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On character wealth an d game balance
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<blockquote data-quote="Greenfield" data-source="post: 7088879" data-attributes="member: 6669384"><p>I wrote a lengthy response the other day, only to have Enworld go down for maintennce when I was trying to post it.</p><p></p><p>I'll try to be a bit more brief:</p><p></p><p>When I spoke of a "silver and/or pearl button", what I meant was "Silver and pearl or something-and-pearl". A finely wrought silver button can have have a jewelry value far beyond it's simple metal value, but there's still a sane limit. Still, the wealthy liked to show off their wealth.</p><p></p><p>For unskilled labor, by the book, a day's income is pretty poor. Silver a day or a GP a week for ongoing employment (yeah the rules do that kind of math a lot) would mean 52 gold a year for that man, largely in trade rather than cash. So that means 100 gp is about 4 gold short of two year's pay.</p><p></p><p>What does that mean for that man? It means that he and his family won't be tossed off their farm if he's sick or there's a crop problem that forces him to miss a rent or tax payment. It means that he can buy an apprenticeship for one of his children, so that they can have a hope at a real trade and a better life. It's like telling a man trying to raise a family on minimum wage that his kid can go to college.</p><p></p><p>It's literally life changing.</p><p></p><p>As for the economy of the middle ages v the game world: The game world is incredibly cash-rich compared to the middle ages. </p><p></p><p>In the real world, all of the gold ever mined and refined, from the ancients up to modern times, would just about fill an Olympic sized swimming pool. That's every bit of jewelry, the gold plating from every circuit board, every scrap of gold in Fort Knox, every gold filling adorning the teeth of anyone, all of it.</p><p></p><p>In the Lord of the Rings film, they had more than that in Smaug's hoard, and that much more ready to pour into that solid gold statue they used to almost kill Smaug. </p><p></p><p>That means the King Under the Mountain had a larger gold reserve than the US treasury, the Russian government, the Chinese government, the entire nation of India, and all the other banks and nations in the world. Twice over.</p><p></p><p>IRL a cubic foot of gold is a shade less than a tonne. (It's 19 hundred and some high change pounds.) In our game worlds, that would be a bit under 100,000 gold. There are swords that sell for more than that.</p><p></p><p>How, visually speaking, is a "huge" dragon hoard that would fit in a 10 gallon bucket play out with players? Is that an image a DM is going to be happy with?</p><p></p><p>Every gemstone pictured in every bit of gaming art is at least 25 carats, or about the diameter of an American quarter. That's the minimum in game terms. IRL that stone will buy you a nice house, nice car, and nice lifestyle for the rest of your life. As in, the bidding starts at $10,000,000 and goes up.</p><p></p><p>In game terms every city should suffer huge inflation whenever adventurers come to town, because they drop so much raw coinage, casually. In real life, any nation that depends on a precious metal standard traditionally suffers at the tottering edge of a *deflation* economy, since the government can't casually mint more money as the economy grows. The silver or gold needed doesn't just spring into being as needed, and the government can't just go and buy it even if it does exist: What would they buy gold bullion with? Gold coins of equal value? </p><p></p><p>So we know that the D&D economy is another fantasy aspect of our fantasy world. As schytzophrenic and dysfunctional as it is, it's what we have and what we play with. We have to accept it because nobody really wants to worry about market driven commodity prices and seasonal shifts in the supply of, well, supplies. Too much work, not enough payout.</p><p></p><p>Or simply put, fixing the fantasy economy isn't economical. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Greenfield, post: 7088879, member: 6669384"] I wrote a lengthy response the other day, only to have Enworld go down for maintennce when I was trying to post it. I'll try to be a bit more brief: When I spoke of a "silver and/or pearl button", what I meant was "Silver and pearl or something-and-pearl". A finely wrought silver button can have have a jewelry value far beyond it's simple metal value, but there's still a sane limit. Still, the wealthy liked to show off their wealth. For unskilled labor, by the book, a day's income is pretty poor. Silver a day or a GP a week for ongoing employment (yeah the rules do that kind of math a lot) would mean 52 gold a year for that man, largely in trade rather than cash. So that means 100 gp is about 4 gold short of two year's pay. What does that mean for that man? It means that he and his family won't be tossed off their farm if he's sick or there's a crop problem that forces him to miss a rent or tax payment. It means that he can buy an apprenticeship for one of his children, so that they can have a hope at a real trade and a better life. It's like telling a man trying to raise a family on minimum wage that his kid can go to college. It's literally life changing. As for the economy of the middle ages v the game world: The game world is incredibly cash-rich compared to the middle ages. In the real world, all of the gold ever mined and refined, from the ancients up to modern times, would just about fill an Olympic sized swimming pool. That's every bit of jewelry, the gold plating from every circuit board, every scrap of gold in Fort Knox, every gold filling adorning the teeth of anyone, all of it. In the Lord of the Rings film, they had more than that in Smaug's hoard, and that much more ready to pour into that solid gold statue they used to almost kill Smaug. That means the King Under the Mountain had a larger gold reserve than the US treasury, the Russian government, the Chinese government, the entire nation of India, and all the other banks and nations in the world. Twice over. IRL a cubic foot of gold is a shade less than a tonne. (It's 19 hundred and some high change pounds.) In our game worlds, that would be a bit under 100,000 gold. There are swords that sell for more than that. How, visually speaking, is a "huge" dragon hoard that would fit in a 10 gallon bucket play out with players? Is that an image a DM is going to be happy with? Every gemstone pictured in every bit of gaming art is at least 25 carats, or about the diameter of an American quarter. That's the minimum in game terms. IRL that stone will buy you a nice house, nice car, and nice lifestyle for the rest of your life. As in, the bidding starts at $10,000,000 and goes up. In game terms every city should suffer huge inflation whenever adventurers come to town, because they drop so much raw coinage, casually. In real life, any nation that depends on a precious metal standard traditionally suffers at the tottering edge of a *deflation* economy, since the government can't casually mint more money as the economy grows. The silver or gold needed doesn't just spring into being as needed, and the government can't just go and buy it even if it does exist: What would they buy gold bullion with? Gold coins of equal value? So we know that the D&D economy is another fantasy aspect of our fantasy world. As schytzophrenic and dysfunctional as it is, it's what we have and what we play with. We have to accept it because nobody really wants to worry about market driven commodity prices and seasonal shifts in the supply of, well, supplies. Too much work, not enough payout. Or simply put, fixing the fantasy economy isn't economical. :) [/QUOTE]
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