Campaign Coins [forked from old-school thread]

[The HellHound 101]

In order to avoid hijacking the old-school dungeoncrawl thread any further...

What's the deal with the campaign coins?

So, in the game I ran this weekend, I had my first opportunity to use the Campaign Coins I've been clinking around since GenCon.

Here's a recap, crossposted from a thread I started on another forum about them.

- - -

So, Dex just opened up her box of Campaign Coins and...

WOW THEY ARE SEXY.



Each box has 120 coins in 4 metals (copper, gold, silver and platinum because no one but Diaglo uses electrum anymore) and 1, 10, 100 and 1000 denominations.



I thought they were cute at first, but after digging into Dex's leather pouch of coins, these things are awesome. A double set would be enough to handle most D&D campaigns (over 130,000 gp worth of coins).

- - -

So, in the game I ran last night, we tracked all wealth using these coins and now each player has a small pouch of coins in their dice bag.

They've been a huge hit at our table.

[Abyssal Maw]

My friend Joel bought a box of those as well. I think he went in halfsies with another player in my group, I'm not sure.

I really felt obligated at that point to let him DM the next campaign, because man.. expensive!

[Pierce Inverarity]

How much is it, 60gp?

God, it's tempting.

[The HellHound 101]

50gp a box at GenCon, 60gp is the list price I believe.

VERY high quality. And they are pretty. The scanned images above aren't the best - I find the 1000 denomination coins to be the least interesting of them. One of the ENnies judges scanned them in better than that one... justasec:

[estar]

I know this isn't as sexy as that $60 set of coins. But in the early days of my live-action chapter we used these big washers stamped (with a metal stamp punch kit) with the value of the coin. It worked and allowed to have odd values and it was clear what they represented.

Again I am just offering that as a cheap alternative.

Rob Conley

P.S. because they were washer we could string them together to form strings of coins which was nice.

[DevP]

So these are primarily pretty ways of tracking GP? They are definitely pretty.

Suppose I wanted to do something bizarre like: draw a coin, look at what's unique about it, make some shit up about where the coin came from ("Ah, 100gp coin of the Basserians, who value their Great Archive more than anything else..") and send the group at an adventure in that direction, maybe even with that coin being as their in-game prepayment. Or something. ("You must assassinate the arch-librarian, for he has been corrupted by demons.") Is that something I could do with these?

[The HellHound 101]

That's a pretty awesome setup too, Rob.

1/2" SS washers are roughly $10-$15 for 100, with 1" SS washers running up closer to $20 for 100.

But the time to stamp them would put them outside of my game prep ability at this point.

[The HellHound 101]

So these are primarily pretty ways of tracking GP? They are definitely pretty.

Yes.

Definitely yes.

Suppose I wanted to do something bizarre like: draw a coin, look at what's unique about it, make some shit up about where the coin came from ("Ah, 100gp coin of the Basserians, who value their Great Archive more than anything else..") and send the group at an adventure in that direction, maybe even with that coin being as their in-game prepayment. Or something. ("You must assassinate the arch-librarian, for he has been corrupted by demons.") Is that something I could do with these?

Hmmm... only if you weren't using them in regular play, I think. There are 5 identical 100 and 1000 denomination coins and 10 identical 10 and 1 denomination coins (in each metal - so 5 x 1000 gp, 5 x 1000 pp, 5 x 1000 sp and 5 x 1000 cp, etc - with each metal & denomination being unique, but all coins of that metal and denomination being identical).

Although each box of coins comes with one "rare" 500 denomination coin. I have one in Copper and one in Gold. The gold one is REALLY nice looking. You could use that as your plot hook coin.

[estar]

That's a pretty awesome setup too, Rob.

1/2" SS washers are roughly $10-$15 for 100, with 1" SS washers running up closer to $20 for 100.

But the time to stamp them would put them outside of my game prep ability at this point.

Well you could use spray paint and size to sort out the different values. Not like you have to worry about another DM interpreting what the coin means like it was in the LARP I was part of.

For my own personal campaign it even easier because all I have are silver pennies = 1sp and gold crowns = 320 silver pennies.

[Abyssal Maw]

That's a pretty awesome setup too, Rob.

1/2" SS washers are roughly $10-$15 for 100, with 1" SS washers running up closer to $20 for 100.

But the time to stamp them would put them outside of my game prep ability at this point.

If you seperated the denominations by size you wouldn't have to stamp them. (So 1" washers are gold, 1/2" washers represent silver, and maybe a small washer for copper.. you can probably even get them in the right colors).

In a related note: one of the guys in my campaign runs his own campaign and he does physical cards for magic items. You have a campaign notebook, which has your character sheet in it, and a 'card-keeper' plastic sheet thingy.  So if you use up your potion of healing or whatever, you have to give the card back. For custom items he actually prints out a blank one and just slips it in a plastic sleeve. Having the physical coins stacked up is cool.

He got some game called 'Gnome stones' which we were going to do as a gambling game within the roleplaying game, but that hasn't started yet. This week maybe...

It's a cool concept.

[Blackleaf]

Cool -- thanks for the info + pics!

Anyone who's interested in the DIY fantasy coin thing should check this link:  DIY Harry Potter Coins (using Fimo)

[flyingmice]

It always stuns me how much some people like paraphenalia like this. The people that make money in roleplaying are the folks who make minis and paraphenalia.

-clash

[The HellHound 101]

It always stuns me how much some people like paraphenalia like this. The people that make money in roleplaying are the folks who make minis and paraphenalia.

-clash

Same for me, at first.

Then I played with paraphernalia and realized how much the players love the stuff. If it makes the players happy, I'm all for it.

In a related note: one of the guys in my campaign runs his own campaign and he does physical cards for magic items.

Yeah, when we played through the Living Arcanis campaigns, my players loved getting magic item 'certs'. I'm vaguely interested in doing the same basic thing for all magic items handed out in game.

[DevP]

People really do like to be upsold into luxury stuff. But aside from luxury, there is a use to it all. I feel like dropping 30gp of those coins into my palms will get me a whole lot more immersed and in character than 5 minutes of purple prose.

[flyingmice]

Same for me, at first.

Then I played with paraphernalia and realized how much the players love the stuff. If it makes the players happy, I'm all for it.

I'm not disputing that, Hellhound. The players obviously love it, though it leaves me indifferent. I just keep forgetting, and it staggers me afresh each time. :O

-clash