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

[Cruentus]

I tried to work out a more dynamic system, where villages, towns, and cities each had different availability and different costs for items, as it would be easier and cheaper to find what you wanted in a large city compared to a small fishing hamlet. I also tried to make all armors and weapons things that would be either 1) found and repaired for use (after a combat) or 2) made to order. Smiths didn't have a lot of weapons lying around (except maybe a forging hammer and tongs, etc.). So that longsword would have to be made, not bought off the shelf.

The closest I was able to get was to have the starting town where the characters were from had a smith, and a "general store" with a limited list of items. I then had merchants come on different days of the week (usually regularly) who sold more esoteric goods and trade goods. So if you wanted something like a mirror, or a spyglass, you better be there for market day, and hope they have one (or put an order in for next week).

But it didn't really add anything to the game, and was more work than actual payoff, so I went back to "what's in the equipment list is what you can buy."

We also only play OSE, so the mechanics of money and spending are more directly tied to play in our game.

 

[Horwath]

I prefer:

1 PP = 100 GP = 10.000 SP = 1.000.000 CP

do not need to carry around much gold then.

 

[Celebrim]

The biggest problem I've run into was arms and armor.

This is because in 1e AD&D there were two economies - a semi-realistic silver economy based on Gygax's historical research and simulations that NPCs used and an unrealistic economy based on gamist needs and balance and a desire for huge piles of fantasy treasure that PCs used. This inherently creates the problem you see with the crafting.

Incidentally, Gygax tried to both explain and justify the two economies by saying that the dungeon/PC economy was a microeconomy that worked similar to the economy of the Klondike gold rush, but neither he nor any subsequent author was consistent in applying that logic. Gygax new very well that the prices of arms and armor in the 1e Player's Handbook were not realistic, he just didn't expect this to become a problem in an easy come easy go dungeon delve environment that was what he was playing at the time.

So let's say that a smith expects to make about 3 s.p. per day, and it takes him say three days to make a sword. That means he expects to sell that sword at a profit of like 9 s.p., and on the rule that two thirds of anything is labor it costs him say 6 s.p. in materials like coal and iron and in overehead to do the work. So, this now is consistent. A sword costs like 15 s.p., takes three days to make, and requires a reasonably skilled smith. Or you could do this with g.p. and that would be fine too just as long as you are consistent about applying the concept (gold economy or silver economy).

So part of the problem here may be your conversion rates. The smith is making 3 s.p. a day after paying his expenses, and working say 300 days a year. If a s.p. (or g.p. in a gold economy) is worth about $75, then the smith is making about $67,500 a year. Everything he buys is handcrafted goods, so he doesn't live nearly as well on that money as a modern person because almost everything (except those things modern people by that is hand made) is more expensive. But within the society he's comfortably middle class.

Things though get weird though when you start applying concepts like "masterwork". Suppose to make a masterwork sword you have to have a master craftsman who wants 5 s.p. a day. What's going on to make the sword worth 20 times as much? Does it take 20 times as long to make? Does it take ingredients that are 20 times as expensive? No, what's really going on is that that the price was pulled out of the air for balance reasons - a gamist economy not a simulation economy. Maybe it takes twice and long and has twice as costly of inputs, but that's still six days at 5 s.p. a day plus 12 s.p. of inputs for like 42 s.p. compared to 15 s.p. You can make the sword more expensive by making it more ornate and showing with decorations, but it won't make it a better sword except for walking around court like you belong there.

And that master smith is making say $112,500 in equivalent wages and not $1.2+ million in equivalent wages or whatever would be implied by making swords 20 times more expensive.

When the ranger wants to buy a suit of studded leather armor who does he go see?

Of course, as long as we are talking realism, studded leather armor doesn't exist. If he's going for something like that he's going for brigandine or "coat of plates". But OK, sure the question you really need to be asking is if a PC buys leather armor and some bits of metal, how fast can he turn 10 gp investment into 45gp worth of armor by crafting his own studs? Can he effectively get a wage of 35 gp a day by making his own studs and mounting them on the leather (leaving aside how bad of an idea this is in real life)? Or at least say 10 gp a day? Can the PC's manipulate the gamist price list to create unreasonably high living wages in a short time in order to roll that easily earned money into some large material advantage? This is a trivial example of that. Longbows are probably better examples.

Better yet, if you are on the gold piece economy but NPCs are on a silver piece economy, can you pull money from the dungeon to then hire basically all the unskilled labor in society by increasing their wages because the exchange rate between gold and labor is so good? Can you then instead of being "Indiana Jones" be Belloq and just hire laborers to dig up Acererak's tomb, by passing all the traps and reducing the Tomb of Horrors to just a labor management and logistics problem with an occasional fight against wandering monsters seeking to eat your labor force?

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

I prefer:

1 PP = 100 GP = 10.000 SP = 1.000.000 CP

do not need to carry around much gold then.

Is that just factors of 100 instead of 10, so that it is 100 silver for 1 gold, and 1 million copper for 1 platinum?

Do you just change the value of everything in the game?

 

[Horwath]

Is that just factors of 100 instead of 10, so that it is 100 silver for 1 gold, and 1 million copper for 1 platinum?

yes

Do you just change the value of everything in the game?

just take current price in coppers as base and recalculate

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

yes

just take current price in coppers as base and recalculate

So any published adventure gives enough loot that either it can't be spent, or if spent, would destroy an entire city's silver-based or copper-based economy? For instance, the party opens a chest of treasure, and even one gold chalice worth 100 gold is valued as 10,000 silver in a silver economy.

Sounds like you have to re-design any loot, or change the materials so it is less valuable so that it fits into a silver/copper economy.

As a player, I wouldn't be excited to get trinkets worth copper and silver. Even if value is an illusion in a game, we are still modern humans looting dungeons hoping for cool loot.

I like a gold standard. I've been properly conditioned by modern D&D.

At least it works for your table!

 

[FitzTheRuke]

D&D economics as a whole tend to fall apart under the gentlest of scrutiny. It's something I've kind of struggled with in my games.

Like Page 158 of the 5e PHB suggests a night in a poor, a modest, or a comfortable inn will run you 1sp, 5sp, or 8sp respectively. Meals in the same categories are 6cp, 3sp, and 5sp respectively. A comfortable meal costs the same as a modest inn room?

Looking near me in the Metro Detroit area you can get a night in a Motel 6 for about $60. Holiday Inn will run you closer to $115. The Marriott nearest me is $200. Even with the current inflated prices of our world, $115 would purchase me a meal much nicer than what I'd consider comfortable..

I know we can't really compare the apples of Medieval Fantasy Europe-but-not-Europe to the oranges of the modern day real world.. But even still. If I'm staying in $100 hotel rooms, I'm not going out and buying $100 dinners.

That's a very modern contrivance, though - that food is worth less than lodging. Think about it - it costs a landlord nearly nothing to put you up for the night, but food production is expensive. In the modern world, we overvalue "real estate" and, especially in the United States, overproduce food (bringing the price down). It would definitely be the other way around without mass food production.

OTOH, I suppose in D&D there's spellcasters around that can produce food out of nothing, and most land is occupied by monsters - some of them sentient! So, as usual, we are left with no way of possibly understanding what a D&D economy would really even look like.

 

[Mistwell]

There really isn't photography medieval time.

Yes, I know. I am saying that market was artificially crashed, as it had massive industrial use and then within a matter of less than a decade that entire market dried up, which plunged the price. All simultaneous with the artificial increase in gold prices.

 

[Celebrim]

That's a very modern contrivance, though - that food is worth less than lodging.

This gets really complicated and it's hard to analyze the historical sources because of the complexity.

Think about it - it costs a landlord nearly nothing to put you up for the night...

In both the modern and ancient world the primary costs incurred by the landlord are the risk incurred by a disreputable guest that might do him or his property harm and the fees and taxes imposed on him for operating a public house. So it costs something aside from brushing out the rushes and boiling the sheets occasionally.

Operating a public house required a license and it was a heavily regulated profession. In particular, the amount you could charge for a bed and certain basic necessities like a pint of beer was regulated by the local community because of the perceived necessity that travelers could obtain basic overnight lodgings at a low price. In a world of slow travel this was a necessity to the proper operation of the town both at a political and economic level.

But the result of this is that the price of a bed was often undervalued. To make a profit and to stay in operation, the innkeeper therefore had to get creative about how he charged the guests by offering them services whose prices weren't regulated and then charging for each service. So, would you like a bath drawn for you? Would you like a little coal for a fire in your room? Would you like a bucket of oats for your horse? Would you like this fine imported bottle of wine with your meal? "Two percent for looking in the mirror twice.", as the Les Misérables song puts it so well.

One of the best ways to recoup the loss off the heavily regulated price of lodgings was to upcharge for food and especially "premium food", so inns in particular in the historical record when you look at the prices you should not assume that those prices where "at cost" but a reflection of government regulation. Thus, you do find in the historical record a place in a bed going for the equivalent of $20 where a basic meal is costing you $50. Note also that this is just a place in a bed and not a room. Strangers would often be packed 2-3 to a bed, which wasn't deemed such a bad thing on the whole since you probably had an unheated room because of how much the innkeeper would charge you for a fire.

But assuming without context that this represents the cost of keeping an Inn is like running with Gygax's prices where he's assuming the price of tools is reflective of a situation akin to the Klondike goldrush. Things distorting prices shouldn't be figured into the base costs of things without really some explanation and awareness of how things might change absent social customs or a different economic reality.

It should also be noted that to avoid these problems people often just asked if they could be boarded in people's homes just like people often sign up with AirBnB in modern times and for many of the same reasons. Less wealthy or reputable travelers would beg to sleep in the barn for a penny.

If the price of a meal was really as high as Inns were charging, then people couldn't feed themselves (even assuming the usual restaurant upcharge). But if you look at similar historical references for the price of food itself (that is ingredients) as opposed to prepared food, then we find food was really inexpensive. The situation is similar to buying food in the third world where they have no international buying power but purchasing power parity still allows people to buy food locally at low cost. Food is one of the things that translates pretty readily. It's all the manufactured things that are vastly cheaper than they would have been at the time. But you can translate if you stick to modern handmade goods. Like almost all clothing was expensive as modern hand tailored clothing and so absolute the most valuable thing a person you were robbing probably had on them was their clothing.

And that's before we get into how the potential risk of giving a bed to a doppleganger, vampire, or werewolf might change the economics of housing strangers.

 

[cbwjm]

I was just thinking about DnD coinage again after seeing this post and it reminded me of the forgotten middle child of dnd currency, the electrum piece. I had to look it up to find out how much it was worth because it made me think that I'd been doing conversion incorrectly but it's just a dnd version of the 50 cent piece.