Suggestions, Feedback & Bug Reports (OOC) > Module Feedback and Suggestions
More Realistic Gold Roleplay
Alverin:
Most RP that I've seen on my short time on the server revolving money has left me dis-immersed in the world, though not completely obliterating my verisimilitude. The reason being that most transactions are occurring strictly with wolf fangs (gold pieces), not taking into account all the other coins we have at our disposal!
When characters make transactions of 1-5 thousand gold coins, I imagine they're handing them something like this-
Full of gold coins, either that or a coffer. When I feel like the reality could be something much less extravagant and more meager, thus adding to our grim setting.
Now I'd like to inform the readers that this is more of a personal suggestion to the player-base, an alternative to the currently dominating system of "counts out some gold coins" to add that extra dimension to value.
However, it could also be a suggestion to the developers to simply change the name of most of our currency, just as a way to remind our players of what they're really spending.
Currently, it's not that hard to have 1-2k gold in your bag at any time, however that's not really the case since 50 coins weigh one pound. 5000 coins weigh about 100. So it's much more likely that our coins are split up, it's also unlikely that all of these coins are GOLD especially since gold is fairly valuable in our DnD world.
I believe a good generalization for the value of gold, though not entirely accurate, is that 1 gold peice is similar to a $100 dollar bill in buying power. It works well with our core book statistics. As a result, our other coins gain relative values of:
1cp=$1 dollar
1sp=$10 dollars
1gp=$100 dollars
1pp=$1000 dollars
Here are some examples of how these value associations are useful.
According to 3.5, a full mug of ale can cost you about 4cp (or 4 bucks)
Bread costs 2cp (2 bucks)
Meals (per day)
Good 5 sp (50 bucks) - A really nice restaurant
Common 3 sp (30 bucks) - A restaurant you like
Poor 1 sp (10 bucks) - Carls Jr.
Inn stay (per day)
Good 2 gp (200 bucks) - A nice hotel
Common 5 sp (50 bucks) - Low end Hotel
Poor 2 sp (20 bucks) - Motel
A heavy horse costs 200gp or $20,000. About the cost of a new Honda Civic.
However, my new Rogue of only a week has about 2000gp, or the PHB equivalent of 200,000 copper pieces. He could live in a common inn for 10 years as per the book.
My suggestion is to alter the perception of "Gold Pieces" and instead just assume they're copper pieces, or Rat-Teeth, it's an easy fix that makes more thematic sense.
It's also super easy to figure how much you're giving someone. Let's say you're buying herbs for 2,184gp. You hand them 2 platinum, 1 gold, 8 silver and 4 copper. That's a total of 15 coins, much more feasible than 2,184 gold pieces.
This adds value to our grim-dark gothic setting, instead of handing over chests and bags of gold, you're counting out coins of different colors, with their value determined by the counts themselves.
And for value purposes, my character now has 2,000 "dollars" or 2,000 Copper, or just 20 Gold Pieces. Which now means he can now only stay in that same Inn for about 4 ten-days (a month and ten days) before he's gotta figure out another way to make some money again.
Thanks for reading my suggestion and please feel free to share any and all thoughts associated with this idea. I'll be happy to respond to any questions or inquiries based around this superior system for economical immersion.
ladylena:
I've always considered it that the character would have the highest available coin to them. So like someone who travels to port, would have access to platinum bits, but someone who remains in Barovia wouldn't.
I think we only have the gold as it's a system thing of nwn, but I could be wrong.
Nemesis 24:
Gold in this game is much like the different passages of time. Whereas the game does not go by 1 to 1 time in game, it 'does' in a story sense. 1 real life day is 1 day in game, regardless of nights and day cycles and month cycles in game. Its for the same reason as this system of gold as we have exists - simple convenience.
Iridni Ren:
The NPC prices for things are pretty inconsistent and strange, and it would be easy to list a hundred examples. The wealth of PCs, however, will inevitably vary wildly because of the necessity of making dungeoning at least somewhat worthwhile versus various players' willingness to grind them.
My main will generally have about 25K to her name. That's a fortune to most Barovians, but nothing compared to the wealth you will see on display at an auction for a highly valued item. I suspect some PCs are fang millionaires. See, for example, some of the recent bounties offered.
In terms of systems, however, this is not something I would like the Devs spending their time on. Going around trying to balance the prices for everything would be tedious and unlikely to result in anything everyone could agree on anyway. As long as PCs vary in their wealth so greatly, most prices have to be relatively low or shut out players from affording them. At the same time, to make prices at all meaningful to players means goods must be absurdly extravagant to the common folk (NPCs).
Regarding your own RP and what you personally enjoy, you can make transactions as elaborate as you like. A balance between realism/detail and tediousness, however, is much individual taste and a decision of where one wants to put her energy. (A Dev likewise might decide a more complex money system would help immersion and want to work on it.) This is something I don't have trouble "imagining" for the sake of simplicity.
ETA: Nem's comparison about time is apt. The contradictory way time functions is terribly immersion breaking, but it sort of works and is necessary.
You know what they say: "Time is money." :mrgreen:
Jeebs:
While I agree that it's a bit ridiculous that you can have a king's ransom on your person and it literally weighs nothing, I'm not sure there needs to be mechanical changes to fix the issue. Assuming it's even possible, because the only currency NWN recognizes is gold pieces and that's likely hard-coded, there's likely all kinds of other things the developers should prioritize.
However, one thing you can do is RP it as something else. I have a wild elf character who would never carry gold since to him it's something that is practically worthless, not to mention that a bag of coins would probably clink together as you walk and hamper your ability to be stealthy. What I do in his case is RP any gold he carries or occasionally pays other players for w/e reason as gems. When I have a transaction with another player, even though I'm giving them gold pieces, I emote it as "hands over a few gems" that one can simply assume is worth approximately the same value as the gold pieces I give them. I even go so far as to usually give them a slight bit more (an odd number too) to simulate that I'm not handing out a specific amount of gold. It's not perfect, but if that helps you with immersion, by all means use it.
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