One is Silver and the other Gold

Let’s talk about the humble gold piece. And the silver piece.

Before I sat down to write this I thought “Didn’t I already write about it?” I scanned the archives and found that I didn’t, but there was an unpublished draft post called “One is Silver and the Other Gold,” from February, 2015. Other than the title, and some notes, there wasn’t much in that draft. So let me steal the title and finish it, almost 6 years later.

What are we talking about?

D&D envisions a medieval fantasy world where the primary form of currency is coins of precious metals. The most common coins are copper pieces (c.p.), silver pieces (s.p.), and the gold piece (g.p.). The gold piece is far and away the most common one mentioned.

In modern versions of the game, 1 g.p. is worth 10 s.p. or 100 c.p. In older versions 1 g.p. is worth 20 s.p. or 200 c.p.

But what does that mean? How much are these coins really worth to the people living in the game world? How can we equate that to our modern mind?

We’re going to try to translate the coins into modern dollar equivalents. We’re going to try 3 different ways, and at the end we’ll average them.

Another Day, Another Dollar

It’s very common in D&D-like fantasy games that an unskilled laborer earns 1 s.p. per day. My guess is that the original rule were based on an popular iron-aged text.

Rule/Quote	Book	Game	Year
Untrained Hireling: 1 s.p./day	Equipment Emporium	Basic Fantasy	2010
Iron age average wage: 1 sp/day1	…and a 10-Foot Pole	Rolemaster  (Generic)	1999
Bearer/porter wage: 1 s.p./day	Dungeon Masters Guide	Advanced Dungeons & Dragons	1979
“He agreed to pay them the regular wage, a silver coin2 a day, and sent them to work in his vineyard.”	Gospel of Matthew	—	75

So that’s our reference point. Let’s compare the daily wages of an unskilled worker from the game world to our modern world.

Method 1: Federal Minimum Wage

According to the United States government, the minimum wage in 2020 is $7.25/hour. A full day’s wages therefore is $7.25/hour × 8 hours = $58.

By this reckoning, 1 s.p. = $58.

Method 2: Living Wage

The “Fight for $15” movement says that workers need $15/hour in order to make a “living wage.” At this rate, a day’s wages would be $15/hour × 8 hours = $120.

So 1 s.p. = $120.

Method 3: Federal Poverty Guidelines (Single)

The U.S. government also publishes a set of “poverty guidelines”. According to these guidelines, a single person needs to make at least $12,760/year to not be considered “living in poverty.”

A year has 365 days, but taking the modern “5 day work week” into account, we can assume that average work works about 260 days/year.

$12,760 ÷ 260 days means that 1 s.p. equals $49.08.

Method 4: Federal Poverty Guidelines (Family)

I think it’s reasonable to argue that the average laborer had a family to support. Let’s say the family was seven people: that’s two adults and five children.

For a family of seven, the federal government says that the poverty level is $39,640. Using the same math as above, we get 1 s.p. = $152.46.

Putting it Together

Averaging the values above we get $94.89. Let’s round it up to an nice even $100. That means that in the fantasy world, NPCs should think about 1 silver piece the same way we think about $100. That also means that 1 gold piece should be thought of as $1,000.³ It also means that 1 cooper piece is about $10.

Ridiculous Results

Now that we know how to translate the fantasy prices into money values that we can relate to, we soon discover that the prices given in various rulebooks are ridiculous. Consider the following table. The items come from Basic Fantasy’s Equipment Emporium, but I could have easily picked up the D&D Player’s Handbook or almost any other book.

Drink	Serving	Given Price	Equivalent Price
Small Beer / Applejack	pint	5 cp	$50
Beer, common	pint	5 cp	$50
Beer, quality	pint	2 sp	$200
Ale / Cider, common	pint	1 sp	$100
Ale / Cider, quality	pint	4 sp	$400
Ale / Cider, exceptional	pint	1 gp	$1,000
Mead, common	pint	1 sp	$100
Mead, quality	pint	4 sp	$400
Wine, common	glass	2 sp	$200
Wine, quality	glass	1 gp	$1,000
Wine, exceptional	glass	min 6 gp	$6,000

So someone walks into a tavern to buy a beer, and it costs then $50 each.

Other examples: A flannel blanket costs $2,000. A laborer would need to work for a full month buying food or paying rent in order to buy a blanket.

A knapsack costs $3,000.

A set of suspenders–that kind that hold up your britches–is $700.

A deck of cards: $5,000. This pretty much guarantees that no commoner knows card games. It also eliminates that poor old women who uses cards to divine fortunes at the edge of town.

How to Fix It

I don’t know.

The cause of the problem is that “You find 1,000 gold pieces” sound more exciting than saying “The dragon was sitting on his treasure of 10 gold pieces.” If we want to throw money at the players left and right, then the prices of things have to be higher to compensate. On the other hand, if you don’t throw money at the players, they won’t feel that they’re succeeding and will get frustrated.

Maybe the answer is just to increase the wages of the laborer and other NPCs? If we say the laborer makes 1 g.p. per day, then a beer costs $5 instead of $50, and that sounds about right. The knapsack would cost $300, which is close to what I paid for my backpack for the Camino. The deck of cards is still a ridiculous $500.

That might be a good first step. Do you have any ideas?

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1. The “low class” worker gets paid less in cash, but the job includes lodging/rent, so it probably balances out.↩

2. This is from the Good News Translation, which was popular when D&D was being written. Other translations use the word “penny” or “shilling.” The actual word is “δηναρίου” (denarius), which was a Roman silver coin, about the size of a dime.↩

3. In the original rules gold pieces were worth 20 silver pieces. It was eventually changed for easier play, but by this reckoning 1 gold piece is worth $2,000 to the characters.↩