Cost of living/downtime

[Greg Smith]

The base RQ2 book give a cost of daily food and lodging for travellers in the equipment section.

But in the downtime section it gives a percentage cost based on how extravagantly the character lives. Yet this percentage is based on wages which can vary quite considerably.

Is there a more detailed system for downtime/income/cost of living anywhere?

 

[soltakss]

I think there were some quick rules on that kind of thing in the MRQI supplements. I don't have them with me at the moment, though. Maybe they were in the GM's Guide or possible in Guilds of Empires. We just subtract a set amount per week depending on how well the PCs want to live. However, most PCs live as frugal puritans so as to save money for useful things.

 

[alex_greene]

This might sound weird, but ... this all sounds more like something that would bother a Traveller grognard. Legend is a fantasy, and an epic one at that.

Did Tolkien actually have to work out Aragorn's personal accounts, penny by penny, to determine exactly how many groats were in his purse when he met the hobbits as "Strider" at the Prancing Pony?

Assume that the characters make off with enough cash to live comfortably during downtime at the end of your adventure, or assume that they can't quite make ends meet so they have to work as artisans, bodyguards or whatever, or go back to their mentor's laboratory to continue their magical studies between adventures. The details don't matter, in that case. Only what they are doing when the next call to adventure comes along.

 

[Da Boss]

Well to be fair to Greg - we just wanted some vague guidelines rather than specific details of how much we spend on lunch etc.

To put you in the picture - we had just completed part 1 of the Clockwork and Chivalry campaign and to quote an excellent film - " We were fantastic and it was bloody good laugh"

Consequently we (mostly my noble born cavilier - although presently without the lands etc - and his former highwayman friend ) wanted to spend the next few weeks celebrating in true Royalist fashion - drinking, wenching and yes more drinking as well as impressing people at Prince Ruperts court and getting a big painting done of the three of us. Huzah!

Now for instance in the B5 rpg we had got some rough costs for cheap, good, extravegant weekely/ monthly living to give us guidlines - all very simple but the RQ seems to be based on a percentage of your income....so when we living well beyond our normal means (in the same places, having the same indulgences) it was costing widely different amounts which was very odd - hence Gregs question. He did of course make a agreeable figure off the cuff, but like the question about commisioning a painter took a bit of thinking about

 

[Greg Smith]

I wasn't neccesarily thinking of using them in our campaign. I was just wondering if there were better ones than presented in the rulebook.

 

[Simulacrum]

I wasn't neccesarily thinking of using them in our campaign. I was just wondering if there were better ones than presented in the rulebook.
I wasn't neccesarily thinking of using them in our campaign. I was just wondering if there were better ones than presented in the rulebook.

Since Age of Treason incorporates a Social Status (SOC) characteristic, I have compiled a cost of living by SOC score for the companion book I am drafting right now - it's part of a larger article to do with economics and prices in the setting. By using the SOC score you can identify what it costs to pretend to a status as well as simply live it.

One difficult part was relating the whole cost of goods and cost of living (researched by compiling available ancient world price and wage data and calibrating to the price of corn and the price of silver) to what is in the rule book and in Arms and Equipment. It's important to make sure that a player or GM can refer to the core materials where there's a gap in the lists presented as a guide, and so to point out where the main points of departure are.

The most striking anomaly I found in A&E II was the "cost per use" (I kid you not) or daily wage of a prostitute, at 25SP. Which would make being a hooker akin to being a banker. Oh...hold on....

 

[alex_greene]

My local museum has a basic cost chart explaining how much one standard groat could buy. I'll get the details and bring them here, but it was something along the lines of one groat being able to pay for one maidservant for an entire year, or a stonemason for two weeks.

And one groat is something like two pennies, or 1/120th of a sovereign.

 

[Greg Smith]

My local museum has a basic cost chart explaining how much one standard groat could buy. I'll get the details and bring them here, but it was something along the lines of one groat being able to pay for one maidservant for an entire year, or a stonemason for two weeks.

And one groat is something like two pennies, or 1/120th of a sovereign.

That sounds interesting.

 

[Richard]

Historical sources or those from systems with more carefully worked out backgrounds will help. (Ars Magica and Harn books/websites can be handy in this regard). The economics of the system is a complete mess, almost D&D in its casual awfulness (Check out how much characters pay for training and compare that with wages and living expenses!). I understand that some people might not give a monkeys but I don't see what would have been wrong with just doing the thing right to start with. The old RQ3 from Avalon Hill/Games Workshop had a useful income comparison for different social levels. There was also the RQ Cities book which allowed you to randomly roll weekly events as back ground although unfortunately a few of these could be somewhat lifechanging and not really the kind of thing you want to be happening off camera. You could abstract the whole process very quickly to two improvement rolls per month of downtime or 1 if the character is working and rough out the expenses to a handful of pennies a day if training and earning something similar if working (Or whatever rate suits your campaign).

 

[alex_greene]

Okay, here we go - the old system of LSD (Librae Solidii Denarii):-

One groat is worth 4d (four pennies). Half a groat, two pennies (tuppence), can get you one item from the following menu of items:-

- Eight loaves of bread;

- Two gallons of ale;

- One living chicken, with two dozen eggs;

- four pounds of cheese;

- eight salted herrings;

- two fat cockerels, cooked and ready to eat.

A shilling == 12d, or three groats. Twenty shillings (240d) was a sovereign (£1); 21 shillings (252d) was a guinea, a measure of currency still in use nowadays in connection with livestock and horse racing.

Just twelve shillings, the sum of money dug up from the Burton Hoard, was a fortune in mediaeval times, enough to buy the services of (choose one):-

- A Master Mason for a fortnight;

- A weaver for four weeks;

- A carpenter for five weeks;

- An unskilled labourer for two whole months;

- and a maidservant ... for a whole year.

They'd never heard of inflation back then, so the buying power of your average penny stayed that strong for centuries.

 

[jarulf]

Wouldn't some of these professions, such as the maid servant, also get room and board?

 

[Greg Smith]

Okay, here we go -

Excellent. Thank you.

 

[alex_greene]

Wouldn't some of these professions, such as the maid servant, also get room and board?

The maidservant, yes - usually in the servants' area. The tradesmen would, presumably, work out of their own premises - where they'd be surrounded by the raw materials and tools of their trade, along with completed items for pickup and for general sale, unfinished works in progress in various stages of completion and raw material stockpiles round the back.

In Legend, magicians would also work with their raw materials - libraries of books filled with the lore that is their trade. Doubtless, many would have laboratories for alchemy as well as an apothecary and perfumier's premises.

 

[alex_greene]

Okay, here we go -

Excellent. Thank you.

You can thank the local Museum and Archive Service for the information.