06-28-2010, 08:35 AM | #1 |
Aluminated
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: East of the moon, west of the stars, close to buses and shopping
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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% 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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06-28-2010, 09:05 AM | #2 |
Join Date: May 2007
Location: Twin Cities, Minnesota, U.S.A.
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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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I have Confused and Clueless. Sometimes I miss sarcasm and humor, or critically fail my Savoir-Faire roll. None of it is intentional. Published GURPS Settings (as of 4/2013 -- I hope to update it someday...) |
06-28-2010, 09:48 AM | #3 |
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Austin, TX
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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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cities, fantasy |
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