It’s Blog Friday (Cyber Blogday?), so I thought I’d talk about gold and why I hate it.

In the medieval period the main currency was the gold nomisma, about 5 grams of pure gold, and in the early modern period the sovereign was about 15 grams (this is all according to wikipedia, I ain’t no expert). That means the average full time working person in my country would be earning about 3 sovereign per week, before tax. You know what I have almost never in my life carried around in my purse? A whole week’s wages. From the PHB ‘24 (it was handy because I reviewed it the other week), a violin costs 30 GP, which is about $21 000. A bucket cost 5CP, or $35. A week’s food cost 5SP, which is $350, which is even absurd in the current economic climate. A single beer costs $30. I know it’s a game, and game economies aren’t supposed to be realistic, but all of this is patently absurd.

The solution, aside from “fix the equipment prices”, I think is pretty simple. Silver coins, which have been the standard coin for about 500 years for actual use. There were about 20 shillings (or, apparently testoons which is a term I love) to the pound (the sovereign technically wasn’t the name of the currency, a sovereign was worth 1 pound), so a shilling is worth about 5CP or half an SP in D&D speak. So a beer is about a shilling. A violin is about 4000 shillings — still a lot, but…

…it’s in the ball park. Now, does comparing to capitalistic hell pricing make sense for an elfgame? Of course not. But what I really want is an economy that makes sense to me, so I understand the kind of cash involved in what is essentially a game of theft. Now, I can say, keeping in mind there were 12 (sigh) pennies to a shilling, that a penny is worth about $3. And I can totally wing daily expenses by that.

So, to keep things neater let’s call a penny $4, a shilling $40, and a sovereign $800. A shilling was about 5g — silver is lighter than gold — so a purse full of silver is only about 100 grams. But a small chest full of silver, about a foot in length, would fit about 20 000 shillings, which is about a metric ton.

[I’m not a math girl, but: Shilling is 23.5 mm * 1.2 mm, so shilling volume is π * (1.175 cm)^2 * 0.12 cm height ≈ 0.52 cm³. Chest: 30 cm * 20 cm * 15 cm = 9000 cm³, so 9,000 cm³ / 0.52 cm³ per shilling ≈ 17,307 shillings. A shilling is 5g: 5 * 17307 = 86 535g, 87.5kg or the roughly weight of the average adult male. Nobody’s carrying that comfortably.

Nobody’s carrying a chest full of sovereigns, though, if they’re the same size (they weren’t), it weighs 260kg for a small chest. That’s the same as grand piano or a polar bear, in a chest I can fit in my arms. And look, let’s say that in real life (because of air and friction and whatnot) half that number of coins fits in a chest. That’s still incredibly heavy, in fact a half full chest of silver shillings would be the average 1 repetition max for deadlift for women.

Anyway, based on that, to polish off a silly post, here’s the entire creative commons D&D equipment list, adjusted for real life money and for my imaginary currency:

I didn’t actually do any price rationalising here, I just literally converted based on the formula I mentioned above. You can see how weird and gamey some of the prices are, though, huh?

Happy Blog Friday! Other Blog Friday posts include Abstract Your Wealth, The Art of Bartering, Treasure & Downtime, Gold with Utility, and many more!

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