Electronic money-changer

[Mokkurkalfe]

Personally, I like to fiddle with coins n' stuff in RPG's. Otherwise, you can't give the players the feeling that they're adventuring to get the next meal on the table. Which is what they're doing, at least in the beginning of my campaigns.

Anyway, the problem is that it's pretty boring to do the math involved every single time you buy a pint of beer. So, inspired by Brian and in a moment of creativity, I've coded a little money-changer. So far it's capable of improving the value:pound-ratio of your purse (i.e. transforming silver into gold as far as possible etc.) and transforming your coins into light, imperial or heavy weight.
When ready, it should also be able to do the eventual changes needed when adding or subtracting money. Perhaps will it also be able to do a little percent math.

Now, is there anyone else how might be interested in a program like this?

[Brian Leybourne]

If you want, I can send you some code or pseudo-code for the 1:12:20:4 (or, more properly, 1:12:240:960) conversions and calculations for Gold/Silver/Copper/Bits when adding or subtracting money. I had to do all that for the Character Generator for when you buy and sell stuff anyway.

(edit: I inspire you? Cool! :-))

Brian.

[Mokkurkalfe]

The pseudo-code would be great.

[Brian Leybourne]

Here ya go. It's a bit messy, but you should be able to follow it easily enough.

Apologies to those who can't read Pseudocode or don't care to.

Code:

Function TakeMoney (receives string COST, returns boolean)

// This function deducts money from the characters total. The passed
// variable cost is assumed to be in the following format:
//
// Either a single value in brackets with g,s,c or b as the descriptor
// such as (3g) or (10s)
// Or two values, comma seperated such as (3g, 10s)
//
// Why in brackets? That's how it is the the book thus it gets passed
// that way.
//
// Gold, Silver, Copper, Bits are global variables which contain the
// current amount of money the character has. g,s,c,b are local
// variables which contain the amount of money to deduct. In the
// previous example, this would be g=3, s=10, c=0, b=0 for example.

Local Variables
    g,s,c,b (integers)
    cost2 (string)

begin
        // divide up the COST string to remove the brackets. For a
        // single value it ends up sans brqackets in cost (eg: 3g). For
        // a double, the second element ends up in cost2. (eg: cost=3g
        // and cost2=10s)

        // Next, convert those to values so that the local variables
        // end up with the right values in them. For example, g
        // ends up with a value of 3 and the local variable s ends up
        // with a value of 10. That's pretty easy. c and b should be
        // assigned values of zero in that case of course.

        call sortmoney // see function below, this smooths out the cash in
                              // case any strange values are in there (so 20 copper
                              // would be converted to 1 silver and 8 copper, for
                              // example.

        Calculate the total amount to deduct in bits
        Calculate the total amount of money possessed in bits

        // the two above steps are just done by adding 960*g plus
        // 48*s plus 4*c plus b

        if money owned < money to deduct then
             return false // not enough money, do nothing
        else begin
           // Bits component - basically it first checks if there is a cost
           // in bits, if not it doesn't do anything. If there is, it checks
           // if the character has enough bits to cover it. If the character
           // does, it just subtracts b from Bits. If he doesn't, it calls the
           // addbit function, which attempts to convert 1 copper into 4
           // bits, if it can't, it simply just returns false and the purchase
           // fails. Note that addbit can call addcopper if the character
           // has no coppers but still has silvers to convert to coppers
           // to then convert to bits, and so on.
           //
           // note - the ability to return false is just there for completeness
           // there's no way it can because we already established that
           // there was enough money to cover the entire cost
           if b > 0 then
              if b > Bits then
                 if not addbit then
                     return false
                 else
                     Bits := Bits - b
              else Bits := Bits - b
           end if

           //now do the same with coppers
           if c > 0 then
              if c > Coppers then
                 if not addcopper then
                    return false
                 else
                    Coppers := Coppers - c
           else Coppers := Coppers - c

           // Ditto silver
           if s > 0 then
              if s > Silver then
                 if not addsilver then
                    return false
                 else
                    Silver := Silver - s
           else Silver := Silver - s

           // And gold
           if g > 0 then
              if g > Gold then
                 return false
              else
                 Gold := Gold - g
           else Gold := Gold - g

           call sortmoney
           return true // was able to deduct the money
        end function // end of takemoney


Function Addbit (returns boolean)
// this function attempts to add 4 bits by subtracting 1 copper
       
        // if there is no copper, add some from silver if possible
        if Copper = 0 then
          if not addcopper then
             return false

        // now subtract one from copper and add 4 to bits
           Coppers := Coppers - 1;
           Bits := Bits + 4;
           return true
end function // end of addbits

Function Addcopper (returns boolean)
// this function attempts to add 12 copper by subtracting 1 silver

        // if there is no silver, add some from gold if possible
        if silver = 0 then
          if not addsilver then
             return false

        // now subtract one from silver and add 12 to copper
           Silver := Silver - 1;
           Copper := Copper + 12;
           return true
end function // end of addcopper    

Function Addsilver (returns boolean)
// this function attempts to add 20 Silver by subtracting 1 Gold

        if gold = 0 then
           return false // no gold to convert

        // subtract one from gold and add 20 to silver
           Gold := Gold - 1;
           Silver := Silver + 20;
           return true
end function // end of addsilver    

Procedure sortmoney
// Just shuffles money so that if there are more than 3 bits, it subtracts
// them in groups of 4 and adds 1 copper each time, and so on up the
// line

        until Bits < 4 start loop
           Bits := Bits - 4;
           Copper := Copper + 1;
        loop

        until Copper < 12 start loop
           Copper := Copper - 12;
           Silver := Silver + 1;
        loop

        until Silver < 20 start loop
           Silver := Silver - 20;
           Gold := Gold + 1;
        loop
end procedure // end procedure sortmoney

Procedure GiveMoney // add money to total
// this procedure doesn;t need to be pseudocoded. Just add whatever
// amount to each value, and then run sortmoney to balance it all out.

end proceudre // end of GiveMoney

I hope that's all readable.

Brian.

[Lance D. Allen]

Hell yeah I'd be interested. Money changing is a bugger.

Besides, it's another toy on the toolbelt... And you can never have too many toys.



"Yup yup, time to get the old arms hacked off." ~Toymeister

Edit: Oh, yeah.. You may want to keep in mind that, once you go into play, you may not always manage to get the most efficient coins in your purse, and you may not even have all your money in the same national currency. If you can come up with a program which takes into account all of that, I will publicly canonize you right next to (well, maybe just under) Brian as a Saint of TRoS support toys. Ooh, and if it can keep track of multiple purses, that'd kick ace too. It's not likely that everyone's going to bring a laptop to the game, so if one person can use the program to track every player's cash, that'd rock out.

::wanders off chanting "Toystoystoystoys..." under his breath::

[Brian Leybourne]

Yeah, sounds like an interesting project. Wish I had thought of it first :-)

Some other things you might want to put in there (to go along with Lance's list)

* A facility to change money from one currency to another, and have it work out all the details. This should include a variable "moneychangers charge", from 0% to 10% which will be deducted for each transaction.

* An ability to track which currencies are accepted in which other countries, that can be constantly updated as the campaign progresses. This should also have a facility to have alterable individual exchange rates for the situation (for example) where Gelure coins are accepted but only with a 2% surcharge or any Tegaarn coins are accepted but the rate of exchange for Tengokun coins is slightly higher this year because of rumors of coin shaving in that country. Etc.

Brian.

[Salamander]

Umm, in my book the ratios are 1:20:240:960, not 1:12:240:960... (Table 7.1 pg 201 DFW1001). But I see you have it correct in the Pseudo Code.

[Mokkurkalfe]

Lance
Well, I'll probably be able to get most of that stuff to work.
Multiple purses are already in there, as is the "infrastructure" for different currencies.
And I'll be dissapointed if I can't make it ignore gold coins when changing, for example.
Other things you'll probably be able to do is to transfer money between different player's purses.

Brian
I had already planned for it to be able to handle percents, so I'll be dissapointed with myself if the currency-changer doesn't make it.
What you suggested about which currencies are accepted in which countries seems to be a lot of (monotonous) work... But hell, if you can code for every damn wound in the appendix, then I should be able to do this.

Whew! Seems like a lot of work. But this is fun, and I like the challenge.

[Brian Leybourne]

But hell, if you can code for every damn wound in the appendix, then I should be able to do this.

Heh... you should see the code block that handles the wounds in the Combat Sim. It's several thousand lines of code... :-)

Brian.

[prophet118]

it'd be nice if you guys were able to release all of this in a massive generator... something similiar to how the AD&D core rules cd was laid out... where you opened it up, and had all your options laid out before you...

combat sim, character gen, money changing.... add a map tool and it'd rock

[Jake Norwood]

I agree, prophet. Eventually we'd like to put it on disk with a nice autorun menu and everything.

Jake

[prophet118]

that would be spiff... course since i know nothing about coding (im a grphics guy)... i dont know all the code side logistics. ya know, making sure every little program could work with the other...

i think it would be great though, course for us visual people, a great GUI would be nice... i like visually pleasing things... course, i honestly can say that i hope the celtic patterns would be involved (the various designes in the book and on the wesite.. i really like those

[Brian Leybourne]

Eventually we'd like to put it on disk with a nice autorun menu and everything

Hell, that stuff's easy. I can handle that.

I might need some help with the graphic design though. As you've all likely noticed, I can do the functional stuff but I'm not so hot at making it pretty.

Brian.

[Salamander]

I agree, prophet. Eventually we'd like to put it on disk with a nice autorun menu and everything.

Jake

"and they rejoiced" (a-one, a-two...) "Yay"....
=D

You know I have to add that you guys are putting some excellent work out there in support of TRoS. I for one really appreciate it!

[Mokkurkalfe]

Some questions.
What do the countries call their copper bits. Do they just call them bits?
And should Odeon Teeth be included? If so, are they Light, Imperial or Heavy wheight (whale teeth?).
And do you say one Marluki Dollmar or one Otarmarluki Dollmar or one Marluk Dollmar or what?
The last question might also become another problem with other countries as well...

Edit: Oh, and what's the plural of all these coins n' currencies?

Edit again: Oh, damnit. I'm more or less gonna need to know how to write all the countries' currencies in plural, as in "42 Cyrinthmeiran pennies". Anyone who could help here?