D&D 5E D&D Lied To Me. Gp vs Sp

[Mistwell]

The Silver to Gold ratio in most medieval times was 12 to 1, so 10 to 1 was a fair rounded estimate. It's gone quite skewed now as the end of using silver in the photography industry (with the rise of digital) crashed the silver market, while gold speculation artificially grew the gold market.

 

[Celebrim]

Well 1 gp is generally 10 sp. D&D isn't remotely realistic. I know gold is worth more than that. So I checked spot prices.

Unless Google lied to me it's closer to 75 to 1. 1sp is closer to a cp IRL

I'm sure someone has said this already, but in older editions it was 20 to 1, which is closer to the reality before industrialized silver mining. I still use the 20 to 1 ratio. The last four years of inflation has distorted this comparison, but I used to tell my players that a c.p. was worth about $5 (but was fiat currency that people would only accept for small transactions), a s.p. was worth about $50 and a gold piece was worth about $1000. In my game world they also have copper farthings worth about $1.25 each that are used for transactions too small for a copper penny (c.p.) such as a peck of apples, a pint of small beer, a wedge of cheese, or loaf of bread.

Note that I use a silver-based economy with everything priced in silver pieces rather than gold pieces.

 

[Maxperson]

They're not real gold but look vaguely like it if you squint.

Pop culture they're referred to as gold. Eg gold coin donation means $1 or $2.

Ok. We have a gold dollar like that as well. It's vaguely goldish in color.

 

[MGibster]

There was a 2nd edition AD&D product with treasure maps called...uh, Treasure Maps (I think). There were two copies of each map, one to give the players and another for the DM that contained information he needed, and there was a mini-adventure for each one. One of the treasure maps led to a mint where counterfeit gold coins, lead with gold plating, were being produced. The PCs were free to do what they wanted with the mint.

One of the Dungeon Master Guides has some ideas about giving coins actual names are part of the world building. Instead of giving players gold pieces or electrum maybe they get sovereigns and wyverns instead. It just difficult to pull off when all the prices are listed in gold pieces, copper, silver, and electrum in the published material.

 

[Zardnaar]

Ok. We have a gold dollar like that as well. It's vaguely goldish in color.

View attachment 367568

Ours are bit darker.

https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/36410/current-coins

 

[Zardnaar]

The Silver to Gold ratio in most medieval times was 12 to 1, so 10 to 1 was a fair rounded estimate. It's gone quite skewed now as the end of using silver in the photography industry (with the rise of digital) crashed the silver market, while gold speculation artificially grew the gold market.

Cool I figured it would be a speculation thing.

 

[ezo]

Yeah. There's no wrong way to do it for sure. My thinking is that weapons and armor become very expensive at those rates. Full plate is $150,000! $30,000 seems like a better price for full plate. $1,000 for a greatsword, rather than $5,000.

It really depends on where you want the buying power to be.

Modeling on medieval Europe, where outfitting a knight (armor, weapons, horse, etc). would run a modern-day equivalent of about $500,000 or more, the armor being 150,000 just made sense to me.

Mail armor (much more common for most medieval times) at 75 gp would only be equal to $7,500. An expensive piece of equipment, certainly, but managable even for 1st-level PCs.

 

[Zardnaar]

Modeling on medieval Europe, where outfitting a knight (armor, weapons, horse, etc). would run a modern-day equivalent of about $500,000 or more, the armor being 150,000 just made sense to me.

Mail armor (much more common for most medieval times) at 75 gp would only be equal to $7,500. An expensive piece of equipment, certainly, but managable even for 1st-level PCs.

I think that's more equivalent to armor for nobles.

Good armor unadorned was apparently more likee buying a car.

Cities had armories full of the stuff and they had these water powered foundaries.

It was expensive but not supercar type expensive outside armor for the king and other nobles.

 

[ezo]

Good armor unadorned was apparently more likee buying a car.

Then a gold piece should be worth more than 100 USD?

If you equate "good armor", just as mail, at 75 gp == 30000 USD new car, then 1 gp would be about 400 USD instead of the 100 USD.

"Great armor", just as plate, is high-end (not just adorned, etc) to exotic.

Now, if you want "movie-era" style game worlds, with entire armies in plate armor, then sure... but historically few common soldiers would have plate, so I go that way.

 

[Zardnaar]

Then a gold piece should be worth more than 100 USD?

If you equate "good armor", just as mail, at 75 gp == 30000 USD new car, then 1 gp would be about 400 USD instead of the 100 USD.

"Great armor", just as plate, is high-end (not just adorned, etc) to exotic.

Now, if you want "movie-era" style game worlds, with entire armies in plate armor, then sure... but historically few common soldiers would have plate, so I go that way.

There were various qualities of plate. Mercenaries could afford the cheaper version iirc.

Chainmail was expensive.

Munition armour - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org