My personal sweet spot for economic rules in Pendragon is the additional Winter Phase rules from the GPC. The detailed economy system from the BotM is too much for my taste. And yet, sometimes a situation arises where a player wants to know how much money he can spend on something that has caught his eye. I came up with the following house rule for this, because it was fun to do.

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Pocket Money

If you don't use the economic rules from the BotM or detailed bookkeeping, but your players still want to know how much money they can spend on a whim, look up the PK's current grades of maintenance in the Pocket Money Table to find the right order of magnitude, and roll 1d3. The result is the amount of money available this year for conspicuous consumption, impulse buys and grand gestures.



Pocket Money Table – roll 1d3:

STATUS ORDER OF MAGNITUDE

Impoverished Pence
Poor Shillings
Ordinary Half Pounds (0.5£)
Rich Pounds
Superlative You can afford it


If you are using the Winter Phase rules from the GPC, the player can decide to free up some extra money. Roll an additional 1d3 and add it to the first roll for the result on the Pocket Money Table. In the following Winter Phase, (that is, at the end of the current year) reduce the result from the Harvest Resolution Table downward by one category. In effect, the PK is spending money he does not yet have.

Example: Sir Alostar chances on a nice tapestry which would make a nice present for his new and beautiful wife. 1£ is not too much for it, he decides. His grade of maintenance is ordinary; rolling 1d3 yields a lucky 3 – thus he can spend 1.5£, if he wants to. If he wanted to spend more, he could take out a loan and add another 1d3 to this, but that would mean gambling on the next harvest.

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The above table is based on the values for grades of maintenance from KAP5, ch. 8. Poor knights have 3£–5£, ordinary knights 6£–8£, rich knights 9£–12£. Usually, this money just vanishes into general expenditure and upkeep, so you never see any of it. I figured there ought to be some kind of wriggle room in there you can have fun with, if you want. I kept it super simple.

Let me know what you think of it.

We do count the money from estates and loot, so we wouldn't need this kind of a table. We generally tend to handwave stuff below about £1, although we might track down to £0.5. Smaller than that, and it doesn't really matter, for instance new shields and lances to replace broken ones. Costs a few pennies, so why bother keeping track?

As for your table, I would likely push it up a notch, and then add +1 category per extra manor. So a guy rolling up rich but having two manors would actually count as superlative for all intents and purposes. But it really depends where you wish to have the breakpoint. Especially in the beginning of the campaign, in Uther era, £1 is a lot of money. £3 will buy you a chainmail and a rouncy, in essence an armored cavalryman's gear.

But frankly, I would rather just keep track of the actual wealth. Just use the Winter Phase system and get £3 for Poor, £6 for Ordinary, £9 for Rich and £12 for Superlative. You wish to have spending money? Live under your income or have more than one manor.