Fantasy Money is a PDF product from E.N. Publishing, and it sounds pretty nifty. The idea is that instead of tracking your gold in fantasy games, the GM just prints out a pile of fantasy bills and you spend them at the table — just like in a game of Monopoly.
So when you loot the kobold caves and find 50 gp, 25 sp, the GM gives you bills in that amount. And when you want to buy a new sword, you just hand the GM enough money to pay for it.
The link above includes pictures of the cash, and offers up a good idea: print the bills in black and white on colored cardstock (or paper) to get the feel of colored money without actually printing in color.
Call me weird, but I’d hate that because I hate paper money… It’s so unsatisfying to hold.
Try this next time you play monopoly: Use poker chips instead of the paper money. I did this and a three player game was over in a little over an hour! You save tons and tons of time by not having to constantly struggle with your money.
So if I were to do something like this (and I just might), I’d probably do it with poker chips instead.
Many moons ago, one of the members of my then-fledgling group was taking his turn at GMing. This was the first time we’d played with him in his campaign world, so we weren’t quite sure what to expect.
We had gone through the process of getting our characters together, sheets written up, and ready for the game; run-of-the-mill for any game, I suppose. And then came the big night.
As we all sat down to play, we were summarily given a pile of paper notes in various colors – numbers, words and pictures on them. “Welcome friends, to my world. In front of you are the results of your hard work and collected earnings thus far.” It was the physical representation of our money, and it was one of the most memorable parts of the entire campaign.
He used goldenrod for gold, gray for silver, orange for copper. There was white for platinum (for those of us with enough wealth to carry it) and in those days we still had electrum (light blue). The backstory went somewhat into dwarven history, and their banking skills, hence the dwarven monarch images and runes on the bills (the GM was really into the dwarves).
While I still remember the high points of the campaign (shadow dragon antagonist, secretive order of elite fighter-mages and one very fortunately memorized featherfall spell that was instrumental in saving the day), when it’s all said and done, what stands out are those novel little pieces of paper that were introduced to me.
Some people thought they were kind of a waste or an extra thing to keep track of, but most of us really enjoyed the tactile presence of the money, and the having of it was as enjoyable as the sacks of dice many gamers are wont to tote around with them.
Any way to make a PDF form of these? I’d love to paste in the NPC portrait of my choosing as the face on my bills.
Even better if I could put mint marks on it and such.
The problem I forsee, and it’s actually handled if you look closely at the link, is that, for instance, last night I handed out something like 1000gp in treasure. That’s 1000 little pieces of paper. I suppose some of it could be in platinum (only 90 pieces of paper) or Gems (less), but then some of it may well have been in silver (9000) or copper (90000).
The website shows that they’re using higher denominations of existing coinage, 5gp, 50 cp, etc… on a single slip, but that kind of defeats the purpose doesn’t it?
Not only does it make exchanging money between players and DM MORE difficult as player one pays for a 5 gold dinner bill with a 10 gold slip and now expects CHANGE, but it also breaks down the feeling of “Oooh! I have something JUST LIKE what my character would have!”.
I guess there’s a use for it, it just feels kinda half-assed.
I haven’t played with money (well, in game), but we do use 2 dram vials for potions, flat bobbins for scrolls, and cards for other magic items, and they work really well. Each player has a tupperware container for their PC, and another is labled “bag of holding” for party treasure.
I like the money idea, but I see it becoming difficult unless you’re fully prepared. I think having colored cardstock pre-printed with denominations is the way to go.
DM: “You find this” (hands a few cards to rogue’s player)
Rogue: “Holy…” (counts cards) “It’s four thousand platinum!”
Man, having this product as a customizable form would be awesome — great idea, KT!
Whether or not using paper money would actually reduce immersion, rather than increasing it, is an interesting question. I see what Rick is getting at, but assuming that the PDF provides a good range of denominations, this still sounds like a pretty good middle ground between writing down money and using fake coins (or real coins, for that matter).
I run a game for kids (10-16)at my FLGS and have started using the money. It is working worderfully. The kids get a real feel for what things cost. They have been sharing money and it hasn’t caused any problems. Making change is really not that bad. I haven’t found that it slows down things at all.It’s only made it better for them so far.
Beldar
To be honest, that would probably be even more annoying that accounting for ever copper piece. More crap on the table does not equal immersion for me. 😉