoc on her population, income & economy.

These kinds of choices make things much more interesting and challenging both for Lords who rule townships, and players who are trying to push their agendas.

Just my thoughts.

[Satoshi]

Something new to pour over. Ah, it's little things (and potentially big things that come from it), that I love.

[[DM] Grinning Death]

I might suggest turning gp to cp.

We thought of doing something similar. However, instead the cities will use Platinum Stags, which are equal to 1,000 gp. The average income amount also reflects how much money PC's make by adventuring. These two things make the economies to scale, and can take PC coin into account far easier than the 3.5 system.

In regards to player wealth, I'm working on a system that should allow PCs to donate to the city once every six months without a chance of failure. Further donations however run the risk of getting lost, abused, stolen, and a variety of other nasties to the PC that donates.

[cmosier]

I hope this also clears up exactly what the role of a Noble is supposed to be. I know you guys have been busy and you've been pretty good about getting some of my questions answered. I look forward to it. :-)

[Laurk]

That seems like a good idea. It would be good to have a guage of how much the average peasant makes in a month too, just to keep it relivant. Gold in PnP is a bit more scarce as many normal services are valued in copper and silver. But I think it sounds like we are using gold like PnP uses copper, so it would be cool to have a chart boosting a peasants income from 20 silver a month to 20 gold or something.

[wangxiuming]

Sounds very intriguing! Looking forward to see it in action.

[Vaelek]

This is extremely appreciated guys. Looking forward to how this effects role-play, with no more guessing or vague sums being allotted to every settlement.

I realize the staff is busy hammering this all out into even finer detail, but is there any thought being given to factions outside the government of a city or settlement? It would be very helpful to have more precise numbers or, at the very least, a power score relevant to cities and other factions for comparison.

Enabling faction head honchos to weigh their support and calculate risk based on this would be fantastic.

[FriendlyNecromancer]

To be fair one can get very rich by adventuring. Problem is most usually become monster fodder or retire before finding that awesome ancient artifact worth millions of gp.
That and the number of high level characters is supposed to be very low, otherwise you'd just have a bunch of level 17+ wizards stopping time and wishing themselves into millionaires.

[ManUtd4Ever]

Well done. This information is certainly helpful when negotiating trade with various towns and their senior representatives.

Cheers!

[thaelis]

Damn....Maybe Murin can brew barrels of beer with potent dwarven aphrodisiacs.

In all seriousness though, bravo to the staff. This couldn't have been an easy process.

Whurest population = 497, sorry Kusco!

On another note I think this is a fantastic idea.