Has anyone ever done an overhaul of the D&D Economy?

[altpersona]

during the era where Jesus ran around a gold coin could only buy thirty-two dead sparrows

While I appreciate the detailed answer, this part of it is not correct. Two sparrows could be purchased for an as, with 16 asses in a denarius, which was a silver coin. The gold coin (aureus) was worth twenty-five denarii, and thus could purchase 800 sparrows.

so snap 

[awaken_D_M_golem]

  ... so

edit
2 sparrows = 1 donkey copper piece
16 donkeys copper pieces = 1 silver piece
25 silver pieces = 1 gold piece

Donkeys can be explained by massive inflation and/or the over-printing of money ... edit --- via gold tricks even being used by the npcs.
Gold can be explained by too many npcs + pcs going out and making serious treasure, flooding the local markets ... something akin to Mansa Musa showing up in the Middle East with more gold than ever existed before in the history of the world.

Maybe the over-printing of money, is the seed gift at the start of every npc + pc's career.
Npcs that you can kill, have Walking Around money.
Npcs that mostly you can't kill or won't be killing, have Net Worths.

There's some local money supply (roughly the equivalent to "M1" ).
There's some sort of local transaction economy, that on occasion needs
Punpun to swoop in with piles of wishes, to straighten out the kinked up money flows.

the Price To Earnings ratio of each individual commoner
(which assumes something like a distasteful serf/slave valuation)
is a massive Price Fixing / Collusion.
Luckily punpun fixes this too.

[Maelphaxerazz]

... so
2 sparrows = 1 donkey

aDMg, I know you are just being yourself right now, but the "as" was a copper coin, not an animal. 

[awaken_D_M_golem]

Oops my bad.

I should paraphrase president Clinton :  It depends on what the meaning of @ss is.  Oh you said As, well that too.
<edited my post above>

[SorO_Lost]

While I appreciate the detailed answer, this part of it is not correct. Two sparrows could be purchased for an as, with 16 asses in a denarius, which was a silver coin. The gold coin (aureus) was worth twenty-five denarii, and thus could purchase 800 sparrows.

Ahh I thought a denarius was gold.

Repoking into the subject, already wiped history, and my new search phase turned up a better hit.

Code: [Select]

The Romans in BC24 standardized their coinage and this included gold
coins. The table was prepared for Roman Britain, but the relationship
of the values would have been similar for Judea. So from this you can
see that 1 gold aureus equalled 25 silver denarius (If the table have
not formatted properly, please refer to the web site.)
aureus denarius sestertius dupondius as semis quadrans
(gold) (silver) (brass) (brass) (copper) (brass) (copper)
     1       25     100      200    400     800    1600
              1       4        8     16      32      64
                      1        2      4       8      16
                               1      2       4       8
                                      1       2       4
                                              1       2

[Maelphaxerazz]

Further, my equation earlier didn't take into account that while two sparrows are one as, you can get five for two (buy four sparrows, get one free!). At that price, one gold coin would get you one thousand sparrows.

[Chemus]

The comments in these two comics fits rather nicely in this ...discussion.

(click to show/hide)

Haggling with traders is a time-honoured tradition in roleplaying games. The problem is that the laws of supply and demand get warped by the singular and unusual circumstances of a one-off transaction taking place without an effective larger economy.

Many packaged adventures state that in the specific village on the edge of danger where the adventures find themselves, prices are inflated and run at 2 to 10 times or more the standard prices listed in the rule books, and that the villagers won't lower their prices. This is a rough cut at the idea that adventuring supplies are more expensive where they are most needed, but the rigidity of the rule is unrealistically inflexible.

For any individual transaction, it's possible for the seller to hold out only as far as the buyer is willing to entertain the exchange. If you don't really need a new sword, there's no chance you'll pay 10 times the greater market value for one. On the other hand, if you've lost your weapon and absolutely must have a new one, you'll pay whatever it takes, and the seller - if aware of this situation - can hold out for much more.

But usually the seller isn't aware of how desperate the buyer is, so needs to set an initial price somewhat higher than what they would actually accept. And thus begins the dance of haggling. The lowest acceptable selling price is determined by outside market forces, of which traders would only be aware of inasmuch as they determine the general environment and gut feeling for the "fair price".

In short, it's fine to set a "fair price" that the traders are willing to accept, and have it be inflated due to low supply or high demand. But the traders should always aim higher, and be open to negotiation down to the fair price. And if they've had a poor day and need to make a sale, sometimes they can even go a bit lower. Just make sure to accompany it with appropriate lamentations about the trader's starving children.

(click to show/hide)

A market economy operates in the real world because of the complex interactions of many people, all of whom have their own best interests at heart. It can be difficult simulating this in a roleplaying game world, especially if you don't have a degree in economic theory. Which is why game world economics tend to be simplistic and not particularly realistic.

But you know, that's okay, as long as none of your players have degrees in economic theory.

(Or if one of them does, and complains about it, you can get them to create rules for how the economy works.)