LotFP contains some great rules for the managing of properties, detailing things like household costs, upkeep costs, and taxes. However, while it generally  has great price lists for all kinds of things (including the cost of 17 different kinds of boats), it doesn't have actual price lists for properties. Instead, all you get is the information that RENTING a space costs 30sp "per 10' sq" per month in the city, and 15sp in rural areas; and that buying rather than renting costs 100 times that price.

The thing is, realistically speaking what would be the costs (based on the figures provided above), to buy say:
a small apartment/house in a city?
a medium sized house in a city?
a large house in a city?
A small house, medium house, or large house in the country?

A mansion, in the city or the country?

A castle, small or large?

Likewise, what would be the costs for owning farmland, and how much farmland would be needed to manage a subsistence level? How much would be needed to earn a profit?
Would farmland be handled as an investment (for which there are rules in LotFP)? Or would it have to work with separate rules?

RPGPundit

The real estate prices could be estimated from rents. When I get home, I'll see if I can find anything.

Quote from: RPGPundit;476297Likewise, what would be the costs for owning farmland, and how much farmland would be needed to manage a subsistence level? How much would be needed to earn a profit?
Would farmland be handled as an investment (for which there are rules in LotFP)? Or would it have to work with separate rules?

There is fantasy that resembles American Wild West and there is fantasy resembling preindustrial societies. To me, one of the biggest -if not the biggest- difference is in land ownership.

In the former, there is rule of law, strong individual rights, wide-spread literacy, highly developed societal specialization, money-based economy, and a weak social stratification. From the modern point-of-view, there is little inherently wrong or oppressing in the society. In these worlds, it makes sense to trade land, just like today.

In the latter, yields are low, surplus is meager, specialization is undeveloped, exchange of goods is mostly barter, money-based economy concerns mostly just towns, and there are huge differences in the rights and privileges of members societal hierarchies. From the modern point-of-view, for the masses the normal state-of-affairs is oppressive, brutal, unjust, and miserable. Land-ownership is not as simple as buying and selling, as there would not exist a developed market for buying and selling land. Land would be the greatest form of wealth since it can sustain food-producing (=tax-producing knight-maintaining) population. As such, it would be held by regents or nobles (who are granted it as fiefs), who would rent it against military service or payment in kind, labor or money. Conversely, owning large tracts of land made you a noble -- owning small tracts of land makes you prey. Everybody lived off the land, so there was little sense of selling it. Possibly there would be tracts of land for sale/rent, when a manor or a county expanded into the waste, cleared woodland etc. ... probably just for rent.

Of course, there would be exceptions depending on local history and development of markets. There are slightly variant models: Medieval Iceland is different from everything. Medieval England took somewhat a somewhat different course than the continent after Black Death. And things change towards 1500s.

As to sustenance, with medieval techniques it took about 2 acres to feed one person with wheat. Serfs held about 30 acres (with two-field rotation that's 15 acres worked per year for a family of 4-5), and cottagers (a social class below serfs) held only about 5 acres which was rarely enough to feed a family and therefore they worked on others' fields. Poor harvest meant death. The peasants paid for their tenancy by working the landlords fields or in kind.

For a brutal low-fantasy world, HârnManor provides something of a system for running a manor, i.e., a family of nobles running a medieval village. As a freeholder, you could probably make a slim profit on a good year with 30 acres. Over time, on the average, due to various hardships, it would add to nothing. As the Chinese say, "wealth does not pass three generations".

For American Wild West Fantasy ballpark, assuming medieval techniques, the land yields 5 to 10 bushels depending on harvest and land quality. A bushel of wheat was worth 6-8 pence in medieval England, so you need to pay your farmhands at absolute minimum 7 bushels/acre * 7d/bushels * 5 acres = 245 pence (a whopping  gold crown!) per year for them to maintain a (cottager) living. An acre was defined as an area one could plow in a workday by a yoke of oxen. Plowing was done usually in March, which leaves, say, four weeks with 24 workdays. As there were plenty of other chores and the weather was a factor, let's assume 14 workdays can be used for plowing per man. So, assuming you have 14 acres this minimum-wage farmhand earns 9 bushels of profit, before you factor in the oxen and oxen fodder for the year, the two-field rotation to maintain the field arable, taxes, storage & shelter, and the cost of transporting the grain to the market.

Mostly you don't buy an appartment or house, you rent it, or you build it yourself. House prices are hard to get to (and I haven't tried), but land pricing is a bit easier.

The following is extrapolated and abstracted from Roman and Greek sources for use in my own campaign:

A typical peasant or poor townsman consumes enough calories (2,000 – 3,500depending on age, gender and profession) to sustain him through a day of physical work, usually in the form of bread (2 x1lb – 0.5kg loaves), or some sort of porridge. A happy citizen is one who knows that they can afford to eat. The price of a loaf of bread is an essential indication of how society is getting on. And it follows that the cost of two loaves should be the minimum amount that someone has to beg, borrow, steal or earn for their daily bread.

The standard measure in which grain is bought and sold is not the single loaf (or the grain to make it), but the "peck". This is 6.67kg, a small sack, just under 15lbs of dry measure. It can produce 16-20 loaves of bread. 4 pecks usually = 1 bushel, but see below.

20 Pecks of grain will seed one Hectare, and should deliver a yield of anything between x4 and x12 depending on how good the soil is (x4-x8 should be the normative range, anything over that suggests premium fertility, like the nile valley). Of that yield you need to set aside seed corn, and consume the rest or take it to market. Using a yield of x6, a good hectare of land delivers 100pecks of grain net. That's enough to feed a family of 3 at minimum subsistence, but nothing left for clothing, livestock, equipment etc. That means you need 2-4 Hectares for a more representative family of 5+ with some left over for cash, more to allow for fallowing, or to pay rent to a landlord.  

If you use 1CP=price of a loaf, 1SP = price of a peck of grain as a benchmark (remember there is spoilage, transport, milling and baking cost in the value chain between grain and loaf), the benchmark price for a hectare of agricultural land is circa 1000SP. So a yeoman needs 2,000-4,000 SP to set himself up and support his family. Note that 8 Hectares was regarded as the maximum for one person/nuclear family to work independently - but someone with that much land can afford help.

In any normal city state those who count themselves the rich are probably generating some 3,000 pecks or more from their land every year in rents, based on taking a share of 15%+ from the available product. In classical Athens an income of 500 Greek medimnoi (translated as bushels, but actually 6 pecks, not four) was sufficient to qualify for the highest rank of citizen, and 500 Athenian bushels are the same as 3000 pecks. Similarly in Rome you needed to own property worth 1 million Sesterces (4 Sesterces = 1 Denarius) to be a Senator, which is equivalent to holding 250 Hectares of decent agricultural land and which produces much the same result. This is of course only entry-level rich and a state of any size will have individuals who have holdings worth many times this amount. If using slaves rather than tenant farmers, you have a significant initial investment but can be much more profitable.

I think you may be missing a step, Jahud, in your two stages.  My own LotFP campaign is set in "Dark Albion", a gritty fantasy version of 15th century England (during the War of the Roses).  And I know from historical sources of the period that, while what you describe as the medieval system would be true for the lowest rung of society, at the higher rungs there was already quite a bit of trade going on.  Manors and castles, as well as houses in the cities, were being bought and sold by then.  There's an account I was reading recently about how Sir John Falstoff (the real-life person that Shakespeare's Falstaff was based on) obtained and later sold Caister Castle, for just one example.

In any case, as the LotFP book clarifies, the PCs are clearly individuals outside that lowest rung of society, they have to be as a quirk of the D&D game, even if they originated in it.  And indeed, characters like mercenaries, merchants, and specialists of different times did have the most range of fiscal and social mobility in that era, and that is clearly what PCs in that type of a game would be.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;476392I think you may be missing a step, Jahud, in your two stages.  My own LotFP campaign is set in "Dark Albion", a gritty fantasy version of 15th century England (during the War of the Roses).

While I don't see the two kinds of fantasy as steps, but rather two kinds of approaches to fantasy in RPGs as well as literature, you are absolutely correct: for the elite, the late medieval period is different from what I described - especially in England.

Hmm... I was hoping this thread would get some kind of official response.  I'd be really curious to know why Raggi felt he had to include the prices for 17 different kinds of boats, but couldn't list the price for even "small house/big house" in his book?

RPGPundit

These are 14th century real life costs...

Rent cottage - 5 shillings/year
rent craftsmans house (small workshop & 2 rooms) - 20s/year
rent merchants house - 2-3 pounds/year
buy cottage - 2 pounds
buy craftsmans house - 10-15 pounds
buy merchants house - 33-66 pounds
house with courtyard - 90 pounds plus
Goldsmiths hall in London (hall, kitchen, buttery, 2 chambers) - 136 pounds
large tiled barn - 83 pounds
wooden gatehouse + drawbridge - 5 pounds
stone gatehouse - 33 pounds
tower in curtain wall - 333 pounds
castle & college in Tattershall (contract) 450 pounds per year for 13 years.

That's some great info; and I thought about just using contemporary prices; but really, what I'd want is pricing that would be reasonably compatible with the rest of the LotFP equipment.  Though, really, those don't seem too bad for that either, in fact.

RPGPundit

Excellent info - just needs some calibratio to be useful to everyone. At the date those prices pertain to, what is the price of a pint of ale; or a bushel of wheat; or a loaf of bread - alternatively what would be the average income of a labourer, farmer of craftsman?

Fuck, i wrote a post out and it got eaten. Too late now to re-post. I'll do it tomorrow.

Yeah, on closer inspection, those prices aren't skewing very well with the overall price lists in LotFP.  You'd have to multiply all of them by several times to make it work.  

RPGPundit

Quote from: Iron Simulacrum;476824Excellent info - just needs some calibratio to be useful to everyone. At the date those prices pertain to, what is the price of a pint of ale; or a bushel of wheat; or a loaf of bread - alternatively what would be the average income of a labourer, farmer of craftsman?

I don't know how well these lists are researched, but they are a starting point.

List of prices of medieval items says

Profession                      Wage        Date        Source  Page
Mercenaries:
  knight banneret               4s/day      1316        [4]     78
  knight                        2s/day       "           "       "
  man-at-arms or squire         1s/day       "           "       "
Regular Army
  Esquires, constables, and
    centenars                   1s/day      1346        [4]     79
  Mounted archers, armored
    infantry, hobilars,
    vintenars                   6d/day       "           "       "
  Welsh vintenars               4d/day       "           "       "
  Archers                       3d/day       "           "       "
  Welsh infantry                2d/day       "           "       "
  Captain                       8s/day      late 16 cen [4]     181
  Lieutenant                    4s/day        "          "       "
  Ensign                        2s/day        "          "       "
  Drummer or trumpeter          20d/day       "          "       "
  cavalryman                    18d/day       "          "       "
  infantry                      8d/day        "          "       "
Laborer                         L2/year max c1300       [3]     29
Crown revenues (at peace)       L30 000     c1300        "       "
Barons per year                 L200-500+   c1300        "       "
Earls  per year                 L400-L11000 c1300        "       "
Sergeant at Law (top lawyer)    L300/year   1455         "      47
Chief armorer                   26s 8d/month 1544       [5]     182
Other armorers in same shop     24s/month   1544         "       "
  except "Old Martyn" who made  38s 10d/month 1544       "       "
Apprentices in same shop        6d/day      1544         "       "
Master mason                    4d/day      1351        [2]     24
Master carpenter                3d/day       "           "       "
Carpenters' Guild stipend to
  a sick member                 14d/week    1333        [2]     156
Weavers                         5d/day, no  1407        [2]     146
                                food
Chantry priest per year         L4 13s 4d   1379        [2]     24
Squires per annum               13s 4d-L1   14 cen      [1]     116-117
Carters, porters, falconers     5s-8s 8d    14 cen      [1]     116-117
  grooms, messengers            per year
Kitchen servants                2s-4s/year  14 cen      [1]     116-117
Boys and pages                  1s-6s/year  14 cen      [1]     116-117
Wardens of London Bridges       L10/year    1382        [2]     128

MEDIEVAL PRICE LIST says

Provisions

Ale, per gallon 0.5
Bacon, per side 9.5
Bread, 1 loaf (24 oz?) 0.25
Cider, per tun 60
Cheese, retail, per lb 2
2 whole, 80 lb 40
Eggs, per dozen 0.5
Fish, herrings, per dozen 1
2 Pike, whole, 31 long 80
2 Sturgeon, per barrel 396
Fruit, figs, per lb 1.5
2 pears, 30 1
2 pomegranate, 1 only 6
Gingerbread, per lb 36
Grain, barley, per quarter 22
2 oats, per quarter 16
2 wheat, per quarter 38
Ham, whole 16
Onions, 1 bushel 8
Partridges, per brace 4.5
Raisins, per lb 2
Salt, per bushel 3
Spices, per lb up to 168
Sugar, per lb 12
Wine, fine claret, per tun (252 gal.) 480
2 best, per gallon 4-5
2 cheapest, per gallon 2
To feed a lord, per day 7
2 a squire 2 4
2 yeoman 2 3
2 groom 2 1

And then there is the pricelist for Hârn World. It is something of a system, though an early medieval one (and regarding the two approaches to fantasy, it lends itself to the latter one). In addition to prices, it tells where to buy the goods.

Jahud stole my post, so no need to reiterate it.

Are all the prices in that second list in pence?

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;476985Are all the prices in that second list in pence?

Yes.

"Except where notes, prices in this list are given in pence, each equal to the value of the Carolingian penny or denier of 1/240th of a (Roman) pound of silver."