Those who know me know I have a sickness. I like studying politics and economics for fun. No, I don't know why I do, I just do.
But I have promised to keep that Passion off this blog unless it is something that relates directly to gaming/nerd culture in general. So this one will be about economics and DnD. (3.5 or Pathfinder, because these are what I am most familiar with)
I've never really like the economy of the system. It is too arbitrary and static. Part of it plays into the magic system's interaction with the medieval/pre-enlightenment society that the setting is based around. It's a weird spot for the game to exist at. It has tons of implications for society and how people would interact.
And I wrote a long tirade with a bunch of economic analysis and theory in it and then deleted it. Probably not the best thing to ramble about to people who want to talk about gaming. I'm just going to say that the game detracts from my enjoyment by having such an arbitrary system in place. So, anyways I designed a prototype system for trade goods and a living economy for my campaign setting. Let's take a look.
Since the characters will have their own ship and will be globetrotting they might want to make some easy money along the way. So trade is a good way to do that, and if they so decide they could also engage in a little privateering/piracy/pirate hunting which will also get them some goods they can sell off along the way.
(Okay, really don't feel like playing with HTML to get a table to work here so please excuse me choosing to do this in list form.)
I have devised a way to simulate unique economies on each island. This is only going to apply to trade goods for the purposes of this system. All of the normal equipment and such will remain at normal levels to keep things simpler.
So for this system you have 3 levels of economies; Global, Regional, and Local. Global should be obvious. It also will not likely be used all the time unless there is a specific reason for it, at least for this campaign. Regional applies to each major island, archipelago, or continent. Each region has different resources so each will have their own percentage modifiers to the prices of goods. For example, a heavily wooded continent would have a lower price for wood than a desert one. These ones are typically going to be permanent modifiers. The final one is local. These are ones you're going to be rolling on these charts for.
The random economic statuses should last in effect for 1 Economic Interval, typically 3 months which is a fiscal quarter in the real world. That can be completely up to the DM though.
Trade goods are measured in Tons. Whether or not they actually weigh an actual Ton isn't important, it is just to give you and idea of how much space they take up. A single ton of livestock for example could vary wildly in how much space it takes up. So to keep it simple I just use Tons. The prices were determined using simple extrapolation of what is already in the PHB.
The trade goods are as follows:
-Food: Dry - 40 GP/Ton, Salted fish/meat, grain, pickled, and other preserved foods
-Food: Fresh - 80 GP/Ton, Fruit, veggies, fresh fish, and such. Unless magically or mundanely preserved it loses 50% value every week, 2 weeks if preserved
-Food: Livestock - 120 GP/Ton, price includes their own supply of food. Random assortment of animals used for food purposes.
-Luxury Goods - 1,600 GP/Ton, These are fancy general purpose items. Candle sticks, silverware, art, furniture, etc.
-Goods - 400 GP/Ton, Same as Luxury Goods only cheaper, common man versions.
-Spices - 6,000 GP/Ton, It must flow... but really this is stuff like salt, cinnamon, pepper, etc. Not usually seen in more than a ton or two at a time because of how rare they are and how little space they take up.
-Lumber - 150 GP/Ton, Lumber is important to civilization, especially with this much ocean
-Metal - 200 GP/Ton, These are trade metals like iron, brass, lead, etc. Precious metals are a whole different story
-Other Raw Materials - 150 GP/Ton, Rock, sand, earth, whatever random stuff they might need somewhere else
-Booze - 800 GP/Ton, trade may be restricted based on the port
-Weapons - 2,000 GP/Ton, random assortment of mundane, normal quality weapons. trade is typically restricted
-Contraband - 1,500 GP/Ton Anything from drugs to slaves, falsified documents to knock off Gucci sunglasses. Stuff that is black market almost no matter what it is or where it goes.
-Special - If a region/local area has a very special product, like say a magically reinforced wood or a spectacular metal like Mythril, those will be handled on a case by case basis.
Black market goods might have an increased price but you'll have to be careful trying to sell them.
When you need a new port's economic environment you roll d% on the following two tables. You roll on the economic conditions table twice. Once you determine what economic conditions exist you need to roll to determine which trade goods are affected by using the second table.
Economic Conditions:
01-40: No Change
41-50: Market Boom- +10% to value of selected goods
51-60: Market Bust- -10% to value of selected goods
61-70: Goods Shortage- +20% to value of selected goods
71-80: Goods Surplus- -20% to value of selected goods
81-90: Heavy Taxation- +10% to value for purchase, -10% to value for sale
91-99: Roll again twice
00: War/Disaster- All goods increase by 50-150% ((2D6+3)x10), some may be at risk of confiscation.
Trade Goods:
01-07: Food, Dry
08-14: Food, Fresh
15-21: Food, Livestock
22-28: Luxury Goods
29-35: Goods
36-42: Spices
43-49: Lumber
50-56: Metal
57-63: Other Raw Materials
64-70: Booze
71-77: Weapons
78-84: Contraband
85-00: Roll twice, if the same good comes up, the economic status stacks.
So how this works is pretty simple in practice. You apply these percentages directly to the base price in this order Global, Regional, Local. When you apply multiple effects, apply them in the order they were created/determined. Don't just add up the percentages, apply them individually. (Although you totally could do that, I just like doing it this way because it creates wildly different numbers and simulates the wildly varying nature of an economy better) Here's an example:
Port of Prototype:
Global Effect: None
Regional Effect: This region is known for it's vast forests and lumber industry, Lumber (-15%)
Local: Market Boom (Goods) +10%, Heavy Taxation (Lumber) +/-10%
Goods:
Base Price: 400 GP/Ton
Effects: Market Boom +10%
Value: 440 GP/Ton
Lumber:
Base Price: 150 GP/Ton
Effect 1: Regional -15% = 127.5 GP/Ton
Effect 2: Heavy Taxation
To buy: 127.5+10% = 140.25 GP/Ton
To sell: 127.5-10% = 114.75 GP/Ton
Now obviously a PC and their skills should be taken into account for the buying and selling of goods. So I've taken this into account. The most obvious skill for this is Appraise.
Each local area/port will have a base Appraise DC that the PC will roll against to determine how much they can buy/sell something for. For every two points above or below the DC of a port it changes the price by 1%. If you roll below the DC you suffer a penalty as appropriate.
Example: Using the Goods from our Port of Prototype:
Port Appraise DC: 20
Roll to Buy: 16 = +2% => 440 + 2% = 448.8 GP/Ton
Roll to Sell: 30 = +5% => 440 + 5% = 462 GP/Ton
You can make one attempt to buy or sell a particular trade good once per week or port visit, whichever is shorter. You don't have to accept the price after you roll, but that counts as your attempt for the week. There could be feats that let you get around this restriction.
As for what determines the local area/port's Appraise DC, I don't know quite yet. I'm just going to go with gut feelings for the moment until something can be figured out.
Thoughts, questions, concerns, think it sucks? Let me know on Facebook or in the comments. I want feedback!
