Coinage in your Games?

[Mark]

How important and detailed is coinage and its usage portrayed in your games? Is it just a gold/silver/copper situation or do you have different names for the coins based on where and when they were minted? Is passing ancient coins from a crypt foray bound to raise eyebrows? Has a PC ever done things in a campaign that warranted their own visage appearing on currency? Has a mint ever figured into an adventure in some way? Please tell me all you can about coins in your games.

 

[evilgenius8000]

The only truly defined coin in my D&D game world is the copper coin, dubbed the "Emperor" as a slight towards the last emperor of the realm before it fractured into a collection of warring states. Of course, the lands east of old Teluria have their own styles of coins.

 

[Treebore]

I tried, but when my groups started travelling from region to region I was hard pressed to remember the names, so we just quit worrying about it.

Even though I do have ancient collectible coins as part of my treasure awards tables. So if the party takes the time to find collectors they can get up to 10 times the face value of the coin. They rarely do though. They even passed on 112 ancient platinum coins that were worth over 11,000 gold to the right collector/s. Gave them away (spent) at face value. Oh well, their loss.

 

[Woas]

Right now it's just the all mighty Credit, cause I'm playing in a sci-fi/space opera game. Although I've been trying to figure out a cutesy name for it (like Woolongs, clams, Zeni, etc.

Back when I was in a medieval fantasy themed game, money was abstract and represented any number of things such as trinkets, baubles, actual coins, fine wine, gems, trade goods and so forth along with some non-tangable like favors, promises, hosting balls, a days worth of hard labor, etc. Basically on the character sheet it all gets boiled down to one 'amount'.
So instead of typically tracking copper/silver/gold/platnium, a character would just track the equivalent of all their expendable treasure in gold. A character might have on their sheet '700 gold'. As to how the player wants to express that when it comes time to pay for the inn tab is up to them.

 

[DeusExMachina]

In the campaign I run it's all barter economy at the moment because they are from a small town that's been isolated for 800 years from the rest of the world as have most other towns. We use gold/silver/copper to represent how much the goods they have are worth though, simply to make the math for trading easier...

So it's: 500 gp worth of this stuff, even though they can't actually get gp for it...

 

[ProfessorPain]

Sometimes too much detail can derail immersion in the game. When it comes to coinage, I am of the opinion that you should keep it simple. Either stick to gold, silver, platinum, copper; or rename them in an easy to remember fashion: crowns, royals, tins, etc. As soon as someone brings out a chart for their economic system, I tune out.

 

[Crothian]

I have a list of coins (many values) and names from different nations and times. In some campaigns the players really liked this and used it others, not so much.

 

[Aeolius]

I run an undersea game, so we use... clams

 

[Wycen]

Memory tells me that only in my Necropolis campaign did I try to use different flavors and terms for coins. I had a chart of equivalence, but I probably should have given a copy to the players, along with other "conversion" notes, but figured it wasn't too important especially since they were strangers in the land.

I think I dropped the coinage difference before we stopped playing.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

How important and detailed is coinage and its usage portrayed in your games?

I'm interested in the subject, so I put a little more detail into it than I suspect is common. I don't think you *need* to; it's just one of those aspects that I enjoy.

Is it just a gold/silver/copper situation or do you have different names for the coins based on where and when they were minted?

In my current campaign, there are "coins of the realm" which are gold, silver, and three sizes/weights of copper coin. They have nicknames, but the use of the nicknames isn't that common, except for the copper coins.

Different realms have different coins, but it hasn't come up. The important part is the weight of the precious metal, in any case.

Is passing ancient coins from a crypt foray bound to raise eyebrows?

Sure. It will be weighed and accepted, but if it hasn't been seen, before, people will be curious where it came from (suspecting buried treasure).

Has a PC ever done things in a campaign that warranted their own visage appearing on currency?

Not in my current campaign (which is fairly new).

Has a mint ever figured into an adventure in some way?

No, but it's not a bad idea.

Please tell me all you can about coins in your games.

Well, I basically re-worked the values and prices for my OD&D game. I kept the OD&D ratio of 1 gp = 10 sp = 50 cp, set the coin weight as an ounce of precious metal, and then assigned "rough equivalent" values, so that I can think about the coins in terms of the dollar. A (one ounce) gp is roughly equal to $100, a sp to $10, and a cp to $2. I then set prices and wages and income levels based on those values. Modern economic values and fantasy world economies aren't directly comparable, of course, and there's still a lot of hand-waving in the whole thing, but it helps me out when estimating prices and such. I think it helps the players, too: when they slide a gold piece across the bar to the bartender while pumping him for information, they know it's like slipping him $100.

My OD&D price list is here: Philotomy's OD&D Price List (pdf)