Improvments: a few questions :D

[Adaras]

Hi there everyone.

So got the weapons and equipments and really enjoy the book.

I was wondering about improvements, and their benifits. 

Like if you get a hide which have a Rocky Escarpment the income drops by 15l pr year. and that a character might built a mine or quarry there.

But under the improvements I cant really see that the Pit or Quarry actually provide any mechanical benefit? Orchard and Vineyard is the same. 

Anyone got an idea or guideline to what the players should gain from these?

[Akhôrahil]

1 hour ago, Adaras said:

But under the improvements I cant really see that the Pit or Quarry actually provide any mechanical benefit? Orchard and Vineyard is the same. 

No, you're correct - many improvements are outright money-losers (even when they have a mechanical benefit that is merely insufficient).

Go with statues/standing stones - it's the maintenance that's crippling for the others.

Edited January 10, 2022 by Akhôrahil

[Adaras]

Agreed and when I read the "They are usually added to a dwelling or hide of land to improve upon that land, making it more profitable, more productive, or more luxurious for its owner" I see none of that, simply just swallowing up money instead, like the quarry for example requires 150 L a year to maintain. So it would have to be more profitable than that, but that is also crazy.

[g33k]

The phrase you gents are looking for is "money pit."

To quote from the inestimable Mr.Meints' sig:  Hope that helps.

[Eff]

11 hours ago, Adaras said:

Hi there everyone.

So got the weapons and equipments and really enjoy the book.

I was wondering about improvements, and their benifits. 

Like if you get a hide which have a Rocky Escarpment the income drops by 15l pr year. and that a character might built a mine or quarry there.

But under the improvements I cant really see that the Pit or Quarry actually provide any mechanical benefit? Orchard and Vineyard is the same. 

Anyone got an idea or guideline to what the players should gain from these?

Well, let's look at the Large Caravanserai. This adds +10% to Manage Household rolls. So for a standard hide, where you'd get 40L as an income if you were rolling Manage Household, your net profit annually from the Large Caravanserai is, on the average, 3L 8C, (taking reduced chances of failures and fumbles as additional income.) We'll say 4L. The upfront price is 200W, and the maintenance is 20W, or 4000L and 400L. So purchasing the Large Caravanserai means you gain 1% of the cost to maintain it annually, or 0.1% of the upfront cost.

So on those grounds, let's look at the Quarry. 500L upfront, 150L annual maintenance. The money you should be making annually from having a quarry or a mine should be either 1L 5C, or 5C, depending on which measure you use. Let's assume a bonus to Manage Household like before. So we want a combined result of either 15C or 5C. Well, what does a +1% bonus give us? An average of 2C 8B annually. Too small. 2%? 5C 6B. 3%? 8C 4B. 4%? 11C 2B, or 1L 1C 2B. 5% gives us 1L 5C 2B. So the Quarry should offer either +1% or +5% to Manage Household to get the same "benefit" from it as you get from the Large Caravanserai.

But maybe we should look at the Road instead. 5km of roads is +5% on Manage Household, so that 1L 5C 2B is against a 400L initial investment and a 10L upkeep. 0.4% of initial value, 15% of upkeep. So maybe instead the income from the Quarry should be either 2L or 22L 5C.

Now, the Statue, if it's of a Grain Goddess, increases +5% to Harvest rolls, so we're dealing with 80L of income instead. This means your return on that is 3L 4B annually, for no upkeep and 35L of upfront cost. It would thus take you 12 years to make a profit on investing in a grain goddess statue, and I think that's the only thing you can possibly make a profit on.

So perhaps the lesson we should take from this is that building things is for suckers, go and destroy some things instead.

Or perhaps the lesson we should take from this is that, judging from the Well entry, you need to purchase and develop your own water sources, that there are no rules and chaos reigns and only suckers care about actual money values in Runequest Glorantha.

[Akhôrahil]

15 minutes ago, Eff said:

It would thus take you 12 years to make a profit on investing in a grain goddess statue, and I think that's the only thing you can possibly make a profit on.

Interestingly, this is approximately same RoI percentage as getting a herd of 20 cattle / 100 sheep and hiring a herder for them. The statue is completely illiquid (unless you can sell it to another farmer, which maybe you can) but extremely safe from theft, so you have a real choice here when you have money to spare.

Edited January 11, 2022 by Akhôrahil

[soltakss]

9 hours ago, Eff said:

So perhaps the lesson we should take from this is that building things is for suckers, go and destroy some things instead.

Or steal other people's idols and use them instead.

[Akhôrahil]

1 hour ago, soltakss said:

Or steal other people's idols and use them instead.

The Aztecs literally did this, dragging the gods of conquered peoples home so that now they’re their gods instead.

This is what I call some proper cultural appropriation!

Edited January 11, 2022 by Akhôrahil

[KungFuFenris]

So. Have anyone compared the listed price with the table price?

Because, if a Quarry is only 50L and not 500L, it kinda starts to make sense to build them.

 

[Runeblogger]

4 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

The Aztecs literally did this, dragging the gods of conquered peoples home so that now they’re their gods instead.

This is what I call some proper cultural appropriation!

I think the Hittites did that too!

[Shiningbrow]

On 1/11/2022 at 8:59 AM, Akhôrahil said:

but extremely safe from theft,

Unless.....

Someone looks at the tables, sees the 5% increase, but doesn't have the 35L to pony up... And stealing a statue is a lot easier than stealing a well, road or quarry..... 

[Akhôrahil]

3 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

Unless.....

Someone looks at the tables, sees the 5% increase, but doesn't have the 35L to pony up... And stealing a statue is a lot easier than stealing a well, road or quarry..... 

I mean, a standing stone is pretty hefty, and while anything that was put there can be taken away with enough effort, no-one is going to drag a 25 ton stone back to their clan…

[brionl]

The Stinson clan says "Challenge Accepted!"

 

[Akhôrahil]

In the updated costs, the road now makes excellent economical sense, assuming you either control the hides along it or can share the cost of the road with others. 5 km of road should be able to connect dozens of hides of land (unless they're severely spread out), and the dirt road doesn't even have a maintenance cost.

[DreadDomain]

36 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

In the updated costs, the road now makes excellent economical sense, assuming you either control the hides along it or can share the cost of the road with others. 5 km of road should be able to connect dozens of hides of land (unless they're severely spread out), and the dirt road doesn't even have a maintenance cost.

Still too busy to get to it but... have the cost and improvements being updated? Do they now make sense generally?

[Akhôrahil]

2 minutes ago, DreadDomain said:

Still too busy to get to it but... have the cost and improvements being updated? Do they now make sense generally?

I didn't do all the math. I think some but not all now work.

[Bill the barbarian]

On 1/11/2022 at 5:26 AM, Akhôrahil said:

The Aztecs literally did this, dragging the gods of conquered peoples home so that now they’re their gods instead.

 

As did the Sumers and Akkadians

 

[Ali the Helering]

And the Romans, and the Jews (with the Edomite deities)

[StephenMcG]

This worries me. I remember trying to run a bit of a sandbox D&D game for some 14 year old game newbies.

I set up the game and characters, let them loose in a medium sized town and 45 minutes they had all taken gainful employment in various establishments, completely ignoring the "dangerous sounding" adventure hints but realising they would need to afford rent and food.

This would facilitate that on a larger scale!

[Akhôrahil]

5 hours ago, StephenMcG said:

gainful employment

One thing I love about Borderlands is the passage where one PC might end up as guard captain for Duke Raus and get retired, and this is presented as a total character win - now you don't have to be a crummy adventurer any longer, because who wants that if it can be avoided!

[Joerg]

11 hours ago, StephenMcG said:

This worries me. I remember trying to run a bit of a sandbox D&D game for some 14 year old game newbies.

I set up the game and characters, let them loose in a medium sized town and 45 minutes they had all taken gainful employment in various establishments, completely ignoring the "dangerous sounding" adventure hints but realising they would need to afford rent and food.

Ideal circumstances to confront them with  the consequences of that call to adventure.

[StephenMcG]

On 1/23/2022 at 8:08 PM, Joerg said:

Ideal circumstances to confront them with  the consequences of that call to adventure.

I almost had to burn the village down to get them to pick up their weapons.  In the end it was having one of the local bandits dishonour the name of a PCs mum, that got them all riled up....had to learn to think like a teenage boy...

[Squaredeal Sten]

On 1/10/2022 at 10:13 AM, Adaras said:

Agreed and when I read the "They are usually added to a dwelling or hide of land to improve upon that land, making it more profitable, more productive, or more luxurious for its owner" I see none of that, simply just swallowing up money instead, like the quarry for example requires 150 L a year to maintain. So it would have to be more profitable than that, but that is also crazy.

As mentioned in the previous thread, that table presents the costs but not the income.

But IMHO,

The mine or quarry should provide employment for a reasonable number of miners.  Each one of these will generate an income, and the proprietor of the quarry should get a proportion of that just like the owner of a hide of farmland gets income from each tenant farmer household.'  In addition, bad harvests don't imply bad mining and quarrying.  and if the mine only uses 15% of your land then the other 85% is still there for farming or gazing.

This requires getting miners - and that will be a challenge for the proprietor, possibly an adventure hook.

The caravanserai is essentially an inn or hotel combined with a wagon stop and stable.  it should generate money just like a RW truck stop:  The player and GM should come to some agreement about what 'small" and "large" mean and how many inn rooms and stable stalls that includes, and the volume of travelers along that road.  If the player doesn't ask what the volume of traffic is before buying or constructing then they may get burned, what else is new?  But assuming a suitable inn on a good highway-

You sell cooked food and fodder and lodging at the book prices.  Cooked food has a markup between the price the farmers get for grain and meat (very low) plus firewood or charcoal (what do stickpickers make?) and the price of the cooked meal.  For fodder there should be a markup and the GM will have to generate that by rectal extraction.  Rooms at the inn- well you have to maintain the building and have staff to clean it cook and serve food, but living at an inn is pretty expensive.  If there is good occupancy and the innkeepers can make their manage ?household rolls they should be rolling in money.  Naturally occupancy will be affected by the season, the general prosperity of the place, and the occasional Chaos incursion.

I have listed several things, but most of these calculations only need to be done once.  then it's all manage household rolls, and naturally inns are places where adventurers gather so you should be able to find an adventure hook in there if you try.

 

Edited February 3, 2022 by Squaredeal Sten
"calculatuon needs to be done once". spelling.

[jajagappa]

18 minutes ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

The mine or quarry should provide employment for a reasonable number of miners.  Each one of these will generate an income, and the proprietor of the quarry should get a proportion of that just like the owner of a hide of farmland gets income from each tenant farmer household.'  In addition, bad harvests don't imply bad mining and quarrying

I agree - what happens to the mine or quarry is something that can be highly variable.  Did you sacrifice to Asrelia or other Earth cults appropriately?  Can you hire enough miners or quarriers?  Were you able to get the services of a master mason or overseer?  (Craft skill providing some bump up in results.)  Can you get an Issaries merchant to come to pay for transport of the goods elsewhere?  Do the dwarfs get upset and set constructs after you?  Do you accidentally release some imprisoned demon or spirit?  Lots of opportunity for in-game adventure or development of a table equivalent to the Harvest table for your mine.

Caravanserai may be similar - but subject to events elsewhere that may prohibit merchants from arriving (e.g. floods, Chaos incursions, war, etc.)

[Squaredeal Sten]

18 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

I agree - what happens to the mine or quarry is something that can be highly variable.  Did you sacrifice to Asrelia or other Earth cults appropriately?  Can you hire enough miners or quarriers?  Were you able to get the services of a master mason or overseer?  (Craft skill providing some bump up in results.) ......

 

Yes staffing the mine or quarry should present a challenge just like finding tenants for a newly cleared hide of land, or a merchant starting a caravan.  And the sacrifices should be modifiers just as they are for farming,  as in p.111, Adventurer Action Effects on Sacred Time.  Sacrifice to boost your Worship so you can cast favorable rune spells, or sacrifice and pay the Ernalda or Asrelia priestess to cast favorable rune spells.

 

Edited February 3, 2022 by Squaredeal Sten
unwanted line feed