Coinage, is that a pound of gold in your pocket or are you just happy to buy from me?

[Lubidius]

A couple interesting posts on this blog regarding coinage in FRP games.

http://www.campaignmastery.com/blog/

[Bren]

For a more realistic RPG pricing, look at prices in Chaosium's Pendragon for example, a librum (a Roman gold coin) is worth 240 silver pennies and one librum is the amount of income required to maintain a squire for one year.

[Flagwaver]

When I go Renning, I typically carry a small purse of Sacagawea coins. The most I have carried is $2500 and it wasn't all that much weight-wise. The sword they bought me was far heavier. Then again, I was one of those guys slogging through the sand in 80 pounds of gear. It all depends on the GM, too.

I mean, there is a suspension of disbelief. Not to mention, gold and silver aren't the only coins in the purse, platinum comes into play sometimes.

[Grimace]

Yeah, for my birthday one year my players gave me a leather dice bag filled with the new one dollar coins. I think they put 100 coins in there and the total weight came out to be a few pounds. Granted, the coins are lighter than an actual gold coin would be, but the weight of the coins isn't so much that a person couldn't carry a few hundred or more coins without much problem. If you started getting into the thousands of coins I could see a definite problem, and that's why I use "encumbrance" in my game so that suspension of disbelief isn't stretched to outlandish proportions by a character running around with 3,000 gold pieces on them. You want that much money, you better have a chest to carry them in and a wagon or cart to move the chest around.

[GamerDude]

I recommend anyone running any kind of FRPG do what I do... go look at lots of coins from our feudal Europe period AKA Middle Ages. Seeing the coins from ren fairs that I have it's clear that most people involved with making ren fair coins have lost the art of reproducing said coins with any historical accuracy (Instead the ren faire coins tend to be just a large lump of copper with an emblem worked into it by a hammer beating the die a whole lot.)

BOLD ITALIC text added to clarify the meaning of my poor English.

[Bren]

Gamer Dude, we must be looking in different museums. The coins I've seen have a relatively clear and sharp (accounting for wear) design that appears to be struck once rather than hammered mutliple times. BTW that is also how the replica coin I bought at the Jorvik Viking Festival was formed. I watched the gentleman strike it. He started with a slug or blank and imprinted it with a single sharp, solid blow.

[GamerDude]

You misread me..and I've edited my post to make my point clearer... and the ones *I HAVE SEEN*. I haven't seen yours (hell never been there wherever it is)

Actually, a point of order here: I try very hard to be clear on what I'm saying, qualify and quantify and any other "ify" what I am saying. I wish everyone else would do me the courtesy of actually reading what I wrote and not skimming over it. And just to make the point... I live in the Pacific Northwest in the United States. Basically where Washington/Idaho meet and damm close to the US/Canuck border. So anything outside of Washington/Oregon/Idaho/Montana? I haven't had a chance to see let alone have gone to the same museum (Lets see all those in NYC, and San Antonio TX, Spokane WA, Several in Seattle WA, Portland OR. Oh one in Egypt (I'd tell you where but I'd have to kill you.. j/k)

[Bren]

You misread me..and I've edited my post to make my point clearer... and the ones *I HAVE SEEN*. I haven't seen yours (hell never been there wherever it is)

Actually, a point of order here: I try very hard to be clear on what I'm saying, qualify and quantify and any other "ify" what I am saying. I wish everyone else would do me the courtesy of actually reading what I wrote and not skimming over it. And just to make the point... I live in the Pacific Northwest in the United States. Basically where Washington/Idaho meet and damm close to the US/Canuck border. So anything outside of Washington/Oregon/Idaho/Montana? I haven't had a chance to see let alone have gone to the same museum (Lets see all those in NYC, and San Antonio TX, Spokane WA, Several in Seattle WA, Portland OR. Oh one in Egypt (I'd tell you where but I'd have to kill you.. j/k)Thanks for clarifying your post. :) Much more clear now. I read it three times before posting, since it was so contrary to all my museum experiences and the Yorvik Viking Festival is an annual event in York, England. Yorvik is the where the name York came from.

[arcgaden]

I always make up the currency based on the cultural and subcultural influences at play in a game world. Its been a long time since I used the fantasy standard of platinum, gold, and copper. This assumes that these metals are as rare as they are on Earth and that another fictional world has the same limitations on these resources. Its just a game immersion and association thing. Humanity places value on Platinum and Gold at varying levels based on our subjective experiences, therefore it becomes easier to imply value in a fantasy world by using these currencies as primary forms. I think more experienced players who are familiar with a specific GM are more comfortable with non-standard currencies, people who goto conventions and play with strangers will have a need for more standardized fantasy currencies, to reduce the learning curve (for learning new exchange rates, etcetera) and so that also gives more ease in playing with people with whom we are unfamiliar. More common ground makes players more at ease.
That said, custom currencies are easy to dictate smaller "weights" in fantasy worlds. We make a lot of assumptions about the size of coins as well, so a pound of gold coins depends on the size and density of the coin, and how pure the gold is, right? There's some many factors here that I try to avoid getting to technical about the weight of things and use my subjective judgement to dictate these particular limitations on characters, i.e. "You really think you can carry that chest full of coins and jewels by yourself? Well, you CAN try, but yeah, make a very difficult Lift roll, lets see if you can do it." SUCCESS! "Okay. Make a stamina for every ten steps carrying that chest. Its very heavy and you will not go far. Why not put it on your wagon?" Practicality should always come first, right? Hence the need for magic holes, et al. These explain carrying ridiculous weights where it is otherwise impossible.

- J.

[Bren]

Platinum always seemed a strange thing to use as a metal to me. As far as I know, it wasn't used in Europe or Asia in the ancient or medieval periods, nor was it used for coins anywhere. Pre-Columbian artifacts from the Americas aside, it seems more a modern metal to me. I'd be inclined to use metals that are setting appropriate. So gold, silver, and copper are often good in many settings. But you might include ingots (or even coinage) made from lead, iron, or tin (very valuable for making bronze) or alloys like electrum.

[arcgaden]

Bren:
Yep - perspective based etting of currencies - exactly my point. We use what we know, and know what we use.

- J.