Living Expenses

In the v.20 copyediting thread Aldarron cites Arneson’s original MS: “Players must pay living expenses and wages for themselves and hirelings. Costs in the Underworld are assesed on a weekly basis, but in the Upper Land the same cost applies on a monthly basis.”
I think we should have upkeep costs not just because it’s been part of the assumptions for the game since the beginning - see also here - but also because:
a) dealing with the home economics of staying alive is one of the ways to make the end-game domain economics meaningful and present at low levels
b) not summarizing upkeep means more book-keeping not less, because I can say from playtest experience that having to add up a month’s worth of living expenses using the equipment chart is a pain
c) ACKS isn’t Runequest or Traveller, so we don’t necessarily want to start PCs in debt, but there is good starting motivation to be had from knowing that not going adventuring will make you starve - and the decision “how much GP do I want to spend on equipment vs. set aside for upkeep” only becomes meaningful when it’s easy for the player to know how much their monthly cost of living will be
My suggestion would be to make monthly upkeep one of the uses of the Wealth score - the seventh roll of 3d6 in character generation, which OD&D just uses for starting gold. Subsequent editions have put much more emphasis on the 3d6 you roll for Wisdom, presumably because it’s given a specific name, even though OD&D uses this score for nothing at all.
Given the wide variation in the listed cost of a meal, it seems possible that different characters might spend between 3 and 18 gold pieces a month to maintain their accustomed lifestyle.
Whether we go with the spend-your-Wealth-every-month idea or not, I think it’s important to also give some guidelines for how much different kinds of upkeep cost. In play, I have needed a table that shows how much it costs to provide the barest necessities of life in a hut, stay at a decent inn, or rent a townhouse and servants and entertain guests freely.

That’s a fascinating idea. I could see how a stat-like indicator of station or class (but separate from the domain rules) might get all sorts of interesting uses. Conan vs. Elric, “I was a man before I was a king” and all that.

‘I think it’s important to also give some guidelines for how much different kinds of upkeep cost.’
This is what ‘Heroes’ does, upkeep is the driving mechanic for keeping characters ambitious even at high levels. Converting to D&D terms, the starting 3d6 cash score (before the ‘x10’) is used for social status, having to roll under on d20 (+/- CHA modifier) when attempting to impress/influence others, where the stat decreases by one (to a minimum equal to their Level?**) if the character doesn’t spend weekly at their Wealth score for (Level) weeks. In a game where influence, trust and reputation is paramount, the Wealth score becomes consistently important. You spend as befitting your station or there are consequences.
**to account for being judged on past glories/reputation maybe.

Just as something interesting to look at in this regard, in Arneson and Sniders Adventures in Fantasy, there is a “Social Status Table A” which is a d100 table running from surf to king and also has a column of yearly income (Serfs 0, knights 50 GP, Marquis 1200 GP)Book 1 pg 5. Status also effects the number of proficiencies/education subjects you start with.
Might be a useful model
AiF economics is interesting unto itself, for example you can hire a crew of 100 unskilled peasants to work on constructing your castle for a total of 1 GP a day.

My suggestion would be to make monthly upkeep one of the uses of the Wealth score - the seventh roll of 3d6 in character generation, which OD&D just uses for starting gold. Subsequent editions have put much more emphasis on the 3d6 you roll for Wisdom, presumably because it’s given a specific name, even though OD&D uses this score for nothing at all.
Is the ‘Wealth’ score a canonical part of the ACKs ruleset? Or are you just applying that label to the starting gold roll?
I think it’s a very good idea to have it as a specific Attribute and defined as such within the char gen section of the rules. There’s no mention of ‘Wealth’ that I can find with a search at the moment.
If there is a table for what your ‘Wealth’ attribute equates to (e.g. 3 - Criminal or escaped slave, 12 - Average unskilled peasant, 18 - Minor Aristocrat) then a character can buy down Wealth as with other stats to increase their Prime Requisite. This could lead to a situation where Wealth becomes a dump stat, but I suspect the corresponding loss of starting gold (which equates to armour, weapons, and the tools of the adventuring trade)would make it less likely.
Moreover if there are explicit limitations on the top end of ‘Wealth’, a score of 16-18 say, that are built so they are independent of the Domain Game (or interact with it in a useful but minor way) then the attribute becomes a randomised element of background creation which can be useful for players looking for an initial ‘hook’ for their character. By limitations I’m talking about things like ‘I’m the son of the king’ not being permissible because they strain a campaign world at the very beginning. On the other hand being a minor aristocrat who hasn’t got much hope of inheriting any wealth from the parents gives a PC much more of an incentive to adventure. I’m listening to the Sharpe audiobooks at the moment (adventure fiction about the Napoleonic Wars told from the pov of a British private who gets promoted from the ranks) and there are plenty of minor noble sons who buy or get bought commissions as officers as ways of escaping debt, or poor marriages, or worse. In a world where adventuring is a route to riches, power and ultimately, land and title, I could see this being analogous.
By the same token similar penalties could exist at the bottom end of Wealth, but perhaps they should really be irrelevant by the time a character reaches the Domain game, because they should be sufficiently wealthy to have overcome or surpassed whatever their starting Wealth was. Not sure… I may be starting to talk myself out of it.
What does anyone else think?

We discussed having an explicit Wealth stat but decided against it.
First, the range of wealth that an ACKS 1st level character starts with (30-180gp) is tiny relative to the differences in wealth in society. To put it in perspective, a peasant family earning 3gp per month has about 100gp in assets. If you increase that to 180gp, then that’s a peasant family earning 5gp per month. 3-18 is poor peasant to affluent peasant but still a peasant.
Second, Charisma is already in many ways tied into the Domain system. In a society that values bloodlines and birth rank, Charisma would factor that in. Indeed, one of the major advantages of an aristocratic upbringing is that you grow up learning how to give orders and be in charge. (George RR Martin does a great job of showing this in his books).
Third, one of the themes of ACKS is that “powerful people become powerful” and “the adventurer becomes king by his own hand”. Having a Wealth stat explicitly tied to you goes against that theme.
One could, of course, have a Wealth stat that doesn’t tie into the Domain elements, but then it’s a dump stat. Because while Wealth is helpful up front, longterm it would be a dump stat as any adventurer can make up the difference in 1-2 sessions.
One could also have a Wealth stat that changes over time. But then that raises the question as to why other stats can’t change over time. Why can’t my Charisma increase? Why can’t my Wisdom increase as I get more experience? etc.
Ultimately we left 3d6x10gp as just that, a roll for starting treasure.

Thanks for the clarification and reasoning Alex. That all makes sense :slight_smile:

2e has a nifty little chapter along the varied “support and upkeep” lines on pg 34 of the DMG under the heading “Expenses”. Cook uses squalid, poor, middle-class, wealth as categries to divide living expenses per month. Worth a look.

I kind of think of the manservant chapter in the Three Musketeers. Each of the Musketeers gets a valet/batman servent and (first level) d’Artagnan is encouraged to get one as well, as soon as he first makes some coin. The servent (hireling) would take care of all his master’s needs for a flat monthly fee, that also includes the servent’s pay. Since servants get to keep the extra, they are motivated to get good value for the money, but if they skimp too much, their master would give them the boot.
Anyway, my thought is that living expenses could be rolled up into a 0-level hiring who ‘takes care of all the details’ and can run simple errands for the PC. Not every PC would want a servent, (I don’t see Conan keeping a butler) but it might be one way to make the bookkeeping easier, and teach players at low levels about how hirelings work.