BIG HISTORY! CONFIRMS PRECIOUS METALS EXCHANGE RATES IN D&D

 

I've been watching some Big History episodes on Amazon Prime. I'm not very far in. Just three episodes, I think. It is somewhat reminiscent of James Burke's Connections series from the mid-70s to mid-80s. But where James Burke took more of a "History of ideas" approach, this series takes science and history on a grand scale to explain the connections between Big Science and History instead.

Actually, I just looked at Wikipedia for episode titles, and it looks like the Amazon Prime series shows them out of order. (Interesting!) Anyway, the first episode I saw was entitled "Silver Supernova." It explores the historical significance of silver as a substance and precious metal compared to gold.

There's a lot of interesting stuff here. But what caught my eye in particular was the universal ratio of silver:gold, which is 10:1. And I did a little research and found that the ratio of copper:silver is also around 10:1! And this matches the current currency ratios described in D&D since at least 3E -- 100:10:1.

D&D before 3E, gave currency values in ratio that accorded with historical rates. But which probably also included different weights for different metal types and denominations. Do I think the shift to ratios of 10 to match their actual material distribution within the cosmos was intentional? No. I think it was to simplify the cognitive load and math involved in handling D&D currency. Still, it's kinda nice to see that there's a real possible, real-world reason for it. And no, I haven't checked out how platinum figures into it. (But I should.)