Do you use electrum pieces?

[fanboy2000]

That should be my next poll: have you ever used astral diamonds? I know I haven't.

 

[Aeolius]

Electrum and orichalcum... though the main trade is in shells, pearls, and coral.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Voted no, although I did use them occasionally back in 1e. Never could stand the non-decimal system as a player, even though it was more accurate for the supposed times. Just one more bit of bookeeping that I didn't want to bother with. Haven't used PP since the 1e days either.

Personally I always hankered after a coinage system which mixed base 12 and base 20 with a bit of base 21 thrown in for the wealthy ones.

Felt like my childhood.

 

[angelababy]

Both at a loss of course. It's otherwise more trouble than it's worth to FORCE a non-decimal coinage system upon players, IME.

 

[Boregar]

Not anymore, but I used to. I remember almost every hoard had a list of copper, silver, electrum and gold pieces, plus some platinum if it was a particularly tough monster.

 

[Corathon]

I use them, but I run 1E; the treasure tables in that game produce electrum reasonably often.

Forcing coins to a strict decimal system just feels too modern to me - like using meters instead of yards, it just strikes the wrong chord.

 

[Orius]

I have to ask. What's funny about Electrum coins? Their obscurity in modern times?

It's because like the older platinum pieces, they're an oddball coin. They're equal to 5 sp, so it mucks around with the easy decimal system of cp/sp/gp. Platinum used to be like that, except 5 gp, to the point where I was converting them like that in 3e and shortchanging my players when I randomly rolled treasure (I really didn't bother to take a close look at the coin values in the 3e PHB, and just kept using the 2e exchange rate).

And it's not just that they're worth half a gold piece, all the prices in the PHB are routinely listed in cp/sp/gp, so they just add more complexity to the game. Platinum pieces and astral diamonds at least are convenient for making large sums of money more portable; ep don't do much because you can just convert silver pieces in to gold or platinum, and just skip electrum.

 

[Nadaka]

I use them to annihilate positrons.

OOHH... electrUM.

I don't. I use Purchase DC's in D20 modern. I don't hand out wealth bonuses either, but a PDC that compares to the wealth score and grants an increase to wealth equivalent to the loss that would normally be suffered if you purchased an item of that DC.

Even when I did play D&D, I don't think I ever used electrum. cp/sp/gp/pp. In 2e my older brother played with coins of tin, copper, steel, silver, electrum, gold, platinum, mythral in order of value.