Buying and selling in Palladium

[Whiskeyjack]

I figured I'd make a post on this since it's gotten some discussion in other topics.
What has everyone done to address the wages and costs of items in Palladium. Simple services and items can cost a months wage or more. Super rare enchantments or weapons might only cost a bit more. I personally like the straight gold cost without having to change into silver and copper like most games, but the prices are everywhere.
Has anyone reworked prices or found a site that lays it out simply?

[kiralon]

I think I read somewhere that palladium tried to make a gold piece like a dollar for buying stuff.
Personally I like the bronze, copper, silver, gold idea. Nothing like giving the pc's 1/2 million gold in bronze bits lol.
Food and the like cost copper or silver. Clothing costs copper or silver, magic, weapons and armour cost gold. Works OK as a general layout for palladium. Using others systems like d20's also works but generally the way I do it works ok too.

[eliakon]

To be honest there are two problems with the Palladium system.
And they both come from making the GP = 1dollar = the basic coin.
And that is that it means that you have to round everything to the nearest dollar...
Want to buy a candy bar? It's a dollar.
Want to buy a glass of water? It's a dollar.

The other result is that you have some serious hyper inflation.
No one can live on the money unless they are an adventurer. And even then you can only live on the economy if you don't have to pay for a lot of stuff (aka your GM doesn't maintain cost of living)

It also means that gold is so common as to be worthless. Why would people wear it as jewelry? It is so common that for most major purchases you need several *tons* of it.

[Reagren Wright]

Yet if you suck at math and you don't want to design a game system that uses a lot of math and
charts, plus makes it friendly to younger people, Palladium's system works pretty well. This old
dinosaur HATED back in the old days of AD&D carrying around bags of different coins and
exchanging them.

[Reagren Wright]

In the later half of the 13th century 1 day's wages for a craftsmen in England was 3 3/4 d (English
Penny) a modern US dollar equivalent of $50. A pair of shoes at the same time cost 2 1/2 d. A
Sword cost 2s (English Shilling) or about ($200 modern U.S. dollars). A book cost 6s ($600+
modern U.S. dollars. That about a weeks wage for an English knight or 1 month's rent for a small
house in Paris. The common everyday people just like now have limited access to money. The have
to barter for everything and most of what they use to barter expires. For game purposes the prices
are simplified. Another thing no is making a massive chart to help accurately determine the prices of
everything in each book. So there are some inaccuracies.

A while back some people asked me why the prices of aquatic animals in Bizantium are
printed as they are. Tuna only worth 1 silver per three fish. Based on the size of the tuna it should
be worth more. Well the truth is tuna fishing as we know it is actually a new, thoroughly modern,
industrial business. Even though the fishing industry is at least 2,000 years old in the
Mediterranean, access to the fish was limited. And during the medieval time period not a popular
fish to eat. So as a result not a popular food for the general populace. Size does not matter but
availability and demand will determine the value of something. Something not reflected is the
value of sea serpents. When I wrote Bizantium I didn't emphasis the valve of sea serpents as
food. Kevin included that later on and it makes perfect sense in the culture and society of
Bizantium and the Northern Islands. However, there is no chart to show how much the meat is
valued. A mistake I will have to somehow fix in the near future.

So lots of stuff is written based on some historic reference and accuracy. Other stuff just gets
written as it is because the thought pops in your head at 6:00 in the morning before the coffee
flows into your brain. Remember as G.M. you can change any price to whatever you want. Nobody
is bound to book prices. Hey my characters favorite place to shop in Timiro was Sir Larnod's Magic
Weapons. Guy sell the super rare lightning javelins that do 2D4x10 for 150 gold instead of the
2000-5000 gold base price. What a bargain! The 6D6 lightning arrows for 80 gold instead of 800-
1200 gold.

[Whiskeyjack]

Yet if you suck at math and you don't want to design a game system that uses a lot of math and
charts, plus makes it friendly to younger people, Palladium's system works pretty well. This old
dinosaur HATED back in the old days of AD&D carrying around bags of different coins and
exchanging them.

That's one of the things I like with the idea of the system, but the execution of it fell very flat.

It's hard to come up with a happy medium in your games when the prices are so far out of whack. For instance, sending a letter by courier in the same region, will cost you 100 GP. Or you could buy 2 bastard swords with the same money. So some kid walking a letter across town is valued as much as a skilled blacksmith putting in a couple days of full work plus materials, equipment and his shop.

I know that 1 pure gold coin as a lowest measure is weird, but I think of it more as the value of the product. Coins might be minted out of different materials with a small amount of actual gold, or none at all, but the coins are still "worth" 1 gold.

The main book kept it fairly consistent, but later books just went everywhere, especially on the service side of things.

[eliakon]

The problem is that it is not "some innacruacies"
It is literally that no one can live on the numbers provided.
Listed pay rates for people won't cover basic living costs. Like... at all.
The only way to have even a tiny fraction of the cost of living is if you are an adventurer who is going out and bringing in tons of gold from fighting monsters and raiding dungeons.
Otherwise the economy simply doesn't work.
It is slightly better in a few of the later books where there is some thought as to how you can make some money... like the attempt to figure out how much money you can make via logging and such.
But even there it falls flat because the income generated by the entire Shadow Coast is insufficient to account for the sorts of expenditures needed!
Basically the economy of Palladium seems to work on a free floating "just ignore it for anyone but adventurers" system. Which is great if your looking for a simple world to adventure in sure... but it sure as heck breaks the immersion if you try to look behind the scenes even a little and find that nothing works.
It was disconcerting for my players for example to find out that it was not uncommon for published adventures to include more cash on hand that many governments can pull in from annual taxes! And that it was not considered odd in the least that there are things sold in stores (some in bulk) with list prices that require the annual budgets of entire provinces!

[Library Ogre]

I use "1 gp = 1 dollar" all the time. It lets me freely guess at prices to get things in the ballpark of fair. Sure, the gold piece is the basis of the economy, but I'm happy to have silver and copper as change... dimes and pennies, usually.

It's not BTB, but it's simpler.

[Hotrod]

Wages, in general, are terrible in Palladium's games. In Rifts, the bounties offered in the recent Northern Gun books are such that you couldn't replace your own ammunition for what it would take to kill most monsters with bounties on their heads. In Palladium, soldier and merc wages are pretty pathetic, and everything costs too much. If you throw in perks, benefits, and bonuses, things can get more reasonable, but you're not going to get rich quick (or at all) if you're trying to live on regular wages in Palladium Fantasy.

One important thing to consider is that people didn't used to buy anywhere near as much stuff as we do now. Store-bought clothes were a luxury up until the 20th century; most were made at home. Most people living in one spot had a garden and some livestock to grow or at least supplement other foods. Barter was a big thing. Domestic skills weren't just nice things to have to give yourself some flavor like they are for most of our characters; they kept you alive and out of abject poverty.

That said, if you want to do an Oregon Trail-style campaign where you track all your party's key goods and consumables, it can work. I did a short campaign with some cousins where they took a Bizantium Lighter down to Timiro and back, buying and selling cargo as they went, and had to keep track of all their expenses, daily sailing/navigation checks, et cetera. Had a pretty good time doing it, actually.

[kiralon]

I did a short campaign with some cousins where they took a Bizantium Lighter down to Timiro and back, buying and selling cargo as they went, and had to keep track of all their expenses, daily sailing/navigation checks, et cetera. Had a pretty good time doing it, actually.

I did something similar and used the computer game pirates as the inspiration.

[The Dark Elf]

I like the fact that theres only one metal for currency.

I like to focus on adventure and not the maths of buying and selling to that finite detail.

I always find that the heroes have more money than they need for trivial stuff (like room and board) in a couple of months gaming anyway. By that time the are requiring money for ship passage, horses, magical items etc. which require hundreds or thousands.

I find the players are either rich or flat broke, lol.

[EddieSprecy]

I cant find a forum for buying and selling? you sent me a link before but Ican find no heading for this? can you help me again please?

[Zenviscaype]

I think I read somewhere that palladium tried to make a gold piece like a dollar for buying stuff.
Personally I like the bronze, copper, silver, gold idea. Nothing like giving the pc's 1/2 million gold in bronze bits lol.
Food and the like cost copper or silver. Clothing costs copper or silver, magic, weapons and armour cost gold. Works OK as a general layout for palladium. Using others systems like d20's also works but generally the way I do it works ok too.

I love that too. Along with the currency outlined Library of Blethered.