AD&D Campaign Spotlight: Money Changers, Banks, Loans, and Jewelers

Today we talk about the money side of adventuring that most tables skip. Money changers take a cut, bankers hold your coin, lenders set harsh terms, and jewelers shave value when they buy. I’ll give you clear rates, rulings you can drop in, and hooks that make your city feel alive.

Episode Transcript

(00:18):
Hey, welcome back to the podcast, Evil Dungeon Master
Universe Podcast. I'm your host, Evil Dungeon
Master Vince, Hopefully you're doing well out there.
The AD and D Universe podcast. I think I said that right today
we're back with another episode.I'm kind of I've been busy this
week again, so sorry about the lack of podcasts and videos.

(00:38):
We did hit 11,000 on YouTube. So thank you to those that
subscribed and listened to the podcast and also watch my
videos. Been focusing a little bit on
the solo channel of my solo role-playing, but that's not
here nor there. Ask the DM at the evil dm.com is
my e-mail address. Ask the DM is my Ask the DM with
theevildm.com is my e-mail address. evildm.com is my

(01:04):
website. I think I said it twice by
accident because I lost the pageof the PDFI wanted to look at so
I was concerned anyway. Patreon.com/evil DM there page
35 of the Players Handbook I wanted to talk a little bit
about and maybe bring it to yourattention about things that have

(01:25):
to deal with money monetary system in the game.
Now we obviously know the standard monetary system in the
game. 10 copper pieces equals silver, and this is page 35 by
the way. 20 silver pieces equal 1 gold, 2 electric pieces equal
1 gold piece, and 1 platinum piece equals 5 gold pieces,

(01:46):
which they did change I think a little bit in later editions
because I recall 1 platinum PC from 10 gold.
I think that might have been third edition, I don't know,
don't quote me. I generally just leave it this
way as the one E system. That's the easiest one to
remember though, anyway, so I want to read the part about

(02:09):
money changing banks, loans and Jewelers because this is
something that I don't normally do.
And I think it will add a lot offlavor and bring the world
itself a little bit more alive because it actually feels like
you have an economy system. You have a town with people that
actually really care about moneyin the game.

(02:29):
And money's not just, you know, ha ha ha.
I'm running around with 200 gold, things like that.
And you have to actually exchange because maybe the the
barkeep at the end is charging 2silver per meal and you only
have a gold piece on you. Yeah, sure, you can translate

(02:50):
that into whatever and he'll give you back eight.
Maybe he doesn't have the money for it.
Maybe he doesn't have that much money on him.
These small towns, they generally don't have a lot of
money on hand, so he may not be able to do that for you.
He may not be able to exchange coins for you.
You have to go to the bank and get some silver or some copper

(03:11):
depending on what it is. So anyway, the paragraph says
large sums of lower value coins can be changed to smaller number
of large value coins and vice versa at a relatively small
cost, typically 3% of the transaction.
This is done at the money changers.
This is done at the money changers.
Would be the money changers likebe the bank?

(03:33):
They just call it the money changers.
The money changer will also score as a banker keeping funds
and giving a marker to the vouchfor the amount.
Note that bankers will not usually give any interest.
Bankers will give loans according to the reliability,
renown status and material possessions of the individual.

(03:56):
An unknown and low level character is unlikely to get a
loan without giving security forthe value of the amount
borrowed. Furthermore, the interest rate
will be high, typically 10% per month or even 5% per week.
A well known and property character can typically get a
large loans at relatively low interest at probably about 1% a

(04:19):
week or thereabouts. Jewelers and gem merchants will
buy and sell jewelry and gems. The buying price will usually be
about 20% under the actual valueof the plate a piece or stone.
Characters should carefully shoparound whenever possible to
determine which establishment offers the best value.

(04:39):
Now when characters go to towns with gems and everything and
they get the worst value, a lot of times in campaigns I've seen
DMS be like, yeah, this gem is worth 100 goal and the player is
like, all right, fine. Now I'm not sure because I'm not
looking at their DM notes, but I'm not sure if they're playing

(05:00):
by the actual selling rule of how gems work and how a buyer
will always buy 20% under the value because they have to
resell it or maybe it's worth something to them.
I don't know. But this makes a lot of sense.
When you go to, for example, a jeweler or a pawn shop or
whatever and they're buying jewelry from you, they're not

(05:23):
going to buy it at the price that you see listed there on the
shelf. So for example, you see another
piece of like a diamond necklaceon there and then they're
offering they want to buy 1000 gold pieces for it.
You are not going to get 1000 gold pieces if you have that
same exact necklace. They're going to be 20% under
that, maybe even more, maybe 50%.

(05:45):
Heck, look at the racket that GameStop had for the longest
time. They still do when you when you
you buy a game for $55 and sell it back and you get like $0.20.
So I don't know if most DMS in later editions actually use this
rule and undercut the gems or they listed them in their notes

(06:07):
of gem worth 100 gold. And then when the player goes to
sell it in town with his character, he gets that 100
gold. I've always done it that I
negotiate in character as the MPC.
Well, OK, it's worth about 100 gold.
I'll give you 80. And then it gives the room for
the player to say all right, andgive them a chance to kind of

(06:28):
negotiate and bring that price up.
Chances are that the the buyer that they're selling it to is
undercutting it even more. Now.
I always like to roll for these things to see how greedy NPCS
are when it comes to this. So it might even be 50% or 40%.
Hey, it might even be 10% because the guy's feeling nice

(06:51):
that day. So I don't know.
I do find it interesting the fact that you can do markers
now. Markers were something like, you
know, a wax sealed legend, a Ledger entry, and maybe it's a
counter sign on there and you need proof of an identity or a
counter witness that can actually, you know, give you

(07:13):
discounts or something like and you can modify exchange rates.
Yeah, it's a 3% base. But you know, what if the MPC is
a friendly MPC and you know, youhave a high charisma, you can
drop that down a little bit, No,And maybe the MPCS just doesn't
like the way you look, the way you act, or maybe he's heard

(07:34):
something bad about you. So he raises it up to 5%.
They can do whatever they want. It's a game world loan sizes.
I, I, I don't, I've never actually legitly had a character
in a game take out a loan. They borrowed stuff from people
like they've asked can I, you know, borrow this or that or,

(07:56):
you know, they stolen money fromthis or that.
But I've never in any of my games had a character legit go
to a bank and or go to an MPC and borrow money of any sort,
gold or whatever. Never.
It's always been, I don't have alot of money.
We don't have a lot of money. Let's head out and go find it

(08:18):
somewhere. Let's go kill some monsters and
find gold or silver, whatever. Let's go find the stuff that we
need. It's never OK, I'm going to go
to town and I'm going to buy myself a nice sword and armor.
Oh, wait a minute, I don't have the money for that.
Let me head over to the bank andtake out a loan, you know, so I
can get that 10% per month interest rate or even a little

(08:42):
more depending if I'm a first level character and unknown.
I would go there and be like, yes, I need to borrow a loan.
And you know, the bank would be like, yes, OK, here is your
money and you can buy for your armor and stores that you need
to get started. But I'm going to have to charge
you 20% interest per month. It's just like what, you know, I
mean, I guess you can do that. And I see that is a light and I

(09:07):
don't know, I mean, I'm thinkingabout that.
I don't really see that situation coming up even in
games. When I first started playing
game way back in the ancient 80sand I remember when when the
great Joe DM would run for us and I didn't and he played it,
you know, strictly by the book when it came to starting
characters and we didn't have weapons or something.

(09:30):
We got captured and our characters had nothing and we
were in a town or something. We never went to a bank.
That option just was never there.
I just, he didn't offer the option and I didn't even think
about the option. And again, I was just starting
to learn to play, so I didn't really look at these things.
When you're first starting to play a game, you're kind of

(09:51):
absorbing yourself into the gameand not worrying about these
little things here about, you know, bankers and fees and
everything. And I'm sure if I had said
something, he probably would have role played it out and
decided to give me a loan if I was worthy of it in his eyes.
But I don't know, I just, I don't see characters doing that.

(10:14):
Now, if you had a character out in your campaign that actually
has done this and you've used rules similar to this, I'd love
to know your story in the comments either on Spotify or on
YouTube. Wherever you see this or listen
to this, I'm curious. e-mail me [e-mail] because
I've really never legit seen loans.
I've seen the jewelry thing, thebuying of gems and stuff like

(10:37):
that and being undercut and not getting full value, but I've
never seen loans at all. I mean, I don't know what to
say. I'm in a loss of words for that
one because I've never seen it. It also talks about equipping
the character and that the normal chart that you, you see

(11:00):
here on page 35 and when your character first starts a game,
you know, you spend the money, blah, blah, blah.
That's fine. Your, your DM allows you to pick
from the book going forward whenit comes to this.
A lot of these things are not going to be around in the towns
that you go to. It won't always be in one store

(11:21):
either. Now I've seen lots of DMS be
like, yes, we have a basic general store.
Just look at page 35. And you know, those are the
prices there because they don't want to deal with it.
Now, yeah, I'll have general stores in my game because towns
generally will have a general store.
And a general store means just general items, like food items,
maybe some basic equipment, maybe clothing and things like

(11:46):
that. But you won't see like armor and
like weapons and stuff like thatin general stores.
And you definitely will not see magical potions, which my group
constantly likes to say. Does he have any healing
potions? Does he have any potion?
No. Why would a general store have
potions? They're not going to have
potions in it as much as you wanted to.
And I don't like the idea. Another thing, and I'm just

(12:06):
going to go on a random, probably going to be annoyed at
me, but don't care. Not every town or even city for
that manner has a magic shop. And I hate that notion of a
magic shop. And I think that kind of evolved
into games as a standard as the additions moved on and move

(12:28):
forward to have a magic shop in the town and that you can just
walk in and buy whatever potion or magical item that is
generally available. Magical rings magical.
So, you know, it's just no, no magic in the world should be,

(12:49):
well, magic in items in my worldare earned through adventuring
or through maybe a black market or something.
They shouldn't be just be able to walk into a store like you'd
walk into the Today and walk into the supermarket or walk
into, I don't know, Ollie's or you know, whatever general
dollar and you can just buy pretty much whatever you want

(13:09):
because it's there on the shelf regardless of the quality or
not. I just I don't like that.
I like a world that there's lessmagic in it.
As far as magical items, magicalitems should be rare and magical
items should be something special that you, you know, you
earn through adventuring and it makes it a lot.

(13:29):
It makes your character have growth when it comes to magical
items. It's like if you could just walk
into a store and buy a magical store plus one.
Who the freak cares if you find another magical sword?
Well, eventually. Oh, another magical sword.
Toss it onto the pile. It's like when we were playing
Star Wars, our game, we kept finding red lightsabers
everywhere. It's just like, OK, another red

(13:53):
lightsaber. Yay.
Yeah, it was. It was more of a joke, but still
it came to the point of we keep finding these rare items that
you just like when you actually earn an item through a role play
or through an adventure as a reward, it's like, I'll just
throw it on the pile, thank you very much and move on.

(14:14):
So I don't know, I'm going a little bit of a rant and off of
AD and D here, but I magical items when it comes to that, I
like to actually have a quest or, you know, players earn it.
I like to give them a solo spotlight when it comes to the
game. And that player, you know, gets
to do the adventure. The group goes with them and

(14:37):
each character gets their own special little reward at the
end. And I think it, it, it gives you
your character some life in the game and it, and it gives you
some reason to want to come backto the game to play and have a
lot of fun with the with the world itself.
And that's what I've been doing in basic fantasy and my group
has been enjoying it. So I don't know.

(14:58):
So with that said, I'm going to head out.
I hope you have a great day. I want you to keep it original,
keep it old school tonight. God bless everybody and I'll see
you next.