Gold Pieces (gp) as another game abstraction

[tetramorph]

I've enjoyed reading about alternatives to the gold standard, alternative, more historical coinage, etc.

Recently, though, I've been thinking (always dangerous):

How many of you think (or would be willing to think, or think it is a cool idea to entertain the possibility) of "gold pieces, etc." as just another game abstraction, not significantly different in abstraction to hit points and experience points, etc.

What I mean is, just as philotomy has clued me into how HP is abstract and describes, among other things, luck, blessing, skill, stamina, and only lastly physical integrity, so too gp may represent total treasure value without having to let go of certain precious acquisitions, "cashing them in" for them to "count."

I hate how modern-abstract-capitalist-economy that feels. By keeping gp a game abstraction for the player and ref, we allow the character to live in a medieval-economy where a beautiful ornate broach has intrinsic value and gp is only used for its fair trade.

I know some people have "cashing in" as required before getting XP. I get that. But couldn't you just make "getting your treasure to safety" (especially if you have a fantasy banking system) what is necessary for XP, rather than "cashing in"?

Thinking this way encourages me to do more creative description of the treasure, forcing characters to have to get more of their things appraised before they know their (now) abstract gp "level," etc. If I've described treasure in an interesting way, I feel like something is lost if they just "cash in." However, if I can assure players they have the gp abstract value once the item is safe, then the description pays off as something interesting that the characters possess in the game world. Then, when they negotiate with retainers, or, at higher levels, lords and ladies, the player can tell the ref, abstractly "my character will make a 100 gp offer," but their PC can tell the NPC, "I present to you the Pearl of Winter Moonlight," or whatever.

What do y'all think?

[Deleted]

This is exactly what I've been doing for the last several years. The party finds a treasure and they get a description, weight, and approximate cash value.

So they might find a "Bag of coins" worth 100 sp or another worth 50 sp both weighing 1 pound. The exact distribution of coins is irrelevant. Since weight and value are the only real game values, the decription is completely wide open. They are as likely to find a pouch of gold as a silver torque, a bronze table setting, a jeweled fibulae, or expertly decorated canopic jars. It's a simple matter of looking through archaeological finds to get cool items of value to use as treasure.

I print these items out on small cards (business cards) to use as a random treasure generator. I add new items as needed. This method lets me theme the treasure to the current dungeon.

[tetramorph]

Jun 18, 2015 14:20:18 GMT -6 @hedgehobbit said:

This is exactly what I've been doing for the last several years. The party finds a treasure and they get a description, weight, and approximate cash value.

Okay, glad to know that someone like you has already started looking at it this way! I already feel like I am in good company.

I print these items out on small cards (business cards) to use as a random treasure generator. I add new items as needed. This method lets me theme the treasure to the current dungeon.

Cool idea!

[geoffrey]

I've thought along these general lines: If you treat the values of treasures as approximations/abstractions, you have an easier time of it with pretty much the same results.

Remember when people had a strange issue with the unpublished Dwimmermount having hordes of coins evenly divisible by 100 or by 1,000? "That's unrealistic!" (in a game of trolls and magic spells). But which is easier to tally at the end of the day?

500 + 1,000 + 800 + 2,000 + 700 gp

or

497 + 1,018 + 799 + 1,989 + 693 gp

The question answers itself.

[Finarvyn]

I've used a vague scale of broke, typical, well-to-do, wealthy before in a campaign and it seemed to work pretty well. Essentially, I would assume that a character would slide down one rank, maintain his rank, or advance to a higher rank based on the adventure. This could be modified somewhat based in what stuff they wanted to "buy" at the end of the adventure. Very abstract.

Part of my plan was to duplicate the spirit of Appendix N stories like Conan and Fafhrd & Mouser, where each time they start off broke and then win big treasure and the next time they start off broke again. We assumed that they lost their loot gambling or whatever in the meantime.

[idrahil]

That is my favorite scene in the original Conan movie. They score big, live like kings and then end up broke again in a bowl of slop. As for the post subject, I also award xp for getting the treasure to safety. I never make the players sell their gems and jewelry in order to get XP.

[Vile Traveller]

How I handle treasure depends very much on my players. Some like the minutae of resource managing every cp, others are happier with a vague wealth system. With some players it varies from game to game.

As a player I'm slightly obsessive-compulsive about this so I will track everything and I like treasure that is interesting, varied and detailed. I hate the idea of abstracting expenditure, if my characters strike it rich I'll find things for them to spend their loot on.

[Finarvyn]

Idrahil -- A great reminder with the Conan reference scene. That's exactly the kind of experience I'm hoping to duplicate.

Vile -- A good point. A couple of my players prefer to track money to the nearest copper and feel cheated when I keep taking it away.

[Deleted]

tetramorph,

I do not understand what it would mean to treat gold pieces as an abstraction. Could just be that I am being thickskulled here, but would you mind giving me a few quick bullet points on how game play or the game experience would change if gold pieces were an abstraction?

To the extent that Hedgehobbit's comment indicates what you have in mind, I guess I do not see a meaningful difference. The game has a long history of including both coin hoards and precious objects (non-magical treasure like pendants, broaches, statuettes fashioned from or with precious metals or adorned with gems, for example) in dungeons. So it does not seem like it is necessary for gold pieces to be an abstraction for that to happen. And whether the DM tells players that they have found a bag of 120 gold pieces or instead tells them they have found a bag weighing approximately 12 pounds that contains coinage worth about 120 gold pieces seems to make no real difference to me. Either way, the DM has to convey certain details about the treasure; it's just different details.

I also don't think I understand your concern about players having to liquidate precious items. As far as I am concerned, players don't have to do so. It happens, I think, because they prefer to do so—presumably, so that they can keep a tidy notation on their character sheets that states their total wealth and conveniently subtract from that total when they purchase things. If a player wants to keep a particular valuable, he can do so already. And sometimes players do—like Alex in our Planet Eris games, who always negotiates for his share of treasure to include any gems found (in lieu of coins) so that he can carry more wealth on his person without too much additional encumbrance.

Also, in our Planet Eris games, we don't use "cashing in" as a prerequisite to gaining experience points; the only requirement is that the loot be taken back to civilization. Or at least that's the way I've seen all of the Austin-area DMs run it so far. So I don't think that abstraction of gold pieces is needed to address this concern either. "Cashing in" may be necessary to divvy up the treasure among all the characters in equal shares on occasion, as opposed to awarding experience points. Maybe gold pieces as an abstraction "fixes" that, to the extent it is a problem. But it's not immediately obvious to me how it would do so. (Again, I could just be being thickskulled.)

Like you, I personally enjoy discussion about the possibility of "alternatives to the gold standard, alternative, more historical coinage, etc." and I have some sympathy for desire to emulate "a medieval-economy where a beautiful ornate broach has intrinsic value" in order to create a more immersive gaming experience. But my sense is most players would disagree. I think most players are more interested in the adventuring, and that treasure is valued primarily for its experience value and secondarily for its purchasing power, and that there’s little concern for items as items—unless, of course, they are magical.

Forcing players to do things like obtain appraisals—unless it is done mechanically (e.g., assuming some flat appraisal fee must be paid to get a certain number of items appraised)—largely will aggravate players who don't really want to spend much of their limited gaming time trying to figure out how much a ivory heirloom is worth or trying to negotiate with the local smith to make a fine sword in exchange for two goats and a wheel of cheese. Same thing with retainer negotiations, I think. For most, retainers are just hapless redshirts who will not be on the payroll for long, because they'll die ingloriously in the dungeon. For better or worse, most players just are not that invested in most retainers. (There are exceptions, of course.)

Obviously, what I am saying is subjective and not all will agree. I'm assuming we both have in mind the kind of old-school campaign focused on dungeoneering and wilderness survival that our local Planet Eris games embody. (Speaking of Planet Eris, I've seen the postings for your Hollow Lands adventures. Work has kept me from attending both of those, but I very much wanted to be there.)

[jmccann]

I think GP are already a rather gamey abstraction in OD&D. If you use GP and the price list as written in your campaign, you are giving up a great deal of opportunity for simulation. I think this level of abstraction suits most casual players of OD&D. If you have a group that is interested in adding some "grit" so to speak to the liquidation of treasure gained through adventuring you should give that a shot. I think there are a lot of potential ways you could do this. Not everyone is going to be interested in adding that to the game though.

I am still working out the economics of my campaigns. But I am leaning toward using a silver standard as Delta discusses here: deltasdnd.blogspot.com/2010/03/on-money.html

I like the idea of having some friction in terms of easily liquidating treasures. I think that is a different question than what you are asking though, it seems like you are really interested in making an in-game guarantee that the players can accurately assess the value of items and then reliably be able to cash in when they want. I think if you want to make those guarantees to your players that is fine.

[tetramorph]

Jun 20, 2015 17:08:30 GMT -6 @dungeonmonkey said:

tetramorph,

I do not understand what it would mean to treat gold pieces as an abstraction. Could just be that I am being thickskulled here, but would you mind giving me a few quick bullet points on how game play or the game experience would change if gold pieces were an abstraction?

This is a good question, @dungeonmonkey. It deserves a good answer, better than this father's day morning is going to give me time for! But it was what I was trying to get at in some of the descriptions in the OP:

*Separate player knowledge from character knowledge with regards to wealth
*Characters get to have cool stuff, players get to know their relative "worth"
*When it is time to pay a retainer, or develop an alliance, gp abstracts cost to wealth, but character can negotiate with precious items from the past
*If all you have is gp, b/c it is abstract, you can assume some of that is some precious artifact so:
*You and the ref think up something cool item that your 1Kgp represents and offer that to Prince Fantastic as an offer of peace, etc.

To the extent that Hedgehobbit's comment indicates what you have in mind, I guess I do not see a meaningful difference. The game has a long history of including both coin hoards and precious objects (non-magical treasure like pendants, broaches, statuettes fashioned from or with precious metals or adorned with gems, for example) in dungeons. So it does not seem like it is necessary for gold pieces to be an abstraction for that to happen. And whether the DM tells players that they have found a bag of 120 gold pieces or instead tells them they have found a bag weighing approximately 12 pounds that contains coinage worth about 120 gold pieces seems to make no real difference to me. Either way, the DM has to convey certain details about the treasure; it's just different details.

Yes. I think what is going on here for me, perhaps, is the difference between player knowledge and character knowledge. I guess I am thinking of a way in which one's total, banked gp represents a player-knowledge abstraction, like HP. Whereas the character knows he has "the silver ring of flower lace," and "the moonstone of oblivion," together with a heap of coins of various size and shape, etc. Just like the character knows he is really confident and doesn't break a sweat, even after taking several blows on the shield, etc.

I also don't think I understand your concern about players having to liquidate precious items. As far as I am concerned, players don't have to do so. It happens, I think, because they prefer to do so—presumably, so that they can keep a tidy notation on their character sheets that states their total wealth and conveniently subtract from that total when they purchase things. If a player wants to keep a particular valuable, he can do so already.

I guess what I am saying is that I would like to start more presuming that items are not getting liquidated when we are abstracting stuff in this way, but just simply getting divvied up, evenly, by relative gp abstraction. Gems of low value might certainly simply be "cashed in." But I think if 6, 100gp gems are found and there are 7 PCs, one PC just gets another 100 literal gold pieces and the other 6 get a gem each. This could be diced for without adding to much time to a treasure divvy, especially if there is only one such specially designed and described treasure per level, etc.

Also, in our Planet Eris games, we don't use "cashing in" as a prerequisite to gaining experience points; the only requirement is that the loot be taken back to civilization. Or at least that's the way I've seen all of the Austin-area DMs run it so far. So I don't think that abstraction of gold pieces is needed to address this concern either. "Cashing in" may be necessary to divvy up the treasure among all the characters in equal shares on occasion, as opposed to awarding experience points. Maybe gold pieces as an abstraction "fixes" that, to the extent it is a problem. But it's not immediately obvious to me how it would do so. (Again, I could just be being thickskulled.)

This is a really good and helpful point. I guess, from the way we were always figuring gp value and then distributing gp that we were "cashing it in." But I see your point. I recently worked up a way of describing 0e treasure based upon the TTs. Check it out and let me know what you think. I wouldn't want to waste my time describing treasure if it all just got "cashed in." I think, however, it would be worth-while if even a handful of gems an jewelry items were of a famous or "cantripped" variety. The only layer added to treasure divvying would be those handful of really unique items. GP value could be determined for each and then gp could be used to even things out between players after dicing for the unique items. It wouldn't add too much of a layer to the game, as we already dice for magic items.

On the character reference sheet, the player would note any special, but non-tactically-helpful magical items, note each one's relative gp value, have a gp "total" in the bank, but understand that these unique items are part of the abstract gp total. I think that is part of what I am getting at here.

Like you, I personally enjoy discussion about the possibility of "alternatives to the gold standard, alternative, more historical coinage, etc." and I have some sympathy for desire to emulate "a medieval-economy where a beautiful ornate broach has intrinsic value" in order to create a more immersive gaming experience. But my sense is most players would disagree. I think most players are more interested in the adventuring, and that treasure is valued primarily for its experience value and secondarily for its purchasing power, and that there’s little concern for items as items—unless, of course, they are magical.

No, you are absolutely right here about what most players want, and I concur. So I am not myself interested in trying to go to a "silver standard," or use "crowns and halfpennies" and stuff like that. From what I have read about other folks experimentation with this regard, it seems to always get quickly dropped. It is exactly because I want gp to be totally abstract that I see myself avoiding these annoyances for players. So, we could assume in game world a more complicated coinage system, but at the player to ref and player to player lvl "gp" just abstracts all that for ease of mechanics. I think that is part of what I am trying to get at, so I feel like here we are jiving with one another.

Forcing players to do things like obtain appraisals—unless it is done mechanically . . . Same thing with retainer negotiations, I think. For most, retainers are just hapless redshirts who will not be on the payroll for long, because they'll die ingloriously in the dungeon. For better or worse, most players just are not that invested in most retainers. (There are exceptions, of course.)

Well, "forcing," I suppose, was a strong word to choose. I suppose what I mean, really, is this: sometimes (not even probably usually) I would like to plan a treasure where what is found is described without gp value assigned (except, obviously, to coinage found). The players have to get it to safety to discern its value. I would not have this cost any fee or any time beyond what it takes to "bank" it. I would just want them to have to decide what to haul out based upon description rather than gp valuation.

Then, once banked, I would want them to understand that their relative gp distribution includes more than just gp -- a lot of it would be in terms of gems and jewelry, etc. Also, if any famous gem or jewelry item were found, they would need to dice for it and then distribute coin and lesser gems to even-out the distribution. This would add to treasure distribution time. But, I don't think too much so, and would add an interesting layer of artifact role play for later situations and scenarios especially at higher levels and in negotiations between baronies, etc.

I guess I am always just trying to gear-up for and anticipate the so-called "end game." So I guess I am just trying to think of ways to prep towards that goal along the way, getting players used to that kind of feel of the game.

I'm assuming we both have in mind the kind of old-school campaign focused on dungeoneering and wilderness survival that our local Planet Eris games embody. (Speaking of Planet Eris, I've seen the postings for your Hollow Lands adventures. Work has kept me from attending both of those, but I very much wanted to be there.)

Yes, that is my basic assumption. I think I would just like to engage the possibility of some interesting role play around artifacts that are not magical in a mechanically useful way.

We've been missing you, @dungeonmonkey. I'll have a session on offer next month too. We hope to see you!

[Porphyre]

Unless you have a Viking campaign ...

Vikings eagerly smashed and hacked preciuos silver items in order to have them reduced to aurar and mark of "hacksilver"

[skydyr]

You can also go with the medieval route and treat gp, sp, cp, etc. as units of account. For example, pounds/shillings/pence existed in England through the middle ages, but there was never a 1 pound coin. Often enough, it wasn't coinage at all, but a value assigned to something, and the pounds/shillings/pence were how the value was kept on the books.

So in a game, you find a bag full of gold coins and there's a bunch of guineas in there, some florins, a few besants, and some coins you don't recognize with a lizardman on the face. It might be 347 actual coins, but for accounting purposes, it has the weight and value of 100 gp. No one recognizes the coins, so you'd better exchange them at the moneychanger's before you try and spend it if you don't want to get cheated. That way, you can add as much flavour as you want and quickly forget it with "and we trade our treasure for the 5% fee so we can now spend it."

[tetramorph]

Oct 5, 2015 8:27:19 GMT -6 skydyr said:

You can also go with the medieval route and treat gp, sp, cp, etc. as units of account. For example, pounds/shillings/pence existed in England through the middle ages, but there was never a 1 pound coin. Often enough, it wasn't coinage at all, but a value assigned to something, and the pounds/shillings/pence were how the value was kept on the books.

So in a game, you find a bag full of gold coins and there's a bunch of guineas in there, some florins, a few besants, and some coins you don't recognize with a lizardman on the face. It might be 347 actual coins, but for accounting purposes, it has the weight and value of 100 gp. No one recognizes the coins, so you'd better exchange them at the moneychanger's before you try and spend it if you don't want to get cheated. That way, you can add as much flavour as you want and quickly forget it with "and we trade our treasure for the 5% fee so we can now spend it."

Yes! That is exactly my point!