Steel rusts
Steel is hard to mint, cuz.. it's hard.
Steel coins purchasing a steel sword don't even make up the amount of steel in the sword...
Steel is scarce, so why use it as a currency?
This is without reading much lately, just posting after a few questions from players.
Originally posted by Freaklegion
Does Steel coins make any sense?
There was a discussion recently on the mailing list about this issue.
You could check out the archives if you're interested in some of those comments.
Otherwise, for the most part, it makes sense.
As for scarcity... silver is valuable, gold is more valuable than silver, and platinum more valuable than gold. All due to scarcity.
Yet, in post-Cataclysm Ansalon, steel was far more useful and valuable than gold, and logically so.
Whether it should remain that way is up to debate though.
September 2003, week 2
September 2003, week 3
It only represents the amount of steel that the government/minter has. Take the quarter, for instance. It has less than 3 cents in value of the metal...yet it represents 25 cents.
That is the only explination for the steel piece. Also, it is most likely a stainless steel which is very resistant to rust (and is uterly useless when it comes to weapons and armor).
Also...for the most part, I only in "civilized" areas. Most other places, I like the idea that they still use Gold as the standard. Like the elves...they most likely still use Gold in their own homelands (well...before War of Souls). Most human lands probably switched to steel after the cataclysm...and there fore so did the ogre lands (who would essentially switch to the same form of currency as those who they were raiding).
Anyway, all of that leads to the introduction of stainless (or mostly stainless) steel, either by searching for a means to create metal that doesn't rust, or purely by incidence. But since this metal is horrible for actual use, but better for currency, it becomes the type used in coin. By this point, the world has basically adapted to the steel system, and they just use stainless steel coinage to represent an amount of 'useful' steel.
This isn't to say people don't melt down steel coins, anyway. But it's not as good for tools and metal.
So yes, what you get is a system where a smaller amount of metal represents a larger amount of metal, but it's important to keep in mind that they're different kinds of metal (or so I've chosen to believe). Even if society is now in a place where it could change back to a gold standard, the change would turn a lot of the social structure out of whack, placing some who are rich to suddenly middle class or worse. It's also notable that steel coins are harder to counterfeit. Another little plus
Yeah. It's not a perfect theory. But that's what I'm working with, trying to adapt several different concepts (on those posts Brim linked to) into one theory. It mostly makes sense, I think.
It doesn't say that weapons aren't made from steel, so I assume they are.
15 Steel coins does not equal the value of a weapon made out of steel...
So what is the answer? What's are weapons made out of? Or has steel evolved straight from barter, and is just the norm, and nobody cares that they're getting less steel back than what's in the sword they just made.
My players are a curious bunch, and I don't like saying 'cuz that's the way it is!'
They're bank marks, not portable steel. that's all.
Also once upon a time our money worked a certain way, this IS kinda once upon a time.. so it should work by value really.
1) Rampant devaluation: Multiple the price of everything in GP by 10, and do the same with currency allocations. This might play up the fact that gold is so common it's not that valuable.
2) Value of raw material: My 3.0 DMG lists the value of gold at 50 GP per lb., and iron at 1 sp. per lb. Set gold to about 10 gp. per lb., and iron at 1-5 gp. per lb., and you'll dramatically alter the sense of values, while probably not pricing metal weapons and armor _quite_ out of the market. (Worked metal equipment might actually be devalued by all the remnants lying around from the pre-Cataclysm era, assuming enough have survived. Raw material, which can be used to make _new_ things, may be more valuable.)
Just some off the cuff suggestions.
Matthew L. Martin
Originally posted by Freaklegion
It says they're steel coins.. not 'steel' coins, which means they're made of steel..
Quarters are also silver coins. doesn't mean they also don't have steel, nickel, tin, and all sorts of other things in it.
Every other coin type is specifically that type, so pretending it's not is not an option. I may make it one, because that's the best I've heard so far, but it's not what they set out to do.
So heres my two steel. =P
I would assume that the coins are made of steel. This is not supposed to be an advanced civilization and I think they don't use representive currency, but rather currency of self worth, thus allowing inter community/kingdom trading. I think that if you gave me a gold coin, that was made of something other than gold, you can try and buy your ale somewhere else.
Therefore we can assume steel is made of steel, thus making the original posters question very valid. I mean if I give 18 steel for a sword I can melt down into 25 steel, we got a problem.
If you argue that I the coin is worth less than the actual steel you get from the sword, well I think you still have the same problem.
Possible solutions:
A. Make the sword worth more. Basing the price off the weight, but that means a lot of work.
B. Don't do anything and base it off whatever they gave you. And don't tell my DM, and watch me start my new enterprise
C. any other suggestions out there.
Now, speaking in Krynn, gold coins were used before the Cataclysm. There are a couple of ways to look at it. The use of gold coins might have be considered to be one of the elements that lead to Istar's corruption and fall from grace. I mean after all, don't the chromatic dragons hoard vast treasures of gold? The things men will do for that marvelous little yellow metal. As such, especially with the growing trends of Seekers and such, people might have wished to reframe themselves from the use of gold coins, but instead a more pious and simple replacement made of common and less corrupting matter.
Another thought might have been for sheer convience. Say, I am carrying twenty gold coins. These twenty coins are together fairly heavy and somewhat burdensome. Gods forgive, I need to walk to town and buy a new horse, since yours died. Now I'm carrying one hundred and fifty or so gold coins, twenty or so miles. I would just about bloody well need a horse just to carry the gold to pay for one. Instead, the nearest mint prints out coins that are far lighter than the golden ones, yet coinsidered to be of the same value - assuming that you bring in an equivilant amount of gold. Over time, the equivilant value of gold gets set aside along the way. Either now, you can cease to use these little steel coins that is all the rage and send your economy into such a state that pretty much everyone will starve.
A third, and my personal game thought, is this. The steel coin is not meant to be in any equivilation to gold. It is nothing more than a token of value. One that is more convenient to handle and carry than just about anything else. That steel coin is worth just as much a set amount of gold as it is so many chicken eggs. It is merely a bartering token that is carried with the promise of goods or service. Say, you go to the blacksmith for a sword. He charges you fifteen steel. He could just as well tell you that he wants five chickens, a bottle of wine, and a pair of sandals in exchange for the sword. Instead, he charges you fifteen trade tokens and then goes and gets his chickens, wine, and sandals at his own time.
Correlanthias
In Post-Cataclysm Ansalon, steel or any other weapon/armor making mineral was sought after. And so people took to bartering anything that could be melted down for it's ore. Door hinges, locks, keys, anything.
Over many years this became the norm, and in present day Ansalon when there are lots of weapons and armor because of many years of hardship and war, 'steel' coins are the norm, they are not made of steel, but are called steel because of the history of currency on the continent.
Because 400 years ago people always wanted to know how much steel someone had in exchange for a horse, the word 'steel' became sunonimous with wealth and evolved into a word generally used for the highest currency in the land.
Steel, how much steel, it was used sooo often.. And now, people use steel pieces, they aren't actually steel, because that would make little sense in purchasing a sword made out of more steel than the coins paid for it, but it makes sense in the terminology.
Which in fact is why many words are used in modern day earth.
As for the stainless/mild bit - Wasn't really referring to mild steel, moreso to high carbon steel and other steel used in the creation of functional tools. Stainless steel is nice and all, but you can't use it for a sword, shield, hatchet, plow, or otherwise. Likewise, melting coins in general into other stuff becomes bad, as it makes the steel more brittle. Which is why I suggested that it became a way of representing an amount of high-carbon or other more valuable types of steel (or, inversely, less valuable mild steel). That could fit right into your theory, in fact. And the trade tokens, too, if we even wanted to combine this further.
Which, by the way, is another theory I love. The 'trade tokens' as steel. Splendid, tidy fit.
EDIT: You'll also have to forgive me if that large paragraph made me sound exceedingly dumb, because I've never actually heard the term 'mild' steel. I'm guessing at the meaning. But High-carbon, medium-carbon, etc is what I was really referring to as being more valuable/useful.
Originally posted by Freaklegion
Stainless steel is stronger than mild steel, so how is it not good for armor and weapons?
Stronger is not a quantitative term, really.
Some Stainless steel qualities are better than a carbon steel, but not many.
Stainless is extremely brittle. Were you ever to swing one of those "display only" stainless steel swords (which are just about all of the movie replica swords, and anything you find in a gun and knife shop) it would shatter on impact...or at the very least crack. I've seen one shatter, though.
Because of the brittle ness...stainless is extremely less maleable than "normal" steel. (which is probably where you're getting your "stronger" from)
Stainless is also extremely heavy. Which is why most of those replica swords usually weigh 10 pounds or more. Where as a typical Bastard sword should never weigh more than 3 - 3.5 pounds. (and that's on the heavy end).
However...if memory serves correctly from my materials class...I do believe that stainless steel had a higher tinsel strength than a carbon or high carbon steel.
P.S. Udjat...while for the most part it's true...if you re-heat steel, it does loose it's treatment that makes it so functional/valuable...but if you re-melt something...re-heat it to the right temperature...you can start over with the heat treatment and regain it's former qualities.
Also...remember, at least in the original modules, the steel piece was called the Emmas in Seeker Lands, so it very well may have been simply their form of a dollar bill.