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As was stated, "In the end he [Bilbo] would only take two small chests, one filled with silver, and the other with gold, such as one strong pony could carry."

As was also stated, in the Adventurer's Guide, p. 116 (p. 135 of the new book) says "Silver and gold to last the rest of a middle-aged Hobbit's lifetime" is 500 Treasure Points.

So, based on these two things we can surmise a few things:

500 Treasure is implied to be what Bilbo brought home.

In the Lord of the Rings, Frodo stated that Bilbo's treasure was almost all gone by the time Frodo inherited Bag-end (TA 3001, 59 years later).

Bilbo, as a Hobbit of the Shire, is already Prosperous. An increase to Rich is only 1 Treasure point per month difference. 500 Treasure points, divided by 12 TP per year, equals about 42 years. So, Bilbo was Rich, dropping down to Prosperous once in a while.

It can also be surmised that a single pony CAN carry 500 Treasure points, the rules confirm it.

I do believe that the type of treasure (coin vs. "items of worth") will be up to the Loremaster to determine if it will take one pony or several ponies. A single pony can carry 500 TP's worth of coin in two chests. Can a single pony carry 50 TP's consisting of artwork, armor, goblets, jewelry, tapestries, etc.....probably not.

Thank god the Professor didn't worry about historical accuracy where he didn't have to. I first read the Hobbit when I was 8 years old and the scene of Bilbo returning home with those two chests was one of the poignant images for me.

Elfcrusher wrote:Thank god the Professor didn't worry about historical accuracy where he didn't have to. I first read the Hobbit when I was 8 years old and the scene of Bilbo returning home with those two chests was one of the poignant images for me.

Tolkien was weird that way. The Hobbit was explicitly meant to be a children's tale, and Lord of the Rings was his attempt to create a uniquely British national mythology. (A lot of people, on learning that, usually go "... King Arthur?" Tolkien loved him some Arthur and in fact wrote about Arthur a fair bit but felt it was a lot more French, German, and Welsh than British.)

But then you have The Silmarillion and the various Appendixes and the ancillary materials, which are clearly created with an eye towards making the world he creates as historically real as possible. It's mentioned in Unfinished Tales that there's nothing in his works that simply vanishes into the void; everything has some grounded connections to something in the world somewhere, even throwaway lines like "the cats of Queen Beruthiel."

Anyway.

I think at this point we can pretty much write the whole treasure thing as simply a mechanically light system that isn't, quite, up to the demands being placed on it.

My own sense of verisimilitude prevents me from using the massive mass for gold coin treasure - I allow 10TP of gold per 1 Enc, counting the bag it's in.

Keeping in mind: a pennyweight (which was the typical single-weight for many coins) was 1/240 of a pound.
The Laketown book shows us that the coins in use are gold, silver, and copper. Even the heaviest circulating coins seldom exceed 15dwt (3/4 Troy Ounce, or about 20 g)... tho a few monsters hit about 25 dwt (about 35g)

I think of the Tolkien canon, including Silmarillion, as being internally consistent and obsessively detailed but not necessarily "historically accurate".

Additionally, this whole can of worms can be resolved by just ignoring the Lake-town supplement's alternate rules on coin. Then 1 Treasure is just a vague as you need it to be, and you can ignores the whole nonsensical 1 T = 1 GP issue, and also makes the 1 T = 1 Enc make sense.

ThrorII wrote:Additionally, this whole can of worms can be resolved by just ignoring the Lake-town supplement's alternate rules on coin. Then 1 Treasure is just a vague as you need it to be, and you can ignores the whole nonsensical 1 T = 1 GP issue, and also makes the 1 T = 1 Enc make sense.

If one Treasure point is always 1 Enc than how did Bilbo carry the Arkenstone without falling unconscious? Does Bilbo have an Endurance of more than 1,000? One treasure point being one encumbrance is an abstraction. It is not a believable [1] abstraction if the treasure in question is gold, much less jewels. On the other hand one treasure worth of grain, perhaps given as a gift or payment by a farmer, would clearly be more than one encumbrance.

More generally - what exactly is so wrong about players getting treasure? The only things that they can really spend it on are raising their social standing, which will help tie them more fully into the plot, or rising their standard of living, which just means that their (imaginary) character will have a better (imaginary) standard of living.

Comparing player characters to Bilbo; who came home from his adventure with a magic sword, and priceless armor, and the most important magical artifact in the entire world, and enough treasure to be set for life, and the ability to spend some of that treasure to raise his social standing back home why would you think that characters are not _supposed_ to get treasure (as well as Advancement Points and Experience Points)?

[1] Believable to me at least, YMMV.

alaskan15 wrote:If one Treasure point is always 1 Enc than how did Bilbo carry the Arkenstone without falling unconscious? Does Bilbo have an Endurance of more than 1,000? One treasure point being one encumbrance is an abstraction.

It been stated upthread that the fatigue/encumbering nature of treasure isn't just to do with actual weight but also the psychological burden of carrying it - ie, always checking that those coins or that jewel or that ring hasn't been misplaced. I kind of like that explanation as it does support the rule, but not wholly fix the issue, for me.

For my campaign I actually altered what 1 and 2 TPs were the equivalent of. Rather than them maintaining someone at higher standards of living for a month, they do it for one year. I did this primarily because treasure isn't very common in my game so when it is received I want the PCs to be able to do more with it, but the alteration also means that with 1 TP now being worth a year at Prosperous in gold/treasure then it's easier to accept that it is a significant purse of money and therefore would equal 1 Encumbrance.

I think altering the ratio is also an option and 10 TP (or fraction thereof) = 1 Encumbrance is something that would make sense.

I really don't see why Treasure gets so much hate in this game. If you, as LM, are going to have a dangling carrot-stick going on with the Marsh Dweller's treasure, then you're kind of being a jerk in my opinion. What do PC's generally do with their treasure anyway? Give it all away so they can increase their standing. So they kill the monsters, liberate the hoard, undergo the burden of carrying it home, all so they can give it away, and you (the generic "you" not anyone in particular) are going to mess with them about it? (By "mess with them" I mean awarding them shadow points, setting traps to get them killed, having it robbed from them, etc.) Why even have treasure in the game, or standing or what-have you if you're going to go to such lengths to screw players out of it.

It's not like D&D, where you can purchase powerful magic items and artifcats that are good enough to position you out of your relevant power bracket. You really can't buy anything with it, except the social position to be a little bit more of a chief-big-nuggets at year's end.

I really think this is a trend that needs to shift a little bit.

Rich H wrote: It been stated upthread that the fatigue/encumbering nature of treasure isn't just to do with actual weight but also the psychological burden of carrying it - ie, always checking that those coins or that jewel or that ring hasn't been misplaced. I kind of like that explanation as it does support the rule, but not wholly fix the issue, for me.

That starts breaking down after awhile, tho, doesn't it? I mean, if you run Darkening of Mirkwood straight-up (as an example) by about the two-thirds mark you're going to have people with Valour and Wisdom in the 4-6 range who have fought an honest-to-god dragon and encountered the Nazgul and the Werewolf of Mirkwood multiple times and walked away to brag about it later. Players might find it hard to believe that every single person in such a fellowship is psychologically burdened by hauling harmless bits of metal around.

For my campaign I actually altered what 1 and 2 TPs were the equivalent of. Rather than them maintaining someone at higher standards of living for a month, they do it for one year. I did this primarily because treasure isn't very common in my game so when it is received I want the PCs to be able to do more with it, but the alteration also means that with 1 TP now being worth a year at Prosperous in gold/treasure then it's easier to accept that it is a significant purse of money and therefore would equal 1 Encumbrance.

I'm curious, did you also alter the Standing rules? Making treasure a lot rarer also directly impacts people's ability to raise that, and usually people want to raise their Standing so they can participate in the Tale of Years or, at least, not be regarded as shiftless wanderers by their culture.