Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 zombiegleemax May 11, 2007 15:36:14	[/b][/u] I mentioned this article a little while ago, and spent the rest of the day working on it. Ah, the joys of not being sick enough to be feeling horrible, yet not healthy enough to be doing what I should be... Anywho... Working with the standard D&D monetary system, and its ensuing chaotic economy is becoming ever more depressing. So, for those of a like mind, here is a new system for use in your D&D campaign. Standard System Monetary Units: Copper Piece (cp), Silver Piece (sp), Gold Piece (gp), Platinum Piece (pp). It goes like this: 10 cp = 1 sp 10 sp = 1 gp 10 gp = 1 pp In other words: 1 pp = 10 gp = 100 sp = 1,000 cp 1 gp = 10 sp = 100 cp = 1/10 pp 1 sp = 10 cp = 1/10 gp = 1/100 pp So, the approximate relations to $ would be: 1 pp = $100.00 1 gp = $10.00 1 sp = $1.00 1 cp = $.10 I worked for almost an hour to find the monetary value of these four metals in the world of today, but couldn’t put it in easy enough to understand format. Damn those troy ounces…
#2 slivvy_gaidin Jul 06, 2007 14:48:56	Haha - I like it. I can't say that it'd find too much use in my current game, but I really do just like the sound of saying "2 sickles" or "5 crowns". It sounds so much more interesting than GP an SP (though.. they have become sorta iconic to the genre hey) Also, as much as I like the good old decimal system, I think it'd be interesting to play with this old fashioned system.
#3 Ash2Dust Jul 14, 2007 15:29:05	I like it, although I would drop the shield to being just 1 gp, if only so that I wouldn't have to figure out the prices out of the books. It may not be the same conversion rate out of the real world material, but it would mean 10 staves to the shield instead of 12, which would be easier to work with, too.
#4 ikeren Jul 19, 2007 15:49:51	1 Sun = 5 pp 1 Crown = 6 gp 1 Shield = 1gp 2 sp 1 Stave = 1 sp 1 Sickle = 2.5 cp You aren't using a metric system: 4 Sickles to a Stave 12 Stave's to a Shield 5 Shields to a crown 8 and 1/3rd Crowns to a Sun. To start with, you'd have to round anything that costs 1 copper up to 1 sickle. Aside from that, it would be as annoying as hell. "Alright, we looted 127 crowns, 34 suns, 25 shields, 192 staves, and 457 sickles...How much is that? Followed by the math: 34 suns = 170 PP = 1700 gp 127 crowns = 762 gp 25 shields = 30 gp 192 staves = 19.2 gp 457 sickles = 11.425 gp. Total = 2522.625 gp I am sorry, maybe I am inept as a DND player, but I can't multiply 457 by 2.5 in my head. I like the idea of renaming coins. But non-metric values is simply confusing and requires a lot of, in my opinion, rather boring math.
#5 unknowncorrespondent_dup Jul 21, 2007 14:53:45	This brings back memories. I've spent many days coming up with logical, historically accurate monetary systems. I've also come up with a few that might be playable - I haven't had any overlap. Your flavor is good. If your players like it, more power to them. Most of the people I've played with only want to know how much they can shove into their bags of holding. Being a math, physics, and currency nerd, I could easily geek at you all day, but I'll try to hold it down to a dull roar. I spotted a few errors: Use the following formula: 1 Sun = 5 pp 1 Crown = 6 gp 1 Shield = 1gp 2 sp 1 Stave = 1 sp 1 Sickle = 2.5 cp This follows from 1 stave = 1 sp, except that 1 sun (= 4 crowns) should be 2 pp, 4 gp. Suns are approximately 1 ¾ inches wide and 1/16 inch thick. They are platinum, with an embossed sun on one side and the symbol of the mint and country in which they are made on the opposite. Crowns are approximately 1 ½ inches wide and 1/16 inch thick. They are made of gold, with a crown embossed on one side, with the symbol of the mint and country where they are made on the other. Shields are approximately 1 inch wide and 1/16 inch thick. They are made of silver, with an embossed shield on one side and the symbol of the mint and country in which they are made on the other. I will assume you are using the D&D standard 50 coins/lb. Your suns are rather large and thin, compared to RL coins (the old silver dollar, at 1½" x 1/10" thick is about as large as an easily manageable coin wants to be). It would also weigh in at 8.6/lb (assuming pure platinum), where a 2.4 pp coin should be 20.8/lb, or roughly half-dollar sized. Your crown, on the other hand, is too small - 13/lb, where a 6 gp gold coin would be 8.3/lb. The above mentioned silver dollar size would be about right (same width as yours, but half again as thick). It could also be a dime-sized platinum piece (a dime is about as small as a conveniently handled coin should be). The size for the shield would weigh 53.75/lb, or about a silver piece, so this would be a good size for the stave. A coin 12 times this weight (which a shield would be) would be very unwieldy (about 2½" wide). The shield would be better off as a small gold coin (roughly nickel-sized). The sickle would weigh 20/lb in copper, and would also be silver-dollar sized. It could also be a dime-sized silver coin. I'll spare you the details of densities, composition of alloys, exchange rates and all that other , unless somebody really wants to know. I could also post the dimensions of american coins, if you aren't familiar with them.
#6 sothar_borealis Jul 27, 2007 7:26:08	I would first like say that this system looks to be rather interesting. It is a great way to better personalize a D&D game by taking out the informal gp, sp, pp, yada yada yada.... As the DM I would much more prefer to tell my PC that they find a chest loaded with suns, shields and sickles. Although the only thing that I see as a rough spot for his system is the impractical conversion rates. It has been my observed opinion that in D&D most people will err on the side of simplicity. I can easily see my players (the only group that I can really talk about with any certainty) not liking this system solely on the grounds of not wanting to do the math. So in the end I'm defiantly interested in using this system although I think I'm going to leave out the conversions. P.S. this is a good thing (to quote the immortal Martha Stewart) you deserve one of my fresh baked maple walnut drop cookies!
#7 zombiegleemax Jul 27, 2007 8:16:09	Since I've been doing some campaign design myself recently, I've put a lot of thought into how I'm handling currency. I intend on naming and describing the coins used in a variety of places, since different regions will use their own currency. This way, one country may have a coin called a sovereign that you could buy loaf of bread with. In another country they may buy their bread in cisterci or shekels. Since this will no doubt get very confusing, I'm introducing another element to the world which is the idea of the "Tradeweight" which is a weight probably somewhere around an ounce. One "Tradeweight of gold" is a GP. And so on for silver, copper, platinum, etc. Currency traders and international businessmen use the tradeweight to describe the value of a particular coin. For example the Darthacan Imperial, might be worth three and a half tradeweight of gold. This may be because the coin contains a lot of gold, or it may simply be built on the strength of the currency and the stability of the Darthacan Empire. What this basically boils down to in the end, is that I can give the players the price in easily understandable terms like GP, SP, CP etc with a value which actually means something to the characters as well. I think it's the best of both worlds. The players are keeping track of their money in a nice neat metric system of universal value and the characters are using exotic coins and flavorful descriptions with a nice neat cross-over. Also it's a very variable system and both the DM and the Players can choose which description they want to use at any given time.
#8 Igfig Aug 01, 2007 13:04:23	I always considered the most charming thing about the British system of coinage to be the sheer complexity and number of superfluous coins. The exact values aren't all that important. To that end, when I created a campaign set in a region not unlike medieval Britain, I used the following system: Farthing – small copper coin worth 0.5 cp Penny – copper coin worth 1 cp Tuppence – large copper coin worth 2 cp Groat – small silver coin worth 5 cp Shilling – silver coin worth 1 sp Double shilling (often called merely “Double”) – large silver coin worth 2 sp Half crown – Small gold coin worth 5 sp Crown – gold coin worth 1 gp Sovereign – large gold coin worth 2 gp There you have it. Flavorful, but easy enough to use. As long as the players have a little chart at hand saying which coin is which, it works like a dream. I cut out the pp since the world is a low-fantasy one with low wealth overall. It would be possible, I suppose, to introduce a "pound", a platinum coin worth 5 gp (that being the value of one pound of silver), and then a double-pound, four-pounder, etc.
#9 castlemike Aug 08, 2007 18:37:51	Since wealth and magic are tweaked down For the paladins and rangers consider making them a variant +2 LA gestalt warrior adept.