I posted the original question in homebrew and house rules thread, but thought it might be useful to get answers here as well :) Link to the original below, please reply on that one.
My big question with economics threads is, why? I mean, I get that it can be fun for some people to do, and if that’s the case, have at it. I don’t want to tell you you’re wrong to enjoy it.
But will investing the time in doing this make the game more fun to play? Will a more accurate price for flour make casting fireball more satisfying?
And certainly, you can’t apply modern-day prices to the goods. There is no comparison between making a shirt on an assembly line vs. someone having to sew it by hand (or, in D&D, cast fabricate on a pile of cloth and thread.) Not to mention mechanized harvesting of, say, raw cotton, then turning that into thread, then cloth.
So, really, if you want to start in on more realistic pricing, that turns into a real rabbit hole. A sword should cost more if the smith is further from the iron mine, due to higher transport costs for the ore. But then if there’s another smith down the street, you need to start accounting for competition lowering prices a bit. But also, maybe the woodcutter had a bad haul, so there’s less charcoal, so the price goes up for that, so do the smiths eat that cost or pass it on?
Instead of all that, a longsword costs 15gp. You need one, you buy one, then you’re off to fight the beholder, which is the fun part of the game.
Also, PCs are exceptional. If they get to roll around in gold while farmers are barely scraping by on 1 sp/ day, that’s all part of the power fantasy.
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I posted the original question in homebrew and house rules thread, but thought it might be useful to get answers here as well :) Link to the original below, please reply on that one.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/homebrew-house-rules/225261-making-gold-valuable-again-prices-and-coin-changes
My big question with economics threads is, why? I mean, I get that it can be fun for some people to do, and if that’s the case, have at it. I don’t want to tell you you’re wrong to enjoy it.
But will investing the time in doing this make the game more fun to play? Will a more accurate price for flour make casting fireball more satisfying?
And certainly, you can’t apply modern-day prices to the goods. There is no comparison between making a shirt on an assembly line vs. someone having to sew it by hand (or, in D&D, cast fabricate on a pile of cloth and thread.) Not to mention mechanized harvesting of, say, raw cotton, then turning that into thread, then cloth.
So, really, if you want to start in on more realistic pricing, that turns into a real rabbit hole. A sword should cost more if the smith is further from the iron mine, due to higher transport costs for the ore. But then if there’s another smith down the street, you need to start accounting for competition lowering prices a bit. But also, maybe the woodcutter had a bad haul, so there’s less charcoal, so the price goes up for that, so do the smiths eat that cost or pass it on?
Instead of all that, a longsword costs 15gp. You need one, you buy one, then you’re off to fight the beholder, which is the fun part of the game.
Also, PCs are exceptional. If they get to roll around in gold while farmers are barely scraping by on 1 sp/ day, that’s all part of the power fantasy.