I am running a home brew campaign using PF, but I am changing the money scales. For example, 1 copper piece is a respectable sum to a commoner/peasant. He could buy a simple meal with that. 10 coppers a day could be a living. 100 coppers equal 1 silver piece.
Commoners don't often see silver pieces. If you wave a silver in their face, they will be either entranced or scared out of their wits.
A silver piece gets an adventurer a meal, two rounds of mead, and a night in a decent 'adventuring' inn. Two silvers gets you special treatment in that establishment for the night. You haul 20 silver off a monster and you are actually pretty happy at low levels.
Now 1,000 Silver pieces equals 1 gold piece. How's that for not having to manage sacks full of coins?
1 gold is the coin of nobility and merchants. Gold is not flashed around AT ALL. Commoners and low level experts probably have never seen a gold piece and probably wouldn't believe that it was real if you showed it to them. One gold piece is a respectable sum to launch an adventure. One gold piece might pay for your resurrection at the local temple.
Any thoughts or comments? How much would a common adventuring weapons, such as a longsword go for? 20 silver? How about a horse?
I'd say that works in low amounts of money, but if I equate a copper piece to equal 5 dollars in Real Life, that means that it costs me 500 $ for dinner and two rounds of beer!
Good luck.
You are talking quite reasonably about the first 2 millimeters at the very tip of the iceberg. Good luck with the rest.
Sigurd
I have done the "one step lower" trick, where the base coin is copper, then brass, then silver or ivory, then gold, made silver the base metal, and adjusted from there. It worked reasonably well. If you have the time, the books The Power of Gold by Peter Bernstein and The Rise of Money by Niall Ferguson are both good reads on the subject of monetization and metal backed currency.
The hard part is always that the PCs operate on a MUCH higher scale of wealth than the assumed quasi-medieval tone of most RPGs. I think a better region to study is probably ancient Byzantine, Arab, Chinese, and Silk Road economies, where long distance trade and travel were much more common, and where civilization still had a foot hold, as opposed to the default European dark ages setting, where money and wealth was much less common.
Very interesting, I am actually using a temple/guide system that is like a bank. The players can deposit their wealth in the temple for a 10% fee. Then they can make a withdraw from any similar temple in any other city. Identification is magical and/or divine. And yes, the temple is 'blue'.
hmmmm, the credit idea is interesting. Especially since I am creating a pseudo-steampunk world where I am kicking around the idea of paper currency being used. Has anyone tried doing this before?
The standard gold piece and silver piece are not pure.
In your economy, the values for very pure coins are about right.
The coins need game specific names like the pound sterling, dubloons, crowns, ect.
If you name the impure coins, you will avoid reinventing the wheel, and have 'purer' coins for trade and commissioning magic items.
hmmmm, the credit idea is interesting. Especially since I am creating a pseudo-steampunk world where I am kicking around the idea of paper currency being used. Has anyone tried doing this before?
Paper currency being weird is just a Western hang up, mostly due to the seemingly constant and random rise and fall of various dynasties, ie the area just got conquered, so the paper money is worthless, but the metallic money retains the value of its metal, even if it has the old kings head stamped on it. The Mongols actually instituted a system of paper money that held up for over a century, possibly two (my memory is hazy). As long as you have a sufficiently solvent and powerful gubmint backing the currency (which was generally redeemable for the face amount in precious metal as well) you should be fine.
And it was correct to point out that long distance transfer of money was generally done through letters of credit- Read 1001 Nights for some really cool insight into ancient trade practices.
But also, don't neglect the value of trade goods. Sure, the village you are in may not be able to provide a blacksmith capable of making a +1 sword. But they can crank out a hell of a lot of wool. Then the PCs can hire some low level guys to guard the caravan back to the "big city", while they go off on another adventure, there by stimulating the grey market of adventuring :)