Finarvyn Administrator Dungeon Master member is offline
Joined: Jun 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 4,676 Location: Near Chicago Karma: 178
Copper standard « Thread Started on May 26, 2012, 10:09am »
I don't like having prices all given in different coin values. (For example, Grappling hook 1 gp, ink pen 1 sp, flask 3 cp.) I'm a big fan of keeping to the gold-silver-copper standard, although I know that lots of folks like the less usual coins as well, but I don't see the advantage in mixing prices from one coin to another in the cost charts.
Think about this: Gold becomes really special because of its value but doensn't seem as special if all costs are listed in gold pieces. Also, silver and copper piece values become trivialized because they are all fractions of the standard gold coin. I've had players find chests of copper pieces and just leave them behind because each piece is only 1/100 gold.
I would propose the following: consider that a copper piece is a standard coin like a dollar. (Or a pound or a Franc or whatever base monitary unit a person thinks in. I'm in the US, so I think in terms of dollars.) Knowing that a CP is like a dollar helps me to "fake it" when I need to come up with prices on the spot -- if a fast-food meal costs me $5-$10, I can estimate that a cheap meal would run a character 5-10 CP.
If a copper piece is $1, then a silver piece is like $10 and a gold piece is $100.
Go into McDonalds and try to pay for a meal with a $100 bill. In the same way, if the character goes into a tavern and pulls out a GP it's probable that the innkeeper won't have change. Same thing works for treasure on a monster or a person in a city encounter. A basic middle-class person on the street might carry $50 or less at a time, which could be 5 SP or 50 CP or some mix of coins.
Redo the cost charts to post all prices in CP. Using my earlier example the flask is 3 CP, the ink pen 10 CP, and the grappling hook 100 CP. This starts to get a player thinking about the value of a gold piece and the fact that finding a chest of gold is a real fortune.
Just my two cents.
NOTE: I used to advocate a "silver standard" but have realized that a copper standard really makes a lot more sense.
Marv / Finarvyn DCC playtester (2011) C&C playtester (2003) I'm partly responsible for the S&W WhiteBox Builder of the TrollBridge Master of Mutants; MA since 1976 OD&D Player since 1975
"Don't ask me what you need to hit. Just roll the die and I will let you know!" - Dave Arneson
Joined: Oct 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 1,558 Karma: 87
Re: Copper standard « Reply #1 on May 26, 2012, 10:30am »
I also prefer a copper standard. I do, however, like lots of different coins. I steal Gary's coinage system from his first Gord the Rogue novel:
"The lowest form of currency is an iron drab. Five of these are equal to one brass bit, and ten bits comprise one bronze zee. The copper common is the next most valuable, equal to five zees, and four commons make up the value of one silver noble. An electrum lucky is equal to five nobles, and ten luckies are the same worth as one gold orb. Atop the pyramid is the platinum plate, equal to one gold orb plus one electrum lucky. Thus, for comparison, a silver noble is worth one thousand iron drabs, an electrum lucky equates to one thousand brass bits, a gold orb has the same value as one thousand brass bits, a gold orb has the same value as one thousand bronze zees, and a platinum plate is equal to fifty five thousand iron drabs."
iron piece = nickel brass piece = 50-cent piece bronze piece = $5 bill copper piece = $20 bill silver piece = $100 bill electrum = $500 bill gold = $5,000 platinum = $5,500
Thus children might carry around a few iron pieces. Beggars might have some brass pieces. A poor man might have some bronze pieces. A common man would have copper. The nobility carries silver and electrum. The coffers of kings contain gold and platinum.
Marv / Finarvyn DCC playtester (2011) C&C playtester (2003) I'm partly responsible for the S&W WhiteBox Builder of the TrollBridge Master of Mutants; MA since 1976 OD&D Player since 1975
"Don't ask me what you need to hit. Just roll the die and I will let you know!" - Dave Arneson
Joined: Aug 2010 Gender: Male Posts: 261 Karma: 21
Re: Copper standard « Reply #3 on May 26, 2012, 11:26am »
I also agree with the move away from gold standard. In my current campaign we are using silver standard, in the past I have experimented with copper standard as well.
I find that with really expensive items like plate armor, warhorses, boats, etc. it makes them seem more special if you express the price in silvers or coppers with a comma in the number (1,000 or more).
If a copper piece is $1, then a silver piece is like $10 and a gold piece is $100.
Shouldn't it be $5 for a silver piece and $50 for a gold piece?
Not that I'm criticizing. I'm always forgetting the 5 copper to a silver exchange rate, myself.
I think I prefer having all currency being the same coin and converting to a silver standard. Then we could have a farthing -- an actual silver coin cut into four quarters. In your equivalents, a farthing would be a buck twenty-five. Gold coins are gold coins, but no kingdom currently mints them.
Joined: Sept 2008 Gender: Male Posts: 107 Karma: 4
Re: Copper standard « Reply #6 on May 26, 2012, 11:35am »
My thoughts related to the matter are the following:
- D&D economy is utter bollocks. Not because it's gold standard instead of silver, or silver instead of copper, or whatever. It's bollocks beacuse the relative values of items (regardless of what coinage they're expressed in) are bollocks.
- There are two types of players: the type who cares about historical verisimilitude at least a tiny little bit, and the type who doesn't. The first type will not be satisfied by moving those silly and internally vastly inconsistent prices from gold units to silver or copper. The second type doesn't care, so whatever.
- Regardless of the above, I see a practical issue with giving prices in copper rather than silver: all the numbers on the price list will be needlessly high for the sorts of items adventurer PCs are interested in buying. They don't care if a pint of ale, a bag of nails or a saddlebag is expressed as 0.1 something. They do care if all the weapons and armour are listed as costing hundreds or thousands of something. To follow up on the OP, the result wouldn't be "the copper piece is the dollar". It would be "the copper piece is the cent, and all the prices everywhere are given in cents".
Joined: Nov 2012 Gender: Male Posts: 1,555 Location: Austin TX USA Karma: 152
Re: Copper standard « Reply #7 on May 26, 2012, 12:11pm »
I've always looked at the monetary/economic system as rather like the combat system. It gives a nod to real life but is too abstract to ponder deeply.
So, better armor equals better protection in combat, just as gold grants more buying power than silver. All the arguments about coin size and weight, or armor protection over the torso versus legs ... I find them interesting but I've never had the notion to revamp the basic systems of the game.
... and I do mean that I find them interesting. There are scholars here giving away all these wonderful pieces of information and I didn't have to sit in a classroom and pay tuition to get them!
Joined: Sept 2010 Gender: Male Posts: 387 Karma: 5
Re: Copper standard « Reply #8 on May 26, 2012, 2:06pm »
I have never liked the btb monetary system. Ever. I think the best system would be monster-parts. "I'll take that draught-horse for twenty goblin hides, and a hobgoblin's ear." "I'll give you my old cuirass for a pickled mermaid's tail."
- Regardless of the above, I see a practical issue with giving prices in copper rather than silver: all the numbers on the price list will be needlessly high for the sorts of items adventurer PCs are interested in buying. They don't care if a pint of ale, a bag of nails or a saddlebag is expressed as 0.1 something. They do care if all the weapons and armour are listed as costing hundreds or thousands of something. To follow up on the OP, the result wouldn't be "the copper piece is the dollar". It would be "the copper piece is the cent, and all the prices everywhere are given in cents".
Yeah, I was just making that connection. I was tinkering with the cost charts for D&D Next (although honestly it could be AD&D or any other RPG) and find that posting costs in silvers seems to be a lot more reasonable, for exaclty the reason that you mentioned.
I started with armor, which happened to be all posted in GP. This seemed expensive but not impossible. Chainmial, for example, prices out at 10,000 CP. Hmmm. Then I did weapons and again they seemed a bit pricey but not impossible. Until I reached the club, which listed at 5 SP would be 50 CP. Fifty bucks for a club?
So I went back and re-did my tables in SP instead of CP. This moves the price of chainmail to 1,000 and the club is 5. I could see paying five bucks for a decent club if you're looking at something better than just cutting a stick from a tree.
Darn. Now I'm back to where I started, expressing costs in silvers again.
Marv / Finarvyn DCC playtester (2011) C&C playtester (2003) I'm partly responsible for the S&W WhiteBox Builder of the TrollBridge Master of Mutants; MA since 1976 OD&D Player since 1975
"Don't ask me what you need to hit. Just roll the die and I will let you know!" - Dave Arneson
Joined: Nov 2010 Gender: Male Posts: 665 Karma: 19
Re: Copper standard « Reply #11 on May 26, 2012, 7:52pm »
I havve seen analysis by people into the actual history, comparing prices given in things like the Domesday book, and apparently if you just read GP as SP for everything but horses and armor, no arithmetic at all, the numbers are pretty close to medieval prices.
Of course, I prefer using something close to Zak's penny/nickel/dime/quarter system, which is way more abstract and less historically accurate.
Re: Copper standard « Reply #12 on May 27, 2012, 7:27pm »
I like the silver standard because it splits the difference. It lets them throw copper as tips without having to actually track anything on paper, but gold still gets to feel a bit special and then platinum takes the elusive $100-bill place.
Joined: Jul 2011 Gender: Male Posts: 478 Karma: 37
Re: Copper standard « Reply #13 on May 27, 2012, 10:26pm »
For a while I used medieval English currency.
12 pence to the shilling, 20 shillings to the pound.
1/3 of a pound is a mark.
2 French crowns equal one pound Sterling.
To make it more fun, there was NEVER a 'mark' coin, it was purely a money of account in written records. Likewise the shilling, until the time of Henry VIII.
Oh, and a groat equals four pence, for no d**n good reason.
Michael Mornard -------------------------- Played in the original Blackmoor, Greyhawk, and EPT Campaigns "Gronan of Simmerya" aka "Old Geezer" aka "LORD Grumpy"
Copper standard « Reply #14 on May 28, 2012, 12:59am via the ProBoards Mobile App »
We stopped using 12 pence to a shilling and 20 shillings to a pound as recently as 1971. I'm glad I'm just young enough never to have worried about the maths!
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