Trade In Fantasy Ch. 3: Routine Personnel, Pt 3
The 3rd of 4 posts looking at everyday personnel in Trade focuses on the Labor Unit and how to use it to make GMing a business easier.
Today’s post starts with a couple of short sections that were inadvertently left out of last week’s examination of carts. They had been written, but not where they were supposed to be, and I had failed to add them to the table of contents, which serves as a reminder of what’s supposed to be there – so that when I went through my checklist, it looked ready to post. It’s an error that’s not likely to recur, but it means that there’s just a little bit of crossing T’s and dotting i’s to be done.

Image by Pexels from Pixabay. I’ve painted out some rock climbers in obviously modern clothing and extended to the image slightly to the right.
Table Of Contents: In part 1 of Chapter 3: Routine Personnel
3.1 A Choice Of Four Trade Unit Standards (actually, 8)
3.1.0 Principles of Comparative Modes Of Transport
3.1.1 Humans as a beast of burden
3.1.1.1 Lift from STR
3.1.1.2 Average isn’t Average
3.1.1.3 4d6 keep 3 vs 3d6
3.1.1.4 Career Paths & STR3.1.1.4.1 Linear vs Non-Linear
3.1.1.5 Lift, at last
3.1.1.6 EncumbranceSidebar: Behind The Curtain
3.1.1.7 Load & Load Capacity
3.1.1.8 Load Balance3.1.1.8.1 Adding a Staff to the equation
3.1.1.8.2 Relating Load to Encumbrance (D&D)
3.1.1.8.3 Relating Load to Encumbrance (Hero / Superhero)
3.1.1.8.4 Relating Load to Encumbrance (Hero / Adventurer’s Club)3.1.1.9 Load Distribution
3.1.1.10 Humanoids3.1.1.10.1 The Size Factor
3.1.1.10.2 The Proportions Factor
3.1.1.10.3 The Racial Factor
3.1.1.10.4 The Human Advantage
3.1.1.10.5 The Iconic Reference
3.1.1.10.6 Elves
3.1.1.10.7 Dwarves
3.1.1.10.8 Halflings
3.1.1.10.9 Orcs
3.1.1.10.10 Ogres
3.1.1.10.11 Bugbears
3.1.1.10.12 Trolls
3.1.1.10.13 Hill Giants
3.1.1.10.14 Stone Giants
3.1.1.10.15 Other Giants
3.1.1.10.16 OthersAnd, in Part 2:
3.1.1 Humans as a beast of burden (cont)
3.1.1.11 Time: 8, 12, 16, 24
3.1.1.12 Speed
3.1.1.12.1 Non-D&D Scales3.1.1.13 Provisions: Food
3.1.1.14 Provisions; Water
3.1.1.15 Replenishment: Foraging / Hunting / Buying
3.1.1.16 Distance
3.1.1.17 The humanoid bottom line3.1.1.17.1 Elves
3.1.1.17.2 Dwarves
3.1.1.17.3 Halflings
3.1.1.17.4 Orcs
3.1.1.17.5 Ogres
3.1.1.17.6 Bugbears
3.1.1.17.7 Trolls
3.1.1.17.8 Hill Giants
3.1.1.17.9 Stone Giants
3.1.1.17.10 Other Giants
3.1.1.17.11 Other Humanoids3.1.2 Horses as a beast of burden
3.1.3 Burros as a beast of burden
3.1.4 Carts as a ‘beast of burden’
3.1.4.1 Strength of the Axles
3.1.4.1.1 Cart & Wagon Stats: High-Score Option
3.1.4.1.2 Cart & Wagon Stats: Low-Score Option
3.1.4.1.3 Cart & Wagon Axle Reinforcement3.1.4.2 Strength of the Wheels
3.1.4.2.1 Spoke Thickness
3.1.4.2.2 Number Of Spokes
3.1.4.2.3 Solid Wheels3.1.4.3 Strength of the Connection
3.1.4.4 Strength of the Bed
3.1.4.5 Rolling Resistance
3.1.4.5.1 Slope (aka Grade, Gradient, Stepth, Incline, Mainfall, Pitch, and Rise)3.1.4.6 Gravity Vector
In today’s post:
3.1.4.7 Pulling the Cart or Wagon
3.1.4.8 Simplification
3.1.4.9 Storytelling3.1.5 Choosing Your Unit
3.1.6 Ramifications
3.1.6.1 Freight Management
3.1.6.2 Base Loading Time
3.1.6.3 On The Road: Drivers, Guards, Cargo-masters, & Handlers
3.1.6.4 Base Unloading Time
3.1.6.5 Sales Prep
3.1.6.6 Sales and Customers3.2 Recruiter / Personnel Manager
3.2.1 Assumption #1: The best available gets hired
3.2.1.1 Any Relevant Skill
3.2.1.2 INT + WIS
3.2.1.3 Substituting CHAR
3.2.1.4 Supplemental Magic3.2.2 Assumption #2: They Hire The Best
3.2.3 The Principle Of Labor Unmanagement3.3 The Labor Unit
3.3.1 Eight man-hour Labor Units
3.3.2 Twelve man-hour Labor Units
3.3.3 Sixteen man-hour Labor Units
3.3.4 Twenty-four man-hour Labor Units
3.3.5 Choices and Expectations3.4 The Labor Market
3.5 Basic Pay-scales
3.5.1 Loyalty Index
Which will be followed by:
3.6 Productivity
3.6.1 Premium Labor Units
3.6.2 Reminder: Profit per Trade Unit, not costs or prices3.7 Pay-scale Variations
3.7.1 Overpaying workers / Elite Quality Workforce
3.7.2 Underpaying workers / Lower Quality Workforce
3.7.3 Slaves
3.7.4 Minor Stakeholders
3.7.5 Combinations & Complications3.8 Technological Impact
3.8.1 Major Breakthroughs
3.8.2 Incremental Gains
3.8.3 Trade Secrets & Industrial Spies3.9 Key Personnel & The Labor Unit
3.10 The Personnel Bottom LineIn future parts after that:
- Mode Of Transport
- Land Transport
- Waterborne Transport
- Spoilage
- Key Personnel
- The Journey
- Arrival
- Journey’s End
- Adventures En Route
Recap:
In the last post, I showed how to determine an answer to the question “How much can one carry”, not only for humans but for all humanoids.
The solution offered takes into account every variable that could be thought of, from STR to Stamina to size and proportions (when it comes to non-humans).
It also presented a couple of key equations that will really come into relevance in today’s post:
Work Effort = Bulk × Distance / Labor Unit Standard.
where,
Bulk is as defined in Chapter Two: Volume × Weight, measured in Cargo Units;
Distance is how far the chosen Trade Unit Standard Transport can move a Cargo Unit in a certain period of time; and
“Labor Unit Standard” defines that period of time.In other words,
Work Effort = Bulk × Speed.
It was then determined that the average STR for a human who uses STR for a living should be 11 (D&D/Pathfinder scale) or 10 (Hero System scale). This was based on Lift values of 225.54 lb and 102.28 kg, respectively.
There was also discussion of the fact that the normal STR maximums in both systems gave Lift values roughly triple the actual current world records). Nothing was done about that in terms of corrections to stat progression – it was left to individual GMs to determine what to do about the fact.
Carrying capacity is used differently depending on how the load is balanced and distributed, but the bottom line is that any given humanoid has a capacity which determines how much the loads that can be considered “cargo” can weigh.
Load is the effective weight being carried by the character.
Load Capacity is the character’s capacity to carry a Load.
Loads can be Distributed, Supported, or Point.. Distributed loads are worn, supported loads are carried on the back and/or shoulders, and point loads are just carried.
Unused Capacity is the Character’s adjusted Load Capacity (size, shape, racial adjustments) minus adjusted Distributed and Supported Load totals.
Therefore, Unused Capacity can be used to carry Cargo. The weight that produces this amount of Load (maximum) can be determined by multiplying the Unused Capacity by various factors (Balance, character size, shape, and race) – in reality, the actual Cargo Weight is being multiplied by the inverse of these factors, but this is is the easiest way to get a maximum.
There were also modifiers for teams of characters carrying a single load, and for the use of walking sticks and staffs.
Once a maximum has been determined, actual Cargo weights can be adjusted to determine the actual Load, and therefore the Encumbrance affecting the character, which limits the characters Speed of Movement (amongst other effects).
Unfortunately, there’s no clear and consistent way of doing so, it varies from one game system to another.
It must be emphasized that while the systems can be employed for individuals, the goal was actually to define a racial “average”.
Next, something I’ve described as “The Human Advantage” was defined:
- 5 movement rate (“), after adjusting for Load Encumbrance, can be sustained for 2 hours.
- -10 movement rate (“), after adjusting for Load Encumbrance, can be sustained for 4 hours or CON hours, whichever is lower.
- -15 movement rate (“), after adjusting for Load Encumbrance, can be sustained for 8 hours or CON hours, whichever is lower.
- -20 movement rate (“), after adjusting for Load Encumbrance, can be sustained for one hour per point of CON or for 1 day, whichever is lower.
Some races have an even greater serving of this ability, others less, and many don’t have it at all. When this is factored in, it becomes clear that while other humanoids can have advantages over humans in one way or another, overall, humans are the standard against which they should all be measured.
Still paving the ground around the Labor Unit, time and speed were then looked at, which in turn defined distance that could be traveled with a cargo. Approximate terrain values were provided in a prelude to Chapter 5 that will look into the subject in more detail. Anatomical differences between humanoids were again relevant.
That was followed by the human requirements for food, and how these impacted Cargo carrying capacity. Options including purchasing food, hunting, and foraging were canvassed – there are three ways to pay for sustenance: Time, Carrying Capacity, or Coin.
Water needs were a more difficult proposition, and led us into some simple logistics. In a nutshell, unless you are completely sure of being able to replenish your supplies with potable water, you have to carry it with you – and you should always have twice as much as you need to get from one potential replenishment point to the next, just in case. A means of calculating how much water needed to be carried, taking all these considerations into account, was then offered.
Horses were then examined, and a combination of shortcomings – high food requirements for example – showed them to be less efficient than humans at carrying cargo. The need to graze ate significantly into the time they could spend at speed, but the quality and quantity of the available feed was a significant factor.
Burros – Mules & Donkeys – proved to have significant advantages over horses.
Finally, a close examination of carts was begun. These can carry huge loads. A system of breaking down the limitations of such vehicles was detailed which breaks the overall STR of a cart or wagon- used to determine the carrying capacity – into four sub-items – the STR of the bed (which actually carries the load), the STR of the axles, the STR of the wheels (and how it is reflected in or dictated by the wheel structure), and the STR of the connection between wheels and axles. Each of these was detailed and the limitations they imposed were determined – in a lot more detail than was originally intended. Finally, two specific limitations – Rolling Resistance and the potential to overturn because of Gravity and mismanagement of loads – were defined and determined.
Horses and other pack animals were specified as being able to pull (in general) 4 × as much as they could carry, 6 × with exertion. Horses are 6 × and 8 x, respectively. Some pack animals like Oxen can haul 8 × and 10 x, respectively, but tend to be slow. Each additional animal adds 75% to the total (not 100%). in general terms, if there are no significant inclines, using the lower of these leaves capacity for overcoming rolling resistance, the reluctance of a load to start moving – provided that the driver is canny about where he stops for the night.
So that’s where we’re at.
Let’s work up some quick examples of Animal Teams as a prelude to this section:
1 × Burro
80 kg carry, 320 kg max load
Haul 4 x80=320 kg (light load) – 6 x320=1920 kg (heavy load) each
First animal: 100% capacity; no additional animals
Recommendation: leave 20% capacity in reserve
80% × 1920 (heavy load) = 1536 kg recommended max load
Speed diminished at 480 kg load & 960 kg load (Encumbrance)
2 × Burros
80 kg carry, 320 kg max load
Haul 4 x80=320 kg (light load) – 6 x320=1920 kg (heavy load) each
First animal: 100% capacity
Additional animal × 75% = additional 75%
A team of 2 =1755% of a single animal
175% × 320 (light load) = 560 kg
175% × 1920 (heavy load) = 3360 kg
Recommendation: keep 20% capacity one in reserve
80% × 3360 (heavy load) = 2688 kg recommended max load
Speed diminished at 840 kg load & 1680 kg load (Encumbrance)
1 × Horse
160 kg carry, 720 kg max load
Haul 6 x160=320 kg (light load) – 8 × 720=1920 kg (heavy load) each
First animal: 100% capacity
Additional three animals × 75% = additional 225%
A team of 4 =325% of a single animal
325% × 320 (light load) = 1040 kg
325% × 1920 (heavy load) = 6240 kg
Recommendation: keep one in reserve
250% × 1920 (heavy load) = 4800 kg recommended max load
Speed diminished at 1200 kg load & 2400 kg load (Encumbrance)
4 × Burros
80 kg carry, 320 kg max load
Haul 4 x80=320 kg (light load) – 6 x320=1920 kg (heavy load) each
First animal: 100% capacity
Additional three animals × 75% = additional 225%
A team of 4 =325% of a single animal
325% × 320 (light load) = 1040 kg
325% × 1920 (heavy load) = 6240 kg
Recommendation: keep one in reserve
250% × 1920 (heavy load) = 4800 kg recommended max load
Speed diminished at 1200 kg load & 2400 kg load (Encumbrance)
6 × Burros
80 kg carry, 320 kg max load
Haul 4 x80=320 kg (light load) – 6 x320=1920 kg (heavy load) each
First animal: 100% capacity
Additional five animals × 75% = additional 375%
A team of 6 =475% of a single animal
475% × 320 (light load) = 1520 kg
475% × 1920 (heavy load) = 9120 kg
Recommendation: keep one in reserve
300% × 1920 (heavy load) = 5760 kg recommended max load
Speed diminished at 2280 kg load & 4560 kg load (Encumbrance)
2 × Horses
160 kg carry, 720 kg max load
Haul 6 × 160=960 kg (light load) – 8 × 720=5760 kg (heavy load) each
First animal: 100% capacity
Additional animal × 75% = additional 75%
A team of 2 =175% of a single animal
175% × 960 (light load) = 1680 kg
175% × 5760 (heavy load) = 10,080 kg
Recommendation: keep 25% reserve
75% × 10,080 (heavy load) = 7560 kg recommended max load
Speed diminished at 2520 kg load & 5040 kg load (Encumbrance)
8 × Burros
80 kg carry, 320 kg max load
Haul 4 x80=320 kg (light load) – 6 x320=1920 kg (heavy load) each
First animal: 100% capacity
Additional seven animals × 75% = additional 525%
A team of 8 =625% of a single animal
625% × 320 (light load) = 2000 kg
625% × 1920 (heavy load) = 12,000 kg
Recommendation: keep two in reserve
475% × 1920 (heavy load) = 9120 kg recommended max load
Speed diminished at 3000 kg load & 6000 kg load (Encumbrance)
4 × Horses
160 kg carry, 720 kg max load
Haul 6 × 160=960 kg (light load) – 8 × 720=5760 kg (heavy load) each
First animal: 100% capacity
Additional animals 3 × 75% = additional 225%
A team of 4 =325% of a single animal
325% × 960 (light load) = 3120 kg
325% × 5760 (heavy load) = 18,720 kg
Recommendation: keep 1 in reserve, 75% load on others
250% × 75% × 5760 (heavy load) = 10,800 kg recommended max load
Speed diminished at 4580 kg load & 9360 kg load (Encumbrance)
6 × Horses
160 kg carry, 720 kg max load
Haul 6 × 160=960 kg (light load) – 8 × 720=5760 kg (heavy load) each
First animal: 100% capacity
Additional animal 5 × 75% = additional 375%
A team of 6 =475% of a single animal
475% × 960 (light load) = 4560 kg
475% × 5760 (heavy load) = 27,360 kg
Recommendation: keep 2 in reserve, 80% load on the rest
375% × 80% × 5760 (heavy load) = 17,280 kg recommended max load
Speed diminished at 6,840 kg load & 13,680 kg load (Encumbrance)
That’s probably enough to be getting on with. I have very carefully arranged these in sequence of increasing maximum load.
Deducting from that load is the weight of the cart, of the driver, of any passengers, and of food and water for all concerned.
Team of 6 horses:
49 kg food & water / day each = 294 kg
reserves 25% = approx 76 kg; subtotal 370kg.
for a week? = 2590kg.
recommended capacity 17,280 – 2590 = 14,690
wagon weight? 1000 kg, maybe 2,000. remaining capacity = (conservatively) 12,690 kg.
driver & guard & gear, maybe 210kg. Remaining capacity = 12,480 kg.
food for 2 people for 7 days = 3 × 2 × 7 = 42kg.
+25% reserve = approx 11 kg = 53 kg.
water for 2 people for 7 days = 2.5 × 2 × 7 + 5 = 40 kg.
+50% reserve = + 20kg = 60kg.
Remaining capacity = 12480 – 53 – 60 = 12,367 kg.
Let’s add 6 guards, walking / marching alongside the wagon. That increases the food and water needs x4.
Remaining capacity = 12480 – 4 × (53+60) = 12480 – 452 = 12028.
Lose another 28 kg for incidentals like tents, cooking gear, etc. And carry 200kg of firewood.
Remaining capacity = 11,800 kg.
That’s a viable proposition. Well protected, moving steadily, mounts well within capacity, with spares in case one comes up lame or needs to carry an injured guard.
There is a simpler option to getting all detailed and specific about wagon components. Simply buy STR for the total at 3x the quoted price, and assume that all components (wheels, axles, etc) are specced up to match. If “something” comes up as broken in a random check by the GM, he or she simply rolls a d6 to decide what – if necessary:
1-3 Wheel / Connection
4-5 Axle
6 Bed / Other
If the roll indicates a wheel / connection failure, the GM should consider the load, terrain, & road conditions to see if one of the two can be ruled out. If not, a second roll (50-50) makes the choice. For each extra step above 3 spokes, add 5% to the chance that a spoke has broken.
If the roll indicates a “cart-bed / other” failure, then either the cart body has failed / collapsed somehow (1 in 6), or the cart / wagon has tipped over (2 in 6) or there’s some problem with the health of an animal pulling the cart / wagon (3 in 6).
It should be remembered at all times while reading / referencing any of the above that the details and specifics are intended to be an aid to storytelling, and there is no story if a PC is not involved directly. If that’s not the case, hand-wave copious amounts of detail.
EG: A PC is waiting on something that they have ordered from a specialist in another town to be carried to him by the fantasy equivalent of a postal service. It’s late, and every time he asks whether or not it’s arrived, the GM indicates a “no”, so he is starting to worry. Finally, the wagon turns up, traveling slowly because it’s using temporary jury-rigged spokes, and because the guards are a bloodied mess and close to death. The wagon driver, when asked, describes a trip in which just about everything that could go wrong, did go wrong: First,they broke a spoke, second the driver tried to make up time and overturned the wagon, and third, while setting it upright, they were attacked by Bandits led by a Bugbear wearing an eye-patch. The guards were no match for the band of thugs, outnumbered four t one. “Funny thing was, they only wanted one thing from the back – once they had it, they were off and running for the treeline.” adds the Driver. With a sinking feeling, the player has the PC check the inventory, and sure enough, his order is the one thing missing. Suddenly he’s deeply enmeshed in a plot he didn’t see coming – but note that there’s no details of how the spoke got broken, or how the wagon overturned (though the coincidence of timing is striking), or how the battle with the guards unfolded, or how strong various parts were, or what they were made of. All irrelevancies that would get in the way of the real plot – someone knew that his cargo was on-board and arranged for it to be stolen.
If, on the other hand, a PC not only owned the wagon / freight company, but was driving the wagon, and another was the leader of the guards, all those details suddenly become very much relevant and none of the action should be hand-waved. It suddenly matters that an earth-slide created an unexpected bank to the road at the critical spot – which was either chosen by the bandits because of the earth-slide because it would force the wagon to slow, or it was created by the bandits to achieve that very end.
And, in the latter case, remember that the PCs don’t know what information is relevant and what is not – so as little as possible of it should be glossed over.

I can never look at a cloud (or a photo of clouds) without remembering two facts. (1) To be visible to human eyes, a cloud (no matter how small) is actually made up of at least 10,000 smaller clouds; and (2) they contain so much water vapor that the smallest cloud you can actually see from ground level weighs as much as a bull elephant or more. It’s the latter fact that makes this a relevant illustration for this article. The base image is by M Fahad Noor from Pixabay.
3.1.5 Choosing Your Unit
Your definition of a Labor Unit standard should be derived from the normal activities that you expect to comprise the bulk of the activity of the trade operation.
If the core of the business is retail – loading and unloading, selling in a commercial space, etc – then an eight-hour working day and human(oid) capacity is the basis of your standard.
If the core of the business is transport – buying, moving, and wholesaling – then the transportation of cargo is the dominant activity. In a (relatively) safe area, that means a 12-hour working day and the dominant means of transportation will form the other part of the equation. The extra time allows for hunting, foraging, and letting beasts graze.
In a less-civilized area, the potential for profit can be greater, but so are the risks. To allow for those risks, you will need guards, and they will have to work 12-hour or 16-hour days, depending on the length of their watches. Shorter times mean more people are needed.
In the wilds, or at sea, trouble is no less likely to arrive at any hour of the day than any other, and all hands will need to be ready to respond. If you are hiring cargo vessels, the crew are ‘on’ all the time (even when resting below decks) – and that usually means a 24-hour day, and since a vessel doesn’t care how much it’s carrying (so long as it isn’t overloaded), it’s loading and unloading at docks that’s the dominant activity. The actual transport all happens in the background, unless a PC happens to be on board.
These principles are so straightforward that they are almost anticlimactic – but that’s the virtue of having paved all the surrounding ground. But closer examination reveals a lot of hidden nuance that can complicate things.
What if your business is a mixed one? What if you have different humanoid types at each end of a basic model – Halfling “gardeners” at one end and humans unloading and wholesaling at the other?
In such cases, look for the highest common denominator, or the one that yields the simplest fractions. If you have a race at one end that does 2/3 as much in an hour as the one at the other (smaller size, lower strengths, better unions?) then you have two obvious choices: the higher and the lower. If the higher, then the lower will be “2/3 of a labor unit” – that’s messy. If the lower, then the higher will be “1.5 labor units” – that’s a lot easier to work with. So that’s your choice.
Similarly, if the labor they are employed for is of differing lengths of time, you have two choices: you can subdivide a standard time unit to get the shorter span, or look for a common multiple.
Obvious choices for subdivision are 4 hours, 2 hours, and 1 hour. It’s no coincidence that the standard time intervals for Labor Units are all multiples of 4 hours. Whatever your standards, all activities have to get rounded up to the next highest multiple of that time – so the smaller the unit, the greater the accuracy but the more fiddling the details, the larger the unit, the more generalized and abstracted everything is – and as a general rule of thumb, that’s better.
3.1.6 Ramifications
These are not idle choices, there will be ramifications throughout the operation. As a general rule of thumb, even if you only employ people for three hours of the day, they won’t find any other paid work after they’ve finished – so if you insist on only paying for three hours work, you’ll save money for a couple of days, and then find that only the desperate and the dregs are willing to work for you. At best, and depending on how labor market customs have evolved in a given culture and location, you might be able to get away with employing people for a half-day. But more likely, you will have to pay for a full day’s labor from each Labor Unit – which means that if the main activity is only going to take three hours, then you may want some secondary activity to make them productive for the rest of their ‘shifts”.
Of course, those are all relevant only in terms of an 8-hour basis. If your basis is 12 hours, then your local hires will only need to be employed for 2/3 of a “standard” to be fully employed, or maybe 1/3 for a half-day.
Don’t expect to save money by changing the scale of a Labor Unit – basic wages will be specified per day and will mean 8 hours, so the price of a Labor Unit goes up with increasing length. And note that some activities may require a premium – two, three, four, or even five times basic pay. Guards in a dangerous environment, for example, may be paid 5 times normal, while Drivers in that environment (who are only ‘on’ 12 hours a day) may still need to get paid twice the normal rate.
Any loot that guards etc liberate along the way – if legally acquired – gets shared 50-50 between themselves and the business owner. No ifs, buts, maybes, or exceptions. Anything else either encourages guards to be watching for opportunities more than dangers to the Cargo, or discourages guards from working for you.
But these are just the beginning.
The obvious way to load a cargo – well there are three choices.
The first is to load in sequential order – whatever is bought / delivered first gets loaded first. This has the big advantage of speed – but it risks Gravity Vector problems, and problems if the entire load is not destined for a single destination.
The second is to load in reverse sequential order – whatever is to be delivered or unloaded first gets loaded last, so that it is most readily at hand when the time comes. If making a series of deliveries along the way, anything else can mean having to unload the whole cargo and then reloading it – to get to something that’s at the bottom of the stack. Once again, Gravity Vectors can be a serious problem.
The third is to be inefficient at all stops, and to pack the wagon for maximum stability. In other words, Gravity Vector problems take priority, and if that makes for convenience or inconvenience along the way, that’s just the way it is.
Nice and neat. Reality is more messy.
Many cargoes will have limited lifespans. These are measured in days, unless some preservation method is preserved, changing the nature of the commodity. These can be measured in days – seafood, for example, has a lifespan of just 2 days.
As a rule of thumb:
1/2 life (round down) = fresh = × 2 base price
1/2 × 1/2 life (round down) = good quality = × 1.25 base price
1/2 × 1/2 × 1/2 (round down) life = fair quality = base price
remaining life = poor quality = 1/2 base price
1 to 1.5 × life = very poor quality (1/5th base price), 50% spoiled
1.5 to 2 × life = abysmal quality (1/10th base price), 95% spoiled
> 2 × life = unsalable, 100% spoiled (1/20th base price if suited for animal fodder)
Preservation methods – mentioned earlier – extend the lifetime, so they don’t change this set of parameters.
Let’s select something with a reasonably short lifespan, but not as catastrophically so as seafood: Fruit.
There’s a fairly wide range within this category – apples can last months, peaches less so. For the sake of example, I’m going to select something with a 2-week lifespan. Who cares what it actually is, that’s not important. Let’s further specify 100 fruits to a barrel, at a base price (retail) of 1 copper each. Wholesale price will be 1/2 this, so 100 × 1/2 = 50 coppers per barrel = 5 SP per barrel. Twenty barrels = 100 SP = 10 GP (D&D monetary scale).
1 week = ‘fresh’ = 20 GP
3 days = good quality = 15 GP
1 day = fair quality = 10 GP
3 days = poor quality = 5 GP
1 week = very poor quality = 2 GP, less 50% spoilage = 1 GP
1 week = abysmal quality = 1 GP, less 95% spoilage = 5 CP.
Shipping these takes 3 days from farm to market. Loading them takes 1/2 a day, as does unloading them. That leaves:
3 days = ‘fresh’ = 20 GP
3 days = good quality = 15 GP
1 day = fair quality = 10 GP
3 days = poor quality = 5 GP
1 week = very poor quality = 2 GP, less 50% spoilage = 1 GP
1 week = abysmal quality = 1 GP, less 95% spoilage = 5 CP.
Lose a day to a wagon breakdown:
2 days = ‘fresh’ = 20 GP
otherwise as above
Stop 2 days out to sell 1/2 of the load – gets you the best prices – but at the cost of another 1/2 day spend unloading:
4 days = ‘fresh’ = 10 GP; remaining cargo base value 5 GP.
1.5 days = ‘fresh’ = 10 GP
3 days = good quality = 7 GP 5 SP
1 day = fair quality = 5 GP
3 days = poor quality = 2 GP 5 SP
1 week = very poor quality = 1 GP, less 50% spoilage = 5 SP
1 week = abysmal quality = 5 SP, less 95% spoilage = 2 CP.
How many barrels of fruit can you sell in 1.5 days? Two or three pieces at a time? Retailers won’t pay the full price quoted, because they know that they will be selling some of the produce at lower quality. A compromise of 7-8 GP is more likely – and that’s in a large city with a substantial demand. In a smaller city, 5-6 GP is the likely compromise. In a large town, you’re unlikely to sell the entire half-load, and what you do sell is likely to have a price of 4-5 GP.
So this approach earns about 17.5 GP. Let’s assume the farmer gets half the base price – that’s 2.5 GP – and the transportation costs another 5 GP. That means that the entire profit of the venture comes from that initial sale, with everything else just covering costs.
There are things that can be done to boost profits. Best solution: stop in every town (however small) along the way and sell 1 single barrel, even if the size means getting less than full price for it.
1/2 day: loading = 1/2 day.
1/2 day: transport = 1 day.
1/2 day: small town, 1 barrel ‘fresh’ = 1 GP. 19 remain. 1.5 days used.
1 day: reach city #1. 2.5 days used.
1/2 day unloading, sell 10 barrels = 10 GP. 9 remain. 3 days used.
1/2 day: divert to small town, 1 barrel ‘fresh’, discounted 25% = 7.5 SP. 8 remain. 3.5 days used.
1/2 day, small town, 1 barrel ‘fresh’, discounted 25% = 7.5 SP. 7 remain. 4 days used.
1 day, reach city #2. 5 days used.
1/2 day unloading, sell 2 barrels ‘fresh’ = 4 GP. leaves 5.
5 barrels, discounted to 8 SP each = 4 GP. 5.5 days used.
Total: 1+10+0.75+0.75+4+4 = 20.5 GP.
1/2 extra day, so +0.5 GP expenses. = 8 GP.
Profit: 12.5 GP instead of 10.
Multiply that by 50 weeks in a year, and 6 wagons going to different places, and you get profits of 3,750 GP (up from 3,000). Do that for 20 years and you have a substantial net worth from this source alone of 75,000 GP.
Of course, you’re likely to start smaller and grow, which will eat into that profit total. And there will be bad years along the way. The reality is that you might only have half of that 75 grand – or you could have substantially more, if you invested it. The bigger the risk, the bigger the payout – but risks have a habit of failing, now and then. But if you got lucky, you could increase that 37,500 a thousand-fold.
37.5 million GP. That’s serious money.
More likely, nine in 10 of those ventures won’t pay off. So that 1,000 fold becomes 100 fold. That’s still 3.75 million GP.
How much of this should be left to the PCs to think about?
None of it.
How much of this should the GM worry about?
Almost none of it.
Work up one typical trip, the same way I have. Then scale that as necessary, and accumulate. One wagon, 50 trips a year – that’s an income of 12.5 GP per week after expenses. That won’t break anyone’s game system.
Every 40 weeks, offer the PC a chance to add another cart and team, potentially doubling their income. Assume that maybe 1 in 5 of these additions doesn’t work out for whatever reason. Roll a die, adjust the PC’s income accordingly.
Some might be more lucrative than others; for those that succeed, roll d10-5 and multiply by 10 to get the profitability. Every now and then, deal the business a setback (a one-off loss of income) or a windfall (a one-off extra of 2-3 week’s worth of extra income). And in the meantime, use the existence of the business as a way to lay adventure potential at the feet of the PC.
That’s a big difference between Trade In Fantasy and Trade in a Fantasy RPG. Don’t forget it!
To be honest, 1/2 a day to load a cart is quite a long time. 20 barrels at 5 mins a barrel is just 100 minutes – less than 2 hours. Throw in a little extra time paying the farmers and checking the barrels (to make sure they are secure and full and of good quality cargo) and you should be underway in 2, maybe 2 1/2 hours.
A lot depends on how many Labor Units you can dedicate to the task. Twice as many units = half the loading time – up to a point. And the sooner you get a load on the road, the sooner it gets sold, and the better the price, and the bigger the profits – up to a point.
This is where the manpower availability determined earlier comes into play – you can’t hire people that aren’t there to be hired. Guards won’t do the work – aside from risking injury, it’s beneath them.
If your business is using ships, the entire equation can change. You might be looking at several days to load, and 60+ workers. Your labor units should scale up appropriately – 6 workers for an 8-hour day might be a labor unit.
Divide the cargo capacity by the STR per worker (average), by the number of workers in a Labor Unit, by the number of hours in a Labor Unit to get the number of days it takes to load or unload the vessel. Or simply define a labor unit as so much loading capacity (Ave STR × Hours × Workers × Factor).
Factor? What’s that, and where did it come from?
The cargo capacity per person is not how much they can load in an hour, it’s how much they can load at a time. They might be able to make 4-5 loading ‘trips’ in an hour – which would give a Factor of 4.5. Or it might be 3. Decide on an average and define a Labor Unit accordingly.
To transport cargo overland, or up / downriver, you may need some or all of these occupations. The driver can usually substitute for a cargo-master, or you can have somebody local do it as a side-gig. Handlers can (and usually are) hired locally. So drivers and guards are the main personnel needed.
But you don’t care what their job is – all you want to know is how many labor units working for how long for payment of X. So, having defined the Labor Unit, determine how many Labor Units are required for each Cargo Unit of capacity, and you’re done.
At first, you might need to break it down as I did in the previous section. It won’t be long before you’re able to say “It’s X days travel, the conditions are such-and-such, so that’s going to be X times Y people Labor Units plus loading and unloading × Z labor units, so the total per Cargo unit is about ##.” – with no need to actually count up individuals.
And if you make a mistake in this guesstimation, what of it? Sometimes, you might be under, sometimes over – the more frequently you do this, the more mistakes will tend to average out.
No GM or PC should ever know the names or races of these faceless entities – they are cogs in a machine, nothing more, unless and until the GM makes one more important for some specific plot reason, or a PC decides to ride along with one for whatever reason. Until then, they are not just sand-boxed, they are embargoed.
And if you ever do need to flesh one out more fully, create only a Partial NPC – do nothing that you don’t need. Just make sure that for every decision that gets made, or that has been made in the past but is only now being narrated, that you have a good reason. “We need to hire extra guards in Foxton,” says the Driver. We don’t need them for Foxton to Mercy, but we do for Mercy to Shadytown – and the people we can hire in Mercy for the job aren’t reliable.”
Once you’ve moved the Cargo from loading point to destination, it needs to be unloaded. The example earlier said that this was just as slow (or just as fast) as loading it, but we all know that’s not the case – in general, it takes 30 minutes to unload what it took 3 hours to load, in my experience – unless you also have to unpack and distribute the contents. Stacking crates and barrels, not so much.
I’ve already indicated that the base loading time used in the example was inaccurate; this makes it clear that the unloading time used is also going to be way off. That’s fine, the example served its purpose.
But, one simple tweak is all it takes to make it accurate again (or equally inaccurate both ways) – just specify that you have 6 labor units loading for every one unloading and you get equal time on both sides.
To me, though, six seems an awful lot. I personally would mandate a ratio of three labor units to one and that unloading takes half the time of loading. But that’s up to you.

There are many types of loading arm, mostly based around the Crane. The first such was devised in Mesopotamia in roughly 3000 BC, and the technology reached Ancient Egypt about 1000 years later. The Greeks realized that splitting the load amongst many load-bearing cables / ropes divided the strain amongst them, and also invented pulleys. So the basic principles should be well known in any fantasy society. Image by Michael Kauer (emkanicepic) from Pixabay
It might seem like this would change when larger vessels are concerned. The larger the group, the more scope there is for people to get in each other’s way – but that only happens if they are a disorganized rabble. Any foreman or cargo-master worth his pay will quickly organize a system that leaves no scope for such incompetence. It would work something like this:
A loading arm picks up a pallet of goods from the wharf (to load) or from the hold (to unload). If loading, he sets it down with a single team having carefully maneuvered it into position; they then lash it in place while he is getting the next one. If unloading, a crew descends on the pallet immediately; their job is to release the loading arm. Once that is done, as many Labor Units as necessary begin a procession – each one picks up one crate or barrel, then turns away and delivers it to wherever it’s supposed to go. That might be a wagon, it might be a warehouse. The number of Labor Units engaged in this activity should be just enough that the space can be cleared by the time the Cargo Arm has unloaded N more pallets. That means that there are only ever N pallets of goods on the wharf at any point.
N might be 1, 2, 3, 4, or even 5. If you figure that it takes 5-10 minutes to move a pallet from ship to shore, all you need do is decide how big a pallet is (in Cargo units) and divide the number of cargo units carried by the vessel by that number to get the number of pallets; once you know that, decide the total allowable unloading time (12, 8, 6, 4, 2, or 1 hour) to get the number of pallets per hour to be managed. Once you know that, the standard definition of a labor unit that you have chosen does the rest, telling you how many of them you need to achieve that level of efficiency..
One of the most common things to get work crews to do once unloading is complete would be to set up a sales display of some kind – be it a market stall for direct sales or a sample booth to woo prospective retailers.
As a general rule, this is a completely different skillset that they are unlikely to possess, but so long as they are following the directions of someone who knows what they are doing, that should not normally be a problem.
But it does raise the question of who in the organization actually has those specific skills? Who is the salesman?
There are two options: either there is someone in place at the point of sale who handles this (and probably several other loads from other producers as well). This is how the produce Markets here at Flemington basically operate.

This diagram combines five photos. For the producers / suppliers, we have Apples (I actually wanted corn or carrots but couldn’t resist this after my earlier example), image by Jill Wellington; for the Markets, we have potatos-carrots-vegetables-fruit, image by Yerson Retamal; for the general customer, we have Tomatos in a shopping cart, image by Erwin; for restaurants, I had limited choices but this kitchen fits the bill, image by StockSnap; and for the fruit & veg retailer (whose operation will vary from one nation / culture to another), we have a market with a greater variety of items in smaller quantities, image by Michal Jarmoluk, all sourced from Pixabay.
The alternative is for one transporter to accumulate wares from all over in a warehouse, from which orders are then dispatched to local vendors. This system is only preferable if spoilage is not an issue – brass cannons, nails, horseshoes, even wheat and flour (which last a very long time if properly cared for and if vermin are kept away) – these are all better suited to the warehouse system.
That does not mean that you don’t need a salesman, however. Someone has to convince all those retailers that you have what they need at a price they can afford!
In a lot of campaign settings, the sales rep is called the Factor, which generally means that he’s entitled to make decisions and agreements on behalf of his employer. That’s an important point because it once again removes the day-to-day operation of a business from the horizons of PCs. They may be the investors and owners – but they aren’t professionals in Trade, and should they try to pretend otherwise, they should lose their shirts in the process. And they should be smart enough to figure this out pretty quickly.
But what, you may ask, if they don’t trust the best choice of Factor – or any choice other than themselves, if it comes to that?
Once again, a dilemma best solved by another GM-players compact.
★ The GM will refrain from doing permanent or long-term damage to the business interests of the PCs without providing a means for those interests to recover.
★ The players will trust that the GM will not damage their business interests maliciously, and that any harm that comes to them is either (1) temporary, (2) the result of social changes / forces that the PCs can choose to oppose or have failed to oppose; or (3), both.
There are a couple of important bones in that pair of agreements. First, the GM is quite at liberty to change market conditions to the detriment of the PCs business so long as they will be given a chance to recover at some reasonable later time. But the GM can only do harm if the society changes, or is under pressure to change, or is a way to deliver a plot hook to the players. In particular, Realism is not a justification – unless the GM promises a way out.
If the PCs own a business whose profit requires slave labor, using prisoners captured in a recent war, and the King repatriates those prisoners after a deal is struck with the former enemy, that’s a social change and the GM is not forced to make up for the sudden lack of profitability of the PCs business venture.
But he might, anyway – by sending the PCs as official envoys to the other Kingdom to negotiate some sort of trade deal. That puts them in the ground seat to wind up their old (now unprofitable) business and replace it with something else that will directly connect them to the politics of both Kingdoms.
Unless its for something worth hundreds or thousands of GP, like a ship, neither the GM nor the players should ever get informed of, never mind getting involved in, individual sales. There may be rare exceptions, but that’s a pretty good rule of thumb. Business happens in the background.
That’s not to say they won’t get recognized – they might. Or that some people develop strong feelings – pro- or anti- – toward the PCs because of their business. It’s not just an exercise in book-keeping; it’s part of the social and economic landscape, and that makes it part of the political and possibly religious landscapes as well.
This can sometimes be a tricky balance to get right, at least until you have a little practice at it. Until then, err on the side of generality and abstraction.
And, if an idea for a fun encounter comes along, like a disgruntled customer, run with it. And expect the PCs to treat such individuals the same way any other CEO / owner would – if it’s our fault, give us a chance to fix it, but if it’s your mistake, that’s tough.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay.
3.2 Recruiter / Personnel Manager
There’s one individual who the GM should think about “fully” prepping, because he or she is the key to everything else: the Recruiter / Personnel Manager, the person who takes that burden off the shoulders of the PCs (and out of game play).
Can you seriously imagine a game session – or two, or three – in which PCs do nothing but interview prospective staff? Talk about boring! And all the GM creativity required to create these individuals knowing that they will never again exist as discrete in-game individuals? Talk about wasted efforts!!
The Recruiter’s competence and reliability are what will establish the baseline for competence and reliability amongst every faceless entity that toils in the business to make it happen. While there can be, and occasionally probably will be, aberrations and anomalies, they set the standards. Get a good one, and things will function as smoothly as they possibly can; get a bad one and nightmares lurk in the undergrowth.
The Personnel Manager’s competence solves most problems before a PC even has to be made aware of them. At most, there may need to be an allowance for temporary setbacks, teething problems, and the fact that life never runs entirely according to script.
But neither role can be successful if the PCs don’t trust the individual that is put forward to function in this capacity. That trust has to be earned in some fashion, and the best way to do that is with an in-game role as an NPC. Rather than creating someone who they hope to ‘sell’ to the PCs as the right fit for this role, the GM should aim to create someone they will choose to place in the role(s).
In large organizations, these functions are normally separate, but in any operation on the scale of what should be able to be created by a PC, the organization should be small enough (at least initially) for them to function under the one hat.
We also need a fallback position in case the PCs don’t’ take up the recruitment of the potential Recruiter / Personnel Manager. This fallback should permit the players to simply announce, “We are hiring someone to recruit and manage the workers for us.” Which brings me to Assumption #1.
3.2.1 Assumption #1: The best available gets hired
The GM has to make it clear to the players that he expects the PCs to be using their Intelligence and Wisdom and Judgment and anything else that they can bring to the table in order to hire the very best person in their judgment that they can find for the position, given any parameters that the players choose to define.
Those parameters are usually financial and character in nature – “Hire the best we can get for under XX gold a day / week / month / year. And give them a slice of the business, a half-share, so that if it grows, so does their wealth. And prioritize honesty and reliability over competence.”
Or, “We’ll hire the most competent person we can find, even if we don’t fully trust them, then do whatever deal we have to in order to buy their loyalty. We’ll make it clear that we’ll be keeping a close eye on things from the shadows. And we’ll hire an accountant from a different city to check the books every few months, at least at first.”
Note that you can’t have it both ways – the players have to decide what they assess as most important. But, by presenting an NPC who the GM portrays as one or the other within an adventure, one of two things will happen: either the players will anoint him to the position, prioritizing whatever the GM portrayed as their hallmark, or the players will not, effectively selecting a default position of the other option.
If the GM portrays the individual as honest and trustworthy, and the PCs reject him, they are effectively valuing competence over those qualities. If the GM portrays the individual as an expert recruiter, and the PCs reject him, they are valuing trustworthiness over competence. Again, you can’t have it both ways – and the GM should ensure that the players know it.
This, of course, brings up an extremely important point: what exactly constitutes “the best available”? How should the GM design a character and assess their capabilities in this respect?
The recruiter has to be ‘competent’ in an interpersonal skill of some kind. ANY interpersonal skill will do – whatever this skill is will define their usual modus operandi.
Bribery, for example, means that they use money to persuade others to do what they want. Bargaining would describe them as a negotiator first and foremost. Blackmail uses threats and intimidation to keep staff in line. And so on down the list it goes (Bluff, Seduction, or Romance might make things tricky, though). Heck, even Animal Handling or Riding could be considered appropriate in this context, when you think about it.
What does ‘competent’ mean? Take the highest skill (ranks) of each PC and average them. Round up, and add 1. That’s Competent.
It means that low-level characters won’t be able to attract the same kind of high-voltage recruits that medium-to-high level characters can – but the business operations that such characters can mount would be similarly restricted.
What’s more, every time the average party level goes up a point (or so), the GM should reassess this and let the NPC improve his abilities commensurately. This is, after all, a skill that they are using day in and day out, to solve all kinds of business problems. They will be as capable of making a mistake as a PC would be – but also as capable of correcting those mistakes.
The primary stats that the NPC uses in the performance of his duties are going to be the SUM of INT and WIS (or their equivalents), minus 10, unless the game system has a dedicated relevant stat
If you stop and think about what these stats represent, you’ll see why. INT uses Intellect and book learning and theory to derive a solution to a problem. WIS uses real world experience either in place of, as a supplement to, or in conjunction with, that theory.
In theory, characters should start off using INT and should, over time, transition to using WIS. But that’s too much work, and involves questions that require wasted effort to answer, like how quickly the transition takes place.
So, instead, we total them – but then take off five from the sum (i.e. an average score) to get a value that is comparable to any other stat.
Again, every time the PCs go up two or three levels, the NPCs stats should likewise rise. This probably happens slowly enough that it’s not a big deal.
Of course, most interpersonal skills are normally Charisma-based. And it’s entirely acceptable for a character to substitute charisma either for the combined score derived above or for just the INT part of it.
This essentially replaces theoretical understanding and logic with likability. It can mean that the solutions the character comes up with aren’t entirely sensible all of the time, but because they like him or her, the workers will do their best to make them work, anyway.
There is, therefore, a good and obvious reason why this is not the default stat for this particular application of the skill in question – because it represents a fundamentally different approach to solving the business problems with which the NPC will be presented. It’s not necessarily a worse approach, or a better one, but it is different, and it’s often not the sort of thing that people hiring managers go looking for, perhaps because it’s hard to assess and relatively easy to fake.
But there are consequences, that can be either good or bad – the use of Charisma also creates Loyalty, not to the job or the owners (not directly, anyway), but to the Manager. Should the PCs ever fire or otherwise lose him or her, or his or her services, a lot of their workers can follow them out the door. And if the workers are getting exploited, the manager is as likely to lead them out on strike as they are to represent ‘management’ in resolving the issue.
Substituting Charisma puts the ethics of the Recruiter front and center in a way that doesn’t occur with a heartless, soulless, manager. That binds the PCs to live up to those ethical standards, whether the PCs realize that or not. For some groups, this won’t be a problem; for others, it may be an insurmountable hurdle.
Any such conflicts should be obvious going in, or at least anticipated by the GM, and used to refine the definition of ‘competent’ employed.
Murder Hobos thus either attract competent but equally-unscrupulous types to represent them, or someone who will (eventually) use the business as a weapon to try to reform them. How that plays out will be up to the GM and the players.
Another consideration that should not be overlooked by anyone concerned is the use of Magic, especially permanent magic items, to enhance or buff the NPC. This can get out of hand very easily if the GM isn’t careful, but it can also be a two-edged sword in a similar way to Charisma.
Without trawling through various game references looking for specific items, this is going to be up to the GM to resolve on a case-by-case basis.
One way of looking at such is an attempt by the PCs to secure the loyalty of the Recruiter through bribery – the more unscrupulous the Recruiter, the more successful this is likely to be (at least temporarily). But some will be offended by the very suggestion because of their morality, or the implied insult that they need the help.
This is another example of why this is an important NPC that the GM needs to have a pretty good handle on – how is he going to react?
Even if the offer / gift is accepted, that may not actually buy the loyalty of the NPC. It simply enhances his ability to do his job, amplifying any capacity for dissension with the bosses and the impact that it will have.
The relationship between the NPC and the PCs is the most important thing in assessing such situations. The GM needs to know exactly what that relationship is – an if the players are smart, they will want to be fairly certain of their footing before even considering this option.
Under some circumstances, it can all work out to everyone’s satisfaction – instead of using their accrued wealth to buff themselves, the PCs are using it to enhance the security of their business operation, which the GM has already undertaken not to threaten capriciously, anyway. In effect, then, this is wealth that the PCs are giving away, because they get nothing for it that they don’t already have. Most GMs are fine with that, especially if the players are also happy with the arrangement.
As a general policy, a GM should NEVER deliberately emplace a treasure to be used to Buff the NPC unless the PCs (i.e. the players) are feeling insecure about their choice – in which case, such a placement can be viewed as positive reinforcement by the GM. But if the PCs capture something and decide that this is a more useful thing to use it for, I’d be fine with that.
3.2.2 Assumption #2: They Hire The Best
So, one way or another, the NPC is going to be competent to do the job to a reasonable standard. Assuming that they have not been emplaced to deliberately sabotage the operation – which would be a violation of the tacit agreement between the GM and players unless it was somehow revealed before significant damage could take place.
Which means that it is implied that they will use their abilities to the best of those abilities to deliver the outcome that presumably the PCs want, i.e. a profitable and reputable business operation (or something else if that’s what they have specified).
Which means that they will use their full capabilities to hire the best people they can find – or, at least, the the best they can find who will work for an acceptable (normal) pay rate. Bear in mind that we’re not talking about the Recruiter themselves any more, we’re talking about their Work Product – which is a satisfied and satisfactory workforce, to the social standards that are applicable.
This is the hidden backbone of the entire concept of a Labor Unit. It’s actually a foundational principle of Australian Society – “A fair days work for a fair day’s pay”. Sadly, the principle has been undermined through governments prioritizing business interests over workers – either on general principle or “doing favors for political friends” or outright corruption and vested interests, here just as everywhere else. But, unlike some other places I could name, it hasn’t been killed entirely and still gets revived from time to time.
Here’s another way to phrase it that will work in just about any in-game situation: You get what you pay for.
I’ll take a closer look at pay scales, how they can be manipulated, and the consequences of doing so, in section 3.5.
But, before I move on, I should amplify the caveat offered, just a little: “a satisfied and satisfactory workforce, to the social standards that are applicable.”
If the society is a Victorian Nightmare, don’t expect to be able to hire blindingly loyal workers that are distinctly better than those everyone else recruits. If the society is a reasonable one, but for whatever reason the recruiter is required to hire from the dirty end of the work pool, don’t expect sunshine and lollipops and perfect employees.
And if the players want these things, they are going to have to work to create a society in which these become potential outcomes. That’s not going to be easy, and it’s going to put a lot of noses out of joint – in particular, anyone waxing fat off the existing system – and is sure to get the PCs involved in the game society right up to their necks. All of which should make for interesting plotlines.
One particular practice that has to be singled out is Slave Labor and the Serf system. If this is the accepted normal, then the PCs have no choice but to follow it or their business will not be competitive. This can cause distress on the part of some players. It’s the age-old conflict of modern standards and ideals Vs historical accuracy.
Every GM will have their own take on this question (even if it’s not to have noticed it, or to do their level best to avoid the question) – but as soon as the PCs begin operating a business of any kind, they become a part of that society and its economy, whether they – or the GM – likes it or not, and these issues become much harder to ignore.
There are only two answers: either one side or the other has to compromise, or their needs to be a social revolution of some kind. Which goes back to my earlier point – if the players want a kinder, gentler, fairer society, they will need to make that happen. In the process, making enemies and risking the shirts off their backs.
I think that’s enough said on that particular subject.
3.2.3 The Principle Of Labor Unmanagement
But it does bring me to the subject of another compact between Players and GM. Well, actually, it’s an implied extension of the one described earlier in this chapter:
From 3.1.6.5 Sales Prep:
★ The GM will refrain from doing permanent or long-term damage to the business interests of the PCs without providing a means for those interests to recover.
★ The players will trust that the GM will not damage their business interests maliciously, and that any harm that comes to them is either (1) temporary, (2) the result of social changes / forces that the PCs can choose to oppose or have failed to oppose; or (3), both.
The principle of Labor Unmanagement is that the Players will keep their hands off the day-to-day management of the business and its workers, and in return, the GM will assume that these workers are as diligent and honest as can be recruited and permit the business to function as well as any other in the game setting.
This, after all, is the whole purpose behind hiring a competent “recruiter” – to keep mundanity out of the way of adventure and Fantasy, and not mire the game in trivialities and personnel problems and management issues. To keep everything big-picture, abstract, and at arm’s length, in other words, except where it enhances or delivers those adventures and Fantasy Elements to the game.
3.3 The Labor Unit
Ultimately, the labor unit is a standard measure of how much work gets done in a standard working shift by a standard crew for a standard wage. So it’s
★ Time × Labor × Crew
Time is a standard length, already chosen, based on the most common activity;
Labor is measured in kg carried, i.e. Strength used;
and Crew is the number of individuals in a standard group.
The objective is to have a labor unit defined in such a way that any task or phase of the business operation can be reduced to a small and manageable number that tells you how many shifts it will take to complete. Multiply that by the standard wage, and you have your base expense.
Because this permits the Labor Unit to be defined as ‘a cost of X’, all other expenses can be converted into a ‘Labor Unit equivalent’ and simply tacked on to the total.
This total is not going to change much from day to day, week to week, month to month, or year to year. So once it is determined by the GM, it’s a relatively fixed quantity. This simplifies the account-keeping required enormously, which is the whole point of the abstraction.
We’ve looked at Labor and at various peripheral issues – let’s break down Time in a more detailed fashion.

It’s really hard to find Fantasy Images that symbolize or show time. In the end, I had to make my own. In the background, the Posiedon image is by Enrique Meseguer (darksouls1). Dominating the foreground is a gravity-defying hourglass which is actually a combination of this image by gunter (moritz320) and an extract from this image by Alexander Lesnitsky (AlLes), with various color trickery to get the two to match up. The edges of the upper surface of the sand have been treated with a textural extract based on dry lake bed by Dimitrios Savva (Photography), https://polyhaven.com/all?a=Dimitrios%20Savva, https://web.archive.org/web/20230623201912/https://polyhaven.com/all?a=Dimitrios%20SavvaJarod Guest (Processing), https://polyhaven.com/all?a=Jarod%20Guest, https://web.archive.org/web/20230623201919/https://polyhaven.com/all?a=Jarod%20Guest, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons with some additional texture extracted from this dry lake bed
by Forest & Kim Starr, CC BY 3.0 US, also via Wikimedia Commons. “Floating” in the sand as though it were a liquid are two elephants, one extracted from elephants-1535881, image by Monika (MonikaP), and the other from elephant-5083580, Image by Mansour Obaidi (Msobaidi). Unless stated otherwise, all images were sourced from Pixabay.
3.3.1 Eight man-hour Labor Units
In an urban environment where people can go home at the end of their shift (or perhaps get recruited for another one-off job that afternoon or evening, even with the same employer), eight man-hour Labor Units are generally the way to go.
The eight-hour day is generally something we’re all familiar with, but this is a little different – it’s an eight man-hour day. If the Crew Number is 2, then it represents 4 hours of working time; if the Crew Number is 4, then it’s just an hour’s work for an hour’s pay. Only if it’s one individual is the time full employment.
The interesting thing is that this integrates a standard labor practice into the fundamental assumptions about the business and its operations – ‘Hire in pairs’ or ‘groups of 4’. Attack problems with enough man-power to resolve them quickly.
As a general rule, with eight man-hour units, Crew numbers of 1, 2, 4, 5, or 8 are the only numbers that are convenient enough to make sense, and 4, 5, and 8 are various degrees of ‘marginal’.
3.3.2 Twelve man-hour Labor Units
Twelve man-hour Labor Units are sometimes more practical, because 12 can easily be factored by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, or 12. You can also do 9 but it’s a little bit messier.
That gives you a lot of flexibility in return for the more frequent decimals / fractions that will result.
Twelve man-hour days are typical in situations where an individual has to work for eight hours AND forage around or hunt for food / water at the end of that period. It’s best suited for life on the road.
Twelve hours is also a convenient number when it comes to watches and rest – it means that everyone can serve one four-hour watch and still get 8 hours of rest. The normal practice would be to rotate these assignments so that no one’s sleep is broken night after night.
But such considerations grow more complex if your standard Crew Number is anything but a 1. Two-person teams make a Labor Unit that is 6 hours in duration at this scale, indicating four of them in a 24-hour period and that doesn’t work as well for allowing an 8-hour rest period.
For this reason, it can be more convenient to use a Crew Number of 3. That makes a ‘shift’ four hours in length; people can be employed for 8 hours as workers, four hours as hunter-gatherers, and work a four-hour watch, quite conveniently. The downside is that the Labor Cost for a shift goes up by 50% to cover the extra person.
3.3.3 Sixteen man-hour Labor Units
This does the same thing as a Crew of 3 working a 12 man-hour Labor Unit, but with greater flexibility because the Crew Number is now one or two.
The ‘1’ is fairly self-explanatory, but the ‘2’ deserves a little thought. That gives a shift duration of 8 hours.
3.3.4 Twenty-four man-hour Labor Units
The most expensive kind of labor is the labor that has to be on-call at all hours of the night and day. Overland, it’s relatively easy to throw enough warm bodies at any given task that this is not necessary, and you can cover any ‘unusual’ situations with a bonus – for example, caravan guards get paid to stand watch, but if something hostile shows up when someone is off-watch, you still want them to be pitching in, aiding in the common defense of your profits.
Out at sea, it’s often a different story. It takes a certain number of crew to run a ship efficiently, and inefficiency is corrosive to profit margins. Yes, in a pinch, you could get by with a fraction of the total – so long as you didn’t encounter anyone or anything hostile – but you only have to lose one ship every three or four years to be completely out of business – those things are expensive.
Stinting on crew numbers is a false economy, therefore, and the optimum configuration of a Labor Unit is the one that affords the greatest flexibility.
One of the reasons for this is that you will generally hire or own the ship – but the Captain will command it, and be in charge of hiring and firing of crew, and the setting of wages for those crew.
Even if you have a dedicated and expert recruiter, this will be true. Captains will argue that they are hiring for specialist roles which require specific expertise, and that’s true – but mostly it’s because the Captains have traditionally had the authority and refuse to give it up.
It’s actually often the case that the crew are completely independent of the ship’s current master – you hire the ship, the captain ensures that sufficient crew are provided to complete that task, and he takes their wages out of the hiring fee (and keeps the rest for himself).
If the ship has an outside owner, that simply means that the captain has to deduct part of whatever he gets paid for the hiring of the ship and arranges for that to (eventually) get paid to said owner – but it’s generally far more common in a fantasy milieu for the Captain to own the ship (even if he stole it from a previous owner). Don’t look to hard or ask too many fool questions or you might share in his grisly fate — unfortunate accident.
Labor Units that total 24 working hours suit crews of 12, 10, 8, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, or 1. Of those, the most common would be 4 or 6.
Crew numbers of 4 divide 24 into 6-hour ‘shifts’, of which two would be worked each day (for a total of 12 hours). This can be convenient because there would be 4 such 6-hour shifts in a day, meaning that you can allocate one member of the crew-group of 4 to each shift for primary duty and have a second shift from each to be ‘general service’ (i.e. whatever needs doing most urgently). The other 12 hours, the crewmen are ‘off-duty’ and are expected to spend part of that time sleeping, part of it eating, and part of it doing whatever the hell they want – so long as they don’t disrupt the running of the ship. Again, any ship’s crew treat themselves as an elite workforce (whether they are or not) – and note that there can be different grades of ‘elite’ in this context.
Crew numbers of 6 divide 24 man-hours into shifts that are 4 hours long. This is an even more flexible arrangement, because the normal sleeping allocation is eight hours long. So, work 3 shifts, sleep 2 shifts, and have 1 shift for private activities – if not called upon for extra duties. The downside is that this is a far stricter and more disciplined protocol that crews used to the 4-man division will tend to resent. So, while you might find it in formal navies, it’s uncommon outside of that context.
3.3.5 Choices and Expectations
On the surface, it may seem like a fairly innocuous – even trivial – decision to make, but GMs have to be warned at this point to take the choice of Labor Unit very seriously, because it will carry social expectations and implications far beyond anything that appears on the surface. Sooner or later, those ramifications will manifest, in the form of NPC expectations of what is ‘fair’ and what they are being paid to do.
You can try to avoid this, but that will just leave the system open to abuse by PCs and their owning players, who – like bosses everywhere – want to get as much sweat out of their workers as they can for a given wage.
You might be lucky, and have a reasonably ‘enlightened’ group of players in your game, and so think that you can get away with not putting a lot of thought into this. It only takes one new player who looks to exploit his workers for the whole thing to then collapse – there are no labor laws worth mentioning, remember, only customs, traditions, and a sense of what is ‘acceptable’ and ‘tolerable’.
That’s what your extra effort is buying you – protection against the occasional bad apple. This system is set up in such a way that those who don’t need such treatment won’t even notice it – but when it becomes necessary, it’s generally too late to implement it. That gets seen by players in question as the GM ‘picking on them’ and the whole situation quickly degenerates.
So take a bit of time, think about the society and culture within your game and what expectations on the part of hired workers would be reasonable, and use that – and the type of activity that is the focal point of the business operation – to set a standard that holds hidden meaning. Then put that hidden meaning in your back pocket until you need it.
3.4 The Labor Market
A labor market is defined as so many standard Labor Units available for hire. Obviously, if you hire all of them, any thoughts of quality go out the window – they will average bog-standard, perhaps worse. Labor markets replenish by the day, less any given multiple days’ employment previously.
If there are 5 labor units for hire, and the business recruits three of them for two days, then on the second day, there will only be two labor units available. GMs shouldn’t track hiring by other business concerns; simply shrink the size of the labor market, accordingly.
Labor markets can be classified into six grades:
Grade 1: poor, small
Grade 2: average, small
Grade 3: good, small
Grade 4: average, average
Grade 5: average, large
Grade 6: good, large
Poor = 50% low quality
Average = 25% low quality, 20% high quality, 5% elite quality
Good = 25% low quality, 25% typical quality, 40% high quality, 10% elite quality
Small = 3% Labor available
Average = 5% Labor available
Large = 8% Labor available
Populations <2500: mostly Small, occasional Average
Populations 2500 – 5000: mostly Average, occasional Small or Large
Populations 5000 – 50,000: mostly Average, occasional Large
Populations 50,000 – 250,000: evenly split Average and Large
Population 250,000+ mostly Large, occasional Average
1. Take the total population of the community (to the nearest 100 or 2 decimal places)
2. Find the logarithm (to one decimal place)
3. Square the result
4. Multiply by 50
5. Divide by the standard Labor Unit
6. Multiply by the size indicated by the grade. Round to the nearest 1/4.
The result is roughly the size of the Labor Market, measured in Labor Units.
Let’s work a number of examples.
EG1: Hamlet Pop 800, Small Labor Market, Grade 2, 8 man-hour Labor Units:
1. Pop 800.
2. Log(800) = 2.9.
3. 2.9 × 2.9 = 8.41
4. 50 × 8.41 = 420.5
5. 420.5 / 8 = 52.5625
6. Small = 3%; 3% × 52.5625 = 1.576
Labor Market is 1.5 Labor Units.
EG2: Hamlet 1200, Small Labor Market, Grade 2, 12 man-hour Labor Units:
1. Pop 1200
2. Log (1200) = 3.1
3. 3.1 × 3.1 = 9.61
4. 50 × 9.61 = 480.5
5. 480.5 / 12 = 40.0
6. Small = 3%; 3% × 40 = 1.2
Labor Market is 1.25 Labor Units.
EG3: Town of 2800, Small Labor Market, Grade 3, 8 man-hour Labor Units:
1. Pop 2800
2. Log 2800 = 3.4
3. 3.4 × 3.4 = 11.56
4. 50 × 11.56 = 578
5. 578 / 8 = 72.25
6. Small = 3%; 3% × 72.25 = 2.1675
Labor Market is 2.25 Labor Units
EG4: Town of 3500, Average Labor Market, Grade 3, 12 man-hour Labor Units:
1. Pop 3500
2. Log (3500) = 3.5
3. 3.5 × 3.5 = 12.25
4. 50 × 12.25 = 612.5
5. 612.5 / 12 = 51.0
6. Average = 5%; 5% × 51 = 2.55
Labor Market is 2.5 Labor Units
EG5: City of 50,000, Average Labor Market, Grade 4, 8 man-hour Labor Units
1. Pop 50,000
2. Log (50,000) = 4.7
3. 4.7 × 4.7 = 22.1
4. 50 × 22.1 = 1105
5. 1105 / 8 = 138.125
6. Average = 5%; 5% × 138.125 = 6.9
Labor Market is 7 Labor Units
EG6: City of 200,000; Large Labor Market, Grade 5, 16 man-hour Labor Units
1. Pop 200,000
2. Log (200,000) = 5.3
3. 5.3 × 5.3 = 28.1
4. 50 × 28.1 = 1404.5
5. 1404.5 / 16 = 87.78125
6. Large = 8%; 8% × 87.78125 = 7.0225
Labor Market is 7 Labor Units
EG7: City of 1,500,000; Average Labor Market, Grade 4, 8 man-hour Labor Units
1. Pop 1,500,000
2. Log (1,500,000) = 6.2
3. 6.2 × 6.2 =. .38.4
4. 50 × 38.4 = 1920
5. 1920 / 8 = 240
6. Average = 5%; 5% × 240 = 12
Labor Market is 12 Labor Units
It should be immediately clear that the Labor Markets do not represent the sum total of available Labor, because that is scattered throughout the community.
If there is a centralized labor market of some sort (there sometimes was), then you can triple the percentages shown – small to 9%, average to 15%, and large to 24%.
These percentages are the percentage of the available workforce that can be hired through whatever labor market there is. A significant number will find work through friends and former colleagues, others will simply show up at places of work and offer themselves up for employment.
In addition, in any larger population base, there may be several labor markets, some specializing in particular industries; that was often the case when it came to mining, or shipbuilding, for example. Dock-hands and Farmhands are usually not quite interchangeable, and will frequently recruit from different locations to get different workers with specific skills.
I have very deliberately avoided making any allowance for the reputation of the employer. The GM is free to adjust these numbers on the basis of a reputation. Just remember that people have long memories.
3.5 Basic Pay-scales
Common laborers generally earn a base pay rate of 2 SP per 4-hour half-shift, adjusted as follows:
× 1.5 hard labor
× 2.5 very hard labor
× 1.5 specific skills required
× 2.5 unusual / rare skills required
× 2.5 unusually high levels of a common skill required
× 4 unusually high levels of an uncommon skill required
× 0.5 low danger
× 1 moderate danger
× 2 expected to combat danger
× 4 near-certain danger / extreme danger
× 8 near-certain extreme danger
× 0.75 medium-term commitment (at least 1 week’s employment)
× 1.25 long-term commitment (at least 1 month’s employment)
But it’s normal to apply all of the above to the base rate and factor in Crew Number and Labor Unit duration to get a cost per Labor Unit. Once you have a few of these worked out, most GMs can directly estimate how much each Labor Unit will cost, with no need to actually work it out.
An example:
2-person crews, 8 man-hour labor units, wagon drivers (specific skills), one week’s employment, moderate danger:
2 SP × (8 man-hours / 4 hrs) × 2 crew = 2 × 2 × 2 = 8 SP / day.
Expected to work 2 shifts/day = 8 × 2 = 16 SP / day.
16 × 1.5 specific skills × 1 moderate danger = 18 SP / day.
18 × 0.75 (medium-term commitment) = 13.5 SP / day.
13.5 SP × 7 days = 94.5 SP, total.
But it’s more common to divide this price into units of Cargo so that the cost can be directly deducted from the profits.
If a Cargo Unit is defined as 5 GP, that’s 50 SP, and the 94.5 becomes 1.89 Cargo Units.
Let’s imagine a more valuable cargo (25 GP / unit), and a sea voyage of 6-8 weeks’ duration through hostile waters:
1-person crews, 24 man-hour labor units, sailor (specific skills), several weeks employment, expected to fight off dangers:
2 SP × (24 / 4) × 1 = 2 × 6 × 1 = 12 SP / day.
Expected to work 1 shift / day: 12 SP / day.
12 × 1.5 specific skills × 2 fight off dangers = 36 SP / day.
36 × 1.25 Long-term commitment = 45 SP / day.
45 × 7 = 315 SP / week = 31.5 GP / week.
31.5 / 25 = 1.26 Cargo Units / Week
× 6 – 8 weeks = 7.56 – 10.08 Cargo Units
A mistake that is commonly made is to use the purchase price of a cargo unit. The sale price, however, is what matters; while it’s not uncommon to pay 10% or so of an expected wage up front, the bulk of it gets paid on completion.
3.5.1 Loyalty Index
Below is a typical bell curve, based on 4d6, generated using Anydice, but modified extensively.

You can also download a much larger hi-resolution version (3476 × 1532 pixels, 4 Mb) by clicking the image.
There’s a lot going on in this image, which contains an entire employee loyalty game mechanic.
Base Loyalty is +0, in the middle of the graph. The background color gives an indication of how good or bad things are – yellow and orange are warnings of increasing severity, red is bad, and green is good.
Employees start at Base Loyalty, in the middle of the curve. They have no particular reason to defend the company, but have no particular reason to commit acts of disloyalty or malice, either. They can be swayed by bribes and blackmail, but on the whole, they are reasonably loyal until confronted with such ‘opportunities’ / demands.
Every act of fairness or generosity toward employees personally experienced adds +2 to the loyalty index – those are the black numbers next to the curve. Every such act personally witnessed adds +1. Every such act that is merely heard about adds +1/2.
Increased pay buys greater loyalty. The first +10% adds +1, +15% adds another +1 for a total of +2, then +30% = +3, +50% = +4, +80% = +5, +150% = +6, +250% = +7, +400% = +8, +700% = +9, and +1100% = +10 (so, if base pay is 5, paying 7.5 gets you +7 loyalty). This bonus lasts as long as the pay does, and then declines at -1 per week.
Every act of unfairness or ‘slave-driving’ experienced is -3. Every such act witnessed is -2. Every such act only heard of or rumored is -1.
Reduced pay erodes loyalty. If the pay is above 95% of what it should have been (in the employee’s opinion) that’s -1. 93-95% is -2, 88-93% is -3, 82-88% is -4, 75-82% is -5, 63-75% is -6, 54-63% is -7, 45-54% is -8, 35-45% is -9, and 28-35% is -10. At anything less than 28%, you lose employees immediately – as in, they drop whatever they are doing, wherever they happen to be, and go into business for themselves. If they were transporting cargo, they will sell it for whatever they can get at the next opportunity and keep it. If they were using a wagon, they might sell that too, or simply take possession of it.
These losses are per week. They can be delayed by a week with sincere-sounding promises, and if you make up the deficit the following week then any loss is halved.
One-off events can happen and the impact is only temporary – normal pay restores these losses at the rate of 1 a month. Apply the extra pay for the month to increase this monthly recovery.
Each result on the loyalty index is matched to one of two % scores by a white line – some are off to the left (the bad ones), some to the right. These represent the likelihood that an individual will commit acts of vandalism against the company, steal from it, etc, of their own volition, or will oppose such acts if they witness them, potentially putting themselves at risk for the sake of the company.
For example, a business may know of a hidden pass through a mountain range that enables them to get products to market two days before any competitor. As a result, their produce is always the freshest – and most expensive. Tick an employee off by enough, and they may be motivated to sell that information to a rival – or, worse yet, give it away out of sheer malice and ill-will.
You will note that the scales don’t match – the white lines from the Loyalty Index don’t line up exactly with the boundaries of the percentages most of the time. The GM should interpret the position of the line relative to the % above and below it. For example, loyalty -2 is midway between 3% and 5% – so that is considered 4%. Loyalty -4 is between 12 and 20%, but considerably closer to the 20% – that would be around 18%. Similarly, -6 is about 65%.
The bars on the extreme outside are a graphic representation of the % scores. They show that loyalty of up to -4 can probably be tolerated, at least in the short-term, and loyalty -1 or -2 is generally fine. It’s below those that things get sticky.
Under this model, one incident is not likely to cause great drama; a pattern of abuse is required. But if such a pattern emerges, previously-earned goodwill goes south in a hurry, and if you don’t have any of that to fall back on, so does the business..
Buying loyalty is an expensive game, but it’s a good way to make up for occasional lapses in judgment – usually by some other employee. However, it’s so expensive that you can easily run your entire business into the ground. In the long run, it’s cheaper to be fair and honest with your workers, and build up goodwill to protect your business against the occasional slave-driver / greedy bastard / arrogant S. O. B.
On the other hand, a relatively small amount of generosity can go a long way; the system is also designed so that each point of loyalty is progressively harder to buy without earning it. Setting your base pay scale at 7.5 instead of 5 – the example offered earlier – will eat into your profit margin a little, but the resulting goodwill is disproportionately high.
That’s it for this post. One more should bring this epic chapter to a close.
When I finally start to edit all this into a single reference, I think I’ll break most of this chapter out into a separate one entitled “The Labor Unit” – and that I’ll position it after the chapters dealing with specific types of transportation, because I’ve stolen a lot of their thunder.
In other words, I intend to re-sequence the chapters to make for a smoother, more useful process.
As I write this, it’s only two days until Christmas. There may not be a post next week because of the Holidays. My intent is to use (some) of the time available to get a head-start on finishing this chapter, but the next post to be published will be a Time Out, i.e. something short and stand-alone.
Until I write to you all again, then, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
- Trade In Fantasy: Preliminaries & Introduction
- Trade In Fantasy Ch. 1: Ownership
- Trade In Fantasy Ch. 2: Trade Units Pt 1
- Trade In Fantasy Ch. 2: Trade Units Pt 2
- Trade In Fantasy Ch. 3: Routine Personnel Pt 1
- Trade In Fantasy Ch. 3: Routine Personnel Pt 2
- Trade In Fantasy Ch. 3: Routine Personnel, Pt 3
- Trade In Fantasy Ch. 3: Routine Personnel, Pt 4
- Trade In Fantasy Ch. 4: Modes Of Transport, Pt 1
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January 14th, 2025 at 12:11 am
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