Trade In Fantasy Ch. 2: Trade Units Pt 2
Repeated from last time:
The concept of an abstracted “Trade Unit” lies at the heart of making Trade a playable event on a recurring and large scale. Without it, you bog down in minutia; with it in place, direct comparisons become easier and decisions far more prone to “make themselves” unless overridden for story purposes. Understanding the process of how and why those decisions are automatic and obvious most of the time enables the GM to manipulate the decisions to deliver the PCs to whatever and wherever the story is.
Credit where it’s due:
The series title graphic combines three images: The Clipper Ship Image is by Brigitte Werner (ArtTower); Dragon #1 is by Parker_West; and Dragon #2 is by JL G. All three images were sourced from Pixabay.
Table Of Contents: Last Time
2. Trade Units
2.1 Characteristics Of A Trade Unit
2.1.1 Conceptual Basis
2.1.2 Value Of A Trade Unit
2.1.3 Bulk Of A Trade Unit
2.1.3.1 “Standard”
2.1.3.2 “Solidity %”
Swords
Horseshoes
Deferred Depth
Size
Packing Strategy
Two Sizing Techniques
Back to the Depth question
2.1.4 Sell-by Date / Preservatives & Refrigeration
2.1.4.1 Old-School preservation techniques
2.1.4.2 Alchemy & Preservatives.
2.1.4.3 Refrigeration
2.1.4.4 Worldbuilding2.2 Purchasing A Trade Unit
2.2.1 Metagaming The Purchase and Sale
2.2.2 Price Of A Trade Unit
2.2.3 Optioning A Trade Unit
2.2.4 Packing A Trade Unit
2.2.4.1 A Rational Approach
Populating The Table
2.2.5 Licenses
2.2.6 Sales Tax & other Gotchas
2.2.7 The Profit MetricTable Of Contents: In Today’s Post:
2.3 Bulk Of Each Trade Unit
2.3.1 Bulk
2.3.2 Size
2.3.3 Weight
2.3.4 Production2.4 Contents Of A Trade Unit
2.4.1 Discussion 1: Timber
2.4.1.1 Sidebar: Cultural Fingerprints
2.4.1.2 Sidebar 2: National Identities
2.4.1.3 The Distillates Trading Principle
2.4.1.4 Evolution in Trade
2.4.2 Discussion 2: Wheat & Flour
2.4.2.1 Animal Farming
2.4.3 Discussion 3: Swords, Horseshoes & Other Heavy Metals
2.4.4 Quality from Skill
2.4.4.1 Quality Of Product
2.4.4.2 Reasonable Time
2.4.4.3 Quality Of Result
2.4.4.4 Interpretation & Environment
Long-term Trends
Environmental Roll Results
EG Wheat Yield
2.4.4.5 Exceeding Base Quality – Pet Projects
2.4.4.6 The Impact of Low / High Stats
2.4.4.7 Failure to Deliver
2.4.4.8 Insurance 101
A Little Context2.5 Movement & Sale of A Trade Unit
2.5.1 Loading
2.5.2 Movement
2.5.3 Unloading
2.5.4 Wholesaling
2.5.5 Retailing
2.5.6 Purchasing2.6 Virtual Trade Units – The Futures Market
2.6.1 A Commitment to buy at Price X
2.6.2 A Commitment to sell at Price X
2.6.3 The Impact Of Options
2.6.4 Each-way or “Hedging” Bets
2.6.5 Paying the Piper2.7 Failure to deliver
2.7.1 local
2.7.2 regional / national
2.7.3 remoteAnd, in future parts:
- Routine Personnel
- Mode Of Transport
- Land Transport
- Waterborne Transport
- Spoilage
- Key Personnel
- The Journey
- Arrival
- Journey’s End
- Adventures En Route
2. Trade Units (continued)
2.3 Bulk Of Each Trade Unit
Since it is the fundamental unit of Trade within this system, bulk is very important to get right. Fortunately, it really is a huge simplification when it comes to the handling of cargoes and their transportation.
- 100 lbs of gold @ 313.54573 g / in^3 = 45359.2g = 144.665 cubic inches = an ingot 12″ × 3″ × 4.0185″. [1]
- 100 lbs of iron ore @ 4.4 g / cm^3 = 10308.91 cm^3 = 629.1 cubic inches = a sack 15″ × 7″ × 6″. [2]
- 100 lbs of refined steel @ 7.85 g / cm^3 = 5778.24 cm^3 = 352.61 cubic inches = about 50 rods 3′ long, 1/2″ diameter [3].
- 100 lbs of brick @ 1750 kg/m^3 (=1.75 g / cm^3) = 25919.5 cm^3 = 1581.7 in^3 = 11.16 standard bricks [4]
- 100 lbs of trimmed pine @ 575 kg / m^3 (= 0.575 g / cm^3) = 78885.56 cm^3 = 4814 cubic inches =22.287 beams 6′ × 2″ × 2″ in size. [5]
- 100 lbs of walnut timber @ 42 lb/ft^3 = 342.86 in^3 = 5.7 panels 3/4″ thick × 10″ × 8″ in size. [6]
- 100 lbs of wool @ 728 lb / 110 fleeces = 15.1 fleeces. In volume, this is (15.1 / 110) × 43 × 28 × 41 = 6776.33 cubic inches or 3.92 cubic feet of wool.[7],[8]
- 100 lbs of goose down @ 2.3 kg /m^3 = 19.72 m^3 = 1203388 in^3 = 348.2 sacks of 24″ × 12″ × 12″ each, or 24.38 standard wool bales.
2.3.1 Weight
The heavier a Trade Unit is, the more effort it takes to load, unload and transport it. A Trade Unit that has a high density in the traditional sense will also tend to have a high concentration of value.
(The following were derived using 100 lbs = 45359.2 grams, because most densities are quoted in grams per cubic centimeter).
Notes:
[1] Calculated with precision for the Value Of Material Things.
[2] A very close average value. It will go up with greater rock inclusions and down with greater earth inclusions, but quality ore will be very close to this value.
[3] While this can vary a lot with exotic alloys, it’s highly specific for generic steel.
[4] A Standard US. Brick has measured 9 × 3.5 × 4.5 inches since about 1800. The density is an average within a fairly broad range of 1500-2000 kg/m^3. In general, more sand = less weight; more clay = more weight = greater strength.
[5] An average of a fairly broad range (from 350-800 kg/m^3 depending on species and age.
[6] FYI, Maple has roughly the same density.
[7] Using Australian standard wool bales, may differ in other countries.
[8] Note that Australian Wool is world famous for its quality; other nations’ wool are usually thinner and coarser, up to twice as many fleeces per bale in the UK for example.
Clearly, though they may weigh the same, these are all very different standards of inconvenience.
2.3.2 Size
Therefore, Bulk is defined as the weight multiplied by the volume that the cargo occupies, because that sets a standard based on the difficulty of loading and transportation.
Some commodities are naturally low weight high volume, like grains and raw threads. Others are high weight, low volume, like Gold and Iron. And there are all sorts of points in between.
2.3.3 Bulk
Put those two factors together and you get bulk, which I’ve never seen actually defined in this way. So far, I’ve pointed out how the basic definition can be used to determine loading and unloading time, and hinted at the use of a standard ‘unit’ to further simplify and abstract this value, but ease of handling of the number is only the start of the benefits that this approach yields. This is the cornerstone of section 4, Mode Of Transport, which looks at how many Trade Units a given transportation mode can accommodate.
2.3.4 Production
I’ve already described all of the above, but it was worth recapitulating in order to put this section into context and add some more specifics.
For each commodity, it will take a producer a certain amount of time to harvest or manufacture enough of that commodity to make up a whole Trade Unit. Once the GM has a handle on the unit and the way it works, it becomes possible to give a moment’s thought and simply toss off the appropriate numbers from the top of his head, guided by the standards that have been set.
How many horseshoes can a blacksmith produce in an hour? Ten, twenty, twenty-five? I don’t know, exactly, and I don’t have to know – the fact that iron weighs so many grams per cubit centimeter, or so many pounds per cubic foot, or whatever weight-and-volume units are most comfortable for the GM and the game system, and that horseshoes can be packed to the point of being 90%-plus solid metal, tells me from the defined standard measure of a Trade Unit how long it probably takes to produce enough horseshoes.
No-one really cares what the exact number of horseshoes are that get made, bought, and sold – all they care about is how hard they are to transport and how much profit they have made at the end of that process.
As a general rule of thumb, each skill that actually makes things should have a rough estimate by the GM of the production rate of a Trade Unit using that skill. This value can then be refined by considering the specific commodity and applying the specific characteristics to the general guideline.
2.4 Contents Of A Trade Unit
It’s fair to say that virtually every fact about a Trade Unit that isn’t directly connected to bulk is a quality pertaining to the contents. As much as I’d like to be able to pretend otherwise, there are differences between two Trade Units even if they have the same Bulk.
The most obvious of these is density, which is a property of the contents, and which serves to connect the standard trade unit concept to the contents of a specific cargo.
The production rate is another value that relates directly to what’s in a specific Trade Unit, and so is the cost and the sale value, which together define the profit.
That’s most of what we need – everything else can be built around those specifications as necessary, with one exception – an exception that doesn’t always apply to all commodities but is a very relevant factor to some. You can call it Quality or Craftsmanship.
Like Bulk, this is something that I’ve never seen handed in any RPG in what I would consider a definitive way.
So, after some explicit examples amplifying what we’ve discussed so far, I’ll detail a subsystem that I have devised to explicitly handle that specification for every Trade Unit.
Before diving in, though, I need to point out that 99% of the time (or more), you will be better off ignoring most of what’s below and simply using it as a guideline to pluck appropriate numbers out of the air, or better yet, using the requirements of the plot to dictate the results. What follows is (mostly) for that 1% or less of cases where it does become important, for some reason.
- Low Grade = 0-5 grams per tonne (1000 kg = 2204.62 lb)
- Average Grade = 5-8 grams per tonne
- High Grade = 8+ grams per tonne
- ‘Bonanza’ Grade = multiple troy ounces (=31.1 grams each) per tonne
- Skill Ranks + Stat Bonus = Skill Level;
- Base Task Difficulty + GM Circumstantial Modifiers = Difficulty Target
- Base Task Difficulty usually starts at 10 for a competent attempt at a normal task. [The system below sets it to a much lower 2, for reasons that will become obvious].
- Skill Level + d20 roll is compared to the target
If total is >= Difficulty Target, success.
If total is < Difficulty Target, failure. - Total – Difficulty Target = margin of success/failure, sometimes used as a measure of quality of result.
- It’s important to distinguish between “quality of result” and “quality of product” – the first relates to how easily and competently the target is achieved, the latter is an inherent quality that the resulting object / cargo represents.
- There is a presumption that clearing a threshold quality of result of some sort increases the quality of product.
- Exercising a skill in this way takes a certain amount of time. Some system variants permit quality of result to be applied to a reduction in the actual time required. Generally, quality of result that is directed toward quality of object can’t also be used for this purpose.
- A quality of product that exceeds a (different) threshold is termed a Masterwork. This generally opens the door to an item being enchanted and inherently confers a system mechanics advantage to the product of +1 on a 1-20 scale.
- A rarely-mentioned corollary is that a quality of product that falls short of the result target by a certain threshold is inherently flawed in some way, even if the overall result still indicates a functional object.
2.4.1 Discussion 1: Timber
The featured illustration that accompanies this article illustrates the timber processing chain:
Forests are cut down to become logs.
Logs get transported to Sawmills.
Sawmills transform the timber from Timber into Lumber by removing the bark and squaring the sides. They may also apply other treatments to keep the wood from rotting – smoking it or drying it out.
The Timber gets transported to a retail sale location unless it’s been bought direct from the sawmill, in which case it has to be transported to the customer for use by the tradespeople in his or her employ.
The retailer, if there is one, sells timber to his customers, which include carpenters and the like – more tradespeople. The practical distinction between the two destinations from the Trade perspective is that the tradespeople don’t have to go to the sawmill or to the sawmill’s agent, the middleman can do that, collecting the output from several sawmills. This enables them to employ their skills more profitably at the things that they are good at (at least in theory) a greater percentage of the time, making the process more efficient for everyone involved.
Those customers transform the raw material into wood products including housing, furniture, and homewares like bowls and jugs.
Whether or not there are timber yards, or if negotiation has to take place directly with the sawmill, is another campaign-creation question that the GM needs to answer separately for their campaigns. Timberyards tend to imply that there will be a greater proportion of timber products and fewer competing alternatives.
2.4.1.1 Sidebar: Cultural Fingerprints
The reasons might be Geographic (metal deposits are remote and the timber close at hand) or Social (Elves might prefer wood products over metal, regardless) or Geological (Metal is in relatively short supply, and is reserved for products for which wood is not a reasonable substitute), or Political (the iron mines are controlled by Dwarves, with whom the Kingdom has had a falling-out), or something I haven’t thought of or haven’t mentioned, like Tradition or Religion..
The answer to the main question will often differ from one Kingdom or Region to another, as the possible reasons imply, and may also differ from one era to another. It’s even possible that, while Metals are restricted in impact for one reason or another, Timber Products face unusual competition from Bone or Coral or some other natural resource. Such descriptions have practical impacts on society and culture and help make them distinctive.
In a real world, everything would be in the marketplace to the fullest extent possible, but distances and supply issues would make some commodities unduly expensive or competitively inexpensive; the economic reality would then influence purchasing decisions, and that dictates, ultimately, what sources will assume dominance over what fields of commerce.
Of course, that’s really messy, with businesses who back the wrong horse gong through economic tribulations until they are broken by them, one way or another. And, of course, most will have families that suffer right alongside them. For every success, there are a string of failures and hard times somewhere in the past, tale after tale of misery. The markets are cruel and take no prisoners.
Fortunately, you don’t have to live through the experiment; you can rule (if that seems appropriate) that the weeding out took place a century ago (or more) if you want. You simply have to describe the outcome, creating it out of whole cloth in such a way that it resonates with the other profile decisions that you have made for this race / species / society / location.
The same thing happens with food, for another example. And differences in ingredients lead to differences in cuisine. Some foods will be expensive treats, and will still feature in the marketplaces every now and then, rare and expensive; others will become rare and unusual, generally because no-one want them. A myriad of little detail differences like this, coupled with a national identity, and you will find that you’ve created a cultural fingerprint, rich in color, and just aching to be dropped into flavor text here and there.
2.4.1.2 Sidebar 2: National Identities
Since I’ve published an article in the past that focused on National Identities (The Poetry Of Meaning: 16 words to synopsize a national identity) and a series to help create unique cultures (Distilled Cultural Essence); this will be the cut-down twenty-cent version.
A national identity is a set of one or more stereotypes that impact or define (in part) the vast majority of a population group. Individuals may adhere to it willingly or unwillingly; or may seek to distinguish themselves from it, or be part of a sub-population that subverts it, or – well, you name it. Generally in the form of a short sentence or phrase. It’s a cliche, but individuals are defined (in part) by the way it influences them.
If I throw the adjective “Irishman” at readers, people will instantly associate it with the nationality. What specifics they connect to the culture might vary, but the impression is immediate.
The same is true of many professions, creating a more specific population subset from the intersection region.
Tip: this can be a great way to kick-start the imagination when creating NPCs – throw a combination together that are unlikely or impossible. For example, “Ninja Ogre” or “Elvish Cowboy”. Both of these should have generated a snap impression of such a character; all you then need do is ‘translate’ that impression into something culturally and technologically appropriate for the game world / campaign and start spitting out personality traits that fit the interpretation.
Every nation and every culture in your game world should have its own national identity, unique to this setting. Some may have several – there’s no reason for Mountain Orcs to have the same profile as Southern Orcs or Jungle Orcs. Hint: “standard” Orcs tend to work very well on temperate plains, rolling hills, and savannas.
2.4.1.3 The Distillates Trading Principle
The timber process example highlights another important principle: at each step in the process, the unwanted is removed from the raw product that enters that step in the sequence, resulting in a (metaphoric) distillation of the raw material into a more concentrated, useful, and valuable form. The increase in value is more than just a share of the work that has been performed and the expense of that work; the product innately gains in value because of its increased usefulness.
There are multiple ways to handle this sort of thing, culturally speaking. It might be the common practice for those who fell the trees to deliver them to the sawmill, or it might be normal for specialists to buy the raw timber directly from the foresters; these would either be third parties or representatives of a sawmill, with the latter being the more likely.
The sawmill turns out beams and planks and blocks of wood, and the trimmings might get turned into firewood or kindling; nothing would be wasted.
Whatever the approach used to the purchase of the raw timber is almost certainly going to replicated for the next stage – fulfilling tradesman’s orders or transportation to a timberyard. The major difference is when the timber gets sold to whoever is next in the process chain, because whoever owns it is responsible for transporting it, something they can either contract out to third parties, handle themselves, or (effectively) pay the sawmill to perform. Note that this last option usually means that the agreed-upon price is “delivered to destination” as part of the package.
Ultimately, it makes little practical difference, it’s just a little additional color, but it can be revealing of the mental processes of a culture. What does it imply about the retail experience? Because that is where PCs are most likely to encounter it – do customers buy a finished product, or do they commission a tradesman to make a product for them? If the latter, how much input do they have into the design and finish, and how much is left to the craftsman’s judgment and expertise?
2.4.1.4 Evolution in Trade
If left to mature on its own, a particular industry will naturally evolve in a specific direction simply because it’s the most competitive approach.
For example, let’s say that the timber mill owns the finished timber and conveys it to a marketplace in a nearby city where craftsmen bid on the finished timber in auction. This has been the practice for many years and is well-established.
One day a new player enters the game; instead of waiting for the sawmill to bring the product of their labors to him, he goes to them and pays upfront for the timber he requires, delivered to his workshop (in the same city as the auction, or somewhere en route to it).
The craftsmen at the auction, familiar with what to expect, are surprised that there is less on offer than usual; and what’s more, what’s missing is the best quality timber. The mill’s representatives shrug and explain what happened.
I give it two months, maximum, before one of two things happens (if not both): First, the Craftsmen who missed out, who were undercut by the newcomers, will seek government regulatory intervention to make the market “fair” again, and to protect the traditional arrangements; and Second, the auction now takes place at the sawmill, with only the dregs and remnants showing up at the marketplace not already spoken for.
What happens after that will be different in different cultures. Either:
★ the transport of timber from the sawmill becomes a service contracted to the sawmill (who will find that delivering to umpteen different destinations is a lot more work than delivering to a marketplace auction, with the potential to have to haul away anything that doesn’t sell, and who may choose to subcontract that work out), or
★ the authorities heed the call of the disgruntled craftsmen, and institute regulations that absolutely forbid the wholesale purchase of timber other than at the traditional auction setting. Or,
★ the authorities listen to a potentially valid counterargument: hauling the timber to the auction and then having their purchase transported to their workshops is less efficient than a single trip direct to the workshops, so timber products will become cheaper / more profitable, enabling them to take on more apprentices, and boosting the economy overall.
It’s probably a 30:40:30 split between these three alternatives, simply because governments like to be proactive and words like “traditional” carry a lot of weight when there is no efficiency gain to the economy brought about by the change.
Whatever the outcome, a principle has now been established, and the result will ripple through the rest of the process. If people are used to anything else being the normal practice, this will result in some temporary disruptions at the marketplace. Merchants will have only samples on hand, with customers ordering what they want, delivered. Or merchants will display everything they have for sale, with customers responsible for transporting it after purchase.
What’s more, that principle would spread through other industries as well.
Which brings me to the next subject of discussion:
2.4.2 Discussion 2: Wheat & Flour
There is a similar industrial sequence that takes place with grains and their grinding into flour.
First, the wheat has to be harvested. Then it has to be threshed to remove the stalks – usually done at the farm because the stalks themselves can be useful. And that’s where ownership takes a hand.
In a feudal system, the nobility owns, and is responsible for, the grain from this point. They also own the land, or most of it; the farmer might get a wage for growing the wheat on the noble’s behalf, or he may have some legal rights to a percentage of what he grows (giving him an incentive to be productive).
In a more socially-advanced system, the farmer owns the land, the nobles own what the farmers produce but have to pay them a set amount for it. Or, perhaps, the noble still owns the land, and gets to deduct rent from the payment being made to the farmer.
Still more advanced is a system in which the farmer buys the right to live and work the land from the noble, perhaps with the assistance of a financial body like a bank through a mortgage over the property, the farmer owns the produce from it, and sells it to a mill. The noble takes a percentage of every transaction along the way, some of which he may have to pay to a more senior noble. This is not far removed from the modern world.
There are other variations possible, but those three are the models most frequently encountered in a fantasy game.
Somewhere in the process, the farmer has to get enough grain to plant next year’s crop. While it’s unquestionably more efficient to do this before any of it leaves the farm, that doesn’t really allow for bad years, where they need more grain than they produce. Exactly when in the process and where this takes place can vary.
There should also be some percentage diverted to stores – enough to deal with those natural disasters mentioned above!
Anyway, getting back to the process, someone owns the grain and transports it to a mill for grinding. That someone may or may not be the mill. It’s at this point that quality unquestionably enters the process.
The first grinding, or the first phase of grinding, produces coarse flour. That’s enough for common bread. Either grinding it for longer or for a second time with a finer millstone refines the coarse flour into various grades of fine flour, for cakes and the like. That may take place at the same mill, but it’s more likely to be done by a specialist mill.
Which means that someone owns the coarse flour and allocates some of it for immediate sale, some for storage so that they have flour to sell later in the year, and sends some for refining.
All of these movements of grain / flour are transport legs – either someone performs this in order to sell it, or someone does it because they have just bought it, or some third party does so as a contracted service to one of these two endpoints within the sub-process.
The parallels to the timber process and the Timber Economy should be obvious, and any decisions made in that context regarding laws will almost certainly be applied to the wheat / flour.
Wheat has a density of 795.3 kg/m^3. It is the grain with the highest density – rice comes in at 563 kg/M^3 for example. But those are modern values; we have far better breeds of crops and harvesting technology than were available back then. so I would reduce the densities to 66% of the values indicated – 525 and 372 kg/m^3, respectively.
Coarse flour is 70-75% of the weight of the grain. The variation comes from grinding efficiency and the moisture content of the wheat (higher is better).
So now we have a quality issue for the wheat as well as for the flour.
Oh, and for the record, an acre (4046.86 m^2) produces roughly 3000 pounds (1360.777 kg) of flour a year. But, again, I would reduce this 66% to 2000 pounds (907.1847 kg), or exactly one ton.
NB: The following information assumes that the protein % of a flour reflects the amount of that flour that derives from course flour, which has a protein count of 100%. While this seems a reasonable assumption, I can’t vouch for it being completely accurate.
From my research, sifting is a key part of the process – the millers don’t re-grind the entirety of the flour, just selected parts of it. It’s my understanding that the unused flour remains at the previous grade, and is not discarded, but that might also be incorrect.
So we have 525 kg of course flour from a cubic meter of grain.
From this can be extracted the following:
Sift & Re-grind 1:
High-gluten flour (used in bagels, etc): 13-14%
(Modern) bread flour 12-13%
General-purpose flour 11-12%
These are mutually exclusive – you don’t get general purpose flour and Bread flour.
Re-sift General Purpose flour and re-grind 2:
Italian 00 flower (pizza and pasta) 8-12%
Pastry Flour 8-10%
Cake Flour 6-8%
These are also mutually exclusive.
525 kg of coarse flour = 68.25 – 73.5 kg (average 70.875 kg) high-gluten flour, or 63 – 68.25 kg (average 65.625 kg) of (modern) bread flour, or 57.75 – 63 kg (average 60.375 kg) of general-purpose flour.
Sift and re-grind 60.375 kg of general purpose flour, and you can get: 42 – 60.375 kg (average 52.5 because if your course flour yield was higher, so will your 00 flour yield) of Italian 00 flour, or 42 – 52.5 kg (average 47.25 kg) of pastry flour, or 31.5 – 42 kg (average 36.75 kg) of cake flour.
Various sources list the typical size of medieval farms as 12-30 acres per family unit depending on soil quality – so the yield remains the same per family. That yield is 5 bushels (=160 lb = 72.575 kg) plus another 5 bushels reserved for next year’s planting.
Thirty acres was the minimum needed to justify exclusive use of an Ox or cow as a plough animal. If you had less than that, you were granted the use of a shared plough animal owned by the community.
You need 1lb of bread, dead minimum, per day, to feed the family. Assuming that’s the same as 365 lb of course flour, that’s the yield from 0.4 acres.
A good farmer in a good year won’t impact the 5 bushels reserved, but can double the other 5 bushel value for each factor. A good farmer in a bad year can at least feed the family and get the 5 bushels reserved, but will yield little or nothing more. A bad farmer in a bad year can’t even do that much, and will need to buy / obtain grain to start over the next year.
2.4.2.1 Animal Farming
While I’m in the vicinity:
Grazing animals need 1460% of their body weight in forage each year.
Good forage is up to 10,000 lbs (= 4535.924 kg) per acre per year. In a good year, a good farmer might get 12-15,000 lbs of forage.
Adult pigs were 70-80kg, sheep 20-30kg, and a cow or ox 200-250kg. Compare those to the modern weights: 100-200kg, 50-150kg, and 650kg, respectively, to get some idea of how efficient the farms were back then.
1 acre = 4535.924 kg forage / year
= 310.68 kg in body weight
= 4 pigs or 12 sheep or 1.3 cattle.
2.4.3 Discussion 3: Swords, Horseshoes & Other Heavy Metals
I’m not going to belabor this discussion; I simply want to point out that the same processing and principles apply here.
Iron Ore -> Refinery -> Refined Metal -> Craftsman -> Product.
It’s that simple, really.
It takes about 1.6 tons of ore to make 1 ton of steel, which is another way of saying there is a yield of 0.625 [units] per [unit] of ore – it doesn’t matter if it’s kg or tonnes or tons or lb.
With Bronze, it’s the copper that tends to be the most decisive ingredient – the yield is 0.6% – 1% of the ore.
With Gold, it depends on the grade of the ore:
Each process costs money and concentrates the existing value plus an increase in inherent value above cost.
2.4.4 Quality from Skill
The following subsystem ha been designed around D&D 3.x / Pathfinder, but it should be easily adaptable to any other system mechanics, and have the impression that later generations of the D&D have not changed this part of the system.
The foundations are:
This subsystem is designed to integrate the latter into the skill check process described above.
A character’s skill ranks defines the normal quality of result that they can reliably be expected to achieve in the normal time frame. Every 2 skill ranks translates to a quality grade of +1.
2.4.4.1 Quality Of Product
★ Quality 0 = functional minimum, achievable by an apprentice.
★ Quality 1 = better quality version of the functional minimum.
★ Quality 2 = version of the functional minimum that is more efficient or easier to use, normally achievable by a Journeyman or Senior Apprentice (the terminology varies from one society to another). It generally takes 4-5 years professional work to gain sufficient skill to achieve this quality of result.
★ Quality 3 = better quality version of the Journeyman standard of product.
★ Quality 4 = version of the functional minimum that is satisfactory in every respect. Can be produced without supervision. Normally achievable by a Master Craftsman, but not to be confused with a Masterwork.
★ Quality 5 = better version of the Mastercrafter’s product, usually in the form of decoration / visual appeal.
★ Quality 6 = better than Quality 5, again visually.
★ Quality 7 = better than Quality 6, again visually.
★ Quality 8 = Masterwork. Confers a mechanical system bonus.
★ Quality 9 = a better-looking Masterwork than Quality 8.
★ Quality 10 = a better-looking Masterwork than Quality 9.
★ Quality 11 = a better-looking Masterwork than Quality 10.
★ Quality 12 = Legendary item, sometimes referred to as Masterwork II. Confers an increased mechanical system bonus and may (GM’s discretion) receive some other benefits eg lighter weight. No higher Quality Of Result is possible.
Base Difficulty target = 2
+2 per Expected Quality result
2.4.4.2 Reasonable Time
Quality inherently takes longer. Each quality of result adds 20% to the base production time
Craftsman can deliberately aim for a lower Quality of product to achieve a result in a more reasonable time frame and a better chance of success.
2.4.4.3 Quality Of Result
Every 4 by which quality of result exceeds the minimum can improve the quality of product by 1.
Every point of quality of result not otherwise used can reduce the time required by 10% until reasonable time drops to base production time and then 5% to a minimum of 50% normal base production time.
eg Quality expected = 3
3 × +20 = +60%
Quality of roll = 1: +60-10= +50%
Quality of roll = 2: +60-20=+40%
Quality of roll = 3: +60-30 =+30%
Quality of roll = 4: +60-40 = +20%
Quality of roll = 5: +60-50 = +10%
Quality of roll = 6: +60-60 = +0% = base production time
Quality of roll = 7: -5% = 95% base production time
Quality of roll = 8: -10% = 90% base production time
Quality of roll = 9: -15% = 85% base production time
Quality of roll = 10: -20% = 80% base production time
Quality of roll = 11: -25% = 75% base production time
Quality of roll = 12: -30% = 70% base production time
Quality of roll = 13: -35% = 65% base production time
Quality of roll = 14: -40% = 60% base production time
Quality of roll = 15: -45% = 55% base production time
Quality of roll = 16+: -50% = 50% base production time
Failures may be salvageable. Reduce the quality of product one grade and add 4; if the result succeeds, then the lower quality product results. Continue until you get to quality of product 0.
Each salvage adjustment adds +20% to the actual time taken. Time penalties for expected quality of result still apply, they are not negated just because expectations were unrealized.
2.4.4.4 Interpretation & Environment
Where some numeric value is indexed to quality, divide the range by 10, Quality 0 is the minimum value within the range, quality 0 is minimum plus 1/10th of the range, and so on. Obviously, you can’t get better than the best result in the range (Quality 10), so the GM should add some other advantage or benefit to Quality 11 and 12 results.
Where environmental conditions are a factor, the GM should roll a d20-10. The result should be modified for climate – a good climate can add +1 or +2, a poor climate subtracts 1 or 2. Other environmental factors like soil quality, drainage, etc can also add +1 or +2, or subtract 1 or 2 in total.
Long-term trends
It’s normally not necessary to track these, but where it does become important: Good times are unlikely to last. Bad times are also unlikely to persist, but tend to linger for longer than good times.
Roll a d6.
If the last year was a catastrophic / bad one:
6: conditions return to normal
3-5: conditions improve, -1 to this years’ roll
2: conditions remain unchanged, -2 to this year’s roll
1: conditions worsen, -4 to this year’s roll.If the last year was a normal one:
6: conditions improving, +2 to the environment roll
5: conditions improving, +1 to the environment roll
3-4: normal
2: conditions worsening, -1 to the environment roll
1: conditions severely worse, -2 to the environment rollIf the last year was a good or great one:
6: conditions continue, add +3 to this year’s environment roll
5: conditions moderate, add +1 to this year’s environment roll
2-4: conditions return to normal
1: conditions worsen dramatically, -1 to this year’s environment roll
Environmental roll results:
A result of 0 is “normal year”. A result of 1 or better is a “better than average year”. A result of 5 or better is “good year”, results of 9 or better are a “great year”.
A result of -1 or worse is a “worse than average year”. Results of -5 or worse are “a terrible year” and indicate damage due to adverse conditions.
EG: Wheat Yield:
Base yield was defined earlier as 795.3 kg/m^3 but this was reduced to 525 kg/m^3 (66%) to allow for inefficient farming techniques. +3.3% per +1 quality of result is therefore reasonable.
A “Good Year” doubles the resulting yields. This is an environmental result of 5, so divide +100% by 5 to get +20% for the first 5 environmental yield modifiers. This should halve for the difference between “Good Years” and “:Great Years”, i.e. +10% yield. Environmental results better than a “Great Year” halve the increase again, to +5% per step. The absolute maximum environmental factor result is +17 (with long-term trend factored in):
A Normal Year:
0 = +0%
1 = +20%
2 = +40%
3 = +60%
4 = +80%
A Good Year:
5 = +100%
6 = +110%
7 = +120%
8 = +130%
A Great Year
9 = +135%
10 = +140%
11 = +145%
12 = +150%
13 = +155%
14 = +160%
15 = +165%
16 = +170%
17 = +175%
In a bad year, yields drop to a worst-case of total crop failure (negative yield equal to the amount usually reserved for seeding the next year’s crop). The base yield is 5 bushels per acre, plus another 5 for replanting, so -200% is a total loss. These should start small (-5% per increment), double in a “bad year”, and then double again in a catastrophic year. The worse possible result is -16, which should yield that -200% result.
Poor Years:
-1 = 95%
-2 = 90%
-3 = 85%
-4 = 80%
Bad Years:
-5 = 70%
-6 = 60%
-7 = 50%
-8 = 40%
Catastrophic Years:
-9 = 20%
-10 = 0%
-11 = -20%
-12 = -40%
-13 = -60%
-14 = -80%
-15 = -100%
-16 = -100% and a permanent -1 to environmental rolls hereafter
So, for a farm in a reasonable climate (+1) with reasonable advantages (+1), in a typical year:
Long Term d6: 5
Conditions improving, +1
d20-10+2+1 = 11-10+3 = 4
+80% yield
base = 525 kg / m^3
+80% = 945 kg / m^3
5 bushels / acre over replanting
+80% = 9 bushels / acre over replanting
Farming Skill 4 ranks
Stat Modifier +3
Expected Quality: 2
= +4 difficulty
Base difficulty = 2
Net difficulty = 6
d20 roll: 10, so success by 4.
Note that the power of plot completely overrides these results. If the GM needs a famine, a famine occurs.
2.4.4.5 Exceeding Base Quality – Pet Projects
Every craftsman has one or two pet projects, sometimes called “vanity projects”, in which they take as long as necessary (or more) to get absolutely the best result that they possibly can. For some, the joy is not in the outcome, so they will happily sell the finished work and start something else; for others, this is a personal possession of great value, something to be bequeathed to future generations.
Every +25% to the reasonable time, cumulative, adds 1 to the quality of result, which in turn can accumulate to the point of enhancing the quality of product. These additional “quality of result” do not have the usual time-shortening benefits described above.
The craftsman can’t spend infinitely more time on the project; each +25% step above allocates 2 of their skill ranks to the project.
Above this limit, the 2 points begins to come off the chance of success.
So there is a limit to how far a craftsman dares, or can, go, one that is based on their skill level.
A roll for the results must be made at the commencement of the project By The GM and the results kept secret until the end of the scheduled project.
EG: Skill Ranks 8, Expected quality = 4
+80% base production time = 1.8 × Base
1.8 +25% = 2.25 × Base; 2 ranks
2.25 +25% = 2.81 × Base; 4 ranks
2.81 + 25% = 3.51 × Base; 6 ranks
3.51 + 25% = 4.39 × Base; 8 ranks
4.39 + 25% = 5.49 × Base; -2 success
5.49 + 25% = 6.86 × Base; -4 success
6.86 + 25% = 8.58 × Base; -6 success
8.58 + 25% = 10.73 × Base; -8 success
Going any further reduces the chance of success by too great a degree for most people. This is already probably down to 4-6 out of 20.
For example, let’s say we’re talking about a suit of plate mail. The normal base time for such a project might be 20 days (i.e. 4 5-day weeks), but this is being squeezed into odd moments here and there, and the character is fairly highly skilled, so they are in demand; the GM sets the base time for the vanity project at 100 days.
100 × 13.41 = 1341 days = 3.674 years = 3 years 8 months 2.66 days.
Target quality of product = 4+7 = 12 (maximum possible)
Difficulty = 2 + 24 = 26
8 ranks + stat bonus 4 =12
maximum rollable result = 12+20=32
chance of success = 32-26 = 6 on d20 i.e. natural 14-20 needed.
GM’s secret roll = 8+12=20. Not enough.
Reduce product quality 1 for +4= 24. Not enough.
Reduce product quality 2 for another +4 = 28. Not enough.
Reduce product quality 3 for yet another +4 =32. Success!
Final quality of product = 12-3=9. A better Masterwork quality.
2.4.4.6 The Impact of Low / High Stats
I once described a system like this to a player and he was dubious about basing it on a character’s skill ranks and not their net skill. His exact words were, “Why shouldn’t better stats make a difference?”
The reality is that Stat scores do in fact make a difference. The higher the character’s stat, the more likely it is that they will succeed in achieving their target quality, and the more likely it is that they will have excess quality of result that can then be applied to quality of product – but in a measured and controlled way. Basing the subsystem on net score would only add to the role of higher stat scores, making them more important than the skill ranks, while not doing so restores the balance between the two while emphasizing the importance of the actual skill of the character.
Moreover, the distinction reflects the reality of a character crafting an item. Natural ability (the stat bonus) can enhance the character’s use of what skill they possess, but can’t substitute for such skill.
I thought it important to take a moment to clarify this.
2.4.4.7 Failure to Deliver
Time to zoom back out to consider the bigger picture. For whatever reason, a craftsman has failed to deliver as promised – the work might be below the agreed standard of quality, or the numbers might be short of what was promised, or there may have been delays for this reason or that; the specifics don’t much matter.
This happens in real life, and there are always legal and fiscal consequences. Some of these are dictated by the terms of an individual agreement, which in turn may be restricted by the legal code, and some of them may be explicitly stated in the legal code.
The fictional response is that the craftsman owes the customer some sort of compensation for the failure, and an industry of insurance to mitigate the impact of paying such compensation would arise to handle the situation. Fines and penalties may be incurred or imposed. Perhaps the biggest impact would be on the reputation and credibility of the craftsman – if you’ve failed to deliver once, can you ever be fully trusted to do so again in the future?
Reality is always more complicated than fiction. The craftsman’s liability is limited – first, to what he can pay, and second, to what he is directly responsible for. Acts of God (or Gods in a fantasy context) are beyond his powers to control, and are usually excluded from such insurance policies – which leaves the customer out of pocket.
There always has to be some regulatory framework in place to discriminate and judge cases where customer demands, or craftsman’s promises, are unreasonable – some sort of civil court structure.
That can get more complicated in a hurry when more feudal systems of government are in place – it can become a dispute between nobles, and nobles have armies, and that’s a small war every time you turn around. What’s more, there can be a disparity of power between the two sides that complicates matters. Again, some sort of appeals court – usually direct to the next higher authority – needs to exist, just to prevent the waste of resources on petty wars.
The other element of regulation would be insurance on the customer’s side to protect them from non-compliance by a craftsman. This idea – which seems fairly obvious to us in modern times – is actually a fairly recent development. Prior to that development, when you entered into an agreement, you were assumed to agree to share certain risks, amongst which were the risks of non-compliance for reasons beyond the control of either party.
Insurance is such a logical device that the only reasons for it not to exist are (a) it’s contradicted by some fundamental cultural or legal value; or (b) no-one’s thought of it yet. But it sucks all the drama out of the situations in which it can be the solution, and so I don’t advocate for it if you can reasonably justify its absence.
For the rest of the time, you’ll need a basic understanding of how Insurance works, and that’s something that is not as commonplace as might be assumed. So let’s address that question before moving on.
2.4.4.8 Insurance 101
Insurance works on the concept of Distributed Risk.
Let’s say you have 1000 farmers across the country who pay 3% of their income toward an insurance scheme. That adds up to a lot of money in the pockets of the insurance provider.
In any given year, some of those farmers will experience reverses and need to make a claim against their insurance. That’s money that comes out of the pockets of the insurance provider.
The insurance provider will take whatever’s left and split it into three basic areas: (1) investments to grow the wealth of the insurance agency, so that they are better able to cover ‘bad years’ when there are a lot of claims; (2) recruitment drives to sign up new customers, even whole new markets; and (3) profits to be distributed amongst the owners.
The whole process works because different farmers experience different conditions. While farmers in counties X, Y, and Z were flooded out, counties A, B, and C had great years – and G, H, and K had drought or locusts or a mouse plague or maybe a fire. Plus you have wandering beasties of a fantastic nature to provide disruptions that we don’t see in the real world!
Again, distribution of risk means that all the payments from farmers NOT affected by these problems cover the costs of paying out those who are, plus profits etc.
Setting the amount to charge the farmers in a good year is always a tricky operation. The amount needs to be high enough to generate enough profits to keep the owners happy, or the insurance will go away. But if it’s too high, farmers won’t be able to afford it, and the provider will be at risk of being undercut by a cheaper provider.
To keep costs down and profits up, companies play the long game. If a farm is likely to claim on its insurance once in 25 years, they have 24 years to earn enough from that farm to make the whole operation profitable. It gets more complicated with smaller payouts along the way, but that’s the general principle.
In recent years, Insurance companies have become notorious for terms and conditions that restrict or limit their liability. Many people who were wiped out by floods were unimpressed when their insurance policies, post-claim, started to exclude flood damage – with the bills not going down – and I don’t blame them.
Other complicating clauses will be more familiar to American Readers because of the way they impact Health Insurance (to reduce or limit the amount that the Insurance Companies have to pay) – things like co-pays and deductibles and minimum claims, and so on.
These are all relatively recent developments and place insurance company profits ahead of delivering the service that the company is supposed to be providing to its customers, at least in my personal opinion. I think everything – fire, flood, wandering dragon – should be covered. If there is a wide-scale event that is beyond the capacity of the insurance company, then they should be able to take out cheap government loans to cover the difference (faster payout to those affected) and should then be in a position to lobby the government for relief on part or all of that debt – with significantly more clout to bring to bear than an individual homesteader or farmer. That’s more or less the way things were when I was growing up.
There were some nuances added by the time I actually worked in the insurance industry. The first was an agreed amount – you could elect to be insured for more or less than the actual value of the goods being protected. Less meant that you didn’t get fully covered in the event of catastrophe, but your payments were less in the meantime; More meant that you were protected against replacement prices increasing in the period of time since you bought whatever it was that you were insuring. This concept largely replaced the simpler (and less controllable ‘new-for-old’ model that predated it).
The problems with this approach first became obvious in the auto industry – if you could insure a car for twice what it was worth, you could then torch it and get a replacement car and a windfall at the same time. If you could insure a car for less than it’s value, but bump the coverage up to full just before making a claim, you avoided paying the higher insurance rates in the meantime, effectively giving yourself more bang for your buck than you were entitled to. It became policy from on high that all cars had to be inspected and their value appraised according to strict rules and guidelines, and the term “agreed value” entered the lexicon, aimed directly at stamping out both kinds of fraud.
None of which should matter to the GM, I have to add. Insurance, if it exists, should be brute simple – you claim, if your claim is verified, you get paid, and the company either has pockets deep enough to wear the risks and costs involved, or have tacit government backing to call upon if necessary.
There’s one more concept that I need to get across before I can move on: Reinsurance.
Let’s say we have five countries with five governments with five or more insurance companies in between them. In a really bad year, an entire European country can be affected by a natural disaster (basically, they are of similar sizes to a US state). Maybe two of them. That risks sending the insurance companies in those countries to the wall, which means no money for anyone – and no profits for those companies owners.
This is a situation nobody would be happy with, and it would not be long before some bright spark came up with the logical solution, Reinsurance. That’s where an insurance company takes out insurance against payouts in excess of what they can afford. They give up some of their profits to ensure their long-term viability.
The reason it works: distribution of risk. One or two of those five countries make a claim; the costs of the excess are distributed across every insurance holder in the countries that are not affected. The more players you have in the pool, the more secure everybody becomes. Genius!
Except… some problems came to light with this process in recent years here in Australia. In essence, the reinsurance providers refused to cover some of the claims made by Australian insurance companies because the restrictions and limitations on the Australian insurance policies did not match up with those ultraconservative and restrictive ones applied by the reinsurance company. This, of course, was just an excuse not to pay out as promised, and it ended up in court, but that’s not the important point to be made here; the important thing was that the reinsurance companies tried to coerce their customers (the local Insurance Agencies) into modifying their terms and conditions after the fact.
Are you getting whiffs of high politics and corruption and corporate greed? I certainly am.
Unless such plot threads are a key part of your campaign, and maybe even then, I would avoid destabilizing the economic foundations of the campaign with any such shenanigans. Keep it simple.
★ Insurance protects the craftsman.
★ Profits and reasonable policy costs protect the Insurance company.
★ When that’s not enough, Reinsurance protects the Insurance companies, with governments bridging the gap.
★ When Reinsurance isn’t enough (national disasters), the government assumes responsibility for anything in excess of the reinsurance. if necessary, taxes and insurance costs will go up in future years.
That’s all there needs to be.
A Little Context
The first insurance company was Lloyd’s of London, who once were willing to write any insurance policy against any development or event that their underwriters could calculate the odds against.
They got started insuring merchant ships – these (with cargoes) were worth an absolute fortune and could wipe out corporate titans if one foundered in a storm or befell some other catastrophic event.
A lot of the concepts that apply generally to insurance today, especially the legal ones, derive from these origins and the maritime law in back of them – and that can produce the occasional oddity. A small ship tying up to a larger one may be considered making landfall on an island for insurance purposes, for example if there is a fire aboard the smaller vessel that is unnoticed. Maritime law states that the larger vessel has no choice if the smaller vessel is in distress, even though this places the larger vessel at risk, too; self-protection then demands that the crew of the larger vessel do everything they can to control or extinguish the fire, even to the point of cutting the smaller vessel adrift once the crew have been rescued. You can have a lot of fun with this by introducing obscure laws that made sense in their original context but are now being applied in very strange ways to even stranger circumstances!
All such events and circumstances should ‘proceed at the speed of plot’, and if they result in an obvious injustice being perpetrated for the purposes of the plot, part of the resolution of that plot should be moves by regulators to ‘correct’ the legal code (even if such moves fail or are inadequate).
If this context doesn’t make a material contribution to an adventure, it should be ignored as much as possible.
But that leaves a small gap between the two extremes, in which understanding the origins and peculiarities can provide guidance to questions of what is reasonable, and what various NPCs objectives and perspectives might be, that can be useful to the GM.
Readers might also find this content worth their reading time in this context:
★ Risk Assessment For GMs
★ Mapping Through Logic and Flavor (specifically, the “Legacy Structures” section near the end of the article)
★ And, in addition to the above, I know that I’ve written up the origins of the Insurance Industry in far greater detail somewhere, but can’t locate the article (maybe it was never finished / published?). After more than an hour’s searching, I’ve given up for the moment. If I ever find it again, it’ll replace this text with the link.
2.5 Movement & Sale of A Trade Unit
A lot of this chapter has focused on moving Trade Units around because it’s a fundamental principle of Trade – buy something somewhere that it’s cheap and move it to somewhere where it’s worth more than the purchase price plus cost of transport. This is central to applying the principle of Supply and Demand.
It is therefore a theme that this article will return to, again and again, and something that every GM has to understand.
Chapters 4, 5, and 6 – all of them anticipated to be multipart – focus on different means of delivery, so I don’t want to get into that here. Even chapter 3, “Routine Personnel”, is focused on the employment of people to achieve this transport and the business of buying at one end and selling at the other, and so relates directly to his principle and its application. Instead, I thought it useful to give a broader overview at this point.
Let’s start with a rule of thumb, that will be addressed in greater detail later in the series:
It’s only worth conveying a cargo beyond the largest market in easy reach if you can get to a larger market by traveling the same time or less.
Let’s unpick that a little.
- “worth” = profitable.
- “largest market” = place where the highest price will be paid within the travel time defined by “easy reach”.
- “easy reach” = a subjective judgment.
- “larger market” = place where a higher price will be paid.
- “the same time or less” – doesn’t include the initial leg, obviously.
Just for the fun of it, let’s consider a map that I’ve just knocked out to illustrate the point. Our point of purchase is “a”, located near the center of the map and slightly to the southwest (assuming north is up as traditional).
- From a, we can head overland to “b:, “c”, “e” or “f'”. We can also head downriver to “e” – upriver to “b” might me more problematic since it’s right up at the foot of the mountains.
- All these markets are roughly the same size as the one we bought at.
- “b” lets us access “d” or “g” but these are also about the same size, and “g” would be much slower – it’s one of only four passes through the mountains, which you would tackle if there was a vast profit in doing so – but there isn’t. Scratch “b”.
- “c” lets us go downriver to “h” which IS a bigger market, and since downriver travel is likely to be much faster than travel on foot, this is a contender.
- “e” is a longer overland trek, but the gentler slope might make it faster going, and it not only lets us access “h” but also the cities of M and N, which would be even larger markets than “h”. So that’s definitely a contender.
- “f” also involves crossing the mountains to no great advantage. What’s more, it has so little going for it in terms of trade that it probably only exists to protect that pass.
- “h” also lets us access M or N, as well as the similarly-sized “i” and “j”, both of which connect with “P” after a relatively short overland trek.
- “M” and “N” are short distances from the similarly-sized port city of “O”.
- Sadly, the biggest market of all – the capital “Q” – is out of reach; it’s just not economic to ship there, except perhaps by seagoing vessel from “O” or “P”.
So there are five trade routes worth contemplating for “a”:
- a -> c -> h -> i -> P -> Q
- a -> c -> h -> j -> P -> Q
- a -> c -> h -> M -> O -> Q
- a -> c -> h -> M -> N
- a -> e -> M/N -> O -> Q
P is closer to Q, and therefore a shorter voyage. M/N/O represent a triple chance at a good profit, with Q as a backstop. Which one will turn the greatest profit? That’s where the fun is – who knows? But there are other factors that you can take into account under this model. If a shipment of the same goods has just left for one of these destinations, the others automatically become more attractive. If the commodity is especially desired at one of the destinations, it immediately becomes more attractive. If the vendor has personal connections in one of the locations that are likely to help deliver a profit, it is obviously a better choice, all other things being equal. And, finally, what’s in demand back in “a” and which of these locations will provide it at the cheapest price?
Planning a successful trading expedition requires knowing the locations, inside and out, and that practically demands actually going there and looking around. And that’s a reasonable justification for the GM landing the party in the middle of an adventure in each!
The other factor to consider is this: what’s been described here is a two-leg expedition – one out from “a” and one back to “a”. Successful traders would think larger; can they sell in “h” and buy something to take to “P” or “M” or “O”? Can they sell there and buy something that will be in demand in “Q”? That’s a linear multistage operation. But perhaps there’s a triangular trade that would be faster and hence more profitable – a to c to h to M to e to a? Or a to e to M to h to c to a? (Actually, technically, those are hexagonal, with 6 stops, but you get the point).
There are five stages to a Trade Expedition, with one of them coming in two varieties. They are: loading, movement, unloading, wholesaling or retailing, and purchasing.
2.5.1 Loading
I’ve already discussed loading. It doesn’t matter what’s in a Trade Unit, it will still take the same amount of time to load one, and that time is down to the quality and numbers of manpower available. As a general rule, the GM should allocate a loading/unloading time per Trade Unit for each destination based on the factors identified and be done with it. NEVER actually specify the reasons for such a decision or even the factors that went into it unless it is a plot point!
2.5.2 Movement
Next, you have to convey the cargo to it’s destination. This can often be an adventure in itself – once or twice. After that, as a general rule, the same old trade route equals the same old adventures = boring.
2.5.3 Unloading
Unloading is generally a faster event than loading, but this principle is easily swamped by manpower considerations. Determine how long it would take to load the cargo at the destination and halve it.
2.5.4 Wholesaling
Wholesaling is where you sell to someone who is then going to on-sell it to local customers, perhaps after using a Craft skill to enhance or transform it. It pays less but does so far more quickly.
2.5.5 Retailing
Retailing means taking the cargo to a market and selling it piecemeal until either it’s all gone or you are convinced there’s no market for whats’ left. This can take quite some time, but by cutting out the “middleman”, i.e. the wholesaler, you stand to earn a higher price – in the long run. Whether that’s actually a higher profit depends on how much the personnel required are costing you – per day.
It’s possible to run a hybrid operation – sell retail for a short time and the offload the rest to a wholesaler. But the wholesaler will pay less under those circumstances, so it can very easily be cutting off your nose to spite your face.
2.5.6 Purchasing
You need to always have an eye on what you can pick up for the return trip. Judging when to pull the pin on sales and set course for home is always a tricky question – buy new cargo too soon and the delays caused by selling retail can mean that it spoils before you can bring it to market. Advantage to the wholesaler model, then.
But, on the other hand, if you know it’s going to take a week to buy a full load for the trip home, you’ll have a reasonable chance to have sold everything in that period of time, so you might as well sell retail.
Customs and traditions definitely play a part in these decision, too. So there’s a lot to consider.
Having the right personnel working for you can make or break the Trading, it’s clear. Ideally, you would want to do everything yourself, but no-one’s yet been able to master the trick of being in two places at the same time – not without some sort of disaster befalling them, at any rate.
2.6 Virtual Trade Units – The Futures Market
Ah, the home stretch! This section of content doesn’t really fit here, but it doesn’t really fit anywhere all that well, so it may as well be here, since so much of this chapter is about buying and selling.
Most people don’t understand the Futures Market. A few of them will (like me) have some idea from presentations in media like “Trading Places” and general knowledge. Nevertheless, it needs to be explained at some point, and this gives me license to simplify outrageously!
2.6.1 A Commitment to buy at Price X
The futures market takes two forms: a commitment to buy at Price X, or a commitment to sell at price X.
A commitment to buy means that you are betting that the market price of the commodity will be higher than X when the commitment comes due – so you can buy at the agreed price and then sell immediately at the higher one, making a profit.
But, to do that, X must also be higher than the price today – or you have to reach this agreement with someone who thinks the price will fall instead of going up, and therefore thinks that they can buy the commodity cheaper and you will have to pay them a higher price than they would otherwise get. You lose money, they make money.
The Futures Market is, essentially, betting on whether or not the price of a commodity will go up or down, and it generally involves buying Trade Units of a commodity that don’t even exist yet. The further into the future you speculate, the bigger the potential rewards, and the bigger the risk.
2.6.2 A Commitment to sell at Price X
The other side of the coin is a commitment to sell at Price X on a given date. This means that you are betting that the price is going to drop.
All sorts of things can affect the value of a commodity. Demand could go up for some reason. Or down. Supply could go up – or down. Quality could go up, or down. Farmers could demand more money for their crops, or transport costs could rise. Government regulations and trade deals can throw unexpected spanners into the works. Even bad weather delaying shipments from reaching their market for a week or so – not unheard of, especially in the days of sail – can be a Market Event, creating a short term supply shortage.
The more information you have about a commodity, the smarter the bets that you can make. Now, add crystal balls to the mix. And sabotage. And other dirty tricks like lies and misdirection.
The downside of an adventure based on trading Futures is that you have to explain the Futures Market – and understand it, yourself. The upside is that it reeks of skulduggery and dirty tricks, and those always make for a lively game session.
2.6.3 The Impact Of Options
It’s usually illegal, but being both a trader in the commodity and a trader in the futures market of that commodity can be very lucrative. In fact, you can make a killing on the market – an obscene profit – if you play your cards right.
I know some people found the commodities trading in Raymond E Feist’s “Rise Of A Merchant Prince” to be dull. I found it fascinating.
The merchant prince in question, named Roo (quite improbably – I think it’s short for Rupert) – learns that there is a locust plague in a distant kingdom. That kingdom is going to have to send representatives to buy wheat locally. Demand will skyrocket and supply is limited – which means that the price will also rise massively.
So he and his cohorts invest every penny they can pinch in buying options on the local wheat crop, paying considerably more than the expected normal market price if necessary, confident that if they control it all, they can set the sale price to whatever they want when those foreign traders arrive.
They are betting, on the basis of this uncertain insider knowledge, that the price of wheat is going to go up – by a lot. Sound familiar?
Of course, all this has to be done in utmost secrecy – one hint that they are trying to corner the market and the whole scheme will come at least partially undone. And if the insider knowledge is wrong, the whole scheme will come catastrophically undone!
Options are a way to spend money that you don’t have to increase the price of a commodity when the time comes. Or, if you have very deep pockets and an enemy is even more invested in the price going up than you are, you can deliberately take a loss, set the price too low, and send your enemy into ruin. It’s easy to be too clever by half.
Options, and Futures Trading, is really a story of intelligence gathering and leveraging that intelligence to your advantage. The Trading is just the blood sport in which this all takes place.
2.6.4 Each-way or “Hedging” Bets
A trader gives a commitment to buy so many Trade Units of a commodity for X to one buyer and to sell the same number of Trade Units to another buyer for Y on the same date. What’s going on?
The trader is clearly going to take a loss on one of these two transactions under most circumstances, but he’s betting that the profit that he makes on the other side is going to outweigh that loss – and if it doesn’t, he has hedged his bets. He may incur some losses, but they are less likely to be catastrophic to his bottom line.
A lot depends on X and Y – one is clearly higher than the other. It’s even possible to make a profit both ways, but that really is a masterwork of misdirection on the scale of a Bellagio Casino Heist (refer “Oceans 11”) or a Mission Impossible.
The risk is always that you can get it wrong and make a loss both ways.
I’m not going to go into further details – you have everything you need to be able to figure the rest out for yourself. Hint: consider all the possible scenarios and you will be able to deduce what the Trader thinks is going to happen (based on X and Y) and what the people he’s done deals with think is going to happen (based on X and Y respectively). Then look at ways for all three parties to cheat.
2.6.5 Paying the Piper
At the end of the day, you have to make good on your promises, even if it ruins you. That’s the whole point of Trading Places – a pair of manipulative schemers, used to playing the market, ruin the life of one bright young up-and-comer and threaten to do the same to his unlikely replacement as a ‘social experiment’; the pair of intended victims come together with a couple of allies to turn the tables on the pair.
If you can’t come up with the money, the market will strip you of every asset and put them up for sale. You will still owe the rest. What bankruptcy protections are there in your game world?
In Ancient Greece, they had debt slavery – the debtor, his wife, children, and servants were all forced into slavery to the creditor until the loss was recouped by their physical labor. Some city-states imposed limits of 5 years servitude, and debt slaves often had a promise of protection of life and limb, which regular slaves did not – but these protections didn’t extend to the servants of the debtor, who were often forced into a lifetime of servitude under harsh conditions.
Debtors Prison was invented in England 1542 which empowered various officials to imprison those who could not pay their debts and distribute their assets ‘equitably’ amongst those to whom they owed money. Before that, Church Law permitted a debtor to hand over all his worldly possessions to a creditor (sometimes with a few necessities exempted) in exchange for a fresh start.
In 1705, Debtor’s Prison was abolished and replaced by a system whereby the debtor’s unpaid debts followed him until repaid. His possessions were forfeit and their values applied against those debts. Bankrupts were seen as frauds and criminals.
In 1813, a debtor could be released from his debts after serving 14 days imprisonment and upon swearing an oath that their assets did not exceed £20 – but if this oath was a lie, the sentence was much harsher. The laws introduced then also permitted people to voluntarily declare themselves Bankrupt rather than waiting for someone else to lower the boom.
It was only in the middle of the 19th century that attitudes began to soften, and bankrupts to be seen as the victims of misfortune.
In the modern age, it is sometimes said that if you owe the bank a little, the bank owns you, but if you owed the bank a fortune, you owned the bank. That was definitely not the case back then!
2.7 Failure To Deliver
There’s one more bit of world-building that GMs have to perform before they can implement Trade as a campaign plot device, or more specifically, three pieces of related construction: Laws that describe what happens when things go awry and commitments can’t be met. I’ve touched on this earlier so let’s dive right into it.
Another article of relevance might be of interest, to start with: Lore Enforcement: The Legal System in an RPG, from a solid 15 1/2 years ago (!)
2.7.1 Local
There are two local law situations that will generally be covered under the same law: Buying something that can’t be delivered, and selling something that can’t be delivered. The reasons are fairly irrelevant since we’ve specified Local law, which rules out wider-scale issues.
Does the law hold the person making the promise liable? Does it accept that promising anything always implies caveats that might prevent the transaction being completed? Who loses money? If you’ve made commitments to others based on the assumption that someone else would deliver the commodity needed to fulfill those commitments, are you liable or is the person who committed delivery to you?
What about local conditions that are considered a government responsibility, like Bandits or (sometimes) transport infrastructure – bridges, fords, ferry landings and ferries, docks?
Once you know who’s responsible, you know who can recruit the PCs to go investigate the problem – why weren’t the promises kept? If the PCs Trade venture was disrupted, they may have a more direct vested interest in such questions, but that’s not necessary to make this a segue into an adventure.
Or even several – if the PCs become convinced that the local government is corrupt or incompetent, they may choose to embark on a campaign to replace them with someone more reliable. Intelligence and Politics are always good foundations for campaigns!
2.7.2 Regional / National
These are generally similar in scope. The first deals with some regional issue – a natural disaster of some sort being the most common. This is a really good reason not to be able to deliver on a promise and is normally dealt with under a whole separate set of laws / decrees that override any local laws dealing with such issues.
That’s even more true of the second, which deals with the fallout / ramifications of political decisions both by the nation in question and by outsiders – like someone launching an invasion.
Now, unless the PCs are fairly high level, they won’t be considered suitable people to solve such problems – that’s a job for the army, led by some higher-level characters. And that’s no fun for the PCs.
Until they are of sufficient level to be lumbered with such commissions by the authorities, though, the PCs get to search out and test ways around the problem. That might mean charting a new road or trail, or opening up a new market, or attempting to run a blockade. It might mean a sub-commission to scout or spy. It might be being sent to a particular location in case the enemy go there, but they aren’t expected to head in that direction (which is why the relatively unskilled PCs are sent there) – only to discover that the enemy has their own tactical objectives that have not been understood, and so behave completely contrary to such expectations. The PCs suddenly find themselves besieged and have to attempt escape in order to bring back reinforcements before it’s too late – which can be an incredibly nervous assignment when the PCs are clearly less powerful than the enemy.
2.7.3 Remote
Obviously, the next distance removed and next tier of law is International.
I’ve never studied law formally, but I have picked up a number of (usually out-of-date) second-hand references. One of the first of these was a reprint of a book published in the year of my birth, itself a revision of a book that predated the Second World War. And one of the first points that it makes is that 99% of International Law doesn’t exist, but everyone has to pretend that it does until they figure out what it should be.
Another reference source points out that the more humans (we being the only recognized sentient species on the planet, something not true in most Fantasy campaigns) have participated in a particular activity, the better regulated by law that activity will be.
★ So there are pretty solid laws now for war, and war crimes, and what is and is not acceptable on the battlefield.
★ There are moderately well thought-out laws regarding Treaties, especially those relating to Trade, and how inequities are to be resolved, how treaties can be annulled or repudiated or enforced, and by whom.
★ There’s solid law concerning piracy.
★ Colonies are fairly well dealt with.
★ And there are some early glimmers of law regarding the peaceful cooperation of two or more nations for some mutually agreed purpose, and especially branches of their militaries.
And that’s about where things end – at least in terms of the laws described in these books, except in terms of some general principles.
One of those principles is that (with exceptions for diplomats), local laws dominate; you go somewhere else, it’s their laws that control. In a matter of criminal activity, it’s where the crime is alleged to have taken place whose law applies. Where two sets of laws apply equally, it is the law of the aggrieved party that dominates, absent any other controlling circumstance. And so on.
All good, logical stuff – that’s absolutely full of holes, because none of those principles are enforceable by anyone unless ratified between two specific national entities by formal treaties that recognize them.
That’s how and why the US could back the War Crimes court in the Hague and still refuse to ratify it by treaty – so that they can’t be charged with War Crimes.
What are the major treaties between the nation where the PCs are and its neighbors? What is covered and what is not? What do they have to say about Trade? About criminal deceptions and fraud? About liabilities and assumed risks? About promises that are enforceable and those that are not?
Remember, 99% of international law was unwritten – in 1928. How much of it was written in the 1600s? Earlier? If you are accused of a crime in another country, whose laws dominate? If someone from another country commits a crime against you, what legal recourse / protection do you have? If there’s no formal treaty dealing with those issues, what then?
Treaties don’t happen out of thin air, either. There can be dozens of Diplomatic Missions involved – and that can be a very touchy business when diplomats from one country are not even recognized (legally) in the other. The absence of a treaty can be a powerful plot device!
What interests do the countries have in common? What attitudes do they share? Where there are differences of opinion, how are they to be reconciled? What is to happen if a third nation attempts to cause trouble between the two of you? How are you to deal with political attempts to involve you in local political situations? And on, and on, and on.
A single mission as (expendable) representatives of your nation to another can be a doorway through which multiple adventures can sit down in your living room and make themselves obnoxious – simply because you have no protection, and yet have sufficient power that locals will try and use your presence for their own ends. You have proximity to the seat of power in that nation, and others will also be quick to sense this, and attempt to take advantage of it.
There are innumerable opportunities just waiting to be exploited by you as GM. Why waste them? Why ignore them?
Okay, that’s a wrap for this chapter of Trade In Fantasy. Lots of food for thought and a few bones for you to chew over. Next week, a scheduled break – I was going to write one article, but then thought of another, so I’m not sure what I’ll be writing about. Then it will be back on the horse, when the subject will be how to manage ordinary employees without personnel management issues!