D&D General Does anyone else use a silver standard in their DND game?

[Dausuul]

Based on that peerless source of unimpeachable truth, research by an Internet rando, the gold/silver price ratio in ancient and medieval economies (before the influx of silver from the New World) tended to hover between 8-to-1 and 12-to-1. The PHB's choice of 10-to-1 is dead in the middle of that range, and has the great virtue of simplicity on top of that.

This other Internet rando's research suggests silver/copper ratios ranging from 40-to-1 to 100-to-1. The PHB's choice of 10-to-1 is not completely out of the ballpark, but it's pushing the limit. If I were designing a currency system and trying to inject some realism, while maintaining ease of use at the table, I'd pick 100-to-1: 1 gp = 10 sp = 1,000 cp.

To the original question of "Should D&D be converted to a silver standard?"--I would like it if it were, and I'd happily play in a campaign where that was the case. However, from a DM perspective, it fails my test of "Is this important enough to make my players remember a house rule?"

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Yes, I've been doing this as long as I can remember. It has always bugged me how utterly worthless gold is in D&D. Under the normal system some weapons literally cost their weight in silver.

 

[el-remmen]

I used a silver standard in my old homebrew Aquerra for like 27 years. But I made it even simpler.

Prices in the book listed in gold were now the same amount in silver, that listed as silver cost that amount in copper, and anything listed as copper, cost double copper.

Other than that, the breakdown of 10 of a lesser coin equals 1 of the next coin up was maintained. Some countries had "bronze pennies" of different sizes that some people didn't want to take as "foreign money" and others would take it at 10 to 50 BP to a CP.

I also kept electrum as a form of foreign currency.

EDIT: Now that I think about it, I may not have done it as listed above. I think I kept gold as silver, but doubled the price of things listed in silver as that amount of copper and left things listed as costing coppers the same.

 

[Charlaquin]

Based on that peerless source of unimpeachable truth, research by an Internet rando, the gold/silver price ratio in ancient and medieval economies (before the influx of silver from the New World) tended to hover between 8-to-1 and 12-to-1. The PHB's choice of 10-to-1 is dead in the middle of that range, and has the great virtue of simplicity on top of that.

This other Internet rando's research suggests silver/copper ratios ranging from 40-to-1 to 100-to-1. The PHB's choice of 10-to-1 is not completely out of the ballpark, but it's pushing the limit. If I were designing a currency system and trying to inject some realism, while maintaining ease of use at the table, I'd pick 100-to-1: 1 gp = 10 sp = 1,000 cp.

To the original question of "Should D&D be converted to a silver standard?"--I would like it if it were, and I'd happily play in a campaign where that was the case. However, from a DM perspective, it fails my test of "Is this important enough to make my players remember a house rule?"

The thing is, ratios of any precious metals’ relative values are and have always been in constant flux. They were more stable before the industrial revolution, but they were always volatile enough that governments were constantly trying to fight the problem of people exploiting the exchange rates.

Moreover, even if we could get a historically accurate average ratio, there’s no reason to assume that would hold true in a D&D world. Maybe gold and silver have such little buying power because dwarves mined so much of them, they just aren’t very rare any more. Or alchemists inflated the currency to an absurd degree by transmuting tons of other metals to gold and silver.

Personally, I like the silver standard not for any realism reasons, but because the gold standard makes copper coins basically pointless. I like having each coin denomination have a practical use. Plus, it allows PCs to carry more buying power with them at a time.

 

[commandercrud]

For costs, I didn't change the value, but do express it in SP, so something that costs 20GP I now say costs 200SP. When giving out treasure from prewritten modules, I step whatever the currency down one value, so if it says the monster was carrying 20GP, I say they were carrying 20SP. Also, I never actually use the terms SP or GP in game, but refer to them by the local name currency in the game setting, wherever the players happen to be. And if they have the wrong coinage, they have to go to a moneychanger...

 

[Yora]

I think it's just more fun when finding gold is something amazing rather than spare change you find under the couch.

 

[RuinousPowers]

I also convert gold to silver, but that's because I think that there is far too much treasure being handed out in general.

 

[Lanefan]

I've always liked the gold-piece standard, in that it truly separates the elites from the commons.

I've also never liked "metrification" of coinage systems, i.e. everything neatly divides by ten, because boring.

So, I use a variant of the old British system: 12 cp (pennies) to the sp (shilling), 20 sp to the gp (pound), with pp being 5 gp and electrum being half a gp. These are the coin types commonly found by adventurers.

I also, for the common folk, have farthings (bronze pieces; 4 to the penny), ha-pennies (2 to the penny), thrupenny bits (worth 3 cp) and sixpences (worth 6 cp); but these are rarely found in adventures.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

I did the silver standard for a long time, but now I don't bother.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

When I was doing the silver standard I also had different currencies for different counties, and all of them had different, non-metric systems.

It got really complicated. A Little too real.