Relative Rarity of Precious Metals

[Umbran]

If you have the possibility of large numbers of demons or angels crossing planar boundaries in some way, you already have the capacity for bulk transport of materials.

Well, there you go then. This generally *doesn't* happen in most D&D worlds. At least, not by most people's definition of "large numbers". In most campaign worlds, demons and angels are seen by ones and twos, not tens or hundreds or thousands. The possibility of something the size of an army of demons showing up is probably seen as a major event that adventurers flock from continents around to stop.

 

[Celebrim]

The mining in the Manual of the Planes is overseen by the Dao, mostly. Who use slaves to keep the cavern they're in from collapsing and tunnels maintained. It's mentioned as part of inter-planar trade going on.

In that case, even though the infinite number of Dao mine an infinite amount of gems, gold, copper and so forth every year, it's highly unlikely that the mining represents any regular trade with your average prime material world like Krynn, Toril, or Oerth. The amount of Earth-stuff (or fire stuff, or whatever) imported directly to a prime plane is probably in balance with what is removed from the plane to pay for it. And even so, the total trade with any one of the infinite number of prime material worlds and alternate realities is probably as negligible as the total amount of goods of infernal origin that enter a plane as a result of persons selling their souls to interloping devils. There is no reason to suppose that mining on the elemental plane of earth necessarily has a large impact on any published setting, despite the infinite quantities of ores thereby mined. Presumably only an infinitesimal fraction of the infinite number of elementals is even aware of or could ever contact any particular reality. Ditto the infinite number of devils, etc.

Presumable the greatest percentage of this infinite production is traded with the infinite number of inhabitants in the outer planes, other elemental planes, and the like. Likewise, if the Dao are using slaves, there is no particular reason to suppose all or most are inhabitants of the prime material planes. There are after all an infinite number of mortals native to the non-prime planes per planescape, inhabiting an infinite number of border towns. And presumably places known to every reality like Sigil, the City of Brass, or Dis each have an infinitely large population in and of themselves. This makes trade with even Toril completely unnecessary, and with anywhere less cosmopolitan particularly unlikely.

Hopefully, you recognize my slightly mocking tones regarding the infinite outer planes. I don't know what percentage of DMs insist on the infinite alternate realities of Gygaxian D&D, but if you don't insist on them, then the very notion of a single finite 'prime' with infinite externalities becomes weird in the extreme if not down right nonsensical. And if you do insist on them, well, your cosmology is now impossibly complex.

The issue of elementals using local material gets iffy when you start talking about interplanar gates that allow directly crossing over; I don't think the idea of material works out, as it doesn't explain why the adventurers do not suffer the same if they cross into another plane.

Read up on Astral Projection in D&D for example.

 

[Nergal Pendragon]

Interplanar invasion of the Material Plane happened on Golarion, Eberron, Faerun, Greyhawk... That's 100% of the official campaign worlds I know anything about. I am not certain of the rates of it happening in others, but I suspect worlds it hasn't happened in are pretty rare.

Which doesn't mean that it does happen; there's a variety of reasons why all efforts to do that are probably stopped dead before they get started.

I'm not disagreeing that this should be rare, or that it shouldn't happen. I'm not saying there are not barriers to flooding the Material Plane withe massive amounts of interplanar gold (in fact, my original post relies on there being barriers). I'm saying that the scarcity rates we're looking at for the real world do not apply to the typical DnD world because they potentially have a much more massive source of gold that is one spell away and there are likely other controls, ones outside of those seen in the real world, that help set the value and availability of currency and maintain both. And that we need to consider, when looking at material scarcity rates, the possibility that using real-world figures at all doesn't match up the reality that the typical DnD world has to deal with.

That there is outside interference preventing a flooding of the Material Plane with precious metals while still having a plane where access to those metals is pretty much infinite both explains the currency value rates seen in the books and why it is the currency is so steady in value. The lack of flooding the Material Plane also explains why people still mine it; despite interplanar gold existing, the Material Plane is cut off enough from it that Material Plane nations need to rely on mines for material to keep their economies running.

It's a simple solution, and one that can be easily adjusted from world to world without any further necessary explanation other than saying the powers of that world either allow more through of a particular material or restrict it more.

And as for the issue of mockery: Go ahead and mock. Note that I am using the terms "typical DnD world," which from what I've seen tend to be Gygaxian.

I'm also aware of astral travel within DnD. That does not address the issue I brought up with direct bridges between planes.

 

[Celebrim]

It's a simple solution, and one that can be easily adjusted from world to world without any further necessary explanation other than saying the powers of that world either allow more through of a particular material or restrict it more.

If this is a concession that indeed it is actually campaign specific, then I don't see anything to argue about. In so far as campaigns can and usually do differ in an almost infinite variety of ways, there is no way we can affirm anything about the abundance of gold in a 'typical' D&D world (assuming such a thing in fact exists). While elemental mining is I agree possible, I don't think we can say with any confidence whether it effects the abundance of gold in a 'typical' D&D world. I don't think we can say with any confidence what the relative abundance of minerals in the crust of a typical campaign world is, or how they arrived there, or how plate tectonics or vulcanism or speology work in such settings. I think we can say with confidence that the abundance of gold is driven by Gygax's decision to 'keep score' as it were by how much treasure a player could pull out of the dungeon, by the use of 'gold' as the measure of treasure largely driven by literary reasons (gold being archetypal of treasure), and by the relatively large score required to attain 'high level'. Those things imply gold is common, but even to the extent that we can say that trope is commonly adhered to (at least 2 in this thread don't), we can't say anything about the origin of that gold which I would guess in the 'typical' campaign is never really considered.