Today I was sitting in at the Viduggla auction, and once again was met with the typical note that all bids are made with IC regals, and that players should factor in their character's finances when bidding. I've heard this a lot, and more often than not, the question is asked: "How can to assign financial value to a character when there's no standard to follow?"
So, I decided once again to open up the old brain and start finding a decent standard to reference. And the following is the end result, and the namesake of this thread.
I started off with the Golden Willow bar quests. Drinks are 10r a bottle, with food the same price. I decided to use this as a general reference for item values in game, starting with an overhaul of my tavern prices. But of course, can't eat without those golden coins. So the next step was to find a way to assign wages to characters. When I did this beforehand, I stopped here. Because I had no way to assign wages for every trade, other then what players would say.
But then came the answer to the problem: Pack Isle.
Pack Isle offers jobs to players, and pay a wage after the job is done. That number? 15 Regals. And so I started doing some calculations.
On a 15r daily wage, a person could afford a bottle of alcohol at the Willow, plus some leftover for food. Since a bottle of booze should last a few days, we have a constant food and drink supply for a worker. And this seems reasonable. A worker should be able to work to earn enough money for food. With the same wage, a character could buy a regalian property in the city, with 150r left over.
But wait, 150r is only about 5 regals a day to live on to break even. How can someone earning 15r a day live in their house and eat food. The answer: They don't.
Look around the city. You think the typical average Joe can afford to live right next to a city center? Heck no. Where would these people be living? In the harbor, poor districts, and the streets. And if you check the rental prices for these lower-income houses, you find they they can be 150r, 30r, or 200r. It makes sense. A fisherman who makes 15r a day can live contently in a little hovel in the harbor, and afford his daily rum.
So who does live in these 300r rentals? The people who don't make 15r an hour. We're talking your skilled workers and business owners. They might make 3or or 45r a day for their labor, because the average Joe can't bake luxury cakes, or forge a knife, or run a tavern. They can afford these houses, because they make more.
So how much should your character be worth? I'd say use the 15r a day rule:
So, I decided once again to open up the old brain and start finding a decent standard to reference. And the following is the end result, and the namesake of this thread.
I started off with the Golden Willow bar quests. Drinks are 10r a bottle, with food the same price. I decided to use this as a general reference for item values in game, starting with an overhaul of my tavern prices. But of course, can't eat without those golden coins. So the next step was to find a way to assign wages to characters. When I did this beforehand, I stopped here. Because I had no way to assign wages for every trade, other then what players would say.
But then came the answer to the problem: Pack Isle.
Pack Isle offers jobs to players, and pay a wage after the job is done. That number? 15 Regals. And so I started doing some calculations.
On a 15r daily wage, a person could afford a bottle of alcohol at the Willow, plus some leftover for food. Since a bottle of booze should last a few days, we have a constant food and drink supply for a worker. And this seems reasonable. A worker should be able to work to earn enough money for food. With the same wage, a character could buy a regalian property in the city, with 150r left over.
But wait, 150r is only about 5 regals a day to live on to break even. How can someone earning 15r a day live in their house and eat food. The answer: They don't.
Look around the city. You think the typical average Joe can afford to live right next to a city center? Heck no. Where would these people be living? In the harbor, poor districts, and the streets. And if you check the rental prices for these lower-income houses, you find they they can be 150r, 30r, or 200r. It makes sense. A fisherman who makes 15r a day can live contently in a little hovel in the harbor, and afford his daily rum.
So who does live in these 300r rentals? The people who don't make 15r an hour. We're talking your skilled workers and business owners. They might make 3or or 45r a day for their labor, because the average Joe can't bake luxury cakes, or forge a knife, or run a tavern. They can afford these houses, because they make more.
So how much should your character be worth? I'd say use the 15r a day rule:
- If your character is a younger worker who is doing unskilled labor, they should make 15r a day.
- If your character does unskilled labor, but has done the same work for 20 years, maybe they make around 20r a day from the seniority.
- If your character is a skilled laborer who's an apprentice, they might make 30r a day. And professional tradesmen might add a few more regals around that.
- If you are a lower class citizen, you might only make 12r or 10r a day. This could explain why the Elven ghetto's had houses for 300r a month. The city landlords wanted the tenants to live like that.
What about noble characters? Well, this isn't your kind of reference. Nobles make more money than anyone on this list, and don't have a working wage. I can't even assign a value, as each family is different. All there is is a wealth classification on the wiki, with no assigned values. Nobles should be able to factor in how much wealth they have, and play out consequences as a result. If you pay for all the drinks in a tavern, don't expect to be buying a suit of armor the next day.
This also doesn't factor in the Black Market. Criminals have their own value to assign themselves based on their goods and their reputation. 15r a day could be a good value for the general bum, but when you start talking about gangs, wages go out the window.
So in summary, If you want to assign your character a financial value, go with the assumption that the majority of first class workers make about 15r a day. After that, factor in your seniority and type of skill, but also be reasonable. A lower class citizen should get paid less, and less skilled labor should as well. An Ailor blacksmith of 40 years will make more money than a Nelfin baker who just got hired.
Hopefully this helps assign some value to RP. You can agree or disagree with this average value, but to me this makes sense.
15r a day for the average worker
This also doesn't factor in the Black Market. Criminals have their own value to assign themselves based on their goods and their reputation. 15r a day could be a good value for the general bum, but when you start talking about gangs, wages go out the window.
So in summary, If you want to assign your character a financial value, go with the assumption that the majority of first class workers make about 15r a day. After that, factor in your seniority and type of skill, but also be reasonable. A lower class citizen should get paid less, and less skilled labor should as well. An Ailor blacksmith of 40 years will make more money than a Nelfin baker who just got hired.
Hopefully this helps assign some value to RP. You can agree or disagree with this average value, but to me this makes sense.
15r a day for the average worker
