As usual Alexis started it. Still noodling the numbers on wages. Figure something might gel by Labor Day. In the meantime it provoked me to revisit one factor of the trade system I've never been comfortable with. for h in hexes and I have been "corresponding" about our approaches to the mechanic. He's a coder. I'm a spreadsheet guy. But we benefit from comparing notes.
To recap: each settlement in the world produces things, dependent on size and location. These things are disbursed over the planet based on distance from the source. These resources can then be acted upon by those with the proper skills to make secondary (or tertiary, etc) products. At each step the craftsman impacts the cost of the finished product. This impact is determined by a factor, somewhere between .5 and 2 (?.) The factor CAN be assigned to achieve whatever price range is desired for the product but that seems arbitrary.
I had already adopted a system for deciding what businesses existed in a city, based on it's population, using MDME. Why not plot the businesses for EVERY settlement, then determine how much impact they have on neighboring villages using the trade table. The numbers the raw system gave me were WAY too large, but using the quad root proved to be ideal (so far.) More testing to follow.
End result: the cost of anything you wanna buy is determined by the cost of raw materials, cost of the skilled tradesman to convert them, and the distance both of THOSE are from the purchaser. As a general rule no settlement deals in anything that costs more than 1 gp per 10 pop (so 10%.) So I can keep the shopping lists limited in small or out of the way locations. Rarity creates conflict. Conflict creates plot hooks.
Thanks for the discussion. Always helpful.
ReplyDeleteI like the 1gp/10pop rule. It's subtle enough it might not be obvious from a player perspective.