The silver standard?

[Tovec]

I don't even like the "platinum piece" idea at all. It doesn't fit the pseudo-medieval cultures that D&D usually works around.

I don't like the pp which are worth 10 gp. I found it useful to use a gold standard but have pp worth 100 gp.

I've also made gold more prized by reducing how much stuff costs. So in my world it makes sense for labourers to make sp when the party gets paid in gp, because cp is still worth Something... just something small.

 

[Kavon]

I would like to have it so that you'd have copper pieces as the 'cent' type coin, with silver being the standard, and gold being the 'big bucks', maybe with platinum as the 'really big bucks'.

Otherwise, just make it so there's a single type of money, not copper, silver, gold, etc..

Kind of like how we have cents and dollars, euros or pounds, whatever.. and in, say, Japan they only have yen.

 

[Zustiur]

I was also disappointed by the GP standard in the playtest documents, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this is just a temporary thing.
I want the silver standard for every reason that DEFCON 1 stated.

In every game of DnD I've played, we've essentially used two coins - GP and PP. I want to see that change to SP and GP. I'd be happy to see platinum take the 'exotic'/plane-traveling position that Astral Diamonds hold in 4E.

 

[jadrax]

My guess is that the items list was copypasta'd for purposes of playtest. Prices will be re-evaluated later...

Yep, it's word for word from the SRD.

 

[mlund]

I definitely favor the silver standard. Copper is peasant currency, used to buy things like food, seed, common tools, etc. Silver is the currency of large-ticket items and bulk purchase you see common to merchants - quality armor, weapons, fine clothes, and farm animals. Gold is the currency of the wealthy - be they successful businessmen or well-heeled nobility. The finest horses, armor, artwork, exotic goods, knight's ransoms, and things like real-estate are brokered in gold.

Platinum and jewels are tools of wealth consolidation. When piling up sacks full of gold coins is just unwieldy the sly consolidate into the most precious of metals or stones which are easily concealed.

The one problem that comes up is that using the copper piece that's worth 1/100 of a gold piece as a floor to the economy doesn't make much sense for common folk. There are things people buy for less than .1 silver pieces (like backwater tavern ale farm-workers might consume on a nightly basis). They just aren't worth book-keeping by adventurers. Things like a fractional pence would most likely exist, but adventurers would actually find such coins aren't worth the space they take up in their belt pouch.

- Marty Lund

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Can someone concisely explain to me what "the silver standard" means that isn't "I'd prefer it if a sword costs 15sp instead of 15gp"? And, therefore, what benefit there is other than shifting coinage names one category to the right?

It's never really come clearly across.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

Can someone concisely explain to me what "the silver standard" means that isn't "I'd prefer it if a sword costs 15sp instead of 15gp"? And, therefore, what benefit there is other than shifting coinage names one category to the right?

It's never really come clearly across.

Sure. It means a few few related things.

1. Make precious metals like gold actually rare.
2. Create a level of expected wealth that means adventurers aren't carrying around the GDP of a whole kingdom.
3. Create a more grounded and believable game economy.

 

[ComradeGnull]

I don't even like the "platinum piece" idea at all. It doesn't fit the pseudo-medieval cultures that D&D usually works around.

I can see a couple ways to treat a PP to make it fit into a D&D fantasy world. One is that it is like the English Guinea- gold is the standard money of accounts, platinum has specifically high society overtones- prices for fine horses, wines, and other luxury goods are quoted in platinum, and the coins themselves turn up because they are both a store of wealth and a prestige item.

PP could also be leftover currency from a mythical 'golden age' when a powerful magical empire had the resources necessary to extract and strike the coins on a large scale. New ones aren't being made because no one has the metallurgical skills to extract platinum ore, or the deposits have all dried up, etc. PP becomes a relic item that is valuable to collectors and people who value the bullion weight- you could give a find of PP coins a tie to a specific city or kingdom from hundreds of years ago when they were struck in order to tie into the history of the setting.

Personally silver-basing standard D&D seems a might pointless to me. It's never been that way, and it's a simple conversion to make as a module or house rule without breaking continuity with the old game. It might make sense for a specific setting- when I run WFRP, I always used the pre-decimal currencies and a silver-based economy, but WFRP would be treated in D&D Next as a 'Grim 'n' Gritty' module, most likely.

A silver-based economy to me suggests a specificly lower-fantasy, more quasi-historical setting, whereas gold based economy just suggests generic multi-setting roleplaying game- which D&D is the definition of.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Sure. It means a few few related things.

1. Make precious metals like gold actually rare.
2. Create a level of expected wealth that means adventurers aren't carrying around the GDP of a whole kingdom.
3. Create a more grounded and believable game economy.

... How?

What I'm getting from what you and others are saying is that the silver standard just shifts everything to the right one category (if you would've found 150gp, you instead find 150sp; that's still 10 longswords at 15sp a pop). And a nation's GDP would be, instead of 1 million GP, 1 million SP.

Is this really just a labeling issue?

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

... How?

What I'm getting from what you and others are saying is that the silver standard just shifts everything to the right one category (if you would've found 150gp, you instead find 150sp; that's still 10 longswords at 15sp a pop). And a nation's GDP would be, instead of 1 million GP, 1 million SP.

Is this really just a labeling issue?

Sorry, I may have somewhat misunderstood your initial question.

As I see it, the term "Silver Standard" doesn't exactly mean a holistic shift down one coin type. The longsword is a good example. If a longsword cost 15gp before, it would cost 150sp after a shift to the silver standard. But, as you said, that loot that was once 150gp would instead be 150sp. Thus, you could only afford one longsword.

This is because a longsword is an expensive piece of equipment. Only soldiers and the reasonably wealthy can afford them. Full Plate is exceptionally expensive. Historically, a Knight was granted sizable land because he needed the income off of that land to maintain his armor and stable.

It's magical items that would see a dramatic price drop. A +1 flame tongue sword might only cost a few thousand silver, if you can find someone willing to sell.

That said, part of it is about making silver the metal you spend your time dealing with. In reality, a gold piece would be worth about $1000. So we'd measure the price of houses and cars in gold pieces, but for the vast majority of our expenses we'd use silver and copper. The silver standard it meant to reflect that.

I want the silver standard because I want gold to feel rare and valuable equipment to be a sizable cost.