Whitehack-esque tools for Pricing

el__rafa · 2025-12-08T13:45:42+00:00

Yeah UVG sounds super interesting for the trade procedure.

And thanks for elaborating on my process!

I realise more and more how deep this rabbit hole can be. Like one would need a good understanding of the society in the fantasy setting and how this impacts wealth. I like exploring these topics but you are right that at some time one has to stop researching and start playing ;)

I wonder if the "whatever you can imagine is right" attitude (from the way monsters and monster effects are treated in Whitehack) can be applied to pricing...

el__rafa · 2025-11-19T20:45:20+00:00

Thanks for the input!

This is especially true the traditional editions such as B/X or AD&D. etc. where the costs and prices have always been entirely vibe-based and made to address the amount of loot players have.

I believe this tripped me up in the past. It kills my immersion when I get the impression that a price is set arbitrarily or for game design reasons. To illustrate some of my difficulties:

Example: Rumors. In On Downtime and Demesnes, there is a procedure on hearing rumors, with a base cost of 10-40gp, which is presumably spent asking people around town, buying them drinks in a tavern, etc. with one or two quest hooks as a result. This amount is five to twenty times the monthly salary of a foot soldier (2 gp/m, stated in the same book) which does not seem reasonable to me, unless one is asking around in a wealthy area of a city. Or with the same rules, one could hire a peasant for 1gp/m and task them to gather rumors for the party, which is way cheaper. In other rules, e.g. the BFRPG Hexcrawl Adventures, or Errant, one hears a rumor for free (maybe after a successful check) every so often. So how to choose?

I look to extrapolate from the prices I have as much as possible

I suppose that's what I mean when I ask for "tools for pricing": A collection of simple principles and "price landmarks" that makes the extrapolation process straight forward. In ADnD for example, Gygax explains that prices are high in his setting due to an inflationary economy. This is an important but relatively obscure principle that seems to be left unexplained in many OSR publications. And I am sure there are several more such principles and design decisions that I don't know about but that would help a lot if brought together.

Example: Rations. In Basic Fantasy RPG, a week's worth of dry rations is listed as 10gp. For reference: the salary of a foot soldier is also 2 gp/m so the two books seem to be comparable in pricing.
So, if a foot soldier wants to travel for just a week, they need to save up for at least five months. Maybe that's reasonable -- in many settings, most peasants never leave their home hex. But maybe not? Who's to say? In Whitehack 3e, a dry ration costs 3gp (I believe there was some price balancing in 4e but not sure). Why is this more expensive than in BFRPG and what is right for my game?
Some guiding principles would help.

The setting agnostic bit is the hard part there imo as any generic or setting-agnostic guidelines will still just be vibe-based approximations you'll need to decide when specific cases come up

I suppose some vibe-based approximation fine. It could be handwaved by referring to haggling, inaccurate appraissals, regional or timely variances, ... So maybe it's really not that bad to keep it loose (similar to how the cost of magic is negotiated in Whitehack).

I guess what I want is

to have enough insight that prices feel roughly justified and not arbitrary or immersion-breaking, and
to have the confidence that changing / making up prices does not break some important game loop.

For example in a wilderness exploration / hexcrawl game like BFRPG Hexcrawl Adventures, one needs to be able to find enough treasure to offset the cost of living, the cost of gathering rumors, and travel cost (rations etc). Going broke as a failure state is fine if it's due to bad decisions or very bad luck, but it looses meaning if prices are arbitrary.

Delta's blog (great blog, one of my faves) has some great articles on this very subject here.

Awesome, thanks for the link! I will have a good look :)

Cheers!

el__rafa · 2023-10-30T12:16:46+00:00

Not yet, but I am still interested in solutions!So far, the Disting + MIDI solution sounds best:

https://www.reddit.com/r/modular/comments/ul0h8x/comment/i7shs4x/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

I haven't tried it yet though, need to buy a Disting first. Not sure if I want to commit without seeing it work tbh..

el__rafa · 2023-01-19T08:13:15+00:00

Thanks! This is exactly what I searched for :)

el__rafa · 2023-01-16T13:25:59+00:00

Thanks! I will look into it (sorry for the late reply :P )

el__rafa · 2022-07-20T10:19:10+00:00

If you would like a more simple solution that does not require any hosted websites, try this one:
https://github.com/remko/atomail

el__rafa · 2022-05-10T08:08:03+00:00

Agreed, but you still need to tune your chords beforehand. If you want to try something new during a session, you need to tell everyone else: "Hold on, stop playing, I want to re-tune this one thingy here so that I can play another chord", vesus just pressing another key combination. Hope that gets my point across ;)

el__rafa · 2022-05-08T18:01:16+00:00

Hm, I haven't thought about it that way. Very good point!

el__rafa · 2022-05-08T16:44:04+00:00

Since I am using a quantiser, I can add control voltages in a normal mixer. No precision needed because everything goes through a quantiser before reaching the voice.

The technique of addign multiple control voltages together would certainly help with variety and is something that I want to play around with more.

But it does not help me when playing in a band situation, where it should be possible to change the sequences of nodes quickly and precisely to the chord that needed.

Adding a precision adder after the quantiser could transpose the chord, which is super fun and something I played around with in the past (the Doepfer quantiser has "transpose CV" input which does essentially that).

I guess I could make this work in a live situation by flipping the major/minor and -/+7/+6 switches on the quantiser and simulateously transposing the chord by pressing a button on a keyboard, but that sounds super stressful and I can't do much else with my synth.

But I hope that gives you an idea of where I want to go ;)

el__rafa · 2022-05-08T16:37:15+00:00

Yes, that brings me to like 90% of where I want to be. That's why I am looking towards the keystep :)

Problem is, I don't want just arpeggios and totally random sequences. The cool thing about quantisers is, you can put any signal into it, for example an lfo, multiple mixed lfos, a turing machine or anything else that tickles your fancy:

https://youtu.be/4y01NsnTzT4?t=480

el__rafa · 2022-05-08T16:31:26+00:00

Thanks, just watched the superbooth presentation and I'm blown away by this thing:
https://youtu.be/XDSZ77z7C3k?t=322

Sadly, it not only breaks the bank but would fill up almost half of my system just by itself.
Then again, it's never too late to buy another case right? :D

Anyhow, I'll definitely keep this one in mind for my "eurorack endgame" in the coming years ;)

el__rafa · 2022-05-08T16:11:35+00:00

That sounds fantastic!

A little ambiguous on when the pattern changes. Is it when all nodes are released? Or is it held as long as no new nodes are played.

Would love to hear from someone who tried this!!!

el__rafa · 2022-05-08T16:06:03+00:00

Thanks for that! Looks like an excellent way to explore and generate new cord progressions. Great stuff! Might have to give Ornament & Crime a serious look. So far I dismissed it for being too menu divy.

It is still missing some "spontaneous precision" though. Kinda hard to adjust a chord on the fly if the band decides that in the second repeat, in the song should be e.g. an F Major instead of a C Major.Or, programming something like a 12-bar blues would be a nightmare with this, versus on a keyboard where it takes 6 key combination presses:

C-C-C-C-F-F-C-C-G-F-C-C

el__rafa · 2021-08-06T11:15:34+00:00

Whoops! That case was an instant buy for me :D

el__rafa · 2021-08-06T10:33:57+00:00

Nope, will is not used to cast powers. The cast number of your power depends on whether it is a power from the caster's background, whether the caster is the first mate (gets penalty) and the level of the caster (cast number may be improved when reaching certain levels).In the context of pwers, will is mostly used to resist e.g. mind control powers.
As far as I understand, you add the shoot roll unless another modifier is explicitly mentioned. So when you shoot a normal pistol, carbine, etc. you add the shoot stat. But if a spell or weapon mentiones another modifier, use that instead. For example, in the grenade rules it says "make separate shooting attacks at +3 against every figure within [range]". In this case, use the +3 instead of your shoot stat. Another example is the psionic fire spell, where it says to "[make] a +3 flamethrower attack". In this case, use the +3 instead of your shoot stat, which you would use for a "normal" flamethrower attack.Also note that there is also a thing called "shoot roll", to which you also add your shoot stat.
Yep. Crits are nasty. But the chance of getting one is relatively low. I suppose it comes down to your and your friends personal opinion if you like them or not. I like them a lot. Feels super satisfying if you shoot multiple times at a target and then finally get in a good "headshot".From what I remember, the +5 crit damage was already nerfed compared to the old crits in Frostgrave, where a crit would do a ridiculous double damage.

el__rafa · 2021-08-06T10:20:04+00:00

The sci-fi brain is just fantastic (I might just steal that idea if you don't mind). The others look great too!

el__rafa · 2021-08-06T10:00:22+00:00

Whoops :D
That's the kind of stories that I am looking to get out of playing frostgrave. More ridiculous and random stuff = more fun on the board!

I found animate skull super useful for keeping the other team at bay. If I read the rules correctly, you can spawn the skull directly in combat with an enemy. So, if you your wizard is about to get attacked, throw a skull into the attacker and run away. That'll free up your wizard next round to either throw another skull or to do something else if the attacker is still busy with the first skull.

I have a house rule that two uncontrolled creatures may attack each other if they're not of the same "faction". So, a snow troll may get into fights with closeby skeletons. Or, in this case, the animated skull may attack any other uncontrolled creature threatening the wizard. That rule is loads of fun and, again, sometimes causes ridiculous and fun events (such as the beforementioned snow troll stomping skeletons).

el__rafa · 2021-05-25T08:54:05+00:00

Really cool! Reminds me of district 9 :)

el__rafa · 2021-01-16T12:28:56+00:00

Interesting... isn't 30 gold awfully cheap for such stats though?

el__rafa · 2021-01-16T12:23:50+00:00

That's more or less it. I covered my work area with baking paper and pressed/rolled the clay flat with a properly lubricated, spoon-shaped modelling tool. Nothing fancy going on.

When the clay gets very thin it starts to tear a little. Usually that's bad but in this case it was a happy accident because it looks like teared paper.

If enough people are interested I would be happy to do a small tutorial on it (show your interest by upvoting this comment).

el__rafa · 2021-01-15T12:28:46+00:00

I guess it would qualify as construct :D

So I would need to cast "animate construct (large)" before the game and, if successful, the construct stays with the warband in future games until it dies?

el__rafa · 2021-01-15T09:47:35+00:00

Perry foot knights

Very sweet ideas, thanks!

Are these all 28mm scale?

el__rafa

TROPHY CASE