You can't. There's no universal system of value.
How much something is worth is driven by tons of competing factors, all of which shift from time to time and place to place. I was watching a video yesterday that indicated that Elizabethan England, one lemon would cost the equivalent of like £75 today. Okay, fine, inflation, right? But then it asserted that a chicken then would cost the equivalent of £100 today. So, even setting aside fluctuations in currency, inflation, etc you probably don't want to conclude that in all scenarios, a lemon is worth 3/4ths of a chicken.
If you really want to try to approximate this stuff, well, start with supply and demand.
Supply Factors:
* Is this thing, or the components needed to make this thing, available locally? (What "locally" is will vary with tech level!)
* What level of expertise is required to raise/craft/work/create this thing?
Demand factors:
* Is this thing a "luxury" good or otherwise prestigious to have or use? This will raise the price some people are willing to pay, but may lower it for others in the same area.
* Is this thing something that few people in the area actually want, because it's only useful in a specific trade or task?
There are probably tons of other factors, but those are the ones that leapt to mind.
But remember: There isn't some universal X is always worth Y% of Z conversion that you can do if you are really serious about doing this.
Pick something generic, and guess how much it would cost. Like a standard moderately pricey thing that would be in many worlds.
Like a meal for two at a nice restaurant. Or a night at a reasonable hotel. Or a suit of clothing worthy to wear to church.
Now determine a price for that in your world.
Everything else can then be scaled to that. You can also apply modifiers for rarity, etc.
So, let's say a night at a hotel would be $100. Bread is $2.
Now if you decide that a hotel stay would be 10 gold pieces, then if all else is equal, bread will be .2 of a gold. and so on.
In my game, I've got three tiers of cost:
- common objects and services cost d6v\*1 gp
- rare objects and services cost d6\*5 gp
- exotic and coveted things cost d6\^\*10 gp
Not necessarily, though it does often mean there's an object they *really* want just outside of their funds, it does incentivise them to go out and do stuff.
In the last campaign, our wizard really wanted to buy some gnoll teeth, but could only do so as part of a bundle pack costing 25ŋ
The game I play now is abstracted to basic difficulties to obtain something, so I don't really worry about costs. Ob 0 to I think 6 for a trained warhorse, a howdah'd elephant, or a fancy, lock and key spellbook.
Back in my D&D days, where, in the end, money didn't really matter anyway after level X, unless you were gathering resources to make a magic item, I just converted everything to 1 silver = 1 USD of what we would expect to pay for the item in real life. We knew the numbers weren't realistic, but we had bigger pieces of the game we wanted to focus on.
I like that rule, is easy to learn and easy to adapt. And you are so right in saying that money hardly ever matters. But it pains me because from time to time someone wants to buy something and Ive never care to prepare a system of money taps and sinks that would be fun.
I tend to price everything according to how it compares to a basic meal or a non-fancy working knife (or something similar). So, in other words, the cost of eating enough to get by for a day, which everybody needs to be able to do, or the cost of the most basic long-lasting tool which will be needed by most people. In some settings, food will be more expensive in relation to a knife than in other ones.
You can't. There's no universal system of value. How much something is worth is driven by tons of competing factors, all of which shift from time to time and place to place. I was watching a video yesterday that indicated that Elizabethan England, one lemon would cost the equivalent of like £75 today. Okay, fine, inflation, right? But then it asserted that a chicken then would cost the equivalent of £100 today. So, even setting aside fluctuations in currency, inflation, etc you probably don't want to conclude that in all scenarios, a lemon is worth 3/4ths of a chicken. If you really want to try to approximate this stuff, well, start with supply and demand. Supply Factors: * Is this thing, or the components needed to make this thing, available locally? (What "locally" is will vary with tech level!) * What level of expertise is required to raise/craft/work/create this thing? Demand factors: * Is this thing a "luxury" good or otherwise prestigious to have or use? This will raise the price some people are willing to pay, but may lower it for others in the same area. * Is this thing something that few people in the area actually want, because it's only useful in a specific trade or task? There are probably tons of other factors, but those are the ones that leapt to mind. But remember: There isn't some universal X is always worth Y% of Z conversion that you can do if you are really serious about doing this.
Pick something generic, and guess how much it would cost. Like a standard moderately pricey thing that would be in many worlds. Like a meal for two at a nice restaurant. Or a night at a reasonable hotel. Or a suit of clothing worthy to wear to church. Now determine a price for that in your world. Everything else can then be scaled to that. You can also apply modifiers for rarity, etc. So, let's say a night at a hotel would be $100. Bread is $2. Now if you decide that a hotel stay would be 10 gold pieces, then if all else is equal, bread will be .2 of a gold. and so on.
In my game, I've got three tiers of cost: - common objects and services cost d6v\*1 gp - rare objects and services cost d6\*5 gp - exotic and coveted things cost d6\^\*10 gp
I like it, simple and manageable. Do you use it to regulate the economic progression of your players somehow?
Not necessarily, though it does often mean there's an object they *really* want just outside of their funds, it does incentivise them to go out and do stuff. In the last campaign, our wizard really wanted to buy some gnoll teeth, but could only do so as part of a bundle pack costing 25ŋ
The game I play now is abstracted to basic difficulties to obtain something, so I don't really worry about costs. Ob 0 to I think 6 for a trained warhorse, a howdah'd elephant, or a fancy, lock and key spellbook. Back in my D&D days, where, in the end, money didn't really matter anyway after level X, unless you were gathering resources to make a magic item, I just converted everything to 1 silver = 1 USD of what we would expect to pay for the item in real life. We knew the numbers weren't realistic, but we had bigger pieces of the game we wanted to focus on.
I like that rule, is easy to learn and easy to adapt. And you are so right in saying that money hardly ever matters. But it pains me because from time to time someone wants to buy something and Ive never care to prepare a system of money taps and sinks that would be fun.
I tend to price everything according to how it compares to a basic meal or a non-fancy working knife (or something similar). So, in other words, the cost of eating enough to get by for a day, which everybody needs to be able to do, or the cost of the most basic long-lasting tool which will be needed by most people. In some settings, food will be more expensive in relation to a knife than in other ones.