Treasure Point equivalents

[James Harrison]

lol, read the thread?

Thanks Hermes Serpent. I borrowed a copy of the Laketown sourcebook from a friend. That is exactly what I was looking for. For those who don't have it, here are the basics:

1 gold piece = 1 treasure point
1 gold piece (g) = 20 silver pennies (s) = 240 copper coins (c)

I was going off of this - if one gold piece = 1 treasure point then gold pieces are really heavy! (or bulky if you prefer)

[Elmoth]

That is the English pound scale in medieval times. So a gold piece would be a pound. Unless silver and copper pieces are significantly smaller than in the current world, that is. Or you ditch this as nonsense and make the silver pieces be the gold pieces (and the gold puieces be, say, a jewel) and disregard copper as currency.

[James Harrison]

Hum - I would just say that Treasure usually is 1enc per point. If you are given it in GP form it is not encumbering... given the high value of gold it's rare and people don't usually have it...

so mostly treasure encombers you, but not always at the LM discression

[sageryne]

Hello,

I spent ten years working as an author for Harn. I encountered several issues like this, where the initial author's concept makes less sense the more you break it down. Kudos to the folks at Cubicle 7; they did their best to simplify and abstract the concept of treasure. The problem is that treasure points are too "big" for day to day purchases, so that forced them to abstract the concept of "standard of living". This is all well and good, but for players raised playing other games, they want to know...how many gold coins in the hoard? How many silver coins? What is my sword worth? How much does it cost to buy a new suit of armour?

Lord of the Rings, the Hobbit, The One Ring RPG are about Middle Earth and Middle Earth is supposed to be about doing the right thing for the right reason. Therefore, in my own opinion, the folks at Cubicle 7 did the right thing by abstracting treasure and standard of living, so that these "less important" "side issues" could be handled by the Loremaster with a wave of the hand.

My personal problem is....coming from the Harn game world. I am in love with consistency and believably, that is what supports my suspension of disbelief.

I am very familiar with variable prices. A sword made in Erebor is going to cost more than a sword made in Esgaroth. That same sword is going to be cheaper in Esgaroth where it was made than in Woodland Hall after being transported all the way around Mirkwood. That all makes perfect sense to me. However, I yearn for a way to figure out what the cost SHOULD be in Esgaroth and then figure out the cost to transport it around Mirkwood to calculate the cost it will be in Woodland Hall.

I also believe that MOST Loremasters and Adventurers DON'T CARE. They are perfectly ok with "You find 12 TP worth of loot. This means you can live at a prosperous standard of living for a year." And that is good, for them.

For me, I want more detail.

It is also the reason that as a Loremaster, I will be dispensing with the "1 TP = 1 Encumbrance" rule, effective immediately and switching to 1 TP = 1 gold piece. One gold piece is relatively light (I am using a weight of 1 ounce, the weight of a gold coin in Harnic terms).

Silver pennies are relatively light as well. In Harnic terms, a silver penny is about the size and weight of a modern dime. Just for interests sake, one time I went to the bank and got $120 worth of dimes. In Harnic terms, 1 pound = 240 silver pennies (very roughly 1 pound of silver, that is where the term for British currency comes from), therefore $120 bought me 1200 dimes, which is the equivalent of 5 pounds (currency). Canadian dimes weigh 1.75 grams. One pound (240 dimes) weighs about 0.92 pounds, or five pounds (1200 dimes) weighs about 4.6 pounds. It was a very full and heavy bag of coins.

I think that this is probably a better measure of treasure.

Therefore, I will be using the following:

4 farthings (f) = 1 silver penny
12 silver pennies = 1 shilling (the shilling was not originally a coin but rather an accounting figure = 1 cow)
20 shillings = 1 pound = 240 silver pennies = 1 gold coin

Note: you can see that this is directly convertible to the TOR system presented in Laketown if you convert the copper coins to silver pennies and silver coins into shillings.

Note: Harnic gold coins are worth 320 silver because of the scarcity of gold and other factors. I have chosen to ignore that and make gold coins worth 1 pound for simplicity's sake.

If I maintain that 1 gold piece = 1 TP = 240 silver pennies = 0.92 lbs (rounded off to 1 pound for simplicity), then I could just increase the exchange rate for silver coins, make most of the coins in circulation to be silver and use the Harnic price lists (which are also available at Lythia.com).

This would mean that if the players find a gold coin, it is more valuable because it is so small and easy to carry.

If they find 5 "pounds" of silver, then they are carrying 5 pound of coins.

This is my own personal House Rule. YMMV. Use or ignore as you wish.

Thanks

- Sageryne

[Elmoth]

I would go the other way around.

The problem with this system is that large hoards are almost impossible. If you take 240 pennies and make a pile with them (worth 1 gold coin or 1 treasure point) it will make a really small pile. I would go for 10 encumbrance per TP. That makes 12 TP 120 encumbrance in a mix of coins and item types. That is something that is worth it but will cause you serious logistical problems if you want to transport it and make a story out of it Easier than going around counting stuff, and makes piles of gold and hoards of items feasible in the system.

[Ferretz]

I'm all about giving players a more control of the narrative in rpgs, and one idea I had some time ago was to write up lists for each culture and each major type of enemy. When characters find Treasure Points in some Troll hoard or are given them as a Reward, each player can then, if he chooses, "spend" the points on the suitable list.

For instance, the characters defeat a Troll and search it's cave. What might be in this cave? A list is given to the players. They could always choose coins. That's in most hoards such as these. But maybe they could choose more interesting things like jewellry, weapons and such. Items could even have backstories, or become a nice focous for some good roleplaying.

Later, the characters could be rewarded for doing deed for the King Thranduil. Being fond of jewellry, the treasure given by the Elven king would have a bigger focus on such items.

Treasure from these lists should not give any rule bonuses (they're Treasure Points, after all), some items could maybe weigh less?

I never got around to writing these list. Or, I did, but the rules became something else that I choose not to use in the end. But it's an idea, at least, for making Treasure Points more interesting.

E.

[sageryne]

Hi Elmoth,

I guess it comes down to how you see a treasure hoard.

Harn has kept currency relatively scarce and valuable (as it was in real life), because if a group of adventurers were to come across a chest of gold coins and return to spend it, it would collapse the local economy (the way the Spanish ruined their own economy by importing huge quantities of gold from the New World).

North-eastern Middle Earth has very few urban centers (though I helped Rich H develop the Barding lands to show that there are many farming communities). Adventurers returning home with large hoards would financially ruin those few urban centers with rampant inflation.

Personally, I try and stick to "hoards" more typical of Roman or Medieval hoards.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hoards_in_Britain

The largest medieval hoard ever found in Britian was 360,000 silver pennies (1500 pounds). It is similar is size to the largest treasure size listed in the Adventurer's Book (pg 116).

A more typical hoard is 200 silver coins and a few pieces of gold jewelry.

To Ferretz,

I really like the idea of your lists. I would love to see them to get some ideas.

- Sageryne

[Elmoth]

The hobbit has MUCH larger hoards than that. Smaugs hoard would be in the millions of treasure points. And it is likely that the hoard of the trolls would also be extremely high in TP if we go for official weight. Given the numbers there, I don't think precious metal is that uncommon in ME, so treasure piles would be larger than real world ones. The real world hoards are awesome to us real world dudes, but compared to the evocative power of a cavern full of chests containing treasure, it has little appeal IMO. This is why I would make them large: the evocative power is quite magnified.

[Ferretz]

I'll see if I can write up some of the lists. Also, because of the rules I'm writing for crafting, items found can have "Boons", to make them a little better than ordinary items. Boons are not as good as the Qualities you get from Rewards, but very flexible. So for instance, you could have a "Sharp Elven Sword" on the Elven list. In this example, Sharp and Elven are both Boons which grant a limited amount of bonuses per Adventure Phase.

Hmm.. using the stuff I'm doing in the Crafting rules, you could for instance have:

Treasure of the Elves:
1 TP: 1 Elven gold coin
1 TP: 20 Elven silver coins
2 TP: Warm Elven Cloak
2 TP: Detailed Map of Northern Mirkwood
2 TP: Well-Balanced Elven Spear
2 TP: Delicious Invigorating Lembas
3 TP: Well-balanced Sharp Elven Sword

Boons are ranked and "costs" one Treasure Point each. Boons are also compatble with the Qualities you get from Rewards. So a truly maginficent spear could be a Well-Balanced (I) Sharp (II) Elven (II) Keen Bitter Spear, which would cost 5 Treasure Points and two Rewards (although Rewards would not be on the Treasure Point list, of course).

Eirik

[sageryne]

Hi Elmoth,

I agree with you completely. The treasure hoard of Smaug would be an unimaginable amount, which is why I think that that amount of treasure is best captured by abstract treasure points. Tolkien just had the dwarves divide up the treasure and didn't worry about the effect it would have on the economy.

I also agree that you want to make the treasure hoards the PCs find memorable. Perhaps there is something to be said for keeping treasure abstract, that way a LM can describe "chests overflowing with gold and silver" and then decree that you have found 24 treasure points worth of loot. By divorcing description from value, you can have the drama without having to worry about ruining the economy.

I think I am talking myself out of using exact amounts....

Still, I think that gold should be rare. If you need an explanation, it is as simple as "the dwarves hoarded gold for themselves and when Smaug captured Erebor, he captured most of the gold".

Hi Ferretz,

I like the idea. The only concern I would have is that TOR makes rewards/virtues justifiably hard to earn, so I would be cautious about giving out equivalent items in treasure.

The way I have got around this as a LM, is that when someone "discovers" an item (say a sword), it is "just" a regular sword. However, as they use it (and build up experience) they can upgrade it (add grievous, keen, fell, etc). We retcon this by saying that the weapon always had these qualities, but the hero needed to use the weapon for a while before they "discovered" these new powers "hiding" in the weapon.

- Sageryne