What if Gold and Silver Prices Followed Dungeons and Dragons Rules?

And Why Adventurers Would Stay Home if D&D Gold Was Priced to 2020 Values

Fantasy Metals News January 13, 2020
By Alison Macdonald
D&D “Expert” at Bullion.Directory

Dungeons and Dragons, was once solely the domain of nerds and geeks. They were battling goblins and avoiding traps with a deftly rolled d20, whilst the regular folks played football, “hung out” and dated actual people.

I know, I was there with my AD&D Players Handbook, my set of special dice and a (really) badly painted lead figure.

We might have been laughed at but we loved what we did.

Thing is, something weird has happened. Dungeons and Dragons has become officially cool.

Part thanks to the success of Stranger Things and it’s obsession with the Great Game and part thanks to a growing number of outwardly-normal celebrities openly admitting to rolling their d20s – Dungeons and Dragons is back – and back in a big way!

YouTube has countless channels dedicated to it and they’re garnering a significant following, several with viewing figures in the MILLIONS. Streaming services are either showing or making at least half a dozen Dungeons and Dragons themed shows – plus there’s a big-budget film on it’s way. D&D has gone fully mainstream.

The end result of all this new-found buzz is that there are more people playing D&D regularly now, than in it’s 46 year history*.

But as both an original early-adopter (1981 – I was 11) a Dungeons and Dragons diehard, AND a self-confessed Gold Bug, I had a sudden and mildly worrying thought last night…

What if Dungeons and Dragons is giving it’s new fans the wrong idea about precious metals…
 

The Problem With the Value of Gold in Dungeons and Dragons

As any good nerd knows Dungeons and Dragons’ precious metals pricing is fairly simplistic. If you want to go about exchanging precious metals on a like for like basis, it will involve multiplication or division by 10.

You have one gold piece (or 1gp) and it’s worth the equivalent of ten silver pieces (10sp) or if you’re getting really fancy one tenth of a platinum piece (1/10pp).

The most common coin in circulation – that is the one where peasants and NPCs buy their daily mead, bread or strangely expensive rope, is the copper piece (cp)

1sp = 10cp, 1gp = 100cp and 1pp = 1000cp. Simple. The silver:gold ratio is a straightforward 10 to 1, fixed in stone – a dependable value.

Clearly there’s no fiat currency making the metal’s prices appear to swing wildly, so merchants, adventurers and chaotic evil monsters can set a steady and fixed value to literally everything.

But let’s for now leave this solid and dependable reality of D&D metals pricing behind. What would a D&D gold piece be worth if we ventured into true fantasy: today’s metal markets, priced in fiat currency?

First of all 1gp weights 0.333oz or 0.304 toz. (troy ounces)

Copper, silver and platinum pieces all weigh the same. It says so in the handbooks.

Assuming for a moment that a gold piece is made of pure 24k gold, then at today’s price 1gp is worth the princely sum of $471.32

By comparison the lowly copper piece is worth $0.06 at today’s $0.19 toz spot.

1sp (again using pure silver at today’s price) is worth a surprisingly low $6.03

A single platinum piece – supposedly the most sought-after of all D&D coinage – is only worth $324.67, or just over 2/3 the value of a gold piece.

Clearly those numbers don’t stack up in the world of D&D valuation.

D&D Money Ratios – But at 2020 Prices

Taking the coins to be part of a “gold dragon” standard with their values pegged to gold, then if a gold piece is worth $471.32 – a silver piece should be worth $47.13 and a platinum piece $4713.20.

In our world and at those ratios we’d be looking at a spot price per troy ounce of $155.03 for silver and $15,503.95 for platinum!

A joy for silver stackers if it were true – and with a five-figure value platinum would once again claim it’s title as “most precious”.

But alas our world doesn’t run on D&D rules. Either that or I just failed a perception check.

Let’s see how copper fares.

1cp in today’s USD prices would be worth $0.06 and yet if we were following d&d rules then it should be $15.50…

Quite a leap.
 

How Did Dungeons and Dragons Get Coin Values So Wrong?

Did it? Really? Was there ever a time in our history when gold and silver shared the Dungeons and Dragons ratio of 10:1?

Funnily enough, Ancient Egypt of 1000BC, enjoyed a 10:1 ratio silver to gold. As did the Greeks in 300BC, the Romans in 189BC and Constantine the Great who was known to like a little gold.

We were still enjoying a 10 to 1 ratio in the time of the Edict of Medina in 1497 AD, and Germany was fully on board with D&D’s precious metals pricing ratio in 1500AD.

No dragons, orcs or gibbering mouthers to contend with – just silver pegged to gold at 10 to 1.

In fact across many civilizations, gold and silver were exchangeable at a rate of 10 to 1 for almost 2500 years. It makes sense to have stability like this.

Then the ratio started to creep up slightly. First it was 11, 12, then 13… and on it rose.

The US Coinage Act of 1792 set the Silver Standard at 15:1

Then in 1834 Congress adjusted the silver-to-gold ratio from 15:1 to 16:1.

In 1862 for the first time, the US issued fiat money with no convertibility into silver, gold or any other metal, marking the beginning of the end for any reliable standard in metals pricing.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the country effectively abandoned the gold standard in 1933 before completely severing the link between the dollar and gold in 1971.

The reasons for this are all to do with the central banks and inflation – two very real monsters that the world Dungeons and Dragons has never had to contend with! Thanks to inflation, market manipulation, central banks’ printing of paper money and trillions upon trillions of dollars in unfunded debts we now have a silver to gold ratio of 85:1
 

Making Sense of D&D Money In 2020

So let’s get back to D&D money. And let’s make it work with TODAY’s debased, defrauded and paper-traded prices.

It’s probably easiest to start at the top with Dungeons and Dragon’s least common mainstream currency, the platinum piece. Weighing in at 0.304 troy ounces, lets say that the platinum piece – being the most valuable – is made from pure 24k platinum.

This would give a single platinum piece a USD equivalent price of $324.67 – quite a high value for a circulating coin, but not one that’s too far removed from our modern day world with it’s 500 Euro banknotes – and not too much to stop new-rich adventurers carrying a pouch full, with which to splash out on the latest +3 longsword.

For our gold coin, we need to arrive at an intrinsic value of $32.47 and so will have to debase it with base metals. Sadly the 1/3 oz 1gp coin can only contain 0.02 troy ounces of the good stuff. It might look shiny and golden but in our modern D&D coinage all that glisters is not necessarily gold.

Our silver piece, needs to have an intrinsic value of $3.24. Silver is currently $18.10 per troy ounce, so our silver piece can only contain 0.18 toz to maintain it’s value ratio to gold – making it a good and useable coin for daily use.

Finally for the peasant’s favorite, the copper piece, we’re needing a true value of only $0.32. Basically a D&D quarter. Unfortunately today copper is trading at $0.19 / toz which means that if the copper coin were to be made of pure copper it would need to weigh in at a hefty 1.68 toz, as opposed to 0.304.

While it’s not inconceivable to have a big heavy coin as the base unit of currency – our D&D coinsmiths are clear on one thing: that their copper coins weigh only 1/3oz or 0.304 toz.

To make the copper coin work in D&D’s 1:10:100 system, we’ll need to alloy in some silver to increase it’s intrinsic value – we’ll add 0.015 toz silver, mixed with 0.289 of copper.

So we end up with a faintly silvered copper coin, a partially silver “silver” piece, a slightly gold “gold” piece and a solid slice of purest platinum to top the lot.
 

So What Are Dungeons & Dragons Coins Worth?

Get ready with the drum roll. We have our modern Dungeons and Dragons coins, their dollar value tied to their fixed D&D gold standard 1000:100:10:1 and alloyed to work with metals prices in 2020:

1cp = $0.32, 1sp = $3.24, 1gp = $32.47 and 1pp = $324.67

Hardly worth going into the dungeon.

But then maybe it’s our broken financial system needs slaying…