Legal Tender

Campaign Coins strike me as the ultimate luxury RPG item. After all, they’re just coins–and most of the time, there’s no reason not to track your money in pencil on your character sheet. But CCs are incredibly attractive, and there’s something way more satisfying about getting a handful of heavy, jingling coin at the end of an adventure than there is about just recording info on a sheet. (Of course, my poor Warhammer players seldom get any money, and even when they do, they never have much of a chance to spend it, so money is rather an abstract pleasure for us. These coins are probably even better in a game with an economy.) Having to hand over physical coin to pay for things can also make players take spending money much more seriously, so CCs can help highlight your world’s economy if it is an important aspect of your game.

CCs are available as gold, silver, copper, and platinum coins of various denominations. They’re made out of high-quality metal and are quite hefty; the fanciful shapes and standard fantasy iconography make them perfect for most RPGs.

You can order CCs directly from Paizo, who repackage them and sell them at gaming stores in the US. You can also buy direct from the makers if you’re willing to swallow the shipping from Australia. For particularly large orders, the CC company has been known to throw in unusual coins, although to be fair, we ordered the majority of our coins from CC quite awhile ago–before Paizo licensed the coins–so I’m not sure if they’re still throwing in bonuses.

We keep our CCs in one of those Home Depot plastic totes meant to haul screws and washers and nails to a ‘worksite’ where ‘productive construction’ occurs. In fact, a lot of our gaming stuff goes into Home Depot totes. The people at Home Depot must think we’re very serious about our construction projects, until they hear us say things like “I’m pretty sure all of our fifty plats will fit–those are the ones with the unicorns on them, right? Or are they the elf hand ones?”