A recent hunt for a more comprehensive price list led me to several claiming a more historical base. One thing that struck me in these was the dramatic increase in the relative value of weapons and armor. I was a little startled of course but then common sense took over and I recalled many books, documentaries, movies and the like where a sword or a suit of armor was given extremely high regard by the typical citizenry, essentially something out of their reach unless found, given as a gift or whatever.

In D&D (and many others, Im just picking on it due to its popularity.) a Longsword costs 15gp while a complete suit of mail runs 50gp. Look around a bit and you can see that you might trade the Longsword for a few barrels (2gp each) or 15 robes. The suit of armor is about the same value as a 5 locks or 5 bottles of ink.

It does seem odd when you think about it. Of course, I tell myself, its the nature of the typical fantasy RPG setting where adventure is commonplace and therefore the accouterments of adventuring are as well. In your typical game everyone wears a sword while historically someone riding into a hamlet with a yard of steel on their belt was met with concern and awe.

So, do any of you present your games in a more historical manner where this is concerned? Have you increased the prices of such items to give them the sense of rarity and value they deserve or would it change the game in undesirable ways. Or do you disagree with the idea entirely?

Yes, this is nuts. It would be pretty interesting to run a campaign where the economics have some relationship to historical reality, particularly since we borrow so much from medieval history in the assumptions about FRPG social structures and roles.

One way this might work out is that early adventures in a campaign will functionally act like the DCC 'funnel'. I.e., no one can afford good gear, and the main point in going on your first couple of adventures is obtaining enough loot to afford proper arms.

Also, you'd have to be careful in the way you present PC's with foes. If a suit of plate armor is worth a fortune, you shouldn't have people wandering around in it isolated and unprotected; otherwise any thinking player will just murder an NPC and hork his gear. That is, anyone who can afford plate armor will probably have retainers or be part of a powerful group, like a lord's bodyguard, and so be a tough nut to crack.

I guess the funny thing is that D&D weapons & armour prices are often realistic or even cheap (in some editions plate armour is 50-60gp), whereas mundane stuff tends to often have wildly inflated prices. I think this might be because weapons & armour are bought with starting cash, while mundane stuff assumes Gygax's gold rush economy.

Quote from: rgrove0172;1007734A recent hunt for a more comprehensive price list led me to several claiming a more historical base. One thing that struck me in these was the dramatic increase in the relative value of weapons and armor. I was a little startled of course but then common sense took over and I recalled many books, documentaries, movies and the like where a sword or a suit of armor was given extremely high regard by the typical citizenry, essentially something out of their reach unless found, given as a gift or whatever.

It the refined and worked metal that drives up the costs. A halberd doesn't cost as much as a great swords despite doing a similar amount of damage because the greatsword is a solid hunk of steel and a halberd has a foot long blade affixed to a wooden pole.  Often you will find accounts where it just spear heads, and polearm blades stored in the armory. The poles are cut later and joined with the head when needed.

Quote from: rgrove0172;1007734So, do any of you present your games in a more historical manner where this is concerned? Have you increased the prices of such items to give them the sense of rarity and value they deserve or would it change the game in undesirable ways. Or do you disagree with the idea entirely?

As you saw from my previous post, I been using Harn's medieval pricing for a long time now. The thing to keep in mind is that you need to apply to PCs and NPCs alike. The number of NPCs wearing plate should be low and distinctive.

For example look at this list of Medieval NPCs I wrote for 5th edition. Only the knights have plate armor.

I've never been able to grasp D&D proportions for much of anything. They're unlike what I find in the games I play (or pillage price ideas from) or the research I've done.

Playing TFT & GURPS either with book prices or ones researched, or stolen from Chivalry & Sorcery or Harn etc, or half-invented, though, generally good military weaponry is expensive or very expensive compared to general goods, which both makes sense and is more historical than the basic D&D prices. Peasant weapon/tools (e.g. basic axe, hammer) would be less expensive than a war axe or mace, and those would be less expensive than a sword, although high-quality and decoration can multiply the prices again. New suits of metal armor would be very expensive.

I get the feeling D&D prices were chosen more for game balance reasons (or the mysteries of what Gygax wrote as a suggestion meant to be questioned and changed at will) and the idea of starting out characters with limited resources, than for making a consistent economy.

Quote from: Larsdangly;1007738Yes, this is nuts. It would be pretty interesting to run a campaign where the economics have some relationship to historical reality, particularly since we borrow so much from medieval history in the assumptions about FRPG social structures and roles.

Sorry if this sounds sarcastic but in the end it is only a price list. My opinion why most hobbyists don't use more realistic pricing is because of the work involved. It just enough that it easy to say "fuck it" and use what your core books give you.

As for designers you have tradition in the case of D&D and Pathfinder. So everything else is scaled off of the traditional base price list. As for the rest they are all over the place. Frankly the only system to do it right in terms of balancing gamability and historical accuracy is Harnmaster. In the case of something like Chivalry & Sorcery they follow the historical sources a little too closely in that it has weird gaps and other oddities.

As much of a historical stickler N Robin Crossby was he had an definite flair for making things useful for gaming. When he had to make shit up, he did and made it consistent with the rest of it. Then from there it got hammered and refined by the Harn Community.

Second best is GURPS especially in GURPS low tech. They had to go two rounds on armor pricing and weight but the latest iteration is pretty solid. If you use GURPS as source remember it is about $4 = 1 silver penny. The main issue with GURPS is that there is no unified price list like in Harn.
 



One way this might work out is that early adventures in a campaign will functionally act like the DCC 'funnel'. I.e., no one can afford good gear, and the main point in going on your first couple of adventures is obtaining enough loot to afford proper arms.

Also, you'd have to be careful in the way you present PC's with foes. If a suit of plate armor is worth a fortune, you shouldn't have people wandering around in it isolated and unprotected; otherwise any thinking player will just murder an NPC and hork his gear. That is, anyone who can afford plate armor will probably have retainers or be part of a powerful group, like a lord's bodyguard, and so be a tough nut to crack.

Quote from: S'mon;1007740I guess the funny thing is that D&D weapons & armour prices are often realistic or even cheap (in some editions plate armour is 50-60gp), whereas mundane stuff tends to often have wildly inflated prices. I think this might be because weapons & armour are bought with starting cash, while mundane stuff assumes Gygax's gold rush economy.

My thoughts exactly. The longsword is about right when converted to silver pieces. But all the less expensive items are wildly off. Likely it due to bias of the primary sources that Gygax and Arneson read. Researchers tend to talk about the "sexy" stuff like Plate Armor and broadswords rather than how much a pot of red dye cost or better yet 50' of hemp rope.

Quote from: estar;1007744Also, you'd have to be careful in the way you present PC's with foes. If a suit of plate armor is worth a fortune, you shouldn't have people wandering around in it isolated and unprotected; otherwise any thinking player will just murder an NPC and hork his gear. That is, anyone who can afford plate armor will probably have retainers or be part of a powerful group, like a lord's bodyguard, and so be a tough nut to crack.

If this is the case, the real treasure is not the armor, but the guy inside it. His ransom could be worth many suits of plate!

In my campaign, things are priced in Silver Pennies $, although people generally carry lower-value coins. It costs about 5$ to 30$ to feed yourself for a week, assuming you can't forage for your meals. That upper limit assumes eating well, not luxury, and being far from food sources. A good fighting axe includes a lot of metal and would go for around 200$, so you could feed yourself well for a couple of months for what it costs. You could spend up to 1,000$ for a sword but a 300$ one wouldn't be that hard to find. A suit of mail would cost 300$ or so and the latest fitted plate would run about 2,000$ A trained Destrier is quite expensive for something that has such a short life expectancy at 1,500$ but player-characters and the people they meet rarely have plate or warhorses.

Quote from: saskganesh;1007746If this is the case, the real treasure is not the armor, but the guy inside it. His ransom could be worth many suits of plate!

And really good, fitted plate may not fit someone else. It may be very hard to find a buyer.

I've always thought the weapins and armour of the defeated enemies was far more valuble than any couns they might be carrying.  A couple times I started to gather them up, but I never had a mule to carry it all, and the rest of the group (dm included) didn't want to go that way so I dropped it.

Quote from: Skarg;1007743I've never been able to grasp D&D proportions for much of anything.
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I get the feeling D&D prices were chosen more for game balance reasons (or the mysteries of what Gygax wrote as a suggestion meant to be questioned and changed at will) and the idea of starting out characters with limited resources, than for making a consistent economy.

Quote from: S'mon;1007740I guess the funny thing is that D&D weapons & armour prices are often realistic or even cheap (in some editions plate armour is 50-60gp), whereas mundane stuff tends to often have wildly inflated prices.

Quote from: estar;1007745My thoughts exactly. The longsword is about right when converted to silver pieces. But all the less expensive items are wildly off. Likely it due to bias of the primary sources that Gygax and Arneson read.

My personal interpretation is that historical research probably had very little to do with the original D&D values. EGG and DA knew that players wanted to go into the dungeons and pull out entire chests of partially-to-mostly gold coins. Thus, that's the amount of coins (which all weigh 1/10 lb, for a convenient resource management sub-game) people got from various endeavors, and the costs of everything else flow from that. I also think (although I doubt it says so in any edition) that the gems in D&D treasure piles are all somewhere between Elizabeth Taylor-wear and Ducktales-esque size-of-your-head style -- because treasure is supposed to be the goal, and this is what dungeoncrawling players might expect.

In other words, I think it is a purely gamist conceit. Or at least started as such. The fact that the price of plate armor increased so dramatically from OD&D to AD&D suggests either someone made some comment about how unrealistic the price of plate was (or at least how many more times the value of plate should be to the value of mail or of swords), or some unknown gamist desire (to make 1st level characters less surviving by ensuring they can't afford plate???).

The mention of highly expensive mundane items is noteworthy. This has been fodder for many a joke about how peasants could never afford to survive in the D&D world. There does seem to be a correspondence between cost and relative value for a dungeon crawler. 10' pole being more expensive than a 10' ladder (presumably made up of two 10' poles) being the most readily notable example.

Quote from: saskganesh;1007746If this is the case, the real treasure is not the armor, but the guy inside it. His ransom could be worth many suits of plate!

It both.

I had parties loot bands of goblins for their crappy short swords and leather armor because it added up to a couple hundred d (silver penny) when it was all said and done. I had parties ransom knights. I had to have the NPCs surrender by throwing up his hands and shouting "I surrender to you and my ransom is X."

Although one guy was a Gregor Clegange type and he they executed. None of the NPCs shed a tear.

Quote from: rgrove0172;1007734So, do any of you present your games in a more historical manner where this is concerned? Have you increased the prices of such items to give them the sense of rarity and value they deserve or would it change the game in undesirable ways. Or do you disagree with the idea entirely?

The times I have tried the more realistic costs have had decent results, but surveys of the players indicated that some of them didn't like it at all and even the ones who did like it preferred cheap and easy access to gear.  So that's what I go with now unless there is significant interest in Keepin' It Real, Yo.

My first TFT campaign regularly had PC parties with wagons used for carrying the possessions, weapons & armor & gear & clothes (and sometimes body parts) of nearly everyone they killed. The attempt to sell wagonloads of bloody damaged used equipment in towns was sometimes pretty funny. Indignant muddy adventurers arguing with indignant shopkeepers about how much used bloody damaged stuff should be.

Or wandering up to the Wizards' Guild and trying to sell rotting body parts as magic ingredients...