Gold pieces could be ruining your game.
I’m trying my best to implement a silver coin based economy for my various fantasy TTRPG settings. I think too much love is given to gold coin. Or at least gold is too prevalent in a lot of fantasy games.
If you go back to ye olden days of fantasy gaming, back when AD&D roamed the Earth on the back of funky colored disco dinosaurs, peasants earned their wages in Copper pieces. Copper! Not gold, not silver, but lowly Copper Pieces! Unfortunately, and I’ll never understand why Gary and company never seemed to adjust for this, it tends to destabilize and small hamlet or village the Player Characters wander into.
Let’s take a look at this article. I break down the copper-silver-gold conversions and how much a living wage was considered in Medieval England circa 1300. It’s comparable to what I’ve been saying.
I also noticed while writing this article that Dragonbane (sigh) is on a more gold-oriented standard, but I find it odd that Copper and Silver coins are more common as treasure. It puts a whole new spin on keeping the characters poor if you run things straight out of the book. I’m planning to rebuild and reorganize the gear and goods in the Dragonbane core rulebook to more closely match the economy I want to set up for my campaign world.
Wealthy landowners and other nobility.
Those who mint the gold and make the rules pretty much control everything in civilized areas of a medieval fantasy world. Rebellions start when the royal coffers run dry because it turns out the servants, guards, military, and everyone else working for said nobility like to get paid. That’s why even in smaller settlements much of the local activity tends revolve around the manor house or local lord’s keep.
The peasantry, otherwise known as non-landowners, had few other choices but to work for the local lord unless they wanted to move on. Moving on would have been difficult due to family ties among other reasons. Otherwise, the rest of the townsfolk who weren’t clergy, farmers, tradesmen, or maybe military were tied to the local lord. Of course many local lords collected taxes from the people living on their land so they could in turn feed the royal coffers of whomever was above them.
Pence on the Silver.
Most fantasy games follow the formula of 10 Copper = 1 Silver. 10 Silver = 1 Gold. Most games that aren’t Dungeons & Dragons don’t use Electrum or Platinum. By my estimation, gold should be rarer and harder to come by than silver or copper in terms of metal. Non-humans might have better access to gold because of the time it would take to find gold and precious gemstones. Humans? They don’t have the luxury of time with their comparatively short lifespans.
Most of the time I think it would be more logical to see the peasantry paid in Copper Pieces (CP) or possibly Silver Pieces (SP.) That’s not to say they would never see gold, but it would be less common. Big ticket items such as horses, armor, swords, and land would likely sell for gold or hundreds of silver. Otherwise, a chicken might cost a whole CP or two.
Once nobles are out of the picture, barter would be far more likely between people. The “price” of goods and services between two people might depend entirely on an agreed-upon value. A handful of candlesticks might be worth a pair of shoes, which then would be traded for a chicken. Or if chickens were scarce, maybe a week’s worth of eggs shared with the farmer’s family.
Many European communities had communal arrangements for the grist mill, livestock facilities and even ovens or kilns. Capitalism didn’t really catch on full swing until a bit later in the real world. A free market economy would have seemed strange to most back then.
But this is Western/European medieval fantasy we’re talking about. Towns are larger. Capitalism is a thing. Most towns have an elected mayor instead of a local baron running everything. There are banks and exchequers available. Inns are more like modern hotels than a common room and a bowl of swill for 2 SP per night. (Maybe three if you want a bed and fresh linens. Otherwise there’s room in the barn.)
Cognitive dissonance settled in for me as a Game Master.
I’m not espousing Socialism or Communism or anything of the sort. Feudal systems work fine in most of my fantasy settings. This new world has some small villages and hamlets where we see a different paradigm, but that’s meant to seem more alien. I want players to realize there is more to fantasy than a modern looking Gold Piece (GP) economy.
In other games and older rulesets, a peasant torchbearer made 2 CP per day on average. A porter might make 2-3 per day. The irony here is that they might be shlepping some adventurer’s gold out of the dungeon. Thousands upon thousands of GP and these poor peasants are getting paid two copper per day… Hmm. I think I know what my response to that would be as a person.
Hopefully most PCs will be more reasonable than that and pay their poor hirelings a reasonable wage. But then that creates a new dilemma. What happens when Barney the Torchbearer gets back to town with a bag full of silver coins? Pretty soon one adventuring party and their hirelings have driven the price of basic goods and services through the roof! Then poor Homer G Peasant on the other side of town who just tends sheep for a living is in big trouble.
Suddenly everybody wants to work for an adventuring party and no one wants to farm turnips or tend sheep any more. Half the town has decided to become adventurers. (That’s how Zero Level funnels happen in Dungeon Crawl Classics and Shadowdark.) Worse yet, various criminal enterprises start up around all this gold where none previously existed. Then the local nobility starts getting concerned.
Where does it end?
That’s why I prefer to stick to the Dragonbane item cards where there might be a bag of Copper Coins or maybe Silver Coins. Magic items are super rare in Dragonbane as far as I’m concerned. Hence the notion of a low magic campaign. Most townsfolk charge anywhere from a few copper to a dozen silver depending on the product. GP are a rare sight, and many PCs might wish to wait to find a larger town or city to try to spend that kind of money. Otherwise the innkeeper might have to offer up 5SP and a chicken in change.
When ale costs 2CP and the locals have had a rough harvest, maybe the local tavern only rakes in 6 SP in a day total before the mighty adventurers come to town. If all the PCs have been finding are CP and SP, the odds of destabilizing the entire town drop dramatically. There aren’t always banks or exchequers in my fantasy towns. It’s just a thing with me. So if an establishment doesn’t have change, the PCs either have to overpay the merchant/vendor or wait until they have change.
I also prefer to keep the PCs shopping short and to the point. They can add or subtract a whole silver and copper amount from their overall funds a lot easier than wasting a whole session haggling over apples at the fruit stand. They can tip the barmaid and settle up their carousing debts a lot easier in silver and copper, too. Flashing gold around the gambling establishment might lead to unwanted encounters with a local cutpurse.
Please do what works best for you as a Game Master and your group. What works for me at my table may not work for yours and vice versa. The main focus is to have fun. There is no right or wrong way to roleplay.
On that cheerful note, I’ll say what I always say. If you like the GP standard and that’s what works in your game, great. If you want to scale back to silver, it might be worth a try. Either way, do what works best for you and your players. Have fun!
Thank you for being here with me today. I appreciate you. Keep it real, but please strive for positivity, too. Please embrace the things that bring you the most joy in your life.
Jeff's Game Box 