# economy of dnd



## Luigiana (Jun 12, 2011)

i dont understand the economy of dungeons and dragons. does any1 know where i can read about the economy? i want to know how much a commoner and so forth earns a week.


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## xigbar (Jun 12, 2011)

In the Upkeep variant rules of the DMG, it says that one of the Upkeep levels is about the daily wage of a commoner. Also, this has some basics. Dungeonomicon (3.5e Sourcebook)/Economicon - Dungeons and Dragons Wiki


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## kitcik (Jun 12, 2011)

The truth is that the economy in D&D, if you put real thought into it, simply doesn't work. This means the DM has to house-rule any time something will have true economic impact that could cause the PCs to be out of whack on a wealth-to-level ratio basis. Not to say that the DM has to follow the wealth by level guidelines in the DMG, but whatever they are setting the CR in relation to, they have to monitor anything that impacts the economy that would throw that off.


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## Jimlock (Jun 12, 2011)

kitcik said:


> The truth is that the economy in D&D, if you put real thought into it, simply doesn't work. This means the DM has to house-rule any time something will have true economic impact that could cause the PCs to be out of whack on a wealth-to-level ratio basis. Not to say that the DM has to follow the wealth by level guidelines in the DMG, but whatever they are setting the CR in relation to, they have to monitor anything that impacts the economy that would throw that off.




Can't XP...

well said sir.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Jun 12, 2011)

The definitive work on the subject is A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe, which extrapolates based on the 3E DMG1 and combines it with history to create an economy that does, in fact, work and spells out a lot of interesting results, all very gamable for the DM.

Want your 10th level fighter to have his own estate? That's in here. Want to know who does what in your fantasy city? That's in there. Want to know what your commoner does all year (although why you want to know that, I'm not really sure)? That's in there.

Insanely useful, whatever flavor of D&D you use.


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## domino (Jun 12, 2011)

Like Kitcik said, the economy in general kinda sucks as a real economy.  Adventurers would cause constant and horrific inflation at any small-medium towns they visit, being able to actually purchase magic items requires a substantial adventuring class that requires them, and so on.

If you just want to know what the average wage is for a commoner, it depends on how skilled they are, since it depends on their job skill check.  Assuming a commoner 1 with a 5-6 bonus in the relevant skill (craft, perform, profession) they'd make 7-8 gp a week on average.  if they have no applicable skill, it's one silver per day of work.


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## Jacob (Jun 12, 2011)

xigbar said:


> In the Upkeep variant rules of the DMG, it says that one of the Upkeep levels is about the daily wage of a commoner. Also, this has some basics. Dungeonomicon (3.5e Sourcebook)/Economicon - Dungeons and Dragons Wiki



I think this (and other writings within) is something to be considered in the process of creating your own shop and selling goods, as I am trying to do in another game. I don't think it requires being as hardcore, but it's something to consider alright. Hmmm...


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## Greenfield (Jun 13, 2011)

I've always felt that there were parts of the game world that you just have to treat like "that man behind the curtain".  The economy is a big part of that.

There's a huge divide between PC wealth levels and NPC wealth levels, so huge they might just as well be living in different worlds.

A 10th level PC won't hesitate for a moment to spend 50 gold on a healing potion, other than to worry that it's too small.  To the average NPC in the world, though, that's something like a year's wages.

There have been various attempts to "fix" this over the years, and they've corrected some of the obvious problems (like trading in iron pots as scrap).  4th Ed "fixed" the problem of PC types using magic or craft skills to get immensely rich, mostly by making it impossible for any crafts person to make any money at all, ever.  (Items cost as much to make, in raw materials, as their market price, so every craft attempt is a money loser, a break-even at best).  

In all editions, quick transport magic and items (_Teleport_ or flying carpets, for example), coupled with _Shrink Item_ and things like Bags of Holding and Portable Holes make most merchant shipping obsolete, and Fabricate puts mundane craftsmen out of business.

So, how does the game world economy work?  Like so much else, the words "It's magic" leap readily to the lips.


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## S'mon (Jun 16, 2011)

1sp/day is enough to keep 1 adult alive, it's subsistence wages.  So a poor commoner makes 7 sp/week, possibly all in food etc without ever seeing a coin; 3 gp/month, 36 gp/year.  If he expects to support a family though he's making more like 5 sp/day, perhaps from a farm.

Edit: Typical infantryman earns double this, some 6gp/month, so is well fed, can repair kit, buy beer at the tavern etc.


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## Eldritch_Lord (Jun 16, 2011)

Entirely aside from the overarching social considerations of economics, the Profession rules have something to say about commoner income.  Joe Farmer, a 1st-level commoner who has an average Wis and max ranks in Profession (Farmer), can take 10 to make 7 gp per week.  If he has a family of, say, four (him, Jane Farmer, Joe Farmer Jr., and Little Jane Farmer) and Jane Farmer works as well while the kids Aid Another, that gives them 16 gp per week, or 160 sp.  Poor meals are 1 sp/day, which means that after eating a total of 12 meals per day over the week for the whole family, even assuming they buy everything from someone else instead of making food themselves, they have [160 - 12*7 = 76] 7.6 gp to put away for a rainy day in case some farming equipment breaks down or they need to splurge for a dress for Jane Farmer or whatever.  That's if all of them have +0 Wis and are 1st level; a family of level 2-3 parents with at least 12-14 Wis can be making more for their family.

For a more thorough examination of the economics of D&D commoners, read this.


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## S'mon (Jun 16, 2011)

The Profession rules don't distinguish between gemcutters, armourers and dirt farmers (although AIR the DMG actually says farming is not a profession), so they're not much help in general.  They can be used as a guideline to skilled-craftsman middle class income though.  Maybe for a guy managing a big farm estate/latifundia/plantation, profession (farmer) would make sense, but not for subsistence farming which is described as the 1sp/day level.


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## Eldritch_Lord (Jun 16, 2011)

S'mon said:


> The Profession rules don't distinguish between gemcutters, armourers and dirt farmers (although AIR the DMG actually says farming is not a profession), so they're not much help in general.  They can be used as a guideline to skilled-craftsman middle class income though.  Maybe for a guy managing a big farm estate/latifundia/plantation, profession (farmer) would make sense, but not for subsistence farming which is described as the 1sp/day level.




1) 1sp/day is for _unskilled_ labor only--day laborers, porters, and suchlike.  Subsistence farming may not make you rich, but it does require more knowledge and skill than "move X to place Y until I say stop."  The guy running a normal farm has 1-4 ranks in Profession, while someone running an estate/plantation has Skill Focus (Profession), high Wis, and lots of lackeys to do a lot of the work.

2) If you're looking at the economy of D&D, you use the Profession rules; whatever kind of professional you are, you use Profession to make your wealth.  Note that it's wealth, though, not money--commoners aren't necessarily making actual gold, they're probably making that wealth in terms of barterable goods, food they eat themselves, and so forth.

3) The D&D world is a lot closer to the Renaissance era than the Medieval era, what with the later-era weapons and armor available, greater degree of social mobility of the population, the lower degree of dominance of society by religion, and so forth.  D&D commoners aren't dirt farmers, they're somewhat-independent farmers that may or may not own land (much closer to landowners than serfs, at least) but who make a living off their work without owing it all to a master or lord.


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## S'mon (Jun 16, 2011)

Eldritch_Lord said:


> 1) 1sp/day is for _unskilled_ labor only--day laborers, porters, and suchlike.  Subsistence farming may not make you rich, but it does require more knowledge and skill than "move X to place Y until I say stop."




I'd say the levels of skill involved in porterage and subsistence farming were comparable, although it depends on the climate and terrain - some places are much much harder to farm than others.

Anyway you have an interesting non-Malthusian or post-Malthusian interpretation.  I don't think it's quite what the 3e designers intended, but it certainly works for eg Eberron to treat D&D farmers like their modern developed-world equivalent, rather than the $2-a-dayers (well, more like $10 a day) I use.


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## the Jester (Jun 16, 2011)

The best thing on this is to check with your dm as to his assumptions on the economy.

The original price lists were designed to reflect a "gold rush" situation (see comments in the 1e PH). Different dms will have entirely different approaches to these things.

In my campaign, the economic value of one gold piece is defined as _Enough money for a peasant to survive for a year._ This assumes that the peasant grows most of his or her own food, builds or barters for most supplies, etc.


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## Eldritch_Lord (Jun 17, 2011)

S'mon said:


> I'd say the levels of skill involved in porterage and subsistence farming were comparable, although it depends on the climate and terrain - some places are much much harder to farm than others.




Not really.  Subsistence farmers aren't bad or unskilled farmers, they're farmers who only make enough to feed their own families because they owe all their crops to a lord, because the ground isn't fertile enough to do better, because they don't have enough land, etc.  We still have plenty of subsistence farmers today in remote parts of the world, and those farmers are plenty skilled enough to eke out every bit of usability out of the land they have.  Calling them unskilled laborers really does them a disservice.



> Anyway you have an interesting non-Malthusian or post-Malthusian interpretation.  I don't think it's quite what the 3e designers intended, but it certainly works for eg Eberron to treat D&D farmers like their modern developed-world equivalent, rather than the $2-a-dayers (well, more like $10 a day) I use.




Malthus only considered food and population in his theory; if you take technological development (or in this case magic) into account, you can gain more resources from the same land as population increases without needing any catastrophes to rein in the population, just as Chinese and Indian subsistence farmers keep trying to squeeze more and more food out of their small plots of land.

That said, I don't see how a Renaissance tech level is incompatible with Malthusian theory, seeing as if _anything_ fits the model of "you need violence and plagues and such to keep population down" it's D&D.  In any D&D setting you have wars, monster incursions, crazy magical catastrophes, the whole shebang; Joe Commoner's lifespan is limited less by the food he can bring in every year and more by the whims of the cackling necromancer who takes over his town.


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## S'mon (Jun 17, 2011)

Eldritch_Lord said:


> Not really.  .




Some places really are much harder to farm than others, if that's what you were disagreeing with.    Temperate-climate farming requires more foresight than tropical farming, for instance.  Harvestable grain grew wild in Anatolia 8,000 years ago, and replanting was simple, but successful grain farming in far NW Europe is a lot tougher.  Dairy farming requires different skills again (and a lot of hard work), and so on.

Edit: And all crop farming was at close to subsistence level until recently.  If you were lucky then 4 farming families might support 1 non-farming, but historically around 92 to 8 was more typical.


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## S'mon (Jun 17, 2011)

Eldritch_Lord said:


> That said, I don't see how a Renaissance tech level is incompatible with Malthusian theory, seeing as if _anything_ fits the model of "you need violence and plagues and such to keep population down" it's D&D.  In any D&D setting you have wars, monster incursions, crazy magical catastrophes, the whole shebang; Joe Commoner's lifespan is limited less by the food he can bring in every year and more by the whims of the cackling necromancer who takes over his town.




Your approach is incompatible with Malthusian theory because you have farmers producing a vast surplus of food - 1sp/day is enough food to eat, 5sp for a family, but you're letting them roll Profession skill and produce ca 10-15gp worth of food each week!  In this society only a minority will work the land, and by definition they will have the same income as craftsmen, since they all roll Profession skill to generate the same income.  You have created something more resembling a 19th century western-European or north-American economy, not Renaissance.


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## S'mon (Jun 17, 2011)

Eldritch_Lord said:


> Not really.  Subsistence farmers aren't bad or unskilled farmers, they're farmers who only make enough to feed their own families because they owe all their crops to a lord, because the ground isn't fertile enough to do better, because they don't have enough land, etc.  We still have plenty of subsistence farmers today in remote parts of the world, and those farmers are plenty skilled enough to eke out every bit of usability out of the land they have.  Calling them unskilled laborers really does them a disservice.




It doesn't matter how good at farming they are (and how good you _need _to be varies a lot by environment), what matters is how much_ income_ you generate, in food to eat and sell.  Those skilled modern subsistence farmers are producing around $1-2 a day in exchange terms, below even the 3e 1 silver piece standard.  Although if their markets weren't flooded with cheap food from the USA and other developed countries, their produce would admittedly be worth substantially more, and on PPP is probably nearer $10, about 1 3e sp.


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## Eldritch_Lord (Jun 17, 2011)

Holy triple post, Batman!



S'mon said:


> Some places really are much harder to farm than others, if that's what you were disagreeing with.    Temperate-climate farming requires more foresight than tropical farming, for instance.  Harvestable grain grew wild in Anatolia 8,000 years ago, and replanting was simple, but successful grain farming in far NW Europe is a lot tougher.  Dairy farming requires different skills again (and a lot of hard work), and so on.




I was objecting to the statement that "the levels of skill involved in porterage and subsistence farming were comparable"--certainly the level of physical effort involved in digging holes, picking plants, etc. is similar, but being a farmer is much more than just sticking seeds in the ground and pulling up what grows there.



S'mon said:


> Your approach is incompatible with Malthusian theory because you have farmers producing a vast surplus of food - 1sp/day is enough food to eat, 5sp for a family, but you're letting them roll Profession skill and produce ca 10-15gp worth of food each week!  In this society only a minority will work the land, and by definition they will have the same income as craftsmen, since they all roll Profession skill to generate the same income.  You have created something more resembling a 19th century western-European or north-American economy, not Renaissance.




1) Malthusian theory ≠ "everyone is a subsistence farmer."  His theory simply states that the population's demand on resources will inevitably outstrip their ability to produce it.  That doesn't mean that on an individual level every farmer barely makes enough food to feed himself, it means that as time goes on Σ [total food output] < Σ [total food consumption] barring mitigating factors.

2) Farmers aren't producing 10-15gp worth of food each week, they're producing 10-15gp equivalent of _wealth_ each week.  That could mean he produced surplus food, or it could mean that the farmer fixes a broken fence that he'd otherwise have to pay someone to fix, or that adventurers sweep into town needing more supplies and he sells it at a markup, or whatever.



S'mon said:


> It doesn't matter how good at farming they are (and how good you _need _to be varies a lot by environment), what matters is how much_ income_ you generate, in food to eat and sell.  Those skilled modern subsistence farmers are producing around $1-2 a day in exchange terms, below even the 3e 1 silver piece standard.  Although if their markets weren't flooded with cheap food from the USA and other developed countries, their produce would admittedly be worth substantially more, and on PPP is probably nearer $10, about 1 3e sp.




I wouldn't say 1 sp is about $10; it's harder to nail down prices than that.  Take a look at the price of commodities today and compare to PHB prices.  A bushel of wheat goes for about $319, or 319/60 = $5.30 per pound; 1 pound of wheat in D&D is 1 cp.  Silver is going for about $36 per ounce, or 16*36 = $576 per pound; 1 pound of silver in D&D is 5 gp.  Goats can cost between $100 and $300, so let's sat an average of $225; in D&D, a goat is 1 gp.  In one case, we have 1 sp = $53, in another case we have 1 sp = $57...and in a third we have 1 sp = $22.  Trying to equate D&D currency to real-world currency doesn't really work too well.

And again, the Profession rules don't mean you actually gain that many gold pieces at the end of the week, any more than a PC actually gets Xd4 gold pieces to start his career.  When the subsistence farmer comes out with a net of $1-2, that's after he "buys" his meals, after he "buys" repairs to equipment, and so forth.  Unskilled laborers make 1 sp per day and a day's worth of poor meals is 1 sp, so any subsistence farmer who can eat enough to survive and still have even a dollar left over to put away for a rainy day is coming out ahead of the unskilled laborer in income.


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## S'mon (Jun 17, 2011)

Eldritch_Lord said:


> H
> 2) Farmers aren't producing 10-15gp worth of food each week, they're producing 10-15gp equivalent of _wealth_ each week.  That could mean he produced surplus food, or it could mean that the farmer fixes a broken fence that he'd otherwise have to pay someone to fix, or that adventurers sweep into town needing more supplies and he sells it at a markup, or whatever.




No, I think you're wrong - and I really think you need to rethink your economics if you're not going for a modern-world feel.  The food he sells to the adventurers is income as normal.  Mending the fence counts 0gp towards net income, that's an expense.

Of course he could be a commercial wool farmer, or flax etc.  Is that what you're going for?

Your approach is post-Malthusian because you have a small proportion of the population producing more than enough food to feed the entire population.  I don't see how you get around that?  By having land in such short supply that a small number of farmers farm *all* the farmable land, with no additional food production possible?


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## Greenfield (Jun 17, 2011)

Start with the idea that we're in an age prior to the advent of the tractor, the harvester, the threshing machine and the McCormic Reaper.  A farmer will let 1/4 of his land "lie fallow" to "rest".  That is, he lets it grow weeds so he can plow them under, and combine the organics back in as a simple fertilizer.  

In Renaissance times and before, you needed to have between 80 and 90 percent of the population working on farms.  The introduction of high yield crops like potatoes and modern corn changed this, and that allowed more people to pursue careers that didn't involve producing food, so tradesmen could start to produce a middle class.

Now we can add magic, and treat a Druid's _Plant Growth_ spell like a good dose of fertilizer, but considering the cost of spell casting services it was very much beyond what could be justified.  The increase in food production wasn't enough to pay for the spell. 

In many areas the "increase in wealth" may be in the form of children being raised to bring more land under cultivation, expanding farm holdings.  That only works in areas where there's unclaimed/uncultivated land to expand onto though.  

So I can see the idea that "Farmer" isn't a listed Profession.  For the economy of the game world to resemble a real medieval setting, he has to be a subsistence farmer, producing enough to feed himself and his family, with maybe 10% surplus to go to pay his taxes.

So how does that jibe with meals costing a silver piece a day, the same as his income?  Non magical crafting has a cost of 1/3 the market price.  So that poor meal costs him 3.333333 cp to prepare, and that difference lets him pay for clothing, gear, feed any children who aren't big enough to help work the land, and pay the local lord come quarter-day.

Note that, by the book, a loaf of bread costs 2 cp.  So did a chicken, or a pound of flour.  If we presume a similar price for vegetables, someone who could cook and cut their own firewood could feed a small family in relative luxury (bread, soup and meat) for a shade over half a silver piece, and that's if they bought the goods at full price instead of producing them themselves for a third of the price. 

By the way, I wasn't exaggerating. Meat was a rare and special thing in medieval times, the kind of thing that happened at a Sunday meal (and sparsely then), so yeah, that really is a luxury lifestyle for a family of 4 by the standards of the medieval peasant.  The kids get to argue over the drumstick.

Bread and meat 3 meals a day?  They're living like kings, I tell you!  On 6 cp a day.


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## Eldritch_Lord (Jun 18, 2011)

S'mon said:


> No, I think you're wrong - and I really think you need to rethink your economics if you're not going for a modern-world feel.  The food he sells to the adventurers is income as normal.  Mending the fence counts 0gp towards net income, that's an expense.
> 
> Of course he could be a commercial wool farmer, or flax etc.  Is that what you're going for?




1) Again, the Profession rules tell us how much he makes; the flavor text tells us how he makes it.  Joe Farmer makes his check and gets 10gp worth of stuff at the end of that week.  Did he make an extra 1000 pounds of wheat that week?  Highly unlikely.  Was there some drastic need for whatever crops he was selling that bumped up the price?  Maybe.  Regardless of how he got it, he ends up with 10gp.  It's up to the flavor text to tell us how medieval the economics are--but one thing the rules tell us is that Joe Farmer is _not_ a dirt-farming serf who barely survives day to day.

2) The point I was making with the meals and fences was not that those aren't expenses, but rather than those things are included in the wealth Profession gives him.  A farmer could, in-game, have his wife cook some meals for his family, have his children can some food for the winter, have his cow Bessie give birth to a calf, have his son cut down some lumber to build a barn, and so forth--but mechanically, that's X gp worth of food he has to buy, Y gp of wood he has to buy, a new cow he has to pay for, and so on.  That the farmer only ends up with a handful of silver pieces at the end of the week in-game doesn't change the fact that he ended up with the equivalent X gp worth of goods and services by the rules.

3) For the sake of example, I'm assuming a farmer has crops and livestock and maybe a forest he can get wood from and so forth.  The same principles apply for Joe Only-Grows-Wheat Farmer, the examples are just less interesting.

4) You seem to be approaching this from the perspective of "Here's how medieval economics works; let's apply that to D&D."  That's completely backwards.  The question in the OP was "How do D&D economics work?" and the answer to that question is "The Profession rules are how NPCs make money."  You can explain that in-game using medieval economics, Renaissance economics, or (with sufficiently many spellcasters) post-scarcity economics if you want, but if you want to know how D&D economics _actually works_, you have to start with the rules, not the flavor text.



> Your approach is post-Malthusian because you have a small proportion of the population producing more than enough food to feed the entire population.  I don't see how you get around that?  By having land in such short supply that a small number of farmers farm *all* the farmable land, with no additional food production possible?




You can fit the Profession rules into a Malthusian context because it's not the amount of food you can produce that matters, only the food you can consume.  Today, we have enough food production capabilities to feed the entire world.  Yet people go hungry.  Why?  Because the distribution system doesn't work.  In the same way, in the D&D world you could have a single level 20 paragon commoner with +bazillion to Profession make enough food to feed the whole Prime, yet you still have the problem that demand outstrips supply because getting that food places while dragons and giants and vampires oh my roam the wilderness is a real pain.

Now, why Malthus is so important to you I'm not sure.  You'll note that I originally pointed out that he was basically wrong for an industrialized society such as ours (and by extension a highly-magical society such as most D&D settings), and only pointed out that you _could_ reconcile it with Malthus if you wanted to.  I never denied that my views on D&D economics were post-Malthusian at all, and in fact attempting to apply his theory to a world which is past "Medieval Europe + magic!" into Renaissance era technology at best, or which essentially replaces technology with magic at worst, is not really feasible for the same reason it's infeasible to apply it to the real world.


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## S'mon (Jun 18, 2011)

Eldritch_Lord said:


> 1) Again, the Profession rules tell us how much he makes; the flavor text tells us how he makes it.  Joe Farmer makes his check and gets 10gp worth of stuff at the end of that week.  Did he make an extra 1000 pounds of wheat that week?  Highly unlikely.  Was there some drastic need for whatever crops he was selling that bumped up the price?  Maybe.  Regardless of how he got it, he ends up with 10gp.  It's up to the flavor text to tell us how medieval the economics are--but one thing the rules tell us is that Joe Farmer is _not_ a dirt-farming serf who barely survives day to day.




The PHB Profession skill is designed for use by PCs, not for the kind of world-building "rules as physics" you're attempting here.  It's idiotic to think that NPC Lawyers, Gemcutters, Sewermen and Farmers all have the same income dependent only on skill.  Now I've given you a rationale for what a "professional farmer" might be in a typical D&D world where most people are peasant farmers - he'd look something like a 17th century gentleman farmer such as Oliver Cromwell (before the Civil War), perhaps.  But what is certain is that your rules-as-physics approach if applied to the general mass of NPC farmers cannot give a medieval (or Renaissance) looking world.  Heck, it cannot give a world looking like rural Romania in 2011, or the hill farmers of the Scottish Highlands, or plenty of other developed-world areas where farmers are much much poorer than urban professionals.


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## S'mon (Jun 18, 2011)

Eldritch_Lord said:


> The question in the OP was "How do D&D economics work?" and the answer to that question is "The Profession rules are how NPCs make money."




Which is completely wrong.  NPCs don't roll dice and generate income based on a number on their character sheet.  PCs do that.


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## S'mon (Jun 18, 2011)

Eldritch_Lord said:


> Today, we have enough food production capabilities to feed the entire world.  Yet people go hungry.  Why?  Because the distribution system doesn't work.




People go hungry because they don't produce enough of value to pay for the food that is produced.  And giving them free or subsidised food (as happens) drives down the value of the food they do produce, creating a vicious cycle which has destroyed the economies of a lot of developing countries and made them dependent on welfare from the developed world.  But that's getting close to 'politics' I guess.


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## Jimlock (Jun 18, 2011)

IMO, in order to understand the medieval economy, first one needs to understand the political and social structure of mediaeval times.

Hope this helps!



> *1-**Feudalism* 9th to 15th century medieval Europe , (Examples of feudalism)
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## Man in the Funny Hat (Jun 18, 2011)

D&D is a fantasy adventure framework.  It is not now, and never has been intended for use as an economics simulation.  It has always dealt with economics as a matter of appearance - a superficial interaction with the player characters, NEVER as a logically functioning model.

If you want to fret about how much a peasant/commoner/whoever makes and whether he can actually afford the life he's supposed to live and function within a D&D economy that's YOUR affair.  The game does not concern itself with that.  It concerns itself only with an illusion of economy and ONLY as far as that illusory economy interacts with the player character, not with how NON-player characters economically interact with each other.


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## Eldritch_Lord (Jun 18, 2011)

S'mon said:


> The PHB Profession skill is designed for use by PCs, not for the kind of world-building "rules as physics" you're attempting here.  It's idiotic to think that NPC Lawyers, Gemcutters, Sewermen and Farmers all have the same income dependent only on skill.  Now I've given you a rationale for what a "professional farmer" might be in a typical D&D world where most people are peasant farmers - he'd look something like a 17th century gentleman farmer such as Oliver Cromwell (before the Civil War), perhaps.






S'mon said:


> Which is completely wrong.  NPCs don't roll dice and generate income based on a number on their character sheet.  PCs do that.




Oh?  NPCs don't run on the same rules as the PCs do?  So I suppose you don't give NPC blacksmiths Craft ranks, because they can just make whatever the plot demands.  NPC artificers don't have a use for their craft pool, because they have arbitrary amounts of XP.  If you want to know how the economy works in D&D, you have to look at the D&D rules.  There are precisely two rules regarding NPC wealth in D&D: the Profession rules and the WBL rules.  If you don't look at those and take those into account when attempting to figure out how the D&D economy works, you're not looking at the D&D economy, you're hand-waving it completely.

The DMG has rules for demographics.  I'm guessing few people in this discussion use those as well, since (A) you can hand-wave those as easily as commoner wealth and (B) the demographics seem bad from a medieval perspective.  You can quite easily take your vaguely-medieval village and plop that down and call it a day, I'm not saying you can't.  What I'm saying is that that's not D&D demographics you're using there.  Taking something medieval and putting into D&D wholesale doesn't take into account D&Disms and D&D rules--something civilized and regimented like the feudal system doesn't sound like it would work for elves and orcs, first off, and there are more problems besides.

D&D is not the real world.  The real world doesn't have magic or non-humans, and you can't expect a world where every small town has at least a 1-in-3 chance of having a druid able to cast _plant growth_ on every field, of having a cleric who can prevent plagues and heal minor injuries to keep the population up, of having a wizard who can send a message to a town a half-dozen miles away with a thought, will have the same economics or social dynamics.

If you feel that D&D economics don't model the vaguely-medieval European world you think they should, you're right.  If you think the economic system isn't nearly as fleshed-out as it should be, you're right.  But don't take literally the only indicators we have in the rules for NPC income and throw them out in favor of making up something out of whole cloth and then claim to be answering the question of how _D&D_ economics work.



> But what is certain is that your rules-as-physics approach if applied to the general mass of NPC farmers cannot give a medieval (or Renaissance) looking world.  Heck, it cannot give a world looking like rural Romania in 2011, or the hill farmers of the Scottish Highlands, or plenty of other developed-world areas where farmers are much much poorer than urban professionals.




And that's not what the D&D world looks like, for the most part.  Could a Romanian village in 2011 fend off an attack of goblins?  Could the hill farmers of the Scottish highlands protect themselves from a dragon assault?  Not a chance.  Land and food are more valuable in D&D because there are more things that want to take it from people, so farmers making more money isn't nearly as illogical as you seem to think--if nothing else, how else would they pay bands of adventurers and mercenaries to take out nearby kobold infestations?



Man in the Funny Hat said:


> D&D is a fantasy adventure framework.  It is not now, and never has been intended for use as an economics simulation.  It has always dealt with economics as a matter of appearance - a superficial interaction with the player characters, NEVER as a logically functioning model.
> 
> If you want to fret about how much a peasant/commoner/whoever makes and whether he can actually afford the life he's supposed to live and function within a D&D economy that's YOUR affair.  The game does not concern itself with that.  It concerns itself only with an illusion of economy and ONLY as far as that illusory economy interacts with the player character, not with how NON-player characters economically interact with each other.




Quite true, to a certain extent; how much money Joe Commoner makes each week will likely never come up in an actual game.  However, if you _do_ want to know what the rules say about it, the rules are there, and they do a good enough job modeling the D&D world.  I repeat: it models the D&D world.  I cannot stress this enough: _of course_ it doesn't model medieval European serfs.  _Of course_ the economics of farming and everything else would make no sense in the real world.  _D&D works differently_, with its monster threats and its magic and its non-human farmers and all that.

You can ask how D&D economics work, and actually answer that question using the rules D&D gives you.  You can say D&D economics are stupid, acknowledge that only the PCs' income matter to your players, and ignore the rules in favor of hand-waving the NPC economy into something resembling a real-world economy.  You can't have it both ways.


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## S'mon (Jun 18, 2011)

Eldritch_Lord said:


> Oh?  NPCs don't run on the same rules as the PCs do?




NPC interacting with other NPCs don't use rules at all.  Any rules for NPCs are there to aid the DM in their interactions with PCs.


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## S'mon (Jun 18, 2011)

Eldritch_Lord said:


> If you don't look at those and take those into account when attempting to figure out how the D&D economy works, you're not looking at the D&D economy, you're hand-waving it completely.




There is no_ D&D economy_, as Man in the Funny Hat has endeavoured to explain to you.  And if there was it certainly wouldn't depend on the PHB Profession skill.


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## S'mon (Jun 18, 2011)

Eldritch_Lord said:


> The DMG has rules for demographics.  I'm guessing few people in this discussion use those as well, since (A) you can hand-wave those as easily as commoner wealth and (B) the demographics seem bad from a medieval perspective.




I don't use them because they're pretty crap, and don't fit any world I'd like to build.  I typically use bottom-up demographics based on 1% of the population being PC-classed, 50% and half number each higher level.  I don't tend to use the Commoner class since I don't see why a well-fed farmer would have a lower hit die than a scrawny scribe.  In fact I tend to use hit dice for non-classed NPCs which appopriately reflect their combat ability.  I'll also detail the economics of an area as appropriate for the campaign - and I'll plug in the PHB Profession skill where it fits into the standard-of-living table, ie it gives a middle class income to skilled professionals.


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## S'mon (Jun 18, 2011)

Eldritch_Lord said:


> Could a Romanian village in 2011 fend off an attack of goblins?  Could the hill farmers of the Scottish highlands protect themselves from a dragon assault?




I've been to Romania, and given the large number of uniformed guys with AK47s hanging around, I'd think those goblins would be in a world of hurt.

Scottish farmers only have shotguns and the occasional rifle, and probably wouldn't do too well against a dragon. Neither would any D&D village created by the DMG demographics, though.

And no, I don't have peasant farmers handing over hundreds of gps to adventurers to clear out the local kobold warren.  If anyone has treasure it's the goblins, not the peasants.


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## Cyberzombie (Jun 18, 2011)

The problem with trying to figure out D&D economics is that everyone *says* it's a pseudomedieval setting, but most campaigns and default settings don't actually have much in common with medieval Europe.  A typical setting has elements of the Roman Empire (especially the Common language), the Renaissance, and the modern world.  Yeah, you'll come across knights, but feudalism isn't common.  So it's not surprising there isn't a logical economy to the game as it stands.

If you want an actually functional economy, you need to add it in, as with the book Whizbang Dustyboots linked to.  If you just want a place for people to rest and sell stuff in between dungeon crawls, the base rules work just fine.


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## Dandu (Jun 18, 2011)

S'mon said:


> Scottish farmers only have shotguns and the occasional rifle, and probably wouldn't do too well against a dragon.



They'd probably just toss a caber at it.
_
For those of you who do not know, caber tossing is a highland sport that involves taking a heavy wooden pole and tossing it as far as possible. Yes, this is what the Scottish consider a sport. Pictures below._


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## S'mon (Jun 18, 2011)

Dandu said:


> They'd probably just toss a caber at it.
> _
> For those of you who do not know, caber tossing is a highland sport that involves taking a heavy wooden pole and tossing it as far as possible. Yes, this is what the Scottish consider a sport. Pictures below._




That would work on a 1e dragon, but we're talking 3e here...


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## Dandu (Jun 18, 2011)

Two words: Volley Fire


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## Jackinthegreen (Jun 19, 2011)

Dandu said:


> Two words: Volley Fire




Two words: Flame breath.

As for the original discussion, economics for DnD is pretty tough to nail down fully.  To specifically answer how much a commoner makes though: at least 1sp a day since anyone can do unskilled labor.  It's obviously more for those who can do skilled, trained labor.  A level 1 commoner with just 4 ranks in a profession and no other modifiers will make at least 2gp a week and can get up to 12gp a week according to the Profession rules on page 80 of the PHB.


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## Dandu (Jun 19, 2011)

Refresh my memory: does breathing fire on a Scotsman just result in an angrier Scotsman, or am I thinking of Kryptonians?


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## S'mon (Jun 19, 2011)

Jackinthegreen said:


> Two words: Flame breath.
> 
> As for the original discussion, economics for DnD is pretty tough to nail down fully.  To specifically answer how much a commoner makes though: at least 1sp a day since anyone can do unskilled labor.  It's obviously more for those who can do skilled, trained labor.  A level 1 commoner with just 4 ranks in a profession and no other modifiers will make at least 2gp a week and can get up to 12gp a week according to the Profession rules on page 80 of the PHB.




BTW the DMG hireling costs are a much better guide to NPC income than the PHB Profession skill.  I'm surprised no one has mentioned them.


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## Eldritch_Lord (Jun 19, 2011)

S'mon said:


> NPC interacting with other NPCs don't use rules at all.  Any rules for NPCs are there to aid the DM in their interactions with PCs.






S'mon said:


> There is no_ D&D economy_, as Man in the Funny Hat has endeavoured to explain to you.  And if there was it certainly wouldn't depend on the PHB Profession skill.




And as _I_ have endeavored to explain to everyone:

The question being asked in the OP was "How does the D&D economy work?"

There are precisely two answers to that question:

1) "You take the rules D&D has on the subject, the Profession rules and WBL rules, and extrapolate an economy from that, because only the D&D rules take into account the differences between D&D and the real world."

OR

2) "You hand-wave everything and create an economy that you think works better, because the D&D rules aren't detailed enough for your liking and your own campaign setting doesn't fit the generic D&D assumptions."

Answer 1 answers the question "How do _D&D_ economics work?" while answer 2 says "Actually, they don't" and avoids the question, which is a meaningless answer because (A) it doesn't help anyone who wants to take a look at D&D economics from an in-game perspective like the OP presumably does and (B) _we already know_ D&D economics don't work according to real-world economics principles.  Saying "NPCs don't follow the PC rules" is answer 2.  Saying "That can't simulate medieval European economics" is answer 2.  Saying "The WotC designers know nothing about economics, demographics, etc." is very true, and I agree wholeheartedly, but it's still answer 2.

Creating your own economy from scratch is a better approach, as it can be customized to your world and your style of play, but doing that _doesn't answer the question_.



S'mon said:


> I don't use them because they're pretty crap, and don't fit any world I'd like to build.  I typically use bottom-up demographics based on 1% of the population being PC-classed, 50% and half number each higher level.  I don't tend to use the Commoner class since I don't see why a well-fed farmer would have a lower hit die than a scrawny scribe.  In fact I tend to use hit dice for non-classed NPCs which appopriately reflect their combat ability.  I'll also detail the economics of an area as appropriate for the campaign - and I'll plug in the PHB Profession skill where it fits into the standard-of-living table, ie it gives a middle class income to skilled professionals.




This is very valid position to take, and in fact is one I usually take.  The only NPC classes I use are the adept, the magewright, and a "professional" class which is basically a combined aristocrat//adept; most NPCs in my worlds fall in the level 1-5 range where level 1 is teenagers and younger and level 5 is important or notable "lesser" NPCs, where "named" NPCs might be in the 6-8 range.  However, you and I both _admit_ that we're not using the D&D demographics rules because we don't like the way they work and replace them with something else, we're not claiming that our own rules generalize to "the D&D demographics rules."



Cyberzombie said:


> The problem with trying to figure out D&D economics is that everyone *says* it's a pseudomedieval setting, but most campaigns and default settings don't actually have much in common with medieval Europe.  A typical setting has elements of the Roman Empire (especially the Common language), the Renaissance, and the modern world.  Yeah, you'll come across knights, but feudalism isn't common.  So it's not surprising there isn't a logical economy to the game as it stands.




Yes, thank you, that's exactly what I was saying before we sidetracked into Profession minutiae.



> If you want an actually functional economy, you need to add it in, as with the book Whizbang Dustyboots linked to.  If you just want a place for people to rest and sell stuff in between dungeon crawls, the base rules work just fine.




Again, you don't absolutely _need_ an external system, because on a personal level Profession is close enough for government work and on a societal level we already have prices for most things, though I definitely do support creating your own economy, as I mentioned above.



S'mon said:


> BTW the DMG hireling costs are a much better guide to NPC income than the PHB Profession skill.  I'm surprised no one has mentioned them.




While they can be useful for on-the-spot prices, they're not all that helpful overall.  For one, while the prices given are for long-term contracts, they don't describe what the NPC does when not hired by the PCs.  Sure a clerk (for instance) makes 4 sp per day when hired for a specific task, but what about his day job?  Second, those rules are somewhat contradictory.  Porters, laborers, and maids make 1sp/day, the stated wage for untrained laborers, which works fine; however, a cook (definitely not untrained) makes the same wage, a mercenary expected to go into dangerous situations makes less than a teamster, and so forth.


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## Dandu (Jun 19, 2011)

> a mercenary expected to go into dangerous situations makes less than a teamster



How does that not make sense?


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## S'mon (Jun 19, 2011)

Dandu said:


> How does that not make sense?




I thought the mercenary rate was for hanging round the castle polishing his sword, for which the eg 6gp/month for heavy infantry looks about right.  If going into combat he'd expect daily combat pay, and/or looting rights.

Edit:  Mind you, 3e retains the 1e Gygaxian idea that castles are inhabited by hordes of pathetic zero-level or War-1 nobodies, which is pretty silly since the more men you have in the castle, the quicker supplies run out.  It would make far more sense to take a tip from late-medieval real life and have Castle Guards be small numbers of elite men-at-arms, mostly plate-armoured Fighters with appropriate support.  Likewise 'mercenaries' should be very expensive, very well equipped - more like the PCs themselves than the kind of 'WW1 conscript army' feel 1e-3e promote.


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## S'mon (Jun 19, 2011)

Eldritch_Lord said:


> While they can be useful for on-the-spot prices, they're not all that helpful overall.  For one, while the prices given are for long-term contracts, they don't describe what the NPC does when not hired by the PCs.  Sure a clerk (for instance) makes 4 sp per day when hired for a specific task, but what about his day job?  Second, those rules are somewhat contradictory.  Porters, laborers, and maids make 1sp/day, the stated wage for untrained laborers, which works fine; however, a cook (definitely not untrained) makes the same wage, a mercenary expected to go into dangerous situations makes less than a teamster, and so forth.




I just don't understand how you can think the one-size-fits all, PC-centric PHB Profession skill can possibly be a better guide to creating a D&D economy (since we both agree there is no existing D&D economy immanent within the ruleset) than the relatively detailed, specific and diverse NPC hireling costs table.

I would treat the 1sp/day for a cook as for an untrained cook, more accurately they have about the same experience of cooking as any random housewife, good enough to cook for your mercenaries (I'm reminded of the guy in our unit who cooked slop for us on field training weekends with the Territorial Army).  A cordon bleu chef would cost more.


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## Dandu (Jun 19, 2011)

Yes, but teamsters are a union/guild which has influenced politicians to grant them exceptional benefits in exchange for being lazy good-for-nothings. That's why they get paid more.


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## Eldritch_Lord (Jun 20, 2011)

Dandu said:


> How does that not make sense?






Dandu said:


> Yes, but teamsters are a union/guild which has influenced politicians to grant them exceptional benefits in exchange for being lazy good-for-nothings. That's why they get paid more.




And mercenaries wouldn't charge more than that...why?  Keep in mind that if anyone gets guild/union benefits, every skilled hireling (including mercenaries) should, so that cancels that out...also, this is what the _PCs_ are paying for hirelings, and adventurers are notorious cheapskates who think nothing of throwing dozens of mercenaries at traps and other threats; "hazard pay" doesn't even _begin_ to cover it. 



S'mon said:


> I just don't understand how you can think the one-size-fits all, PC-centric PHB Profession skill can possibly be a better guide to creating a D&D economy (since we both agree there is no existing D&D economy immanent within the ruleset) than the relatively detailed, specific and diverse NPC hireling costs table.
> 
> I would treat the 1sp/day for a cook as for an untrained cook, more accurately they have about the same experience of cooking as any random housewife, good enough to cook for your mercenaries (I'm reminded of the guy in our unit who cooked slop for us on field training weekends with the Territorial Army).  A cordon bleu chef would cost more.




1) It's not "relatively detailed, specific and diverse"--there are 20 professions on there, about 1/4 of which are untrained laborers.

2) A cook expected to prepare meals for "large groups" (probably 10+) definitely isn't "untrained" in the day laborer sense.  Even if you do consider an untrained cook on par with a porter, why isn't the clerk on the table an "untrained" clerk who can only scribble down a few things and get paid 1 sp?  Or the animal tender someone who just stands around and stables horses for 1 sp?  The chart doesn't state its assumptions and isn't really detailed enough to draw conclusions.

3) Profession is better than extrapolating from a chart because it has a range of values and is mostly self-generating.  By a range of values I mean, obviously, that you can have different Profession ranks, different Wis mods, and different miscellaneous mods to represent different amounts of skill, rather than arbitrarily declaring that all X make Y sp/day.  By being self-generating I mean that if you stat out an NPC for different professions you can essentially determine their skill level from that.  You wouldn't stat out a barrister as a commoner 1 with all 10s and 11s for stats and 0 ranks in Profession (Lawyer), any more than you would stat out a maid as an expert 3 with 16 Wis and 7 ranks in Profession (Cleaner); if you decide that someone is a good lawyer (someone perceptive, skilled, and professional) that translates into someone making good money for being a lawyer (high Wis, above level 1, with good ranks in Profession).


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## Jimlock (Jun 20, 2011)

Cyberzombie said:


> The problem with trying to figure out D&D economics is that everyone *says* it's a pseudomedieval setting, but most campaigns and default settings don't actually have much in common with medieval Europe.  A typical setting has elements of the Roman Empire (especially the Common language), the Renaissance, and the modern world.  Yeah, you'll come across knights, but feudalism isn't common.  So it's not surprising there isn't a logical economy to the game as it stands.




I disagree that you have more elements of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance instead of purely medieval ones.

The dark ages and the mediaeval ages, are not so simplistic as one might think.
The Capitals and big cities at the time did not lack in complexity or trading plethora. Moreover, the church's forceful presence, can easily relate to the various churches in the various settings. Even though one might argue that the Roman/Greek polytheism is more close to D&D because of its many deities, the mediaeval christian church, accompanied by the inquisition and with its fearful aura, is much closer to the general theme of most churches/deities in D&D, to their influence on the population, and to their influence on economics.
Even though D&D incorporates many cultures and paradoxes that derive from magic and other historical periods, that does not change the fact that D&D is mainly based on the Mediaeval times.
Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance, to name the most popular settings, are all based on medieval Times, not the Romans nor the Renaissance.


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## jasper (Jun 20, 2011)

And none of splat books, stories, books etc, of the campaigns mention by Jimlock mention any major ecomonic forces. Or if they did they didn't make sense.


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## lordxaviar (Jun 20, 2011)

xigbar said:


> In the Upkeep variant rules of the DMG, it says that one of the Upkeep levels is about the daily wage of a commoner. Also, this has some basics. Dungeonomicon (3.5e Sourcebook)/Economicon - Dungeons and Dragons Wiki




none of that is official is it...?

how many people combined to make?


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## xigbar (Jun 20, 2011)

No, it's not official, but it's a great school of though on the flawed d&d economy.


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## Dandu (Jun 20, 2011)

> And mercenaries wouldn't charge more than that...why?  Keep in mind that  if anyone gets guild/union benefits, every skilled hireling (including  mercenaries) should, so that cancels that out...also, this is what the _PCs_  are paying for hirelings, and adventurers are notorious cheapskates who  think nothing of throwing dozens of mercenaries at traps and other  threats; "hazard pay" doesn't even _begin_ to cover it.



Mercenaries never had Jimmy Hoffa.


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## Greenfield (Jun 20, 2011)

No, Hoffa had mercenaries.


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## S'mon (Jun 21, 2011)

Eldritch_Lord said:


> 2) A cook expected to prepare meals for "large groups" (probably 10+) definitely isn't "untrained" in the day laborer sense.  Even if you do consider an untrained cook on par with a porter, why isn't the clerk on the table an "untrained" clerk who can only scribble down a few things and get paid 1 sp?  Or the animal tender someone who just stands around and stables horses for 1 sp?  The chart doesn't state its assumptions and isn't really detailed enough to draw conclusions.




You have convinced me that a senior cook should get 2-3sp/day.    The scullions get 1sp.

Re the clerk - obviously it's because literate NPCs are rare, so writing ability is a valuable skill.  I probably would have the stableboy earn 1sp/day, he gets a lot more free time than the labourer, it evens out.  A skilled animal  handler gets more.


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## Eldritch_Lord (Jun 21, 2011)

Jimlock said:


> I disagree that you have more elements of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance instead of purely medieval ones.
> 
> The dark ages and the mediaeval ages, are not so simplistic as one might think.




It's not a matter of complexity; D&D has several fundamentally different assumptions even taking magic out of the equation.



> Moreover, the church's forceful presence, can easily relate to the various churches in the various settings. Even though one might argue that the Roman/Greek polytheism is more close to D&D because of its many deities, the mediaeval christian church, accompanied by the inquisition and with its fearful aura, is much closer to the general theme of most churches/deities in D&D, to their influence on the population, and to their influence on economics.




Au contraire.  While many lawful churches are given a Spanish Inquisition spin for plot hook purpose, there is nothing in D&D comparable to the Catholic Church.  Priests of D&D religions do not have any inherent political power, or at least no more than any other powerful person merely by virtue of being a priest.  The common people do not base their entire cosmology on the teachings of a single church.  Crusades against evil in D&D are _actually_ motivated by a desire to quash out evil rather than being motivated by a desire for land or status.  There is no such thing as the divine right of kings.  Polytheism is vastly different from monotheism, and the only thing the medieval Catholic Church and D&D religions have in common is the templar-esque paladin, and that's specifically because the knight-in-shining-armor trope was brought into the game in one piece.



> Even though D&D incorporates many cultures and paradoxes that derive from magic and other historical periods, that does not change the fact that D&D is mainly based on the Mediaeval times.
> Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance, to name the most popular settings, are all based on medieval Times, not the Romans nor the Renaissance.




First of all: Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms?  Medieval?  You _must_ be joking.  With all of the magic and unusual creatures in both worlds, they're only "based on medieval times" in the same sense that the modern world was at one point "based on medieval times."  Greyhawk is obviously much closer to that baseline, having been explicitly given a background of a powerful Empire that fell, a series of warring city-states, and so forth.  However, the technology of Greyhawk and other D&D settings are still Renaissance-level rather than Medieval-level (plate armor, polearms, water mills, advanced ships, telescopes, etc.), the governments are not feudally-based nor are they intertwined with the churches to nearly the same degree, the existence of low-level magic mimics Renaissance developments in medicine and science (even villages have 2-3 1st-2nd level casters by DMG demographics), and so on.  I can see why you'd say Greyhawk has a Medieval inspiration, sure, but to say it is based on the Medieval era moreso than the Renaissance era is laughable.

The Forgotten Realms, though?  Not medieval in the slightest.  Flying cities, full-blown mageocracies, and meddling gods blow that idea completely out of the water at higher levels, and even at low-to-mid levels the world is vastly different from Medieval standards--the systems of government rarely even vaguely resemble monarchies, the major cities have 2 to 3 times the populations of rough real-world equivalents, religion doesn't inform peoples' lives like Catholicism did in the real world yet almost everyone is devoted to a religion due to the Wall of Souls, and so on.



S'mon said:


> You have convinced me that a senior cook should get 2-3sp/day.    The scullions get 1sp.
> 
> Re the clerk - obviously it's because literate NPCs are rare, so writing ability is a valuable skill.  I probably would have the stableboy earn 1sp/day, he gets a lot more free time than the labourer, it evens out.  A skilled animal  handler gets more.




Actually, by the rules, every class except the barbarian (and some ACFs like the savage bard) are literate, which is another difference between D&D and medieval settings--the literacy rate is 90+% and writing is important enough that Forgery is its own skill...which brings up the issue of a universally standard currency, logical exchange rates for different denominations, and so forth.


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## S'mon (Jun 21, 2011)

Eldritch_Lord said:


> Actually, by the rules, every class except the barbarian (and some ACFs like the savage bard) are literate...




Every PC class.  You seem to have a lot of trouble distinguishing between PC-stuff and NPC-stuff.


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## Cyberzombie (Jun 22, 2011)

Jimlock said:


> I disagree that you have more elements of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance instead of purely medieval ones.
> 
> The dark ages and the mediaeval ages, are not so simplistic as one might think.




As Eldritch Lord noted, I'm not arguing that medieval Europe is simplistic.  I'm arguing that it isn't D&D.  You have knights, but they don't act as a vassal to a king in any of the standard settings.  They don't have a fief and they don't lord over serfs.  Yes, that's not all there was to the dark ages or the later medieval era, but it's not in the basic settings in any real way.



Jimlock said:


> The Capitals and big cities at the time did not lack in complexity or trading plethora. Moreover, the church's forceful presence, can easily relate to the various churches in the various settings. Even though one might argue that the Roman/Greek polytheism is more close to D&D because of its many deities, the medieval christian church, accompanied by the inquisition and with its fearful aura, is much closer to the general theme of most churches/deities in D&D, to their influence on the population, and to their influence on economics.




Not in the basic settings and not in any campaign I've ever played in!  Sure, you could do that, and I'm sure many DMs do.  But most deities in most campaigns only wish they had a tiny bit of the influence that the Christian church did in medieval Europe.  If anything, D&D is even more polytheistic than the Roman Empire ever got.  In the real world, you never really had priests dedicated to as *single* god -- at least not if they acknowledged the existence of other gods.

Even more strongly, though, D&D wizards would be flat-out impossible in a truly medieval setting.  There was NO educated class except the clergy and, to some extent, the nobility.  You could not have a school of wizardry, because there's no rival educational establishment to the church.  Now, you could make an interesting pseudomedieval where the scholars in monasteries are wizards and they are the spellcasters of the established church.  But it would be pretty far removed from a standard D&D setting.



Jimlock said:


> Even though D&D incorporates many cultures and paradoxes that derive from magic and other historical periods, that does not change the fact that D&D is mainly based on the Mediaeval times.
> Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance, to name the most popular settings, are all based on medieval Times, not the Romans nor the Renaissance.




D&D has pseudomedieval elements pasted on to settings that are really something else.  Greyhawk City is flat-out Renaissance, down to being run by the Thieves' Guild, to take one example.  Well, Renaissance by way of Fritz Leiber -- Greyhawk has more than a little bit of Lankhmar in it.  Oh, sure, you may run into a knight in shiny armor in Greyhawk, but he's not a medieval knight, no matter how much his armor glimmers.


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## Jimlock (Jun 22, 2011)

Eldritch_Lord said:


> It's not a matter of complexity; D&D has several fundamentally different assumptions even taking magic out of the equation.
> 
> Au contraire.  While many lawful churches are given a Spanish Inquisition spin for plot hook purpose,




Oh, it's for "plot hook purpose" and not based on Medieval times, got it.



Eldritch_Lord said:


> there is nothing in D&D comparable to the Catholic Church.




No, you must be joking. Does "crusades" ring a bell?



Eldritch_Lord said:


> Priests of D&D religions do not have any inherent political power, or at least no more than any other powerful person merely by virtue of being a priest.




Priest and wizards are the most powerful figures in all settings. Both "Medieval-Dark Ages/fantasy" archetypes, no question about it. Behind almost every single official campaign there is some wizard or priest with great power, political or otherwise, capable of leading vast armies into war, at the demand of a greater deity.
One example: Verminaard, Dragonlance's big villain is a high priest of Takhisis. You will find such examples in every setting, and in every setting's background.

Currently, I'm playing the Forgotten Realms 3.5 trilogy (Cormyr - The Tearing of the Weave, Shadowdale - The Scouring of the Land, Anauroch - The Empire of Shade). Up until now it's all about the church of Shar trying to undo the Weave (Mystra). The political power of Sharrans is uncontested.




Eldritch_Lord said:


> Crusades against evil in D&D are _actually_ motivated by a desire to quash out evil rather than being motivated by a desire for land or status.




That's what the real crusaders were given to believe as well, they were out to destroy others because they were led to believe that their god was the right one. That's how you can play D&D as well. People fighting the wars are pawns, just like in real life. I don't play D&D so Black & White, nor is there written anywhere in the books that I should play like that. You are free to play D&D as you please. You can play LOTRs or you can play Game of Thrones. It's up to every individual group. Nothing is necessarily better than the other. If you wan't to play D&D like that, you are free to do so by all means, but please do not say that "your" way, is the "right" D&D way.



Eldritch_Lord said:


> Polytheism is vastly different from monotheism, and the only thing the medieval Catholic Church and D&D religions have in common is the templar-esque paladin, and that's specifically because the knight-in-shining-armor trope was brought into the game in one piece.




Are you also suggesting that only the Paladin derives from the Middle Ages?

Let's take one class at a time and see whether they derive from the Middle Ages, the Romans or the the Renaissance.. shall we?

1-Barbarian. I believe the word "CONAN" is a sufficient.

2-Bard. Wikipedia: In *medieval* Gaelic and British culture (Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Isle of Man, Brittany and Cornwall) a bard was a professional poet, employed by a patron, such as a monarch or nobleman, to commemorate the patron's ancestors and to praise the patron's own activities.

3-Cleric. What do you need to be convinced that the D&D cleric is mainly based on the Medieval Catholic Clerics and Priests? With their armors and maces i don't see much of a difference from the "templar-esque paladin"...

4-Druids. Historically, Druids appear in many a period of the Human History... from the Iron Age to the Late Middle Ages. Taking into account the approach of D&D on Druids (just check the artwork), I'd say they are mainly based on the Celtic-Dark Ages archetype.

5-Fighter. Sure Fighter is a generic class. Still all you have to see are the weapons and armor in the game. While there are weapons from before and after the Medieval Age, most of them "scream" Medieval.

6-Monk... I don't really care about that one... Still, it must be said that there is nothing Roma-esque or Renaissance-esque about it...

7-Paladin. You explanation is sufficient.

8-RAnger. This one screams "Aragorn"... Perhaps you are willing to argue that Middle Earth is not a Medieval based setting?

9-Rogue. The Rogue can be seen as pretty generic too... Still as far as D&D is concerned, just check the art, and tell me if that isn't Medieval.
Robin Hood is written all over the place...(ok Robin is both a Ranger and a Rogue...)

10-Sorcerers & Wizards. I won't tire you. Gandalf and Merlin should be enough.




Eldritch_Lord said:


> First of all: Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms?  Medieval?  You _must_ be joking.




Again, i think it's you that must be joking.
Just check what Gygax and Greenwood have said about their worlds. (It's funny how Elminster looks just like Gandalf isn't it?)



Eldritch_Lord said:


> With all of the magic and unusual creatures in both worlds, they're only "based on medieval times" in the same sense that the modern world was at one point "based on medieval times."




I do not understand how you relate Magic to Renaissance and not the Medieval Ages. If in your games magic is a substitute for technology, that is your game, and not D&D. Magic, superstition and mysticism is more of a trait of the middle ages ...not the Renaissance. Renaissance signals the birth of rationalism. Superstitions die and man now believes he can do "everything on his own". Since the Renaissance, god has already begun to lose ground.
"Burn the which!" was a phrase mainly used in the Medieval Ages... not the Renaissance.



Eldritch_Lord said:


> However, the technology of Greyhawk and other D&D settings are still Renaissance-level rather than Medieval-level (plate armor, polearms, water mills, advanced ships, telescopes, etc.), the governments are not feudally-based nor are they intertwined with the churches to nearly the same degree, the existence of low-level magic mimics Renaissance developments in medicine and science (even villages have 2-3 1st-2nd level casters by DMG demographics), and so on.




Plate armor?

Polearms? Obviously they were mainly used in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance, still i should remind you that the MAJORITY of weapons in D&D derive from the Middle Ages 

Watermill?

Are you sure you are not confusing Middles Ages with the Stone Age?

Advanced ships, telescopes? Sure... may I quote my self from my previous post?



> Even though D&D incorporates many cultures and paradoxes that derive from magic and other historical periods, that does not change the fact that D&D is mainly based on the Mediaeval times.






Eldritch_Lord said:


> I can see why you'd say Greyhawk has a Medieval inspiration, sure, but to say it is based on the Medieval era moreso than the Renaissance era is laughable.




I believe I've already pointed out what is laughable and what isn't...



Eldritch_Lord said:


> The Forgotten Realms, though?  Not medieval in the slightest.  Flying cities, full-blown mageocracies, and meddling gods blow that idea completely out of the water at higher levels, and even at low-to-mid levels the world is vastly different from Medieval standards--the systems of government rarely even vaguely resemble monarchies, the major cities have 2 to 3 times the populations of rough real-world equivalents, religion doesn't inform peoples' lives like Catholicism did in the real world yet almost everyone is devoted to a religion due to the Wall of Souls, and so on.




_Flying cities?_

Right... I forgot how they appeared during the Renaissance for the first time...

_Magocracies and meddling gods_

Yep... forgot how they appeared during the Renaissance too...

(On a side Note: The catholic church & the Inquissition, was a magocracy if you think about it? )



Eldritch_Lord said:


> Actually, by the rules, every class except the barbarian (and some ACFs like the savage bard) are literate, which is another difference between D&D and medieval settings--the literacy rate is 90+% and writing is important enough that Forgery is its own skill...




I'll just quote S'mon on that one



> Every PC class. You seem to have a lot of trouble distinguishing between PC-stuff and NPC-stuff.







Eldritch_Lord said:


> which brings up the issue of a universally standard currency, logical exchange rates for different denominations, and so forth.




are you SURE you are not confusing the Middle Ages with the Stone Age?

Eldritch_Lord, I suggest you think twice before using phrases like:



Eldritch_Lord said:


> I can see why you'd say Greyhawk has a Medieval inspiration, sure, but to say it is based on the Medieval era moreso than the Renaissance era is laughable.




with people you don't know, or have not talked to in the past.

A little about me: I have read enough about European History during my studies, to know what I'm talking about.

D&D is MAINLY Based on Middle Ages.

I'll finish by quoting once more a line from my previous post:



> Even though D&D incorporates many cultures and paradoxes that derive from magic and other historical periods, that does not change the fact that D&D is mainly based on the Mediaeval times.


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## Jimlock (Jun 22, 2011)

Cyberzombie said:


> As Eldritch Lord noted, I'm not arguing that medieval Europe is simplistic.  I'm arguing that it isn't D&D.  You have knights, but they don't act as a vassal to a king in any of the standard settings.  They don't have a fief and they don't lord over serfs.  Yes, that's not all there was to the dark ages or the later medieval era, but it's not in the basic settings in any real way.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




I believe quoting myself once more will be sufficient...



> Even though D&D incorporates many cultures and paradoxes that derive from magic and other historical periods, that does not change the fact that D&D is mainly based on the Mediaeval times.


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## Jimlock (Jun 22, 2011)

Some information on Guilds.


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## Jimlock (Jun 22, 2011)

Notre Dame de Paris

_The first period of construction from 1163 into the 1240's coincided with the musical experiments of the Notre Dame school._

_The cathedral was essentially complete by 1345._







The Middle Ages (adjectival form: medieval or mediæval) is a historical period following the Iron Age, fully underway by the 5th century and lasting to the 15th century



....


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## kitcik (Jun 22, 2011)

S'mon said:


> You have convinced me that a senior cook should get 2-3sp/day.    The scullions get 1sp.
> 
> Re the clerk - obviously it's because literate NPCs are rare, so writing ability is a valuable skill.  I probably would have the stableboy earn 1sp/day, he gets a lot more free time than the labourer, it evens out.  A skilled animal  handler gets more.




I am going to roll up a senior cook for [MENTION=85158]Dandu[/MENTION] 's Peasants and Plagues campaign.


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## kitcik (Jun 22, 2011)

kitcik said:


> The truth is that the economy in D&D, if you put real thought into it, simply doesn't work. This means the DM has to house-rule any time something will have true economic impact that could cause the PCs to be out of whack on a wealth-to-level ratio basis. Not to say that the DM has to follow the wealth by level guidelines in the DMG, but whatever they are setting the CR in relation to, they have to monitor anything that impacts the economy that would throw that off.




Sorry to quote myself (yes, the ultimate forum faux pas), but after 4 pages of discussion it all comes back to this.


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## Jimlock (Jun 22, 2011)

[MENTION=47]Cyberzombie[/MENTION]

The debate is not on how D&D is different from the Middle Ages. As you said, in the Middle Ages there was no magic, wizards, real gods etc... we all agree to that...

The Debate is on which period of actual History is D&D based on. This does not mean that D&D is IDENTICAL to the historical period it is based on.

I'm only saying that in respect to an actual historical period, D&D is BASED on the Middle Ages, I'm not saying D&D IS the Middle Ages...

Renaissance and other periods are obviously meddled into that melting pot as well, but they are not the MAJOR historical influence... Middle Ages IS that MAJOR historical influence..


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## Dandu (Jun 22, 2011)

> The debate is not on how D&D is different from the Middle Ages. As  you said, in the Middle Ages there was no magic, wizards, real gods  etc... we all agree to that...



Well, not _all _of us...


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## kitcik (Jun 22, 2011)

Jimlock said:


> [MENTION=47]Cyberzombie[/MENTION]
> 
> The debate is not on how D&D is different from the Middle Ages. As you said, in the Middle Ages there was no magic, wizards, real gods etc... we all agree to that...
> 
> ...




Although I actually agree with you, see this (posts 86 & 87).


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## Jimlock (Jun 22, 2011)

Dandu said:


> Well, not _all _of us...




I assume you are are referring to the:

_The debate is not on how D&D is different from the Middle Ages. As you said, in the Middle Ages there was no magic, wizards, *real gods* etc... we all agree to that...
_

Sorry for that folks, I'm an atheist and i got carried away!


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## Dandu (Jun 22, 2011)

-THIS POST HAS BEEN REDACTED ON CHARGES OF HERESY 
BY ORDER OF THE SPANISH INQUISITION-





-MOVE ALONG FOLKS, NOTHING TO SEE HERE-​


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## Dandu (Jun 22, 2011)

And the part about magic, considering how many Wiccans there seem to be.

Or at least, people who claim to be Wiccans.


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## kitcik (Jun 22, 2011)

Jimlock said:


> Sorry for that folks, I'm an atheist and i got carried away!




A-THE-IST (noun): Someone who does not believe in gawd... yet.


No offense taken.


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## Jimlock (Jun 22, 2011)

kitcik said:


> Although I actually agree with you, see this (posts 86 & 87).




WOW!!!... I  had no idea he actually posted on EN World!!!!!

...as far as the two posts you mentioned, I don't disagree with anything he says, nor does his response conflict with what I say above...


...I don't know I just get the feeling that a lot of people think that the Middle Ages were all about savages dressed in fur and chasing after animals with clubs...


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## kitcik (Jun 22, 2011)

Dandu said:


> And the part about magic, considering how many Wiccans there seem to be.
> 
> Or at least, people who claim to be Wiccans.




A lot of people are down on Wiccans... until their sheep get eaten by a dragon. 

Then, all of a sudden, it's all "Where's the Wiccan? How come you can't find one when you need one?"


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## Dandu (Jun 22, 2011)

kitcik said:


> I am going to roll up a senior cook for  @Dandu  's Peasants and Plagues campaign.



I hope you're prepared to *work* for your precious literacy and roleplay it out properly. I want to know how you plan on finding a teacher and what your learning schedule is so that you are able to master the demanding task of writing and keep up cooking at the same time - and you better not throw any of that multiclassing nonsense at me, you hear?



> A lot of people are down on Wiccans... until their sheep get eaten by a dragon.
> 
> Then, all of a sudden, it's all "Where's the Wiccan? How come you can't find one when you need one?"



I personally find .50 caliber rifles to be more pleasant company, and of greater overall utility.


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## Jimlock (Jun 22, 2011)

Dandu said:


> And the part about magic, considering how many Wiccans there seem to be.
> 
> Or at least, people who claim to be Wiccans.




lol... don't get me started on "real-life magic"...

There will be nothing but red in this thread... if I... "elaborate" on that...


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## S'mon (Jun 22, 2011)

Modern Wiccism dates from the mid-20th century, Druidism from the 19th.  The Romans wiped out Druidism in Roman Britain in the late 1st century AD, and there's no evidence for any organised paganism long postdating the pre-Saxon conversion to Christianity in Britain & Ireland (the Irish conversion being roughly coterminous with the Saxon invasion of Britain).  Of course the pagan Saxons were then converted too.  Individual non-Christian folk beliefs & practices survived, of course, such as Easter eggs and Maypole dances.  The Witchcraft hysterias seem to have mostly post-medieval (and post-Reformation), and there's no evidence there were any real witches with a non-Christian belief system, though there were certainly folk practices that met with Church disapproval and eventually persecution.

In terms of what era D&D most resembles, I'd say pre-4e D&D most resembles the first half of the 16th century, ca 1530 AD - which is technically Renaissance, but still looks a lot like what people think of when they think 'medieval' (hence Ren Faires?).  The society depicted in Machiavelli's The Prince, or even that recent Henry VIII tv show The Tudors.  4th edition's Points of Light paradigm feels more Dark Ages, technically with Plate armour, but given that the 'plate' there is barely better than scalemail it has no impact on the setting.  It could just as well be a bronze breastplate or even cuirboulli, like ancient Greek hoplite armour.


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## Jimlock (Jun 22, 2011)

...and because I consider it rude to answer to posts with a one liner, permit me to address your points one by one.




Cyberzombie said:


> As Eldritch Lord noted, I'm not arguing that medieval Europe is simplistic.  I'm arguing that it isn't D&D.




No one said it is. I address this in my previous post where I mention your name.



Cyberzombie said:


> You have knights, but they don't act as a vassal to a king in any of the standard settings.




Not always but there are cases they do. Take a look at the Purple Dragon "Knights" who serve under Azoun in Cormyr.

Whether they literary serve a king or not does not make them less medieval-ish.

What about the Knights of Solamnia in Dragonlance? Are they less medieval-ish?

They act as vassals of "the Oath and the Measure"

Even the real knights of medieval Europe were "supposed" to serve goodness and high ideals... their king was "supposed" to uphold those ideals.




Cyberzombie said:


> They don't have a fief and they don't lord over serfs.  Yes, that's not all there was to the dark ages or the later medieval era, but it's not in the basic settings in any real way.
> 
> Not in the basic settings and not in any campaign I've ever played in!




I suggest you read the 3.x Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, from page 80 to 83...because thats EXACTLY how things work in the Realms. Feudalism... the high clergy has political power... 90% are peasants/farmers striving to survive while working the lands belonging to the nobility, just read it.

The same thing holds true in DragonLance, and I know that for I have DMed 2nd edition DragonLance for a few years... Can't give you the references for I only have the books in hard copy and not with me. Still I can tell you for a fact that there were statuses included for every PC/NPC... from slaves and commoners (farmers) to noblemen and royal rulers... land ownership playing the exact same role.
Also, Dragonlance includes another Medieval-ish cliche, for the main campaign based on the starting trilogy begins with no deities, for the Gods have turned their back to the world... The people have sinned, they ask for forgiveness... chaos everywhere blah blah blah...
That's what happened in real life as well, for when Europe was closing to the year 1000, people were preparing for the end of the world, (Millennium was NOTHING compared to the superstitions of the time). They thought they had failed their god... chaos and violence was rampant...

Having played in Greyhawk campaigns, both 2nd and 3rd edition, I don't remember it being any different... 



Cyberzombie said:


> Greyhawk City is flat-out Renaissance




I don't know what City of GreyHawk you've played in. The one I 've played in was a rich and flavorful Medieval-ish Capital, with all the guilds and merchants, the nobles and the craftsmen... everything one could find in an actual Middle Ages Capital. Don't get this wrong again... It WAS NOT a Medieval Capital, because of magic wizards, clerics etc... still it WAS BASED on a medieval Capital more than any other Capital from a different historical period.


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## Jimlock (Jun 22, 2011)

S'mon said:


> In terms of what era D&D most resembles, I'd say pre-4e D&D most resembles the first half of the 16th century, ca 1530 AD




I love your accuracy 


Technologically, the world of the Forgotten Realms is not nearly as advanced as that of Earth; in this respect, it resembles the pre-industrial Earth of the *13th or 14th century*. However, the presence of magic provides an additional element of power to the societies


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## S'mon (Jun 22, 2011)

Jimlock said:


> I love your accuracy
> 
> 
> Technologically, the world of the Forgotten Realms is not nearly as advanced as that of Earth; in this respect, it resembles the pre-industrial Earth of the *13th or 14th century*. However, the presence of magic provides an additional element of power to the societies




Are you saying I'm wrong because a _wikipedia article_ wrongly claims that Forgotten Realms tech resembles Earth tech in the 1200s & 1300s (pre plate mail, pre much of the typical D&D equipment list)?


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## Jimlock (Jun 22, 2011)

S'mon said:


> Are you saying I'm wrong because a _wikipedia article_ wrongly claims that Forgotten Realms tech resembles Earth tech in the 1200s & 1300s




It so happens that I agree with that article and I posted it so as to say that I'm far from being the only one who believes that D&D, historically, is based in the Middle Ages and not the Renaissance. Is that so bad?



S'mon said:


> (pre plate mail, pre much of the typical D&D equipment list)?




As for that, I believe I've covered it all in my previous posts...


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## S'mon (Jun 22, 2011)

Jimlock said:


> It so happens that I agree with that article and I posted it so as to say that I'm far from being the only one who believes that D&D, historically, is based in the Middle Ages and not the Renaissance. Is that so bad?




Well you could have written that Wikipedia article section yourself.  Anyone could have.  I don't see how it has any evidentiary value.

My suspicion is that when you think 'medieval' you (and the wikipedia entrist) are thinking D&D-medieval, not actual historical pre-Black Death high feudal medieval.  And D&D-medieval is actually more like the early 16th, arguably late 15th century.  This period is normally called "Renaissance" - because of what happened culturally in northern Italy after the fall of Constantinople in 1453.  *But* at least in backward parts of Europe such as England, it didn't actually feel much different from the bastard-medieval or pseudo-medieval period that followed the Black Death.  England in 1485 AD still very much 'felt medieval' - more medieval than D&D.


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## Dandu (Jun 22, 2011)

> Well you could have written that Wikipedia article section yourself.   Anyone could have.  I don't see how it has any evidentiary value.



Next you'll be telling me that the population of elephants has not tripled in the last month.


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## kitcik (Jun 22, 2011)

Are you saying that just because someone posted a feat on Wikipedia, this does not make it official, balanced material?


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## Eldritch_Lord (Jun 22, 2011)

S'mon said:


> Every PC class.  You seem to have a lot of trouble distinguishing between PC-stuff and NPC-stuff.




There _is_ no difference between PC-stuff and NPC-stuff except for the existence of NPC classes, and nothing prevents a PC from taking NPC stuff or vice versa.  PCs aren't Super Special Snowflakes that are completely unique in the world.  Yes, the DM can (and apparently, in your case, usually does) hand-wave NPC stuff, but they gain the same levels, use the same rules, and have the same abilities as PCs do.  It may be too much trouble to get nitpicky with the numbers in many cases, but the rules are there.




Jimlock said:


> Oh, it's for "plot hook purpose" and not based on Medieval times, got it.




My point was that you have the paladin class, CoDzillas, and other characters resembling templars/inquisitors serving churches that really don't fit--Ehlonna doesn't really strike me as the type to command her followers to go out and stamp out evil, yet you can have a "Purge the undead!" paladin worshiper of Ehlonna, and most PC clerics of Ehlonna are going to be doing the same thing--but the rest of the trappings of the Templars aren't really there.



> No, you must be joking. Does "crusades" ring a bell?




The Church of St. Cuthbert could easily order a crusade against evil, and that church somewhat resembles the Catholic Church...as could Kord's church, which doesn't resemble the Catholic Church at all.  For that matter, you could have a bunch of LG wizards and rogue launch a crusade into the Abyss.  Crusades don't make you like the Catholic Church, the sociopolitical structure and temporal power surrounding you do.



> Priest and wizards are the most powerful figures in all settings. Both "Medieval-Dark Ages/fantasy" archetypes, no question about it. Behind almost every single official campaign there is some wizard or priest with great power, political or otherwise, capable of leading vast armies into war, at the demand of a greater deity.
> One example: Verminaard, Dragonlance's big villain is a high priest of Takhisis. You will find such examples in every setting, and in every setting's background.




No more power _by virtue of being a priest_, I said.  Yes, there are several churches who do have plenty of temporal power, and thus their priests have some as well--but powerful wizards, druids, rogues, fighters, etc. can have the same power.  A medieval layperson could never have the kind of power a priest or bishop did, who had the full power of the government and the Church behind him and whom the local people trusted implicitly in spiritual matters, but it's perfectly possible for a Pelorite to live under a Kordite with plenty of political power and for the Pelorite to view him as no authority on the divine while acknowledging his political power.



> That's what the real crusaders were given to believe as well, they were out to destroy others because they were led to believe that their god was the right one. That's how you can play D&D as well. People fighting the wars are pawns, just like in real life. I don't play D&D so Black & White, nor is there written anywhere in the books that I should play like that. You are free to play D&D as you please. You can play LOTRs or you can play Game of Thrones. It's up to every individual group. Nothing is necessarily better than the other. If you wan't to play D&D like that, you are free to do so by all means, but please do not say that "your" way, is the "right" D&D way.




I don't see how I'm claiming to play the "right" way at all.  The real-world Crusades were part religious mission, part military campaign, part political strategy, and part land-grab on the part of knights.  Islam was no more evil than Catholicism was, and no more wrong or right, so anything painting the other as "the bad guys" was necessarily propaganda.  In D&D, if you call a "crusade" on evil, you can 'port right into the Abyss, the demons pin on your evil-dar, and you can hack away with the assurance that the creatures you're killing are, in fact, evil.  There are many things in D&D that are very vague and gray, morally speaking, but "LG paladin goes and smites demons" isn't really one of them.



> Are you also suggesting that only the Paladin derives from the Middle Ages?




Do note that I said the medieval Catholic Church specifically.  Druids and rogues were not exactly part of the Church.



> Let's take one class at a time and see whether they derive from the Middle Ages, the Romans or the the Renaissance.. shall we?




Let's.



> 1-Barbarian. I believe the word "CONAN" is a sufficient.




Considering that (A) Cimmeria was more Bronze Age than Medieval and (B) Conan is best represented in D&D by a fighter/rogue, I would disagree.  If you had used Vikings, that would have worked better, but they were pre-medieval.



> 2-Bard. Wikipedia: In *medieval* Gaelic and British culture (Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Isle of Man, Brittany and Cornwall) a bard was a professional poet, employed by a patron, such as a monarch or nobleman, to commemorate the patron's ancestors and to praise the patron's own activities.




Shakespeare was also called a bard; does that make the bard English?

You're right that the 1e bard was very much based off Celtic culture; they were fighter/thief/druids, had more of a focus on poetry and arts, belonged to colleges with Gaelic names and so forth.  However, by 2e and later into 3e, that flavor fell away to some degree--as per to Wikipedia, "According to the second edition Player's Handbook, the bard class is a more generalized character than the more precise historical term, which applied only to certain groups of Celtic poets who sang the history of their tribes in long, recitative poems.[3] The book cites historical and legendary examples of bards such as Alan-a-Dale, Will Scarlet, Amergin, and even Homer, noting that every culture has its storyteller or poet, whether such as person is called bard, skald, fili, jongleur, or another name.[3]"

The current and 2e bards aren't really Celtic at all, but rather a jack-of-all-trades class with a much greater focus on deception and magic tricks than storytelling and poetry.  That sort of bard is much closer to the illusionist of 1e than any real storyteller.



> 3-Cleric. What do you need to be convinced that the D&D cleric is mainly based on the Medieval Catholic Clerics and Priests? With their armors and maces i don't see much of a difference from the "templar-esque paladin"...




Again, the 1e cleric was very much based on the Catholic priest--one picture even had him in the Roman collar!  And of course most low-level cleric spells are based on the myths of Jesus's miracles.  However, again the cleric has changed over the years; the 2e cleric was but a subset of priest rather than a super-class on its own, meaning that the cleric was bumped down from a full class to just a subclass equal to the druid.  The 3e cleric can wield bladed weapons, cast what would be considered very non-cleric-y spells in prior editions, and otherwise break the mold of the Catholic templar.




> 6-Monk... I don't really care about that one... Still, it must be said that there is nothing Roma-esque or Renaissance-esque about it...




I never claimed that D&D was based on the Renaissance, and I never mentioned the Romans at all.  I said the technology level and society were closer to the Renaissance than medieval times, so saying "Look!  It's not Renaissance!" doesn't prove anything.



> 8-RAnger. This one screams "Aragorn"... Perhaps you are willing to argue that Middle Earth is not a Medieval based setting?




It's definitely much closer than D&D is. 



> 9-Rogue. The Rogue can be seen as pretty generic too... Still as far as D&D is concerned, just check the art, and tell me if that isn't Medieval.
> Robin Hood is written all over the place...(ok Robin is both a Ranger and a Rogue...)




Robin Hood, the dashing scoundrel who's deadly with a bow, is represented by the dirty fighter who sucks with a bow after 30 feet?  No, my friend, the rogue started out as a _thief_, and is essentially based on Bilbo the Burglar and the Gray Mouser.



> 10-Sorcerers & Wizards. I won't tire you. Gandalf and Merlin should be enough.




Gandalf and Merlin resemble wizards in name only; they have the Knowledge skills and the cantrips, but both could be better represented by bards--and let me remind you that one was a constrained archon and the other was a tiefling. 



> Again, i think it's you that must be joking.
> Just check what Gygax and Greenwood have said about their worlds. (It's funny how Elminster looks just like Gandalf isn't it?)




Someone already posted Gygax's quote about how D&D would require some work to run in a medieval world.  And Elminster looking like Gandalf doesn't mean that they or their worlds are similar in any way; you could just as easily compare him to Santa Claus, with the white beard, the funny way of speaking, the ability to teleport and read kids' minds, and the extradimensional storage.



> I do not understand how you relate Magic to Renaissance and not the Medieval Ages. If in your games magic is a substitute for technology, that is your game, and not D&D. Magic, superstition and mysticism is more of a trait of the middle ages ...not the Renaissance. Renaissance signals the birth of rationalism. Superstitions die and man now believes he can do "everything on his own". Since the Renaissance, god has already begun to lose ground.
> "Burn the which!" was a phrase mainly used in the Medieval Ages... not the Renaissance.




1) D&D magic isn't real-world magic.  Magic in D&D is a repeatable, testable, natural phenomenon--in a word, science.  No one goes around burning witches in D&D because (A) frankly, pissing off a D&D wizard powerful enough to become noticed as an "evil witch" is suicide and (B) their magic is as beneficial as it can be harmful.

2) I don't use magic-as-technology, but have you _looked_ at what low-level spellcasters can do for a town?  Many cantrips and orisons resemble technological advances in that they solve medieval problems the way technology did.  Disease kills your population thanks to poor living conditions? _Prestidigitation_ + _cure disease_.  Famine kills your crops?  _Plant growth_ + _create water_.  And so forth--and remember, every little town has 3+ caster in it, which is enough to minister to the whole town.



> Plate armor?




As noted in the second paragraph of the article, the sort of plate armor pictured in D&D is the Renaissance-era helmed Gothic armor rather than the earlier styles.



> Polearms? Obviously they were mainly used in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance, still i should remind you that the MAJORITY of weapons in D&D derive from the Middle Ages




1) I'll give you this one; I was thinking specifically of the halberd and guisarme, which didn't come into popular use until the very tail end of the Middle Ages.

2) Rapier?  Scimitar?  Yes, the majority come from the medieval period, but there are plenty of weapons that were developed later or even outside of Europe.  And, surprise surprise, the Renaissance period saw the use of these new weapons as well as the older ones.



> _Flying cities?_
> 
> Right... I forgot how they appeared during the Renaissance for the first time...
> 
> ...




*sigh*

Once again, I haven't been saying D&D resembles the real world, I've been saying that, if it resembles anything in the real world, it's closer to Renaissance-level technology and social norms.  Flying cities are very much a non-medieval construct.

And the Catholic Church wasn't a mageocracy (or, more properly, a theocracy), seeing as their priests couldn't do anything useful for their populace the way D&D priests can.



> Eldritch_Lord, I suggest you think twice before using phrases like:
> 
> with people you don't know, or have not talked to in the past.
> 
> ...




As I noted above in the section on class origins, 1e was definitely more grounded in medieval Europe.  D&D has come a long way since then, and hasn't been "Medieval Europe + MAGIC!" since midway through 2e.  In fact, one could draw interesting parallels between the 2e/3e transition and all of its caster-favoring changes and the Industrial Revolution.


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## S'mon (Jun 22, 2011)

Eldritch_Lord said:


> There _is_ no difference between PC-stuff and NPC-stuff except for the existence of NPC classes, and nothing prevents a PC from taking NPC stuff or vice versa.  PCs aren't Super Special Snowflakes that are completely unique in the world.  Yes, the DM can (and apparently, in your case, usually does) hand-wave NPC stuff, but they gain the same levels, use the same rules, and have the same abilities as PCs do.  It may be too much trouble to get nitpicky with the numbers in many cases, but the rules are there.




Please give me the reference in the 3e or 3.5e DMG where it says that the *NPC Classes * are Literate.


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## Jimlock (Jun 22, 2011)

S'mon said:


> Well you could have written that Wikipedia article section yourself.  Anyone could have.  I don't see how it has any evidentiary value.




I think i explained myself in my previous post? ...now are you saying that your word has more value ...for some reason?

I suggest you check on Gygax's influences... it's always medieval this ...medieval that.



S'mon said:


> My suspicion is that when you think 'medieval' you (and the wikipedia entrist) are thinking D&D-medieval, not actual historical pre-Black Death high feudal medieval.




?

No, when I am thinking medieval, I'm thinking everything from the 5th century to 15th.

"_actual historical pre-Black Death high feudal medieval"_ as you say it, is actually the High Middle Ages and before that is the Early Middle Ages. From 1300 to 1500 its called the Late Middle Ages

All of the above is called the Middle Ages.

Now, my suspicion is that people who claim that D&D belongs to Renaissance are actually confused... but let me explain.

As I said many times above/before, D&D, although historically based in the Middle Ages Europe, it also incorporates some other stuff from various cultures and from various Historical Periods; be that before or after the Middle Ages. There are Egyptian and Greek mythological beasts that date back to 4000 BC, as there are some weapons and some few technologically advanced gadgets that were actually used/innovated after the 15th century. Since D&D does not copy an exact historical period, I don't think it's logical to define the Historical Period D&D is based on, by the most advanced of weapons/gadgets/items in the game. The striking majority of classes, weapons, armor, clothing and gadgets, etc are based on the Middle Ages and that is undeniable. 
When polearms and rapiers made their appearance, some of the heavy/old swords and armor were already extinct... but they were not removed from the game!
 Just because there are gnomes who build machines, does not mean D&D resembles the industrial Age! 

NONE of the "advanced" gadgets alter the chronology of D&D, as none of the "Ancient" stuff alter the chronology of D&D, 

they are just there mixed with all that makes, or not, cense.

What one has to see so as to make up his mind, is that  the crushing majority of actual historic stuff/influences in D&D, derive from the Middle Ages. 

Even Tolkien, who is the undeniable "non-actual-historic" MAJOR influence on D&D, ...has created a *Medieval*-ish fantasy world, upon which D&D is MAINLY based on.



S'mon said:


> And D&D-medieval is actually more like the early 16th, arguably late 15th century.  This period is normally called "Renaissance" - because of what happened culturally in northern Italy after the fall of Constantinople in 1453.




Am I to take your word for it? I don't see any arguments here...



S'mon said:


> it didn't actually feel much different from the bastard-medieval or pseudo-medieval period that followed the Black Death.




There is nothing bastard or pseudo about. The Black Death (1350) does not signal the end of the Middle ages. As you mentioned it yourself, the fall of Constantinople does (1453). Some even argue that the Middle ages come at a close in 1492, with the discovery of America by Columbus.

Whatever the case, after the Black Death and until the mid-late 15th century, this period is still part of the Middle Ages


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## Jimlock (Jun 22, 2011)

[MENTION=52073]Eldritch_Lord[/MENTION], I don't see *ANY ARGUMENT WHATSOEVER* in your last post to support how D&D is based more on Renaissance than the Middle Ages...


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## Jimlock (Jun 22, 2011)

In fact, I've made quite a few points which you are "evading" one way or the other... and you are only answering "some" of my phrases with what I see as irrelevant and unsupported.

Honestly, I can't see how we can keep up the debate/discussion here...


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## Plane Sailing (Jun 22, 2011)

Just a quick note to remind everyone that we want to keep discussing things nicely. Line by line rebuttles sometimes end up in angry retorts, and nobody wants to go there.

Also, while it makes sense to discuss some aspects of historical religions in the light of the overall thrust of the discussion, please everyone avoid talking about contemporary religions or making value judgements as much as possible.

Thanks.


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## Greenfield (Jun 22, 2011)

As a note, though I'm not an historian, I do know that most others aren't either.  I've seen people at Renaissance Faire dressed as anything from Robin Hood to Xena, with Crusaders and King Arthur and a lot of plate and chain maiile tossed in to fill the gaps.

Robin Hood was definitely "early middle ages", having ostensibly fought the "Evil Prince John", who in real life eventually became the highly unpopular King John I.  That places ol' Robin Hood in the late 1100s to early 1200s.

Xena, who is just as real as Robin Hood, seems to date from somewhere pre-Christian.  (In the series, at least, she faced Julius Ceasar, who died 44 BCE.)

King Arthur is another mythical figure who, if he existed, was probably a Roman, which places him 4th or 5th century at the latest.

During the English Renaissance (mid 1500s to early 1600s), plate and chain armor were showpieces, seldom used in actual combat, being instead reserved for tournaments.  Essentially, sporting events.

As for institutions like serfdom?  The Czar of Russia officially freed the serfs in 1860, or 1861 (I forget which).  So that aspect of the "medieval" period carried well into and beyond the Renaissance and into the age of the Industrial Revolution.

The Renaissance hit different countries at different times.  The Italian Renaissance took off in the early 1400s, while the English Renaissance ran a century and a half late. 

So lets ask:  Does your game world have the printing press?  Is gunpowder making armor obsolete?  Are there land owners without titles?  Are the average people held in serfdom?  

Most game worlds I've seen are set in what's best described as "The Time of Legends", which corresponds socially and technologically with the early, mid, late Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and a number of 1950s Errol Flynn movies.


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## kitcik (Jun 23, 2011)

D&D was based on Gygax's version of the Medieval Period + fantasy additions. Whether his version of the Medieval Period is historically accurate is another question. However, undoubtedly, D&D was based on the Medieval Period.

See this and this.


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## S'mon (Jun 23, 2011)

Greenfield said:


> Xena, who is just as real as Robin Hood, seems to date from somewhere pre-Christian.  (In the series, at least, she faced Julius Ceasar, who died 44 BCE.)




In an early episode she was at the Siege of Troy - 1500 BC?  She also fought the Persian army after they had defeated(!) the Athenians at Marathon (490 BC), and as well as Caesar she fought against the Roman occupation of Britain (1st century AD+), and AIR had dealings with Arthurian knights... I expect there's a lot more too.


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## Greenfield (Jun 23, 2011)

That kind of illustrates my point.  

I've had players try to join 1st Ed games carrying M16s.  They claimed their characters had "traveled to the future" and gotten the high tech stuff.  When I asked them what time period in real world history had dragons, elves, dwarves and magic, they couldn't answer, naturally.

The games are set in the time of legends, a fantasy blend made up of two parts medieval, one part renaissance, two parts Tolkien and one part Disney.


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