Coinage

[Andrew Avramenko]

I never really thought about it much but this is quite an interesting idea.
It would even keep the money changers in business. I've always charged
5-10% for exchanging currency, whether it's coin to coin, coin to gems,
etc., but never considered the poor shop owners plight when a character
walks in with his sack of loot and itching to spend it. You could even go
farther and figure out (roughly) what the shop owner would have for a
"float in his cash register" (ok, chest with a lock) and put the characters
in a bind when they can't get proper change.

We'll be going back to my P&P campaign shortly and I'll have to spring your
idea on my group.


Andrew

-----Original Message-----
From:   Choinski, Burt [SMTP:BChoinski at XSERV.BILLERICA-MA.PERITUS.COM]
Sent:   Thursday, September 18, 1997 12:44 PM
To:     POWERS-AND-PERILS at DUTCGEO.CT.TUDELFT.NL
Subject:        Coinage

<snip>

"Jingling Bags of Coin"
When players make a purchase or sale, most change returned will be in
the form of CC and BB.  Allow them 1SC for every 20CC worth of change
(i.e. A player sells something for 7GC value.  7GC=700CC, 700/20 = 35.
So they would get 35SC and 350CC from the merchant.

For gold the ratio is a bit better -- for every 15SC, 1 GC may be
gained.  In the above example, the player would actually get 2GC, 15SC
and 350CC -- a load of loot weighting in at almost 7.5 pounds!  Don't
let them get away with converting everything to portable gold -- it's
pretty rare stuff!

GC may only be gained from transactions in cities, SC only gained from
transactions in civilized lands.

"Trade with the barbarians"

Barbarian cultures that do not normally take coins will take payment in
gold or silver coin at a trade rate of 1 extra coin per 10, rounded up
(i.e. paying Joe Shaman 45SC for a load of trade goods means an extra
5SC must be paid for the "true value" of the metal.
They will RARELY take CC as payment, and the number of coins to be paid
will be DOUBLED.  They will not take BB.

<snip>