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| #1NevvurJun 03, 2015 13:12:34 | Just curious, what is your estimate on the dollar equivalent of a gold piece in your game? I know it's virtually impossible to create an accurate metric, due to differences in service or product quality, demand, availability, etc. between a modern and medieval society. Still, I find a rough estimate useful to give my players, especially when it comes to stuff like tipping and bribes. "The barmaid is delighted with your 1 GP tip. It's like handing your waiter a $50 bill."
I expect variation from table to table, with ranges probably falling between $10-100. I generally place a GP at $100 myself. A couple notable differences in value for a medieval and modern society follow, feel free to add your own. Modern manufacturing has definitely skewed the equations for stuff like paper or a magnifying glass.
Lifestyle expenses: modest = 360 GP/year (assuming 360 day solar calendar). Middle class America today is roughly $50k/year, putting a GP around $140
1 lb of gold = 50 GP. An avoirdupois pound of gold is about $17,000, placing the GP at $340. |
| #2intentlyJun 03, 2015 13:39:27 | Set aside all considerations of how Mending, Fabricate, and other magic would affect the economy. Set aside all considerations of how, compared to modern day post-industrial revolution, manufactured goods (e.g., knives, needles, cloth, nails) would be proportionately more expensive than natural materials (e.g., food, wood, stone, animals).
From lifestyle expenses it looks like $100-$200 is about right for a gp, but most of the other stuff for sale doesn't line up with those values. Consider if 1 gp = $100.
So, lifestyle expenses seem too cheap compared to the cost of general purpose goods. If 1 gp = $10 then a modest lifestyle should be about $10 gp / day, which really feels more in line with the purchaseable goods.
All the prices were set for game purposes, not for reality. It wouldn't be fun for a level 1 adventurer to vanquish a tribe of goblins, loot the chieftain's $100 gp hoard, and then use the money to pay rent for the 10 days the party was tramping through the wilderness.
This is why I pretty much ignore lifestyle expenses when I DM. I also avoid putting silver and copper on every enemy corpse, so I think it balances out. |
| #3DemoMonkeyJun 03, 2015 14:38:33 | 1 gp = a $20 dollar bill. is my rule of thumb.
The place that - and any other - system breaks down the MOST is when comparing the purchasing power of gold vs it's modern value per weight. |
| #4BRJNJun 03, 2015 14:38:58 | In older Editions, 1 sp was "a typical laborer day's wages". This may or may not still be true. (afb)
I usually use 1 GP = $1 so people can figure out where my prices for stuff come from (if not from the Rulebooks). Ease of use > complete accuracy.
But if you've studied enough Economics to set up your own D&D economy / price scale, go right ahead ! (And let me know so my "coin mountain" wannabee character can play at your table.)
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| (Reply to #3)OoftaMeg |
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| #6ZardnaarJun 04, 2015 0:40:24 | I go with the beer standard. 20 beers cist 1 gp which over the bar here would be around 120 USD. Probably not taxed much though so probably more like 50 bucks. |
| #7Coredump00Jun 04, 2015 2:17:47 | Its hard, because the relative costs are so different.
Modern costs, items are cheap, but labor is expensive. Medieval, items were expensive, but labor was cheap.
So it is cheap to get people to do things for you, but to get items not grown/made nearby.... starts costing a lot more.
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| #8akr71Jun 04, 2015 4:52:37 | Location plays a huge factor too. In small towns and villages, resources and materials are limited so many more goods will be local or self made. In larger centers that can support craftsmen and artisans, the labor is mor expensive and the materials may have to be brought in. The result is that you end up with a more costly item in larger centers, but the earning power of the average person is potentially higher too.
The artisianal item may be more costly, but whether it is better quality or not is a whole different discussion... |
| #9SadisticLeprechaunJun 04, 2015 5:24:18 | 1 sp = 1 dollar, so 1 gp = 10 dollars, and 1 pp = 100 dollars, give and take.
Of course, not everytyhing lines up, but multiples of 10s makes conversion math easy!
Squalid lifestype - 1 dollar a day (some people in 3rd world countries live on a dollar or two a day) Comfortable - 20 dollars a day Aristocrat - 100 dollars a day
Close enough for me! |
| #10UngeheuerLichJun 05, 2015 4:54:33 | I also believe 100 Dollars seems a quite good estimate. Of course not everything lines up, but some things are valued higher than today... which is mostly everything that is technologically advanced.
200 Dollars for a crowbar seems high. But when you know a real life crowbar of high quality costs 50 Dollars and when you take into account that manufacturing high quality steel is not so easy in medieval settings, then it does not seem to innacurate anymore. |
| #11NevvurJun 05, 2015 9:28:30 | Funnily enough, a High to Low price sort of crowbars on Amazon.com turns up a $300 version. |
| #12CCSJun 05, 2015 15:24:03 | Um, zero? I've never bothered to try & equate gpv to $ value. It's like HP to me. Just a game function. So it doesn't matter how it compares to anything outside the game. |
| #13baronspamJun 07, 2015 11:30:05 | This is an incredibly diffcult question to answer. You have to make some decision first about the state of technology and magic in your game world. Are there printing presses? are there steam engines? How common is magic? Its there a magical equivelant of a steam engine (some kind of an elemental in a box)? Is there any magical automation in manufacture? Do farmers have harvest golems and send goods to market on the lightning rail or is everything done by hand and transported on the back of a porter or in an oxcart?
As someone who enjoyes real world medieval history, and also likes delving into things like demographics and economics in history, I can tell you that the prices for everyday goods in the phb make almost no sense. A blanket costs as much as a set of common clothing, and the clothing would have been vastly more labor to produce. One mug of ale, a daily food appearing at virtually every meal in the middle ages, cost as much as a pound of milled grain plus a chicken in the phb. Assuming every other day you buy some legumes and veggies with your chicken money instead of the chicken, you can eat plainly but amply for the cost of a single mug of beer. A lonbow costs 50 gp, but a set of mail only costs 75. While the bow certainly does require the work of a trained craftsman, the chain mail is made of metal wire (very expesive to produce) and also requires a soul crushing amount of hand labor, as each ring has to be made individually and riveted into place. Meanwhile, the bow maker can sell as little as one bow a month, and even accounting for materials and tools still be living a modest lifestyle. I don't know much about bow making but I image it is not an enitre month of labor to produce just one.
I guess the upshot of all of that is that trying to turn gp into dollars is not very useful. Instead, focus on what you can get for the money in-world. A hoard of 400 gp you take from an orc camp will keep a person in modest food, clothing, and lodging for a year with some left over for extras, or let someone live in comfort for a little more than half a year. Even at that there is a temptation to try to convert to yearly income, but yor typical person in a dnd setting is not paying for car insurance, internet service, or a phone line, so even trying to convert that way doesn't make much sense. |
| #14NevvurJun 07, 2015 14:03:50 | To all those outlining why it's a difficult thing to estimate... I know.
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| #15BRJNJun 07, 2015 15:47:00 |
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| #16OrethalionJun 07, 2015 21:49:55 |
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| (Reply to #13)AdrastusDarke |
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| #18edwin_suJun 10, 2015 9:46:30 | I could do some curency conversions for fun.
listes in historical source: Ready made Melanese plate armor in 1441 costs 8 punds 6 shillings and 6 pence. Converted to todays punds 3832 or $ 5945. If you divide that by 1500 the PHB gold price you would get 1GP = $3.96
Barrel in 1457, 3 pennies. converted to modern day $8.80 divided by the 2 GP int PHB lists would be 1 GP = $4.40
Draft horse in 1300, 15 shillings Converted to modern day : $602. divided by the 50 GP listed inthe PHB 1GP= $12.04
Cart 1350, 8 shillings. Converted to todays money : $133 Divided by the 15 GP in the PHB would be 1 GP is $8.86
Chariot in 1381, 8 punds in todays money : $5590 divice by the 250 listed in the PHB 1GP= $22.36
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| #19intentlyJun 10, 2015 10:29:44 |
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| #20OoftaMegJun 10, 2015 12:33:12 | Another thing to remember though is that while the tavern boy probably only gets a few silver per week, they probably also get food and lodging (even if it is only a spot to sleep in the storeroom).
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| #21BRJNJun 10, 2015 18:05:41 |
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