Up With Role Playing Games!

It is by no means a “complete” treatment of the subject, but I have released what I’m calling “A Guide to Precious Things, Part I”, primarily for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd Edition and also as a generic supplement (with a little work on the part of an industrious GM).

This PDF is basically a quick-and-dirty way to determine type and value of gems, precious metals and jewelry - check it out in our Downloads section!

Divining ideas about medieval currency and coinage for role-playing game purposes must come from, necessarily, historical references. As a simple armchair hobbyist, I, like a lot of gamers have maybe a few books and what we can squeeze from the internet, with of course, Fordham’s Internet Medieval Sourcebook being one of the oldest and most referenced works. A great many people have also done similar research online and presented their own findings and theories of fantasy RPG economics, such as the following: http://www.newsfrombree.co.uk/m_econ.htm.

The first consideration when dealing with just money in general, in the aspect of medieval use, is that barter and practical goods and services were often traded much more than coin, especially for peasants and serfs, so any approximation of worth or modern equivelancy must be understood to be at best, rough translations of man-hours and abstract provisions (room and board, food, clothing, etc) as well as actual value of currency.

As far as role-playing games, first and foremost, the reasons for needing information about coins, currency and wages are for the player-characters to buy stuff. Naturally, this can be easily glossed over using either a simple system or making presumptions based on a character’s wealth level, etc. More detailed wage information is really only a necessity for die-hard simulationist approaches and completists, and while that’s fine, I myself only go so far into such an arena until I am satisfied for my own purposes, so this work will focus on coins and typical wages in the late 1300s to late 1400s, which covers a lot of ground and must be understood to therefore present a very wide gap of economic fluctuation.

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In the armor chart below, I was attempting to compile a simple but representative index of typical historical armors which could probably be found in the world of most RPGs.

The biggest problem is reconciling the costs, as the weight (in lbs) and effectiveness (an arbitrary but logical factor) seem to be relatively straight-forward. Various listings from medieval documents vary widely due to location and era, as well as a very fluid economy and lack of standardization or even partly workable exchange rate for different coins, therefore you get prices for suits of mail in 1600 for an English king, and prices for full plate in 1450 for a German baron, while peasants make anywhere from 1 penny a day to 3 shillings.

L = Lira or Pound Sterling (20 shillings or 240 pence)
c = crown (5 shillings)
s = shilling (12 pence)
p = penny or pence (4 farthings)

Apparently so. Mr. F. Douglas Wall was kind enough to stop by UWRPGs and leave a comment, plus I have seen some of his posts on RPG.NET.

I always wondered about “classics” type roleplaying games, such as the Wizard of Oz setting, if it was something that could garner some interest, and it seems to be, from the look of the Adventures in Oz site and Mr. Wall’s blog, here: http://fdouglaswall.blogspot.com/ It seems he’s kept current and posted in it fairly consistently since about April of 08 - much more than I can say for myself.

There are PDFs free for download covering creating characters, the rules and a general summary of everything, available from the main site, here, in Downloads: http://ozrpg.50webs.com/

To me, though I’ve never had more than a passing interest in Wizard of Oz and the like, one main attraction of a game like Adventures in Oz is that (depending on your GM of course), the setting and style, taken from the original books, lend themselves very well to a fancifully optimistic, exploratory type of game, rather than one driven by combat or conquest (the Friends List is quite a neat mechanic), and moreso, AiO is something that one could definitely dig out from a bookshelf for a game with younger players and RPG newbies, and though there are some, and any could be run that way with the right GM and scenario, there aren’t enough games that provide a healthy, well-adjusted and incremental introduction to role-playing.

On the questionable side, the mythos of Oz is much more than we see by watching an hour of Judy Garland wander around in the movie, and the breadth and detail from Baum’s Oz could even be daunting or seen as too arcane and convoluted by some people who just want a pick-up-and-play game, but I dare say if someone’s main gripe would be there is too much material… that’s probably a complaint to be proud of.  Secondly, although some people have broad enough horizons that even hack and slashers might find Adventures in Oz a nice change, I would not look for a concept game like this to be something you’d plop down on the table on Saturday night in place of D&D or Call of Cthulhu - but that really isn’t a mark against the game, more the nature of players.

All in all, its an interesting project with a lot of promise and potential for roleplaying sessions in which parents could feel good about their kids’ participation. Who knows, it could even get people interested in reading again, and classics at that! Good luck to Adventures in Oz!

There are plenty on the net already, so of course, in the American way of overkill, I decided to add my very own random magic item generator! It is simplistic with no bonuses, just adjectives or qualities, but could provide a laugh or even an unusual item to be used in a tabletop role-playing game, much like the Pillow of Sleeping I used in a game years back, which was carried around by one PC, determined to find out what it did (it gave a restful night’s sleep).

Random Magic Item Generator