DnD 5e Currency Converted to USD

[blackjack50]

Something spawned out of recent games I’ve been playing. I have no real sense of currency for the DnD world. This was became a running joke for our campaign, and so I finally decided to put the currency in to something I could understand.

So the first thing to understand about this issue is that I need a way to create a parity between the currencies. A “Big MAC Index” is you will. This is the single most important part for this discussion. But the issue here? Food is not necessarily a good measure for parity. Especially in a setting where there is no fast food and McDonald’s. So what item should I use to create this parity?

Well? Ale. That is the single best item. Why? Because Ale in the DnD setting is a beverage. It is not necessarily the same as a “beer” because ale will be a clean source of liquid in the Medieval setting. But it can also be stronger. When most people sit down at a restaurant they will order a beverage. Gas stations sell them. Many places sell them. So this is a good choice for as close of an apples to apples comparison I can get. And if you go beyond “drinks,” you will have to factor in utility and value (goats in modern day have far less value than in a time period where their milk and meat are worth considerably more).

So. With “ale” being the item in DND being used vs real world “ales” and beverages? And according to the reading I’ve seen? It is about 4CP per mug. Well if you figure a Budweiser sold at Applebee’s during their deal is $2, and most large beverages at most food establishments range from about $1.50-$2? And then alcoholic drinks can range from $2-$4 for the cheapest options? That leaves me to set the line at

1CP=$0.50 (lowest estimates being about $0.375).
1SP=$5.00
1GP=$50.00
1PP=$500.00

I know this may seem silly, but it really helped me contextualize what is happening when I bribe someone. Or one I throw some coins out to disrupt a crowd (I tossed 20 GP out once...so $1000...so yea). If you feel my price assessment is wrong, that is fine. But I do feel that “ale” is the best parity item. :) let me know if you disagree. If so, why.

[Dork_Forge]

Something spawned out of recent games I’ve been playing. I have no real sense of currency for the DnD world. This was became a running joke for our campaign, and so I finally decided to put the currency in to something I could understand.

So the first thing to understand about this issue is that I need a way to create a parity between the currencies. A “Big MAC Index” is you will. This is the single most important part for this discussion. But the issue here? Food is not necessarily a good measure for parity. Especially in a setting where there is no fast food and McDonald’s. So what item should I use to create this parity?

Well? Ale. That is the single best item. Why? Because Ale in the DnD setting is a beverage. It is not necessarily the same as a “beer” because ale will be a clean source of liquid in the Medieval setting. But it can also be stronger. When most people sit down at a restaurant they will order a beverage. Gas stations sell them. Many places sell them. So this is a good choice for as close of an apples to apples comparison I can get. And if you go beyond “drinks,” you will have to factor in utility and value (goats in modern day have far less value than in a time period where their milk and meat are worth considerably more).

So. With “ale” being the item in DND being used vs real world “ales” and beverages? And according to the reading I’ve seen? It is about 4CP per mug. Well if you figure a Budweiser sold at Applebee’s during their deal is $2, and most large beverages at most food establishments range from about $1.50-$2? And then alcoholic drinks can range from $2-$4 for the cheapest options? That leaves me to set the line at

1CP=$0.50 (lowest estimates being about $0.375).
1SP=$5.00
1GP=$50.00
1PP=$500.00

I know this may seem silly, but it really helped me contextualize what is happening when I bribe someone. Or one I throw some coins out to disrupt a crowd (I tossed 20 GP out once...so $1000...so yea). If you feel my price assessment is wrong, that is fine. But I do feel that “ale” is the best parity item. :) let me know if you disagree. If so, why.

I think that it's a little difficult to try and extract a $ value from dnd currency and a better way of looking at bribes would be the standing of the individual you're trying to bribe and maybe doing it in goods/favours. If a silver coin amounts to $5 then an unskilled laborer would be earning that per day and spending almost half of their wages on a single tankard of ale.

I think the biggest issue here is that the prices we have are for adventurers, not your average npc. If it were to be applied to npcs then the common laborer would live in squalid conditions and might be described as "might be disturbed, marked as exiles, or suffer from disease." The PHB even says that laborers are commonly living in modest conditions, despite that costing 10x what they'd actually earn in a day.

As it stands the currency system makes very little sense and self contradicts, so very hard to make a real world comparison to.

[Greywander]

I think I've seen similar calculations done before, but using gold instead of ale. IIRC, some estimates put a copper piece at around $2 in value.

Generally, the quick-and-dirty conversion I use is to equate a copper piece to $1. This makes for very easier conversions; for example, a quest reward of 100 gp is comparable to $10,000 (if 1 cp = $1, then 1 gp = $100).

Thinking of things this way has helped me to contextualize things like quest rewards. For example, would someone really pay you $10k just to fetch them a mushroom from the nearby forest? Probably not, but they might pay that much to rescue captured friends/family from a goblin stronghold. Also, having 10k gp equates to being a millionaire, which kind of puts into perspective what an adventurer at that level should feel like.

[AdAstra]

This is weirdly close to the numbers I arbitrarily decided made sense for currency denominations. To me a copper piece should be equivalent to about a quarter to half-dollar, since it would result in silver gold and platinum pieces having values that roughly correspond with small, medium, and large size bills in the US.

One thing to keep in mind, however: DnD mostly uses pseudo-historical standards when determining mundane objects. This results in certain things, in this case prices, looking very weird to people in the modern day (at least in more developed countries). For example, back then, labor was cheap, while materials were expensive. Nowadays it’s mostly the opposite. Then of course come the weird bits, like chickens being hilariously cheap (enough so that an untrained hireling could buy ten with a day’s wages).

But, then you’re getting into the nature of economic abstraction in a fantasy game mostly about killing monsters. Honestly, WOTC showed a commendable amount of effort just stating that very little trade is actually in coin (accurate, and something rarely brought up in these discussions). And apparently all the way back to Gygax (who payed attention to these things), the prices for many common trade goods have been quite accurate to history. 11th to 15th century England was assumed, and one gold piece was meant to be about equal to one English Shilling.
https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/4rh43p/most_of_dds_prices_are_historically_accurate/?utm_source=amp&utm_medium=&utm_content=post_body
This is where I got the info. Can’t vouch for the accuracy, but it doesn’t look like utter crap, and there’s a link to an academic paper describing the actual prices.

EDIT: Looked in there, turns out that even the chicken prices aren’t completely ludicrous! Two chickens are priced at one pence (1/12 of a shilling), Meaning a single bird is worth about 1/24 of a shilling/gold piece, which is about double the listed value (2cp is 1/50 of a gold piece, so ~4 cp would be more accurate).

[AdAstra]

I think that it's a little difficult to try and extract a $ value from dnd currency and a better way of looking at bribes would be the standing of the individual you're trying to bribe and maybe doing it in goods/favours. If a silver coin amounts to $5 then an unskilled laborer would be earning that per day and spending almost half of their wages on a single tankard of ale.

I think the biggest issue here is that the prices we have are for adventurers, not your average npc. If it were to be applied to npcs then the common laborer would live in squalid conditions and might be described as "might be disturbed, marked as exiles, or suffer from disease." The PHB even says that laborers are commonly living in modest conditions, despite that costing 10x what they'd actually earn in a day.

As it stands the currency system makes very little sense and self contradicts, so very hard to make a real world comparison to.

I would point out that there are multiple errors here.
For one, an untrained hireling makes 2 sp per day. A poor lifestyle only requires that much, and that’s assuming one is living alone. If you have a spouse and children that can also be put to work, you could make a good deal more than that, while presumably spending less money per-person, due to sharing living space, tools, etc.

The “poor” lifestyle description specifically calls out UNSKILLED laborers, whereas “modest” just says laborers. One could assume that “professional” laborers, or ones with some degree of skill but not enough to qualify as skilled hirelings, would be able to make the 1gp per day required. Maybe it’s assumed that people with a Modest lifestyle are able to do without child labor, with two skilled-hireling-level working parents and two children that’s enough to support it. You can add more children if you assume the aforementioned shared-costs thing.

[Nidgit]

There's no direct comparison- things are priced to what an adventurer might pay for something in an old economy, not what an average citizen would.

For instance, a set of common clothes is 5 sp and a set of fine clothes is 15 gp. Meanwhile, a hammer is 1 gp. It's pretty tough to find, say, a t-shirt and shorts, for under at least $20. That means a hammer is $40, a shovel (2 gp) or glass bottle is $80, and a normal lock (10 gp) is $400.

A quick Google search shows a shovel available for ~$20 and a padlock available for ~$50. That's pretty clearly not a direct conversion. Things are differently priced for what's available at the intended time period, and even then they're not really internally consistent.

You're better off establishing your own currency exchange rate and working off of that.

[Kane0]

I’ve always gone by the rule of thumb 1gp = 50 bucks

[blackjack50]

I think that it's a little difficult to try and extract a $ value from dnd currency and a better way of looking at bribes would be the standing of the individual you're trying to bribe and maybe doing it in goods/favours. If a silver coin amounts to $5 then an unskilled laborer would be earning that per day and spending almost half of their wages on a single tankard of ale.

I think the biggest issue here is that the prices we have are for adventurers, not your average npc. If it were to be applied to npcs then the common laborer would live in squalid conditions and might be described as "might be disturbed, marked as exiles, or suffer from disease." The PHB even says that laborers are commonly living in modest conditions, despite that costing 10x what they'd actually earn in a day.

As it stands the currency system makes very little sense and self contradicts, so very hard to make a real world comparison to.

I want to highlight the idea of “squalid” conditions. That definition is subjective. Squalid by 1200-1500 AD? Or squalid by 2019? Yes. The prices we have are for adventurers. But if you consider that there may be a local discount? Supply and demand? Of course factor in magic. I would say it is still a decent parity item. You can adjust the cost accordingly. Perhaps you equate the cost to $4 per ale (or 1 CP is $1)...that is still a reasonable price in reality and in game. And it would effectively double the salary value. :)

The reason I picked my value is the assumption that people live in poorer conditions in that setting than we do now relatively speaking. And it makes sense that people could find cheaper alcohol.

[blackjack50]

There's no direct comparison- things are priced to what an adventurer might pay for something in an old economy, not what an average citizen would.

For instance, a set of common clothes is 5 sp and a set of fine clothes is 15 gp. Meanwhile, a hammer is 1 gp. It's pretty tough to find, say, a t-shirt and shorts, for under at least $20. That means a hammer is $40, a shovel (2 gp) or glass bottle is $80, and a normal lock (10 gp) is $400.

A quick Google search shows a shovel available for ~$20 and a padlock available for ~$50. That's pretty clearly not a direct conversion. Things are differently priced for what's available at the intended time period, and even then they're not really internally consistent.

You're better off establishing your own currency exchange rate and working off of that.

Alas. You are running in to the issue of why I picked ale as the parity item. Not hammers or other items whose demand is significantly higher in a pre modern world. And I just recently purchased a nice dress shirt for $11 at Walmart. One could easily find a set of common clothes for roughly $25. They may not be nice. But they would be common :) where fine clothing would be expensive and difficult to produce

[stoutstien]

Don't look to deep into the state of currency and cost of normal items or you likely to go crazy.

I tend to explain that most of the people live on bartering rather than using a medium of currency.

The standard cost are like Tourist pricing

[blackjack50]

I’ve always gone by the rule of thumb 1gp = 50 bucks

Which would equate to my parity item :)

[Dork_Forge]

I would point out that there are multiple errors here.
For one, an untrained hireling makes 2 sp per day. A poor lifestyle only requires that much, and that’s assuming one is living alone. If you have a spouse and children that can also be put to work, you could make a good deal more than that, while presumably spending less money per-person, due to sharing living space, tools, etc.

The “poor” lifestyle description specifically calls out UNSKILLED laborers, whereas “modest” just says laborers. One could assume that “professional” laborers, or ones with some degree of skill but not enough to qualify as skilled hirelings, would be able to make the 1gp per day required. Maybe it’s assumed that people with a Modest lifestyle are able to do without child labor, with two skilled-hireling-level working parents and two children that’s enough to support it. You can add more children if you assume the aforementioned shared-costs thing.

Those aren't errors, the Wealth section of the PHB says a laborer can expect to earn 1 SP per day, the lifestyle expenses section uses the same term when referring to people living in 'modest' conditions. The fact that under the hirelings section the prices are effectively doubled from the wealth sections for both skilled and unskilled work is either an inconsistency within the book or can be seen as a what you pay vs what they actually receive (taxes) situation.

The distinction between skilled and unskilled labour is called out in the Wealth section as the difference between a laborer and a skilled (but not exceptional) artisan.

Adding child labour doesn't fix the issue either, a child could not be expected to earn the same amount as a grown adult, but the cost of a meal (per person) per day for modest is listed as 2 SP. Assuming that they family don't need to pay any dues, rent etc. an unskilled hireling would be eating their wages every day with no spare for clothing, tools etc. The prices just don't add up if you try and apply them to everyday people instead of adventurers, hell it even says that peasantry are unlikely to even use coins at all (rather bartering).

Again, I think the issue is that the prices presented are for adventurers, NOT the common people. This line might be of interest: "Only merchants, adventurers, and those offering professional services for hire commonly deal in coins." (PHB page 143 "Wealth")

[Dork_Forge]

I want to highlight the idea of “squalid” conditions. That definition is subjective. Squalid by 1200-1500 AD? Or squalid by 2019? Yes. The prices we have are for adventurers. But if you consider that there may be a local discount? Supply and demand? Of course factor in magic. I would say it is still a decent parity item. You can adjust the cost accordingly. Perhaps you equate the cost to $4 per ale (or 1 CP is $1)...that is still a reasonable price in reality and in game. And it would effectively double the salary value. :)

The reason I picked my value is the assumption that people live in poorer conditions in that setting than we do now relatively speaking. And it makes sense that people could find cheaper alcohol.

It's not really subjective, squalid is a level of living listed in the PHB as costing 1SP per day to maintain. I don't mean to come across as having an issue in particular with your way of equating things, I just think that you can't apply the pricing in the PHB to people as it doesn't make sense and contradicts itself. Though if you factor in magic (very setting specific), then if anything the cost of goods would go down and people would be less likely to drink ale vs water.

[Beleriphon]

On common vs fine clothes. Common clothes are Wal-Mart or any other large national chain of retailers. Fine clothes are bespoke suits.

[AdAstra]

Those aren't errors, the Wealth section of the PHB says a laborer can expect to earn 1 SP per day, the lifestyle expenses section uses the same term when referring to people living in 'modest' conditions. The fact that under the hirelings section the prices are effectively doubled from the wealth sections for both skilled and unskilled work is either an inconsistency within the book or can be seen as a what you pay vs what they actually receive (taxes) situation.

The distinction between skilled and unskilled labour is called out in the Wealth section as the difference between a laborer and a skilled (but not exceptional) artisan.

Adding child labour doesn't fix the issue either, a child could not be expected to earn the same amount as a grown adult, but the cost of a meal (per person) per day for modest is listed as 2 SP. Assuming that they family don't need to pay any dues, rent etc. an unskilled hireling would be eating their wages every day with no spare for clothing, tools etc. The prices just don't add up if you try and apply them to everyday people instead of adventurers, hell it even says that peasantry are unlikely to even use coins at all (rather bartering).

Again, I think the issue is that the prices presented are for adventurers, NOT the common people. This line might be of interest: "Only merchants, adventurers, and those offering professional services for hire commonly deal in coins." (PHB page 143 "Wealth")

The “Wealth” section specifically states “A silver piece buys a laborer's work for a day”. That’s one offhand mention in the book, one that has numerous explanations. Could just be a typo, could be that in order to buy someone’s labor for a day requires that they have no other work to do (since most people can’t just leave their job to do temp work), could be the tax thing you mentioned earlier. The higher prices for hirelings in the section specifically dedicated to such could be explained by the fact that adventurers are people who travel a lot and often get into dangerous situations, thus justifying a higher wage to compensate for the risks/costs of working with them. However, if I had to pick between the two wages, and I held the cost of living to be accurate to everyone, then I would pick the 2sp per day. It’s in the same section as the lifestyle costs, thus being far more pertinent than an offhand mention in a different section of the book.

A problem is that we’re comparing costs at inns and (presumably) rental housing, to the expenses of a normal person who usually does not have to pay for those things in the same way. As you said, the book is written on the assumption that you’re an adventurer. Normal people do not eat at an inn every day, they cook meals at their home, which they usually do not have to pay to stay in on a nightly basis.

What I take exception to is that you claim that the book “makes very little sense and self-contradicts” while outright explaining why it looks the way it looks! If the prices in the book are for adventurers, which they are, then it makes perfect sense that they would be higher than what normal people would pay! Rent and especially inn stays are more expensive than owning (in the long run). Buying prepared food every day is more expensive than cooking it yourself. I don’t see what doesn’t make sense in your frame of mind.

[HouseRules]

In Pre-3E 10 coins is 1 Avoirdupois Pound.
In Post-3E 50 coins is 1 Avoirdupois Pound.

Pre-3E
OD&D
Holmes D&D, BD&D (reprint)
AD&D, BX
Unearthed Arcana, BECMI
AD&D 2E, The New and Easy to Master D&D, The Classic (reprint of The New and Easy to Master) D&D
Player's Options/ DM's Options, RC/WotI

Post-3E
3E
4E
5E

The switch to Fiat currency is because Gold Standard has a tendency to have deflation. Population growth is always faster than gold discovery in the long run, and new gold mines only cause sudden high inflation closer to the gold mine, and overtime, the high inflation hits the entire economy until the gold mine decreases to a rate that is below population growth again.

Fiat currency has the tendency to inflate because of loan based economy. It is built upon refinancing loans without ever paying the loans back. This is how fiat currency stays floating. Governments never need to pay back loans in full, only needed to refinance those loans or pay the interest. So do big enough businesses that are considered too big to fail. But these are not enough to counter the tendency of natural deflation. Real world economies love to have a small deflation (-2% to 0%), but fiat currency love to have a small inflation (0% to 2%). Thus, all sorts of banking methods are to find potential victims to take on loans they are going to default, or other methods of unstable derivatives that makes a big tangle mess of the economy. Basically derivatives are gambling bets on whether a loan will default or not, or bets of derivatives will default or not.

[Dork_Forge]

The “Wealth” section specifically states “A silver piece buys a laborer's work for a day”. That’s one offhand mention in the book, one that has numerous explanations. Could just be a typo, could be that in order to buy someone’s labor for a day requires that they have no other work to do (since most people can’t just leave their job to do temp work), could be the tax thing you mentioned earlier. The higher prices for hirelings in the section specifically dedicated to such could be explained by the fact that adventurers are people who travel a lot and often get into dangerous situations, thus justifying a higher wage to compensate for the risks/costs of working with them. However, if I had to pick between the two wages, and I held the cost of living to be accurate to everyone, then I would pick the 2sp per day. It’s in the same section as the lifestyle costs, thus being far more pertinent than an offhand mention in a different section of the book.

A problem is that we’re comparing costs at inns and (presumably) rental housing, to the expenses of a normal person who usually does not have to pay for those things in the same way. As you said, the book is written on the assumption that you’re an adventurer. Normal people do not eat at an inn every day, they cook meals at their home, which they usually do not have to pay to stay in on a nightly basis.

What I take exception to is that you claim that the book “makes very little sense and self-contradicts” while outright explaining why it looks the way it looks! If the prices in the book are for adventurers, which they are, then it makes perfect sense that they would be higher than what normal people would pay! Rent and especially inn stays are more expensive than owning (in the long run). Buying prepared food every day is more expensive than cooking it yourself. I don’t see what doesn’t make sense in your frame of mind.

You could very well be right, that the hireling section is higher because they're expected to travel with the adventurers and deal with dangerous conditions, at which point they'd be lodging and eating as adventurers (not even getting into the cost of expenses for clothes and tools used in their service). Though I don't see your point on food really, I don't consider a loaf of bread or hunk of cheese a prepared meal, and that's what the prices are for when they're actually specific. You seem to treat what's written in the Wealth section as "offhand comments", when it's a section with the sole purpose of giving us a sense of what money is like (and buys) within the assumed default settings. You made a case that the 2sp hireling price could even be a laborer with some skill, but the services section says: "Skilled hirelings include anyone hired to perform a service that involves a proficiency (including weapon, tool, or skill.)" So it's safe to assume that 2sp is if you have nothing to really offer besides time and completely unskilled labour.

The actual problem is that most 'normal' people in that kind of setting have no use for coin and are probably farmers to some extent and I stand by that if you try and apply pricing to npcs (like this entire thread is about...) then the book doesn't make any sense and self contradicts (two prices for laborers, unlikely that it's a typo, is a contradiction regardless whether you regard it as offhand).

Dnd doesn't really offer anything of a realistic economy to base a comparison off of outside of saying that the vast majority of people simply don't trade in coins (which at least would be closer to historically accurate).

[Bjarkmundur]

I'm not personally a fan of the current economy (pretty much anywhere), so I simply make the assumption that 60gp is enough to pay living expenses for the average middle class person, with various amount of money to spare, and worked my way from there. I don't make any expections for multiple people per househould. Too much realism is messy, but consistency is good to help immerse your players.

Sane magic item prices seem to have a similar assumption, since the prices are low for things that are regularly sold and bought. In my game I have 30gp living expenses for a single month and a 5gp guild membership, meaning that working a skilled trade yields 25gp spending mone each month.

This has helped a lot to ground currency in my game, and after 5 sessions my players now have a good sense of the value of money.

This would mean that for most people 30gp is enough to pay rent, taxes and food for the month, which really gives you a sense for how much everything else costs in comparison.

- This is all based on the 2gp a day for a skilled laborer and the 30gp a month for a modest lifestyle from the DMG.

I think that would make Kane0's pretty accurate. I don't use silver in my game, everything under 1gp (50 bucks) is just pocket change. It might not be in the real life, but in the narrative fantasy world everything under 50 bucks is pretty handwave-able.

This is further hammer home in my game where city markets don't sell anything commercially over 400gp, and smaller markets have their own cap (shown in my houserule document). This means that everything over 2k$ needs to be commissioned or in other ways specially delivered. This makes sense for tailor made items like half-plate and full plate. You don't buy these off the shelf, you need to have a blacksmith make one specifically for you, since it needs to fit (at least mostly fit)

[Sigreid]

I think part of what some of you may be overlooking is the cost of someone else doing it. Unskilled laborers are probably getting their living at a discount rate because they cook their own meals and make their own tools and clothes as much as possible. In a less technologically advanced society it's still pretty common for families to spin their own wool and weave their own fabrics. A couple of chickens aren't dinner for tonight's table, they're eggs for many meals, etc.

[MikeRoxTheBoat]

I'll have to go scrounging around for some of the old threads where people did extensive analysis of this. I think the most detailed one I looked at pinned it at a gold being equal to about $20. I know before that I just used the 1 gold = $100, which made some things wildly high in value, but made a good representation of how little gold most people should've been carrying around.

[Laserlight]

You really can't convert D&Dconomy to Plausible Economy without a great deal of effort. The simplest is probably to say 1gp = $100, which is kinda sorta vaguely in the right order of magnitude if you don't push it too hard.

[Diego]

Alternately, according to the PHB 50gp weighs a pound. That makes 1gp right around 9 grams. Gold is 47 dollars per gram so 1gp ~ $400

[Willie the Duck]

Dnd doesn't really offer anything of a realistic economy to base a comparison off of

That's pretty much it in a nutshell. The equipment section, in particular, is designed around making it easy and playable for PCs, not for having an internally consistent economy. At most, it will make clear what a PC considers a luxury good, a reasonable splurge, high or low living, etc. The creates problems when you have to figure out what a bartender would consider healthy tip, how much a farmer would consider fair compensation if your actions accidentally ruin their crops, or other incidental things that would rely on what non-PCs consider a little or a lot of money.

[ZorroGames]

Back when the 0D&D books came out the explanation about costs was that the items were priced like in the Gold Rush Days in the USA (California, Alaska, etc.,) where brutal supply and demand capitalism drove prices in the Gold Rush areas sky high.

[RickAllison]

I'll look at some income in terms of Xanathar's Work activity, because that's fun. This I think is a good measure for the average person. They aren't getting paid X amount, they are getting or producing goods sufficient to maintain such a lifestyle. I would note that for most laborers, it's more difficult to really translate this back into gold. They could probably extend a good week out (such as keeping a modest lifestyle during a good week so you can stay modest during a bad roll-week), but the amount of goods they have to pawn off just aren't enough to really interest a merchant.

For a truly unksilled, itinerant laborer (+0 modifier), this means they are very dependent on the luck of the draw. They've got a 0.45 chance of a poor lifestyle (2 sp), 0.25 for a modest (1 gp), and a 0.3 for a comfortable (2 gp). That comes out to just under an average modest lifestyle (0.94 expected value); a unskilled laborer will have bad times where food is stretched thin, but if they aren't greedy turning plentiful times, they will usually be okay. If they have a family (say, a family of four), that average lifestyle then plummets down to just above poor. A breadwinner can help their family get by, but it will be close (although they will be able to save some money if they are living a poor lifestyle week to week).

Someone who is slightly above average (12 ability score) in the task can consistently maintain a modest lifestyle while saving up a little for the future, and they now gain access to the chance to really wow someone and gain a windfall of 25 gp; this can make a significant difference in a person's livelihood, letting them invest in tools or such that might help them improve their lot in life, or really save up for times where work is bad. Their expected value will be 1.21 g per day, they can maintain a modest lifestyle and still build up a nest egg.

Go up to a +2 modifier (skilled or a natural 14) and that rises to 1.48. A +3 (12 and skilled) nets you 1.85 gp. A +4, someone who is both naturally talented and skilled at their job, breaks them over to 2.21 expected value. Once a character has either a skill or some natural talent to leverage, their earning potential skyrockets. Once you can break into that final income tier, you can start seriously saving up money to learn a tool, or invest in your future comfort. And each additional modifier from that point is huge because it increases your earning potential by 0.38 gp daily because you are trading out an effective value of 1 copper (0.05*2 sp) for a value of just shy of 38 coppers (0.05*2 gp + 0.05*25 gp/7).

Assumptions for the expected value are that it follows the real-world example of the 5-day workweek in a 7-day week, so the daily value of the 25-gp windfall is divided by 7.

[Kane0]

Back when the 0D&D books came out the explanation about costs was that the items were priced like in the Gold Rush Days in the USA (California, Alaska, etc.,) where brutal supply and demand capitalism drove prices in the Gold Rush areas sky high.

You have to admit, the wild west mentality fits really well with most D&D groups.

Player: "How much is that?"
Shopkeep: "How much you got?"
Player: ...
*Both draw blades*

[Christian]

IMO, what makes the most sense is to compare currency item ratios, since it's extremely difficult to compare costs & prices across eras and universes. If you look at the most commonly used items of currency across cultures, you see approximately two orders of magnitude between the smallest and the most common daily used items of currency, and one more order of magnitude to the largest. Eg:




Small
Common
Large


US
$0.05/$0.10*
$5/$10/$20
$50/$100


Pre-decimal British
farthing/penny (4 farthings)
shilling (48 farthings or 12 pence)
crown (5 s)/sovereign (20 s)



*note: I excluded the $0.01 one cent coin. 'Take a penny/leave a penny' cups are strong evidence that this isn't actually a useful item of currency, but rather a nuisance coin.

D&D fits well into this structure, with a 1:1000 ratio between the copper piece and the platinum piece. I imagine a copper piece as a dime, a silver as a dollar, a gold piece as a $10 bill, and a platinum as a $100. It really has to be this way--if a gold piece were equivalent to a $100, then (a) there wouldn't be any real need for a platinum, as transactions of that size just wouldn't be handled in currency, and (b) there's be a need for a 'small change' coin smaller than the copper piece, and there's clearly not.

And yes, some prices and costs seem weird with these numbers. Common laborer wages are in the $1 to $2 range per day, and this is a (barely) living wage given food, clothing, and lodging costs. But that's not unreasonable--unskilled labor wages and basic living costs are low in a low-tech environment like this. In fact, these are similar to what we see today in relatively undeveloped regions (the so-called 'Third World').

[RickAllison]

The conversion ratios will be severely skewed depending on which items you compare. A telescope in D&D, for example, is ridiculously expensive because the magnifying lenses have to be hand-ground to exact specifications, and it's a time-consuming and delicate process. Meanwhile a spyglass of that quality can be mass-produced nowadays.

So to get a bit of a better idea, I suggest looking at medieval prices in our world, I'll start with this site (http://medieval.ucdavis.edu/120D/Money.html). One pound is 20 shillings, one shilling is 12 pence.

Let's start with alcohol, because that's fun. Ale ranged at 0.75-1.5 pence per gallon, compared to 2 sp, 0.38-0.75 d/sp or 0.31-0.63 s/gp. Cheap wine was 3-4 pence per gallon compared to 2 sp, while fine wine was 8-10 pence/gallon compared to 10 gp for 1-1/2 pints, or 53.3 gp for a gallon. Apparently either D&D ale is expensive or its cheap wine is really cheap, but its fine wine is incredibly expensive relative to medieval prices (which are for the best bottles in London).

How about some livestock? 2 cp for one chicken compared to 1 pence for 2 chickens, 0.25 d/cp or 2.08 s/gp (as noted before, chickens are an outlier here). 2 gp for one sheep compared to 1 shilling and 5 pence, 0.71 s/gp. 3 gp for one pig compared to 2-3 shillings, 0.67-1 s/gp. 10 gp for a cow compared to 6-10 shillings, 0.6-1 s/gp. 15 gp for an ox compared to 13 shillings and 1.25 pence, 0.87 s/gp.

Other trade goods? Saffron is 12-15 s per 15 gp, 0.8-1 s/gp. Silk is 10-12 s per 10 gp, 1-1.2 s/gp.

Travel goods! Chariot is 8 pounds per 250 gp, or 0.64 s/gp (but we could abstract this as D&D removing maintenance costs). An iron-bound cart is 4 s per 15 gp, or 0.27 s/gp.

Armor! Chainmail is 100s per 75 gp, or 1.33 s/gp. For plate, total armor owned by a knight seems appropriate, coming to 16L 6s 8d per 1500 gp, or 0.22 s/gp. Merchant's armor, maybe leather, was 5s per 10 gp or 0.5 s/gp. The shield (or target) is 30s per 10 gp, or 3 s/gp, which is really high. Then again, that shield might be a bit more than the one we have in 5e.

[firelistener]

Really good thread, OP. And I like the original abstraction by ale price.

[JackPhoenix]

I think part of what some of you may be overlooking is the cost of someone else doing it. Unskilled laborers are probably getting their living at a discount rate because they cook their own meals and make their own tools and clothes as much as possible. In a less technologically advanced society it's still pretty common for families to spin their own wool and weave their own fabrics. A couple of chickens aren't dinner for tonight's table, they're eggs for many meals, etc.

This is explicitly the case: "The expenses and lifestyles described here assume that you are spending your time between adventures in town, availing yourself of whatever services you can afford—paying for food and shelter, paying townspeople to sharpen your sword and repair your armor, and so on."

[Wizard_Lizard]

This is explicitly the case: "The expenses and lifestyles described here assume that you are spending your time between adventures in town, availing yourself of whatever services you can afford—paying for food and shelter, paying townspeople to sharpen your sword and repair your armor, and so on."

unskilled labouers don't need people to sharpen their swords, because they don't have any.

[JackPhoenix]

unskilled labouers don't need people to sharpen their swords, because they don't have any.

Which means their lifestyle expense is less than 2sp adventurers pay to maintain poor living standards. Which is exactly the point.

[jjordan]

My take on the subject is in this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?584647-Economics&highlight=economics). Going on the basis of a pseudo-Medieval design. I approached the issue from the standpoint of the actual value of gold on the 14th Century and wages and costs in the same time period. My results are generally the same.

Lessons learned from my little exercise:
-Poverty rots.
-Poverty was incredibly widespread.
-Most people seem to have lived on the razors edge of financial security. Even a master craftsman could be destitute after a couple of weeks without work.

While I didn't adopt all my findings wholesale it certainly informed some of my world-building decisions.

[HouseRules]

unskilled labouers don't need people to sharpen their swords, because they don't have any.

They still need to sharpen their Kitchen Knife at 20 degree angle.