Standing of living clarifications

[Glorelendil]

I agree, Rich. Then it's up to the LM to decide whether the default (probably coinage) is encumbering or not. Although it's not RAW, for my taste there are just too many paradoxesif the default is that a single gold coin has encumbrance.

Musical instruments, for example, have no encumbrance. I think Feanor would say, "Yes, but carrying musical instruments is in line with the spirit of the fiction; carrying sacks of gold is not." And I totally agree. I just don't think you need to use encumbrance as a whip to make players participate in the fiction. I find the logical disconnect of making a few gold coins more encumbering than a lute or a harp worse than the risk that players will turn into gold-crazed murderhobos.

In fact, I see a worse risk of making RAW the default, and zero encumbrance the exception: it could lead to players trying to convert their gold into gems and jewelry in order to save the encumbrance (after all, converting just TWO gold coins into a gem or ring is the equivalent of getting a free Quality added to your armor). And just about the last thing* I want to spend time role-playing is characters shopping around Esgaroth and Dale trying to convert currency.

*But still a notch or two above opening a brothel.

P.S.: If you're wondering why I won't give this debate a rest, it is purely because I find topics like this...the intersection of mechanics and storytelling...interesting. I really am not trying to convince anybody to play the game "my" way. I am listening, and I respect other opinions. But I also love to argue...err...debate. All in good fun.

[Stormcrow]

I think we can all agree that one gold coin does not equal one point of encumbrance. But the point of Treasure (note that I've been using the capital letter very carefully) is that its form is unspecified. Once you specify the form, it's no longer Treasure; it's just treasure. And treasure with a lowercase t has only whatever encumbrance the Loremaster says it has.

Go back to what I said earlier and look carefully at the capital letters, and you'll get my meaning.

[Glorelendil]

Go back to what I said earlier and look carefully at the capital letters, and you'll get my meaning.

Don't worry, your meaning was not hard to understand. I just don't agree.

The value of 1 Treasure is equivalent to a single gold coin. From the Laketown supplement, page 27:

In broad terms, 1 Treasure can be considered to be equivalent to 1 Gold piece.

it's true that...

1 gold piece = 20 silver pennies

...although I would posit that "20 pennies" is also unlikely to weigh as much as a Short Sword.

So if the default is that 1 Treasure has 1 Encumbrance, but becomes 0 Encumbrance if it is in the form of gold, silver, gems or jewelry..."lowercase t" as you might put it......what would you suggest the default form of Treasure is? Beaver pelts*?

It seems to me that the most likely forms...coins, gems, jewelry...are the ones that have very little encumbrance, so unless the quantities are large the default should be no encumbrance. Only when the quantities are large, or the form is bulky (the aforementioned beaver pelts) should the LM assign an encumbrance.

*I'm only being somewhat facetious. I could totally see the Woodmen rewarding heroes with beaver belts.

[Stormcrow]

what would you suggest the default form of Treasure is?

There IS no default form. It's just Treasure. "You found a chest full of 20 points of Treasure." If the players want to know what form it takes, the Loremaster can be vague ("gold, silver, jewels") and still count it as 20 Treasure, or he can be specific and make it no longer operate under the Treasure rules ("it's 20 gold coins; it has no encumbrance").

"In broad terms, 1 Treasure can be considered to be equivalent to 1 Gold piece." IN VALUE. That's the "broad terms" part.

Beaver pelts*?

Yes. And ornamental armor. Fancy furniture. Tapestries. Nobles' clothing. Exotic spices. Antiques. Aged wine.

And gold, silver, and gems of unspecified quantity.

[Glorelendil]

So...it's abstract until specified?

"You find 20 Treasure."

"Great, we take it."

"Ok, that'll be 20 Encumbrance."

"What exactly is the Treasure?"

"Ummm...gold coins, gems, jewelry..."

"Now what's it's encumbrance?"

"Oh, now it's zero."

"..."

I'm not arguing with you in principle, I'm just asking what's more likely when finding (or receiving) Treasure: that it's coins and jewelry, or that it's ornamental armor and beaver pelts?

Whichever way you answer, shouldn't the more likely case be the default one?

[Stormcrow]

It doesn't matter which it is; it's unspecified. When the Loremaster specifies what it is, he goes beyond the rules of the game and must handle things on his own.

You have to decide how you're going to play. If you want to play by the rules, treasure is abstract and 1 point equals 1 encumbrance. If you want to go beyond the rules and specify what's in each treasure, ignore the 1 treasure = 1 encumbrance rule because it won't apply. It doesn't flip-flop; you have to decide how you're going to play.

Loremaster: "You find a chest filled with riches! 20 treasure points."

Player: "Tell me each and every item of treasure in the chest."

Loremaster: "I thought you didn't want to play that way. Do you really want to keep track of every item? If you don't track it, you don't have it."

Player: "Never mind; 20 treasure points is enough."

[Glorelendil]

I don't think anybody was looking for the rules to be explained, or to be told that it's ok that break the rules when they want to, or to have either of those points put in bold face like we need to be shouted at to understand a trivial point. It was a discussion of whether or not a given rule is a good and useful one.

And your example dialog demonstrates why I think RAW is not good and useful, especially if the LM sometimes adjudicates RAW based on circumstances:

"...do you really want me to describe each and every piece of treasure?"

"If it will save me 20 Encumbrance, yes."

"Ok, then it's a bunch of marble statuary. 40 Encumbrance."

"Great. Next time we're in Esgaroth I want to find a buyer so I can convert it into something with zero encumbrance..."

So if by default Treasure has encumbrance, you are stuck with one or both of the following:
1) Illogical circumstances like precious rings weighing as much as 40 short swords.
2) Players spending time haggling with merchants over conversion rates.

In my mind it is FAR simpler to assume it has no encumbrance, unless circumstances warrant it.

And to repeat a key point in case it hasn't sunk in yet: yes, I know that is not RAW.

[zedturtle]

Hmmm. It occurs to be that we could flip our perspective and say that if we know that 1 Treasure is worth 1 Encumbrance then all found Treasure should be in the form that makes that a sensible rule.

In other words, while one gold piece will buy enough junk to count as 1 Treasure, you'll never find that gold piece in a hoard. That's a bit nonsensical, and it does trigger the issues that GE mentioned already where the game becomes Traveller - TOR Edition.

Perhaps Treasure should have both a Value and an Encumbrance value. In typical cases (Value * Encumbrance)/Quantity = 1 is ideal, but not required.

[Jon Hodgson]

Just a moderation note - this thread is generating reports, and temperatures seem to be on the rise. Please take a deep breath and remember we're talking about a game we all like, with people who are like minded in their er likes.

[Corvo]

For most of western-europe middle ages,
1 Libra (£) = 20 Solidi (S) = 240 Denarii (D).
That said, for most of the middle ages, these were just money of account, not real coins. What was real was a lot of different type of coins with different values (that is, more or less heavy or debased).
Just to make an example, when the aforementioned Solidus was introduced as a real coin, in 4th century Byzantium, it was already worth some thousands of the actual, real Denarii* of the time (so debased they got just traces of silver).

I think that the translation of treasure points in actual coins in Laketown opened a can of worms. Let us just think in more abstract terms and don't stick to details: Pendragon use the libra, without telling us if it's some gold byzantine coins, a sack of debased shillings or something else.
Else we got to the paradox where a gold coin weight as much as a short sword made of gold

*275'000 according to wikipedia. But something similar was written in my real books, back when I still got them