Does the DnD economy need to go through a period of deflation?

[Zogg]

In my last session our group killed a hill giant that was carrying around 2,000 gold pieces and 29,000 silver pieces. Granted, DnD is built around the use of imagination, but can you imagine anyone walking around with a sack of 29,000 quarters?! Not to mention WE then had to carry it around, convert it to trade bars, and then lug THOSE around.

Are there any DMs (or players that wish DMs would do this) that reduce the price of EVERYTHING in order to reduce the amount of coinage a party encounters (and must carry)? I was thinking a good start would be to just reduce all prices/treasure by half. If you were really adamant about reducing coinage you could reduce prices by 10 times. Obviously there could be a problem reducing the price of things that already cost very little, but I'm sure with some creativity a DM could pull it off.

Thoughts?

 

[BiggusGeekus@Work]

Well, first, how good are you about making sure the spellcasters pay for spell components? Wizards are notorious money hogs. If you're waiving the cost to scribe spells, you're letting the party off of a pretty big expense.

What about potions and the like? Getting healing potions (for a mandatory donation at the Temple of Heavenly Commerce) is a great way to keep the pressue off the cleric and drain a little cash.

Humanoids/Goblinoids tend to carry around the most gear. Start tossing in more abberitions, oozes, plants, magical beasts, etc.

 

[Tormalicus]

I can relate to the little struggle you're having. In the games I've DMed, the characters would usually look for interesting ways to transport moneys. Usually, gems where always a consideration. Light weight, extremely valuable, only problem is....not all destinations will take, or can afford such prizes. Another group bought and customized a large wagon for treasure transport purposes. Of course there were numerous traps and securities built right in.

But, to get to the point, I've never considered deflating the economy. Interesting idea though. Perhaps if you increased the prices of the items the gold would flow forth more quickly. Make expensive magic items readily available. Oodles of potions and scrolls.

 

[Arnwyn]

Nope. I've just reduced the amount of treasure and keep prices the *same* (and actually vastly *inflated* all NPC spellcasting prices).

Works for me and my group.

 

[Tonguez]

The DnD economy is overall ridiculous and probably needs to be entirely reworked anyway.

But as to deflation - never tried it. I'd suggest using treasure other than coins as a first step - "wow check out the silver bangle on this Mr Ettin - must be worth a mint!"
or even better
Fighter "um why are these goblins transporting bags of dust?"
Wizard *drools* "Awesome dude thats high grade powdered Dragon horn! Street value of at least 29000 silver bits"
Fighter "Um so where do goblins get this much dragon horn from?"
(see treasure and plothook in one)

 

[Umbran]

Well, the answer depends a bit - you see, you can't blame the core game rules for a case of the individual DM playing around with things.

A hill giant is CR 7. By the DMG, you'd expect a treasure of roughly 2600 GP value. Your hill giant was well over that. As I look over the treasure tables on pgs 170-171, the only conclusion I can draw is that the treasure was not assigned using the DMG guidelines. You can't blame the game as a whole if the DM isn't followign that game's guidelines.

The game doesn't really need deflation, it simply requires a bit of thought on the part of the DM. Silver is the coinage of the common man, gold is the coinage of the rich. How did that hill giant come to have so many silver pieces?

 

[Zogg]

How did that hill giant come to have so many silver pieces?

There were also four ogres in the encounter. Failed to mention that.

 

[Praeco]

I never liked the image of someone carrying thousands of coins around with them. One woul think that if someone had that much hard cash they would convert it to more practical items. In the case of a somewhat primitive hill giant, I don't really see why it would be keeping all those coins around anyway. It's not like said giant is going to stroll into town and purchase goods with all this gold and silver.

I prefer to give items out rather than coins. Maybe the hill giant had several golden figurines taken from a merchant. The trade value of the figurines may be more than the coins as they are crafted items. Of course they would be worth money only to the right person. This creates some interesting opportunity as the players look for somewhere to trade off this loot.

I suppose I just don't particularly like the way the modern cash economy is shoehorned into the D&D system. I think a system with that much abstraction would have long ago have moved to a somewhat more portable form of cash trade, just as occured in reality.

 

[Sixchan]

You could invent paper money.

Either that, or stop using silver and gold and switch to Platinum. Better yet, it should be nigh on impossible to do complex extractions without magic. 10PP to 1AP (Aluminium Piece)?

 

[jgbrowning]

Simply switch from a Gold Based system to a Silver Based system. Change most prices to reflect that, but keep certain campaign specific items in GP.

Won't solve the problem completely, but will help relieve some stress.

joe b.