Yeah, the adventurers really skew the economy. They just casually stroll up and loot hundreds of GP from an ancient crypt, awaken a long-forgotten lich, and then fuck off. It’s always up to the city guard to put down the inevitable undead army that the lich has raised. It truly is the definition of “capitalism for thee, socialism for me.”
I wonder whether an over-abundance of gold or other coins could lead to people using the gold for other purposes (such as magical reagents). I don't know enough about how real world inflation works to speculate about how the fantasy version would work.
I remember roughly a decade ago I worked out that a gold was equivalent in purchasing power to somewhere on the order of $100, and $100 was a nice round number that’s easy to use to get a ballpark feel for what something is worth, so I pretty much always use that. I’m guessing inflation and/or doomsday preppers (or political culture) has significantly raised the price of gold since then. Inflation too.
have we immediately forgotten what the wizard did? i'd consider a year's wages a pretty fucking good deal for changing the fabric of reality to suit me