tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post7321589902988286899..comments2024-03-18T20:22:06.331-04:00Comments on GROGNARDIA: The Articles of Dragon: "How Many Coins in a Coffer?"James Maliszewskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00341941102398271464noreply@blogger.comBlogger50125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-49661090345426774702012-01-03T15:48:01.585-05:002012-01-03T15:48:01.585-05:00I first balked at Gygax's coin weights when ru...I first balked at Gygax's coin weights when running adventure A3 (Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords). There's an NPC in that adventure who'll only tell you about a secret passage if you give him 50 gp. My players couldn't get their heads around the idea of giving this guy five pounds of gold.trysterohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12028400087980452998noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-46074393441795537432011-12-31T08:18:52.180-05:002011-12-31T08:18:52.180-05:00jewelry that weighs as much as a grown man tells y...jewelry that weighs as much as a grown man tells you something about the culture that produced it. Emergent story, man!richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13517340075234811323noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-1415143960220458812011-12-31T08:05:18.437-05:002011-12-31T08:05:18.437-05:00Nagora:
"I generally agree on the jewellery f...Nagora:<br />"I generally agree on the jewellery front. But on the other hand: Liz Taylor's jewels sold for nutty prices although they mostly had gems. Lots of gems"<br /><br />The 1e DMG system already allows for pieces of exceptional value, up to 600,000gp (a lot more than the value of an Artifct!); the 300-1800 is for the default, gold-only, piece. Like I said, divide those numbers by 10 while also dividing the weight of gold by 10, and the numbers start to look ok.Simonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01173759805310975320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-764664599397092011-12-29T20:07:27.576-05:002011-12-29T20:07:27.576-05:00I never cared about this when I was a DM. I just ...I never cared about this when I was a DM. I just kept track of the total treasure carried by the whole party, assuming it was more or less evenly distributed. Once it started to look excessive, I would say "You guys are getting weighed down with the stuff you're carrying." That was their cue to head back to town before I started assessing combat penalties.TheShadowKnowshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11073693648569864707noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-43081257949460950072011-12-29T17:49:14.698-05:002011-12-29T17:49:14.698-05:00Not neurotically wedded to pseudo-medieval, pseudo...Not neurotically wedded to pseudo-medieval, pseudo-European settings? Consider high-fired ceramics as an underused alternative coining material for your centrally-controlled lowtech empire. Porcelain was historically hard enough to manufacture that the Chinese were able to make a near-monopoly out of it for over a thousand years, and if it's stamped with the mark of the dragon throne then it should be good enough for you, soldier. And they could weigh anything from say a pound each to a fiftieth of a pound, depending on how impressive they're supposed to be or how specific the information on them needs to be.<br /><br />What if metals are officially controlled, and everyday transactions are done in cowrie shells, ceramics and paper? Then if you dig up a horde of silver, you have to figure out how to fence it or otherwise convert it into safe, exchangeable currency.richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13517340075234811323noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-23786065107339945232011-12-29T17:29:17.895-05:002011-12-29T17:29:17.895-05:00Rob Fisher makes a valid point. Coin weight's ...Rob Fisher makes a valid point. Coin weight's a sadly chauvinistic place to choose as the vital fulcrum where fantasy should be grounded, though. Here, I pimp my blog:<br /><br /><a href="http://lurkerablog.wordpress.com/2011/06/06/to-haters-of-dds-ridiculous-big-gold-pieces/" rel="nofollow">ridiculous big gold pieces</a>.<br /><br />Re Delta's point about keeping gold special - GURPS Goblins, as usual, dances all over this topic: it comes down to class. Kings and dukes deal in gold and probably never handle anything else - beer is for lackeys, they drink only champagne. You find silver in the hands of the professional and moneylending classes. Copper is for rat-catchers, pie-peddlers and aspiring first level adventurers. Holding the wrong kind of coins for your social class is bound to lead to awkward questions.richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13517340075234811323noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-10826365394924235502011-12-29T11:23:26.177-05:002011-12-29T11:23:26.177-05:00I generally agree on the jewellery front. But on t...I generally agree on the jewellery front. But on the other hand: Liz Taylor's jewels sold for nutty prices although they mostly had gems. Lots of gems.Nagorahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10805769538648631984noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-78391124123572433902011-12-29T10:38:20.752-05:002011-12-29T10:38:20.752-05:00I use 100 gp to the lb, seems to work and mostly g...I use 100 gp to the lb, seems to work and mostly gives prices that are not too ridiculous for a wealth-rich environment.<br /><br />For jewelry, I tend to divide the 1e DMG listed values by 10 for something reasonable.<br /><br />If you actually stuck with 1e AD&D 10 gp to the lb and jewelry as listed, well a typical piece of wrought gold jewelry averages 300-1800 gp in value; if that came from weight alone it would average 1050/10 = a little over 100 lbs... <br /><br />Make it 30-180gp and 100 gp to the lb, things start to look sane.Simonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01173759805310975320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-80135476707762661512011-12-29T09:21:49.368-05:002011-12-29T09:21:49.368-05:00@Robert Fisher: Good comment. I pretty much agree....@Robert Fisher: Good comment. I pretty much agree. For me and for my players (who ask these kinds of things), it's the realistically modeled mundane stuff that makes the unrealistic stuff seem so cool. One unrealistic element (magic) doesn't wave away the need for realistic stuff (say, size and weight) that lets you suspend your disbelief. If everything is unrealistic, it's hard to get a handle on it as a game IME.<br /><br />And FWIW, my players long ago asked about coin size and weight. One of them took all the coins we could find to the high school lab, weighed and measured them, and we used that as a basis of setting coin size and weight in the game. It was very cool because if people asked, that player would hold up a real coin (say, a quarter) and say, "it's about this big, and X of them weigh Y ounces if it's Z metal." Because we knew, it was tangibly checkable, and it added to the verisimilitude of the game.Peter Dhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14246000382321978462noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-36445174834452417342011-12-29T07:25:20.198-05:002011-12-29T07:25:20.198-05:00"Making a switch to shillings/pounds just so ..."Making a switch to shillings/pounds just so one could thereafter ignore it would be curious at best."<br /><br />I think you missed the point - what is being ignored is the issue of how many coins are involved not the divisions of value. People still need to buy things and talk about prices and value. So, an AD&D longsword costs £30 sterling and the PC pays thirty pounds, or pays 10 shillings for a javelin, or a penny for a torch. What we don't really care about is the specific form that those thirty pounds or whatever takes, except perhaps if it is copper, silver or gold, and even then only on an adventure where encumbrance is being tracked.<br /><br />"But it's even easier to just stick with the OD&D valuations of 1gp = 10sp = 50cp"<br /><br />You perhaps assume unfamiliarity with the system. I can (just about) remember using £sd in shops and in fact I find that for mental arithmetic it is superior to the base-10 system with its many recurring fractions, so it's no bother for me and most players seem to find likewise that, amazingly enough, a system that was in use by illiterate peasants for a thousand years actually isn't terribly hard.Nagorahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10805769538648631984noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-50594177959441928062011-12-29T02:17:11.392-05:002011-12-29T02:17:11.392-05:00We almost always used weight of coinage for their ...We almost always used weight of coinage for their value. Merchants would use weights and scales rather than actually counting coins, especially since milled edges had yet to be invented. Which meant that counterfeiting could apply to the coin itself or the weights used to measure them. The Merchant's Guild policed these matters, with extremely harsh penalties for anyone caught.<br /><br />Of course most coinage was actually sterling silver rather than pure silver. And certain currencies tended to become worth less as time went on as they reduced their silver content whilst still claiming that they had the same value (in the jurisdiction of whichever mint made them you were often forced to take them even if you knew they were worth less). There were a lot of mints.<br /><br />[In my games coins were the outgrowth of "coyns" which were alchemically pure medallions of gold or silver created by the Wizard's Guild. A set of 12 or 13 silver coyns represented the months of the year (solar or lunar calendar). The gold coyn was made by the mint. These were larger than coins, but set the value of each. Traditionally money changers were able to use either the lunar or solar rate in their transactions, to their benefit. Thus when converting silver to gold they would use the lunar rate (13sp = 1 gp), and the solar rate in reverse (1gp = 12sp). This became the standard rate for financial transaction surcharges.]Reverance Pavanehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01217657347160811310noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-551758708952900622011-12-29T02:07:06.674-05:002011-12-29T02:07:06.674-05:00But it's even easier to just stick with the OD...But it's even easier to just stick with the OD&D valuations of 1gp = 10sp = 50cp, which is actually on the order of real-world medieval coins. Making a switch to shillings/pounds just so one could thereafter ignore it would be curious at best.Deltahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00705402326320853684noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-2032461387945450142011-12-29T00:45:59.059-05:002011-12-29T00:45:59.059-05:00Whilst a "shilling" was not a coin, ther...Whilst a "shilling" was not a coin, there were coins valued at one or more shillings, that was after all where Charlemagne got his nomenclature from [i.e. the gold solidus or sous, though in fact closer in value to a gold tremissis].<br /><br />Anyway, as Nagora says it is easy to abstract away or just plain ignore.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05646247954542936623noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-85924887771496350052011-12-28T18:19:56.838-05:002011-12-28T18:19:56.838-05:00If you abstract the coins to just weights then 100...If you abstract the coins to just weights then 100 silver pieces becomes "10 pounds of silver" and you can forget about the actual number of coins. This leads fairly quickly to just using pounds, shillings and pence since the ratios are very close.<br /><br />While shillings and pounds were not coins in the middle ages, they were amounts that were discussed and used. Again, the issue of whether "a shilling" meant 12 coins or one big (though not as big as a D&D sp) one wasn't very important since the coins were made from sterling silver (hence pounds sterling). Throw in D&D-sytle inflation and actual shillings as coins actually does start to make some sense too.Nagorahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10805769538648631984noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-61466514638878855992011-12-28T11:56:26.495-05:002011-12-28T11:56:26.495-05:00@Robert Fisher: Well spoke.@Robert Fisher: Well spoke.Duglashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04952607750940479779noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-65255695650389674262011-12-28T11:24:57.004-05:002011-12-28T11:24:57.004-05:00Gridlore said: " When it came to the actua...Gridlore said: " When it came to the actual monetary system, I used the pre-decimal British system... 1 pound = 1 gold piece/20 shillings... 1 shilling = 1 silver piece/20 pence... 1 penny = 1 copper piece"<br /><br />But: <a href="http://deltasdnd.blogspot.com/2011/03/shillings-and-pounds-were-not-coins.html" rel="nofollow">Shillings and pounds were not coins.</a>Deltahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00705402326320853684noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-30868352703252224982011-12-28T11:23:06.637-05:002011-12-28T11:23:06.637-05:00James Maliszewski said: "I have no strong fee...James Maliszewski said: "I have no strong feelings about it one way or the other. Silver is just as arbitrary a standard as gold in a game..."<br /><br />For me, one of the main issues is that it allows you to "level up" into gold at a higher play/value level. Taking a gold (top-value coin) standard is somewhat analogous to a game that started PCs at 20th level, and the only possible movement being downward.<br /><br />That switch is one of my "Top 5" house rules for D&D: <a href="http://deltasdnd.blogspot.com/p/primary-house-rules.html" rel="nofollow">http://deltasdnd.blogspot.com/p/primary-house-rules.html</a>Deltahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00705402326320853684noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-75780385809576662002011-12-28T11:14:49.586-05:002011-12-28T11:14:49.586-05:00Rob Conley said: "I always thought the idea o...Rob Conley said: "I always thought the idea of 1oz coins to be stupid beyond belief... Sure make sure that coin weight is accounted for but not so extreme as only ten per lb!"<br /><br />Totally agree. It's the extreme brokenness of the original rule that opens up wild extrapolations like this.Deltahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00705402326320853684noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-11383839215214571132011-12-28T10:50:14.031-05:002011-12-28T10:50:14.031-05:00Pardon the "me, too" entry, but what Rob...Pardon the "me, too" entry, but what Robert says above summarizes my own view nearly perfectly, not just for the article in question, but for almost all those cases wherein someone would ask "How would this really work?"Anthonyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01254215329246851683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-69307500993287115702011-12-28T08:58:58.195-05:002011-12-28T08:58:58.195-05:00From my point-of-view, D&D isn’t improvisation...From my point-of-view, D&D isn’t improvisational theatre, but it isn’t “just a game” either. For me, the fiction of the game is more important than the mechanics. A large portion of the fun is making decisions, and what makes decisions fun is being able to reason about the world the decision is being made in.<br /><br />Now, the world has both fantasy and common (i.e. mundane) elements. For me, a large portion of what makes the fantasy elements work is their juxtaposition against the common elements.<br /><br />With the fantasy elements, sometimes we work to learn the rules that govern them in game, which can be a lot of fun. Sometimes they’re enigmas. It can be fun to have enigmas that we have to reason around, but too much of that gets frustrating. The common elements give us a good grounding point. Stuff we can reason about fairly reliably and that we don’t have to discover the rules governing first. (Which is also why the fantasy world tends to work better when many of the common elements are closer to the modern world than to medieval history.)<br /><br />The problem with coins is that the game gives us mechanics for something common, and those mechanics don’t seem to fit our experience very well.<br /><br />The simple solutions have been mentioned. (1) Treat is as abstract. (2) Replace it with something that fits our expectations.<br /><br />To me, though, one of the “side benefits” of this hobby has been the way it encourages me to learn more about various topics. Whether it is the history of coinage or the physics behind the weight, volume, and how efficiently objects pack into a container.<br /><br />To me, this article isn’t really about trying to make the game more realistic or taking the fantasy out of the fantasy world. It’s about investigating a topic at the prompting of the game, sharing the results, and considering whether we’d like to incorporate some of what we’ve learned back into the game.Roberthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16733274876782876659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-14192673392318554472011-12-28T06:53:36.561-05:002011-12-28T06:53:36.561-05:00According to BullionSupermaket.com, a One Troy Oun...According to BullionSupermaket.com, a One Troy Ounce (31,1 grams) gold coin has a 32mm in diameter and is 2mm thick. A siver coin of the same weight has a 37mm diameter. I suppose then, 1.6 oz D&D coins could be 3.2mm thick.<br />So , I guess that: "my magic-user throws coins for 1d6 damage" makes sense...porphyre77https://www.blogger.com/profile/07620350717226228078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-76046036877157308542011-12-28T06:45:16.092-05:002011-12-28T06:45:16.092-05:00I wonder how come the need for realism expressed i...I wonder how come the need for realism expressed itself in detailing the weight (or encumbrance) of gold pieces (in a system that actualy defines the encumbrance unit as 1 gold piece... it's basically the electronVolt of encumbrance) and not on describing the different kind of money (expanding the brief paragraph in the DMG), to give more flavor to the game.<br /><br />What often lacks in treasure descriptions is not its weight, but rather its appearance!Space Coyotehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08853149586005897172noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-63114530508653337892011-12-28T04:36:13.791-05:002011-12-28T04:36:13.791-05:00I remember 500lb of silver coin per 9 gallon firki...I remember 500lb of silver coin per 9 gallon firkin being hauled (along with the other fifty one tax firkins) from Parliament down to the river and on to the Tower of London.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-17712090677576819722011-12-27T23:52:01.985-05:002011-12-27T23:52:01.985-05:00UWS guy - Your logic makes no sense. If a statue ...UWS guy - Your logic makes no sense. If a statue weighs 100 gp and is made of gold, then it is worth 100 gp and vice versa. It does not somehow weigh more, and therefore raise the average weight of coins/items in a hoard; for that to be true it would have to weigh 100 gp weight, but only be worth 1 gp, in which case it’s not made of gold.Michaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11656554193044378009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-44734296114048463162011-12-27T23:49:01.397-05:002011-12-27T23:49:01.397-05:00"How many coins per pound? F-it, Bag of Holdi...<i>"How many coins per pound? F-it, Bag of Holding"</i><br /><br />If I recall correctly, the Dragon article in question also discusses the carrying capacities of both the bag of holding and the portable hole.Michaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08868302412533031659noreply@blogger.com