I have seen a number of articles on the weight of coins in the standard D&D fantasy setting. In general the "10 coins to a pound" standard does seem to me rather weird. I've seen articles defending it for aesthetic and practical reasons. Either they should be BIG coins to let you know this is FANTASY. Or people will say a 45gr coin (about 9 US quarters) is perfectly reasonable. An interesting article in Footprints #1, the magazine from Drangonsfoot.org, even covers size and density. Although Mike S. shows that many changes had occured in the system.
The one thing no one seems to mention is convenience. No DM wants to make odd calculations on the spur of the moment to figure out "how much does it weigh". Really the question for the player is how much can I stuff into my pack and it turns out that 1,000 gp will be hard to move, put 100 lbs (or 45 kg) of dense metal in your pack and it will probably break. It would explain why there is so much treasure sitting around. No one can carry out all that loot, so it's pretty well stationary without a full excavation.
Even weirder is the value ratio: 10 silver pieces is no where near the value of 1 gold piece of the same weight. Currently gold is worth about 50x more than silver by weight. As has been pointed out in many places the whole structure of equipment cost is out of whack. In the S&W rule book Plate Armor costs 100gp, so that's 10 lbs of gold or $250,000 in current US money. People can argue about scarcity, craftsmanship or gold rush pricing, and MAYBE make me believe that, but it makes a 2gp Dagger worth $3000 so that's a stretch.
So I do like easy calculations and maybe a bit of realism even. No one ever minted a 45gr coin for regular use and most gold coins were relatively small. But who feels like multiplying in base 8? I'll present my house rules for coinage in my new campaign...
House Rule
Real gold coins are extremely expensive items that no one is likely to see in daily interaction. Gold is also hugely more valuable than silver, so a 10/1 ratio is impossible for coins of the same weight. At curent cost is about 50/1 ratio. Actual gold coins in the classical and pre-classical age were small, about 4 grams.
In my game basic coins are Brass or Bronze, for durability. The Bronze piece or simply a "Bronze" is 1/10 lb. (~45 grams) as is the Silver piece. A standard Gold piece is an alloy (actually electrum, 50% gold & 50% silver) weighs 1/50 lb. (~10 grams, or 50 to the lb.). A pure gold coin called a "King's piece" is minted at 1/10 lb and is worth 10 standard gold pieces, this system was initiated by the Empire of old and was initially called an Emperor.
For simplicity: 100 Bronze = 10 Silver = 1 Gold
For completeness: 1,000 bp (0.1 lb ea.) = 100 sp (0.1 lb ea.) = 10 gp (0.02 lb ea.) = 1 Kp (0.1 lb ea.)
Here are some comparisons:
Cent - 2.5 grams
Nickel - 5 grams
Dime - 2.27 grams
Quarter - 5.67 grams
Half Dollar - 11.34 grams
Dollar (SBA) - 8.1 grams
1 oz = 30gr
1 lb = 450gr
Initial gold for the new player is limited, (1d6)x10 gp seems a bit harsh but they really need to go on an adventure to get some money.
No comments:
Post a Comment