D&D 5E (2014) "Fixing" electrum pieces - looking for a player's perspective

[Lanefan]

So, I've got a degree in mathematics. My mental math skills are above the top 1% of the population.

No, the level of realism of 21 shillings to the quarter horse isn't needed.

That kind of stuff in the real world had reduced costs eventually because it was universal and forced, so everyone picked up the skills needed to deal with it. But this is a game, and I'm not all that interested in coin conversion, and adding a math problem to every currency purchase is not something I'm interested in.

I'm sure there are people who want to play a simulation with that degree of precision (if not accuracy), but that ain't my problem.

Encumbrance already has a low level of people bothering with it. This was even true decades ago. Paying attention to it was a subtype of D&D even when it was a core rule. Making it more awkward to deal with doesn't make it more likely to be used, nor would it make the gameplay involving it more engaging to me.

Coins being 100 to the unit of weight the game cares about would make counting coins for weight insanely more common. However, encumbrance in 5e is well designed to encourage people to ignore it.

As historically money was a weight of precious metals thing, and doing so returns the game to the original purpose of encumbrance in D&D (measure how much treasure you could carry out of a dungeon), my idea of measuring money by pounds of silver aligns with my goal of encumbrance being used in a game.

I might also do a pass on the equipment list to simplify the weights of things; precision is less important than simplicity. As the world I'm working on has a degree of common magic items in industrial production (low level enchantments are everywhere), I can use this as an excuse to change weights of things. Bwahahaha.

I'd be tempted to go to kg, but it doesn't feel fantasy-ish. Mina is too obscure. Hmm.

One thing often forgotten in these discussions, because we're nowadays so used to everything being in decimals and machines doing our calculations for us, is that fractions - one half, one quarter, etc. - are far easier than decimals for everyday people to relate to on a here-and-now basis when dealing with measurements and-or physical things in the real world.

And that's why, thorugh common use over the long term, things ended up in non-decimal conversions. 12 pence to the shilling (or 12 inches to the foot) makes far more sense than 10, because 12 is dividable by 2, 3, 4, and 6 where 10 is only dividable by 5 and 2. 16 ounces to the pound makes even more sense as it's a direct factor of 2, and thus divides evenly all the way down.

If we're modelling medieval or renaissance fantasy, these are the type of conversions that would be in use.

 

[Baron Opal II]

I used to have a variety of coinages of different purities and sizes from different areas, nations, city-states.
That was a lot of fun to develop, a pain in the neck to implement, and didn't bring any more interest or fun to the table. Lasted about three sessions.

These days, I have a fairly universal silver standard, with C:S:G of 200:20:1. I came to appreciate having gold being "worth something" rather than the default coin. It also made relatively minor jewelry still worth having. I tried having 12 coppers to the silver, but there was some player revolt about that; they approved of the 20:1 gold ratio. There is also the "strike" an ingot of the metal that is struck with the seal of the mining authority. These are used for larger transfers from mines or refiners, that are worth 250 coins each. Each of the city-states or countries has their own silver mint, but for the most part it's not relevant. Unless, someone happens to notice a plot point that a large number of coins are minted from the city-state of Amber, a well-known hive of scum and villainy.

Some variant coinages are the previously mentioned electrum and platinum coins. I've set them as worth 5 sp and 5gp, respectively. However, they are nearly exclusively used and minted by elves. As the elves are all gone, they make for interesting secondary hints when treasure is found. Elves haven't been around for a long time, but they were present when the coins were dropped.

The city-state of Valon uses pewter coins fixed to a value of 1 sp each. All silver coins and other forms of silver are to be exchanged for the pewter coins prior to entering the city. They're very picky about it, and the gate guards have little tolerance for people screwing around about it. They do not exchange the coins back when you leave, and they are worth only about a copper each elsewhere. They're one of the few places where magical weapons and certain medallions can be purchased, so people travel there and bring gold.

Another magical group is found in the city-state of Pearl. The magiocracy the runs the port has a deal with a small nation of locathah right off the coast. They have for sale remarkably uniform pearls of specific size and quality, pegged to 100 sp each. These are often used by merchants when they need to transfer more significant sums of wealth amongst each other.

So now, I have a pretty set generic valuation of coins, with some exceptions where it might make sense for more significant transfer of wealth or a subtle clue as to people who had been to the site prior.

 

[NotAYakk]

One thing often forgotten in these discussions, because we're nowadays so used to everything being in decimals and machines doing our calculations for us, is that fractions - one half, one quarter, etc. - are far easier than decimals for everyday people to relate to on a here-and-now basis when dealing with measurements and-or physical things in the real world.

And that's why, thorugh common use over the long term, things ended up in non-decimal conversions. 12 pence to the shilling (or 12 inches to the foot) makes far more sense than 10, because 12 is dividable by 2, 3, 4, and 6 where 10 is only dividable by 5 and 2. 16 ounces to the pound makes even more sense as it's a direct factor of 2, and thus divides evenly all the way down.

If we're modelling medieval or renaissance fantasy, these are the type of conversions that would be in use.

Sure, but in everyday use we aren't calculating how heavy a purse of coins is. We are just hefting it. The coins do the weight calculation for us (physics yay).

For the most part "weight" and "currency" are not a problem in the same transaction.

And the same often holds for currency. In 99.9% of situations, if you care about how much something is to the penny, you aren't dealing with 1000s of them. The physical coins do the math for you here in a sense. And in each transaction, you only have to care about the transaction. And let the actual objects to the larger scale math.

At some point you have to do serious accounting in the real world, but that isn't what most humans working with coins do; we use specialists. Most people just buy bread or whatever, and on that scale 21 bobs to the doodad (or 20 small-bobs) is totally fine. You make change and move on.

In a game like D&D you are forced to do the accounting yourself all the time, because there aren't physical coins doing the math for you. (I mean, unless there is, but that is a lot of work)

If we use base 10, this accounting is far easier, because everyone in the modern day has piles of training on base 10 math. In theory a different uniform base could be as easy (global human society could have standardized on base 12 for example), but we didn't.

 

[ragweed-1]

Gold is heavy, really heavy. A bag with 1000 GP depending on the size of the coin would be an issue for all tables that work with some kind of encumbrance rule.

Historically, gold coins in the Medievil period in Europe and North Africa were between 4-8 grams. The 4.5 gram Byzantine Solus, one of the most widely used gold coin in Western Europe and inspiration for the Gallic Sou and ithe Dinar in the Islamic world was about 4.5 grams. There were some larger ones like the the 15.5 gram gold Soverign of Henry the VIIth as well, plus large, rairly used show-coins. 5Es 50 GP to the pound is about 9.4 grams, so not to far off the historical average.

Edit: I see this has been covered in pages 17 and 18 in this 19 page thread.

Also - this is a 19 page thread on currency in a fantasy game!

 

[NotAYakk]

Historically, gold coins in the Medievil period in Europe and North Africa were between 4-8 grams. The 4.5 gram Byzantine Solus, one of the most widely used gold coin in Western Europe and inspiration for the Gallic Sou and ithe Dinar in the Islamic world was about 4.5 grams. There were some larger ones like the the 15.5 gram gold Soverign of Henry the VIIth as well, plus large, rairly used show-coins. 5Es 50 GP to the pound is about 9.4 grams, so not to far off the historical average.

Edit: I see this has been covered in pages 17 and 18 in this 19 page thread.

Also - this is a 19 page thread on currency in a fantasy game!

Except, many of those examples are 4.5 grams. And 4.7 gram coins would be 100 coins to the pound. Which would make tracking coin-encumbrance easier.

Why, why, why go 50? It does little other than discourage tracking encumbrance.