How do we take a Fantasy economy off the gold standard

How would I justify a collection of city states moving from the gold standard to a more advanced economic system.

I want to shift the economy in my setting from being based on the gold standard to being more market based.
Setting is a collection of city states mostly, with a few small nations and one more powerful empire that is quite removed from the rest of the setting with more advanced tech that raids the rest in search of slaves and sacrifices
( basically Aztecs merged with Vikings using conquistador tech in a mostly Bronze Age setting)

>How would I justify a collection of city states moving from the gold standard to a more advanced economic system.
Chaotic Evil Alignment.

Put not!petrol in your setting. A ressource that is absolutely vital to everybody and has only a few productors.
Your empire does not need it that much or they would have colonized the sources already

>implying the gold standard isn't the most advanced method of exchange
>implying the gold standard isn't the most market based currency, whatever this actually means
>Setting is a collection of city states mostly
This will be difficult, because the only way someone would accept any currency that is not the most common and convenient has to be forced to do so, so you need a central power. I can only imagine that would work if you establish a different metal or other commonly used good that will serve as a substitute. Before gold was used, people would trade cows or nails out of metal.

either inflate the value of gold, or find some important commercial/magic use for gold which makes people more interested in using gold for that purpose than for using it as a medium of exchange

if you inflate the amount of gold in the circulation, people will stop using it as money due the currency losing value rapidly, and will prefer switching to an alternative medium of exchange

if there exist some alternative need for gold, (computer hardware parts IRL) massive amounts of gold will be diverted towards that purpose and less of it will be in circulation, giving incentives for people to accept some other medium of exchange like silver or even paper notes

historically Europe (almost) partially transferred from gold based currency to silver based because massive amounts of gold ended up in China, and there simply was not enough gold in Europe to maintain a stable monetary system. (that is, before the Brits decided to start raiding China with Opium Wars and forcing China to simply keep trading drugs for gold they had stored)

in your sitting if one party/state decides to start hoarding all the gold, there will be a need for the other parties to switch away from gold currency because the amount of gold in monetary circulations just decreases too much

You seriously want your players walking around with sacks of grain and barrels of water between towns? Because otherwise, there's not going to be any other sensible trade items which will be universal across cities, generally.

Gold is nice because it's worth it's weight. If you want each region to have it's own currency, that's a better idea, but taking them off the gold standard, they should be measured at something. For example, each not!dollar should entitle the owner to a portion of some government held commodity, should they choose to exchange it. In the even that you're trying for SUPER modern, then the not!dollar already represents a portion of that government's debt.

In a magic city, I recommend a coin based currency measured at things like barrels of grain and water, and a bill currency measured at scrolls of identify or something.
In an army type city, same deal but the bills are associated with gunpowder or the lowest grade weaponry and armor.

Use real economics and realize how rare gold was compared to silver.

Pearls, tokens of ivory, amber or jade.

The headpat voucher!

Every unit of currency is equal to one second of headpatting of a floofy haired tomgirl.

>How would I justify a collection of city states moving from the gold standard to a more advanced economic system.

By making those cities states so economical influential other places will accept their currency. That is the only way it will happen really.

Fiat currency is in fact really old with the first European examples of it being inside a few century of currency being a thing. The Roman As is a great case (see pic). It was a bronze coin that was valued at many times the value of the metal it was made with and was the highest value coin of Roman make. However people who were not close neighbors would not accept their coins because it was worthless to them. Inside a few years they had to get Neapolis to make a limited run of sliver coins to pay Greek trader with during the pyrrhic war. Tens years later there was another limited run of sliver coins for the same reason, with more 'limited run' runs of sliver coins down the line. In 241 BC the Romans said fuck it and started normal production of sliver coinage. They called it the quadrigatus.

The thing that a lot of people forget is that currency became a thing in order to make international trade easier. The early value of coinage was based on the value of the metal inside the coin. Gold and slivers bars had being used in trade before that, as a go to almost any one will acept in payment trade item. Coinage was a effort to right size the amount of gold or sliver into a helpful package.

It would be hard to do with City-states.

Maybe if you had a big transnational organization with enough influence to back a currency.

Gold is the only standard any market should be based on. It's unchanging, easy to work with, easy to distribute, and rare enough to not cause dramatic inflation.

The mistake our own civilisation made was to move from gold to numbers on a screen.

>collection of city states moving from the gold standard to a more advanced economic system
Technically shouldn't it be silver standard? Use something valuable that was traded for years and has high paying demand but no too pricey. Salt, cocoa beans, pearls, clams, silk rolls, tea bricks, etc.

Put them on the Golem Standard.

>rare enough to not cause dramatic inflation.

Gold is just as subject to inflationary/deflationary pressures as any other commodity. Look at the Spanish Empire's experience with inflation after the discovery of the New World. A gold-backed currency simply means control over inflation/deflation instead goes into the hands of miners.

Why would they? Leaving the gold standard looks like it has been a mistake for countries that embraced fiat economies.

All you fiat money haters please stay

>Gold is just as subject to inflationary/deflationary pressures as any other commodity.

No, it isn't. Most commodities are either in too large an abundance to be worthwhile, or they're too easily reproduced to work as currency. Gold doesn't suffer from inflation as badly as others.

The global economy suddenly booms and tying the supply of money to a rare commodity would have negative effects on economic circulation. Both the gold standard and fiat are pretty shit tho.

>Random party encounters Smaug's movie treasure
There, gold is now worth basically nothing

make it rice-based

>sudden influx of gold destroys Gondor economy
>Sauron goes on vacation
>Aragorn rethinks his tax policy

The city states are suddenly overrun by an invasive species of miniature rust monsters that prefer noble metals. They are so difficult to get rid of and protect against that using gold as a long-term value holder becomes really really risky.

Stamps. Pull a Moist Von Lipwick and make the people come to value stamps more than coins. start easy with stamps that are recognised as costing a penny then start printing rarer, more expensive stamps.

Then you introduce paper currency and instead of gold base it on the fact that your city controls an army of golems large enough to destroy the world who can perform manual labor for you

Man I love Discworld