By that I mean that the sheer number of coins that are expected to buy pretty much anything at mid-to-high levels is so absurd that it makes the old imagery of treasure chests full of the stuff feel not only underwhelming but burdensome.

If 50 coins equal one imperial pound, as the rulebooks typically state, you could just about melt down and hammer out a house or a boat approximating the prices in the book for such things. It gets even sillier when magic items are so obscenely priced yet at the same time a typical adventuring party picks up so many of them that they could, materialistically speaking, pull a Mansa Munsa on any quasi-medieval economy if such items are really priced that highly where a hand-me-down magic protection ring could set up a peasant in endless luxury for life.

I don't try to fix all of that mess, but I do tend to use a house rule where coins have as much written buying power as 100x the listed prices for most things, and the coins found in a listed lair are reduced by to 1/100th of the listed values, which also keeps coppers, silvers, and electrum relevant a lot longer. As long as all the players remember the conversion tables and don't forget them in a way that fucks up the bookkeeping, it works pretty well.

How about the rest of you? :d20:

  • UlyssesT [he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    While everything you say is true, the worldbuilding kinda needs it to be true.

    My campaign found ways to reject that supposed truth :I-was-saying:

    These worlds are like comic book worlds in a way. They aren’t written to be rational, balanced things.

    Mine still wasn't after the adjustments but at least acknowledged the old contradictions and established mistakes the way that my players acknowledge that "studded leather" doesn't really exist as the book claims it does (the studs are not the protective part, just the misunderstood rivets holding unseen strips of brigandine in place under the decorative leather).

    But it makes it impossible to write a ttrpg for everyone, since to try to keep a sense of verisimilitude up for as many people as possible is to invite rules bloat, for mechanics that only some groups will care about.

    My group preferred to improve society somewhat, and bless them for that. :improve-society:

    • Eris235 [undecided]
      ·
      1 year ago

      Oh sure, and yeah, we should. I've been playing ICON recently, and I've generally liked it's take on 'economy'. Which is: money is a roleplaying concern, as is gear. Have whatever items you want to represent your stats/abilities. It is besides the point, at least as far as 'combat mechanics' go.

      It does have 'Dust' as a 'currency' to enchant/fuel things, but its like crystallized magic found in the ancient empire ruins, more than it is 'money'.