Emerikol
Legend
I'm not sure I understand this answer. Where you responding to my post?
D&D 5E "Fixing" electrum pieces - looking for a player's perspective
- Thread starter Shiroiken
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aco175
Legend
The only thing I recall about this.
As a player in a game I tend to not like counting and sorting and tracking- unless there is a reason. Tracking rations in a desert when the next town is 10 days out and you might get lost loosing 2 days- ok. Tacking rations when there are towns every two days of travel, no than you.
Making electrum the new gold and gold the new platinum so that platinum is now a super-platinum makes me ask for what purpose? I now need to do math in my head every time I open the book or go spend gold, I mean electrum. You say you like tracking weight and coins which is fine, but ask the players in your game and see what they like.
I know players that will write 100 gold on their sheet when given 1,000 silver in treasure. I never check or track their treasure. They say that they would go to an exchanger to make it easier to carry. I found that I care less for this part and do not bother with exchange rates and taxes and finder fees for old coins. I tried before and found I cared more than the players.
shrug
I first learned about both electrum and platinum from D&D. So I have a fondness for them as coins. It's part of the idiosyncrasies that give the game flavor.
No big deal. If you don't like it, just don't use them.
I first learned about both electrum and platinum from D&D. So I have a fondness for them as coins. It's part of the idiosyncrasies that give the game flavor.
No big deal. If you don't like it, just don't use them.
GrimCo
Hero
From player perspective, in 5e, after levels 3-4, i stop counting gold pieces, let alone petty change ( silver and copper). Electrum is fun for games set in classical era (Greece/Rome). In standard fantasy, nah. Personally, can't remember any of us used silver coins for anything in game.
In earlier editions, where there was incentive for money acquisition, again, no need to count anything below GP, since it's all petty change. When you start dealing with prices in thousands (and later tens of thousands), we would use platinum and then gems to haul money around.
In earlier editions, where there was incentive for money acquisition, again, no need to count anything below GP, since it's all petty change. When you start dealing with prices in thousands (and later tens of thousands), we would use platinum and then gems to haul money around.
the Jester
Legend
I love seeing other peoples' weird currencies. Does anyone else have multiple different coinages in their games?
I have a thing where there is the "imperial" coinage (the standard gp, ep, sp, etc) from the fallen empire whose ruins the current world is built on. And one city tried to impose a system of coins whose value was set by the city rather than via their value as precious metals. So you had:
1 Argo (bronze) valued at 5 gp in Fandelose and 1/40 gp elsewhere;
1 Mark (brass) valued at 1 gp in Fandelose and 1/250 gp elsewhere;
1 Guinea (brass) valued at 1/20 gp in Fandelose and 1/250 gp elsewhere;
and 1 Penny (copper) valued at 1/400 gp in Fandelose and 1/100 gp elsewhere.
(Except for pence, the "elsewhere" value is assuming you can get them to accept it at all!)
Note that this allows for some weird shenanigans with coin exchanges, such as exchanging pence for coins which led to laws forbidding such. This also, on a meta level, encouraged pcs to hoard illegal currency (gps and the rest), which you could have confiscated if you were caught with; or you could take them to the bank to exchange for "proper" currency- at a 3% cost.
Money can be complicated, and it can serve as incredibly spicy world flavor with all kinds of potential complications. It never happened in game, but I always kind of expected some pc or other to turn all their city money into pence, exchange those for gps with the more scurrilous of the local dwarves, then take that and turn it into marks and make a profit. Assuming the pcs started with 100 marks, they could turn it into 40,000 pence, then into 400 gp, then into 388 marks (that 3% cut for the banks can never be forgotten!).
I have a thing where there is the "imperial" coinage (the standard gp, ep, sp, etc) from the fallen empire whose ruins the current world is built on. And one city tried to impose a system of coins whose value was set by the city rather than via their value as precious metals. So you had:
1 Argo (bronze) valued at 5 gp in Fandelose and 1/40 gp elsewhere;
1 Mark (brass) valued at 1 gp in Fandelose and 1/250 gp elsewhere;
1 Guinea (brass) valued at 1/20 gp in Fandelose and 1/250 gp elsewhere;
and 1 Penny (copper) valued at 1/400 gp in Fandelose and 1/100 gp elsewhere.
(Except for pence, the "elsewhere" value is assuming you can get them to accept it at all!)
Note that this allows for some weird shenanigans with coin exchanges, such as exchanging pence for coins which led to laws forbidding such. This also, on a meta level, encouraged pcs to hoard illegal currency (gps and the rest), which you could have confiscated if you were caught with; or you could take them to the bank to exchange for "proper" currency- at a 3% cost.
Money can be complicated, and it can serve as incredibly spicy world flavor with all kinds of potential complications. It never happened in game, but I always kind of expected some pc or other to turn all their city money into pence, exchange those for gps with the more scurrilous of the local dwarves, then take that and turn it into marks and make a profit. Assuming the pcs started with 100 marks, they could turn it into 40,000 pence, then into 400 gp, then into 388 marks (that 3% cut for the banks can never be forgotten!).
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
If I gave certain of my players the ability to do the bolded, adventuring would very quickly go out the window.
I tried once to change one of my 5E campaigns over to a "silver standard", in the hopes of making gold pieces seem more special and not be the baseline currency. Turns out none of my players gave a rat's ass about it. I quickly discovered that my desire for making "GP special" was merely just my memories of a bygone era of AD&D when gold pieces actually WERE special because they determined how fast I leveled up.
But in the modern game where almost everything that requires money is just listed as a GP baseline... no one cared about the different currencies-- they just changed everything to the gold piece standard anyway because that's what they were going to be using. 4000 copper pieces? Became 40 gold pieces immediately. A sapphire gem? How many GP is it worth? That's all that matters. And it also turned out that whether that baseline was called "gold" or "silver" meant zero to my players because for them it was only a tool to use and the "flavor" of said tool didn't matter. It would be like deciding to call all shovels in my world 'trowels'... no one would care what I called it, they would just want to know "Does it move dirt?" So me trying to change all listed currencies in books and adventures and things from gold pieces to silver pieces ended up being a large waste of my time for no actual gain.
So the parallel here is whether or not your players actually care about the "flavor" of having Electrum in the game... or if it's merely just your fond memories of a bygone time that your players might not actually share. Figuring that out will be the easiest way to determine whether trying to change your money system around ends up being worth it. Because I know for me... changing my money system is like changing my calendar-- yeah it might seem "more flavorful" to have ten day weeks or equal number of days each month and all the month names changed to something "setting appropriate"... but in the end it's just too much of a hassle for everyone to try and remember all that than just using the Gregorian calendar system we already know. Our calendars are like our money systems... the actual thing itself isn't the important part, it's merely the tool with which we use for our important parts (what we do with our days and our dollars). So let's not overthink it or try and get cutesy... just use what we're comfortable with for speed and ease-of-use, and get our setting flavor elsewhere in the game.
But in the modern game where almost everything that requires money is just listed as a GP baseline... no one cared about the different currencies-- they just changed everything to the gold piece standard anyway because that's what they were going to be using. 4000 copper pieces? Became 40 gold pieces immediately. A sapphire gem? How many GP is it worth? That's all that matters. And it also turned out that whether that baseline was called "gold" or "silver" meant zero to my players because for them it was only a tool to use and the "flavor" of said tool didn't matter. It would be like deciding to call all shovels in my world 'trowels'... no one would care what I called it, they would just want to know "Does it move dirt?" So me trying to change all listed currencies in books and adventures and things from gold pieces to silver pieces ended up being a large waste of my time for no actual gain.
So the parallel here is whether or not your players actually care about the "flavor" of having Electrum in the game... or if it's merely just your fond memories of a bygone time that your players might not actually share. Figuring that out will be the easiest way to determine whether trying to change your money system around ends up being worth it. Because I know for me... changing my money system is like changing my calendar-- yeah it might seem "more flavorful" to have ten day weeks or equal number of days each month and all the month names changed to something "setting appropriate"... but in the end it's just too much of a hassle for everyone to try and remember all that than just using the Gregorian calendar system we already know. Our calendars are like our money systems... the actual thing itself isn't the important part, it's merely the tool with which we use for our important parts (what we do with our days and our dollars). So let's not overthink it or try and get cutesy... just use what we're comfortable with for speed and ease-of-use, and get our setting flavor elsewhere in the game.
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TaranTheWanderer
Legend
If a game requires a player to track the weight of coins, having 1000cp is a huge difference from having 10gp so you can't just jot 10gp on your character sheet if you find a chest of copper. You're going to have to lug that chest around with you. In most cases, I'd just leave it where I found it.
That said, I hate tracking the weight of coins unless I have a character sheet that does it automatically.
To answer the OP: I don't mind EP being 5 silver but it almost never got used because:
1. DMs never gave it out in huge quantities like silver and gold and;
2. I tend to trade it in for GPs anyways.
But that said, if you want to reduce weight, why not make an EP worth 5gp instead so that there's something between a GP and a PP?
That said, I hate tracking the weight of coins unless I have a character sheet that does it automatically.
To answer the OP: I don't mind EP being 5 silver but it almost never got used because:
1. DMs never gave it out in huge quantities like silver and gold and;
2. I tend to trade it in for GPs anyways.
But that said, if you want to reduce weight, why not make an EP worth 5gp instead so that there's something between a GP and a PP?
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