Do you do anything special with currency in your setting...

How the fuck do you buy a single apple?

if say a gold is worth a cow a copper would be worth 1/1000 of a cow so buy an apple with copper.

the set comes with multiple colors. I've got 10 colors but I don't need more than 7.

White 1
Red 5
Green 10
Yellow 50
Blue 100
Black 1000
Purple 10000

I have a libertarian nation with no central bank, and dozens of currencies all with fluctuating values. It's a real bitch to deal with, but it's what you've gotta have if you can't accept government

Let the carls deal with apples. What kind of stickpicker clan are you running that you need one single apple so bad?

Kobolds use wood and non-precious metals as currency as all the valuable metals and gems go to their dragon masters horde. The more useful the material is for trap making, and the harder it is to get from beneath the surface, the more valuable it is to kobolds.

I like Earthdawn's elemental currencies.

At the low end you have the normal copper, silver, gold which trade at a 100:10:1 ratio. The general purpose coin is the silver coin. For higher stuff you have the elemental coins, which are forged with a mote of true elemental essence.

The first two, Earth and Water, are worth 5 gold coins. The middle one, Wood, is worth 10 gold coins. And the last two, Fire and Air, are worth 15 gold coins. Lastly there is Oricalcum, platonic gold which is a perfectly balanced mixture of the five elements and worth 50 gold coins.

The five elemental coins all show properties of their element. An Earth Coin looks like stone with a webbing of precious metal in it and is incredibly hard, so much so that magical tools are needed to mar the coins. A water coin looks like bluish glass and "sweats" moisture, depending on the source of the elemental water it will be either fresh or salty. A wood coin grows and shrinks like the living thing that it is, it sometimes with sprout leaves or flowers. A fire coin looks like red glass with a fire moving in slow motion inside, it is warm to the touch and when struck throws sparks. An air coin is clear crystal and when dropped onto a hard surfaces hovers for a moment before settling down. Oricalcum is heavier than gold and glows faintly in the dark.

I like Path of Exile's currency system where each piece of currency has some innate use, and the value is decided by how useful the community decides that use is coupled with how common or rare the currency item is. It would be like if the value of gold or diamonds was based off their industrial uses rather than how pretty they are. This also has some similarities to barter systems, as things like food has a very obvious use, though carrying around a hundred pounds of rice is not reasonable as far as trades go.

Where this currency system gets very messy is that there are no clear cut values to be assigned to things, and way too many different currencies. This makes arbitrage a profitable venture sure, but it isn't interesting to most people how the value of Orbs of Chaos compare on a daily basis to Orbs of Alchemy

Just being able to "stack" some currency would make it more usable than some more valuable types.
i.e. Would you rather carry a boulder worth 1000, or a dozen little orbs worth 20 each?

Hell, banks could be built on the premise that they have large stocks of "unstackable" currency that they would happily exchange for another kind.

Although, keep in mind that currency which is kept around without being taken out of the system will drive inflation. Maybe have some reason where the currency is required in day to day life i.e.
>Bob's magical hoe is looking like the next strike will make it shatter
>Instead of buying an expensive, unstackable, Orb of Repair, he trades a bag of grain for a half-stack of Orbs of Transmutation to refresh his hoe
Or something.

>Maybe have some reason where the currency is required in day to day life
I like this idea. What if that style of currency could be applied to literally anything, and something about the work made it desirable?

>regular store bought bread is lacking nutrition and is basically just pure calories with nothing else
>but apply a single use orb of alchemy to it to get rare quality bread with better flavor, more vitamins and minerals, and possibly extra time before it goes stale

>simply weaving clothing produces stuff which looks plain and isn't durable, but using an Orb of Chaos gives it a chance to become a distinct brand name clothing article.

woops meant chance, not chaos. Been quite a while since I played poe

If you're talking about fiddling over small change just converted to gem pieces or platinum, or hell just shares in land.

If used to give them stuff to buy magic items are supposed to scale logarithmically with even if the benefits are remain with linear.

A +1 one sword might be worth 200gp, a +2 2000, a +3 20,00 ect.

Player might complain about the logical of diminishing returns but it's part of the game. Besides if they could just get stuff for market value at high level it would instantly deflate the economy.

Different regions have difference currency with variable exchange course. I do a bit of basic simulation, if a region gets fucked their money may be worth less. If the players help a region recover, it's worth more.

Not autistic enough to go into financial details tho. Neither are my players.

I try, but then it just becomes easier for my group to fall back to calling them gold, silver, and copper.

Though we managed to do a Rupee system for a LoZ game. It drove my That Guy fucking nuts trying to convert everything in the book over to copper (what we used as 1 Rupee), which made it all the better.

Yes, I use a single base instead of three related. Different nations have different coins though.

Could even pull some class disparity from that.

>The poor of the poor, the chattle and serfs which spend their lives tilling the earth for others. They eat simple unleavened bread. They wear clothes spun by their wives and daughter's hands.
>Those who own their own land and sell to who they will. They bake bread with a circular indentation atop its center, for this is where the occasional orb is set and cracked, to infuse the food with magic. Yet they still wear clothes spun by their wives and daughter's hands.
>Those who do not till the land but offer valuable skills, smithing, felling trees, medicine. Their bead is baked with that mark that prepares it for receiving magic. Their clothes and tools have sockets burnt into their weave and shaft. Ready to accept Orbs of magic. But only once.
>And the rulers. Those who command through wisdom or strength. They wield cloth and steel with sockets surrounded with the tell-tale patina of orbs levered out, turned to lumps of dead lead and impurities. For only they have the sheer wealth spend such rare Orbs so trivially, discarding each until they find the one they desire.

What would that look like? Sounds interesting.

so literally just normal currency?

Not OP, but usually you have like a Wealth stat - if you want to buy something well below your means, you can just buy it. If you want to buy something around/above your Wealth stat, you roll and decrease your Wealth based on how successful you are.

I really like the idea of making my currency porcelain/clay coins minted by some kind of semi-magical or divine authority to keep their value and from being hyperinflated.

I like this idea so that people aren't lugging around massive amounts of gold coins, and the gold and silver you find can be in other fun forms like jewelry or furniture and such. It also helps to have a simpler method of counting money. Instead of having copper, silver, and gold it's just one base unit. 1 coin isn't much, but 1000 is a lot. Similar to modern day dollars or euros in scale of currency, so that 1 coin you find lying around isn't worth an entire year's worth of wages or any ridiculous shit like that.

Seedship in a new Galaxy. w/o any banks the currency was devolved into chips of omniplastids and conductive metals which are standardized to interface with most fabricators.
Different types have different rarities depending on how often they are "minted" and required.
Suppy & Demand shit.

Sounds to me like there's a god for every element of life.
>God of the Hearth that helps prepare food.
>God of Fighting from which all fighting techniques descend from
>God of Magic allows their practitioners to be psychopathic madmen
>God of Money that mints and keeps track of the amount of "official" money in the world

You don't. you get a godamn cow and trade it for a basket of them.

somehwhat related: money that can also be used a sling ammo

>you roll and decrease your Wealth based on how successful you are.
What games make you decrease it on success? I know in burning wheel and derivatives you can decrease/tax resources as a trade off for a success on a failed test. But i don't remember reading a game that would penalize you on a success. Witch sort of makes sense, if it's temporary decrease an you can make it back with a test or next session i guess.

What you describe is how paper bills started, as an IOU from a bank for a set amount of gold they had on hand.

D20 modern and derivatives have Wealth decrease after large purchases or purchases beyond your means.

By not playing d&d because that idea was presented in an entirely system agnostic manner?

>Should of
dont do this

coinsandscrolls.blogspot.com/2017/11/osr-1d100-coins_18.html

...

Do you ask for them to give you chips if they buy shit? Because if so that's pretty rad.

Some societies in my worlds value different precious metals over others, or use other materials for a modicum of value like cowries.

If I do shoot for traditional C/S/G in terms of money, I always try to give them more distinct names. Copper pieces, Silver Soverigns, Golden Crowns, et-cetera.

I always use a system were magical equipment can get disenchanted and turned into a fine silvery powder. That powder is what adventures traffic in. It's technically worth tons of gold, but it's useless to commoners and regular merchants, while carrying around hundreds of pounds of gold coins is pointless for traveling adventures. The powder can be used in the construction of other magical equipment, as a generic "30,000 gold in materials" stand in. Disenchanting doesn't return quite as much as it takes to make the item, and of course making the gear still takes just as long as standard.

It's always worked out great, instead of hand waving away characters lugging around 50 pounds of found swords, and dragging around barrels of gold coins, they alchemist rods the reduce it all to dust and just carry around jugs of it.

That's actually neat as all hell. Though I can't help but compare the loot powder to like, you know, drugs. Because its special stuff that certain people want that you can't do shit with if you don't know the right person and boy would some governmental figures love to be able to have all the money involved in that shit.

4e

what I was thinking is more like this

>all bread is near tasteless with poor nutritional value, but some bread is "higher level" and made with better ingredients, and is capable of much greater potential when enhanced
>"high level" bread would cost as much on its own as it would to fully enhance cheaper breads
>apply consumable magic orbs to enhance the bread for various things
>the underclass struggle with malnutrition
>the lower class have to carefully balance their diet as they can only afford the poorest quality foods and enhance them only a little bit
>the working class still buy the bottom quality food, but can enhance it further.
>etc
>the rich get expensive food prepared just for them, and before tasting it will magically enhance it to its greatest potential. A person can live for a week on a single bite of their fully enhanced high quality bread, and the taste is immensely pleasurable, but they aren't keen on sharing and usually eat three or four meals a day.
>this applies to everything, not just bread
>that really crappy ballpoint pen? maybe if you enhanced it the color would have more contrast, the ink might last longer, and it would be easier to find when it goes missing

There is an omnipresent order of monastic knights who run the largest bank in the setting. They issue bank notes, in exchange for a small fee, that can be cashed at any of there monasteries. This order mints their own silver and gold coinage and has pushed several kingdoms and republics into currency standards and harshly punish those who do not use their standard or debase currency. They are the Templars on steroids.

I've got 10 different currencies for 10 different nations. Each (with some exceptions) can be traded anywhere with differing values that change depending where you are and that nations standing with this nation.
Most are coins ranging from gold, silver, electrum and steel. Not all of them are round.
One nation's coins are inch long steel molded feathers with a linking ring so you can wear them as a necklace or bracelet rather than carry them around in a purse.
Another, primitive nation's money made of carved stone isn't seen as money at all, but more as decorative art pieces in other nations.
Satyr (an ex-slave race now fighting a guerrilla war) money is worthless in all major empires and will result in you being thrown in prison if they find it on you, but it's the only money you can use with satyrs.
Shit like this.

At one point, my players figured out that they could make more money smelting one nations gold coins into gold ingots and selling it until they were found out and had a bounty put on them for treasonous activities. They had a lot of fun with that.

Currency sucks. The most intuitive forms of coinage are not decimal based, which sucks for the players because they weren't raised to know how many frennies are in a schmiltrone, or how many demisavers fit into a tripleounce. So they're stuck with metric bullshit like "10 coppers into a silver, 10 silvers into a gold" bullshit.

Fucking tally sticks and material is all you need, fuck coins, coins are gay.

>live in a world where base 2, base 8, and base 16 are all widely used and useful
>use base 10 number systems anyway
>because ancient humans had ten fingers and never thought about it more than that

I would be more interested in what this culture/civilization would be like because of this magically enhance anything stuff. Or rather, what kind of culture would use it in this way if discovered.

If such a thing were possible, the first uses it would see, would of course be military in nature. Nations would go to great lengths to secure whatever source this comes from. Then, there would be a peaceful enough time, for those things to trickle over into civil use. Where it would start out as extremely exclusive and reserved for very special uses. Like in hospitals or horse carts. Whatever is keeping the nation rolling.

Only then would be room for it to be available to private citizens (except through black channels). And there it would start out as an amazing extravaganza for the super rich to impress their dinner party guests. So for it to reach the lower classes in any significant way and to be used for more trivial uses like clothing or bread, there would have to be a very steady stream of a lot of magic into society. And a society would be changed from the top to the bottom on almost every level by it. As a setting, I think a world where this stuff is just being discovered or has been discovered not many decades ago is more interesting, than one where it has been long established as regular currency.

What happens if you snort some?

I agree completely that as far as a narrative goes it is far more interesting to see the societal shifts. I like the idea as far as currency goes because it has an innate use and value which sets a price floor. If currency ever becomes of too little value people would just use it for its innate purpose instead of trading, thus reducing the amount of available currency and increasing its value.

Where the whole system becomes really problematic is that it is no longer a zero-sum system. If currency can be destroyed for its innate usage, then it has to be created as well. Path of Exile creates currency through drops, and while this would technically be true in a TTRPG it would be unreasonable and silly to base your world's economy off peasants going out hunting level 1 zombies and rats to get Orbs of Alteration.

Money at its base is a representation of work, but coinage itself has no intrinsic value aside from that which is ascribed to it by society, which fluctuates over time. Gold and silver are not commonly used in coins anymore, but even if they were I don't think we would reach a point where people would choose to melt down their gold coins to make electronics. Really low denomination coins in many countries are actually worth less than the metal they are made from, but they are typically also made from metal that is still cheap enough to where it isn't worth anyone's time to melt down coins, and I am guessing in some countries it might be outright illegal to do so. Still, I bet if the difference in value became large enough, people would do it, and suddenly the US would lose all its pennies.

Not him but my favourite example of this is Fragged Empire (there's a PDF in the PDF share thread.)

One abstracted currency which you spend on obtaining things called spare time points. These are freely given and represent the trash level loot which you'd just sell or pocket (spare cash, bits of jewelry, etc) and is given out by the DM for good RP, etc. There's a cap here which encourages you to keep using it to improve yourself. There is also a second abstracted currency which represents your social wealth and connections made which you use to improve your spaceship.

Wealth is actually represented as a stat. This is used for things like Spare Time rolls where a player might say 'I want to go buy a new pulse rifle' and they would make a Spare Time roll based on their Wealth stat. A different player might want a new SMG but has no points in wealth because they're a scavenger. The second player might be able to construct one by making a Spare Time Mechanics roll or steal one using their Survival instead.

Yes, the system would need a source for the magical thingamajigs. It just being item drops from random monsters would be crap, as you said.
Basically I could differentiate between two approaches. Limited resources and renewable resources. Limited resources would in time increase the value of the resource, which would in time defeat the purpose of having it available (in small quantities) to the whole population.

So it has to be a renewable resource. But renewable does not need to mean easily acquired. I am thinking along the line of the Spice in Dune. Basically reneweing itself. But harvesting and controlling the generation spots is costly and dangerous, while still having room for little private ventures to grab small quantities when the big militaries are not looking.

Like, having the source be some magical realm or plane, that can only be entered by rifts. Big portals are controlled by the governments. But smaller rifts can be found in many places, and even Jup McDirtfarmer could dare jump into one, grab one or two spheres of magic from a tree and haul ass back. Depending on where you enter, it should of course be a dangerous gamble. Just spitballing here.

>because ancient humans had ten fingers
Unlike modern ones?

perhaps not all rifts are created equal either.

The larger and more stable rifts controlled by governments produce a high volume and are reliable, but smaller rifts appear and disappear all over the place. Better yet however are the very dangerous rifts that appear inside caves, ruins, and underground dungeons. The rich sponsor adventuring teams to go raid those and bring back the really high quality stuff. A family of peasants might be overjoyed that they got a few basic thingamajigs out of a portal that appeared in the root cellar, and save them to enhance a holiday roast, while the well-to-do would be almost drowning in magical doodads and crave the much rarer versions.

As it happens, many humans today do still have ten fingers but you never know what the future holds

Anybody unironically use magic rocks for currency? Forms of solid mana that can be compressed into more valuable and powerful forms with predictable appearances that serve as denominations.

Exactly. Also, the magical thingamajigs come in very different shapes and sizes. Sure, the most common ones are known by every village elder. What they look like, what they are able to do, and how to use them safely. But more specialised and rare ones? Could be a gamble for a peasant family to use. Travelling scholars specialising in that, offer their services to hamlets. The super rich and the governments, of course, can afford full-time personal experts, or even fund a university with whole faculties trying to discover the ever more twisted objects, that can be found the deeper you go into the rifts. Those won't be used as currency, of course. More like curiosities and artifacts. The currency would be the more basic thingamajigs, that have unimpressive but predictable uses.

Interesting currency interactions:

- A Worldbuilding game I was in ended with one of the continents using a hiveminded race as the central back. They were crabs the size of large dogs and they really didn't have much to do with themselves apart from getting upset if people fought each other, and so gladly accepted the role of *becoming* "The Crebit".

Every country minted their own coins, but the general deal was that a crebit is ultimately always good for one crab to do whatever you want for one hour. The crabs aren't very good at understanding orders if they aren't in a large enough group, so actually REDEEMING crebits is largely the business of thanes and the like, but in theory anyone with their wherewithal to seek out a herd of them could redeem a couple of crebits to get an extra set of hands to help them build a shack or whatever. The relative distance, immense numbers, and complete lack of any orthogonal agenda that might preoccupy or exhaust the crabs devalued the crebit to the point that a single crebit was actually relatively close to appropriate for use by the common man, in that a bag of grain in that a day's work in the fields was usually worth something like 5 crebits when the economy was working passably, even though 5 crabs could probably do a lot more in one hour.

In unrelated news, putting together an urban fantasy system where magic is powered by being a starving artist and rejecting society, and you receive mana-drain proportional to the size of your savings account.

>central *BANK
what the fuck nearly scuppered the whole story there.

And yeah these crabs were basically tireless and perfectly coordinated so menial shit like plowing a field was something they were intrinsically better at than any human.

Porno Mags
Im running a LISA Setting, and the guys tend to barter using them
They even started asking weird questions about it after some time
They Consider things like Hentai manga and such weeb things as the lowest value, while making up a name from a "Pre-flash" Magazine giant Playboy like the Most valuable

I use standard metal currencies for human kingdoms, ie mostly copper, bronze, and silver, and less common things for nonhuman ones.

One of the human kingdoms which is more metal poor themselves and thus doesn't mint, trades primarily in drugs and slaves, though they do accept coins from elsewhere.

Elves to the west use differently colored ceramic coins due to their king's love of porcelain and that the knowledge of production is quite secret and controlled.

Elves to the east mostly barter in food stuffs, healing and alchemical supplies, and are known primarily for their fine wines, some of which are enchanted.

Dwarves use clay, iron, electrum, and gems. They tend to not have much impact on the surface world. Dwarven liquors are some of the most valuable exports.

Gnomes barter for most things, but tend to prize foodstuffs, gemstones, furs, and carved ivories as most valuable trade goods.

Halflings are widespread and dispersed, and run no nations or cities, and just follow whatever the norms of the area are, though many live as an underclass or as gypsies.

Hobgoblins use metal currencies, weapons, slaves, and spices.

>fungible

Oh, a new word for the day!

But yeah, I like those ideas. I can dig it. Does each Civilization or nation use their own credits, or is it a standardized system?

In a D&D-based setting, there are no gold coins. Currency goes straight from copper and silver coins to weighty bars of silver and gold. Not only that but the possession of golden trade bars is restricted to those wealthy enough to purchase the license. A golden trade bar found in the hands of an unlicensed individual has it confiscated by the state and that individual is fined for a fifth of its value again.

Cue extremely frustrated players. While interesting in practice, this system is not good for gameplay.

Gothic P&P, we use Ore. But most business is conducted via trade.

Plastic chips with piece of tissue of a deceased saint inside.

Like tissue samples for medical students.

Currency in my setting is intentionally convoluted, circular in value, and extremely frustrating to deal with because values change like the seasons. There's also the Money Changers who can excommunicate you from the whole thing and make everything you own worthless.

Sounds like the opposite of fun for players.

That's exactly what I do, they pay up, get change as necessary and feel pain when they physically watch the stack get smaller.

got to pay a bribe? smaller stack.
making a big purchase? smaller stack.

it has begun to affect their heads, being broke makes them anxious. when I make them ante up cost of living expenses you can see them begrudgingly tossing cash into the pot.

it's fucking amazing.

Back when there were some guys working on a pen & paper game based off Endless Legend, I shamelessly stole one of their ideas for an exp system.

Essentially, in the Endless series, dust (ancient nanobot swarms that are programmed to make things better) is both a currency and a resource that can be used in machines, forges, and can be ingested. This usually ends with the person dying horribly or being "upgraded" by it. The PC's would be heroes who have to both ration how much dust they use for purchases and as well as their own experience points

So... am I the only one who uses trade?
Well, I... don't know i thought it made more sense...

I like my gold and silver pieces to be plated copper, helps me reduce the conversion rates and avoid the "where do they get all these rare metals to make coins out of" question, especially in a fantasy setting where silver has uses outside of just monetary. Also helps make sure a dragons hoard of gold coins being reintroduced wont destabilize the economy completely

Most poor people and villagers still deal in trade of farm goods, foodstuffs, animals, etc.

It's only towns and merchants that have to deal with coins, and for most things copper and various trade coins will suffice. Silver and gold coins are still rather rare in the grand scheme.

Still overall a fantasy setting would probably have more than the historical norm in terms of precious metals.

Regional currency has different exchange rates

This is the good shit. The things that burst out of the imagination. Real good shit.

Yeah, PoE "no pure currency" idea was pretty neat but it'd be pretty difficult to build a system around it considering just how much shit you'd have to make and assign general values too, works in PoE considering just about all the buying and selling is done among players, not so much in a game where all the goods are sold by NPC merchants

I have not hashed out the ratios, but I was going to have my setting run on copper coins, small/adulterated silver coins, large/pure silver coins, gold rings and gold rings wrapped around silver coins.

>he thinks serfs are comparable to slaves

>not counting on your fingers in duodecimal

>just carry around jugs of it
So they now carry 50 pound jugs of powder?
I don't see any improvement.

never should of come here

Our currency is octagonal coins copper and gold, no one can keep silver in the city due to problems with our local turtle-folk. We have sapphire coins with square holes intended be worn on chain necklaces and bracelets. This is only for high rollers and traders. We chose to coin the gems to ensure consistency and ease of use rather than deal exclusively with cut gems
However due to our America-esque debt the common man operates on an elaborate system of IOUs and personal favors

Ores like Tetrahedrite are shaped into spheres to act as currency.
White Pearls are worth around $150 in my medieval setting because magic acts like a paintbrush and naturally white stuff act like a canvas and can detect magic.
Glass Pearls are worth upwards of $2000 because their clearness can focus magic well, often used in magic amplifying devices.

Another problem of "great setting idea" but "terrible gameplay mechanic". You could build a world off of PoE system, but fuck me if you can actually make an enjoyable TTRPG system of it.