{"id":3330,"date":"2011-07-21T07:30:50","date_gmt":"2011-07-21T13:30:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/?p=3330"},"modified":"2011-07-21T05:21:03","modified_gmt":"2011-07-21T11:21:03","slug":"silver-or-gold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/silver-or-gold\/","title":{"rendered":"Wood and Silver or Iron and Gold? – Historical Inaccuracy in FRP, Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nThis is the second half of a two-part guest article by Phil McGregor. To anyone who doesn’t know who he is, check the brief bio at the bottom of the article.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Silver or Gold<\/h3>\n

The other thing I find really<\/em> interesting in almost all D&D descended\/inspired FRPs is the 1\/10th (45.4 grams* gold (or any other) coin that is the “standard”<\/em> by which all value is measured.
\n* assuming a standard [~454g] rather than an avoirdupois [~373g] pound.<\/em><\/p>\n

Now, to anyone who has any knowledge of history, or the history of economics, or indeed, of economics itself, this assumption is a surprising and unsupportable one… and, oh my, the problems that flow from it!<\/p>\n

This makes gold coins, as such, and, indeed, coinage in general<\/em>, almost worthless as a medium of exchange in your typical FRP game on a practical basis… assuming an average sort of character who can carry, say, 80 lbs (not unreasonably for a WW1\/WW2\/Modern grunt, so certainly realistic)… well, he has 800 gp, maximum, in walking around money.<\/p>\n

Or, consider it another way, that 75gp Bow (or Sword, if you took the point) mentioned in Wood or Iron<\/em><\/strong>, well, you need 1.25 pounds of gold to buy it.<\/p>\n

Hmmm. Current gold price is around US$1500-1600 per ounce.<\/em><\/p>\n

So, in something resembling (if you don’t look at it too closely) real purchasing power, that bow costs US$300-320,000 (assuming a standard pound, or US$22,500-24,000 if pound avoirdupois)… <\/p>\n

Sorry. Not even remotely believable.<\/p>\n

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Real Coins<\/h5>\n

So, what did historical<\/em> (western european) coins weigh?<\/p>\n

Well, the Romans typically coined gold at the rate of 72 coins per Roman pound (327g), making them about 4.54g apiece… around 1\/10th of what D&D and its descendants would have you believe.<\/p>\n

Roman silver coins varied, but 96 per pound was the late Republican\/early Imperial figure, for around 3.4 grams apiece… <\/p>\n

A Medieval silver Penny, English, was minted at the rate of 240 per pound (Troy), making them around 1.55g each, while a gold Sovereign massed 8.5g, and was worth ~392g (1.05 lbs avoirdupois) of silver.<\/p>\n

What Price A Longbow?<\/h5>\n

So, let’s look at that Bow again – 75gp is about 1.7 pounds avoirdupois, or more than US$30,000! Even worse than before, cost wise, but now, at least, you can carry around about 4272gp in your 80lb pack. So a slight<\/em> improvement.<\/p>\n

Of course, you’ll also note that 1 D&D gp is worth only 10 D&D silver<\/em> pieces. Typically a roman Denarius Aureus (aka a Solidus<\/em>) was worth at least<\/em> 20 silver denarii in late Republican\/Early Imperial times. And the gold Sovereign was worth 21 shillings, or 252 silver pennies, making gold worth around 45 times silver by weight.<\/p>\n

So, let’s try the Bow again. But this time, assume it is 75 silver <\/em> pieces. Which makes it worth 1.667 gp by the above ratio. Which makes an 8.5g gold coin worth US$730 or so in relative purchasing power.<\/p>\n

Better, but still way<\/em> over the odds for a chunk of wood, whereas that 15gp sword costs only US$146.<\/p>\n

Much<\/em> better, of course, if you assume the $146 Bow vs the $730 sword.<\/p>\n

Looking Beyond To The Wider World<\/h5>\n

What are some of the more obvious game related flow on problems from the economic tomfoolery of D&D and D&D descended or inspired games?<\/p>\n

Well, many of them attempt to get around the problem of Player Characters needing to carry around their portable wealth, er, portably<\/em>, by issuing higher value (but still 1\/10th pound, as often as not coins, such as Platinum<\/em> or they include gems as more or less standard and easily assessable means of exchange or some such.<\/p>\n

The problem with Platinum is that it is even more rare that gold. So rare that it is not mentioned in any European source until the middle of the 16th century AD – and then only as a native alloy with gold that could not be refined. In fact, Platinum was not reliably smeltable until the late 18th century AD.<\/p>\n

So, not likely as a coinage metal in a medieval analog world.<\/p>\n

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Gems? Not a sparkling solution.<\/h5>\n

Gems are even more problematic.<\/p>\n

See, before the 17th century AD gems were not<\/em> faceted, or, at best, had a single flat surface cut… they were either polished<\/em> or simply left raw. Their value was much<\/em> less, in absolute and relative terms, compared to bullion, than it is now… of course, faceting doesn’t require a lot of high tech tools, even today, so it is<\/em> possible to assume that an FRP world could<\/em> have faceting and that, therefore, the value of faceted gems relative to bullion would be something more like the modern relativities.<\/p>\n

The problem is, of course, that what we regard as the really valuable gems are really uncommon, and not easy, as often as not, to mine or find – unless you do it on an almost industrial scale. But that has its own problems – the only reason diamonds, for example, are worth more than a fraction of their actual price is because the DeBeers Cartel (and its supposed competitors) release only a fraction of yearly production for sale each year in one of the oldest and most successful price fixing operations in modern history!<\/p>\n

So while, yes, you could<\/em> use gems as a means of exchange you would have to bargain, and bargain hard, each time you wanted to “cash one in”<\/em>… and you’d have to haggle over the price of <\/em>each<\/em> and every<\/em> single one! Not a role playing experience most of us are interested in!<\/p>\n

So, where are we so far?<\/p>\n

Well, it should be obvious that 1\/10th pound coins are ridiculous. It should be equally obvious that prices for goods should be, at the very minimum, assumed to be in silver<\/em> coins rather than gold – and that gold should be worth a lot<\/em> more than 10 x 1\/10th pound silver pieces for a 1\/10th pound gold piece. This makes a direct conversion difficult, since there is no realistic way you can keep that 1-to-10 ratio.<\/p>\n

Still, converting all gp values to sp values is a start – and it makes carrying around a significant chunk of the PC’s wealth much<\/em> easier.<\/p>\n

Ah. If ’twere only that simple.<\/p>\n

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Piles Of Silver, Hoards of Gold<\/h5>\n

That’s where we get into the other<\/em> problem related to gold and silver in FRP games.<\/p>\n

There’s too damn much of it!<\/em> <\/p>\n

It should be obvious but, in case it isn’t, let me explain.<\/p>\n

Before the discovery of the New World, estimates on the total mined bullion stocks in the Old World are on the order of 5,000 tons of gold and 50,000 tons of Silver. The bullion stock of the New World was easily equal to that, eventually.<\/p>\n

Sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? Step back a minute. Medieval Europe had, at the height of its population, around 100 million people. Now, assume all<\/em> the Old World’s bullion was in Europe (it wasn’t, of course – India and China have been gold sinks since ancient times).<\/p>\n