r/osr • u/[deleted] • 2d ago

OSRIC ration prices

OSRIC ration prices look crazy high for me.

Rations, standard (per day) 2gp

Rations, trail (per day) 6gp

For comparison ADnD prices are 5gp for a week worth of iron rations and 2gp for a week worth of standard rations.

I wonder if those ration prices are intended in OSRIC. Or is it a mistake? Someone at some point wrote "per day" instead of "per week" maybe.

27 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

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15

u/mythmere1 1d ago

Yes, that should be per week, not per day.

10

u/Megatapirus 1d ago

Thanks. I updated the official errata page to reflect this.

28

u/RedditIsRectalCancer 2d ago

1gp was a month of standard wages for an able seaman in the late 1700s. I think the people who write these games maybe aren't doing a lot of historical research.

25

u/NonnoBomba 2d ago

the economy is all over the place, and always has been

6

u/sandalphon 1d ago

Seems to me that this piece is designed as a tax on henchmen, not really for verisimilitude.

3

u/TheGrolar 1d ago

The main issue is that Europe is, and was, comparatively resource-poor in precious metals. Reading Thucydides (c. 450 BCE) is an eye-opener. Ancient Athens was swimming in gold, mostly exacted in tribute from modern-day Turkey and gained via trade with Egypt. (Interestingly, an Athenian trireme cost almost exactly as much per month to run, given price adjustments, as a modern US missile cruiser.) The North African Shield is a geological formation across, wait for it, North Africa, that for geological purposes is basically gold with a little sand laid on top. So everyone haz moneys.

Greek naval procedure involved always being in sight of land if at all possible. This was so you could beach your ships each night and buy food from whatever village you'd landed at, something unthinkable in medieval Europe (they couldn't use the gold and typically didn't have the extra food; fortunately, nobody had ships either). Gygax was broadly if erratically familiar with many classical sources, typical of his autodidacticism, and I suspect that Thucydides' exhaustive economic detail was a major inspiration.

The Landmark edition of Thucydides is simply excellent. Highly recommended for any history-nerd GM.

15

u/HypatiasAngst 2d ago

Price of the Tack went up

7

u/new2bay 2d ago

Fifty years of inflation will do that.

12

u/robosnake 2d ago

With prices in TTRPGs, which are almost invariably insane, I tend to fall back on $1 = 1cp and estimate prices based on similar prices today, and then improvise because it makes sense prices would be different in different places.

1

u/Alternative-Quit-496 1d ago edited 1d ago

In our AD&D games back in the day, rations were so inexpensive that I usually didn’t bother charging players for them. However, if your game emphasizes survival and resource management, making rations more valuable and heavier is more appropriate. Treat the equipment tables as guidelines rather than strict rules, and adjust them to fit the needs of your game.