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What works best for your campaign? It probably varies from diety to diety to diety what day, if any, is a holy day. I do not think that all of the hundreds of gods and goddesses and others have all chosen the same day for that.
I mean, just look at Earth. The big three regions all have a different 'sabbath' or equivalent: Islam has Friday, Judaism has Saturday, Christianity has Sunday.
It would vary business by business, and I don't think it would be uniform at all.
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The different gods have different holy days and most nations are at least somewhat polytheistic. Additionally, much like in the real world, there are varying levels of faith. Someone may regard a specific god or gods as their patron but not observe a holy day for practical reasons.
It is probably not much of an issue for businesses to hire around the different holy days that require rest and not doing so means leaving money on the table. Smaller mom & pop shops might have a couple of days where they are closed but larger store will not.
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If you want the setting to take priority, then "What works best for you campaign(s)?" is the answer: that's the guiding principle for the setting. Ex. There's a pumpkin-themed festival in Galt created just so there could be Halloween-ish scenario for PFS.
Also unsure how Downtime rules would be changed by shops being closed. There's a lot of work to be done on holidays too (if desired), even by the Mom & Pop stores. Also ask the many retail workers who come in for abnormal overnight shifts on Thanksgiving for the major Christmas overhaul (if not a midnight Black Friday opening). Or looking at Medieval Europe, there were tons of holidays on the annual calendar so peasants might get 1/3 of their time off, but with no pattern to it. And that's with one religion's holidays, much less dozens.
Speaking of which, and as mentioned by others, there's the diversity. The Inner Sea region is larger than Europe and never had an overarching religion, not even pantheon. The countries likely only share a calendar for the sake of players rather than verisimilitude (just look how the 2nd month happens to have 28 days). Would Abadar or any of the gods of toil want zero work on their holy day? Erastil's Harvest Feast holy week is "marked primarily by hard work in the fields."
And would the more chaotic gods want to share a holiday or have a set routine to them? Would civic authorities want a day when the economy dips? Maybe, for bonding & to avoid labor abuses, but they might even encourage diverse belief for the economy's sake (and to dilute clerical political power!). I imagine a lazy person might find many religions appealing so they have plentiful holidays to honor.
Coming back to ground, what's Paizo say?
Guide lists Moonday (1st day of week, so our Sunday), as a day of work with religion at night. Then it has work every day day until Sunday (7th day of week, so our Saturday) which is the day of rest & religion.
So yes, shops are open on Stardays, if only looking at the weekly routine. And observant people will typically rest & do religious rites on Sunday (+ Moonday night). But I know many earthling believers that honor their religion's day of rest on a different day because of business/practical needs. Note that Chick-Fil-A is an anomaly, and many Mom & Pop stores stay open weekends/Sunday, choosing to close/rest on weekdays.
So even with a cultural norm, there'll be enough diversity that PCs should be able to choose when to rest (if they do) and be able to find staff willing to work any shifts necessary. Not counting the biggest annual holidays for whatever culture(s) they're in.
Rule and Lore Creative Director
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It's assumed most people are working on Starday. In the 1E Inner Sea World Guide, we described the various tasks occuring on a given day of the week. All but Sunday include "Work" among the tasks. This doesn't prevent an individual shop to be closed on a given day, but in general shops would be open on Starday.
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What works best for your campaign? It probably varies from diety to diety to diety what day, if any, is a holy day. I do not think that all of the hundreds of gods and goddesses and others have all chosen the same day for that.
I mean, just look at Earth. The big three regions all have a different 'sabbath' or equivalent: Islam has Friday, Judaism has Saturday, Christianity has Sunday.
For example, Desna, goddess of stars and dreams, would hold Starday as her holy day; Sarenrae, goddess of fire and the sun, would hold Sunday as her holy day; and Droskar, the dwarven god of hard labor, would favor Toilday, but not as a day of rest. No day is a day of rest to him. The small town of Sandpoint in Varisia has a sizable temple to Desna there, so they strongly follow Desnian traditions.
And why only one day? The Lost Omens Travel Guide says that Desna also favors Moonday.
We begin with Moonday, which is straightforward enough. While it may be a day for work, it’s also the night when worshippers of Desna, Ketephys, and night-loving religions hold ceremonies, often with only the moon as a silent witness.
It would vary business by business, and I don't think it would be uniform at all.
In real life, my local family-run Chinese restaurant is open on weekends and closed on Mondays.
It’s not about my campaign. It’s about the setting. The setting must take priority because my campaigns come and go, but they are all playing in the same setting, and if the setting isn’t believeable by its own internal logic then my campaigns suffer for it. So first of all the task is to find out if Paizo has an answer for this issue. Then and only then I begin to think how to incorporate it.
In most of my campaigns the players don't know which day of the week they are in. Some do know the weekday names: Sunday, Moonday, Toilday, Wealday, Oathday, Fireday, and Starday. In fact, my wife had a character named Wealday Addams and later created Wealday's cousin Toilday. But deep in the wilderness or in a dungeon the calendar does not matter. And when the players rush into town for some urgent shopping to restock as they chase down the bad guy, I am not going to break the pacing of the game by saying, "According to my calculations it is the weekly day of rest and the shops are closed."
Setting has certain priorities. Consistency is very important, because it enables the players to piece together clues about whether the unkind mayor is evil, fooled by evil advisors, or simply foolish. Some players love the flavor of local customs, such as well-established weekly days of rest and monthly days of festival. The Rise of the Runelords adventure path begins with the Swallowtail Butterfly Festival in Sandpoint and that is important. But other parts of the setting lack priority. Establishing some customs early in the campaign might set them up an annoyances rather than enhancements.
Days of rest and other calendar details do matter sometimes. I am currently running the Strength of Thousands adventure path set at the Magaambya School of Magic. The modules pay no attention the the individual classes the the player characters attend at the Magaambya, but my player want to roleplay as students, so I created a curriculum and hold some class events such as plays put on by the Theater class and and field trips by the Rivers of the Mwangi Expanse class. The difference between the weekdays and the weekend matters under those circumstances, so I do mention the days of the week. However, though the PCs do attend classes, I carefully never gave a time of day or days of the week for those classes. I need the PCs to be able to freely take time for a two-day field trip in one class without conflict with their other classes. Perhaps the teachers carefully coordinate their schedules.
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In D&D, city guides would often list shops such that some high-end or esoteric items might only be available from specific stores. (So better be nice to the proprietors!) In smaller settlement, i.e. Hommlet, you might have very granular knowledge of who provides what (and in Hommlet's case, even which of the two prevalent religions they followed). And I ran it this way, and shopping was a facet of play (so bring your skillful ally along as there might be bartering, price gouging, forgery, searching, etc.), not to mention what PCs and third-party NPCs might add to the mix.
Pathfinder settlements lack such granularity and work more in the abstract, down to the smallest village with one store on the map. Which is to say Paizo did away with the fine-scale shopping aspect of RPGs w/ the exception that a settlement might have a few above-budget items available and an order time based on how near the larger settlements are. This suits players' limited table time, and that many tables handwaved shopping anyway (and my D&D tables did much of this RPing via e-mail). One can safely say there's no official stance on Golarion markets at the store level, much less how their schedules might work. So have at it.
...or don't.
Would the hours invested, both as GM and at the table, pay enough dividends? This is getting into "survive in the wild" territory where it can be a fresh challenge to count & scavenge arrows, hunt for food, and put often overlooked skills to use. But ultimately (I'd even guess quickly) players want a more heroic narrative that bothers as much with store hours & food sources as it does daily hygiene (not at all or barely in the abstract).
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Maybe we're from different cultures? In the U.S. I've worked in stores that've sold hundreds of varieties of calendars and the like. Every version featured Sunday-Saturday weeks except some rare Mon-Fri planners for say teachers.
I'm unsure what rules issue could possibly arise from Earth days mismatching Golarion days, as like Mathmuse, I've seldom referenced them anyway (if at all), much less needed to correlate them with Earth days.
That said, a shift wouldn't matter to me. A one-day hiccup to align Monday/Moonday & Sunday w/ itself makes practical sense. And maybe Paizo's calendar creator agreed with you that Monday did (or should) start the week.
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Hand-waving just isn’t for me though. At least not on the subject of this thread.You got an official answer from Paizo's Rule And Lore Creative Director.
If that's not satisfactory for you, then you've moved yourself into homebrew territory.
I believe that CULTxicycalm is not complaining about the official answer from Luis Loza, Rule and Lore Creative Director. Instead, CULTxicycalm is saying that he has a different GMing philosophy from Lia Wynn, Castilliano, and me who said that such details are best left to the GM to decide based on story elements. Giving further advice that conflicts with CULTxicycalm's GMing philosophy would be a waste of our time, so they are being polite.
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What works best for your campaign? It probably varies from diety to diety to diety what day, if any, is a holy day. I do not think that all of the hundreds of gods and goddesses and others have all chosen the same day for that.
I mean, just look at Earth. The big three regions all have a different 'sabbath' or equivalent: Islam has Friday, Judaism has Saturday, Christianity has Sunday.
It would vary business by business, and I don't think it would be uniform at all.
I'm not sure about Islam, but Jewish Sabbath is Friday night (sundown) to Saturday night (sundown).
In any event, I can imagine a lot of shopkeepers might venerate Abadar, and I'd imagine Abadar would put business ahead of having a whole day off.
I'd expect in a moderate sized city with multiple shops of any given sort, that you'd fine one that's open.
Maybe in a small village where you've only got one of a kind of shop, you might run into an issue where they're closed.