Converting $D&D to $DFRPG

[thedanster7000]

I'm running Rappan Athuk, which is a megadungeon designed for Swords & Wizardry (an old D&D clone), and am finding the loot distributed extreme. Even when dividing gold by 4 to get 100 copper it still seems a bit high. Is there a good conversion method anyone knows of?

Thanks in advance.

[sir_pudding]

You can use a "basket" approach. Make a list of goods and services that appear in both systems, total them up, and the divide one from the other.

[tanksoldier]

Keep in mind that players really aren't supposed to survive RA...

...it's designed to be deadly: monsters don't work the way most monsters of similar kind work (black skeletons, etc), it's out in the middle of nowhere (no running off to town for a resurrect or restoration spell), many areas are under unholy auras making turning and other good effects less effective, there are few safe places to rest, traps and whatnot are designed to defeat common adventurer strategies...

...and all that loot has weight.

Oh, and "don't go down the well".

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by thedanster7000

I'm running Rappan Athuk, which is a megadungeon designed for Swords & Wizardry (an old D&D clone), and am finding the loot distributed extreme. Even when dividing gold by 4 to get 100 copper it still seems a bit high. Is there a good conversion method anyone knows of?

Based on gear, 1sp is about G$1, 1gp is about G$10.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by thedanster7000

I'm running Rappan Athuk, which is a megadungeon designed for Swords & Wizardry (an old D&D clone), and am finding the loot distributed extreme. Even when dividing gold by 4 to get 100 copper it still seems a bit high. Is there a good conversion method anyone knows of?.

There may be a fundamental conceptual mismatch too. The thing is that loot in many versions of D&D isn't particularly about cash value, and isn't balanced for that. It's a proxy for character growth. Either directly (you get 1 xp per gp looted) or indirectly (it costs [more gp than non-adventurer would see in a lifetime] to train for the next level). Those probably shouldn't be converted as loot in the first place - they're more like story advancement character points.

[Rasputin]

Originally Posted by thedanster7000

I'm running Rappan Athuk, which is a megadungeon designed for Swords & Wizardry (an old D&D clone), and am finding the loot distributed extreme. Even when dividing gold by 4 to get 100 copper it still seems a bit high. Is there a good conversion method anyone knows of?

1 gp = 1 $

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by malloyd

There may be a fundamental conceptual mismatch too. The thing is that loot in many versions of D&D isn't particularly about cash value, and isn't balanced for that. It's a proxy for character growth. Either directly (you get 1 xp per gp looted) or indirectly (it costs [more gp than non-adventurer would see in a lifetime] to train for the next level). Those probably shouldn't be converted as loot in the first place - they're more like story advancement character points.

"This", as the kids say.

D&D's economic principles are based around game mechanics and player experience, out-of-gameworld things. You CAN set a conversion factor for these things, but you generally need a "gold market" approach to figure it out, and since people aren't actually trying to move value from D&D games to DFRPG, or the other way, that's not really going to happen in any statistical sense.

I recommend summing up all the loot in the adventure; convert it all to one unit of currency (I recommend GP as the most common currency in D&D, but if you don't like fractional/decimal GP, go to CP).
Decide how much you want it to potentially value for your players. But remember this is the "ALL THE THINGS" and your players are highly unlikely to find everything everywhere - when in doubt, aim higher.
Divide D&D value by DFRPG $.
Adjust to a pleasing number that you can live with - 8.248593 cp per $ is obnoxious to most people.
Write that down somewhere.

Tada!

[Anthony]

If you look at mundane gear, in 3.5e a longsword is 15 gp, a suit of mail is 150gp. The equivalent in DFRPG are $700 and $2,700. These are obviously not entirely equivalent, but most likely the sword is the anomaly, the price difference between swords and other weapons in D&D is much smaller than it is in DF. This argues for 1 gold = $20 (basically, take all D&D gold and turn it into silver and keep the amounts the same).

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Anthony

[...] the price difference between swords and other weapons in D&D is much smaller than it is in DF.

Yep. Which points up something important to grasp:

Prices in the DFRPG come from GURPS. GURPS tries to do its homework and derive prices from historical values for things like labor and loaves of bread. It doesn't always do a great job with this – in fact, it often falls flat – but at least it tries.

Prices in D&D are based on game-mechanical effectiveness: meta-game concerns like weapon damage and armor protection. Gold is used to maintain game balance, not to simulate an economy which encompasses such things as materials scarcity, sumptuary laws, and the value of labor.

Which leads to a conclusion that others have already come to: The D&D gp fills a role closer to the DFRPG character point than to the DFRPG $. Any conversion would be very uneven because you're comparing apples to oranges.

There are other factors at work, too.

If you decide to ignore all that and try the basket-of-goods approach, this will be unduly biased by big-ticket items like swords and armor, which are almost irrelevant to the overall economy. In the modern world, few economists would include rifles, ammo, and body armor in inflation calculations or cost-of-living comparisons. Comparing staples for ordinary folk – like rations and lamp oil – would be the "right" way to do this.

If you decide to ignore that and focus on stuff adventurers care about, the fact that D&D dwells on meta-game factors means you must look at differences in how the two games rate effectiveness. This is especially an issue for weapons, as D&D makes damage inherent to the weapon and modifies it for the user, while the DFRPG makes damage a property of the user and modifies it for the weapon.

All told, I wouldn't convert currencies. I'd port over items by name and let the chips (coins) fall where they may. This will result well-equipped DFRPG heroes having huge $ values in gear because they walk around with items that in a quasi-realistic economy are the specialist tools of an elite warrior class, paid for by the labor of ordinary people those warriors protect. So I'd charge a character point per $500 until the gear is covered . . . which is actually closer to what D&D does with its habit of using gp to balance character power, not as the basis for any plausible economic system.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Ye
All told, I wouldn't convert currencies. I'd port over items by name and let the chips (coins) fall where they may.

So 1000 gp is 1000 gold coins worth $400,000?

In the case of Rappan Athuk I recommend that the PCs take the first treasure they find then and retire on it.