How much is a gold coin worth?

[Jorgo]

I tried to calculate the value of D&D money based on its modern worth and got approximately:
1 cp= 1$
1 sp= 10$
1 ep= 50$
1 gp= 100$
1 pp= 1000$
What do you guys think?

[Unoriginal]

I tried to calculate the value of D&D money based on its modern worth and got approximately:
1 cp= 1$
1 sp= 10$
1 ep= 50$
1 gp= 100$
1 pp= 1000$
What do you guys think?

That's not inaccurate per se, but the thing is, it's kind of hard to do any equivalence.

Also the supply/demand of the pseudo-medieval world of D&D is very different from our world.

You could argue that 50$ for a comfortable meal in a inn is reasonable, for exemple, depending on where you are. But some would say it should be worth 25$

I'd say 1 gp = between 50$ and 150$ is more accurate.

[Ninja_Prawn]

It really depends on where you set your benchmarks, too, such as what you'd consider a 'minimum wage' or what the commodity markets are doing on the day you try to take a measurement.

In my games, I imagine 1gp is roughly £200.

[Temperjoke]

Hard to estimate. The PHB, for example, lists 1 lb of Flour for 2 cp, however at my local Krogers grocery store you can get 2 lbs for $1.79. 1 lb of salt costs 5 cp, but you can buy a 4 lb box for $2.53.

What makes it hard to estimate is that pseudo-medieval societies placed more value on salt because it was harder to get and more valuable for a variety of uses than flour (not to devalue flour, just saying in comparison to salt).

[Sigreid]

When they're doing real world analysis of the "value" of money, they typically do a stock grocery shopping trip, so bread, flower, salt, bacon, etc. and average it out and compare to known previous trips. No single item is going to give you an accurate assessment due to the wonkyness of supply and demand economics so you would need to essentially "buy" a family's groceries with plenty of variety for a week and then compare to average real world prices to get a reasonable equivalent value.

[Orvir]

I tried to calculate the value of D&D money based on its modern worth and got approximately:
1 cp= 1$
1 sp= 10$
1 ep= 50$
1 gp= 100$
1 pp= 1000$
What do you guys think?

I use that exact same comparison as a rule of thumb. It doesn't have to be 100% accurate but it makes for easy mental math to understand relative values and/or when something's price is way out of whack.

[Asmotherion]

I tried to calculate the value of D&D money based on its modern worth and got approximately:
1 cp= 1$
1 sp= 10$
1 ep= 50$
1 gp= 100$
1 pp= 1000$
What do you guys think?

Since I'm from europe, I use euro for the calculation, but it's aproximatelly the same :p (1$=0.85€)

I use the same analogy, and I feel it's usefull, as it gives the players a feeling of what their money is worth. I've seen players spend money freely just because they had no concept of what they were spending, thus why I created the chart (so that I would not introduce a modern ecconomics to dnd).

Before that, I had bartenders take a gold piece for a beer, and an other one for a bed, and a beggar take a couple of platinum from a Paladin "to take some bread and milk for his starving kids for the night". XD

The top of it was when a Dwarf wanted to order what he could afford in beer. The barman came back with a Barel full of Beer. As if this was not enough, the barman went back in, and came back with an other. When the others asked, the Barman told them he was delivering his whole supply, and chacking the cost to give back money to the Dwarf. :P

On an other note, I generally don't like the electrum as a coin. It feels so out of place. So I just don't use it when I DM, and instead refluff it's value as 5 silver. Anyone else feels like that?

[Ninja_Prawn]

On an other note, I generally don't like the electrum as a coin. It feels so out of place. So I just don't use it when I DM, and instead refluff it's value as 5 silver. Anyone else feels like that?

I can't say as I've ever used electrum pieces in a game, but I don't know about 'out of place'. But then, non-decimal coinage does have a very nostalgic feel in my country.

[Blas_de_Lezo]

It would depend on the presence of gold itself in markets. But one gold coin of more or less 35-40 grames would range between 100 and 500 euros, depending of the economy at a moment.



50 dollars is not accurate, it's too cheap. A sword was somthing that most people couldn't afford. If you were a noble, either you inherited it from your ancestors or you just bought it. A sword designed for killing is 15 gold pieces in D&D. To make a comparasion a real hand-made katana costs no less than 5.000€. So I would say that between that range of 100-500€ for a gold coin, 250 or 300€ it's the most appropiate.

So, if we take just a middle point and dothe conversion, 300 dollars for a gold coin would be more or less aproximated.

(You can't just take into account a regular meal in a tavern, as D&D as a medieval-fantasy world has no taverns as modern restaurants where tourists go to eat. Each tavern doesn't need to compete with each other because eating at taverns is rare and so the prices are higher than nowadays!).

[Unoriginal]

50 dollars is not accurate, it's too cheap. A sword was somthing that most people couldn't afford.

Actually, it's not true. Depending on the time period, swords could be very cheap. You could get a second-hand sword for half an handful of coins, in some places and time.



To make a comparasion a real hand-made katana costs no less than 5.000€. So I would say that between that range of 100-500€ for a gold coin, 250 or 300€ it's the most appropiate.

That kind of katana is a luxury item nowadays, though. Not a tool you use for a relatively common task.



(You can't just take into account a regular meal in a tavern, as D&D as a medieval-fantasy world has no taverns as modern restaurants where tourists go to eat. Each tavern doesn't need to compete with each other because eating at taverns is rare and so the prices are higher than nowadays!).

That's not quite true. There can be several taverns competing in the same place, and generally people do eat in inns.

[Ninja_Prawn]

Actually, it's not true. Depending on the time period, swords could be very cheap. You could get a second-hand sword for half an handful of coins, in some places and time.

That's the problem with only taking one item as a point of reference. But I tend to agree that $50 for 1gp is too low. A manual labourer earns 2sp per day - $10 if you take that estimate. Where in the world can you stay at a decent inn for $25 per night? And I'm sure I ended up at 1gp = over $200 when I did a conversion based on the price of gold by weight.

[Wartex1]

That's the problem with only taking one item as a point of reference. But I tend to agree that $50 for 1gp is too low. A manual labourer earns 2sp per day - $10 if you take that estimate. Where in the world can you stay at a decent inn for $25 per night? And I'm sure I ended up at 1gp = over $200 when I did a conversion based on the price of gold by weight.

This is also before minimum wage and before inns had more expensive staples, not to mention lack of quality standards due to poor communication technology.

[ad_hoc]

I can't say as I've ever used electrum pieces in a game, but I don't know about 'out of place'. But then, non-decimal coinage does have a very nostalgic feel in my country.

Electrum is a great coin for implying how ancient a treasure hoard must be.

[JackPhoenix]

Basically, don't bother, it won't work. Prices can differ vastly between real world countries (there are countries with jobs where making 1$/day isn't that unusual) today, and we're talking about very different economical and technological circumstances, not to mention that D&D economy doesn't actually works, as it was made for the purposes of adventurers, not in an attempt to make realistic world.

[Asmotherion]

It would depend on the presence of gold itself in markets. But one gold coin of more or less 35-40 grames would range between 100 and 500 euros, depending of the economy at a moment.



50 dollars is not accurate, it's too cheap. A sword was somthing that most people couldn't afford. If you were a noble, either you inherited it from your ancestors or you just bought it. A sword designed for killing is 15 gold pieces in D&D. To make a comparasion a real hand-made katana costs no less than 5.000€. So I would say that between that range of 100-500€ for a gold coin, 250 or 300€ it's the most appropiate.

So, if we take just a middle point and dothe conversion, 300 dollars for a gold coin would be more or less aproximated.

(You can't just take into account a regular meal in a tavern, as D&D as a medieval-fantasy world has no taverns as modern restaurants where tourists go to eat. Each tavern doesn't need to compete with each other because eating at taverns is rare and so the prices are higher than nowadays!).

With a Shortsword's listed price being 10gp=1pp=+/-1000€/$, I would call that price as realistic, and non affordable for a commoner, who may earn something between a couple silver a day, and 4 on a well paid job and has life expences to account for, kids and possibly livestock to feed; a sword would be the last thing he may invest in, prefearing a Club or Dagger for home protection, and if he was into hunting, he may have a second-rate hand-made Bow made by an aquitance of his who knew a thing or two around crafting.

After all, the point is more about getting an aproximate value estimation for the sake of a less confusing D&D ecconomy, not an Accurate Exchange Rate (Though that might get to be a thing in some kind of campains... I've been tempted to do so more than once, but droped the idea in the end, as I lacked the audiance/interest in players to make it work).

PS: More on Electrum: What bothers me the most is that it breaks the basic logic of the currency, kinda like in a puzzle of "find the one that does not follow the algorythm". And it genuinly iritatese me for this, like I want it to either have counterparts for lower than silver and above gold value, or not exist at all, and the second solution seems to be the most direct approach to the problem XD

[Caelic]

You have to keep in mind, too, that relative value hasn't remained the same over time. Today, a sewing needle costs quite a bit less than a chicken. In the 1300's, livestock was cheap and small, manufactured goods were extremely dear, since they couldn't be mass-produced. Thus, a needle would have been much more expensive at the time, relative to the chicken.

[Caelic]

Actually, it's not true. Depending on the time period, swords could be very cheap. You could get a second-hand sword for half an handful of coins, in some places and time.




Very true. Not a GOOD sword, but every freeman in England was required to own a sword, at one point.

[Kane0]

I’ve run on the assumption that a GP is about $50 for ages now.
Trying ti make sense of the PHB prices leads to madness anyways.

The most common time this comes up at my table is inn/tavern prices. Using this means an ale is about 5cp or $2.50 and staying the night is about 2-3gp or $100 - $150 so all is well.
This also means a regular Joe could make about 3-5gp per day doing manual labor down the docks if he were paid fairly, and your average adventurer would find a stash of 100+gp every couple of days to be quite lucrative.

[Chugger]

One gold piece is worth about 1/12th of a Bitcoin! :smallbiggrin:

[Foxhound438]

20$ for one sheet of paper... this must be what they make textbooks out of.

[Malifice]

10 sp.

Or 100cp.

[Asmotherion]

You have to keep in mind, too, that relative value hasn't remained the same over time. Today, a sewing needle costs quite a bit less than a chicken. In the 1300's, livestock was cheap and small, manufactured goods were extremely dear, since they couldn't be mass-produced. Thus, a needle would have been much more expensive at the time, relative to the chicken.


20$ for one sheet of paper... this must be what they make textbooks out of.

In the above context: Keep in mind that, were you read paper, it can mean one of 3 things:

A) Campain dependent: Actual manufactored papper, you'll probably meet this in Eberron, or in latter Medieval/Renessance inspired Campains. This Could still be costly enough, as it is a "new invention", using new technology.

B) Papyrus: You pay, not only the process to make it, but also the travel and tax to import it from some distant land to your provider. It's overall represented in the cost, and it's realistically expensive.

C) Parchment: The most common means of writting, usually made from the skin of a sheep or a goat. If this does not help you enough to understand it's cost, there is also a special process to prepare the skin that involes fine crafting. Overall, it's well worth your money.

[KorvinStarmast]

The Gold Piece is a game based value, not a real world referenced value.
It's a poker chip.

My Reader's Digests Version to What's a gold piece really worth is That depends on where you are, and when you are in your game setting but a somewhat better answer is that it's nearly impossible to put a modern-world value on 1 GP (https://rpg.stackexchange.com/q/61840/22566).

[furby076]

Whenever i go to a foreign country, the first thing i do is go to a grocery store and see what the cost is of soda, bread and eggs. From there, i can figure out if someone is ripping me off or not.

If the soda costs 100 yen (just making it up, i dont recall what a coke costs in japan), and someone tries to charge me 5000 yen for a hot dog, i am gonna say nope.


So, find out what a cup of beer costs in your world, and base that against beer in our world, and there ya go :)

[LeonBH]

One gold piece is worth about 1/12th of a Bitcoin! :smallbiggrin:

Well, 1/13 of a bitcoin isn't too bad. The fact it costs 1/15 of a bitcoin doesn't mean it's less valuable. Besides, 1/14 of a bitcoin is a lot of money already.

[Arkhios]

10 sp.

Or 100cp.

You just had to, didn't you? :smallamused:

(Not that I'd be any better, as I was about to do the same :smallbiggrin:)