DnD Economy

[Primitive Screwhead]

First, this is a tangent from the WalMart thread, however please keep that discussion going on over there...and keep this thread on track. Thanks

This thread draws off a concept brought up by Jonny Nexus that needs, IMHO, more consideration. Here is the quote:

You could say there are three stages an economy can go through. (I'm making my own terms up by the way):

Stage One - Barter Economy: I will swap you a valuable item I have that you need (food say) for a valuable item that you have that I need (some cloth say). The problem with a barter economy is that it isn't very liquid in that it relies of me finding someone who has what I need who also happens to need what I've got.

Stage Two - Coin Economy: We will agree to use a particular portable and long-lasting substance whose quantity available is reasonably fixed as a standard item to barter. Gold, say. So I can swap my food for some gold you have and then later swap some gold for some cloth. This removes the need to pair up producers. However, it only works if I'm happy to swap gold for food today knowing that my gold won't be halved in price by tomorrow.

Stage Three - Money Economy: Now we agree to have a concept of money, represented by abstract tokens. I'm happy to swap my food for some otherwise meaningless bits of paper because I have enough faith in the future of civilisation (i.e. the government and the rule of law) to believe that tomorrow I will be able to swap those bits of paper for some cloth.

IMO the DnD world is halfway between stage 1 and stage 2. Drawing an arbitrary line in the sand, coin economy would work for items under 200gp. Items priced above that line would be in the barter system.

This arbitrary line would change the feel of most games, having heroes seek out master craftsmen and artificers to create legendary items, trading in whatever stuff they looted from the battlefield, etc...

If you were to adopt this view of the DnD Economy, where would you draw the line between Coin and Barter?

Does this view, in your opinion, better reflect the typical fantasy as represented in most popular fantasy novels?

Does this view, in your opinion, better cover the current oddities of the system wherein a 3rd level adventurer is richer than most landed nobles?

Thank you for your reasoned and 'non-buzzwordy' responses

 

[Raven Crowking]

I think it depends upon what you want from the game. Giving it some thought, though, is worthwhile. IMHO. YMMV.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

IMO the DnD world is halfway between stage 1 and stage 2. Drawing an arbitrary line in the sand, coin economy would work for items under 200gp. Items priced above that line would be in the barter system.

This arbitrary line would change the feel of most games, having heroes seek out master craftsmen and artificers to create legendary items, trading in whatever stuff they looted from the battlefield, etc...

If you were to adopt this view of the DnD Economy, where would you draw the line between Coin and Barter?

Does this view, in your opinion, better reflect the typical fantasy as represented in most popular fantasy novels?

Does this view, in your opinion, better cover the current oddities of the system wherein a 3rd level adventurer is richer than most landed nobles?

I enjoy thinking about fantasy economics. However, tragically, we must remember that this is first and foremost a game and that the game designers didn't pay any attention to how the fantasy economic model makes sense. The Forgotten Realms and Eberron thrive as economic entities only because of the will of the game designer gods. There is absolutely no way the Orien Express could be built, much less function. But lightning trains are cool, so its there to stay.

The primary unit of exchange in the D&D world is not the gold piece, but the magic item. How are magic items introduced into the economy? They are recovered in dungeons. How are they created? Someone takes gold (or the gold equivalent in rare materials) and transforms it into a magic item. This magic item is a nigh-permanent fixture in the economy, barring the existence of digesters and other such monsters.

What magic items are made? Primarily weapons. Could an enclave of clerics or bards who know Heroes’ Feast create dozens of tables over the course of decades or centuries to feed a populace? Yes. Do they? No. How about something easier like a Sustaining Spoon? No. They exist, but the primary magic item created is to be used in combat. Large unit combat? No. Small scale tactical combat.

None of this makes a whit of sense unless, for some reason, the entire universe revolves around small parties of adventurers going into dungeons, beating up monsters, and taking their stuff.

Which is why I agree that the D&D economy is in a weird place between coin and barter. The primary unit of exchange is not the gold piece, but the magic item. And novels & movies don't reflect that because that's a pretty weird concept. And that's why a group of PCs will carry equipment worth more than a standard sized village (a village that is poor but still able to turn out 5,000gp magic items!)

Given all of that, some constructive criticism:

Magic items as barter makes sense up until the point you run into the traditional problem with a barter economy: what if nobody wants a +5 vorpal sword? G oing by the Rules As Written, there just isn't anything you can do with a magic weapon other than kill things.If we bend the rules we can say that the sword can be used in place of gold to "fuel" the next magic item production. Maybe turn it into a Mattock of the Titans or something useful. And that's what I'd suggest.

(cutting short to play with 3 yr old ... maybe more later)

Thank you for your reasoned and 'non-buzzwordy' responses

It is my curse to live in a world where nobody likes to chat about elasticities and how they might relate to mithril armor production. C'mon. Maybe just a single buzzword? An itty-bitty one?

 

[GVDammerung]

IMC, between Stage 2 and 3 with a nod to Stage 1. Coins predominate but there are letters of credit for very large or long range exchange and barter occurs in very primitive or very poor areas only.

 

[Doug McCrae]

In the default rules, trade goods function like coins. People accept them as if they were money. So it's effectively a coin economy masquerading as a barter economy.

In Eberron there are the beginnings of a banking system and paper money.

 

[Raven Crowking]

In the default rules, trade goods function like coins. People accept them as if they were money. So it's effectively a coin economy masquerading as a barter economy.

The question is, do you have faith that a certain amount of coins will actually be redeemable in terms of goods? If not, it is safer to keep that wealth in the terms of goods. If so, coins are more liquid.

IMHO, of course.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It really depends on the setting. In addition to Eberron, the Tarsisian Empire in the world of Ptolus (Praemal) issues letters of credit.

Some folks prefer a fantasy dark ages, some folks prefer a fantasy renaissance. Neither are wrong. (The people who prefer a fantasy stone ages should be burned at the stake, however.)

 

[Zendragon]

It is my curse to live in a world where nobody likes to chat about elasticities and how they might relate to mithril armor production. C'mon. Maybe just a single buzzword? An itty-bitty one?

Maybe the citizens don't understand the price elasticity of demand. Just give them the formula
E(sub)d =%(delta)Q(sub)d /% (delta)P

That would clear everything up. I knew that economics class would finally pay off.

 

[catsclaw227]

The primary unit of exchange in the D&D world is not the gold piece, but the magic item.

This is something that I have thought about, but not quite so eloquently put into words. Some of this discussion requires defining a couple of things for each group's (DM's) campaign:

1. Is the campaign strictly RAW?
2. Where does the exchange structure fall in regards to the OPs three tiers.

OK -- I am NOT an economist and do not know a stitch of real world economical theory. That said.... IMHO...

1a: The campaign is strictly RAW: If I am not mistaken, there are nothing in the RAW that states that a magic item can be broken down, it's raw materials and magic distilled and recreated into something else. Subsequently, most magic items that carry no other intrinsic value other than that which they were made for. I would venture to guess that the +1 longsword would be FAR more valuable to a small hamlet as 2300 gp or 2300gp VALUE in raw materials, trade goods, livestock, etc.

1b: The campaign is NOT strictly RAW: I certain that I have read some rules in different supplements, WOTC or 3rd party (can someone get me names of the books/suppliments?), that describe item creation rules that allow for the conversion of magic items. This then makes magic items a valuable commodity. Acutally, it makes the artificers or magic item creators of the world valuable personae for any kingdom, city, or village.

2a: If exchange is predominantly barter, then the listing of the gp value of a magic item is simply there to gauge it's cost to create, though not a measure of it's utility, unless the economy of the society is almost ENTIRELY based upon adventurers going into dungeons, killing stuff and taking treasure back into the world beyond.

2b: if the exchange is coin based, then the measure of the intrinsic value of the items as more than utility starts to merge with the item's value in other ways. Masterpieces of art do not have a high utility value, but are still valuable. It's value may also affect the owner's status and therefore increase it's value.

2c: Well, I guess this would work with magic items similarly as 2b, but the money may be better contolled in society. On the other hand, would the influx of magic items and the morphing of items into utility tools (the tables feeding people, etc) affect the stability of a money economy? Industrialization and technology certainly has affected modern economy, even (some would argue) bringing about the need to compare economies of different nations and causing rise and fall of nations (compare the 1960s/1970s ruble vs dollar to the current state of things, since the fall of the Soviet Union.)

Anywhoo, my 2cp.

 

[painandgreed]

Well, the D&D world is pretty much completly in stage 2, as far as PCs are concernred. Unlike the real world, there is an excess of coins, probably from all the past empires that have fallen and past ages of dwarven and elven manufacture. Stage 2 is just stage one but the coin provides an easy tradable item for mutual barter. Still, these view seem fairly simplistic and only really related to adventurers and not the truely rich people in the world.

True wealth comes from ownership of the means of production. For privledged people this would be land, serfs, and natural resources (which also equates to land). A D&D world isn't quite an agrarian culture but food would still a major part of the economy and the land to grow the food the true measure of worth. The would come natural resources from such sources as quarries, mines, and forrests. Then comes manufatured goods. Most D&D worlds seem to have fairly good trade and surplus items are moved from town to town and country to country fairly freely in the caravans that PCs are always hired to guard. It seems that every in has a good bottle of elven wine or dwarven spirits to sell. The economic worth of the land and it's yearly production far outstrips that of magic items. Per person, magic items are perhaps the best profit/person ratio, but few people can make them and if figured out the amount of magic item trade would be a very small fraction of a fantasy kingdoms GNP compared to even base wheat production.

If players really wanted to be rich, they would do what similar people did in real life and take over/settle land with serfs to work it. Gain the respective titles and political power to join into larger groups to hold that land, and then profit from it.