(tbh l dont know if l put this in the right fourm,like should l have put it in Story & Lore or Rules & Game Mechanics? if one of those threads work better,feel free to move it mods)
Is there some sort of official mint in dnd worlds that make official bronze-platinum coins,with people makeing their own coins a punishable offence,or can someone dig up a chunk of gold,smelt it,pour it into a mold in their basement,and make legal tender? personally l think given the fact that you can go into a tomb that hasn't been touched in 10,000 years and still find legal tender means that as long as it is made of the officially recognized metal type and is roughly coin size,it counts,but l want to know if there is a official stance on this matter.
Edit:ok,so l have decided that,in my worlds,ancient ruins have different coins,but for ease of play they are all use--able as currency
Edit (2022-06-30) I Have houseruled it so all the currency is created by one of my settings deities, who oversees anything to do with bartering and currency.
The details vary with each D&D world (there are many!) but the idea is that the standard coins are pure so they're also worth their weight in whatever precious metal they're made of. Some places might not use every single type of coin, and some might have additional regional currency types, but usually it doesn't matter if you've got 5 pounds of gold coins from some long-forgotten empire, a country overseas, or your hometown.
The answer is. probably: no, it depends on the setting. In real history, the reason for minting coins was originally to guarantee its weight. The king (or whoever minted the coin) guaranteed that the silver in the coin weighted the amount it should (and that the silver was pure). Almost all modern currencies (at least western ones) are named after different weight measurements (Euro being an obvious exception).
Actually, a coin, just like a piece of other money (paper) is worth whatever the government is that stands behind the currency. Coins do not have equivalent value because they are made from a set amount of precious metal. If they were valued this way, then folks would feel free to just melt them down all the time. The amount of precious metal in a coin is less than the "spot price" per unit weight of the coin. For this reason, the country (or in some situations the bank) that minted the coin has to have reserve currency to cover the difference. It is a complicated concept but is intended to make sure that minted coins stay in circulation and are not transferred to other countries for the value of the base metals. This was the underlying question behind the Gold Standard that countries moved away from years ago.
Countries mint coins for a couple reasons. Part of the reason is to help establish the national identity of the country. If your country doesn't have its own currency then it is dependent on another country for an important economic function. If your country is boycotted by the other country, the effect that will have on your currency will be a problem.
But nobody comes here to discuss these finer points of economics, so lets talk about why this can be a good subject for D&D.
It is a great observation that you go dungeon diving and come up with a chest full of coins worth 1000s of GP. But you would have to convert these coins into the currency of the country you are in. As someone mentioned above, part of the exercise in minting a coin is so someone is guaranteeing that the coin is worth $N. If the coin is a different size, shape and inscription, many vendors would simply refuse to accept it as a one-for-one trade for the current coins. The exercise in converting coins can be an adventure, or at least an encounter, in itself. Now many folks might think, I'd never want to play that encounter. Fair enough. But some DMs may be able to make that an interesting story the ties into the next story arc in the campaign. Give it some thought. Maybe it would work for you. I appreciate the exercise of staying in the government's good graces as one of the challenges of campaigning. Good luck and Have fun.
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Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
Actually, a coin, just like a piece of other money (paper) is worth whatever the government is that stands behind the currency. Coins do not have equivalent value because they are made from a set amount of precious metal. If they were valued this way, then folks would feel free to just melt them down all the time. The amount of precious metal in a coin is less than the "spot price" per unit weight of the coin. For this reason, the country (or in some situations the bank) that minted the coin has to have reserve currency to cover the difference. It is a complicated concept but is intended to make sure that minted coins stay in circulation and are not transferred to other countries for the value of the base metals. This was the underlying question behind the Gold Standard that countries moved away from years ago.
First, when coins were invented, they were literarily worth their weight in silver (and on a few occasions gold). The point of minting was to guarantee the weight and purity of the metal. In medieval ages the various value of coins would be more about how much the minter was "trusted". There were "currencies"/coins that were know to be of poor quality and others who were of better quality. The point originally was that they were worth its weight and that that weight were guaranteed. You would loose that guarantee if you melted down the coin.
The amount of metal in coins today is actually often higher than the net worth of the coin, not lower.
The gold standard was implemented when we started using paper notes. The paper note would guarantee that the bank that issued them would pay a certain amount of gold or silver (the UK notes still has this printed on them). The banks then had to have a reserve of gold or silver in case a lot of people wanted to change in their paper notes.
Actually, a coin, just like a piece of other money (paper) is worth whatever the government is that stands behind the currency...If the coin is a different size, shape and inscription, many vendors would simply refuse to accept it as a one-for-one trade for the current coins.
Yes, but it just so happens that almost every D&D world and government across the history of the multiverse has minted pure coins weighing 1/50th of a pound and has used the value of the precious metal as the value of the coin. It's an unbelievable coincidence, but it sure makes playing the game simpler. So in practice, it's not much of a problem to show up to town with a bag of foreign coins, since it's trivial to find someone willing to treat them as the precious metal and give you the local currency.
For example, SCAG has a whole table on the local currencies of each city in the sword coast but that's mostly there for flavor. In practice they're all interchangeable.
The amount of metal in coins today is actually often higher than the net worth of the coin, not lower.
This is probably due to an error in recalling the facts. Coins do not contain more metal than the coin is worth. However, there is discussion going around that the U.S. penny (and I would suspect other coins of small denominations) cost more to mint than the coin is worth. That is a different matter than having more value in the metal than the face value of the coin. If the coins contained more metal, then they would be obtained in large quantities and melted down, if not here, then in other countries.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
The amount of metal in coins today is actually often higher than the net worth of the coin, not lower.
This is probably due to an error in recalling the facts. Coins do not contain more metal than the coin is worth. However, there is discussion going around that the U.S. penny (and I would suspect other coins of small denominations) cost more to mint than the coin is worth. That is a different matter than having more value in the metal than the face value of the coin. If the coins contained more metal, then they would be obtained in large quantities and melted down, if not here, then in other countries.
yep,which is why half a decade ago canada stopped minting their copper pieces (aka the one cent coin aka the penny)
I put a useless but illusioned item up for credit and never return to the town again. CHA+4! (INT-3.) Why yes. He is a Charlatan background. How'd you guess?
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Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
However, there is discussion going around that the U.S. penny (and I would suspect other coins of small denominations) cost more to mint than the coin is worth.
To counter the expense of the penny, they are no longer solid copper. They now have a zinc core.
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"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
Doesn't make pennies any less pointless. Frankly they shouldn't be bothering with any coin smaller than a quarter these days.
As for the original question? Game contrivance. Most players would revolt if none of the treasure they found in dungeons could be used without having to find exactly the right buyer and spending months setting up an art/artifact deal for a small fraction of the actual worth of the find. So the game skips all that and abstracts stuff in gp, sp, cp, and so on. What those coins actually are is up to the DM. Or if the DM so desires, she can put all that stuff back into her game herself. But only if her players are the sort who'd find it interesting instead of a giant, awful slog.
Doesn't make pennies any less pointless. Frankly they shouldn't be bothering with any coin smaller than a quarter these days.
As for the original question? Game contrivance. Most players would revolt if none of the treasure they found in dungeons could be used without having to find exactly the right buyer and spending months setting up an art/artifact deal for a small fraction of the actual worth of the find. So the game skips all that and abstracts stuff in gp, sp, cp, and so on. What those coins actually are is up to the DM. Or if the DM so desires, she can put all that stuff back into her game herself. But only if her players are the sort who'd find it interesting instead of a giant, awful slog.
yeah,l would hand wave it,either by them spending 10 minutes going to the bank for a exchange or just have them be useable straight out'f the ground
Can the coins in d&d have a set year on it like for example 1495DR or 1306DR like today's and in the past coins having a set year on it. Because I'm going to have a goblin character that collects older coins
Can the coins in d&d have a set year on it like for example 1495DR or 1306DR like today's and in the past coins having a set year on it. Because I'm going to have a goblin character that collects older coins
Sure, why not? Do what makes your world more interesting.
Whenever you have cosmetic questions like these, the key question is "Why not?" The only time I'd say it's inappropriate is if it runs against theme. If the adventure is set to a LotR theme and you want to reskin all your spells to steampunk? Maybe not. Otherwise, it should be fine.
If you're asking if it's realistic, that's another question.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
We always assumed that the coins were pure but of different weights from different nations or ages. And not everything found in a hoard was in coin. There is nothing saying it is not in ingots or bars.
We just hand waved any conversions needed between nations. Or old coins to new. Our biggest problem was finding someone to convert the coins to gems when needed.
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(tbh l dont know if l put this in the right fourm,like should l have put it in Story & Lore or Rules & Game Mechanics? if one of those threads work better,feel free to move it mods)
Is there some sort of official mint in dnd worlds that make official bronze-platinum coins,with people makeing their own coins a punishable offence,or can someone dig up a chunk of gold,smelt it,pour it into a mold in their basement,and make legal tender? personally l think given the fact that you can go into a tomb that hasn't been touched in 10,000 years and still find legal tender means that as long as it is made of the officially recognized metal type and is roughly coin size,it counts,but l want to know if there is a official stance on this matter.
Edit:ok,so l have decided that,in my worlds,ancient ruins have different coins,but for ease of play they are all use--able as currency
Edit (2022-06-30) I Have houseruled it so all the currency is created by one of my settings deities, who oversees anything to do with bartering and currency.
The details vary with each D&D world (there are many!) but the idea is that the standard coins are pure so they're also worth their weight in whatever precious metal they're made of. Some places might not use every single type of coin, and some might have additional regional currency types, but usually it doesn't matter if you've got 5 pounds of gold coins from some long-forgotten empire, a country overseas, or your hometown.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
The answer is. probably: no, it depends on the setting. In real history, the reason for minting coins was originally to guarantee its weight. The king (or whoever minted the coin) guaranteed that the silver in the coin weighted the amount it should (and that the silver was pure). Almost all modern currencies (at least western ones) are named after different weight measurements (Euro being an obvious exception).
Ludo ergo sum!
Actually, a coin, just like a piece of other money (paper) is worth whatever the government is that stands behind the currency. Coins do not have equivalent value because they are made from a set amount of precious metal. If they were valued this way, then folks would feel free to just melt them down all the time. The amount of precious metal in a coin is less than the "spot price" per unit weight of the coin. For this reason, the country (or in some situations the bank) that minted the coin has to have reserve currency to cover the difference. It is a complicated concept but is intended to make sure that minted coins stay in circulation and are not transferred to other countries for the value of the base metals. This was the underlying question behind the Gold Standard that countries moved away from years ago.
Countries mint coins for a couple reasons. Part of the reason is to help establish the national identity of the country. If your country doesn't have its own currency then it is dependent on another country for an important economic function. If your country is boycotted by the other country, the effect that will have on your currency will be a problem.
But nobody comes here to discuss these finer points of economics, so lets talk about why this can be a good subject for D&D.
It is a great observation that you go dungeon diving and come up with a chest full of coins worth 1000s of GP. But you would have to convert these coins into the currency of the country you are in. As someone mentioned above, part of the exercise in minting a coin is so someone is guaranteeing that the coin is worth $N. If the coin is a different size, shape and inscription, many vendors would simply refuse to accept it as a one-for-one trade for the current coins. The exercise in converting coins can be an adventure, or at least an encounter, in itself. Now many folks might think, I'd never want to play that encounter. Fair enough. But some DMs may be able to make that an interesting story the ties into the next story arc in the campaign. Give it some thought. Maybe it would work for you. I appreciate the exercise of staying in the government's good graces as one of the challenges of campaigning. Good luck and Have fun.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
First, when coins were invented, they were literarily worth their weight in silver (and on a few occasions gold). The point of minting was to guarantee the weight and purity of the metal. In medieval ages the various value of coins would be more about how much the minter was "trusted". There were "currencies"/coins that were know to be of poor quality and others who were of better quality. The point originally was that they were worth its weight and that that weight were guaranteed. You would loose that guarantee if you melted down the coin.
The amount of metal in coins today is actually often higher than the net worth of the coin, not lower.
The gold standard was implemented when we started using paper notes. The paper note would guarantee that the bank that issued them would pay a certain amount of gold or silver (the UK notes still has this printed on them). The banks then had to have a reserve of gold or silver in case a lot of people wanted to change in their paper notes.
Ludo ergo sum!
This talk of the gold standard and whatnot reminded me of this great series https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nZkP2b-4vo so thanks for that!
And some cultures don't use coins at all =)
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
Yes, but it just so happens that almost every D&D world and government across the history of the multiverse has minted pure coins weighing 1/50th of a pound and has used the value of the precious metal as the value of the coin. It's an unbelievable coincidence, but it sure makes playing the game simpler. So in practice, it's not much of a problem to show up to town with a bag of foreign coins, since it's trivial to find someone willing to treat them as the precious metal and give you the local currency.
For example, SCAG has a whole table on the local currencies of each city in the sword coast but that's mostly there for flavor. In practice they're all interchangeable.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
Yeah, it's just too much work to have many different currencies.
Please check out my homebrew and give me feedback!
Subclasses | Races | Spells | Magic Items | Monsters | Feats | Backgrounds
Just be careful around people owning Zhentarim gold coins ;-)
playing since 1986
I want to correct this statement ...
The amount of metal in coins today is actually often higher than the net worth of the coin, not lower.
This is probably due to an error in recalling the facts. Coins do not contain more metal than the coin is worth. However, there is discussion going around that the U.S. penny (and I would suspect other coins of small denominations) cost more to mint than the coin is worth. That is a different matter than having more value in the metal than the face value of the coin. If the coins contained more metal, then they would be obtained in large quantities and melted down, if not here, then in other countries.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
whats Zhentarim and why are their gold coins bad?
yep,which is why half a decade ago canada stopped minting their copper pieces (aka the one cent coin aka the penny)
I put a useless but illusioned item up for credit and never return to the town again. CHA+4! (INT-3.) Why yes. He is a Charlatan background. How'd you guess?
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
To counter the expense of the penny, they are no longer solid copper. They now have a zinc core.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
Doesn't make pennies any less pointless. Frankly they shouldn't be bothering with any coin smaller than a quarter these days.
As for the original question? Game contrivance. Most players would revolt if none of the treasure they found in dungeons could be used without having to find exactly the right buyer and spending months setting up an art/artifact deal for a small fraction of the actual worth of the find. So the game skips all that and abstracts stuff in gp, sp, cp, and so on. What those coins actually are is up to the DM. Or if the DM so desires, she can put all that stuff back into her game herself. But only if her players are the sort who'd find it interesting instead of a giant, awful slog.
Please do not contact or message me.
yeah,l would hand wave it,either by them spending 10 minutes going to the bank for a exchange or just have them be useable straight out'f the ground
Can the coins in d&d have a set year on it like for example 1495DR or 1306DR like today's and in the past coins having a set year on it. Because I'm going to have a goblin character that collects older coins
Sure, why not? Do what makes your world more interesting.
Whenever you have cosmetic questions like these, the key question is "Why not?" The only time I'd say it's inappropriate is if it runs against theme. If the adventure is set to a LotR theme and you want to reskin all your spells to steampunk? Maybe not. Otherwise, it should be fine.
If you're asking if it's realistic, that's another question.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
We always assumed that the coins were pure but of different weights from different nations or ages. And not everything found in a hoard was in coin. There is nothing saying it is not in ingots or bars.
We just hand waved any conversions needed between nations. Or old coins to new. Our biggest problem was finding someone to convert the coins to gems when needed.