How do you handle currency exchange rates in a way that at the very least, isn't a pain in the ass?

How do you handle currency exchange rates in a way that at the very least, isn't a pain in the ass?

Let's say there are 4 countries in a region and players may travel between them frequently. They have distinct histories and cultures. So they each use a different currency. Players may be paid in one countries money and spend it in another.

In that case, how do you make sense of this if the goal is for players to not have to worry about money that much?

Pretend there is only one value. So there is a dollar, but no multiples or fractions of a dollar.

How do you make this work?

Making it so they all use the same currency is a last resort.

Just charge a bit off the top every time they have to change money. Make it as much or as little as you want to encourage them to spend time (or not spend time) stockpiling all 4 and planning ahead.

Like just a flat percentage/fee every time they buy anything with foreign money, no matter what the matchup is?

Border towns would probably easily accept neighboring currency for goods, as it'd be easy to reuse. If the players can travel between them often then it doesn't seem like there's currently a war that would prevent this.

Large cities might have coin smiths/mints that could exchange it to meltdown for percentages, or to simply accept the coinage outright.

That's just off the top of my head though, hope it helps.

Universal currency isn't an awful idea, the party could keep their assets in gems or something else anyway. Exchange rates could be a 1:1 anyway, although it seems you're wanting to avoid that.

That's how I'd handle it if I were going for a minimum of fuss, yeah.

There are certain tensions between nations but it wouldnt affect PC's buying things with foreign money.

I have a good in-universe reason for the money to be universal in this region but it seems like a copout.

A 1:1 exchange rate would be easy, but I am playing with the idea of that being a tiny thing for players to consider when taking jobs, or a good tool to keep things flexible if I want to stall them.

You're right, and the advice in this thread is good. I'm just trying to see if someone smarter than me has a solution that will let me have what I want

There have been two world-spanning events in the recorded history of my setting to avoid these kinds of problems:

1. "Long ago" enough of the world was unified by one empire and ended up using its currency. Long after the fall of that empire people still use it today out of convenience.

2. That empire's language overtook any others' status as the trade language and eventually became the lingua franca throughout the world.

Bam there you go nice and lazy reason for characters speaking in "common" to make deals they pay for in "gold pieces"

If you're just keeping for fluff without fuss, then has the right idea. Flat exchange rate + exchange fee. Keeps it simple and still adds flavor.

If you want it doubled up, make them work to find this exchange rate. Maybe some banks/location charge different rates and they can go through some minor efforts to discover who has the best rates. Might help introduce the regions a little more too.

Here's a question, anons. Let's say the currencies do vary and have various levels of hardness. For a completely pulled out of my ass example:
Blandlania uses the silver royal standard, where the standard unit is 1 silver royal, sufficient to feed one person for one day.
Richlandia uses the golden duc. One duc is worth four royals.
Poorlandia uses the copper blessing. Ten blessings are worth one royal.

How much would this, in theory, actually add to the game as opposed to generic "All currencied are more or less equal in purchasing power"? How might this be useful for the players, or create story or thematic elements?

I think the second idea would be too much fuss.

To be clear, both people you quoted were me (OP).

I'll clarify my list of things I want in my ideal situation:

>Unique currency for each country for flavour reasons
>The ability to have the odd shopkeep who wont accept X currency where convenient for a GM
>All transactions to take place in simple addition or subtraction operations, using exclusively whole numbers
>consistency

OP here

To me this just reads as unnecessary complication.

What I'm asking is, is there any way to have different currencies without worrying about an exchange rate while keeping things believable?

>>All transactions to take place in simple addition or subtraction operations, using exclusively whole numbers
This is money we're talking here. Multiplication, division, percentages, and those nasty decimal places are pretty much inevitable here, friendo.

That's not true in an RPG. There's no reason it can't use only whole numbers. There's at least one game that abstracts money out almost completely.

Once you stop playing D&D and worrying about fucking gp, cp, pp, sp and the exchange rates between that ONE type of currency, you'll realize it's not necessary.

>Once you stop playing D&D and worrying about fucking gp, cp, pp, sp and the exchange rates between that ONE type of currency, you'll realize it's not necessary.
Joke's on you, I've been playing games with abstract currency since fucking high school. The concept of abstract currency is not new to me. But you want to do concrete currency, and that will all but neccessarily require percentages, decimals, division, and/or multiplication, whether we're talking about dollars, GP, credits, nuyen, obols, thrones, or fucking shrunken heads on a string as currency.

I have 20 units

I pay 10 units

I have 10 units left

10 whole units.

10 point zero,

As in

no fractions

Which games are those?

Not even trolling I just want to play ones like that

If you were to have different currencies you'd need an exchange rate unless you simply made them 1:1 but then in that case it's simpler to just have a single united currency. Of course, you could have them 1:1 + exchange fees. Imo, if you're not going to make it somewhat complex you might as well not bother.

It seems here you already have everything you want in theory, you'd just need to expand upon it. Not sure what else you'd need to ask for/know if you've planned that out that far.

I guess I could just go ahead and make it a 1:1 exchange, and keep any difficulties roleplay related.

Thanks for the advice.

Fate does abstract wealth pretty well.

You'd have a "Wealth Stress" track, when you buy something you roll your Assets skill against the difficulty (price) of the purchase. If you roll under you either don't get the item or pay the difference out of your Wealth Stress.

As per Fate's usual rules the roll is subject to modifiers from any player or the GM paying Fate Points to invoke Aspects, which is how you'd go about simulating the exchange rate.

Exalted and WoD (All WW stuff, really) use an abstract wealth system. FATE does as well. All the 40k RPGs, except DH 1e, also use various abstract wealth scores.

Here is my advice:
1. stick with precious metals, which traditionally have worked between nations in ancient times.

2. If you have the means in your game, move to a wealth & barter system -- the player has a wealth level and uses a skill to obtain things for themselves and the group as needed, up to the limits of their wealth level. This will free up everyone's brain.

Read Spice and Wolf.

Typically I represent this in different costs of goods/services depending on where they are. This, of course, doubles with the natural change in prices of where you are, but I as GM keep a note of 'base price' depending on the region.

One of the players is a jeweller.
They smelt down the gold/silver make rings/necklaces out of it and have the wizard imbue them with minor enchantments.
Then they join a local merchant guild and spend some time to auction that shit of.

Banks and exchanges exist but take a hefty part of the money.

It's up to the players which way to take:

>Quick exchange but loose about a fifth of their money

>Invest some time in a scheme and maybe even earn money (I give out exp for this option)

Probably the easiest way is just to concentrate on the value/weight.
After all, most people won't care about who makes the coins, it's their quality that's important.

There's a reason so many coins bore the names of units of measurement (pounds, shekels, talents, etc)

> Fantasy
A gold piece is a gold piece. 1/25th of a pound of gold.

> Shadowrun
Use it to skim their profits if they flee the country, or are forced to. That's cyberpunk for you, omae.

If they're close enough to visit, they're close enough to use the same currency.

Only wildly different regions will use totally different currency.

And when in doubt use gold.