Interresting thing about medieval coins I just read

[Dogbrain]

Usually, governments would tend to pay in base coin and tax in precious.

No. That was NOT the usual way things were done. Such practice may have been done in times of instability or raging fiscal irresponsibility, but that was certainly not the usual practice.

 

[Treebore]

All I can tell you is that ever since way back in Dragon magazine, sometime in the 80's, when the D&D system was admittedly based on the Roman system, they published that roman gold coins were like a 120 or 130 coins to a US pound (lbs). So ever since then I have always had a 100 gold coins per pound of weight be my campaign standard. The sizes and weights of the copper and silver roman coins I actually own do nothing but confirm, to me, that having the 100/pound is far more realistic than 10/pound. Plus none of my campaigns have suffered any kind of economic collapse, and I often run very economic intensive campaigns (hence my LOVE for Magical Medievel Societies: Western Europe).

So i go with 100 gold coins per pound as my campaign standard, even though a 120 coins per pound would be historically closer. Assuming you go with the real world Roman system as your comparison. Which D&D did, and I presume still does, since it hasn't changed its basic defintions as far as I know.

 

[Vaxalon]

So i go with 100 gold coins per pound as my campaign standard, even though a 120 coins per pound would be historically closer. Assuming you go with the real world Roman system as your comparison. Which D&D did, and I presume still does, since it hasn't changed its basic defintions as far as I know.

DnD is 50 per pound, which makes sense in a world where gold is more common. Tiny tinfoil coins are hard to manage.

 

[mmadsen]

I keep wanting to have some form of currency that can be used directly for item creation...like, it contains one GP worth of magical energy for item creation, or as an expensive spell component.

Excellent idea, Brad/cignus_pfaccari. Ars Magica has the notion of vis (Latin for power), pure magical energy that you can seek out or trade. Another notion is to go in the opposite direction -- there's no way to provide magic directly via gold; you need to find specific magical ingredients (pixie dust, dragon blood, etc.). The difficulty of acquiring those ingredients roughly corresponds to the gold-piece cost in the core rules.

 

[Dogbrain]

Assuming you go with the real world Roman system as your comparison. Which D&D did, and I presume still does, since it hasn't changed its basic defintions as far as I know.

D&D did not and never has used anything even remotely resembling any of the Roman system of coinage, as anyone who has studied any of the Roman system would immediately recognize.

The Roman system routinely had coins of the same metals but different denominations, usually half or quarter values of some larger coin of the same metal value.

A brief summary:

The basic unit was the denarius, which was a theoretically silver coin (that got down to 20:1 copper:silver by the time of Diocletian), this was roughly 3g in weight. There was also a silver Antoninianus that was worth two denarii but weighed only 5.6g (thus giving the state an enormous profit on this one case).

Then come bronze coins. The sestertius was 1/4 the value of a denarius. The dupondius was 1/8 a denarius. The as was 1/16 a denarius. The semis was 1/32 a denarius. The quadrans was 1/64 a denarius.

Gold coinage was extremely rare during the Empire and thus, had no standard values, differing from issue to issue.

So, as we can see, Rome's system was almost purely binary in nature (each coin was worth half the value of the next greater coin), and Rome's currency was based on silver and bronze, alone.

Therefore, it is blatantly apparent that D&D never used Roman currency as its basis.

 

[Treebore]

There is one BIG problem with your technical accuracy dogbrain, I didn't technically say they used the roman coin system. I said they used it for the basis of the D&D coin system. Using it as the basis no way infers it was an exact copy of the original, just the inspiration for how they did it in 1E and 2E D&D.

So your knowledge of coinage is impressive, your application of it to my statement is totally unwarranted.

like I said, not only have I studied the Roman coinage system, I own a couple of dozen coins with many different roman ceasars, or other symbols, stamped on them. So they are not foil thin, as another poster seemed to infer they are, but they are very irregular, both around the edges, and on the facing, plus the stamp is no where close to being centered. Apparently, this irregularity was the roman way to keep their coins from being shaved, much like the rough ridging on the quarter and other coinage. Overall, they are smaller in diameter and slightly less heavy, than the US dime, no matter if they are copper or silver. I do not any any gold coins, but I have seen and handled the 4 my wife's uncle owns, and they are generally the same as the copper and silvers that I own.

So that is why I use a 100 coins per pound standard. Factually accurate enough for me.

 

[aurance]

There is one BIG problem with your technical accuracy dogbrain, I didn't technically say they used the roman coin system. I said they used it for the basis of the D&D coin system. Using it as the basis no way infers it was an exact copy of the original, just the inspiration for how they did it in 1E and 2E D&D.

Assuming dogbrain's summary is correct, I can't see how Roman coinage can be considered the basis of the D&D coin system any more than American coinage or a bunch of others. What specifically do you think are the similarities between Roman and D&D coinage that makes this comparison stand apart from others?

 

[Staffan]

I keep wanting to have some form of currency that can be used directly for item creation...like, it contains one GP worth of magical energy for item creation, or as an expensive spell component.

Brad

IIRC, Glantri in Mystara had something like this: Platinum coins charged with magic. If you had enough of them, you could use the magic to power a spell, leaving you with regular platinum coins.

 

[RPG_Tweaker]

Since there appears to be some numismatists here…

If all D&D coins are the same diameter (1.1875in) and weight (0.3333oz), then I assume the difference in metal weight is equalized by the thickness, the only parameter not given in the PHB.

Approximately how thick would that make each coin?

Would the metal content of each coin be enough to justify the values given?

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

In fact there are three freely convertible currencies in the
Galaxy, but none of them count. The Altairan Dollar has recently
collapsed, the Flaninian Pobble Bead is only exchangeable for
other Flaninian Pobble Beads, and the Triganic Pu has its own
very special problems. Its exchange rate of eight Ningis to one
Pu is simple enough, but since a Ningi is a triangular rubber
coin six thousand eight hundred miles across each side, no one
has ever collected enough to own one Pu. Ningis are not
negotiable currency because the Galactibanks refuse to deal in
fiddling small change. From this basic premise it is very simple
to prove that the Galactibanks are also the product of a deranged
imagination.

I'm using this in my next campaign:

The dragon's hoard consists of 16,000 Flaninian Pobble Beads, gathered in sacks, and three Ningis, which are disguised as the surrounding mountain range.