Its funny you guys bring up the whole gold weight and troy ounce conversation, because in my infinate boredom that I find at work, I spent an entire night doing research on gold coins, specifically the real world vs RPGs.

Not just video game RPGs, but table top as well. Think about it:

In D&D or any other fantasy RPG, there are higher end items (Such as magic weapons, rings, etc.) that sell for obsene amounts. Let's say that a character wanted to buy a magic sword that cost 30,000 gold pieces. That would mean that the character would have to haul in approx. 2050lbs. of gold to give to the merchant.

My reasoning is that I would assume a gold coin in a RPG would be based on gold coins from our own history. One of the most famous and most used gold coins was the Guilder. A guilder was a coin that wighed exactly one troy ounce. So 12 guilders weighed a troy pound.

A troy pound is 5760 grains (about 373.24 g, 12 troy ounces), while an avoirdupois pound is 7000 grains (about 453.59 g). So a Troy pound is .823 of an avoirdupois pound. So 30,000 gold pieces would weigh 30,000 troy ounces. If we devide that into troy pounds we get 2500 (30,000 / 12 = 2500). Now if we convert that into avoirdupois pounds we get 2057.5 pounds. (2500 X 0.823 = 2057.5)

So if you are a DM, you could really mess with your players. They slay a dragon and go to loot his gold horde, and you tell them that they found 85,000 gold pieces. They say, "Okay, we collect up the treasure and head back to town." Now, you can really mess with them, by saying, "How?" They stare at you for a minute and go, "Umm... we fill up our bags and packs with it." And, your like, "How are the three of you going to carry 5,830 pounds of gold?" They just stare at you blankly, and then vow to never play with you again.

Maybe, I am the only one who ever thinks about these things....