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Old 07-15-2018, 07:21 PM   #1
Steve Jackson
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Originally Posted by Steve Jackson View Post
sj said: - Want to write an article explaining that that is how it would work if the metals on Cidri have the same general availability that they do on Earth?

ak_aramis said: My opinion is that silver would be advantaged over gold because silver has more uses than gold in a pre-industrial economy - especially a magic-using one.
10:1 is the low end of Historical Silver:Gold. This fits conceptually with silver being advantaged.
70:1 is the middle of historical copper:silver. Advantaging silver should shove copper to about 100:1

Copper was common enough to have little metal value.
I haven't been able to find the metal-values of Zinc, Tin, nor Antimony before the industrial revolution. All of which were used in renaissance coinage.

the Silver Dollar's no longer a good size reference, either - it's not been issued in decades, and usually doesn't stay circulating when it is encountered.

Also, it was a heavy coin, especially by Med/Ren standards, at 24.59g to 26.73g (~15 to 17 dwt) - about .85 oz av., about 5x the mass of the largest commonly circulating coin - the quarter (5.67g, ~3.6dwt); the "golden" dollar is 8.1g (~5.2dwt), but few people use it.

The Carolingian penny was 1/240 of a Carolingean Pound, and was the basis of our English (and German) pounds-shillings-pence system (1=20=240)

As for an article, sure, but need to know if coin size is going to stay the same.

edit: my dyscalculea kicked in... got the direction backwards for conversions to dwt. Fixed.
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Old 07-15-2018, 07:22 PM   #2
Steve Jackson
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I'd like to see coins stay reasonably close to the same size. Advise me . . .
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Old 07-15-2018, 09:30 PM   #3
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I have no problem with it staying the way it is now.

I don't think anyone has ever claimed TFT is a historical simulation and changing the coinage just seems to fall into the 'change for change sake' category.

I'd much prefer the game maintain the KISS principle if at all possible.
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Old 07-15-2018, 09:33 PM   #4
JLV
 
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Well, just for the sake of discussion, and to put it in a frame of reference that most of us can relate to (begging the pardon of our various British and Dominion friends); what about something like this:

If we consider a gold coin to be the rough equivalent of, say, $10, then the silver coin would be the rough equivalent of $1. If we then stated that a silver coin was worth 100 copper coins, then the copper coins would be worth about a penny. So, our exchange rate would be 100 copper coins = 1 silver coin, and 10 silver coins = one gold coin.

For those who like to play around with currencies in their games in order to help differentiate between countries/regions, it would be easy enough to say that a silver "shilling" (a considerably smaller coin than our "dollar" coin above) is worth 12 (standard) copper coins, and that it takes 20 of the small silver Shillings to make a golden "Pound" coin (which would be worth about 2.5 times as much as our $10 gold coin above -- making the Pound coin a lot heavier -- perhaps even as much as...a pound! ;-) ). Similar things can be done with Bezants, Florins, or Drachmas, or whatever coinage you want to play around with. Just assume the copper coin is worth about the same all over the world (one cent in buying power), and extrapolate from there if you want to create unique currencies.

If we consider the average living wage for a medieval peasant to be roughly equal to about 24 or 25 cents per day (source: Grain Into Gold), then your economy would operate mostly on copper coins for everyday pricing (where it wasn't just handled with barter), but things like Armor and War Horses and Swords and such would definitely be in the multiple silver coins range. Torches, rope and food, however, would be in the copper coin range. Gold would be pretty rare, but maybe that's just fine if you want to avoid the enormous treasure inflation (not to say outright bloating) that has plagued a number of other well-known RPGs over the years.

All of this would minimally disturb your existing cost charts, I would think, which would be an advantage to you as the designer in that you wouldn't have to redraft them on top of everything else...

Last edited by JLV; 07-15-2018 at 09:37 PM.
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Old 07-15-2018, 09:43 PM   #5
luguvalium
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nebless View Post
I don't think anyone has ever claimed TFT is a historical simulation
I have no problem with the currency rules for Cidri, because TFT isn't a simulation and Cidri isn't Earth. I wouldn't mind seeing an article or supplement that talks about how to modify TFT for a specific Earth time period. I've learned much from well written game books, and I hope that TFT is wildly successful enough to do more.
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Old 07-15-2018, 09:54 PM   #6
Terquem
 
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I do not want to learn how to play the "calculating your coins value" game

Having said that, it has always been something I liked to do, in my own games, create unique coins and define their purchasing power relevant to the "game's" set equipment cost charts

The simpler the game keeps things, daggers are 1 "coin", swords are 5 "coins" etc. the easier it is for the GM to play around with "unusual currency-game" settings.
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Old 07-15-2018, 09:56 PM   #7
Jim Kane
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nebless View Post
I have no problem with it staying the way it is now.

I don't think anyone has ever claimed TFT is a historical simulation and changing the coinage just seems to fall into the 'change for change sake' category.

I'd much prefer the game maintain the KISS principle if at all possible.
Agreed.

JK
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Old 07-15-2018, 10:11 PM   #8
Steve Jackson
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So, if I understand, for a "copper" to be worth as much as 1/10 of a silver. we'd have to assume it was somewhat larger, and of an alloy with silver. Sounds like it would be pretty, too.
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Old 07-15-2018, 11:02 PM   #9
JLV
 
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Yes, I'd say that would be true.

My feeling is that you need some kind of "anchor" coin from which the GM can make up his own unique coinage (above and beyond whatever basic exchange rates you provide with the basic rules). Logically, to me, that should be the smallest coin (in terms of value, that is) and from there the GM can create to his or her heart's content.

However, by having that "anchor coin" you allow the GM to play games in negotiation and economically ("All I have are Dranning Silver Kvetches (worth 100 copper pennies), and they're a bit larger than your Blodwyn Silver Plugs (worth 80 copper pennies) -- so clearly I deserve a discount!"). Depending, of course, on how the GM likes to run their world -- some of us probably wouldn't enjoy that level of bargaining, whereas others would just eat it up.

By making a copper coin worth 1/10th of a Silver one, you've now moved into the realm of Copper Shillings, versus Copper Pennies, but that's okay too...
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Old 07-15-2018, 11:07 PM   #10
David Bofinger
 
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Excutive Summary (TL;DR) You can justify almost any value.

I really don't want to have to keep track of what kind of money I have or even what it's made of.

Caveat: I'm only an amateur historian.

What a coin is worth in TFT dollars could vary enormously by time period. I suggest we use the high mediaeval as a good model for Cidri: some places are into the renaissance, some are further back, but fourteenth century might be a rough average. From http://medieval.ucdavis.edu/120D/Money.html:
  • A peasant's cheap sword cost 6d, maybe this would be $30 in TFT? Penny value $5.
  • A Welsh infantryman got paid 2d/day (plus subsistence?), maybe in TFT this would be $75 a week (not counting Sunday, plus subsistence). Penny value $6.
  • The total armour owned by a knight cost £16 6s 8d, i.e. just under 4000 pennies. In TFT is this fine plate and the penny value is $1, or is it just half-plate and the penny value is much less, or is it fine plate enchanted with Reverse Missiles and Eyes Behind ... actually probably not the last one.
  • A thatcher got paid 3d per day. In TFT this might be $30 a week plus $25 subsistence? Penny value $3.
  • The thatcher's mate gets a penny and a farthing (a bicycle?) a day.
  • Renting a cottage was 5s per year. In TFT this might be $5 to $10 a week, a modest fraction of susbsistence. Penny value $4 to $8.
So it varies, but saying the penny was worth about $5 works for most things. The knight's armour stands out as an exception but I guess you can spend as much as you want on anything, a gilt suit of armour worn by the Prince of Wales cost 340 pounds: $400,000 in TFT terms, more than twice as much as the Circlet of Dyskor Rhost.

These were all England which might make a difference.

The penny varied a bit in weight but I think it's something like 1.6 grams originally, dropping to 1 gram or a little less after my period. So silver money might be worth something like $3,000 a kilogram, Gold would be worth more and copper less by whatever ratio seems wise. Genuine bullion, i.e. pure unalloyed undebased silver and gold, would be worth more than that.

The Mnoren very likely would have produced mind-boggling amounts of precious metal, which later generations melted down or repurposed. That could mean precious metals are worth less on Cidri than they were historically. It could also mean the gold to silver ratio is less than you might expect, because gold doesn't corrode and would therefore hang around longer than silver. On the other hand, it might all be supporting a dragon.
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