Are arrows prices too low?

[Pagan]

Originally Posted by Perfect Organism

I've been reading Richard Wadge's Arrowstorm and he includes quite a lot of information about the economics of supplying English bowmen with their equipment during the Hundred Years War, including a great deal of data on the surviving records of prices paid for bows and arrows.

Obviously there was considerable variation in prices, but it seems that on average you could expect to get about thirty arrows for the cost of a bow in England during this period. Given that these were bows intended for military use in a nation which favoured longbows, these were almost certainly longbows.

However, by the prices given in the Basic set and Low-Tech, you can get a hundred arrows for the cost of a longbow. The fact that prices for bows and arrows weren't changed between the Basic Set and Low-Tech makes me think that nobody actually thought to review the prices of these items. Of course, I could be entirely wrong; it's quite possible that in other times and other places the relative cost of arrows was significantly lower.

However, if the numbers in Arrowstorm are actually typical, I think that it would be more accurate to charge at least $6 per arrow.

Maybe they thought that in a game system based on a universal concept they should not limit their arrow prices to a specific time period in medieval England. You are of course free to set whatever prices you want in your world. Beauty of the system.

[Lupo]

Originally Posted by Pagan

Maybe they thought that in a game system based on a universal concept they should not limit their arrow prices to a specific time period in medieval England.

I really doubt that. Perhaps the $2 price is right, perhaps it's wrong, but I am quite sure it wasn't chosen for some supposed "universality".
My guess would be that they set the prices for arrows in the late eighties when GURPS was first published, they decided it was $2 because for no particular reason, and nobody ever considered checking or changing it...

You are of course free to set whatever prices you want in your world. Beauty of the system.

As much as I love GURPS, I have to say that you can set whatever prices you want in ANY game system. That's hardly a feature of GURPS.