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More than once has I been presented a generic town in my local RPGs. The buildings are nameless, there are no defining features, and the NPCs are all generic Bills and Bobs.

My question is, how do you guys make your towns memorable? What are some of your most memorable towns that you've ever created and why? What is advise that you would give someone who was interested in making their town one to remember?

Tips and Tricks for Making Memorable Towns

Weight and coin size aside, because it's all speculation and interpretation that each coin is perfectly sized and equal which I doubt is the case. Also not including that different materials weigh differently (copper, silver, gold, platinum, your mother[OH!]).

What about the fact that adventurers carry around their literal life savings in a backpack. Isn't there something wrong with that? Is this a player problem or should the DM facilitate something for the players?

I've considered reworking currency in my setting to where a gold piece is really something to behold. Something similar to Pillars of Eternity if anyone has played it. If not, basically, the common currency is all based off coppers. As measurement for you all, a longsword costs around 75 copper pieces. You can find other currencies in the game but it all is measured off of coppers. Then again, is it worth all the brain power or am I hung up on a silly thought. *shrug*

I'm not saying he couldn't carry around 20lbs of gold, but why would he. And it may condense to the size of a small water bottle but when pressed out into coins the surface area takes up more space than that. Unless the coins are equivalent to size of an US penny. Any book I've seen that references gold coins shows them to be at least the size of a half dollar and to the ratio of 50 coins = 1lb.

You wouldn't need a wagon full of gold, but how are you going to transport that dragons hoard with the above in mind? Assuming you have no magical means of transportation a wagon seems like the next best bet. I would agree, most adventurers would just pump their gold into gear, but you don't typically acquire 200,000 gold coins(or whatever large amount) anywhere near a city that would be able to sell you that item. I think that would largely depend on the setting you're playing in.

Interesting, good to hear the official rules even if I disagree.

I can see a portion of this being busy work for the DM, but as the article I shared states, I think it's the small details that make a game more believable. I want my stories to move my players, and my worlds to feel real and alive and while it's not a core focus of the game, currency is a large portion of RPGs. The more realistic I can make my currency, the more "weight" metaphorically.

I think the appraisal of the item should be determined by the NPC. Maybe you take that 500gp that you bought in town A and took it to town B where it was appraised as worth 300gp because that gem is very common in that town. But in Town C it's worth 800gp because it's the only gem of that kind in town.

I do like the thought of withdrawal fees from banks.

I personally don't run in Golarion, our group has a personal world we all maintain through story but in some settings it's an option, that is for sure!

In regards to gems, do you always get what they are worth back though?

Can you take a 500gp, trade it for a gem of that value, and get it appraised in another city for the same amount? I wouldn't imagine a jeweler would buy that gem at 500gp because he has to make a profit as well.

Then again, I suppose the appraise argument would be valid in any argument regarding goods.

Personally, I feel like there is a flaw with fantasy games like Pathfinder and how they handle gold. I suppose it's subject to the world in which you're playing but gold as a resource is very valuable and frankly, heavy in large quantities(I would imagine).

With that in mind, I feel like a character carry more than 1000gp in his backpack should reconsider. Not only is he carrying a small life savings worth of gold around, but that 20lbs worth of gold would/should take up more space than you would think. That's like me stuffing my savings account into my wallet and then going about my business. While we're fortunate enough to have banks in our lifetime, fantasy characters aren't always given that opportunity.

I didn't really consider any of this until I received 500 fantasy coins from a Kickstarter I backed (Fantasy Coins LLC) and the amount of space/weight these coins had was very surprising.

My question is, is there a better way to handle fantasy currency or are we doomed to have wagons full of gold because we're all adventurers?

The Peculiarities of Fantasy Currency

My podcast does a weekly character build over some of our favorite superheroes and villains and a few weeks back we did Harley Quinn. I haven't posted on the Paizo forums before, but since we create our character strictly through Pathfinder material I figured why not!? :)

Let us know what you think, what you would change and who you would like to hear us talk about next!

Harley Quinn Character build