User avatar
Addramyr
Topic Author
Posts: 70
Joined: Tue 19 Feb 2019, 17:22

On the economy of the Raven Lands (or are you paying your laborers too much?)

Tue 10 Mar 2020, 18:43

Alright, extra-long and unnecessary post.

I'm working on an alternative simpler Stronghold system that takes less bookkeeping. While doing so, I've come up with a problem, or rather a questioning, while dealing with salaries.
According to the book, a farmer makes 5 copper a day. That's 225 copper a month (2.25 gold), 18.25 gold a year. 

This seemed a bit high to me so I've searched around (more out of curiosity than anything else) and found a few interesting articles about the economy in the middle ages. Long story short, it's goddamn complex. The prices differ a lot so is wages depending if the country, if it was at war, during plagues, crusades, time period, economy, taxes, etc. I'm considering the Raven Lands are in bad times as it just exited a 300 years isolation that would've most likely crumbled the whole economy to a point physical money would not worth anything at all but I digress. I've tried working with gross averages and rounding up/down to avoid trying to make a memoir out of such a petty thing. Keep in mind I've not gone to overly long and deep research.

So, in the middle ages, a laborer earned between 1-2 penny/denier a day.
That's 30-60 penny (2.5-5 shillings) per month, about 1.5-3 pounds per year.

1 denier/penny afforded you one of:
- 1 gallon of poor ale
- 1 dozen eggs
- 2 chickens

So basically, it means that a peasant in hard times could afford 6 eggs and half a gallon of ale every day and not have anything else left. That's not even accounting taxes and tithe. Most texts seem to say they each asked about 10% but also state peasant had really hard time meeting ends and often had to sell properties or seeds to get by (selling the seeds you'd need to get by the next year is really not ideal). 

Let's assume that most peasant produce their own food, they are left with 3 farthings (4 farthings = 1 penny) per day. Which means one would need to save for a week to be able to buy an axe (5 pence) or a pair of boots, 2 weeks to buy a sheep, and could only afford 2 "good" cows per year (whatever "good" means) or 1 or 2 draught horse.

Every freeman (landowner) was asked by law to own a gambeson, a helmet and a spear.
Prices on those are hard to find, but a "merchant's house armor" is worth 5 shillings, a "cheap peasant's sword" 6 pence and a morion (16-17th century Spanish "conquistador" iron helmet, the closest thing I could find to an open helm) 3.5 shillings. That's 9 shillings for the complete set. It's about 3 and a half months of savings, although one could probably find cheaper armor and helmet, let's say between 1-3 months of savings.
A set of plate cuirass with pauldrons cost about 26s, so theoretically a peasant could afford a set if they spent almost nothing for a whole year.


Now, in Forbidden Lands, your farmer hirelings are paid 5 coppers a day (2.25 gold/month, 18.25 gold a year). They need to pay for their own food according to the rules but then again you build fields and gardens in your stronghold so I'd say food is free. 

5 coppers are enough to afford 2 flagons of ale (about half a gallon), 1 chicken or a fish.
They would need to save for 4 days to afford an axe, a week for a sheep or a pair of boots.

If one saved most their earnings for about a month they could afford basic militia gear: leather armor, studded leather cap, a shield, and a spear.

They can buy 18 cows a year or 6 riding horses! (cows and riding horses are definitely very cheap in the Forbidden Lands, especially in a "post-crisis" economy; a riding horse in the 13th century could worth anywhere from 50s to 10 pounds!).

===============================

So, my verdict is that after some research the base economy is close enough to historical sources (again, this is not empirical study) but it makes me notice that the price of some stuff is way off (historically speaking, not necessarily from the point of view of an economic system that needs to work with adventuring PCs and loot tables).

I'd be tempted to increase the cost of horses and some buildings. It's a bit off that a mere farmer could almost finance two cottages or a stone tower after a year of savings. I think it's weird that a farmer can afford 4 suits of fine garments a year. More so that a farmer could afford 2 sets of plate armor a year!
Given, that farmer would need to almost not spend a coin for a whole year, and that's probably very hard when you already have so little.


Sources for the curious and doubtful:

https://www.quora.com/How-much-did-brea ... iddle-Ages
https://books.google.ca/books?dq=editio ... &q&f=false
http://faculty.goucher.edu/eng240/early ... rrency.htm
http://medieval.ucdavis.edu/120D/Money.html
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/15748/1 ... _15748.pdf
 
User avatar
lupex
Posts: 861
Joined: Sun 08 Oct 2017, 13:16

Re: On the economy of the Raven Lands (or are you paying your laborers too much?)

Tue 10 Mar 2020, 19:49

I think the earnings for hirelings is also meant to pay for their food as this isn’t taken into account at all, otherwise this would need to be tracked separately in the stronghold. I would not say this was free, so they either buy a chicken for eggs or but eggs. They can catch their own fish and maybe forage but this takes time that they don’t have. They would also need to pay for thier garments, tools, their own livestock and daily ale. Which all eats into the 5 copper.

There might also be a local taxation for anyone that owns land or property, or even rent to be paid to stay in a nearby cottage.

This obviously isn’t taking into account thieving adventurers stealing their hard earned savings.
YZE Bestiary - https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/320924/The-Servants-of-Memory

My Blog - https://is-it-a-monster.blogspot.com/

Instant Session - https://perchance.org/fl-session-generator

Monsters - https://perchance.org/fl-monster-generator
 
User avatar
hillarious
Posts: 41
Joined: Wed 29 Jan 2020, 23:56

Re: On the economy of the Raven Lands (or are you paying your laborers too much?)

Tue 10 Mar 2020, 19:51

Farmer makes 5 copper as you say.
He/she need spend this to cover food and living expensed, ie place to stay. Also cover costs like repair of clothing og if sometimes gets sick and need to go to healer. If two together, both working they need to cover living for their kids as well.

Dont see how anyone can "save up" on this, it just enough to keep alive and have a "decent" life.
 
User avatar
Ebrim
Posts: 468
Joined: Tue 30 Jul 2019, 22:51

Re: On the economy of the Raven Lands (or are you paying your laborers too much?)

Tue 10 Mar 2020, 22:32

Yeah, they aren’t making a 5 copper wage. That’s just a simple abstraction for you “keeping them” that is paying for their shelter, food, etc. Maybe they get a coin here and there but it’s unlikely most farmers in Ravenland have much access to coins even at the best of times.
 
Mr Oldtimer
Posts: 388
Joined: Sun 14 Apr 2019, 12:01

Re: On the economy of the Raven Lands (or are you paying your laborers too much?)

Wed 11 Mar 2020, 09:28

Nice work!
I agree with the comments as well but I really appreciate you took your time digging into this. In your opinion, not regarding ”game- economy ” like loot tables, what would the price for plate mail and horses/live stock be to be more historical correct?
 
User avatar
lupex
Posts: 861
Joined: Sun 08 Oct 2017, 13:16

Re: On the economy of the Raven Lands (or are you paying your laborers too much?)

Wed 11 Mar 2020, 13:27

I think the prices come from here, which the OP has put at the bottom of their post - http://medieval.ucdavis.edu/120D/Money.html

Obviously we don't have a proper conversion rate for copper, silver and gold to penny, shilling, crown and pound. But if someone were to put this all in a spreadsheet we could work something out.
YZE Bestiary - https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/320924/The-Servants-of-Memory

My Blog - https://is-it-a-monster.blogspot.com/

Instant Session - https://perchance.org/fl-session-generator

Monsters - https://perchance.org/fl-monster-generator
 
User avatar
lupex
Posts: 861
Joined: Sun 08 Oct 2017, 13:16

Re: On the economy of the Raven Lands (or are you paying your laborers too much?)

Wed 11 Mar 2020, 15:19

Here's more research to lead you down the rabbit hole!

https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/ ... r_feed_in/
YZE Bestiary - https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/320924/The-Servants-of-Memory

My Blog - https://is-it-a-monster.blogspot.com/

Instant Session - https://perchance.org/fl-session-generator

Monsters - https://perchance.org/fl-monster-generator
 
User avatar
Addramyr
Topic Author
Posts: 70
Joined: Tue 19 Feb 2019, 17:22

Re: On the economy of the Raven Lands (or are you paying your laborers too much?)

Wed 11 Mar 2020, 15:39

Thx all for the comments.

I have to agree that a peasant can't possibly save all their 5 copper per day; he needs to spend some (most?) of it just to barely scrape by. The exercise of "what they could buy" was just to compare raw buying power between a historical(ish) middle ages peasant and a "Forbidden Lander".

Although I have to disagree with them paying for food. I know rules say this, but it just doesn't make sense. Maybe when you just acquired your Stronghold and don't have the infrastructure to support your people but as soon as you start having gardens and fields, I don't see why you wouldn't feed your people yourself. Where would they buy their food anyway? Until you built a marketplace, they'd need to travel to the nearest settlement (which is probably at best a day's travel through the dangerous monsters-ridden wilderness, if not a few day's travel). Most likely, the nearest town is the place they were living in the first place and decided to move to your stronghold for 1 single reason: they evaluated that life would be better there. Trekking a few days through dangerous wilds just to go get the food you already had easy access to before moving isn't making your life better. It's risky and hard. Imagine having to carry a 50 pounds sac of grains on your shoulder for 15 miles every few days just to have enough to survive until your next trek. It just plain doesn't make sense. You're asking for a revolt if your people are expected to find their own food while you pile sacs of grains and vegetables they gathered themselves only to sell them to the town they probably come from. Even if you had peddlers coming in regularly, these merchants would sell products at a higher price than what they had paid initially at their home town. I don't buy it. You're asking people to abandon everything they own and have ever known, you better be offering significantly better conditions. Heck, I'm in the military and I had to evict people from their home during a national crisis and a lot of them didn't want to leave even considering how high a threat the conditions were. If you are not at least offering security and food, I don't see any reason why anyone would follow you (unless you force them, but that's another story).
 
User avatar
Addramyr
Topic Author
Posts: 70
Joined: Tue 19 Feb 2019, 17:22

Re: On the economy of the Raven Lands (or are you paying your laborers too much?)

Wed 11 Mar 2020, 15:43

Nice work!
I agree with the comments as well but I really appreciate you took your time digging into this. In your opinion, not regarding ”game- economy ” like loot tables, what would the price for plate mail and horses/live stock be to be more historical correct?
Without going very deep into comparative calculations, a ravenlander laborer can afford 2.3 plate armors per year vs medieval peasant that could buy only 1, so I'd at least double the price of plate armor. Again, all this is speculative, no peasant, ravenlander or historical, could realistically afford to not spend a single penny for a whole year.

Riding horses would be at the very least 18 golds. Riding horses were VERY expensive and only the nobles and wealthy merchants could afford one.
A war horse can be immensely more expensive. There are actually two types of war horses : the charger (your typical war horse) and the destrier, a knight's noble steed.
A destrier could range anywhere between 20 pounds to 80 pounds (and probably even more). A charger would cost less than 10 pounds.
I'm translating these prices roughly to a whopping 70-100 gold for the charger war horse and anywhere between 200-800 gold for the destrier.
https://abbeymedievalfestival.com/2012/ ... val-horse/

A cow would be somewhere around 8 golds. Imagine how valuable such a big animal is: it provides you with rich milk every day and when it dies, you have so much meat, more than you can consume with your whole family (plus no way to preserve it) that you probably gain back 25-30% of the original cost of the beast by selling the meat.
Last edited by Addramyr on Wed 11 Mar 2020, 16:11, edited 1 time in total.
 
User avatar
lupex
Posts: 861
Joined: Sun 08 Oct 2017, 13:16

Re: On the economy of the Raven Lands (or are you paying your laborers too much?)

Wed 11 Mar 2020, 16:00

The rules for Paying Salaries state: "A salary is generally paid in coins.  In Middle Ages, it was common for servants at a castle to get paid in goods or services - or simply protection - rather than in coin.  In these rules, all salaries are given in coin to simplify things.  If you'd rather pay in goods, it's usually fine.  Use the price lists as a guide."  So the question is, does the hireling get paid in fully in coin or in coin and the equivalent in goods, FOOD and lodging etc?

And for FOOD & WATER: "You don't need to provide FOOD and WATER for your hirelings - they manage to acquire it on their own, using their salary.  If your stronghold is under siege however, it's another story."

In the rules for siege it says that "As a general rule, five hirelings need to consume one unit of FOOD per day, or become hungry".  So you can use this as a general measure of how many hirelings can be supported by the stronghold, if the stronghold is their main source of FOOD.  Only a Well is needed to provide a free supply of WATER.  

One unit of Vegetables costs 4 copper which is probably the cheapest item that can be turned into FOOD.  So it would cost the equivalent of 4 copper to feed five hirelings for 1 day.  Reduce daily salary accordingly.  If you include a flagon of ale each, you could reduce daily salary for each by 3 copper, leaving 2 copper to spend on clothes/tools/lodging.

So to cover off your point, you can either pay hirelings fully in coin and assume that the hireling uses that coin to purchase food (thus not impacting on how much resource the stronghold generates), or deduct a certain amount from the salary figure to cover lodgings and food and reduce the FOOD resource in the stronghold appropriately.

Currently the system is very abstract to reduce book keeping but if you do want to introduce this level of detail it may push the game into the boundaries of playing a medieval sims game.  Which is neither good or bad, just different from the game Fria Ligan produced.
YZE Bestiary - https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/320924/The-Servants-of-Memory

My Blog - https://is-it-a-monster.blogspot.com/

Instant Session - https://perchance.org/fl-session-generator

Monsters - https://perchance.org/fl-monster-generator

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests