Question about Bishani

[Daq Bekkar]

This might be the wrong area for this type of question, but..

How much (in terms of actual things) is a Bishani worth?

Would 5 bishani buy me a fish or a gold-plated tank full of fish?

[Kamar Deythal]

I dunno if you read this already, but this might help.

Currency

[Daq Bekkar]

Well this is the hangup
For the purposes of playing on Thar Shaddin, 1 Bishan is roughly equivalent to 1 dollar.

Fine. I'm working with it...

But now:

The people are somewhat poor, and because of the setting and general lack of huge luxuries, most people never handle more than a few hundred of them. Average wage is about 100 to 200 Bishan a month.

So.. the question is.. the dollar. Okay. But with what level of inflation?

If 100/200 Bishan are enough for "most people" then I'm assuming 100/200 Bishan a month would cover food, (dodgy) lodging, occasional new clothes. Which is MUCH more than 100/200 dollars would be able to cover.

Zebren, in the Hunt, slipped me 5 Bishan. Should I be like, "whoopee! 1/20 of my month's wages!" or gritting my teeth because that's how much I tipped the waiter at lunch the day before?

This is why I am asking for some relative terms on the Bishan.

[Frug]

About 1 bishan would buy a fish.

That's rougly a dollar. I can buy a loaf of bread with roughly a dollar (and change). The difference is the cost of housing and luxuries. You can assume that property taxes are nearly non existent, and that lodgings aren't going to run you anywhere near what they run you in real life. In real life you can spend what, $800 a month on rent? $200 won't go very far when you have a car, heating, electricity, hot water, television, movies, a commute to make...

5 Bishan will get you a night in a decent inn. You get a room. Toilet not included. That leaves enough to eat if you're stingy. If you're lucky enough to own a house, you'll have more left over. I'll up the description to say 200 to 300 bishani a month, to more accurately describe the average wage.

On a side note, part of the reason for bishani was to prevent what I call gold inflation. In a lot of RPs gold is the most worthless substance ever. Your character will somehow carry thousands and thousands of gold coins on him. Aside from lugging a garbage bag full of metal around, it means that it's like 50 gold coins for a loaf of bread. In that situation, I'd start using bread for currency.

[Jenica Sabiny]

I just consider it the same as a dollar and translate it in my head...a dollar from the 1930s, that is. Which we all know went WAY farther than it would now.

Just thank goodness it's not a peso.

[Ryalyn Kylana]

hmmmm this is nice to know Great question!

[Sir Karsimir]

About 1 bishan would buy a fish.

That's rougly a dollar. I can buy a loaf of bread with roughly a dollar (and change). The difference is the cost of housing and luxuries. You can assume that property taxes are nearly non existent, and that lodgings aren't going to run you anywhere near what they run you in real life. In real life you can spend what, $800 a month on rent? $200 won't go very far when you have a car, heating, electricity, hot water, television, movies, a commute to make...

5 Bishan will get you a night in a decent inn. You get a room. Toilet not included. That leaves enough to eat if you're stingy. If you're lucky enough to own a house, you'll have more left over. I'll up the description to say 200 to 300 bishani a month, to more accurately describe the average wage.

That is very useful for me to know... since my character is financing both a homeless shelter and a military unit at once.

Most of the decent inns (B&Bs) I know of cost around £25-30, including food. So this is a good reference point. What I imagine is modern conveniences are the really expensive things.

By 'house' do you mean 2-4 rooms and made of masonry? Since that by my (medieval) reckoning is a greathouse. I assume 'standard' clothing is of better quality than homespuns or the like and comes in a variety of colours and such? Is a private room considered standard in a Marn inn? - In my own mental price list, this is quality living.

Is the loaf of bread you are thinking of wheat, or rye, or barley? - In the Middle Ages, only aristocrats ate bread made of wheat.

In a nutshell, I am asking how the Marn standard of living would compare to the Middle Ages or a Conan-esque setting (which is where I usually base my plans from).

[Lylessa Uluki]

I think that prices are always going to have to be somewhat approximate in a setting that is anything like realistic.

How much does a loaf of bread cost? Well... it depends, utterly aside from the type of bread. Are you buying the best loaf of bread from the bakery window, or the leftover loaves at the end of the day? Do you shop at the kind of place with fixed prices, or a place where you can haggle? If you can haggle, how good are you at it? Does the place accept trades and barter? You can often barter for a much sweeter deal if you have something the other person wants.

Things get even more complex when it's something bigger than bread, because the differences in quality become more apparent. Yes, you can get bread that costs more or less, greater or lesser quality, but there's only so much possible variation. The cost of-- say-- a house varies greatly indeed.

You can buy a lot of stuff secondhand. You can buy it from little back-alley places rather than nice stores. Again, you can barter.

Most of the decent inns (B&Bs) I know of cost around £25-30, including food. So this is a good reference point. What I imagine is modern conveniences are the really expensive things.

It's hard to compare to the real world because we each live in places with such different standards of living. In Newfoundland most things are really cheap. The exceptions are food (which mostly has to be imported-- we're geographically isolated) and temporary lodging. If I were going to stay in the city for more than five days and didn't live here, I would save money by taking a decent apartment for the month rather than staying in the crappiest of our hotels for those few days. (Yes, I calculated this. I was trying to decide whether to rent a hotel room for the night to enjoy the bathtub. ) What does this have to do with Marn? Nothing. That's my point. Each place has its own economic weirdnesses, so it's hard for any of us to use our place to compare directly since it's going to be completely different from anyone else's reference. Not to pick on you Railtus, but I can't use your prices as a good reference point, because they're nothing at all like mine, so it's no less abstract for me.

All this to say, I don't think we're ever going to be able to get a list of how much things cost, because the real world doesn't have a price list. All we can ever really do is approximate. I think with prices we probably need to think along the lines of, "Is this reasonable?" rather than, "Is this right or wrong?" (And Railtus, I think your listed prices/expenses are quite reasonable.)

[Sir Karsimir]

Not to pick on you Railtus, but I can't use your prices as a good reference point, because they're nothing at all like mine, so it's no less abstract for me.

I should have been more specific, I meant a good reference point for me.

[Frug]

I think lyle nailed it pretty well. The 1 to 1 conversion of the 1930's dollar to a bishan in Marn is good, but it breaks down when you try to generalize it over everything. IRL we have incredibly complicated, convoluted, intertwined economic systems. The $800 in rent you pay for a place has more to do with the government and extra expenses than the guy charging it. In Marn it's just a plot of land handed down from the guy's great grandfather and the taxes are low, depending on what kind of political strings you want to pull.

Marn operates on more of a barter system. Only half the city has electricity. Most of it has some form of unheated running water, but not all. The taxes generally go to the guard, the judges, and some basic city things. The costs of doing things are also different because they have magic at their disposal.

Economically it's supposed to be very simple. Import and export? Pfft. You mean the few traders who stray down this dreary path? That's largely insignificant. The government doesn't hunger for taxes from the people very much for the above reasons. They have magic and what is essentially free labor at their disposal.

Marn is surprisingly self sustaining and isolated, something that isn't really possible in the modern world. I'm not well versed on economics or politics, but Marn is socialist in many ways. There will never be homeless people in the streets. It's the shanty town, asylum, jail, or death for you if you can't get a place.

Also, average wage does not equal total income for everyone.

By 'house' do you mean 2-4 rooms and made of masonry?

Yes. As well as larger dwellings owned by people with more money.

I assume 'standard' clothing is of better quality than homespuns or the like and comes in a variety of colours and such?

There is a gnomish textile factory in marn. You've come across it . It can create some rather nice fabrics at low costs.

Is the loaf of bread you are thinking of wheat, or rye, or barley?

... I never went into thinking about exactly what grains are grown locally.

[Frug]

Okay this subject got me thinking, so imma write more. It was a good question Daq .

There are some inconsistencies with the city design. The numbers haven't been worked out. The population wasn't a realistic number until someone asked about it either. I think Rail pointed me to websites with population numbers.

The map does not have enough houses on it and it's not big enough. The photoshop file it's made from makes it easy to add houses, but I got so very tired of drawing them There should be more residential houses especially. The whole city should cover a wider area. It should have docs. There's fishermen on the ofriyu.

This talk has also given me an idea, which I'll make a post about.

[Daq Bekkar]

So I guess we should define Bishani in relative terms then:

How much Bishani might someone give to a panhandler if he wanted to make himself feel good?

How much is too significant to give away (for an average person)?

How much would a lower class / middle class / upper class family see coming their way each year?

[Sir Karsimir]

I think lyle nailed it pretty well. The 1 to 1 conversion of the 1930's dollar to a bishan in Marn is good, but it breaks down when you try to generalize it over everything. IRL we have incredibly complicated, convoluted, intertwined economic systems. The $800 in rent you pay for a place has more to do with the government and extra expenses than the guy charging it. In Marn it's just a plot of land handed down from the guy's great grandfather and the taxes are low, depending on what kind of political strings you want to pull.

Marn operates on more of a barter system. Only half the city has electricity. Most of it has some form of unheated running water, but not all. The taxes generally go to the guard, the judges, and some basic city things. The costs of doing things are also different because they have magic at their disposal.

Economically it's supposed to be very simple. Import and export? Pfft. You mean the few traders who stray down this dreary path? That's largely insignificant. The government doesn't hunger for taxes from the people very much for the above reasons. They have magic and what is essentially free labor at their disposal.

Marn is surprisingly self sustaining and isolated, something that isn't really possible in the modern world. I'm not well versed on economics or politics, but Marn is socialist in many ways. There will never be homeless people in the streets. It's the shanty town, asylum, jail, or death for you if you can't get a place.

Also, average wage does not equal total income for everyone.

By 'house' do you mean 2-4 rooms and made of masonry?

Yes. As well as larger dwellings owned by people with more money.

I assume 'standard' clothing is of better quality than homespuns or the like and comes in a variety of colours and such?

There is a gnomish textile factory in marn. You've come across it . It can create some rather nice fabrics at low costs.

Is the loaf of bread you are thinking of wheat, or rye, or barley?

... I never went into thinking about exactly what grains are grown locally.

Good, thank you. My point of this is the average standard of living in Marn is what I would call good high quality living. Thanks.

[Metarie]

Okay this subject got me thinking, so imma write more. It was a good question Daq .

There are some inconsistencies with the city design. The numbers haven't been worked out. The population wasn't a realistic number until someone asked about it either. I think Rail pointed me to websites with population numbers.

The map does not have enough houses on it and it's not big enough. The photoshop file it's made from makes it easy to add houses, but I got so very tired of drawing them There should be more residential houses especially. The whole city should cover a wider area. It should have docs. There's fishermen on the ofriyu.

This talk has also given me an idea, which I'll make a post about.

Did you want me to help with the map thingy?

[Frug]

Did you want me to help with the map thingy?

Right now I'm not sure there's much you can do. I can give you the photoshop file and you could expand the residential district out more, but I want to pretty much redo the map. The resolution I used to make it is too low, especially the paper effect.

Here's the photoshop file though
http://www.tharshaddin.com/store/MapofMarn.psd