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Old 06-28-2010, 08:35 AM   #1
Turhan's Bey Company
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Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: East of the moon, west of the stars, close to buses and shopping
Default City stats and luxury spending

Something in another thread reminded me on an issue which pops up now and again, at least in traditional fantasy games: how much treasure adventurers can cash in at any given time, or the old "who's going to by a gross of +1 swords in a farming village?" question. It crossed my mind that something like the military spending rules in City Stats could be used as a guideline for how much treasure could be converted to other items. A settlement might have a "luxury budget" indicating how much people were willing to spend on gilded tomes, antique jewelry, and other non-essential goods. Population times income is a good start, but instead of an MBF based on CR, a city's "LBF" (luxury budget factor) would be based on its Wealth. Traditionally, after all, people with higher incomes spend a smaller proportion of their income on food and other essentials and a higher proportion on luxuries. So, then, the amount of treasure which can be converted to cash or other goods per month is equal to population times monthly income times an LBF from the table below:
Code:
Wealth            LBF
Dead Broke        0%
Poor              0.5%
Struggling        1%
Average           2%
Comfortable       5%
Wealthy           10%
Very Wealthy      20%
So, then, a mid-sized TL3 farming village (population 400) with Struggling wealth would be able to spend $350 * 400 * 1% = $1,400, or enough to allow adventurers to live comfortably but not extravagantly without straying too far. A typical Renaissance city (TL4, population 50,000, Average wealth) would be able to spend $800 * 50,000 * 2% = $800,000 per month, or enough to convert any reasonable amount of stuff to cash but stopping short of raising a large army.

I think that gives a tolerable ballpark, although I'm not sure that's quite right. I may have to compare luxury budgets thus calculated with things like church construction costs (a historically significant big-ticket luxury item if ever there was one) to make sure I'm not going too far under a reasonable amount.
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Old 06-28-2010, 09:05 AM   #2
Vaevictis Asmadi
 
Join Date: May 2007
Location: Twin Cities, Minnesota, U.S.A.
Default Re: City stats and luxury spending

This is a very good idea.

Your adventurers will need to compete with whatever other luxuries, such as churches, the town decides to spend their luxury budget on.
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Old 06-28-2010, 09:48 AM   #3
Buzzardo
 
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Default Re: City stats and luxury spending

An excellent thought. Hopefully, Mr. Stoddard will get the chance to put this one and other good ideas into a second edition of City Stats. In the meantime, that's an instant house rule.

Last edited by Buzzardo; 06-28-2010 at 12:52 PM. Reason: forgot some words....
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