Let's talk about selling treasure...

[Arnwyn]

So, how about you?

I've long since done what you're just doing now.

But, it helps IRL that I'm an accountant.

 

[3d6]

Does dealing with treasure in such a detailed way really improve your game?

All it sounds like it would do is bore the players and the dungeon master, unless you have a group full of people who don't have enough accounting in their lives.

 

[Piratecat]

Yeah, I tried being really specific with individual gems and coinage; it got old, fast. My bookkeeping wasn't good enough.

 

[kigmatzomat]

I use a random treasure generator and post the results the game's Y! group where item divvying takes place. I do a bit of coin randomization to make "pocket money" more rational but inevitably the characters use the "odd money" for beer and pizza (or local equivalents) leaving nice round numbers in the party till.

 

[el-remmen]

The treasure collected from a battle with plundering barbarians recently detailed in my story hour:

Bag made of cured dwarven skin, filled with the "beard scalps" of a dozen dwarves.

312 silver dwarven obleks

120 silver pieces of the kingdom of herman land

3 bronze statuettes of dwarven warriors

a string of 12 ancient platinum coins with holes punched in the center

11 oblong pieces of amber (about 3 inches long)

1 pearl covered cube (four inches on a side).

 

[ThirdWizard]

I think it does add a lot to make treasure more interesting.

Just making coin amounts non-round goes a long way into making a treasure seem more "real." And with a few punches of a calculator they've got their totals worked out in almost the same time. Treasure can give an idea of where it comes from, where the dragon has been plundering, where the orcs have been raiding, or what kind of tomb the PCs are robbing. It doesn't have to become a huge book keeping scenario, when the PCs return to town, they have contacts (right now the halfling.. um.. "family businessmen") who can appraise and take things off their hands. It gives them a reason to put those skiill points into Appraise so they don't get ripped off, because if you just tell them "gem worth 1000 gp" then what's the point in the skill at all?

That said, only for important treasures, for example the final pull in a dungeon. It's not like every gobiln they come across is going to be carrying around coins minted on the fifth layer of Baator (unless something strange is afoot).