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Tuesday, October 16, 2012

How Many Coins Fit in a Coffer? (From Dragon Issue #80)

I've never been all that good with math, at least not the math in the following article. Reading this article (and another article on using a "Silver Standard", which I need to dig up next) always stuck in my head. It's just the sheer implausibility of the standard coinage in D&D.

Ah well, Geraldo Tasistro should enjoy this piece ;)

Just think, this issue of the Dragon was from December of 1983. Similar thoughts and questions about how much space standard D&D coinage takes up.




My favorite part of the whole article?


If a 20-by-20-foot room is filled with copper pieces to an average
depth of one foot, how many cp are there? (A similar problem
cropped up in a module published in DRAGON Magazine last
year.) If loose, as they almost certainly will be, there will be
2,764,800 cp, the monetary equivalent of 13,824 gp, almost enough
to cover the living expenses of ten 7th-level characters for two whole
months, and it only weighs a little over 138 tons.

138 tons.

Crap.

4 comments:

  1. Actually, it's fun to read all the old Dragon Articles from time to time.

    Still, I remember both of the articles you are mentioning. They were to say something that affected the way I think about gaming today.

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  2. One of my favorite articles. I wrote a blog on it a while back. I calculated it out and did pretty good except I missed a 0. Good think I don't work for NASA.

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  3. Converting all treasure in to cp from now on for the expression on my PCs faces!

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  4. On to the more hypothetical, just how much can a chest hold? The gist essentially is that you can fit 4 loose coins to the cubic inch.
    Challenge Coins

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