31 January 2010

Classic D&D cost of living

The question came to me: What would the cost-of-living be for an NPC living in the Keep on the Borderlands?

B2 doesn’t seem to list the rent for the private apartments. A private room in the inn is 1gp/night. That’d make about 30gp/month. On the one hand, a private apartment ought to cost more than just a private room, but hotel rooms cost more than apartments, right? I’ll just stick with 30gp/month.

The Basic Set price list (which happens to be reproduced in B2 for quick & easy reference) gives 5gp for 1 person-week of unpreserved food. So, that would be about 20gp/month.

So, 50gp/month for food and a place to sleep.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Harsh. Of course, in AD&D it is 100 GP/Per Level, so maybe not that bad! :D

The Adventurer's Economy seems to be about ten times as expensive as the what might be expected in the normal economy. Even the mighty wage that an elf long bowman commands would not be sufficient for day-to-day expenses in B2!

Unknown said...

The equipment list from Boot Hill is pretty compatible with D&D if you convert $1 = gp. If you look up historic prices in the 1800s that can fill in the gaps.

I have a bunch of food & lodging costs for our weird west game here that you might like: http://robertsongames.com/role-playing-games/swords-of-cydonia-equipment-list

Robert said...

If you’re willing to slum it... The common room at the inn is 1 sp/day and at the tavern you can get three meals of bread and soup or cheese for less than 4 sp/day. 15 gp/month. The elven long-bowman could swing that. ^_^

Wasn’t there an Order of the Stick where the townspeople charged PCs ten-times as much for everything?

I’ve known some parties too stingy to even pay for the common room. They’d camp outside the Keep every night. Of course, you know what that means... ^_^

Thanks for the tip and link, Stuart. I have some fuzzy plans to run a weird west campaign sometime, so I’ve been enjoying your stuff.