Challenge Coins?

[chronoplasm]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Challenge_coin

My dad has a couple of these. It's an old military tradition. Soldiers would be given these ornate coins and carry them around everywhere. Soldiers would occasionally challenge each other to show their coins or buy everyone drinks.

I think it would be cool to integrate something like this into a D&D game. Do you guys have any thoughts?

[Chaosmark]

I think it'd be something to add in as world-fluff, to make it feel more real and add some spice.

"Show me your coin, I buy drinks. Don't show me your coin, you buy drinks. If you don't know that you're supposed to buy drinks, you're a saboteur and will be executed. Then I'll use your money to buy drinks anyway."

[Scrasamax]

Now that is a really neat thing that I didnt know about!

[chronoplasm]

Do you guys think it would make for a good adventure hook?

A paladin of the southern empire gets thrown out of a tavern in Kire. He has been beaten down to 1 hp and his weapons and armor have been taken from him. The warrior that tossed him out the door yells,
"If you don't got a coin, don't walk around our city showing your steel, you foreign git!"

[Chaosmark]

I'm not sure how much of an adventure hook you could make out of it, but it'd be an interesting encounter if nothing else. Definitely something to add verisimilitude to your world.

[chronoplasm]

I was thinking maybe these coins could be used as rewards for completing quests. Various orginizations would hand these out in recognition of great deeds (in addition to other rewards, of course).
These coins could be collected and trades with NPCs and shown to gain access to information and entrance to various areas.

[manfred]

...or you could give that Adventurer's Guild finally some color.

[chronoplasm]

Heh, they could be like merrit badges collected by boyscouts.
There could be different coins made in recognition of different accomplishments.

I could even have some older adventurers griping about how there are too many of these coins being handed out these days and how it's cheapening their value. 

"Theres a coin now for killing a hundred kobolds? Give me a break! I do that every time I fart!"

[valadaar]

Who would care to issue them? What do they get out of it?

[Chaosmark]

val, did you read the wiki article on them? It goes through that a bit.

[valadaar]

For modern considerations, sure.  But for fantasy based worlds? 

I like the idea, but it needs something to make it not feel like a video game achievement. Not sure how to do that.

[Chaosmark]

I honestly think it could work the exact same way in a fantasy world as in a modern one. I personally wouldn't be handing these out as achievement rewards, but rather as markers of devotion. The PCs won't be given these except by an organization that they've associated themselves with, and become true members of. I think they might be able to function roughly like any "in-group" item, allowing you to have premade contacts within a city, people who will act favorably and also those who won't, simply by the fact that you have the coin you do.

[valadaar]

Thats a good treatment of the idea.

[chronoplasm]

I'm thinking of also giving these coins magical effects, mostly pertaining to granting entry to the various 'lodges' or whatever I'm going to call them.
Various things like dispelling illusions, revealing secret doors, raising bridges, creating safe passage, etc.
What do you think?