What are Coins?

[Valance]

TLDR: What does a coin represent in this game in English currency? I'd guess shillings given influence coin generation rates, but it might be pounds. Partly depends on how much buying power the STs want coinage to have.

Faith and Fire uses the generic term 'coin' to denote resources. I imagine this is because many different currencies were used throughout the dark ages. There are several possible coins in England at this time the generic coin could be referring to, specifically pounds (quid), shillings (bob), or pennies (pence / copper). A pound is worth 20 shillings, and a shilling is worth 12 pennies, a penny is worth 4 farthings and a mark is worth 13 shillings and 4 pennies.

It's a little hard for a layman (like me) to understand the buying power of a shilling in today's money, but when looking at what different influence can generate assuming coins are pounds gets some weird results.

lvl 1 Resources 50/12 = 4.2 coins
lvl 2 Court: Barrow 150 coins from rich contacts
lvl 2 Resources 250/12 = 20.8 coins
lvl 3 Church: Dipping into the church plate can generate 250 coins.
lvl 3 Occult: Milk imporessionable peasants for 250 coins
lvl 3 Political: Spend a warrent reward (1000 coins)
lvl 3 Resources 500/12 = 41.6 coins
lvl 4 Health: Abuse noble funding 250 coins
lvl 4 Street: Beg or hold a collection 50 coins
lvl 4 Transportation: Route money your way 200 coins
lvl 4 Resources 5,000/12 = 416.1 coins
lvl 5 Resources 10,000/12 = 833.3 coins

So begging can generate 50 coins for a DTA (Down Time Action) and a lvl 3 influence on the low end while lvl 3 politics can generate 1000 coins for a DTA on the high end, with resources 5 generating 833 coins per month passively.

How much can a pound buy?

Price List
A knights 2 horses go for around 10 pounds
A gallon of the best wine in London goes for between 4 pennies or 8 pennies, so 1 pound would buy between 30 and 60 gallons of the best wine.
A cow goes for between 6 and 10 shillings so one pound would buy between 2 and 3.3 cows.
Sheep come in at a very competitive 1 shilling 5 pennies, so one pound would buy 14.1 sheep.
A Tavern in London generated 200 pounds of rent per year, so one pound could rent a tavern for a day and a half
The rent on a cottage is 2 pounds per year, so one pound could rent a cottage for half a year.

I can keep going, but the trend is that a pound is a lot of money, while a shilling is not. It is reasonable, to me, that a begger could earn 50 shillings in a good month, or that the king of beggers could skim 50 shillings off the earnings of a town's begging population. It would be weird if that was 50 pounds. That begger would be able to fill a small room with wine (400 gallons), buy 5 good war horses and 5 regular horses, buy a flock of 705 sheep or buy around 130 cows. The total GDP of England was only around 2.82 million pounds. Spending a permanent lvl 5 resources generates 100,000 coins, or if in pounds 3% of England's GDP. I'm not sure what resources 10 would generate, but it would be nuts.

So in summery, what is a coin in this game?

[Sigfried Le Danois]

I thought we decided they were crowns. I dont know if you can find a good historical comparison however.

[Giric]

(as a note, a crown is 5 shillings at this time period)

[Valance]

Could be. The crown is a good compromise between the probably to low shilling and the obviously to large pound. If that was posted elsewhere I missed it.

[Sigfried Le Danois]

i think it was discussed at session.

[Admin]

Crowns were first introduced in the year 1526 by Henry the 8th. The current correct currency (say that five times fast) of the realm are the Groat, Half-Penny and the Farthing. As a side note there is a Farthing mint in York during the time of game. Farthings were also cut up into 1/4 pieces and pieces were easily lost by travelers. English coins were considered more valuable because they are more pure than other coins of Europe and as such they are highly sought after by other nations, and counterfeited, a serious crime punishable by death.

So coins that may be seen in game are

Groat - Silver coin and is worth 4 pennies

Gold Penny - Very rare and not liked by the populace to the point that they would either melt the coin down for the gold or turn them in at a mint for other coins.

Half Penny - Also silver worth 1/2 a penny

Farthing - copper or tin worth 1/4 a penny - Also the most common coins found in the game. They began to be called long cross penny as they had a cross that covered the entire backside of the coin which people used to use as a guide to cut the coins into bits to pay for items.

These coins would be in use until 1307

[Player One]

Historical dithering aside, I'm more interested in knowing what STs and players want mortal currencies to be.

Specifically, Characters seem to come in two flavors. The first are those who are wealthy to the degree that recording numbers is a pointless endeavor. The second are capable of circumventing the need for that tier of economy entirely.

Are we looking to change that dynamic here?

[Valance]

So... Groats = the Coins in FaF? Cause that means the resource background has almost no buying power at all.

All @ Resources 5
Your disposable incoming for a year, wouldn't be enough to rent a tavern for that year.
Every month you could buy 9 cattle.
It takes 3 months to save up enough to buy a knights two horses
A fashionable gown would take between 3 and 15 months to save for.
Every month 3 to 4 square yards of silk
Two to three months for a suit of mail

[Kendra of the Wood]

What reference are you using?

[Sigfried Le Danois]

That seems like it could not be correct given that resources 5 means you are wealthier then princes.

I would just reiterate that it is unlikely there is an actual fair representation here. The game was not made by historians. They just gave an arbitrary value and said here ya go. I doubt you will be able to figure out an appropriate coinage with out either changing the exact values resources gives, or the real life value of certain coins.

a quick google search shows there was a coin called the angevin pound which was worth about 1/4 the english pound, which would be the right value for what Luke said the crown was worth. It was also created by the ruling family that is currently (in game time) ruling England.

[Valance]

I posted a link to the price list I'm using but it's not obvious with these forum settings. More blatantly

http://medieval.ucdavis.edu/120D/Money.html

I also used several other references, but as they are PDFs it's hard to link to them. A google search for key words [English currency 1300 prices GDP] should give you some good hits.

[Guest]

Another thing About the Cost in resources goes hand in hand with the military background do to the fact that for the men at arms to stay loyal you have too pay them? Or if you want to Build a Inn or a Keep you'll have to pay for skilled tradesmen to build it...

[Simon Molendinarius]

It should also be pointed out that the coins paid out by resources equates to spending cash. Resources also provides you with property, supplies, servants, and the excuse to fund whatever other project you might have. Sure, the ability to just point at something and buy it is appropriate to the description of resources 5, but in general a vast portion of our resources are devoted to paying the upkeep on your life.

So, for example, you would not buy a horse for your knight with your coins, you would just tell the ST that you are getting a horse from your stable. It would cost you nothing because you have the appropriate resource level. The coins should only come into play when you want to buy something quickly at session.

[Valance]

bump. Just finished a scene in another part of the forum and I'm not sure if a basket of apples (excluding the basket) went for just under twice resources 1's monthly allotment, if it just went for half of resources 1's monthly allotment or if it went for some lesser amount. The apples sold for 7 coins (pence in this case.)

[NarrLiam]

Since the amount you get for a year is so small, I'd think it'd be (insert dark age country here)'s highest denomination. Anything less and yeah you start paying out the nose for apples.

Why don't we, for now, say your monthly allotment is the yearly amount divided by 12, in gold, which no one uses, of course, but break it down into whatever combination of coins is the equivalent?

And I think it was stated earlier this is walking around money, so if you're worried that resources 5 can't buy a horse, that sort of stuff's inclusive in the background. On the spot emergency purchases would be handled via your "coins".

[Guest]

I just want to say that the confusion resulting from this conversation makes me feel like Vow of Poverty isn't so much a flaw for me as a merit.

[NarrLiam]

ZING!

[Simon Molendinarius]

It might be better for the ST to arbitrate something here. We can dicker all day long about historical references and conversion rates, but ultimately this comes down to how much buying power the STs want us to have.
I think this is a blessing. The amount of money given in modern night resources almost renders money useless. We have the chance to make this a much more reasonable approximation of wealth. I think you should just determine the kinds of things you want people with resources to be able to buy and assign rough coin values to them.

[Guest]

^

[Valance]

Did you just ask the ST team to simulate an entire economy? Cause that's what it sounded like to me. There is historical data about how much things cost. The easy course of action for the ST staff is to just chose how much buying power they want PCs to have. I can make what ever conversion chart you want to understand what the different coin values are, and I'm fine if the coins the resource background pays out are anachronistic, but my concept will ruin the ST staff if they have to come up with costs for everything my character will want to buy. I'm playing a merchant and I will be buying and selling everything.

[Guest]

How would that be difficult? A list of like 20 common items for purchase gives you a baseline, and you can just compare items that are similar in value when the item in question isn't on the list. In a worst case, you just ask an ST what the item costs. Especially since costs might be different depending on the source.

[Admin]

There are charts in the dark ages book about costs, most of what people want can be handled through bartering and haggling, in all honesty, money shouldn't be an issue if you're just trying to live by your means but if you're a merchant or commerce monkey then the values of items will be something that you need to know. For now we'll go case by case basis on most items, with room for bartering, until the ST staff has time to come up with solid costs for everything. Keep in mind that costs can and will fluctuate.

[Sigfried Le Danois]

there was a book about this.
Grain into Gold. It was a supplement for fantasy role playing created by what may be an amateur but dedicated accountant or economist. It breaks down a medieval economy and shows how the price of one thing can effect the entire market. Essentially it shows that the price of Bread controls the whole market because people gotta eat.

Maybe take a look at it.

[Valance]

Adam Smith goes into that in the Wealth of Nations, warning that you shouldn't tax corn since you raise the price of almost everything else when you do.

[Valance]

So... the resource background officially pays out coins now? The generic currency rather then any specific denomination?

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