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The Value of Money

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Eren Lapucet

Eren Lapucet

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Food & Drink

Food

The followed prices are mostly based on General Store prices (again, Grand Exchange won't be considered since it barely counts as lore).

Common ingredients: Grapes 1gp, Cooking apple 36gp, Potato 14-16gp, Banana 2gp, Cabbage 1gp, Redberry 3gp, Garlic 3gp, Cheese 8gp, Milk 12gp, Butter 4gp, Egg 4gp, Cream 19gp, Pot of Flower 14gp, Chocolate 20gp.

Fish: Crayfish 20gp, Sardine 10gp, Herring 6gp, Mackerel 23gp, Trout 20gp, Cod 26gp, Salmon 88gp, Tuna 126gp, Bass 270gp, Lobster 268gp, Swordfish 400gp.

Misc foods: Kebab 1gp-25gp, Cooked Chicken/Meat 5gp, Bread 24gp, Stew 20gp, Cake 50gp, Pizza 200gp, Potato with cheese 350gp.

Drink

Common drinks: 1-3gp for beer, grog, greenmans ale, dragon bitter, asgarnian ale, and wizard mind bomb. Khali brew 5gp, Rangers Aid 25gp, Beer Tank 26gp, Keg of Beer 325gp, Beer (Bandit Camp) 650gp.

Misc: Brandy 6gp, Gin, 2gp, Vodka 5gp, Whiskey 5gp, Jug of wine 128gp, Bottle of wine 500gp.

Analysis

Because store prices are made in light of game mechanics, and not lore, we have to tread carefully on these grounds. A quick glimpse at the prices will show that there is a fair amount logical consistency, and loose comparisons can be made to irl. That said there are at-least two problems: 1) Quite a few prices are a lot higher than they are irl according to PGPE, and 2) There are significant outliers in the data.

For the first problem, we can answer in three ways. Firstly, 1gp is the lowest currency in the game, unlike irl where we have pennies. So naturally foods would be more expensive when there doesn't exist any money worth less than a gp. Another answer is that since Gielinor is loosely based on Medieval times, food would be worth more to get. Lastly, we can answer that in the case of shop prices, which are a game mechanic, we can be very loose and ignore "small" discrepancies, like potatoes being worth 14-16gp and cooking apples 36gp (think pounds to see the problem).
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15-Jan-2016 04:49:21

Eren Lapucet

Eren Lapucet

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But what about the second problem. Pizza 200gp? The prices of fish after cod? 650gp for beer in Bandit Camp, and 350gp for a potato with cheese? Compared to other prices and to irl, these are all serious LFD's. Granted, we can pull out the "just game mechanics" excuse again, and it will work; we simply ignore these prices and acknowledge it's a result of jagex not trying to make prices sensical. Or alternatively, we can perhaps say that many of these foods/drinks are only enjoyed by the wealthy. It will need backing up however.

So, the outliers aside, what can we say about how much money the average npc spends on food a day? Just looking at the cheapest possible meal, a cheap beer and kebab, we get 2gp. 3 meals a day and you are spending atleast 6gp. But we aren't terribly interested in what people in total poverty have to deal with, so I suggest a range of 10-20gp. This shouldn't be so hard to defend if you look at the prices. If it still seems to low, well you can argue that lots of the foods here wouldn't be eaten in one meal, but several, particularly foods in the "common ingredients" section.

I'll be mindful of SFD however and say 15gp to be safe. This is virtually the same amount in pounds spent by a person daily irl. And since I've also argued PGPE for house prices, then I claim here that food to the average Gielinor npc is worth about the same as food to the middle class family irl.
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15-Jan-2016 04:51:00

Eren Lapucet

Eren Lapucet

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Clothing

Here are the price ranges of various clothing shops in Gielinor.

Varrock (Thessalia): Goes from 2gp-21gp.
Varrock (Fancy clothes store): Normal clothes 2-5gp. Capes 10gp.
Gnome Stroghold: 160-180gp.
Fremennik Province: 325 or 650gp.
Canifis: 650gp.
Mos Le Harmless: 100 or 350gp.
Miscellania: 325-975gp.
Keldagrim (Agmu**i): 468-975gp.
Keldagrim (Vermun*i): 364-715g*

While the price ranges of the other shops are comparable, there is a clear discrepancy between them and the prices in the Varrock shops. Again, we can attribute this to game mechanics. Alternatively, a good theory to resolve this is to say that in a big city like Varrock, clothes are mass produced, and so are a lot cheaper. Maybe clothing is a luxury the middle class folk can have in big cities, while in other locations clothing is bought very rarely (which is more indicative of Medieval times).

A source in Let Them Eat Pie suggests the lower cost range of clothing in Taverley, which may conflict with the previous reasoning. Kepple says "My friends and I can sell them [the refugees] a one-coin shirt for fifteen, and they can't exactly shop around!"

Here's a mention of expensive clothing by Jimmy Dazzler, who is an exterminator at the port Sarim Rat Pits.

Player: ...Anyway, they said that you could teach me a thing or two about cats.
Jimmy Dazzler: I could, but I would need a motivation. I didn't get rich enough to afford clothes like these by giving out help freely to every adventurer who came my way.


There's a relevant bit of dialogue with Mandrith that reveals that his clothes were passed down from several generations. However, he's an oddball case so it doesn't prove anything.

Player: Erm, what's with the outfit?
Mandrith: You like not my kingly robes? They were my father's, and his father's before him, and his father's before him, and his father's before him, and-
Player: Okay! Okay! I get the picture.
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15-Jan-2016 04:51:52

Eren Lapucet

Eren Lapucet

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Jewellery

Prices

Gem Stores: Cut Jewellery. Sapphire 250gp, Emerald 500gp, Ruby 1,000gp, Diamond 2,500gp.

Davon's Amulet Store: Enchanted amulets from 900gp to 3,525gp. Holy symbol 300gp.

Irskol's Ruby Rings: Ruby Rings 2,025gp

Grum's Gold Exchange: Rings 350-3,525gp. Necklaces 450-3,675gp. Amulets 350-3,525gp. Bracelets 495-3,422gp.

There is more or less consistently here in the prices. Jewellery ranges from 250gp to 3,525gp. The same irl in that it isn't cheap, but kind of hard to compare since irl a lot of factors go into deciding the prices of jewellery, and prices can be a *lot* greater than this. All that can be said for now is that it could take weeks of saved up income for the average npc to buy jewellery, if we consider our income estimates and that a lot of it is going into taxes/mortgage/food etc.

Evidence of jewellery being valuable

The examine text of sapphire, emerald, ruby and diamond are "This looks valuable."

Examining Herquin's cabinet: "Precious stones for sale."
Examining the Al Kharid Trader's gem stall: "Finest precious stones."
Examining the Ardougne trader's gem stall: "Precious stones from around the world."
etc..

Miss Schism: Also, he [WOM] always seemed so poor ... Well, just you look in there now! ... You see? It's full of jewellery and decorations! And all those expensive things appeared just after the bank got robbed.

Grum: Would you like to buy or sell some gold jewellery?
Player (option): No, I'm not that rich.


Davon: Pssst! Come here if you want to do some amulet trading.
Player (option): Why don't you ever restock some types of amulets?
Davon: Some of these amulets are very hard. If you've got any, I'd be happy to buy them off you, but I can't normally get them at all.


(The last one is more of a joke that jewellery stores never have any stock, but it's still mildly relevant.)

Note: The other types of jewels were not considered, as they are more niche.
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15-Jan-2016 04:53:11

Eren Lapucet

Eren Lapucet

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Furniture/Silverware

Here we don't have much of a choice except to look at the Poh prices. Listed are the prices if you buy materials from NPC's (again, no GE involved). I'll only consider a few, common pieces of furniture.

Chairs: 214-3,000gp
Rugs: Brown Rug 1,300gp. Rug 2,600gp. Opulent Rug 132,600gp.
Bookcases: Wooden Bookcase 428gp. Oak Bookcase 750gp. Mahogany Bookcase 4,500gp.
Kitchen Tables: Wood kitchen table 321gp. Oak kitchen table 750gp. Teak kitchen table 1,500gp.
Dining Room Tables: Opulent table 1,181,600gp. All other tables 428-9,000gp.
Benches: Gilded bench 526,000gp . All other benches 428-6,000gp.
Beds: 268,800gp for gilded 4-poster. All other beds 1,600-5,800gp.

Excluding outliers (which we can easily justifty as being furniture for the rich), these prices are very roughly equivalent to prices irl in pounds. Of-course, not exactly, but enough to justify PGPE with a SFD.

In Murder Mystery, we have a potential source for the price of silverware.

Gossip: Bob is an odd character indeed... I'm not one to gossip, but I heard Bob is addicted to Tea. He can't make it through the day without having at least 20 cups! You might not think that's such a big thing, but he has spent thousands of gold to feed his habit! At one point he stole a lot of silverware from the kitchen and pawned it just so he could afford to buy his daily tea allowance.

With tea being 10gp (quite a lot PGPE-wise), this might mean that Bob spends atleast 200gp a day on tea. This puts the price of several pieces of silverware at 200gp. Although this is very loose; just like irl, when you buy things in bulk, it can be cheaper, so maybe it's not 200gp, but much less. And the gossip could be exaggerating. However, using SFD, it's more or less agreeable with PGPE.
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15-Jan-2016 04:54:11

Eren Lapucet

Eren Lapucet

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Pets/Animals

Animals are definitely part of humans lives in Gielinor, and so I'll consider them briefly here. There are quite a lot of things to choose from, but not everything has a price attached to it, or is more summoning based, which I'll avoid.

Some examples:

Gertude sells cats for 100gp.
Pet Shop owners sell dogs for 500gp.
You can rent falcons for 500gp at Eagles Peak.
Two camels cost 500gp (The Fued).

Roughly these prices are consistent with one another; animals cost several hundred gp to buy, which is reasonable considering an npc's income, and somewhat equivalent to irl prices. Now of course, the prices don't exactly make sense.. why do dogs cost 5 time more than cats, and why should rented animals cost as much as buying them? But these are all SFD's, so it doesn't matter terribly.
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15-Jan-2016 04:55:03 - Last edited on 15-Jan-2016 05:11:53 by Eren Lapucet

Eren Lapucet

Eren Lapucet

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Weapons/Armour

This one is a bit tricky. The higher level stuff is just really expensive, and while that isn't a problem persay, I think the most relevant and lore-manageable weapons/armour are what the average npc buys. We know what several guards wear across runescape, AND their store prices, so I think this is the best route (omitted are Lumbridge guardsmen and East Ardougne Heroes who have runite equipment).

List of weapons/armour used by runescape guards:

Bronze chainbody 60g*
Bronze helm 24g*
Bronze square shield 48gp
Leather chaps 20gp
Leather boots 6g*
Bronze longsword 40g*
Bronze battleaxe 52gp
Leather body 20gp
Steel mace 225gp
Iron chainbody 210gp
Hard leather body 170gp
Steel helm 300g*
White knight equipment typically ranges from 200gp-1920g*

For the most part these should be reasonable considering how much NPC's make.
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15-Jan-2016 04:56:06

Eren Lapucet

Eren Lapucet

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Runes

Although I won't post the relevant quotes here, most of you know that both the Wise Old Man and the Mage of Zamorak have trouble getting runes. It also says in Ingrams Research Notes that "Ormod's riches were made in the trade of runes, and it was through magic that he looked for a solution." This implies that runes cost quite a bit money. Let's see if this is the case, once again using shop prices for (non-combination) runes:

Elemental runes 17gp. Body 16. Cosmic 232. Chaos 140. Nature 372. Law 378. Death 310.
Astral 220. Blood 550. Soul 410.

If my estimates for the average npc's income are reliable, then it's clear to see that its true runes are incredibly expensive. A handful of spells might consume weeks worth of income! Now, this isn't a magic thread, but if this analysis is right, then magic is a very niche thing to practice. You would need to either have access to a special supply (eg. if you are an apprentice at Wizard Tower) or have to runecraft your own runes in order to get runes if you aren't filthy rich.

I get that these prices may seem over fetched, both for in-world and PGPE purposes. If anything, we can always blame things on the prices of the non-elemental runes, and say they are more reflective of game mechanics than lore. Although admittedly, one is left to wonder how mainland NPC's get some of their non-elemental runes.
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15-Jan-2016 04:56:46 - Last edited on 03-Apr-2016 16:20:16 by Eren Lapucet

Eren Lapucet

Eren Lapucet

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What costs thousands of gp?

Animals, furniture and jewellery all cost several hundreds of gp, going into the few thousands. What types of things in general though are worth thousands of gp?

For starters, thousands of gp is a typical reward for a quest, and the person usually giving the reward is someone special, or royalty. Kings have given us rewards of 10,000gp and 20,000gp, while the Wise Old Man has given the highest gp rewards at 25,000gp and 30,000gp (Swan Song and Love Story).

In The Chosen Commander, there is a 5,000gp fee if you accuse someone incorrectly when trying to find who poisoned the food. This puts 5,000gp as an approximate for a legal penalty fee.

Changing basic gravestones cost between 50gp and 5,000gp. Father Aereck says all money goes to the "Varrockian Guards' Widows and Orphans Fund", so this price range is about how much a serious donation to a cause costs.

We also have sailing. While it can be cheap sometimes (eg. 30gp), Charter Ships can be in the few thousands, especially if you are trying to get far. The "Lady Lumbridge" from Dragon Slayer only costs 2,000gp, although taking scale theory into account, it may be a small boat that only a few people can get inside.

Also relevant is that Wormbrain from Dragon Slayers asks 10,000gp for a map piece, which he intends to use to bribe guards with. So 10,000gp may be an example of a "major bribe".

On a similar vein to a valuable map piece, once you complete the Scabarite Research Book, Abigail awards you 10,000gp. So this sets the value of artefacts/important information around this price. [Misc. I was going to use this example to support salary estimates, but I couldn't find any relevant sense of time to attach to it*

The Temple Knight Communication Orb costs 10,000gp, so this is a good approximate for how much an expensive magical device costs.
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15-Jan-2016 04:58:09 - Last edited on 15-Jan-2016 17:49:53 by Eren Lapucet

Eren Lapucet

Eren Lapucet

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Inflation Theory

Inflation Theory is the idea that high levels of monetary inflation occurred in the last 20+ years before 169 of the Fifth Age. I’ve found three sources to support this, and from the wording of the npc’s, propose an estimate of inflation to be on the order of 1,000% (or ten times).

The first source is in Book (Shield of Arrav). The book reveals that the Shield of Arrav was stolen in 143 (26 years before 169), and King Roald II put up a bounty of 1,200gp, which the book calls "a massive sum of money in those days".

The second source is Asgarnia Smith from Desert Treasure. When you ask him about how he became an archeologist, he will tell you a story about how he found a casket while fishing which had 320gp in it. He then says “Can you believe it?” to which the player replies “Um... Yes, yes I can.”, and he replies back “Well, it might not seem much to us now kid, but back then, it was a revelation!”. He looks middle aged, so this story couldn’t have happened much more than 20-30 years ago.

The third source is the archeologists in the Varrock museum. When you show them jewellery you found from an unclean find, they give you 5gp, and the chatbox says "Must have been worth a lot in his days!". There are old archeologists, but it also works for the middle-aged ones, so once again we are talking no more than 20-30 years ago.
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15-Jan-2016 04:59:33

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