Comic Strips

Really, silver shouldn't even exist until players are level 5-6 or something.

A copper shouldn't be thought of as a penny, but I think a lot of people think of it that way. It should be much more like a dollar. A mug of ale is 4 copper pieces. A loaf of bread is 4 copper pieces. A taxi is 1 copper.

Because D&D is a world without cash registers or price stickers, bargaining should be common. And you're not going to bargain over the last penny, but maybe over the number of dollars (i.e. coppers).

I also think 1 silver should be 100 copper. But, you should only start seeing silver once you're dealing with people who are used to dealing with things costing hundreds of "dollars". 100 copper would be a pain to manage, so they use silver. A typical adventurer's pub might only rarely see silver because all their prices are in copper, and there's nothing even approaching 100 "dollars" on their menu.

In this system, gold similar to $10,000 per coin. Because of that, the only kinds of stores that might see gold coins are high end magic shops, or shops dealing with upper-level nobles or royalty.

I also think it's hard for people to put themselves in a mindset of a "medieval" sort of world. We're used to a hotel room being hundreds of times the cost of a loaf of bread. That's a modern thing where both farming and baking are automated. In the past things weren't nearly that efficient. So, if a poor quality stay in an inn (you're sharing a bed with other random guests, and there's a thin mattress) is $100, a loaf of plain bread should be $10.