FrankTrollman wrote:
So you only accept numbers you pulled right out of your ass?
To be honest, I don't even care about them enough to pull them out of my ass, until PCs interact with them somehow. And they usually don't. The very notion of mundane goods and services costing the same for all settings is beyond laughable, and prices itselves are already pulled out of the ass anyway, but, thankfully, role of these goods and services in the game is small enough to not care about how you can make a profit by separating ten-foot ladders into ten-foot poles and selling the latter.
In other words, judging how settings should look like on the basis of inconsequential and poorly thought-out rules is stupid. While rules and settings should be generally consistent with each other, this does not mean that the latter should adapt to the former and not vice versa. Particularly if we're houseruling shit of 3.X left and right anyway.
FrankTrollman wrote:Why the fuck do we know that? "The People Are Starving, blah blah blah" is standard D&D plot #4.
OK. Then provide the examples of published adventures with this plot. The starvation shouldn't be caused by evil magic or raiders that prevent people from working the fields, too. Ten examples or so should suffice, as there are thousands of DnD adventures out there and you state this is their fourth most common plot.
FrankTrollman wrote:Wait... how do we know that?
FRCS 3E p. 178. "City of Waterdeep, Metropolis, 132,661". And Waterdeep isn't an uniquely big city. And it is supported by the (densely populated) stretch of land 30-40 miles in diameter. And if your fantasy economic doesn't at least try to explain how this works, instead of saying it shouldn't work for such-and-such reasons that aren't applicable to a high-magic world, there is no reason to care about it for me.
FrankTrollman wrote:In Eberron, Aundair has a population of 2 million. Breland has a population of 3,700,000. Cyre has a population of 1.5 million. Karranath has a population of 2.5 million. Thrane has a population of 2.3 million. None of the five nations maintains the population of pre-plague England (although Breland is close). Of which, the largest city of the largest country pops in at 80k.
Sharn is 200k. Anyway, Eberron is just two years out of a century-long war that saw the use of magical WMDs.
FrankTrollman wrote:Well, D&D usually takes place during wartime, so it's not really clear how many soldiers are really standing army.
Even in Eberron there is theoretically peace now.
FrankTrollman wrote:But in any case, the kinds of grinding poverty that people in D&D land apparently live under is quite consistent with setting up a payment plan for a large standing army.
Can you, like, offer any proof of grinding poverty in DnDland, besides prices in PHB of a single edition?
FrankTrollman wrote:Why do you say that? "There's a Plague!" is another pretty common D&D adventure.
Again, can you drop a half-dozen or so examples, if it is pretty common? I can remeber one, and there the plague was caused by a magically-bred virus deliberately spread by corrupt authorities, so it doesn't really count.
FrankTrollman wrote:Ale and wenches do not indicate much of a surplus, especially in medieval times. Ale is part of your daily rations, and wenches are available in all economies regardless of wealth or poverty because they are a natural percentage of the population.
They do. If ale is part of your daily rations, then you have a significant surplus of the grain above the survival levels. If your wenches (and inkeeper and whatever) can serve in the inn, then your village is rich enough for them to not work in the fields.