The "Silver Edition" of Dungeons and Dragons

Almost every game of Dungeons and Dragons has Gold at the center of gaining riches AND experience points...but not my games

I love having a system based on silver. For the longest time I simply converted all the coins "up one" so that silver (not Electrum) became the standard coin in my games. Prices on the list became silver coin prices instead of gold and gold (and platinum) became MUCH more valuable. Where copper had been, I usually placed brass, bronze or some other metal coin (even steel pieces once).

All that changed when I found Dragonsfoot though. There I found a really cool magazine called "Footprints" that changed a lot of things for my at home gaming...but specifically within Footprints 15 I found an article by a fella named Joe Maccarrone titled "Historically Resonant" Coinage for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.

And from that day on I've been using his system ever since. I don't always use the Aerdy Pound that he outlines...I usually call it something else.

Well, for the Homeland: The Old Realm Campaign I'll be using that same system.

In my new home game, instead of the Aerdy Pound will be the Royal. Long ago the "Trade Bar" (originally established by Dwarf merchants) which used to be a single large Silver Trade Bar of the same weight as 250 silver coins was an accepted standard by all.

Each of these bars weighed 13 ounces of silver. Unfortunately, few, if any of them, exist as they were when made. Especially among the Vhirians and surrounding human kingdoms the trade bars became "hack silver" most often after the collapse of the Old Realm. Very rarely an old Gold Royal will be found in a collection or among the treasury of a noble. These coins were five times the size of a standard gold coin and also worth a full silver Trade Bar. The "Royal" has become synonymous with the trade bar weight and so the coinage system in my campaign is the Royal Coin.

Most trade is done in silver coins still (gold being somewhat rare on the edges of civilization); but some gems are used as well. The breakdown of the new system is:

Old System to New System

10gp to 1 gp

1pp to .5gp

1gp to 5sp = .1gp

1ep to 2.5sp = .05gp

1sp to .25sp

1cp to .25cp

Smoothed out for the new system:

2500 c.p. = 250 s.p. = 5 g.p. = 1R (Royal)

AND

500 c.p. = 50 s.p. = 1 g.p.

Player Character Starting Money:

Cleric: 180-900 s.p. (3d6 x 50)

Fighter: 250-1000 s.p. (5d4 x 50)

Magic-User: 100-400 s.p. (2d4 x 50)

Thief: 100-600 s.p. (2d6 x 50)

Experience Point Values:

50 c.p. = 1 experience point

5 s.p. = 1 experience point

1 g.p. = 10 experience points

The major shift here is simply changing everything to pounds of weight instead of coins; but really that is easy division of tens. What this does is makes it so much easier for the party to carry their wealth with them; which I'm sure Rangers are fond of...

16 ounces now equals 300 copper pieces, 300 silver pieces or 100 gold pieces.

From that you get that each copper and silver coin weighs only 0.053 ounces and each gold coin weighs .16 ounces (while the Gold Royal would weigh in at .8 ounces...still less than the old D&D coins).