From: Joerg Baumgartner (rq4@sartar.toppoint.de)
Date: Tue 01 Feb 1994 - 14:28:44 EET
This thread from RQ4-discussion can as well be discussed in the Digest,
so I crosspost it.
Mark Sabalauskas:
> I wrote:
>>> Coin prices are a useful convience for players and GM
>>> alike. If a gamemaster is wants to put in the extra effort to
>>> detail this part of the world,a price list is as useful a
>>> place to start as a set of barter points. Most people will
>>> find the effort required to model bartering a useless waste of
>>> time at best, and an annoying distraction from storytelling
>>> at worst.
Ranges of coin prices would be better, as would a rule of thumb
description how availability and distance influence the prices.
> John Medway replyed:
>> Why would fixed cash prices -- and what I see with it: a
>> register-tape from the checkout at Target -- seem to fit
>> storytelling better? Neither are appropriate for a bronze age
>> society, and neither fits the picture.
A society which has guilds will also know fixed prices for certain
products. My guess is that any Lunar, Sartarite or Kethaelan city will
have its prescribed sets of prices for certain goods, prescribed by
either a powerful guild or temple, or by the mundane authorities. Bread
or fish prices in Pavis under Lunar government are likely to be fixed
by a council of producers and authorities, subject to fluctuating
availability and political interests. Thus there will be a fixed price,
although this may alter.
Outside of town, barter and bargaining are the rule, except when a
larger institution (such as the Cult of Geo) is involved.
> If the story the players are telling has more to do with
> certain aspects of a character's moral development, for example,
> then they might consider bartering a waste of time that didn't
> advance the story. On the other hand, if one's main interest was
> social realism, then bartering would add to one's suspension of
> disbelief. R:AG needs some guidelines for the value of items.
But bartering does involve moral development. A miserly Orlanthi lord
(like Leonidas the Short, whose mercenary contract was posted by MOB)
is quite short of contracting the impests. (BTW: did Orlanth steal
these from Malia?)
> Money is the abstraction that both Gloranthans and we use when
> talking about the value of goods. A coin price list is as
> useful to gamers who barter as a a list of abstract barter
> points.
Again, this is true for city dwellers. Most rurals will think of
bushels of barley (e.g. in case of the Sun Domers) as monetary means to
pay taxes, and coins as minor tokens to pay for tolls or barge fees, if
no other deal can be made.
One thing in the price lists I'd really like to see are ferry rates for
rivers, and bridge tolls. Again, these prices need to be given in
ranges, and additionally should vary as the price lists in RQ3 do
(metropolitan, urban, rural, wilds).
> JM:
>> Even *advanced* societies of antiquity, with coin and currency
>> systems, conducted the bulk of trade, especially on a lower
>> level, with barter. This is the way the people would think, buy
>> and sell.
Agreed, a trader will handle bulk sales with some ease. To barter say a
herd of sable for several bushels of skullbush seeds, one can always
give or take a bushel, or an animal. The problem arises when one wants
to by exactly one animal.
> A price table that lists the usual relative value of items
> is not incompatible with that fact.
Still, one set price will give the 20th century trained mind of the
player the impression of a supermarket checkout. If there is a price
range given, this allows to include small variations. Even if neither
GM nor players delight in bartering, slightly increased prices for
"furriners" who speak and dress funnily ought to be the rule. If the
players start suspecting they're pidgeon-holed, they'll usually (out of
greed and misery, you know how player characters tend to be) try and
blend with the society, thus furthering suspense and roleplaying.
> I agree with you that the rules would be better if they offered
> the GM more advice on the reasons why prices vary. Hard and
> fast rules on mercantile activity might not, however, be
> possible. Rough guidelines would be better than a Traveller
> type system that the players could easily crock.
Agreed. Only keep the dice out of it, or the rules lawyers will insist
you roll the daily market situation for satin "just in case", even if
all they want to buy is some cheap wine.
> I [Mark] wrote:
>>> I would imagine that in Glorantha the value of the coin
>>> would be based SOLELY on the value of it's metal.
Iron bars would be a convenient currency, if this was the case.
The value of a metal would vary from place to place. While I think it
very likely for Prax to have rich copper ore (didn't a whole earth
tribe die there, as well as in the Wastes?), I doubt much of it will be
unearthed. By the way, what kind of metal do chaotic gods "yield" when
slain? Bronze?
> Devin Cutler replyed:
>>This is not so. The value of Gloranthan coins is roughly twice
>>its metal value. This is borne out by the value of metal rules
>>in Elder Secrets and by the Lokarnos Divine Magic Mint Coin.
>From GoG p.54:
"This spell must be cast upon a block of gold, causing a coin to
separate from the rest of the mass. It turns 10 pennyworths of th egold
into a minted coin, called a wheel in common parlance. Coins are
commonly worth twice their weight of raw metal, and wheels are no
exceptions, being worth 20 pennies each in lands where their legality
is recognized. Each wheel weighs approximately 17 grams. and one ENC of
raw gold provides the raw material for exactly 60 wheels."
Not quite. The prices in ES IMHO are given for Rune Metals, i.e. pure
metals.
RQ2 tells us:
"Unalloyed, or pure, metals, such as iron, lead, tin, and copper,
prevent a person from using magic unless he is ''sealed'' to the Rune
connected with that metal. [...] Note that all coins are alloyed, as
are gold and silver ornaments."
Bolgs, Clacks and Wheels all are originally sacred items of esteem by
certain groups of Gloranthans, whose esteem somewhat wore off to
neighbouring peoples.
To quote RQ2:
"The coinage of Glorantha is based on silver. While both gold and
copper are used as coins, silver is by far the most common monetary
metal. Silver coinage was first introduced into Glorantha by the Lunar
Empire [I don't quite believe this. What kind of currency was used by
the Malkioni? Even with focus on Dragon Pass, the Jrusteli and EWF will
have used and thus introduced silver coins.]. The generic term for
silver coins used over the continent is the Lunar [better: lunar, no
capital for the coin, according to Sandy], in honor of the Lunar
Empire. However, in the empire, the basic silver coin is referred to as
an Imperial. In Sartar it is called a Sovereign, and in the city of
Corflu, run by various guilds, it is called a Guilder. All of these
coins are roughy equivalent in value. Note that the Lunar, abbreviated
n the rules as L, is worth about one pre-WW II English pound, or five
US dollars."
This MUST have been written from the Dragon Pass viewpoint exclusively,
and seems to disregard even nearby Holy Country. Don't make the same
mistake in RQ4!
"Gold was the first coinage of the world, brougt to the people by the
enigmatic Sun-Wheel Dancers [Gold Wheel Dancers]. In their honor, gold
coins are still called Wheels. Gold, however, is scarce and very
valuable. One golden Wheel equals 20 Lunars of silver. Gold is still
mainly used as a means of settling debts between nations rather than
individuals."
Or by devout solar worshippers. Do the Sun Domers accept clacks, the
metal of subservient earth, as units of currency?
"Copper coins were invented by the dwarves. As is usual with any
innovation brought out by that most inventive race, humans shrink from
acknowledging the contribution. The copper coin is called a Clack, or
often just a Copper. It takes ten Clacks to equal one Lunar."
Is this still valid? The invention must have been made by Openhanded
dwarfs to deal with outsiders, then, since parts of the machine don't
need to be paid.
RQ3 severely lacks information beyond Glorantha Book's note on p.9:
"Most people make transactions in kind, rather than in coinage,
although some powerful rulers or governments do mint coins on a regular
basis. Such financial measures as moneylending, bookkeeping, and
banking are rarely used. Only the most advanced cultures of Glorantha,
such as the Lunar Empire, have entered in the economic stage in which
these factors become significant."
This note implies that all lands under Lunar influence, as well as all
of the west, the east, and the Pamaltelan coast, which are culturally
more advanced than the upstart Lunars, have these practices to some
extent.
> If this is how RQIII treats money, then R:AG should change the
> rules. The idea that people value metal twice as much because
> it is shaped into coins is silly. I'm no economic historian,
> but I doubt any Gloranthan society is complex enough to issue
> fiat money.
Sorry, but if any cult says that e.g. kauri shells which are prepared a
certain way on a certain island are worth a lot to the deity, because
they please the deity, then these things are worth that much. E.g. as a
convenient way to pay off cult duties.
> Even if one accepted the idea that wheels are token coins, the
> Coin Wheel spell is unreasonable. A divine magic spell that
> creates a single wheel! The merchant cast the spell, makes a
> profit of 10 lunars, and then has to spend an entire day
> regaining the spell. As a merchant has a 16 lunars standard of
> living; so he loses 6 lunars in the end.
This economic failure ought to be corrected, true, but then coining is
one of the cult duties the Lokarnos priest has.
Since the Solar society propagates stasis I'd expect the value of a
wheel to vary little, if at all, within their cultures. Cultures
indifferent to Solar believes (Pelorian peasants, Orlanthi hill men,
westerners) might apply a fluctuation based on availability and origin
of the coin.
To have a set value for the lunar actually is an insult to Lunar
philosophy, which embraces fluctuation and (cyclical) change. A devout
Etyries merchant might value it higher on days of full moon...
The Holy Country guilders or west Manirian Issarian issues ought to
behave normally as far as coins go. If you don't know the mint stamp,
deduct some of the value, etc. Include money exchange fees in the
service prices.
The monetary policies of the West are still subject to philosophical
discussion (do the principles of interest and inflation conflict with
church doctrine, and if so, which church), and won't be resolved before
"How the West Was One" at Convulsions <g>. They lie mostly outside of
the focus on Dragon Pass, anyway (although I just came up with a
scenario idea for my planned Hendriki RQ:AiG-campaign).
One advantage of temple-coined wheels (or dwarf-minted clacks) might be
that they cannot be clipped without destroying the "magic" of the coin.
With silver coins, however, Trickster has all the fun.
I wonder what role Bolgs do play in the Holy Country, before and after
Belintar's arrival.
-- Joerg Baumgartner rq4@sartar.toppoint.de 0,,
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