When Arneson set up his economy for Blackmoor, he had plenty of experience to draw on from his Napoleonics campaign. He choose however to use gold as the standard currency, not the pounds Sterling he used for Napoleonics. In many ways his economy was a blank slate and so he picked nice round figures to work with. For example,a village of 3000 "men" produced an even 3000 GP in taxes. Arneson set up his prices for things and wages paid, accordingly, no doubt as he thought best. However, when it came to the costs of hiring troops to build armies, he cheated a bit and simply borrowed the point costs of CHAINMAIL for the cost of his troops and some equipment.
Sure, it was an entirely practical thing for Arneson to borrow from CHAINMAIL and works well enough for setting up a few wargames, but somehow the problem was made even worse when Gygax reworked Arneson's figures for the first print of D&D as shown in the table below:
Game Element
|
CM Cost (points)
|
Blackmoor Cost (Gold)
|
OD&D
|
Light Foot
|
1
|
10
|
2
|
Heavy Foot
|
2
|
25
|
3
|
Armored Foot
|
2.5
|
32
|
5
|
Light Horse
|
3
|
25
|
10
|
Medium Horse
|
4
|
40
|
15
|
Heavy Horse
|
5
|
55
|
20
|
Pike
|
1
|
10
|
|
Arquibus/Crossbow
|
1.5
|
15
|
4
|
Bow
|
3
|
25
|
5
|
Long/Composite bow
|
4
|
40
|
10
|
Lt. Catapult/Cannon
|
15
|
150
|
|
Hv Catapult/Cannon
|
20
|
200
|
|
Bombard
|
30
|
300
|
Now granted, there's something of an apples to oranges comparison going on here because in CHAINMAIL, the cost is per "figure" which represents a one time purchase of 10 or 40 actual soldiers. Furthermore, the OD&D costs are not a "purchase" cost but rather a monthly fee for an individual soldier - more of a support and upkeep cost per man than per figure. Nevertheless these lists are clearly related Although the Blackmoor list represented a one time purchase cost that appears to be prices for individual soldiers, Gygax may well have thought they were for figures of 10 men, or perhaps that it was a recurring cost, judging from the difference between the OD&D and Blackmoor lists.
In any case, the OD&D prices have always been problematical. Simply put, they don't make any sense in terms of the rest of the economy.
Perhaps the most obvious problem is that players could field unrealistically massive armies quite cheaply, when, for example, it costs less to buy a soldier for a month of service than is does to buy a pack of rations for a week. Even assuming the original Blackmoor price costs or a 100 gp hireling fee or some other up front expense, the montthly OD&D fee remains woefully inadequate.
The way to fix the problem is of course to increase the hiring cost of soldiers and the frequency of the upkeep fee. The question then becomes a matter of how much.
The solution chosen by some is to attempt to base both initial cost and monthly support and upkeep on medieval data. Such data however is far from straightforward, and liable to give a wide range of costs.
I propose a more Twin Cities solution. In the 3rd Anniversary issue of CotT, Arneson gives a "recap of the Napoleonic Campaign rules Jan 15 1971" that begins with a price list. The prices given in the list are all in Pounds Sterling. However, those of you with long memories might remember the post I wrote HERE comparing the cost of building a mid 18th century stone fortress in the "wilderness" of North America with the costs and artisan wages of building the same wilderness fortress according the tables in OD&D. You may also remember that doing so gave us a conversion rate of 8.3 Gold Pieces per Pound Sterling. Now granted, there would likely be a bit of inflation between 1760 and 1800, but as the values are fairly general to begin with, I don/t think it's worth quibbling over a few percent difference, so I'll assume a pound is a pound.
It's possible then to look to Arneson's napoleonic troop costs and convert them to gold pieces, as shown in the table below:
Arneson's List
|
MMSA
Napoleonic
Pounds
Sterling
|
MMSA
converted to gp (8.3)
|
Light
Foot
|
5
|
42
|
Heavy
Foot
|
5
|
42
|
Armored
Foot
|
5
|
42
|
Light
Horse
|
13
|
108
|
Medium
Horse
|
15
|
125
|
Heavy
Horse
|
21
|
175
|
War
horse
|
15
|
125
|
Draft
Horse
|
15
|
125
|
Arquibus/Crossbow
|
1
|
8
|
Lt.
Catapult/Cannon
|
97
(6pdr)
|
805
|
Hv
Catapult/Cannon
|
190
(12pdr)
|
1577
|
Bombard
|
380
(42pdr)
|
3154
|
Randy Hoffa's list
|
Florins
|
Pounds (.025)
|
In GP (8.3)
|
Horse equip (tack & saddle
|
178
|
4.45
|
37
|
wagon (2 horse)
|
1600
|
40
|
332
|
Harness
|
76
|
1.9
|
16
|
Alright, for our purposes it's simplest just to assume a base 5% Support cost for everybody. That would mean our cavalry, sailors, and specialty troops would have a support cost of 10%, per the doubling rule mentioned above. Further, any troops being deployed, as they most likely would be in a D&D game, have these rates tippled. So infantry and so forth would have a yearly support cost of 5% when garrisoned, and 15% in the field; likewise cavalry support costs 10% in garrison and 30% in the field.
That's not the end of it though. In addition to the support cost, there is also a yearly Upkeep and Replacement cost of 5% to cover worn out equipment and worn out men. We can add that to our costs above. Working all this out and using the figures from the tables above we get the following table:
Game
Element & Percent
|
Purchase
cost in GP)
|
Yearly
Support & Upkeep
Garrisoned/deployed
|
Light
Foot 10/20
|
42
|
4.2/8.4
|
Heavy
Foot 10/20
|
42
|
4.2/8.4
|
Armored
Foot 10/20
|
42
|
4.5/9
|
Light
Horse 15/35
|
108
|
16.2/37.8
|
Medium
Horse 15/35
|
125
|
18.75/43.75
|
Heavy
Horse 15/35
|
175
|
26.25/61.25
|
War
horse
|
125
|
|
Draft
Horse
|
125
|
|
Arquibus/Crossbow
15/35
|
8
|
1.2/2.8
|
Lt.
Catapult/Cannon 15/35
|
805
|
120.75/281.75
|
Hv
Catapult/Cannon
15/35
|
1577
|
236.55/551.95
|
Bombard
15/35
|
3154
|
473.1/1103.9
|
Large
Wagon (w. 2 horses)
|
(332
Hoffa)
|
|
Tack
& Saddle
|
(37
Hoffa)
|
Let's clean this up a bit and make it a little more game friendly by rounding to nearest half:
Game
Element & Percent
|
Purchase
cost in GP)
|
Support
& Upkeep
Garrisoned
|
Support
& Upkeep
Deployed
|
Light
Foot 10/20
|
42
|
4
|
8.5
|
Heavy
Foot 10/20
|
42
|
4
|
8.5
|
Armored
Foot 10/20
|
42
|
4.5
|
9
|
Light
Horse 15/35
|
108
|
16
|
38
|
Medium
Horse 15/35
|
125
|
19
|
44
|
Heavy
Horse 15/35
|
175
|
26
|
61
|
War
horse
|
125
|
||
Draft
Horse
|
125
|
||
Arquibus/Crossbow
15/35
|
8
|
1
|
3
|
Lt.
Catapult/Cannon 15/35
|
805
|
121
|
282
|
Hv
Catapult/Cannon
15/35
|
1577
|
236.5
|
552
|
Bombard
15/35
|
3154
|
473
|
1104
|
Large
Wagon (w. 2 horses)
|
(332
Hoffa)
|
||
Tack
& Saddle
|
(37
Hoffa)
|
So there's that. If Arneson had used his Napoleonic figures and converted from pounds to gold pieces, it should have come out about like the table above.
But hold on, those are yearly costs. And of course, if you divide these S & U costs by 12 to get a monthly figure you can see the support and upkeep is even less than that given in OD&D!
Which once again brings us back to the question of realism. In fact, the converted troop costs are much closer to historical norms than the troop costs based on CHAINMAIL points, but monthly S & U costs remain far too low, relative to the rest of the economy.
The fix is pretty simple, charge these Support and Upkeep costs monthly instead of yearly, and your D&D economy will be in balance. It will also help motivate those players to go out and get gold!
So next time your adventurers want to hire a dozen heavy footmen and a reliable warhorse and a wagon to haul their loot, ignore the D&D price lists and charge them the arm and leg they should be paying!
9 comments:
The derived figures seem to be correct relative to one another. They seem to be for one unit each. Is this true? How many individual soldiers do these numbers represent?
They're individual costs. The terms are all singular "infantryman" "saddle" "harness". In fact there is a note in parenthesis after horse: "(apiece)". The horse costs 15 pounds - same as a Hussar equipped with uniform and saddle. So, that also tells us the cost of a cavalryman included equipment but not the horse!
Thanks! Good deduction.
I really enjoy the journey that this article takes us on. It also reminds me that there must be a balance of play-ability and realism as these two theories rarely compliment one another. One can have an accurate economical system, but then the question becomes: Is this playable?
What is a living wage in D&D? Is there even such a thing in feudalism, or is this a modern philosophy to keep the game playable?
Computers have helped us all play wargames that feel more authentic by automating complex systems in the background which would had taken forever to do manually, and made the game rather dull. I wonder if it would be possible to create a program that could automate an economic system and offer guidelines so that the DM didn't have to calculate anything in realtime? Would the system still be playable?
What do you think a fantasy economic model needs? What would you want to see in it? OD&D is bizarre it isn't exactly feudal, Lords are 9th level fighters there is no king in the rules. It is hexes in the wilderness ruled by high level characters. I have a hard time imagining what that economy should even look like.
I guess that it has everything to do with your political systems, doesn't it. It is a kings duty to enforce and protect the economy. Who has to pay taxes, what do they pay, and how do they spend the money that they have left over.
All of this has to do with how you modify the rules. There is a king in my game, and there is a noble class. Adventurers must purchase their class. Where does this money come from, and who owns the dungeon? There is so much going on, I suppose that finding these answers is why we play the game, huh?
I've been working on rules for a more-feudal setting.
I don't think the economy changes too much with a king; the tax regime might punish economic growth overall, but the mechanism for government to punish a particular industry i or behavior trough the tax code just wasn't there.
Great discussion everyone. While I can't speak to computer simulation economies, much of the other topics you all touch on have been addressed in some of my older posts. Have a look at these:
http://boggswood.blogspot.com/2011/08/dragon-economics.html
http://boggswood.blogspot.com/2016/05/blackmoor-taxes-living-expenses-and.html
This last also links to some interesting related discussions. Enjoy!
D&D is the wild west meets the renaissance fair!
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