Price of theater

[Hogeyhead]

Disclaimer if you are part of the "Nobility Campaign" in Montreal do not read this post.

Greetings friends, I have a somewhat specific set of questions, that sadly is not already answered in the rules I believe.

It relates, as the name of the thread suggests, to the price of theater.

The reason for this is that for plot reasons one of the PCs has become famous, and for essentially an unrelated reason has written the greatest play of the age.

Once it starts circulating the combination of her fame and the quality of the work, all the Theaters in the city will start running it giving her royalties.

I have three brass tacks questions.

1. What would the different prices of different tickets in different quality of theaters cost?

2. How many seats of different kinds would there be in different kinds of theaters, and how many theaters would there be of different kinds?

3. And finally what percentage royalties would someone normally receive for having written the play being performed?

I'm really not looking for a "whatever feels right" answer, I'd really like some help with simulationist type rules.

I'm also not worried about balance being broken, there are two currencies in my world, and magic items can't be in general bought with gold, which is what this will be earning.

Thanks for the help!

[Dancing Wind]

If you're looking for actual data, you might simply look online at seating charts and ticket prices for theaters in your city. And count the number of theaters of different kinds.

Not for a 1-1 comparison, but to get the relevant ratios for various sized theaters, and various types of seating.

For example, choose a small theater, a medium theater, and a large theater. figure out what percentage of their seats are "cheap balcony", main floor center, and main floor less desirable (back, sides).

Then look up the cost of tickets for a a concert or play at that theater.

IF balcony seats are half the price of desirable main floor seats, and less desirable main floor seats are midway between, you can quickly estimate what a total evening's income would be.

Convert that to how much gold you want your PC to make from a performance, and you can easily figure out what the ticket prices should be to generate that much gold.

Once you have 3 theaters (small, medium, large) configured, just multiply the income/evening by the number of theaters that would be open that evening.

Playwright Royalties will give you an idea of how to calculate royalties

[breithauptclan]

Hogeyhead wrote:

I'm also not worried about balance being broken, there are two currencies in my world, and magic items can't be in general bought with gold, which is what this will be earning.

Oh, well in that case I would run it as a passive Earn Income type of thing. Pick a task level and success level representative of how good of a play that they wrote. That would be the rate that the play earns income at, and the character will get a cut based on that for royalties.

There is no rule for how much royalties percentage is in the game, so you will have to look that up IRL.

[pauljathome]

I'd look at Elizabethan England for inspiration.

Neither Christopher Marlow NOR William Shakespeare got particularly wealthy from their theatrical endeavours. Shakespeare was fairly well off when he died but not mind bogglingly rich. I'd put him as somewhere in probably upper middle class. And that was the result of his being a playwright, an actor, an active investor, part owner in his own acting company, etc.

And I'd use some of the Elizabethan theatres like the Rose for inspiration on size

[Hogeyhead]

breithauptclan wrote:

Hogeyhead wrote:

I'm also not worried about balance being broken, there are two currencies in my world, and magic items can't be in general bought with gold, which is what this will be earning.

Oh, well in that case I would run it as a passive Earn Income type of thing. Pick a task level and success level representative of how good of a play that they wrote. That would be the rate that the play earns income at, and the character will get a cut based on that for royalties.

There is no rule for how much royalties percentage is in the game, so you will have to look that up IRL.

Thank you, this is simple, direct and makes a lot of sense in the system.

I'll use a variation of this.