Economics of a fantasy/old world Setting

[someguy]

There is no reason the economic system in a fantasy world would have to be significantly different from the real world. First you have to decide on a stage of development for the economy in question. Is it a primitive economy based largely on barter? It is a pre-coinage society where wealth is transferred in something like salt or hack silver or seashells? Or is it a more modern economy with official coinage? This gives you an idea of what is valued. A medium of exchange needs to be rare enough that it has value, but common enough that there will be some to change hands on a regular basis. Maybe you even have a fiat currency, backed by little more than the perception of wealth and power, which would cause that perception to be aggressively defended.

All of this is exactly the point of this thread, to really think about each of these economic tears would function and how the character in the game would interact with it.

You also need to think about credit. Without credit, you have a wealthy class that holds most of the wealth and therefore owns everything. With credit, you can start to open up a middle class that can get the money they need to open up shop without the backing of family wealth.

While this two is something to consider, I know your assumption to be incorrect regrading "credit make the middle class possible". I have built three successful businesses without ever borrowing a dime.

What created the middle class was the concept of "stocks". The ability to sell a portion of future gains for operating capital. This created the modern economy.

So, if you want a comprehensive approach to economics in a fantasy world, one place to begin might be with classification of different levels of economic development, different monetary systems, and different systems of credit.

I believe you already did that.

Terminal, another member on this site has done a fair bit of work on economics and demographics which can be found here http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...ight=economics

Maybe this will help a bit.

-D-

I'm sure it will, I'll check it out.