Silly economics of DnD
Oracular Vision
First Post
Well, I thought I had it here, but I can't find it, but on Eric's old site someone had made a very nice excel spreadsheet which would allow you to develop real supply and demand pricing.
By the way, guilds were enacted to eliminate price variations, among other things, so there WAS no supply and demand in operation in medieval times. Most villages were small and had a single smith, a single cooper, etc. Most people never travelled far enough from their homes to ever buy from a second town. The local economies were locked in and mostly free from competition. The occasional wandering merchant would bring things that were not locally made, and a few goods might be commonly available that had been ported in. If he tried to compete directly, that's why tarring and feathering were invented...
Read the Medieval Town and Village books, they have lots of juicy bits about financing. Whenever I get done creating a living jungle creature catalog, writing modules, and running my campaign, I might finish a "realistic" financial system...there has already been a lot of good work done on how the real ones operated. You have to figure in magic and the more dangerous world of 3rd Edition, and there you are.
By the way, guilds were enacted to eliminate price variations, among other things, so there WAS no supply and demand in operation in medieval times. Most villages were small and had a single smith, a single cooper, etc. Most people never travelled far enough from their homes to ever buy from a second town. The local economies were locked in and mostly free from competition. The occasional wandering merchant would bring things that were not locally made, and a few goods might be commonly available that had been ported in. If he tried to compete directly, that's why tarring and feathering were invented...
Read the Medieval Town and Village books, they have lots of juicy bits about financing. Whenever I get done creating a living jungle creature catalog, writing modules, and running my campaign, I might finish a "realistic" financial system...there has already been a lot of good work done on how the real ones operated. You have to figure in magic and the more dangerous world of 3rd Edition, and there you are.
Last edited:
Chimera
First Post
I'm right in there with the doughy one. IMC, I've set the Gold to Silver ratio at 40:1 (more historic, but a little harder to compute) and then 20:1 Silver to Copper. Then I've reduced the prices of everything to roughly 40% of the PHB to reflect a stronger currency valuation, then restated everything into Silver "dollars" (to name the predominate local currency).
Some things are so clearly out of line that it's insane. Take a Heavy Horse for one. The standard heavy "draft" horse would be much cheaper - it has to be, or take a look at what it does to your economy. 4 heavy horses to haul your heavy wagon runs 800gps. Factor in losses and horse replacement, and your shipping costs go through the roof. Clearly, many items need to be examined and re-priced.
Or you have people going the other way, reducing the value of a GP to nearly $1, and having peasants somehow make 1500 gps per year in order to justify their economy.
(Ok, even at book rates, assuming a Bushel of Barley costs 2 silver and weighs 40 pounds, that means that peasant grew 7500 bushels of Barley (plowing a good 300 acres by himself, I imagine), suffered no loss after harvest (whereas today in Russia, for example, crop losses run as high as 40-50%) and somehow managed to haul those 150 TONS of Barley to market all by his lonesome. Yeah, I buy that!)
Restated for clarity: Many items need to be repriced.
OTOH: I see no problem with it taking 20 days of wages for a peasant to buy a barrel. How much do those things cost today? Then how long would it take your typical $1/day Chinese/Philipino/Whomever laborer to afford that? I suspect that it would be much more than 20 days...
Some things are so clearly out of line that it's insane. Take a Heavy Horse for one. The standard heavy "draft" horse would be much cheaper - it has to be, or take a look at what it does to your economy. 4 heavy horses to haul your heavy wagon runs 800gps. Factor in losses and horse replacement, and your shipping costs go through the roof. Clearly, many items need to be examined and re-priced.
Or you have people going the other way, reducing the value of a GP to nearly $1, and having peasants somehow make 1500 gps per year in order to justify their economy.
(Ok, even at book rates, assuming a Bushel of Barley costs 2 silver and weighs 40 pounds, that means that peasant grew 7500 bushels of Barley (plowing a good 300 acres by himself, I imagine), suffered no loss after harvest (whereas today in Russia, for example, crop losses run as high as 40-50%) and somehow managed to haul those 150 TONS of Barley to market all by his lonesome. Yeah, I buy that!)
Restated for clarity: Many items need to be repriced.
OTOH: I see no problem with it taking 20 days of wages for a peasant to buy a barrel. How much do those things cost today? Then how long would it take your typical $1/day Chinese/Philipino/Whomever laborer to afford that? I suspect that it would be much more than 20 days...
Craft skills and peasant labour.
Now what really bugs me is the disparity between the earnings listed under Craft skills and the earnings listed under the average peasant labour.
Now, I think (don't have PHB on hand) that the check results for Craft/Profession is equal to the number of silver pieces earned per week.
The peasant earnings listed under the DMG states that the average labourer earns 1 sp /day.
Now...if the Craft checks earnings are made to equal the peasant earnings per day, and assuming the peasant works six days a week, that means that the peasant has a check result of 6. Which means, assuming that he is taking 10 he HAS NO SKILL POINTS IN HIS OCCUPATION AND ALL PEASANTS HAVE AN INT OF 3. If the peasant works a seven day week, or the week in Craft skill is taken to be a working week, then that implies either 1 SKILL POINT and INT 3 or NO SKILL POINTS and INT 5. What, we wonder, does the commoner spend his skill points on, then? Listen?
However, taken the other way round, we will assume that the average peasant labourer has an Intelligence of 10, 4 skill points and Skill Focus in whatever he has chosen as his occupation. Using the Craft skill rules, he earns (taking 10) 16 silver per week, more than double that listed. And of course that's ONLY IF HE'S NOT MAKING ANYTHING. If he actually decides to make something (which would be surprising *sarcasm*) then he earns significantly more.
The intricacies of labour-intensive work, complexities of manufacture and models of economic theory are fine when discussing relative barrel prices to labourer wages, but this example just proves that something is amiss. Perhaps we should scale up the wages in the DMG to match the PHB craft earnings.
Now what really bugs me is the disparity between the earnings listed under Craft skills and the earnings listed under the average peasant labour.
Now, I think (don't have PHB on hand) that the check results for Craft/Profession is equal to the number of silver pieces earned per week.
The peasant earnings listed under the DMG states that the average labourer earns 1 sp /day.
Now...if the Craft checks earnings are made to equal the peasant earnings per day, and assuming the peasant works six days a week, that means that the peasant has a check result of 6. Which means, assuming that he is taking 10 he HAS NO SKILL POINTS IN HIS OCCUPATION AND ALL PEASANTS HAVE AN INT OF 3. If the peasant works a seven day week, or the week in Craft skill is taken to be a working week, then that implies either 1 SKILL POINT and INT 3 or NO SKILL POINTS and INT 5. What, we wonder, does the commoner spend his skill points on, then? Listen?
However, taken the other way round, we will assume that the average peasant labourer has an Intelligence of 10, 4 skill points and Skill Focus in whatever he has chosen as his occupation. Using the Craft skill rules, he earns (taking 10) 16 silver per week, more than double that listed. And of course that's ONLY IF HE'S NOT MAKING ANYTHING. If he actually decides to make something (which would be surprising *sarcasm*) then he earns significantly more.
The intricacies of labour-intensive work, complexities of manufacture and models of economic theory are fine when discussing relative barrel prices to labourer wages, but this example just proves that something is amiss. Perhaps we should scale up the wages in the DMG to match the PHB craft earnings.
Oracular Vision said:
You can find that spreadsheet at http://www.mattwarren.net/rpgconn_home.htm . Lots of detail, not for those with only a casual interest in the econocmics of their world.
I agree with Al, the Craft skill rules don't jive with the prices and the labor wages. Using INT 10, 4 Ranks in Craft, and Skill Focus as a generic worker (which I think is quite fair), our cooper can make a barrel every other day, at a cost to him of roughly 7sp. He makes 13sp profit for each one he sells, and he can make 15 a month. If he were kept busy (in a port city, for example), he'd pocket nearly 20gp per month, 7x more than his listed wage.
Generally, the pricing doesn't bother me too much, since it rarely has any real impact on the players. It does bother me when the PCs want to hire an NPC 1st-level warrior, whom they will pay 2sp per day, and expect him to have 900gp worth of equipment (the NPC gear value from the DMG). Sorry, but that's 12 YEARS SALARY for this guy. Likewise for those who get followers with the Leadership feat. Granted, there could be other circumstances, but that's a huge discrepency to make up.
Mostly economics are not a problem until PCs start having to retain commoners and soldiers.
--- John
jasper
Rotten DM
kenjib said:
The Greeks had coins, the romans had coins.
England kings in the 900 had laws on minting coins and keeping the purity of coins. The viking's mint coins. So choose a period.
Basically any time a city becomes a city state.
of course if any one what to quote and send me books on the subject. i will make the sacrifice and read them.
Arkham
First Post
There was a beautiful piece posted on Usenet about
just over a year ago about 3e prices compared to
medieval england.
I think it may be useful to some of y'all...
Posted to Usenet by: Brett Evill
Many thanks go to him for this article...
MONEY AND PRICES IN MEDIAEVAL ENGLAND AND IN D&D 3
G'day
I have just been comparing the prices in the 3E PHB with the historical prices of similar commodities in mediaeval England. The results are interesting, and I thought I would share them.
First, a word about money. The most common coin in mediaeval England was a silver penny. This contained about 22.5 grains of fine silver (1/240 of a pound Tower weight), so there would be 311 to the pound avoirdupois. This means that the D&D silver piece is about six times as big as a mediaeval penny. And since the price of silver bullion listed on table 7-3 is 5 gp/pound it is clear that the silver piece is not debased. So the s.p. contains six times times as much silver as a mediaeval penny.
But that does not mean that an s.p. is six times as valuable as a penny. As Adam Smith explains in book I chapter v. of 'The Wealth of Nations', the true measure of the cost of things is the amount of unskilled labour that a person would have to sell in order to buy them. Depending on how scarce silver is, that can be more or less silver. For instance, the wage of unskilled labour in England about AD 1200 was about a penny-farthing (1.25 pence) per day. But by about 1450 the wage was about fourpence-farthing to fourpence-halfpenny (4.25 to 4.5 pence) per day. The penny had not been debased or reduced in weight. But a great deal of silver had been mined, coined, and put into circulation in those two and a half centuries, while the population (and hence the supply of labour) had only increased by a modest amount. The real value of silver in Europe had declined by about a factor of 3.5, even before the Spanish discovered the silver mines of Argentina &c.
Now, the price of unskilled labour in D&D is about 1 s.p. per day. So that means that 1 s.p. is worth 1.25 pence in the prices of AD 1200, or 4.25 pence in the prices of AD 1450. And since an s.p. weighs about six pennyweights and is fine silver, the price of silver in D&D is about five times the price of silver in Europe about AD 1200, or 1.4 times the price of silver in Europe about AD 1450. That is not unreasonable. Silver became even cheaper in Europe in the Renaissance.
I happen to have prices available in an epoch of about AD 1200, and that is roughly the middle of the mediaeval period. So in the rest of this posting I am going to consider 1 s.p. as being 1.25 pence, 1 g.p. as 12.5 pence (about a shilling), and 1 c.p. as being worth half a farthing. You should be aware, however, that the price of weapons and armour fell compared to other prices during the mediaeval period, and by quite a lot. About AD 800 swords were twice as expensive, and about AD 1500 they were half as expensive, as in AD 1200, compared to food and labour. On the other hand, livestock, and especially horses, got a lot more expensive over the same time. On the other hand, they also got quite a lot bigger.
Table 7-3
• A chicken is cheap at a farthing. In England they cost halfpenny.
• Cinnamon is about right at 12.5 pence per pound. In England it cost 10 pence per pound.
• Copper is a little dear at 6.25 pence per pound. In England it cost 3.5 pence per pound.
• A cow is about right at 125 pence. In England a cow typically cost 72 pence, or a good milker 120 pence.
• Flour seems cheap at 0.25 pence pound. In England *wheat* tended to cost about 12 pence for 28 lb., or 0.5 pence per pound. And that had to be milled and boulted.
• Ginger seems a little dear at 25 pence per pound. In England it cost about 12 pence per pound.
• Pepper seems about right at 25 pence per pound. In England it cost 10-28 pence per pound.
• Gold seems cheap at 625 pence per pound. In Europe it tended to cost about 4665 pence per pound.
• Iron seems dear at 1.25 pence per pound.
• Linen seems dear at 50 pence per square yard. In England it cost (at the cheapest quality) 5 pence for an ell {45 inches by a standard width (I think 56 inches) = 1.9 square yards}: about 2.6 pence per square yard. And it seems heavy at 1 lb per square yard: my linen bedsheets are only about 4 oz. per square yard. A pound of linen cloth should be only about 1 g.p.
• An ox is a little dear at 187 pence. In England they cost about 108 pence.
• A pig is about right at 37.5 pence. In England they cost about 24 pence in pig-breeding country, but about 36 pence in London.
• Saffron seems cheap at only 187.5 pence per pound. In mediaeval times saffron was worth its weight in gold (about 4,500 pence per pound). And this was because its production is labour-intensive, not because of high transport costs, monopoly profits &c.
• Salt seems expensive at 62.5 pence per pound. In England it was about 3 pence per bushel.
• A sheep is a little dear at 25 pence. In sheep-raising parts of England they cost about 10 pence, in London about 17 pence.
• As discussed previously, silver is rather cheap at 62.5 pence per pound. In England about AD 1200 it was 311 pence per pound.
• Wheat is cheap at 0.125 pence per pound. In England it cost about 0.5 pence per pound. (The price was highly variable from year to year.)
Table 7-4
Unfortunately I have very little information about the prices of weapons in historical times. However:
• A dagger seems expensive at 25 pence. The dagger with which Felton killed the Duke of Buckingham cost the equivalent of about 2 pence, or rather less.
• A shortsword seems very expensive at 125 pence. A sword in England might be bought for as little as 6 pence (though that instance *was* second-hand). Now a D&D shortsword contains 3 lb of iron (twice as much as an English longsword), and according to Table 3-7 that is worth 3 s.p., or 5 pence. Add a generous 40 pence for a ton of coal. That leaves about 80 pence for labour. An armourer earns about 12.5 pence per day in D&D (6 pence per day in England). That suggests that it would take an armourer six and a half days to make a sword. Which is ridiculous.
• A longbow is ridiculously expensive at 937.5 pence. In England they cost about 18 pence.
• Arrows are expensive at 0.625 pence. In England they cost 0.125 pence.
Table 7-5
I am also short on information about the costs of armour in mediaeval times. And there are serious difficulties because plate armour was actually cheaper in real terms than mail. This is because plate did not appear until late, when the price of all metalwork had declined markedly. Plate wasn't available in AD 1200, but I have tried to work out what it would have cost if they had been able to make it, in line with the generally higher prices of metal goods in the early periods.
• Leather armour seems a bit expensive at 125 pence. In England it cost about 60 pence.
• Mail is a little expensive at 1,875 pence. in Europe it cost about 1,200 pence.
• Half-plate is expensive at 7,500 pence. In Europe, when it became available, it cost the equivalent of about 1,640 pence.
• Full plate is expensive at 18,750 pence. In Europe, when it became available, it cost the equivalent of about 2,000 pence.
Table 7-7
• A barrel might be dear at 25 pence. I have a price for one at 3 pence, but I'm not sure about its size.
• A blanket seems cheap at 6.25 pence, and heavy at 3 lb. Blankets cost about 15 pence in England, but I don't have one in the house to weigh.
• A glass bottle seems expensive at 25 pence. They were bad enough in England at 3 pence.
• A bucket is about right at 6.25 pence. In England a bucket might be bought for 4 pence.
• I weighed some candles: about ten to the pound. So a pound of candles in D&D would cost roughly a 1.25 pence. This is about right for tallow candles in the country. But tallow candles were more expensive in the cities. And *wax* candles (less smelly and less smoky) cost five times as much.
• Chests are about right at 25 pence. In England a clothes-chest cost 24 pence.
• An iron pot is an anachronism. And although it weighs ten pounds it is cheaper than ten pounds of iron. A brass cooking pot in England cost 12 pence.
• Sealing wax is a bit expensive at 25 pence per pound. In England it cost 2 pence per pound.
• Soap is probably about right at 6.25 pence per pound.
• A spade seems expensive at 25 pence. In England they cost about 1.5 pence.
• A spyglass is an anachonism. They weren't invented until the late sixteenth century. 12,500 pence is far too expensive. And 2x magnification is pathetic.
• Clothing is generally too cheap. The artisan's outfit costs 12.5 pence. In England those clothes would have cost at least 22 pence. The royal outfit costs only 2,500 pence. King Louis IX of France spent 192,000 pence on a *single garment* (a surcoat).
• Ale is dear at 2.5 pence per gallon. In England it cost 0.5 pence per gallon.
• The banquet, at 125 pence per person, must be sumptuous. A meal at an inn for a gentleman, with drinks, cost 2 pence in England.
• Bread is dear as 0.25 pence for half a pound. In England a 0.25-penny loaf was 24 oz.
• Cheese is about right at 2.5 pence per pound. In England it cost about 2 pence per pound retail.
• 2.5 pence is a high price to stay in a poor inn. In England beds for gentlemen in a rural inn cost about 0.5 pence per night, beds for servants 0.25 pence per night, and it cost 1.25 a night for a private parlour, including heat and light. In London inns were dearer: a penny a night in a common inn. Board and lodging at a school cost 24 pence per week (tuition was extra).
• Meals are too dear at 1.25 to 6.25 per day. Provisions for a garrison cost about 2.25 pence per *week*, and a labourer had to live on 1.25 pence per day.
• Wine is far too dear at 2.5 pence per pitcher (less than a gallon). In London it cost for 2 pence to 5 pence per gallon (depending on quality), retail. A tun (252 gallons) of fine Bordeaux cost only 480 pence.
• A cart is expensive at 187.5 pence. In England they could be bought for as little as 24 pence: 48 if you wanted one reinforced with iron and suitable for long road trips.
• Feed for a horse might be a bit cheap at 0.625 pence per day. In England it cost 5.25 pence per day to stable and feed a warhorse, and stabling can't cost that much more than beds for gentlemen. As a rule of thumb, horses cost 5 to 10 times as much to feed as men do.
• Horses about right, especially given how the price of horseflesh varies with quality: 937.5 pence for a light horse (in England a hack (riding horse) cost about 300 pence); 5,000 pence for a heavy warhorse (in England a knight's charger could cost over 9,600 pence).
• A wagon is rather dear at 437.5 pence. In England a dray might cost 120 pence.
In summary, it seems that most adventure items are rather too expensive in D&D when compared to the cost of living. And since precious metals are not very valuable in the D&D world, it makes those chests of treasure economically disappointing.
just over a year ago about 3e prices compared to
medieval england.
I think it may be useful to some of y'all...
Posted to Usenet by: Brett Evill
Many thanks go to him for this article...
MONEY AND PRICES IN MEDIAEVAL ENGLAND AND IN D&D 3
G'day
I have just been comparing the prices in the 3E PHB with the historical prices of similar commodities in mediaeval England. The results are interesting, and I thought I would share them.
First, a word about money. The most common coin in mediaeval England was a silver penny. This contained about 22.5 grains of fine silver (1/240 of a pound Tower weight), so there would be 311 to the pound avoirdupois. This means that the D&D silver piece is about six times as big as a mediaeval penny. And since the price of silver bullion listed on table 7-3 is 5 gp/pound it is clear that the silver piece is not debased. So the s.p. contains six times times as much silver as a mediaeval penny.
But that does not mean that an s.p. is six times as valuable as a penny. As Adam Smith explains in book I chapter v. of 'The Wealth of Nations', the true measure of the cost of things is the amount of unskilled labour that a person would have to sell in order to buy them. Depending on how scarce silver is, that can be more or less silver. For instance, the wage of unskilled labour in England about AD 1200 was about a penny-farthing (1.25 pence) per day. But by about 1450 the wage was about fourpence-farthing to fourpence-halfpenny (4.25 to 4.5 pence) per day. The penny had not been debased or reduced in weight. But a great deal of silver had been mined, coined, and put into circulation in those two and a half centuries, while the population (and hence the supply of labour) had only increased by a modest amount. The real value of silver in Europe had declined by about a factor of 3.5, even before the Spanish discovered the silver mines of Argentina &c.
Now, the price of unskilled labour in D&D is about 1 s.p. per day. So that means that 1 s.p. is worth 1.25 pence in the prices of AD 1200, or 4.25 pence in the prices of AD 1450. And since an s.p. weighs about six pennyweights and is fine silver, the price of silver in D&D is about five times the price of silver in Europe about AD 1200, or 1.4 times the price of silver in Europe about AD 1450. That is not unreasonable. Silver became even cheaper in Europe in the Renaissance.
I happen to have prices available in an epoch of about AD 1200, and that is roughly the middle of the mediaeval period. So in the rest of this posting I am going to consider 1 s.p. as being 1.25 pence, 1 g.p. as 12.5 pence (about a shilling), and 1 c.p. as being worth half a farthing. You should be aware, however, that the price of weapons and armour fell compared to other prices during the mediaeval period, and by quite a lot. About AD 800 swords were twice as expensive, and about AD 1500 they were half as expensive, as in AD 1200, compared to food and labour. On the other hand, livestock, and especially horses, got a lot more expensive over the same time. On the other hand, they also got quite a lot bigger.
Table 7-3
• A chicken is cheap at a farthing. In England they cost halfpenny.
• Cinnamon is about right at 12.5 pence per pound. In England it cost 10 pence per pound.
• Copper is a little dear at 6.25 pence per pound. In England it cost 3.5 pence per pound.
• A cow is about right at 125 pence. In England a cow typically cost 72 pence, or a good milker 120 pence.
• Flour seems cheap at 0.25 pence pound. In England *wheat* tended to cost about 12 pence for 28 lb., or 0.5 pence per pound. And that had to be milled and boulted.
• Ginger seems a little dear at 25 pence per pound. In England it cost about 12 pence per pound.
• Pepper seems about right at 25 pence per pound. In England it cost 10-28 pence per pound.
• Gold seems cheap at 625 pence per pound. In Europe it tended to cost about 4665 pence per pound.
• Iron seems dear at 1.25 pence per pound.
• Linen seems dear at 50 pence per square yard. In England it cost (at the cheapest quality) 5 pence for an ell {45 inches by a standard width (I think 56 inches) = 1.9 square yards}: about 2.6 pence per square yard. And it seems heavy at 1 lb per square yard: my linen bedsheets are only about 4 oz. per square yard. A pound of linen cloth should be only about 1 g.p.
• An ox is a little dear at 187 pence. In England they cost about 108 pence.
• A pig is about right at 37.5 pence. In England they cost about 24 pence in pig-breeding country, but about 36 pence in London.
• Saffron seems cheap at only 187.5 pence per pound. In mediaeval times saffron was worth its weight in gold (about 4,500 pence per pound). And this was because its production is labour-intensive, not because of high transport costs, monopoly profits &c.
• Salt seems expensive at 62.5 pence per pound. In England it was about 3 pence per bushel.
• A sheep is a little dear at 25 pence. In sheep-raising parts of England they cost about 10 pence, in London about 17 pence.
• As discussed previously, silver is rather cheap at 62.5 pence per pound. In England about AD 1200 it was 311 pence per pound.
• Wheat is cheap at 0.125 pence per pound. In England it cost about 0.5 pence per pound. (The price was highly variable from year to year.)
Table 7-4
Unfortunately I have very little information about the prices of weapons in historical times. However:
• A dagger seems expensive at 25 pence. The dagger with which Felton killed the Duke of Buckingham cost the equivalent of about 2 pence, or rather less.
• A shortsword seems very expensive at 125 pence. A sword in England might be bought for as little as 6 pence (though that instance *was* second-hand). Now a D&D shortsword contains 3 lb of iron (twice as much as an English longsword), and according to Table 3-7 that is worth 3 s.p., or 5 pence. Add a generous 40 pence for a ton of coal. That leaves about 80 pence for labour. An armourer earns about 12.5 pence per day in D&D (6 pence per day in England). That suggests that it would take an armourer six and a half days to make a sword. Which is ridiculous.
• A longbow is ridiculously expensive at 937.5 pence. In England they cost about 18 pence.
• Arrows are expensive at 0.625 pence. In England they cost 0.125 pence.
Table 7-5
I am also short on information about the costs of armour in mediaeval times. And there are serious difficulties because plate armour was actually cheaper in real terms than mail. This is because plate did not appear until late, when the price of all metalwork had declined markedly. Plate wasn't available in AD 1200, but I have tried to work out what it would have cost if they had been able to make it, in line with the generally higher prices of metal goods in the early periods.
• Leather armour seems a bit expensive at 125 pence. In England it cost about 60 pence.
• Mail is a little expensive at 1,875 pence. in Europe it cost about 1,200 pence.
• Half-plate is expensive at 7,500 pence. In Europe, when it became available, it cost the equivalent of about 1,640 pence.
• Full plate is expensive at 18,750 pence. In Europe, when it became available, it cost the equivalent of about 2,000 pence.
Table 7-7
• A barrel might be dear at 25 pence. I have a price for one at 3 pence, but I'm not sure about its size.
• A blanket seems cheap at 6.25 pence, and heavy at 3 lb. Blankets cost about 15 pence in England, but I don't have one in the house to weigh.
• A glass bottle seems expensive at 25 pence. They were bad enough in England at 3 pence.
• A bucket is about right at 6.25 pence. In England a bucket might be bought for 4 pence.
• I weighed some candles: about ten to the pound. So a pound of candles in D&D would cost roughly a 1.25 pence. This is about right for tallow candles in the country. But tallow candles were more expensive in the cities. And *wax* candles (less smelly and less smoky) cost five times as much.
• Chests are about right at 25 pence. In England a clothes-chest cost 24 pence.
• An iron pot is an anachronism. And although it weighs ten pounds it is cheaper than ten pounds of iron. A brass cooking pot in England cost 12 pence.
• Sealing wax is a bit expensive at 25 pence per pound. In England it cost 2 pence per pound.
• Soap is probably about right at 6.25 pence per pound.
• A spade seems expensive at 25 pence. In England they cost about 1.5 pence.
• A spyglass is an anachonism. They weren't invented until the late sixteenth century. 12,500 pence is far too expensive. And 2x magnification is pathetic.
• Clothing is generally too cheap. The artisan's outfit costs 12.5 pence. In England those clothes would have cost at least 22 pence. The royal outfit costs only 2,500 pence. King Louis IX of France spent 192,000 pence on a *single garment* (a surcoat).
• Ale is dear at 2.5 pence per gallon. In England it cost 0.5 pence per gallon.
• The banquet, at 125 pence per person, must be sumptuous. A meal at an inn for a gentleman, with drinks, cost 2 pence in England.
• Bread is dear as 0.25 pence for half a pound. In England a 0.25-penny loaf was 24 oz.
• Cheese is about right at 2.5 pence per pound. In England it cost about 2 pence per pound retail.
• 2.5 pence is a high price to stay in a poor inn. In England beds for gentlemen in a rural inn cost about 0.5 pence per night, beds for servants 0.25 pence per night, and it cost 1.25 a night for a private parlour, including heat and light. In London inns were dearer: a penny a night in a common inn. Board and lodging at a school cost 24 pence per week (tuition was extra).
• Meals are too dear at 1.25 to 6.25 per day. Provisions for a garrison cost about 2.25 pence per *week*, and a labourer had to live on 1.25 pence per day.
• Wine is far too dear at 2.5 pence per pitcher (less than a gallon). In London it cost for 2 pence to 5 pence per gallon (depending on quality), retail. A tun (252 gallons) of fine Bordeaux cost only 480 pence.
• A cart is expensive at 187.5 pence. In England they could be bought for as little as 24 pence: 48 if you wanted one reinforced with iron and suitable for long road trips.
• Feed for a horse might be a bit cheap at 0.625 pence per day. In England it cost 5.25 pence per day to stable and feed a warhorse, and stabling can't cost that much more than beds for gentlemen. As a rule of thumb, horses cost 5 to 10 times as much to feed as men do.
• Horses about right, especially given how the price of horseflesh varies with quality: 937.5 pence for a light horse (in England a hack (riding horse) cost about 300 pence); 5,000 pence for a heavy warhorse (in England a knight's charger could cost over 9,600 pence).
• A wagon is rather dear at 437.5 pence. In England a dray might cost 120 pence.
In summary, it seems that most adventure items are rather too expensive in D&D when compared to the cost of living. And since precious metals are not very valuable in the D&D world, it makes those chests of treasure economically disappointing.
Simon Magalis
First Post
Not sure what electrum is made of actually, but I thought that I had seen it worth 10 copper. It doesn't really matter very much because, like I said in my original post, you will very rarely have to convert it. I think you should do one of two things, most people should just keep the system the way it is OR if it bothers you, do something very simple, like my system. Really, I'm not even doing anything... just changing the names of the coins which has an effect in the SETTING but not in the SYSTEM.
