D&D gold cheaper than silver

[mindstalk]

An ancient Greek trireme (crew 200 plus some marines, so closest to an Expert Set Large Galley though meant for war) cost 6000-12,000 drachmae to build, and 6000 drachmae a month to pay crew. A drachma was 4.3 grams of silver and a good day's wage, so sort of like a silver piece except 1/10th the weight and maybe more valuable.

(Old D&D coins were 1/10th of a pound, or 45 grams. 3e went to 1/50th, or 9 grams. US quarters and nickels are about 5 grams.)

3e galleys cost 30,000 GP, plus 8,000 for a ram and castles. I'm not sure if ancient galleys had castles but they sure had rams. Ignoring the 8,000, and using 10,000 drachmae for a trireme for a round number, the D&D 3e galley takes 3x as many coins, which weigh twice as much, and are gold instead of silver. So 3e gold is 1/6 the value of Attic silver.

Older editions were even worse, but I don't know how many GP their galleys cost. Labyrinth Lord, which is a Basic/Expert clone, says 32,000 GP for a large galley with 180 rowers, and uses the 1/10 lb coins, so LL gold is 1/30th the value of Attic silver.

Granted the Expert set said of itself "like the Renaissance without printing press or gunpowder" and the Renaissance had seen a fair bit of inflation (I'm guessing new European mines in the 1300s, from price lists I've seen) and was about to see a lot more (American mines), but still...

Comments

[ironyoxide]

I vaguely remember something in 1979-era AD&D about the prices being inflated because of all the adventurers pulling gold out of the dungeons and putting it into the economy. The books specifically compared the situation to the Alaskan Gold Rush.

Which doesn't make much sense for ships, because by the time any reasonable character is investing in one, they're "name" level, and more or less rulers of fairly settled areas, but, eh.

[mindstalk]

Yeah, prices can get insane in a gold rush, or in Potosi (giant mountain of silver and no farms), but one you start producing "wilderness adventures" and "Name level strongholds" you should probably acknowledge regional variation in prices... something they haven't done in 5+ editions, AFAIK.