The use of DOLLARS not a fantasy/medieval money system. WHY???

[GMB]

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.

[Þorkell]

You do realize that $ is just shorthand for "It costs this many monies to buy this stuff"?

Also, a "fantasy/medieval monetary system" is anything but simple. There might be 12 bronze coins in a silver one, and 20 silver coins in a gold one.

[JMason]

DFRPG Adventurers p95:

All prices in Dungeon Fantasy are given in “$”: a convenient
abbreviation for “standard copper piece.”

[sir_pudding]

Note that "dollar" is as old as 1520 and the "$" from about 1770. Using "cp" instead is hardly more supported.

[Anaraxes]

That glyph (the squiggle '$') was chosen as a matter of typographical and keyboarding convenience -- particularly back in 1986, before Unicode. It doesn't mean "dollar" in this context. Nor do you see any reference to the rest of the US money system. They just needed a marker to denote "this number is an amount of money".

As it happens, '$' doesn't even really mean "dollar". That sign originated to denote Spanish reals, known in Mexico as the "peso de ocho" (pieces of eight, pieces of eight, squawk!). The reason it looks like an S, rather than a D, is that when originally handwritten, it was a P and an S (for "pesos") written on top of each other. An alternate theory is that it's an simplified diagram of the "Pillars of Hercules" embossed on that Spanish coin, which theory lends itself more to the version with a double vertical bar.

There are currently about half a dozen nations worldwide that use the dollar sign either with a single or double vertical stroke as their symbol. So that sign isn't now nor historically specific to the US dollar. Might as well stand for a DF "silver piece", too (at least the S matches "silver")... or copper, if you like.

[tbone]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Note that "dollar" is as old as 1520 and the "$" from about 1770. Using "cp" instead is hardly more supported.

Yep. Dollar – originally thaler – comes from the beginning of TL4, not far past the end of medieval TL3 (around 1450, if you go by GURPS Lite).

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.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by tbone

Yep. Dollar – originally thaler – comes from the beginning of TL4, not far past the end of medieval TL3 (around 1450, if you go by GURPS Lite).

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.

Yeah the DFRPG has plenty of things that were contemporary with original thaler like plate harness.

[Kromm]

I'm still trying to figure out where the word "dollar" appears in the Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game, its add-ons, and its stretch-goal items. The symbol "$" appears, sure, but that means "standard copper piece" (Adventurers, p. 95).

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Kromm

I'm still trying to figure out where the word "dollar" appears in the Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game, its add-ons, and its stretch-goal items. The symbol "$" appears, sure, but that means "standard copper piece" (Adventurers, p. 95).

I'm an American. I read "$" as "dollars" whether or not there's an explicit statement to tell me to do so, just as I read "6'6"" as "six feet six." Or for that matter, just as I read "17" as "seventeen" and not as "dix-sept" or "jushichi."

On the other hand, in my current fantasy campaign (which isn't dungeon fantasy, though!), I told the players at the first session that no one had invented coinage, and that "$1000" stood for a pound of silver weighed in a balance.

[Bruno]

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.