How do you make currency feel meaningful in your campaigns?

Needs shot of Kuzco saying this.

This.

Charge for every damn thing the players do, and suddenly it matters a lot more.

None of this "oh I won't charge you for rations or inn stays unless it's important" shit. If you cheap out and pay the minimum for living expenses, then I get to describe dreadful conditions, awful food, and I roll to see if a thief tries to nick your treasure while you sleep in a homeless shelter or dingy unlocked tenement.

I make it rare. Gold and Silver are not THAT common, at least in our world, and it would be impossible for people to carry it around like we do with cash today. There just wasn't enough for everyone to use it, even if they had the wealth enough to acquire it. Barter and trade, fuckers.

Obviously it exists and is exchanged when needed, but I'd rather give my players other kinds of wealth. The king isn't going to reward them for a quest with thousands of pieces of gold. He's gonna give them some land or cows or shit, he needs that gold for himself.

I hate this more than anything in the world. Unless I'm playing Accountant-Quest 2nd Ed, I didn't sign up to manage my finances and do my taxes. If you're absolutely against abstracting wealth and you want the players to have less money, just *give them less money*. Having them erase and re-write the amount of silver pieces they have every time their character uses a fantasy toll-booth isn't just annoying, it's time-consuming and unnecessary.

You don't. Currency is a means to an end, unless your explicitly playing an exchange market simulator you minimize this as much as possible.

>Since you're not watching your living expenses, I'll roll for them randomly each day and tell you to deduct that much money.

I use non-decimal currencies. The players really hate it, it's great.

Weight.

Everyone knows 1 gold eagle is supposed to equal 7 silver bananas; they also know that 11 brass ears equals 2 bananas., but the only person willing to take such large coins is only offering you 5 bananas per eagle.

"It costs 3 bananas to stay the night at the inn and 5 ears for food and drink for the evening. You know you don't want to drink the river water due to its smell of excrement."

I don't understand that image

Little do they know the shady dude willing to change their golden eagles is trying to give them debased bananas. He's not a bad guy, it's just that they're incapable of guaranteeing the purity of those old coins they found in the dungeon and he has to make a living, you know? Can't trust scales with all those wizards walking around.

It's not like "adventurer" is a real job anyway, they just travel around stabbing things and luck into "finding" gold. It's practically a merchant's study to separate adventurers, bandits and sellswords from their undeserved wealth.

>study
Duty, shit.

>Charge for food, snacks, board, passage, bridge tolls, pay roads, bribes, city access, and so on.
Yeah see, that's just a nuisance.

I've had mixed experiences with odd financial decisions made by our GM.

In one of his early campaigns, he gave each of us a chest containing one million in gold. My barbarian buried his in secret. Everyone else went on ludicrous shopping sprees, coming back with +11 weapons and armor.

Really, he just didn't want to have to worry about handing out any treasure for the rest of his campaign.

Later, he dumped us all in a world where every enemy was a warforged (X), Warforged dinosaurs, Warforged trolls, warforged ogres... All of their weapons were built-in, they had no equipment or loot at all, and no, we couldn't scavenge any part of them. Again: He didn't want to bother handing out treasure. He also didn't want to bother with experience, since he just kinda stopped letting us level at 5.

That sounds extremely boring.

I do the opposite of this when I DM, it's also a kind of detriment

>party levels almost once a week because of the sheer levels of encounters I throw at them
>party gets so many good items because I lie to DM high powerlevel games
>party gets so much gold
>I implement upgrade systems, imbedding gems in weapons, getting them reforged, etc
>after a month or two of weekly sessions, party is taking down dragons and harvesting their corpses in virtually no time, like it's a 9-5 day job, they co-ordinate and use teamwork like fucking clockwork.

I planned to make them ascend all the way to godhood and fight even more ludcirous power levelled shit but the group eventually fell apart after one member left states.

This seems like some kind of Loss joke.

i like this. you could even add a charisma modifier to the roll for bartering skills

In town, what I'd probably end up doing is take the baseline expenses that he wouldn't do without (share an inn room with the party, 3 meals decent quality food each day, stabling for mounts), then add like a d6 silver to that to determine how much he spends each day on extra shit like snacks, flicking coins to pan-handlers, and entertainment. Probably add more dice if he has more money, to reflect his tastes growing slightly more expensive.

I'd try to work it out so the range for his expenses is within one of the lifestyle options in the book. If he has a relevant proficiency for bargaining, I probably wouldn't apply a deduction unless he specifically said his PC is trying to haggle down every pastry and wench he winds up buying.

Why not just play Diablo if you're going to just play Diablo?

>the group eventually fell apart
gee, I wonder why
>after one member left states.
hint: this is not the real reason

By not using it and only rewarding my players with am assortment of items that they want and ones they must barter away for the items they want.

>all these butthurt economists

/bet/ ruins lives

How to have a nice, fun and long-lasting Diablo game? I like this kinda shit but I think players would get bored quick unless they're hardcore Diablo fans or something.

This most only works in fantasy settings, but instead of asking the players to pay for menial things that can bog things down, instead I make a point out of asking them to keep track of their currency (as in, I don't just give them gold, but a healthy mix of silver, copper or even platinum, depending on the circumstances, or downright don't give them gold and rather give them objects if there shouldn't be legal tender where they advneture).

From then on, I ask they specify what currency they use to pay for certain things, and have the NPCs react accordingly.
If they go into a tiny little in on the side of a village that doesn't even have a smith yet, and they pay with gold or platinum, that will make everyone else in there react accordingly, regardless if they otherwise hide their wealth. They may end up with someone trying (and may even succeeding) in stealing some of their stuff in the night, or they might get a small crowd who will think of them as worldly people who must know all about the higher goings on of the local kingdom and will bug them about it. Or they simply might be chased out of town if the locals have a horrible noble presiding over them, and they hate stuck up wealthy people as a result with a passion.

Conversely, if they are in a noble's courtyard, the best way to get rid of an annoying bard who keeps bugging them, is giving him a tip in silver or copper, but giving him platinum can also mean he'll like them a lot more, possibly giving them plot hooks for a nearby monster cave or the sort, even going as far as seeking them out if they happen to be in the same court again, asking about the adventures they had in the meantime and offering to make a song in honour of their great deeds.

To make currency meaningful it has to have value to the player something that you would make things harder if you spent it as a example if you made mana a currency, true you could buy better weapons and armor but it means in combat you few spells at your disposal.

By letting players use it to solve *some* of their problems.
Paying off pirates and bribing customs officials can get you far.
However, you need to have a contrast with problems that almost no amount of wealth can fix, short of buying an armada and paying a small army of mercenaries to crew it.

>travelers armed to the teeth come in throwing fat stacks to our local businesses and industries
>wow people here could really use this infusion of cash
>they'll probably be gone in like a week anyway
>hey let's chase them out because we hate free money and want to die

I could kinda see it if they're acting like gigantic tools, but just using big currency wouldn't be enough IMO.

Well, I never said it would be the innkeeper who chases them out of town, and medieval economy isn't the same as today.
It's not like if they have a few platinum pieces the town can really do anything with it, especially the innkeeper.
When do you think the innkeeper or anyone else in a tiny town will ever get into a transaction when they can used a platinum piece without giving a massive tip to the other party. It's effectively worthless currency of a different kind.

Shadowrun does this much better. You know, sometimes it pays to play more than just D&D.