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Old 11-14-2017, 08:39 PM   #11
robertsconley
 
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Default Re: The use of DOLLARS not a fantasy/medieval money system. WHY???

I just post everything in silver pennies ($4) (1d) with one high value coin the gold crown worth 320d. (1 oz coin, 20 silver to 1 gold). The gold crown makes the player go wow and everything in silver pennies make it easy to buy things on the price list.
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Old 11-14-2017, 09:51 PM   #12
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Default Re: The use of DOLLARS not a fantasy/medieval money system. WHY???

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Originally Posted by Bruno View Post
My face to face group would riot if I tried to make them do all their shopping in pounds-shilling-pence-and-all-that-other-stuff. Riot, I tell you. I don't think either of my online groups would be thrilled either.

They're fine with being told that the treasure is "30 copper, 10 silver, and 4 quarter-gold", but that's like telling them it's "Two 10 ct spineals and a 2 ct ruby", it's a nice-to-know, but what they really need-to-know is value (for vendoring) and weight (for encumbrance until they vendor the loot).

I'd get (slightly) more traction asking them to shop in some sort of hexadecimal system; at least there's lots of calculators that support hex notation.
It's even possible to learn it.

I've even done a little two-digit multiplication! ...Didn't get over B * B.

And, seriously, it has some major advantages over decimal.

10, 8, 4, 2, 1, 0.8, 0.4, 0.2, 0.1, 0.08...

10, 4, 2, and yeah it gets hairy after that, but 1.66274 is not any harder to remember than 1.41421.

OTOH, 10, 5, 2.5, 1.25, 0.625, 0.3125, 15625...

Or 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024...

Compare to: 1, 2, 4, 8, 10, 20, 40, 80, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1000...

The rest is number sense. And barring missing digits, you can count it on all fingers and both thumbs, which is important for early learning. First thumb, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, second thumb, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F, 10. Gets you six more digits than just linear counting on your digits.
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Old 11-14-2017, 10:23 PM   #13
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Default Re: The use of DOLLARS not a fantasy/medieval money system. WHY???

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Originally Posted by Say, it isn't that bad! View Post
barring missing digits, you can count it on all fingers and both thumbs, which is important for early learning. First thumb, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, second thumb, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F, 10. Gets you six more digits than just linear counting on your digits.
You can count to 144 on two hands (assuming you haven't lost a finger). To do it, use the thumb on one hand as a pointer and count the knuckles of the fingers on that hand. That'll get you to 12. Use the other hand to keep track of sets of 12. That gets you to 144. That's the origin of a dozen and a gross. Bakers counted the thumb, so a baker's dozen was 13. That trick let non-literate merchants keep track of inventory as ships and caravans were loaded and unloaded. (Non-literate didn't mean stupid, either - those folks had prodigious memories, by dint of necessity.)

As a mathematician friend of mine once pointed out, a dozen is a handier base than ten. 12 divides evenly by 2, 3, 4, and 6. Ten divides evenly by only 2 and 5. That's one reason hours have 60 minutes - being evenly divisible by 2, 3, and 4 is useful.

As for the topic at hand, I always create monetary units for my campaigns. In the current campaign, the coins are worth $1 (copper), $25 (silver), and $100 (gold). Large amounts of wealth are moved about in gems, though. And the merchant houses in civilized areas honor each other's letters of credit, for a reasonable fee. That lets merchants move down caravan routes with a letter rather than a strongbox.
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Old 11-14-2017, 10:29 PM   #14
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Default Re: The use of DOLLARS not a fantasy/medieval money system. WHY???

Note that the DFRPG has values for coinage on Adventurers p. 95
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Old 11-14-2017, 11:05 PM   #15
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Default Re: The use of DOLLARS not a fantasy/medieval money system. WHY???

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You can count to 144 on two hands (assuming you haven't lost a finger)....
I can count up to 1024 with both hands. This concludes my tangent.
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Old 11-15-2017, 10:16 AM   #16
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Default Re: The use of DOLLARS not a fantasy/medieval money system. WHY???

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But that's GURPS. In DFRPG, even moreso, anything goes. As JMason quotes, "$" is just an abbreviation for print. Players should read it however they prefer: dollars, thalers, coppers, crowns (or whatever Town and Kingdom call copper coins), etc.
I suppose the most authentic symbol for a coin around this value would be d. (denarius, denier, dinar), but in this hobby a number with a d before or after it is going to be read as dice.
I suppose ₯ (drachma) or &dram; (drams) would work too.
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Old 11-15-2017, 10:47 AM   #17
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Default Re: The use of DOLLARS not a fantasy/medieval money system. WHY???

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There is NO doubt in my mind that DF should have had it's own fantasy/medieval GOLD system and not DOLLARS! Why the dollars? The dollars makes DF look like a GURPS supplement still trying to be universal! Telling the reader to convert? WHY? WHY did you do this????

I hope you do a second printing and give DF it's own fantasy/medieval monetary system. Let DF be its OWN. That was the idea right?? This would make a HUGE difference!

Dollars??? Converting? What were you thinking?? Mind boggling!

Otherwise let me say that I purchased the PFDs and I am VERY pleased with DF so far. I will mention my other thoughts regarding DF in other posts.

Been DMing GURPS since the beginning.

I appreciate the opportunity to post my thoughts and opinion.
Peace.
There's nothing preventing you from creating as simple or complex a coinage system as you like. Here "$" is a stand-in for a unit of value comparison, something that would allow your coinage system to work with the published material. My experience has been that complicated monetary systems aren't fun in play, in spite of being cool local color.

In my DFRPG group, I use the word "dollar" interchangeably with "copper penny". Most of my players have a lot of Pathfinder and D&D experience, so I need to distinguish a "$" value from "gp", which has a much higher "$" value in DFRPG.
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Old 11-15-2017, 11:01 AM   #18
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Default Re: The use of DOLLARS not a fantasy/medieval money system. WHY???

I frequently use the term 'moneys'

The idea of copper being the base money is weird, I'm used to copper being the fractional money
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Old 11-15-2017, 11:50 AM   #19
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Default Re: The use of DOLLARS not a fantasy/medieval money system. WHY???

I'm for the hexadecimal system of moneys.

Nothing says Dungeon Fantasy like Digital dwarves building binary byte memory machinery from 0-F.
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Old 11-15-2017, 12:36 PM   #20
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Default Re: The use of DOLLARS not a fantasy/medieval money system. WHY???

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I'm for the hexadecimal system of moneys.

Nothing says Dungeon Fantasy like Digital dwarves building binary byte memory machinery from 0-F.
Hackers: Now literally! :lol:
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