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Originally Posted by Jackal
Sandbox or amusement park?
Case in point: I've always used pounds, shillings, pence & farthings (L, s, d, f) as currency: 4f to the d, 12d to the s, 20s to the L.
Simple, right?
Hey, don't laugh: that's how the entire Western world did it from the time of the Etruscans to the post-WWII reforms! It lasted in the UK until the 70's.
In my world, an economic system based on modern, 20th century notions of decimal currency is nonsensical. But that's just MY world. Works for precious few others, I bet!
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I think that a lot of the criticism of "illogical" currency/measurement systems is overblown. With the exception of chemistry, physics, etc., at least before ubiquitous PCs came along.
Most of those old fashioned systems existed because they worked in the Real World. 12 can be conveniently divided by 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6. Before fiat currency, I imagine this was quite handy. A "quarter" could literally be 1/4 of a dollar or whatever. Something composed of 10 units can be conveniently divided by 1, 2 and 5 which is less useful.
Anyhow, if you grow up in a culture where 4f = 1d; 12d = 1s and 20s = 1L, you'll have memorized the system as a child and be able to do conversions automatically.
BUT...if you have to learn a *new* system of coinage, a base 10 system is faster to learn. It's also faster when converting "silver pieces" to "gold pieces" on the fly.
This may not be a huge deal, but I use actual coins in my games. I buy old cheap coins and metal washers and paint them gold, silver, etc. That kind of system requires more than 3 denominations of coins to be workable, however.
The normal unit of money is the silver crowns, which is 1 normal silver piece (about the size of a US penny; weighs about 1/10 of a pound).
1 penny (p) = 1/10 crown (in a real money system, these would be 1/100 crown, but such small units aren't used in my campaigns).
1 crown ($) = 10 coppers or 1/100 nobles.
1 noble (L) = 100 crowns or 1000 coppers.
Below are the coin denominations:
Copper coins: 1p; 5p; 10p/$1 (For the 10p/$1 coin, I use a few large foreign copper coins that I got from somewhere).
Silver coins: $1 ; $5; $10; $25; $100 (for the $100 coin, I use a few large nickle plated foreign coins that I got from somewhere).
Gold coins: $100, $250, $1000
Oh, and a bit of real world economics creep in. As the coinage in the GM's "bank" gets low, coinage in treasure hordes decreases, buyers offer lower prices, etc. (Unrealistically, prices charged to the players don't decrease). To keep the economic system working, players have to spend money. Banks exist, but they are risky. The players don't know *how* risky so they tend to eschew them.
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"Gor: The LARP" (all yours!)
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You sir, just won the internet.