Why did electrum coins disappear from rpgs?

I think it would be helpful if historical sources could agree on whether orichalcum was decorative or actually useful.

So can carrying a bill. Or a gold nugget. Or silver bar. Or just about anything that is not coin so superflous even people who made them IRL considered them a fucking waste and dropped.

Unless you're playing Dungeons & Dragons & Spice & Wolf and the entire point of the campaign is to explore abstract economic concepts then viewing gold, silver and copper as anything besides Hundreds, dollars and pennies is just slowing the game down for no real reason.
In this scenario Electrum coins are the Susan B. Anthony dollar; they're technically currency but the teenager at the register of the Burger Monarch is going to have to ask the manager for help and he's going to give you an annoyed look.

Because it's very rarely used, and gold is better in every situation until you are running a 20+ epic level campaign.
The standard conversion rate is just TOO DAMN HIGH to be useful in a gold-based econony.
>"This chest contains 200 gp and an electrum piece"
>But there's five of us, how would we split it?
>"This 'ere stout costs 5 gold. "
>Damn, all I got is this Electrum piece.
>"I'm a barman! Not a money-lender!"
The only situations in which electrum would be useful is if your PCs are buying property, of if they are getting mugged, as one coin is far easier to hide than a hundred.

Found the anti-electrum degenerate

>>But there's five of us, how would we split it?

Am I the only one that likes splitting loot?

It calls for creative deal-making, calling in favours, gambling, etc. All very exciting.

Orichalum is in exalted.

What?

Electrum is a mix of gold and sliver in the 20 to 70% range. It is used a step in between gold and sliver coins IRL.

I would like to add two things to this that are at issue with D&D coins. First medevail and roman coins were 95 to 98 coins to the pound, a number that could be rounded to 100 per pound. D&D coins are 50 to a pound. A gold coin in England would get you 3 new arming swords with change back. A 'longsword" costs 15 gold in D&D. Gold in D&D has a inflation of over 90 times what its IRL value was per weight. Even if you run it as platinum is the new gold that means you are having 9 times less value per weight.

In game that has carry limits that is fucked up.

> Electrum is a mix of gold and sliver in the 20 to 70% range. It is used a step in between gold and sliver coins IRL.
Of course I know what Electrum is, however, OP's question was why they disappeared from RPGs. D&D was the first RPG I can think of to use them, and, due to the aforementioned "standard conversion rate", it is indeed too much of a leap from Gold to Electrum.

The real issue at play is, as you said, the ridiculously inflated rate to begin with.

Another issue is that, most players generally don't care, and find coin conversions a nusiance to deal with.

>In game that has carry limits that is fucked up.

How do we fix it?

Re base the currency system.

Old on the left new on the right. Also give you coinage names.

Copper= Copper
Sliver= bronze
gold= billon ( sliver alloy of about 8%)
platinum= sliver
?= gold

I personal like Roman names so the names I use are...

>Tessera: Copper, name is from a theater ticket.

>Tetra: bronze, name means four which is the name of rye small loafs of bread it buys, or in game a poor quality meal

> Radiate: billon ,name means it is shiny.

> Solidus: sliver, name means it is solid.

>Aureus: gold, name means golden.

If that looks to be to much work to keep up with you can away do the time honored fix: not keep up with the weight of your money.

What would be the conversion between platinum and "?"? I never gave currency in my games that much thought, but this thread has gotten my interest.

The "?" is a step past platinum that is worth ten platinum. I am using it a place holder because the old system does not have a step past platinum.

I don't even care about how much gold my character has. Why would I be interested in lesser currencies?

How would you convert the gold/silver/copper currency system to the dollar in the late 1800s? An ounce of gold then cost roughly $20, which has roughly the equivalent purchasing power of $405 today.

The solution is easy. Make silver the standard currency in fantasy games, make copper coins actually functional, and have trade coins beneath that for actually cheap things.

Electrum, gold, and platinum are only for actually expensive things. For merchants and nobles only.

Well, it's back in fifth edition.

Though in a home brew setting I was planning on just focusing more on a silver economy.

Because in the main game in the RPG world, D&D, character wealth levels very quickly past the point where you'd care. Gold Pieces are the standard currency, so really that's all the matters. Even if the wealth isn't carried in the form of gold (gems or platinum, for example), it's still valued in gold.

Copper and silver usually stop being relevant quickly, too. But at least they retain some RP value as the standard bill for food and services at inns and taverns. Electrum (and platinum) is too valuable to come up in RP w/ peasants, and not distinct enough from the GP standard that it's worth tracking them separately.

>"This 'ere stout costs 5 gold. "
That's more than a week's pay for the average NPC, so it must be the best beer in the universe!

"At that price? You know what? Pour me one. But if it's not the best fucking beer I've drunk in a decade, I'll gut you like a fish."

Because they're useless. Why would a game need a 5 silver coin?

Prostitutes

it's a craft beer with an ironic mustache. totally worth it.

>hiring a prostitute for less than a gold
Enjoy your AIDS.

>ancient peoples EVER dropping electrum.

>Three obols was a standard rate for prostitutes.

>When the party abandons their adventure to start up a large scale magical currency debasement scheme, followed by a magical currency rebasement scheme
They managed to fit the value of 1,500,000 gold pieces into a single 2-inch coin that weighed 29,000 pounds

my players managed to recently pick up a 100 pound gem worth roughly $80,000,000

They're debating making coins of it for their own new economy, but the more sensible of the group are rapidly realizing how dangerous this thing is and how hard it is to actually make something worthwhile of it

Sorry, not $80,000,000

It's $800,000,000

I think you honestly set up a kingdom and use it as "the crown jewel" and start borrowing against it, selling "shares"

They could, but they're a dinky village about to be visited and arm-stronged by at least 3 other powerful nations, and the second they find out about this they're gonna just murder everyone in town and take it (if they can)

A solidus was a gold coin that replaced the aureus. You want a denarius or an argenteus.

I do use them

Because you don't need fucking coins that are divisible by 15 when everything else is divisible by 10 and GMs already get up people's asses about bookkeeping.
They serve zero purpose unless you have some kind of turbo autist running your game ho implements taxes when people shop, like how the Penny exists when it's otherwise worthless outside this reason because everything has to be divisible by fucking 9 in the real world for maximum percentage bullshitting.

>GMs already get up people's asses about bookkeeping

>not having dedicated bookkeepers

If you give me electrum coins as a GM I'm going to magically separate them into 4/5 of a gold coin and 1/5 of a silver coin

>end up separating them into 4/9 of a gold coin and 5/9 of a silver coin.

Because I'm clearly >autistic> I have my EP in DnD worth 55cp (0.5gp + 0.5sp) and used it to represent 5 days wages in the city (inflation mixed with more urban settling) but I play a breathing world that cycles between progression and regression tech-wise.

Because everything in D&D is measured in either gold or copper pieces and you can pick a chicken up, shake it and have 5gp fall out its ass.

Basically the same reason we retired the ha'penny; it's a useless measurement.

I personally go for making the exchange rates between coins 10 to 1, and then making Silver the default.

That still means a longsword would cost 15 silver, or 1.5 gold, but it still ends up making things a bit more reasonable, and makes all three levels of currency feel important rather than just Gold and silver for change.

AIDS literally didn't exist.

Thought it was setting specific rather than real?
For large denominations you could use enchanted electrum used to power rituals and magic items. Wizards could pay taxes by enchanting them.

this is the best and easiest currency system and already happens in several of the better games

>orichalcum

REPRESENT!

'cause they had no way of actually maintaining a blockchain