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I'm trying to come up with a more accurate depiction of viking-age currency/economics, while still keeping the game and default prices balanced.

The idea was to replace all the "gold piece" prices with "silver coins". And all of the "silver pieces" with "silver pennies". The only thing is, I wanted gold to be very rare. I could just make the gold more valuable, but I'm not sure how much more? Any ideas?

This is in reference to an Iron Heroes game.

Forgotten Realms has a treasure trove of ideas for alternate forms of rewarding to treasure.

Artwork - these could be crude statuettes or tokens made of hewn precious stones, etc.
Barter - hides, food, land, horses....you get the idea.
Jewelery - lower end could be glass beads, rare woods, etc
Alternate coinage - Ivory, iron....perhaps coinage brought in from other countries.

When I think of Vikings, I always think of rune stones (which may not be accurate). I wonder if a wealth system could be made from this, wherein the stones are worthless but the runes denote a barter-able value. Alternately, perhaps the wealth could come in the form of fame. Reputation might give your heroes goods and services as they offer a form of protection when lodging in an establishment.

Vikings didn't get into stamping their own coins until the 10th century, and even then it wasn't widespread for a while. Prior to that, they traded pieces of silver, which might be hacked up jewelry (hacksilver), ingots, globs, or whatever, and everyone who would accept silver had a set of scales to measure the weight of it.

They recorded deals made but not yet fully transacted on Tally Sticks. That is, two men would agree on a deal, then they'd carve runes into a stick that explained the terms of the deal. The stick would be split along the runes and each man would take one half until the deal was concluded, at which time the one who owed the other would get the second half. In modern parlance, the Tally Stick is a loan agreement.

Otherwise, they bartered.

They did use gold, but it was much less common at the time. Like silver, they weighed it instead of using coins.

tl;dr: If you want to still use coins and have silver be ubiquitous as the coinage, replace the word 'platinum' with 'gold' and 'gold' with 'silver', and make coppers a very small weight of silver, calling it a penny or penninger (the actual term they used) instead of a silver piece.


Yeah, I guess my post was misleading. The setting actually takes place in the early to mid 11th Century, in terms of technology.

But, it's... fantasy (for lack of a better word). Some of the kingdoms still follow the Old Ways, and would appear to still be in the late viking age. Even though the setting is in the 11th century, it still has the Scandinavian influence throughout. The main kingdom is like the early Normans, only not French. These are some good ideas though!

I guess I'm trying to streamline something, that may not be able to be streamlined. I was hoping to have some uniform prices, then maybe assign a trade value? Or barter value?

You could just use silver pieces only and make it the smallest unit. There's nothing that says you have to have different coin values. There could also be things not worth even a silver that are either sold in quantities, or people barter for them with things of similar minute value.

In this case, gold could be so valuable that anyone who has it would rather display it than spend it, as ostentatious wealth, like as jewelry or in plates and goblets, etc. Actually using that to pay for something would earn you a tremendous loss of prestige, because you had to stoop to hocking your gold.

BTW: If you want to make this a thread discussion and use 'Nordic' or 'Viking' in the thread title, there are some other Nordophiles around here who might have other suggestions.

What system(s) should I look into if I'm considering creating an anime-inspired game with demons and wizardry?

Off the top of my head, I would assume GURPs, M&M, BESM, or Savage Worlds could probably handle the game. Unfortunately, I'm currently only extremely familiar with D&D 3.5, but that system won't really fit the game I have in mind. I'd like to use a system that has simple and effective combat rules, with enough customization to make a plethora of character types.

Are you looking for crunchy or cinematic action? Looks like crunchy given your list, but you might want to consider Window, FATE/Fudge, or WR&M (in increasing order of crunchiness among rules-lite offerings). Among your list, BESM or M&M are probably the closest to your theme.

What's the difference between crunchy and cinematic action, exactly?

What should I be looking for if I want to, say, restrict all players to some type of spellcaster, but allow them a wealth of ability, skill, and combat options within that restriction?





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