Regarding the depth of a new character's background, I can see treating new characters as having not done much before their life of adventuring making sense if we're thinking about traditional coming-of-age adventure stories with young characters growing into adulthood, but hey, Frodo didn't start adventuring until he was 50! How would you account for characters that turn to adventure later in life?
Weapons and armor in the real world were very expensive—swords in particular (I've seen estimates of anywhere from a few weeks to a couple months pay for an average laborer)—and coudn't just be picked up off the street. And nothing like a general store existed prior to the 18th century. (I feel like a lot of town design in RPG adventurers is based on Westerns and reflect anachronisms from the 19th century, not medieval settings.) At the very least, having characters buy equipment at a market where available goods are much more varied and not everything is in supply can make things more interesting.
Mostly I figure the landlord would be responsible but that assumes a feudal or quasi-feudal system. Independent (fantasy) towns would have to figure out something. Likely volunteers as you mentioned.
Re: blacksmiths, I figure there would be a bit of a market for nails, hinges, and horseshoes. Or maybe I've just been playing too much Skyrim.
Agreed in the age issue. There are certainly longer lived races/species out there. Those will come with certain considerations during the character creation process which we'll get to in Part V, finally.
Thanks for the resource. I'll be digging into it. Regarding resources and markets, it's certainly easy to overestimate as you point out. I'm guessing most villages don't have a "town guard" let alone a well-equipped one. And doubtful that craftsmen created items then just waited for random groups to ride through and but up stock 😁
I read a murder mystery set in Austin in the 1880s that makes the point that at that time the entire Austin police force consisted of four officers. Medieval towns might have had a volunteer militia that served as watchmen, and those lucky enough to be located around a castle could retreat to the keep in case of an attack, but a town guard in the typical fantasy RPG sense is anachronistic. Here's a fun investigation of that question: https://youtu.be/9p4SGUmfILs?si=_MRLxXJJkgJbfKwz.
Regarding the depth of a new character's background, I can see treating new characters as having not done much before their life of adventuring making sense if we're thinking about traditional coming-of-age adventure stories with young characters growing into adulthood, but hey, Frodo didn't start adventuring until he was 50! How would you account for characters that turn to adventure later in life?
I like your more realistic approach to currency and the game-world economy. I've sometimes used this resource, which is based on real-world demographics for medieval towns: https://gamingballistic.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Medieval-Demographics-Made-Easy-1.pdf. This online generator is based on it: https://donjon.bin.sh/fantasy/demographics/. It may overestimate how large a population is needed to support a blacksmith, though—this guide assumes pretty much every village has a smith and a miller: https://ravenswing59.blogspot.com/2013/10/medieval-demographics-done-right-pt-ii.html.
Weapons and armor in the real world were very expensive—swords in particular (I've seen estimates of anywhere from a few weeks to a couple months pay for an average laborer)—and coudn't just be picked up off the street. And nothing like a general store existed prior to the 18th century. (I feel like a lot of town design in RPG adventurers is based on Westerns and reflect anachronisms from the 19th century, not medieval settings.) At the very least, having characters buy equipment at a market where available goods are much more varied and not everything is in supply can make things more interesting.
Mostly I figure the landlord would be responsible but that assumes a feudal or quasi-feudal system. Independent (fantasy) towns would have to figure out something. Likely volunteers as you mentioned.
Re: blacksmiths, I figure there would be a bit of a market for nails, hinges, and horseshoes. Or maybe I've just been playing too much Skyrim.
Agreed in the age issue. There are certainly longer lived races/species out there. Those will come with certain considerations during the character creation process which we'll get to in Part V, finally.
Thanks for the resource. I'll be digging into it. Regarding resources and markets, it's certainly easy to overestimate as you point out. I'm guessing most villages don't have a "town guard" let alone a well-equipped one. And doubtful that craftsmen created items then just waited for random groups to ride through and but up stock 😁
I read a murder mystery set in Austin in the 1880s that makes the point that at that time the entire Austin police force consisted of four officers. Medieval towns might have had a volunteer militia that served as watchmen, and those lucky enough to be located around a castle could retreat to the keep in case of an attack, but a town guard in the typical fantasy RPG sense is anachronistic. Here's a fun investigation of that question: https://youtu.be/9p4SGUmfILs?si=_MRLxXJJkgJbfKwz.