Cost of sea passage at TL1/2

[Flying Toaster]

I'm trying to work out it should cost characters to either hire a boat to take them somewhere, or get some space on a ship that is going to their destination. The context is a game set in Heroic age Greece (mycenaean, pre-Trojan war), with a fair amount of island hopping.
I couldn't find any reliable figures anywhere, so I created some out of job wage figures.

Chartering a small vessel (something with maybe 3 crew, enough to fit a couple of passengers, sails & oars) for a 1 day trip, including food costs: $50 per person one way ($80 if the ship is returning to its point of origin without the passengers)

Booking passage on a merchant ship for a 2 day passage, assuming the ship is planning to go there anyway: $30 per person

Do these figures seem at all reasonable?

[DanHoward]

There was no currency at that time so the only way would be to offer something in barter. You'd need to find out what the ship's owner needs and get it for him. Trade in metals and other precious commodities was directly controlled by the ruler so in order to have access to those products you'd need some sort of personal relationship with the ruling family. But if you had that kind of access you could simply requisition a ship to go wherever you wanted.

[Phantasm]

I would probably go with the "will work for passage", by offering to work one of the oars in exchange for passage.

[Flying Toaster]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

There was no currency at that time so the only way would be to offer something in barter. You'd need to find out what the ship's owner needs and get it for him. Trade in metals and other precious commodities was directly controlled by the ruler so in order to have access to those products you'd need some sort of personal relationship with the ruling family. But if you had that kind of access you could simply requisition a ship to go wherever you wanted.

I'm doing a bit of handwaviness on that topic to make things a little easier. While not having money, I am still using 'goods of exchange', as from my understanding there was some level of that. An occasional side quest to find the proper barter goods could be fun, though.

[AlexanderHowl]

The Egyptian use of currency predates 3000 BC, so the Myceneans would have known and used currency because they traded with the Egyptians, though the currency was units of gold and silver rather than coins. As for the cost of sea travel, I would say that ship travel would cost twice as much as a hotel of the same Status (since a ship is a traveling hotel). Since ships were small, they required crew that were generalists, so you would probably need a couple of skills to work for your passage.

[Phantasm]

"Ship" in those days was commonly a galley. Even if he doesn't have Crewman (Oarsman) at the start of the passage, he'll likely have it by the end of the trip. If he's done this kind of travel in the past, that's good reason to put a point in.

You don't need a ton of GURPS skills to be an oarsman on such a galley. In a lot of ways, Crewman is like Soldier; it can be used as "just enough to do the job".

[Purple Haze]

If one reads the Mesopotamian cuneiform tablets, most are commercial, many discuss tariffs and taxes, and how to avoid them. They had the functional equivalent of currency.

Galleys are specially constructed warships. Merchant ships bear no resemblance. Merchant ships did not have oarsmen, and could never have afforded them.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Purple Haze

Galleys are specially constructed warships. Merchant ships bear no resemblance. Merchant ships did not have oarsmen, and could never have afforded them.

Actually, Harry Turtledove has a four-volume series (originally credited to H.N. Turteltaub) about the voyages of a Greek merchant galley some decades after the death of Alexander. And you can find information on this in Casson's book on ancient Mediterranean seafaring. It's true that you wouldn't use this for bulk cargo; you needed a bigger margin of profit, on commodities that benefited from fast shipping, or from your being able to travel quickly to take advantage of market information.

[Flying Toaster]

'currency' in the form of weights of precious metals, or other things that had a fixed value, fits my reading. It also seems that some places had a form of representative money - tokens that would let you withdraw a set amount of grain from the city storehouses.
The idea of fast galleys for perishable goods (food? Live animals?) is quite interesting.

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

The Egyptian use of currency predates 3000 BC, so the Myceneans would have known and used currency because they traded with the Egyptians, though the currency was units of gold and silver rather than coins.

All metal, including precious metals, was traded as a commodity, not a currency. Metal was given as gifts between aristocrats but not used as a currency to conduct financial transactions. Lower social ranks never had access to gold and silver at all. They barely had access to bronze until near the end of the Bronze Age. In addition, there was no such thing as a free market except for basic goods. All commodities deemed to be critical to state security - such as metal and timber reserves - were directly controlled by the ruling family and its bureaucracy. No ship could transport any of these goods without specific permits.

Originally Posted by Purple Haze

If one reads the Mesopotamian cuneiform tablets, most are commercial, many discuss tariffs and taxes, and how to avoid them. They had the functional equivalent of currency.

Paying a percentage of your cargo in the form of fees and taxes is not the same as a currency. It is barter - trade in kind.
Barter is the direct exchange of goods. Currency acts as a medium of exchange - an intermediary between the exchange of goods.