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Message: <blockquote data-quote="R_Chance" data-source="post: 7757015" data-attributes="member: 55149">Pretty much. Money only causes (quantitative) inflation if it's spent. If it just sits in a pile somewhere (whether with a dragon, a robber baron, or the local hero) it doesn't have any real effect. Major increases in individual wealth typically increase the individuals spending but not as much as the same wealth would spread across many people. Ordinary people spend a greater proportion of their (limited) individual wealth than the wealthy do of their (greater) wealth. It's why tax cuts for the wealthy do not have same immediate economic stimulus effect as a tax cut for the middle class. Tax cuts for the wealthy do produce more wealth for investment which can have an effect further down the road btw, but the direct stimulation of the economy from middle class spending wins the immediate effect contest.As for the local economy in an area with adventurers, I have always assumed the prices in an area with a significant adventuring population already reflect the effects of the irregular injections of wealth into the area. In short the prices in the books are inflated <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> Some quiet backwater where nothing adventurous happens would have lower prices. And probably be boring. And as for adventurers wealth some of it would be spent locally, but I suspect a lot would leave the area and go home with "retired" adventurers. Unlike PCs who are laser focused on adventure / advancement, a lot of NPCs would "strike it rich" and go home to enjoy the (relative) wealth. I still remember the look on my players faces when an NPC adventuring friend of theirs pulled the plug on her career as an adventurer after nearly dying and packed her bags for home. She had enough to be relatively wealthy "back home". And she would be alive to enjoy it. After they thought about it they decided it made sense in the context of the world / setting.I made the "switch" to silver while revamping my game for a new edition of the rules (3E iirc). There were a lot of changes going on and I simply translated the players wealth into silver and explained the reasoning and they were fine with it. The somewhat ludicrous piles of gold adventurers liberate tended to devalue the concept of gold as a valuable metal. It became, common... vulgar as it were. Silver was fine as a common monetary metal and it being common was easier to believe for my players. It also served to make copper valuable as means of making change. Copper was so negligible in value prior to this that my players never bothered to carry it. It wasn't worth it in either purchasing power or for experience points relative to the difficulty of carrying it home. I once used it (as a player) to weight down a body in the harbor I didn't want found right away. Best use I ever found for it <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> The switch to silver as the standard currency also served to make gold more useful as a store of value relative to its weight. Gold was suddenly "cool" again. Players had been buying gems to transport their wealth. I introduced letters of credit (through merchant companies) as well, and suddenly you didn't need a huge pack train, or to dominate the gem market, to transport your ill gotten gains. Are they ever "well gotten" gains?</blockquote>

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