Fantasy economics and other planes... unworkable?

[Phaedrus]

What's to stop powerful spellcasters (and the kings they serve) from opening a portal to the elemental plane of earth and bringing back tons upon tons of gold, gems, and other earth-products, thereby destroying the local economy?

Given access to multiple worlds and planes of existence, as well as creative magics, how does a magic-rich economy work? Wouldn't the laws of supply and demand be constantly disrupted by "imports" from other worlds?

Even if high-level spellcasters are rare (and in FR, etc. they are not), just a handful of them could still mess things up if they wanted to. I'm an evil warlord and I need gold to pay for my army's equipment. Let me jaunt over to my mine run by stone giants and elder earth elementals on the earth plane and pick up a few 10k diamonds. Then my dwarven gemcutter slaves can polish them up real nice and I'll head to town...

Or is my cosmology whacked?
Or in the greater scheme of things even this balances out and I'm worried about nothing? (i.e., imports from other planes are similar to imports from other countries and the economy just handles it?)

 

[Mouseferatu]

What's to stop powerful spellcasters (and the kings they serve) from opening a portal to the elemental plane of earth and bringing back tons upon tons of gold, gems, and other earth-products, thereby destroying the local economy?

Given access to multiple worlds and planes of existence, as well as creative magics, how does a magic-rich economy work? Wouldn't the laws of supply and demand be constantly disrupted by "imports" from other worlds?

Even if high-level spellcasters are rare (and in FR, etc. they are not), just a handful of them could still mess things up if they wanted to. I'm an evil warlord and I need gold to pay for my army's equipment. Let me jaunt over to my mine run by stone giants and elder earth elementals on the earth plane and pick up a few 10k diamonds. Then my dwarven gemcutter slaves can polish them up real nice and I'll head to town...

Or is my cosmology whacked?
Or in the greater scheme of things even this balances out and I'm worried about nothing? (i.e., imports from other planes are similar to imports from other countries and the economy just handles it?)

Some powerful groups probably do just that. (I've got an upcoming book that includes just such an organizaiton.) But the truth is, very few people are capable of managing it.

First off, as you point out, spellcasters of that power are relatively rare. Sure, not as rare in some settings as others, but in none of them are high-level casters what you'd call "common."

Second, getting gold/gems from the Elemental Plane of Earth isn't a matter of hopping over there and picking them up. It's mostly solid earth, remember. You've got to find an open space to work in. You have to dig through solid rock to find your veins of ore (assuming there's such a vein anywhere near your open space). You have to be able to maintain a work force in a hostile environment. You have to posess the means of transporting a lot of material/creatures across the planes. And you have to deal with native creatures--including some fairly powerful ones, like dao or greater xorn--who aren't going to be too happy about an invasion from the Material Plane.

Even among the great mages, very few people are going to have the resources available to make such an operation work. Sure, you could probably gather enough material to make yourself rich, but not enough to supply a nation or destabilize an economy. In order to do that, you've got to have a huge supply of manpower and resources, and a large group devoted to nothing else. Sure, it can be done. But it's not easy, and even among the truly powerful, only a few can pull it off. Unless you've got a massive organization devoted to making such a thing work, it's actually more cost-effective in the long run just to find a mine on the Material Plane and conquer whoever owns it.

 

[Phaedrus]

I see your point. But on the other hand, my theory would explain why dungeons always contain chests full of gold--there's so much of it available it just gets stashed all over the place!

(like why in Neverwinter Nights CRPG you can find gold in barrels all over town!)

But just to be argumentative, lets remove PC/NPC people and focus on planar beings. Devils, for instance. They have time, power, and manpower (devilpower) to mine the earth plane (where doing so on the material plane might draw too much attention?). Or how about modrons? Not doing it for economic-subversive reasons, but merely as a logical (lawful?) way of acquiring resources.

Switching the example, but still talking about disrupting economics, how about clerics with create food/water? Why farm when you just need a bunch of clerics? (but to defeat my own argument, how many villages have a ton of 5th level clerics hanging around?)

I guess it can be boiled down to magic as technology. Those who have access to magic/technology will use it. Those who don't will do things the hard way. And the economy will adjust accordingly.

 

[Eldragon]

It all depends on how you want your campaign setting to work. IMHO I like the idea of taking the magic integration of society to the highest level possible I belive Eberron does this for lower level spells.

But if you want to talk pure economics a getting 10k diamonds with such portals is much akin to a modern government printing it's own currency. They can easily devalue the currency and pay off debts. Diamonds would become very cheap, and eventually worthless. Look at post ww2 germany for an example. It took a wheelbarrow full of cash to buy bread. It is very interesting that you choose diamonds in your example, for the value of a diamond is artifically increased via a monopoly in amsterdam. The actual supply of diamonds is more akin to "lesser" stones like ruby and saphire.

Commodities like water and iron are a different story. Such a plan would put all miners in the land out of work. Hopefully the miners can find new careers as professional soldiers (someone needs to wield all that newly created steel). If a king used portals to get raw materials, he would probably create a very rich society, but totally dependent upon thier portals. The society would probably have the attitude of ancient rome. Rich, powerful, and lazy.

So if King Allen has a portal to the elemental plane of earth to get metals and gems, and a portal open to the elemental plane of water to make his desert homeland bloom. This would probably cause the economy a lot of hardships in the short term, but great boon in the long term.... until some big, large, and angry creature from another plane comes through the portal to reap havoc upon the poor people of the material plane for raping it's native plane's natural resources.

 

[Dreaddisease]

Most people have touched on it but the real reason why not to just go get Gold is that is has no practical use. Gold is a very tender material and needs iron or some other alloy to toughen it up. It can be made paper thin which is great for many 'modern' conviences such as circuits or other things that I am not familiar with. Gold standard for coins in ages can be as useless as a piece of quartz if there is too much of it. If you want to fix your economy (which is what I predict will happen) is that the communities would go to a pure barter system. Though this doesn't work as concentrated poopulations increase beyond 20,000 or kingdom's population start to breach the 200,000 mark the use is that one item will be worth what it is based on availability.

I just don't see the problem. If a wizard wastes his time collecting thousands of pounds of gold over 10 years then he misses out on creating powerful magic items. Plus with their intelligence they would realize that as soon as they spend the gold that gold would be useless. Diamonds are another issue. But their rarity even in the earth elemental plane would present a problem in locating and extracting them. Plus is the hardness of a diamond wall much better than a Stone Wall +3? What would be beneficial. I think the only reason a wizard would go for the diamonds would be purely asthetic. Then the value of them is never realized.

Babbling... continue

 

[The Shadow]

So if King Allen has a portal to the elemental plane of earth to get metals and gems, and a portal open to the elemental plane of water to make his desert homeland bloom. This would probably cause the economy a lot of hardships in the short term, but great boon in the long term.... until some big, large, and angry creature from another plane comes through the portal to reap havoc upon the poor people of the material plane for raping it's native plane's natural resources.

Not to mention that King Allen's portals are highly vulnerable to his Material Plane enemies wishing to cripple his kingdom. The more your people rely on planar imports, the more they'll be hurt if those portals are destroyed.

 

[Sarellion]

The economy of spain was disrupted in the time after they conquered the incas and the aztecs because gold and silver were devalued after they brought in their spoils of war.

It happened but they got over it.

 

[tjoneslo]

You want a real discussion of economics here?
So what becomes imortant in a society where things (like gold or gems) are very available, what becomes valuable are the rare things. Skilled Craftsmen who can turn raw materials into useful objects. Mages can do some of the this work magically, but what high powered mage wants to spend several weeks creating chairs?

Feeding the craftsmen becomes important, as does feeding your mages and yourself. So land becomes important, particularly ariable land. And the farmers who work the land to provide the food.

A gold coin (or gem) no longer becomes valuable because it's gold, but because it represents a hour's labor by a crafts person or a days food. This is why most coins were minted (stamped with designs). It makes the "gold" into "money". So all the kings would insists (and the money changers) that the money be backed by a number of craftspeople or acres of land. So the gold hauled from the dungeon (or gated from the elemental plane of earth) is worthless because the person you give it to can't turn it into work or land.

This is how the middle ages worked. Money was only a way to express your land holdings. Which included the people working on it. The money you got (or could have) was based upon how well the land produced useful stuff.

Another way to look at this is explore the economics of Star Trek. Here you have another universe where magic (the replicators) can produce anything you need at will. This kind of universe driven by the economics of plenty (rather than the economics of scareity which is how our system works). So it produces a rather different feel.

 

[mmadsen]

What's to stop powerful spellcasters (and the kings they serve) from opening a portal to the elemental plane of earth and bringing back tons upon tons of gold, gems, and other earth-products, thereby destroying the local economy?

It won't destroy the local economy; it will devalue gold and gems. A gold piece won't buy as much as it used if there's a flood of new, unexpected gold on the market. Of course, a cow or chicken will buy (via barter) as much as before -- and naturally, it will get you more gold pieces than before.

It will hurt anyone holding large amounts of gold; that gold is now worth less. It will help anyone who owes a large amount of gold; the debt is now less expensive. It will have little effect on anyone not dealing in gold, i.e., most of the quasi-medieval population, bartering for goods (at the low end) or holding real estate (at the high end).

Wouldn't the laws of supply and demand be constantly disrupted by "imports" from other worlds?

Imports -- whether from another county, another country, another continent, another planet, or another plane of existence -- don't disrupt the laws of supply and demand; they effectively increase supply. That is, they provide goods at lower prices than before (or provide those goods at all where they weren't available).

 

[Bendris Noulg]

Another way to look at this is explore the economics of Star Trek. Here you have another universe where magic (the replicators) can produce anything you need at will. This kind of universe driven by the economics of plenty (rather than the economics of scareity which is how our system works). So it produces a rather different feel.

IIRC, the Replicators also had an energy:mass ratio that was more economic with small things (gold rings, books, tea, etc.) but became overly-wasteful with larger, more complicated things. That's why they still had dry docks and the Plutonium Shipyards: They couldn't replicate an entire Star Ship.