So I did a search through the web and a number of people have figured, based on the price of wheat between DND and Medieval Europe that one GP is about $35.66. that meaning 1USD is roughly 3cp. does anyone else have any ideas about this? or other views? (i wont be properly answering or replying to commentary really, just thought to strike up a question that would be interesting)
the article quoted some figures from an article in 2006, while the linked article itself was from 2017. though besides what the article itself mentions, which I haven't refreshed myself in, i am not sure either.
I strongly disagree with a price of $35.66. I would put it closer to $100.
Part of the problem is labor vs material. In our current world, labor is expensive and materials are cheap. You give away a cup of sugar for free, but you look shocked if you ask them to say help you build a house. But in a medieval world, it was the other way around. Ask to borrow a cup of sugar and people look in shock, but ask them to come build a barn, they readily agree. This messes with any attempt to price things in the books.
Worse, the PHB etc. are written from the perspective of adventurers, not the regular people. Adventurers routinely find huge amounts of treasure, which should create inflation, and the book kind of represents that.
For these reasons it is very hard to price a gold piece.
The problem is that the further removed from a culture and setting you are, the less meaningful it is to try and find an equivalent value. Different things have different values, and they change relative to each other as well. A computer twenty years ago cost you £1,000 for a standard one, it now costs around £350. A can of coke was £0.30, but is now around £1. It also varies with location - in a desert, water would cost a fair amount, but try to to sell me water here in Wales and I'll laugh at you. Far too much rain to charge me for it.
Trying to compare values of money between a fantastical medieval agrarian society and a modern post industrial technological society is...doomed to failure.
Also the prices can be insane. To give an example, someone made a set of plate Armour for £16 6s 8d in 1374, which is apparently about £10,000 today. In game, a plate armour is 1,500gp. 50gp weighs 1lb, so that's 300lb of gold and gold is currently selling at around £20,000 per lb. While coins would not be solid gold, the amount would have to be infinitesimal to make sense.
It just doesn't make sense to talk about D&D in terms of modern currency. The time is too far removed, and technology as well as magic really messes things up. It's like when people say that the computer that sent men to the moon was less powerful than today's pocket watch - while technically true, you could never send a man to the moon with a pocket watch or even 100 of them. It just really isn't equivalent.
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I personally keep it simple. A mug of ale in the PHB is 4cp. A bottle of beer at a bar in real life is anywhere from $3 - $5 USD. Seems about right to me.
Therefore at my table:
1cp = $1 USD
1sp = $10 USD
1gp = $100 USD
1pp = $1,000 USD
Commoners who live mundane lives live off of copper and silver - rarely will they possess gold.
The relative beer at a bar scale, works every time. (That’s basically what my table uses, but rolled back around 2 decades when we used to drink out regularly.)
I agree with the beer scale. I too keep it at $1 =1cp with the average unskilled daily income being around 60 copper pieces or 6sp. It also works if you imagine a gold piece as being small i.e like 1/20 of an ounce which at current prices is around $90-100, which again works.
By the way, part of the reason I use the ratio of 1 cp : 10¢ circa 1960 is because:
In the 1960s, the relative values of labor to materials that Linklite mentioned was a little closer than now in terms of comparability to D&D’s pseudomedieval economy.
In 1962ish, a beer at a bar cost around 30¢-35¢ USD. (It’s basically still the beer scale.)
It just doesn't make sense to talk about D&D in terms of modern currency. The time is too far removed, and technology as well as magic really messes things up. It's like when people say that the computer that sent men to the moon was less powerful than today's pocket watch - while technically true, you could never send a man to the moon with a pocket watch or even 100 of them. It just really isn't equivalent.
I was going to say trying to compare the default RAW D&D monetary system to real world currency is like using Scrooge McDuck's swimming pool of coin as a viable metric to discuss real world superwealth, or vice versa. There isn't really a trading or economic "system" in RAW, and I suppose DMs may use whatever economic theory or business 101 understanding of market economics as a basis for "realism" but functionally it's really just fluff for the DM to set up the conflicts they want as opposed to an actual economic system.
I mean the article in question is in Medium for a reason...
If you go to your local shop that buys and sells gold and silver, you can ask to buy coins or bars of gold and silver.
Usually you'll get one that is a single ounce.
Checking the markets... looks like as I write this post, one ounce of gold is worth about $1600.
Does that mean the peasant with one gold piece was rich?
Not necessarily. Is his gold piece actual, solid gold? I kinda doubt it. Maybe it was gold plated? Or just yellow?
Same thing with the value of wheat.
During ordinary times, let's say a PC can buy a bundle of wheat for a silver piece.
Uh oh! PCs are under siege. No one can go in or out the castle. The farmers are behind the city walls for protection. The King is using his storehouses for himself and his troops. Others are stuck with what they have on hand.
Now that same bundle of wheat might go for hundreds of gold pieces.
Based on lifestyle costs (1 gp/day is modest, 2 sp/day is poor) I'd probably go with $100 for a gp. But really, D&D is no more an economic simulator than it is a physics simulator.
I have just started a campaign with a dumb PC. At the first opportunity he tried to buy a notebook. One with 50 pages would cost 10gp ($1000) and a bottle of ink would be another $1000. Instead he bought some chalk and a wooden board.
Another reason it is difficult to compare is the step up in income between poor and modest is much greater in D&d than in 21st century USA. A poor lifestyle ca be had on 2sp per day or 75gp per year but living here on $7500 per annum would be wretched/squalid. A modest lifestyle on $36000 a comfortable on $73000 and a wealthy on $145000 are a better fit.
Try the New York post article about what it took to live a “(upper) middle class life in NYC” from at least 10 yrs ago. By their calculations you needed a family income of at least $450,000/yr to be “upper middle class” of course that included an upper east side 3-5 bedroom condo, 2 Mercedes/BMWs, a summer/weeken place in the Hamptons, and private school for your 2.5 kids 😳🤪😜🤡
The only mideveal currency still around is the British pound sterling. It was broken into 20 shillings, each of which was 12 pennies (240 silver pennies to the pound) and then the smallest coins they had were the farthings representing 1/4 penny. In 1315 a royal pension ( meant to support a royal supporter or their offspring) was around 5-10 pounds/year. If we assume that was providing their equivalent of a “middle class lifestyle” ($60-120 thousand today?) then the pound (a GP equivalent) from the time is equal to about $12,000 today.
I've got about 30$ to a Gold piece in 2021 us dollars.
But it's closer to 10$ to a gold piece about 2 decades ago, both thanks to changes to dnd prices, and real-world inflation.
both me wonder what's in alchemist's fire that's so expensive.
Does anyone actually use alchemist's fire, acid, or holy water? At low level they're impractically expensive and at high level they're not worth the trouble to use.
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So I did a search through the web and a number of people have figured, based on the price of wheat between DND and Medieval Europe that one GP is about $35.66.
that meaning 1USD is roughly 3cp. does anyone else have any ideas about this? or other views?
(i wont be properly answering or replying to commentary really, just thought to strike up a question that would be interesting)
Original article:
https://medium.com/@Swizzler/what-is-a-dungeons-and-dragons-gold-piece-worth-in-modern-dollars-fcd7670b285b
ps; the article is a bit old..
the article quoted some figures from an article in 2006, while the linked article itself was from 2017. though besides what the article itself mentions, which I haven't refreshed myself in, i am not sure either.
I strongly disagree with a price of $35.66. I would put it closer to $100.
Part of the problem is labor vs material. In our current world, labor is expensive and materials are cheap. You give away a cup of sugar for free, but you look shocked if you ask them to say help you build a house. But in a medieval world, it was the other way around. Ask to borrow a cup of sugar and people look in shock, but ask them to come build a barn, they readily agree. This messes with any attempt to price things in the books.
Worse, the PHB etc. are written from the perspective of adventurers, not the regular people. Adventurers routinely find huge amounts of treasure, which should create inflation, and the book kind of represents that.
For these reasons it is very hard to price a gold piece.
IIRC, in 2nd Edition a silver piece was supposed to be about $10. For whatever that's worth.
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"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
I treat it as if 1 cp = 10¢ circa 1960, so 1 sp = $1 1960ish, and 1gp = $10 around 1960s currency.
The other one I use is 1 cp = $1(USD) circa 1999, so 1 sp = $10 1999ish, and 1 gp = $100 around 1999.
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The problem is that the further removed from a culture and setting you are, the less meaningful it is to try and find an equivalent value. Different things have different values, and they change relative to each other as well. A computer twenty years ago cost you £1,000 for a standard one, it now costs around £350. A can of coke was £0.30, but is now around £1. It also varies with location - in a desert, water would cost a fair amount, but try to to sell me water here in Wales and I'll laugh at you. Far too much rain to charge me for it.
Trying to compare values of money between a fantastical medieval agrarian society and a modern post industrial technological society is...doomed to failure.
Also the prices can be insane. To give an example, someone made a set of plate Armour for £16 6s 8d in 1374, which is apparently about £10,000 today. In game, a plate armour is 1,500gp. 50gp weighs 1lb, so that's 300lb of gold and gold is currently selling at around £20,000 per lb. While coins would not be solid gold, the amount would have to be infinitesimal to make sense.
It just doesn't make sense to talk about D&D in terms of modern currency. The time is too far removed, and technology as well as magic really messes things up. It's like when people say that the computer that sent men to the moon was less powerful than today's pocket watch - while technically true, you could never send a man to the moon with a pocket watch or even 100 of them. It just really isn't equivalent.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
I personally keep it simple. A mug of ale in the PHB is 4cp. A bottle of beer at a bar in real life is anywhere from $3 - $5 USD. Seems about right to me.
Therefore at my table:
Commoners who live mundane lives live off of copper and silver - rarely will they possess gold.
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The relative beer at a bar scale, works every time. (That’s basically what my table uses, but rolled back around 2 decades when we used to drink out regularly.)
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I agree with the beer scale. I too keep it at $1 =1cp with the average unskilled daily income being around 60 copper pieces or 6sp. It also works if you imagine a gold piece as being small i.e like 1/20 of an ounce which at current prices is around $90-100, which again works.
By the way, part of the reason I use the ratio of 1 cp : 10¢ circa 1960 is because:
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I was going to say trying to compare the default RAW D&D monetary system to real world currency is like using Scrooge McDuck's swimming pool of coin as a viable metric to discuss real world superwealth, or vice versa. There isn't really a trading or economic "system" in RAW, and I suppose DMs may use whatever economic theory or business 101 understanding of market economics as a basis for "realism" but functionally it's really just fluff for the DM to set up the conflicts they want as opposed to an actual economic system.
I mean the article in question is in Medium for a reason...
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Yep. My view is "D&D is not an economy simulator." :-)
The economy of D&D is screwed, even without talking about runaway inflation.
If you go to your local shop that buys and sells gold and silver, you can ask to buy coins or bars of gold and silver.
Usually you'll get one that is a single ounce.
Checking the markets... looks like as I write this post, one ounce of gold is worth about $1600.
Does that mean the peasant with one gold piece was rich?
Not necessarily. Is his gold piece actual, solid gold? I kinda doubt it. Maybe it was gold plated? Or just yellow?
Same thing with the value of wheat.
During ordinary times, let's say a PC can buy a bundle of wheat for a silver piece.
Uh oh! PCs are under siege. No one can go in or out the castle. The farmers are behind the city walls for protection. The King is using his storehouses for himself and his troops. Others are stuck with what they have on hand.
Now that same bundle of wheat might go for hundreds of gold pieces.
Scarcity.
Based on lifestyle costs (1 gp/day is modest, 2 sp/day is poor) I'd probably go with $100 for a gp. But really, D&D is no more an economic simulator than it is a physics simulator.
I have just started a campaign with a dumb PC. At the first opportunity he tried to buy a notebook. One with 50 pages would cost 10gp ($1000) and a bottle of ink would be another $1000. Instead he bought some chalk and a wooden board.
Another reason it is difficult to compare is the step up in income between poor and modest is much greater in D&d than in 21st century USA. A poor lifestyle ca be had on 2sp per day or 75gp per year but living here on $7500 per annum would be wretched/squalid. A modest lifestyle on $36000 a comfortable on $73000 and a wealthy on $145000 are a better fit.
Try the New York post article about what it took to live a “(upper) middle class life in NYC” from at least 10 yrs ago. By their calculations you needed a family income of at least $450,000/yr to be “upper middle class” of course that included an upper east side 3-5 bedroom condo, 2 Mercedes/BMWs, a summer/weeken place in the Hamptons, and private school for your 2.5 kids 😳🤪😜🤡
somehow I think they got their scale wrong.
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The only mideveal currency still around is the British pound sterling. It was broken into 20 shillings, each of which was 12 pennies (240 silver pennies to the pound) and then the smallest coins they had were the farthings representing 1/4 penny. In 1315 a royal pension ( meant to support a royal supporter or their offspring) was around 5-10 pounds/year. If we assume that was providing their equivalent of a “middle class lifestyle” ($60-120 thousand today?) then the pound (a GP equivalent) from the time is equal to about $12,000 today.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
I've got about 30$ to a Gold piece in 2021 us dollars.
But it's closer to 10$ to a gold piece about 2 decades ago, both thanks to changes to dnd prices, and real-world inflation.
both me wonder what's in alchemist's fire that's so expensive.
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Probably sodium. Unless the chemical elements don't exist in D&D worlds, in which case it's probably magmin blood.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Does anyone actually use alchemist's fire, acid, or holy water? At low level they're impractically expensive and at high level they're not worth the trouble to use.