Getting Paid Without Basic Math

[Aaryq]

Howdy, folks.
If you have a character without any math or literacy skills, how can he know he's getting paid or paying the correct amount?

[Long Shadow]

Howdy, folks.
If you have a character without any math or literacy skills, how can he know he's getting paid or paying the correct amount?

He asks his friend wit Basic Maths to check it I'm sure if he had agreed to an amount he count count on his hands, that should be sufficient, but if it got complicated with different denominations of currency, a percentage of the total amount or even installment, he would be lost.

[JuliusCreed]

Personally I make Basic Math, or at least the ability to count, a given/automatic skill. Even in actual Medieval times the most illiterate fool could count. Heck, I could count to 100 and beyond by the time I was 5.

[Cinos]

I allow players without the skill to IQ check for basic counting (to around 20 or 30 or so), failed check means they're off by a bit, or it just takes them frustratingly long to get to it. For the average person, that's all they really need on a day to day, their bar tab at most is going to be a couple of coins, and their pay for the days work won't be that hard to count to. Now if you're talking about a Merc getting several hundred gold at once and trying to make sure they got paid right, well you'd better have the Math skill, because if your employer figures that you can't count well, you're payments will start becoming light.

Also; due to the setting, and the lack of commonality of any refined mathematics, I also treat money in a more 'sacred' aspect by the people in general (only Anarchist will consider jipping someone for their inability to count), so the typical bartender / waitress won't try to screw you on the bill most of the time. My local player group however, just might try to do it (a warning to new players among them is to always take math).

[JuliusCreed]

It's not so much counting to a specific number. We're talking about adding, subtracting, multiplication, division and fractions. I'm a Manager of a retail chain and trust me when I say not everyone out there has Basic: Math at 98%. I've declined applicants because they couldn't count back correct change. I have customers and employees that have no idea what 50% off $4.99 is or 33% off of $13.00 is. My wife still has trouble with reading 1/8 and 1/16 on her gas tank. I had an employee type in $2.00 into the cash register by accident when she needed to type in $20 and she DIDN'T KNOW the difference in order to fix it. The answer is $18.00 if your not sure. In my games I don't worry about the small stuff like paying for an ale, but anyone without the skill is going to get swindled. How does a mercenary (yes I agree thats one profession that should start withthe skill) know the party is giving him his full One sixth share of the treasure if he has no idea what 1/6 is? He doesn't and infact I have a player who has been getting shorted his full cut since the game began and he is blissfully ignorant.

Ahhh the wonders of today's education system at work! Remember, "No one left behind!"
Just to clarify for me though... is it the character that's being played as blissfully ignorant, or is the player that ignorant?

[JuliusCreed]

It's not so much counting to a specific number. We're talking about adding, subtracting, multiplication, division and fractions. I'm a Manager of a retail chain and trust me when I say not everyone out there has Basic: Math at 98%. I've declined applicants because they couldn't count back correct change. I have customers and employees that have no idea what 50% off $4.99 is or 33% off of $13.00 is. My wife still has trouble with reading 1/8 and 1/16 on her gas tank. I had an employee type in $2.00 into the cash register by accident when she needed to type in $20 and she DIDN'T KNOW the difference in order to fix it. The answer is $18.00 if your not sure. In my games I don't worry about the small stuff like paying for an ale, but anyone without the skill is going to get swindled. How does a mercenary (yes I agree thats one profession that should start withthe skill) know the party is giving him his full One sixth share of the treasure if he has no idea what 1/6 is? He doesn't and infact I have a player who has been getting shorted his full cut since the game began and he is blissfully ignorant.

Ahhh the wonders of today's education system at work! Remember, "No one left behind!"
Just to clarify for me though... is it the character that's being played as blissfully ignorant, or is the player that ignorant?

The character. The player knows he's getting screwed, but is ok with it 'cause he has his character blow all his gold on wine and women anyway. He has a stereotypical sailor personality. (He's a Gladiator)

Whew...was about to lose hope there!

[Lt Gargoyle]

i allow pc to have basic math. its seems to me numbers are universal and basic math pretty common across the boards. you may not know the words to express the thoughts but you can still figure it out in your head.

[azazel1024]

i allow pc to have basic math. its seems to me numbers are universal and basic math pretty common across the boards. you may not know the words to express the thoughts but you can still figure it out in your head.

See Overkills response.

Basic math is most deffinitely not univeral.

In medieval times an uneducated peasant likely would have a hard time counting past 10 without taking their shoes off, and multiplication and division would be way beyond them.

Very basic addition and subtraction only, and maybe with some serious skull sweat to do it past 10 or 20. Crap, look at olden times...you were typically dealing with amounts in the range of a penny or a few pence, maybe a couple of shillings. You didn't see uneducated people running around with hundreds of guineas and having to figure out a 3% sales tax on things and also what their 18% income tax would end up being, let alone a 12% tithe.

People told them what they owed and they paid it (or didn't). More often than not they dealt in barter still. You want 2 baskets of corn for those 3 chickens is about as advanced as their math gets. They might have to stop and think about it if someone said "I have 10 chickens and I give you 3, how many does that leave me"...they'd probably have to take the 3 chickens away from the rest and count the remaining chickens to figure out how many would be left.

I'd take it for granted that very, very basic addition, subtraction and counting anyone knows. However, a lot of the adding and subtracting is probably going to be in the method of counting piles/groups.
-Matt

PS Crap, you'd find plenty of scouts who could tell you there was one, less than a hand, more than two hands, a few, a lot, a whole lot and a big army when it came to counting how many soldiers were in a group. Many officers who couldn't do much better and might not be literate to boot.

[Lt Gargoyle]

i allow pc to have basic math. its seems to me numbers are universal and basic math pretty common across the boards. you may not know the words to express the thoughts but you can still figure it out in your head.

See Overkills response.

Basic math is most deffinitely not univeral.

In medieval times an uneducated peasant likely would have a hard time counting past 10 without taking their shoes off, and multiplication and division would be way beyond them.

Very basic addition and subtraction only, and maybe with some serious skull sweat to do it past 10 or 20. Crap, look at olden times...you were typically dealing with amounts in the range of a penny or a few pence, maybe a couple of shillings. You didn't see uneducated people running around with hundreds of guineas and having to figure out a 3% sales tax on things and also what their 18% income tax would end up being, let alone a 12% tithe.

People told them what they owed and they paid it (or didn't). More often than not they dealt in barter still. You want 2 baskets of corn for those 3 chickens is about as advanced as their math gets. They might have to stop and think about it if someone said "I have 10 chickens and I give you 3, how many does that leave me"...they'd probably have to take the 3 chickens away from the rest and count the remaining chickens to figure out how many would be left.

I'd take it for granted that very, very basic addition, subtraction and counting anyone knows. However, a lot of the adding and subtracting is probably going to be in the method of counting piles/groups.
-Matt

PS Crap, you'd find plenty of scouts who could tell you there was one, less than a hand, more than two hands, a few, a lot, a whole lot and a big army when it came to counting how many soldiers were in a group. Many officers who couldn't do much better and might not be literate to boot.

Are you saying you think they were stupid? While they were indeed uneducated they were not stupid. yea they may have only baisc addition and subtraction. i do not see that as over kill. and for the record math is universal since every nation on this planet has developed math and cultures from the begining have the same basic math as everyone else. 1+1 = 2 and so on. the times and situation did not allow them to have education in reading and writing because they had to work fields and other things based around basic survival. but that is in itself just another form of education. just not in the modern term of education.
yes the farmer or pesant may have had to visually see the removal of the 3 chickens for the group but i bet as he gets older he could do it in his head. yes they probably prefered the barter system and like in mondern days if you wanted something someone had for sale for X amount they would pay them x amount. money or whatever you decide to use as your econamy basis is gonna be something your people are gonna learn and be able to do with time. like anything you use repetatively your gonna learn that skill. so my willing ness to give my pcs basic math I do not see that as an over kill.

[MrShowtime]

With the very little amount of times I see a need for basic math (Counting small amounts of money, how many enemies there are, how many arrows you have left) we just assume they know how to count those little things. Aside from those small encounters, the question doesn't come up in our sessions.

[azazel1024]

I didn't say they were stupid at all, just that they can't do much beyond counting, including doing addition and subtraction through counting (and not in their head).

You'd think even super basic reading is pretty darned easy, but there are plenty of people out there who can't even identify all the letters of their native alphabet. If math isn't something you need to use in daily life, you aren't going to know how to do it.

How often is a peasent going to need to know much more than basic counting? I can see getting by perfectly well in subsitance agriculture without needing to do more than counting to 10 or 20, do addition and subtraction by counting, and figuring things by approximations (small, medium, large, huge, giant, one, a couple, a few, a lot, a large amount, a huge amount).

If you do a little research on history, most medieval soldiers really didn't know how to do basic math, nor did the peasantry...who made up most soldiers. Even the professional ones probably weren't litterate and probably couldn't do more than basic math (probably could do addition and subtraction under about 100 in their head, but probably still couldn't do multiplication and division).
-Matt

[sHaka]

Agreed Overkill - the ability to count doesn't equate to basic maths. Heck, Red-backed Salamanders can "count" to a point.

It shouldn't be a freebie skill IMO.

[MrShowtime]

So do you guys think that every circumstance involving math in the game should be rolled for? If not, what should and what shouldn't?

[Lt Gargoyle]

I'm glad we agree azazel. Like you said, it's not stupidity. It's just a lack of education and ignorance. Basic math (per description in every Palladium book) is not just counting. It's add, subtract, multiply, divide and fractions. Not everyone can do it. Not even today when people have years of formal education. Those that can, still wont always get it right hence why the % system for the skill works realisticly.

Oh, and to Lt. Gargoyle. Azazel was refering to my response. I'm Overkill. He wasn't saying your willingness to give your pcs basic math as an over kill. I apologize if this comes off as harsh, but see how easy it is to misunderstand something you clearly have the skill for? We all do it all the time. Basic math should NOT be a given.

my bad as i did not realize he was refering to you. however i do understand something about working on a ranch which i do equate to life much like a peasent. this last summer we had to set the fence up for the new pasture. it did alot of basic math as far as addition and subtractions.
I agree to the point that not everyone in anytime period can multiply or do fractions. but then how often do you ever use that in any game? but addition and subtraction is pretty common in all socities. it is a skill you will aquire in the basics of life.
But then its your game, and you can run it however you want. if you do not want to give it to your players i am ok with that. but since it is a bit of a chore to get most the players i know to even play palladium games let alone the fantasy game I will give them the simple skill they want. beside i have never once made a player roll for it except when doing some type of engineering or science skills where it would be prudent.

but i do apologize that i did not realize he was replying to you overkill.

[azazel1024]

So do you guys think that every circumstance involving math in the game should be rolled for? If not, what should and what shouldn't?

As with most skills, no, a skill roll shouldn't be required unless you are doing something particularly out of the ordinary with the skill (IE extremely difficult).

With something like basic math, I'd have a skill roll if you are attempting to do something like balance a tavern's book keeping or if someone is attempting to swindle the character ("I give you 18 gold for the necklace, you give me 5 gold for the dagger, I'll cut a gold off the price because it needs sharpening and I'll break that Lord Kirilian gold piece for you" and now your character has to count up the money and figure out if he got the right amount of money).
-Matt

[The Dark Elf]

I dont make my players roll 98% to speak native to each other and I also play that they can count to a point. If being paid without basic math they may have a difference of -10% or such but not alot, dependant on who's paying.

[Cinos]

Any time I feel the success is in doubt, I make them roll for it. Meaning if they're slowly counting up their tab for the night, no I don't make them roll. But if they're trying to count soldiers charging in while arrows are coming down, yeah, you'd better roll to see if you can count up the number of attackers.

[Lt Gargoyle]

i have not ever had a pc or one of my own characters choose advance math in PFrpg.

[Damian Magecraft]

i have not ever had a pc or one of my own characters choose advance math in PFrpg.

And yet every one of my Mage characters have found Math: Advanced a must.

[Brewski]

I use the math skill for players to try and solve any puzzles I have set up where math can be used. Like using a midevil sudoku using colored gems instead of numbers on a sealed door.

[Xar]

[nipick]

...let alone a 12% tithe...

A tithe is a tenth (10%). It can't be less than, or greater than 10%.


[/nitpick]

[azazel1024]

Even in rural and agrarian societies today and backwards countries, let alone our own, education levels are far superior to what they were 1,000 years ago.

Few people of an status in just about any country in the world don't have at least a couple of years of really basic school. The number grows the more impovrished the country you visit, but a large percentage of, at least the men, will get some limited school.

Exceptions exist where there is absolutely no schooling in some cultures, bedouin, others, but they are more the exception than the rule.

How many Americans, citizens, immigrants, illegal immigrants, etc do you think have not received at least a few years education??? Even if they are illiterate, they probably picked up some basic math.
-Matt

[Lt Gargoyle]

i have not ever had a pc or one of my own characters choose advance math in PFrpg.

And yet every one of my Mage characters have found Math: Advanced a must.

I am not saying players shouldn't. I have only played a couple of times and i had a elf song mage.

the one game i ran no one found the need.

But I now understand why it is hard to get players to chose PFrpg over D&D. we have issues with over focusing on skills over role playing.

And while i do understand our educational system better in modern days, some primative central amercans had one of the best calanders in the world and astronomy skills.

I believe digitalredneck is correct with his statement. But i will go along with the agreement to simply disagree.

[Damian Magecraft]

I do not think comparing cultures that show signs of higher math skills to the medieval peasant class is the proper approach. most Peasants were lucky if they could count and preform sums with their fingers. being able to do addition, subtraction, division, and multiplication in your head got you labeled a witch or worse. (the church kept the peasants as ignorant as possible.)

[Prysus]

Peasant/Merry Man: "How many are there?"

Robin: *Looks at a large group of soldiers coming.* "Five."

Azeen: *Gives a strange look to Robin (knowing it's more than 5).*

Robin: "It doesn't matter. They can't count anyways."


Greetings and Salutations. Sorry, every time I see one of these threads pop up about math I think of that scene from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (with Kevin Costner). By no means is a movie the end all be all of accuracy, it just always comes to mind and felt like sharing. I figure someone may at least be amused by it. Thank you for your time and patience, please have a nice day. Farewell and safe journeys for now.

[Lt Gargoyle]

I actually think comparing cultures is as proper as much as comparing fantasy and real life. true the church want to keep people ignorant and would delare them heratics if they spoke out. However in the PF world you have monster races and magic as a standard.

Prysus - funny stuff.

[The Dark Elf]

i have not ever had a pc or one of my own characters choose advance math in PFrpg.

And yet every one of my Mage characters have found Math: Advanced a must.

About 30% of my characters have advanced maths, or was it 40%? Well there were twleve of them, or was it a dozen? So that would mean that the mode would be 2 or 3 or maybe 4.5 or....

Ok not even I have maths basic, let alone advanced

[azazel1024]

Peasant/Merry Man: "How many are there?"

Robin: *Looks at a large group of soldiers coming.* "Five."

Azeen: *Gives a strange look to Robin (knowing it's more than 5).*

Robin: "It doesn't matter. They can't count anyways."


Greetings and Salutations. Sorry, every time I see one of these threads pop up about math I think of that scene from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (with Kevin Costner). By no means is a movie the end all be all of accuracy, it just always comes to mind and felt like sharing. I figure someone may at least be amused by it. Thank you for your time and patience, please have a nice day. Farewell and safe journeys for now.

I was thinking of that as well when the topic came up

It is just a movie, but not that inaccurate for the times and location though.
-Matt

[pblackcrow]

It's not so much counting to a specific number. We're talking about adding, subtracting, multiplication, division and fractions. I'm a Manager of a retail chain and trust me when I say not everyone out there has Basic: Math at 98%. I've declined applicants because they couldn't count back correct change. I have customers and employees that have no idea what 50% off $4.99 is or 33% off of $13.00 is. My wife still has trouble with reading 1/8 and 1/16 on her gas tank. I had an employee type in $2.00 into the cash register by accident when she needed to type in $20 and she DIDN'T KNOW the difference in order to fix it. The answer is $18.00 if your not sure. In my games I don't worry about the small stuff like paying for an ale, but anyone without the skill is going to get swindled. How does a mercenary (yes I agree thats one profession that should start withthe skill) know the party is giving him his full One sixth share of the treasure if he has no idea what 1/6 is? He doesn't and infact I have a player who has been getting shorted his full cut since the game began and he is blissfully ignorant.

That's the truth. My friends, 1 is a manager and the other 1 is an owner" complain constantly about people lacking either people skills or basic math skills.

[JuliusCreed]

Peasant/Merry Man: "How many are there?"

Robin: *Looks at a large group of soldiers coming.* "Five."

Azeen: *Gives a strange look to Robin (knowing it's more than 5).*

Robin: "It doesn't matter. They can't count anyways."


Greetings and Salutations. Sorry, every time I see one of these threads pop up about math I think of that scene from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (with Kevin Costner). By no means is a movie the end all be all of accuracy, it just always comes to mind and felt like sharing. I figure someone may at least be amused by it. Thank you for your time and patience, please have a nice day. Farewell and safe journeys for now.

I was thinking of that as well when the topic came up

It is just a movie, but not that inaccurate for the times and location though.
-Matt

so what you guys are saying is ... in your game you would let me steal sheep/chickens or whatever from peasants, and as long as they don't see me... its all good? Cuz they can't tell the difference between five chicken and ten chickens so they won't realize half of the chickens are now missing?

Peasants being so ignorant as to be unable to count their chickens is really a myth. No doubt they were very uneducated, but life on a farm will sure teach you to count fast enough.

No, I think what they're trying to say is that the typical "ignorant peasant" doesn't have much of a concept for numbers beyond the ideas of one, a couple, a few, a bunch and so on. In your given scenario, yes the peasant would most certainly know some of his chickens were missing. He just wouldn't understand the concept of exactly how many were taken, much less the concept of half of them being gone. That's where the Basic Math skill would come in; if he were trying to determine how many were taken.
This same concept can be applied to someone getting paid for their services. It's actually frightening how easy it could be to swindle someone with no math skills simply based on the concept of being able to convince them of exactly how much gold constitutes "a bunch". Tell a merc with no math skils that you're going to pay him "a lot of gold" and you could very well give him 10 or 20 gold coins that, to his relatively uneducated mind, would actually be "a lot of gold", when, in actuallity, it's really just a relative pittance.
And on the flip side of this, imagine how angry said merc would be with his employer if he found out just how little he actually got paid.

[Lt Gargoyle]

I am pretty sure a mercenary would know how to do basic math, if nothing more then adding and subtracting. Either from working a farm as kids or going through basic military training. I understand why people would disagree, but they are required to be able to figure out formations and other military applications. and most Merc were soldiers somewhere before they become a sword for hire. and the pesant boy who pick up a sword still will remember how to count from farm life.
I am sure if a merc or anyone who is in a socity with money or other trade will understand how to count and conduct trade with their local currency. Now I am not saying if they saw a gem they could evaluate its value and yes they could easily be cheated. but if your dealing with silver, copper and gold I am sure they will understand how to read the coins value.

[azazel1024]

A lot of peasants in medieval Europe didn't build their own structures, a local carpenter did. As for fences, it isn't that hard to measure accurately enough without knowning how to do math. How you think a lot of basic bridges were built?

A lot of measuring was done with just a rope/string. You measure out how much you need for a board, then hold the same length against the log, mark it and then cut it at the right point. Rinse and repeat. Same with building barns, houses etc.

Sure plenty of carpenters could do basic math. Plenty of peasants still couldn't.

If you have 200 sheep, it would be awfully difficult to realize 2 or 3 were pinched unless you knew each sheep by sight, then you might notice after a bit that a couple you knew weren't around any more. A couple of chickens out of dozen would be pretty obvious even to someone who can't count.

For establishing pay, you don't have to be able to basic math to know equivelencies. I'd think after doing your job long enough you'd have an idea that a month of your time escorting merchant convoys was worth 200 gold. You might not be able to count exactly 200, but you know what 200 gold looks like, and if the merchant tries to pay you 20 gold, you are going to know you are being cheated. 195 gold...well that looks right.

Back to the peasants...why do they need to know exact amounts of grain, seed, etc? You can't get by with, "I know I need 8 bushels of wheat, 2 busshels of tomato seeds and a bushel of turnip seeds to plant in the spring". Pretty much anyone can do basic counting, and probably even recognize written numbers 0-9. Beyond 10...well that probably gets exponentially harder the higher you count. to 20, probably a lot of people, beyond 20 probably not many, beyond 100 very few.

None of us are arguing that most people couldn't do basic counting and very basic addition/subtraction through counting. Anything more than that would be beyond most peasants.
-Matt

PS Most Native Americans had a higher level of education than a medieval peasant did.

[azazel1024]

IMO, everyone should be able to count to some degree.

Also, There is a difference in getting short changed and getting ripped off. Even someone with math skills may not notice a couple coins missing, unless they took the time to make sure it's all there. If someone was getting paid 200 gold, and they only recieved one coin, it would be obvious that somethings not right (unless the coin was of a different mint, or otherwise not what they are used to seeing)

Which I think could, and would, from time to time create problems.

Merchant - "Well, here is your pay" *hands over two 100 gold Western Empire coins*
Northen Wilderness Merc - "What is this! My pay was for two hundred gold!"
Merchant - "That's what this is!"
NWM - "By Isis that isn't 200 gold! Do you take me for an idiot!"
Merchant - "But that is 200 gold! Its Western Empire 100 gold pieces!"
NWM - *draws sword* "I've never seen such coins before! You must be trying to cheat me! I demand my pay now!"

Of course well traveled Mercs and other players would certainly see their full share of currencies, but think of medieval times. Mercs could be born, grow slightly older and die all without leaving their country of origin. So in PFRPG it is possible Mercs or other PCs and especially NPCs might never have seen another kingdoms coinage before...making some problems (compounded by not being able to figure out, say what that 2 and 5 on the face of the coin means).
-Matt