How should RPGs handle currency? Mints and weights

[Val the Moofia Boss]

In RPGs where you travel to multiple different countries, it seems incredulous that everyone is trading the exact same minted coin. Is there only one workshop in the whole world minting one coin that every nation uses? Is no one weighing these coins to make sure that a coin in one country has the same silver or gold ratio as a coin in another country? Is no one upset that the image on a coin reflects an enemy country's emperor or god rather than their own? It just seems like nonsense that Stormwind and Orgrimmar are using the coin, Erebonians and Calvardians, Limsans and Garleans and Domans, etc. So how should this be handled? When you open your currency tab, should it show multiple different denominations of coin for however many countries there are in the game? If the game takes place in 3 countries, do you have 3 different types of coins in your pocket? When visiting another country, should you first have to visit the bank or a coin exchange to get the correct type of denomination used by the locals? If you try to exchange a foreign coin, should the NPCs possibly accuse you of trying to cheat them because of the difference in silver/gold percentage, or get upset and accuse you of being a sympathizer/spy for a foreign adversary?

[gerey]

I view it as a QoL abstraction. No one really wants to go around hunting for a money exchange, or juggling five different currencies, when they could spend time adventuring and smiting evil. Outside of very niche cases adds nothing to the overall experience, and brings plenty of annoyances.

Also, in a fantasy context, the coins are likely made out of precious metals, so they're bound to be accepted by merchants.

[Demonic Fate]

There are various possible story hooks around the use of different coins, some of which you mentioned.

But if they can be resolved by simply visiting a bank or equivalent before or after the trip, then they're not hooks, they're just a mindless chore that exists purely for the sake of spergy simulationism. Might as well force the player to take a **** and do the laundry at that point.

If you really want, it can be acknowledged through a cosmetic change. When you go through the loading screen to cross the border, change the names of the units in which your money is displayed, and assume that visiting the change house happened right after the boat/cart trip or whatever.

[UltraFan123]

I do think that if this RPG were to have "travelling merchant" elements alongside the regular adventuring stuff where you fight monsters and robber bandits along the way, then this currency mechanics would be more appropriate and could even be fun.

[Oyster Sauce]

Pointless busywork for the sake of realism, like if NPCs got mad at you for not unequipping your boots every time you walked into a home.

[Demonic Fate]

I do think that if this RPG were to have "travelling merchant" elements alongside the regular adventuring stuff where you fight monsters and robber bandits along the way, then this currency mechanics would be more appropriate and could even be fun.

Vagrus is a game where you do exactly that. If you play it, I think you'll come to agree that a forex minigame wouldn't add anything that isn't already done better by the actual core trading of goods.

[loregamer]

Didn’t Fallout 2 have a quest where you found a truckload amount of bottle caps, but they were worthless since caps weren’t the currency in California? And then Bethesda just retardedly brought bottle caps back as the currency on the opposite coast in Fallout 3?

I feel like it perfectly illustrates the soullessness of Bethesda’s worldbuilding

[Brugmans]

Fantasy money is almost always gold and silver, so its value is basically the weight in precious metal, accounting for its quality. For example, since dwarves are wealthy and skilled in metalworking, anyone, regardless of how much he hates the usurious dwarves, will gladly accept a bag of dwarven shekels knowing it's worth exactly its weight in gold and no less. These trusted coins will circulate far and wide and be accepted as the standard gold currency ("I request a pound of gold in dwarven shekels"), even if every other kingdom mints its own, lesser quality money. That way you can just assume whatever is in your inventory is the equivalent amount of the setting's international shekels/florins/thalers.

But then, if it was as simple as every kingdom having its own denomination of money, that you go to the bank to exchange before going on a trip, it would feel like a boring imitation of modern fiat currency. In ancient times you'd have lots of coins of varying weight and quality circulating at the same time in the same place, but maybe issued long before or in a distant land, and are exchanged at odd ratios with each other anyway. Which on one hand would very annoying to manage in one's inventory, and on the other wouldn't have a lot of practical importance, because again what really matters is how much fine gold you're carrying around.

That said I think it could be interesting as a way to spice up a few trades, like a merchant only accepting old coins that aren't minted anymore, forcing you to rob some ancient burial mound to buy what you need or pay an exorbitant price in modern, debased currency. Or a land inhabited by a very technologically advanced race that outgrew metal and uses seashells for money.

[Stack of Turtles]

Pointless busywork for the sake of realism, like if NPCs got mad at you for not unequipping your boots every time you walked into a home.

that would be really soulful

[J1M]

First define what this gold is supposed to be for. In most games it could be cut.

[NotAI]

Multiple currencies. Must exchange. Yeppers.

[1998]

Having only one currency never bothered me and having multiple indeed sounds a bit like boring busy work, similar to stupid crafting resource gathering.

However, most games have anyway a completely broken economy and that bothers me a lot more. If multiple currencies could improve that, for instance via value loss during currency exchange, I would be at least curious to see how it works out.

[Tadeusz]

If currencies can be easily exchanged then it is not a meaningful mechanic. I like the fan-made concept of currencies for Planescape. For example, lower planes use larvae as their currency because they can use it for different purposes, on some other planes cogs or gems may be used both as a currency and a spell component. Exchange for gold may not be possible in some remote parts of the planes so all arrangements need to be made beforehand. Having a currency with uses other than exchanging it for goods saves a player from having useless weight in his inventory if he is in the wrong part of the world and adds a layer of management for a possibly scarce resource if he is in a part of the world where only this currency is used (something like fame from the Banner Saga where it can be used simultaneously to buy provisions, items and level up your characters so you can't have it all at once).

[Rand]

I feel like it perfectly illustrates the soullessness of Bethesda’s worldbuilding

Bethesda hasn't worldbuilt since Morrowind.
They make theme parks for normies now.

[Rand]

Games that have multiple currencies:

• Underrail - several currencies, but an immense pain in the ***, usually (typical for this developer). Trying to find stygians to exchange all the other crap to at a decent exchange rate is often a nuisance.
(Just trying to SELL your hard-earned loot is a weird nuisance. You could barter with a merchant with a billion coins, bringing four epic tier items he would absolutely buy on the spot, but the developer, Styg, hardcoded limits and the trader will only buy two of those items a day. Worse, it's semi-random how many he will buy and sometimes it can be zero for that type of item for some traders some days, despite them having the funds or items to trade. Grrrrr. I ******* hate Styg so much. Did you know he obfuscates his code and actively runs off modders? Control freak much?)

• Fallout: New Vegas - MANY currencies, pretty painless, usually. Traders accept multiple currencies at fixed values, prices displayed in the most common for the region.

[WaterMage]

UnderRail. 4 currencies. You lose money every time that you try to do currency exchange.

[Norfleet]

Didn’t Fallout 2 have a quest where you found a truckload amount of bottle caps, but they were worthless since caps weren’t the currency in California? And then Bethesda just retardedly brought bottle caps back as the currency on the opposite coast in Fallout 3?

Post-apocalyptic money is an interesting thing in its own right. I've always wondered, "In the event of an apocalypse, when, exactly, does the existing money lose its value?". Is there an exact singular moment in which you would stop accepting USD? After all, if the US government ceases to exist, they can't print any more of it to devalue it. It has meme value as money: Everyone knows to accept it. At what moment does this abruptly flip?

[Tadeusz]

Realistically, money loses all value right after an apocalypse because it can't be used anymore. Barter is more practical. Fallout's currency may work only because some form of government is rebuilt and it enforces an agreement to use certain currency.

[Rand]

Fallout used bottlecaps because the Hub and Junktown came to an agreement.
All the other locals just followed suit.

The fact that the places in Fallout 2 all uses the same currency (pull-tabs, iirc), from the (********) Shi in San Francisco to New Reno to Vault City, is laughable.

[Norfleet]

Realistically, money loses all value right after an apocalypse because it can't be used anymore.

You'd think that, but on the other hand, consider: Significant parts of the world ALREADY exist in an apocalypse. They also happen to still take USD, despite being completely beyond the reach of the US. If the apocalypse happened in the US as well, those people would not have heard of it!

Also, WHY would the money suddenly lose all value? It doesn't actually have any real value now. It's meme money, existing as money only because everyone agrees it is money. The status of it being an actual government backed currency actually causes it to LOSE value as the government can print more money. The absence of that government would effectively make it a hard currency again, as they would no longer be able to print it.

So the bombs fall: On what day do you stop accepting it in exchange? Tomorrow, perhaps? Is there a single day everyone agrees to stop? If not, somebody is accepting it, and if somebody is accepting it, then someone will do business with that somebody, which means that THEY accept it...and so the meme money continues. I've actually seen this happen before in a game: The developers discontinue the use of a currency: Mobs no longer drop it, vendortrash no longer gives it, but they don't actually take it away from players because it's still in their inventories. Guess what happened? It remained the de facto PvP trade currency, and the new currency was poorly received and subsequently inflated into the sky anyway, while the now no-longer-in-print Old World Money had no inflation because nothing printed it anymore.

[Wretch]

I feel like it perfectly illustrates the soullessness of Bethesda’s worldbuilding

Bethesda hasn't worldbuilt since Morrowind.
They make theme parks for normies now.

Fallout 3 is by far the best of the fallout games.

[Rand]

Fallout 3 is by far the best of the fallout games.

Sit down and take your antipsychotic meds.
You're not actually better, you've just gone too insane to be able to tell the difference anymore.

[Wretch]

In RPGs where you travel to multiple different countries, it seems incredulous that everyone is trading the exact same minted coin. Is there only one workshop in the whole world minting one coin that every nation uses? Is no one weighing these coins to make sure that a coin in one country has the same silver or gold ratio as a coin in another country? Is no one upset that the image on a coin reflects an enemy country's emperor or god rather than their own? It just seems like nonsense that Stormwind and Orgrimmar are using the coin, Erebonians and Calvardians, Limsans and Garleans and Domans, etc. So how should this be handled? When you open your currency tab, should it show multiple different denominations of coin for however many countries there are in the game? If the game takes place in 3 countries, do you have 3 different types of coins in your pocket? When visiting another country, should you first have to visit the bank or a coin exchange to get the correct type of denomination used by the locals? If you try to exchange a foreign coin, should the NPCs possibly accuse you of trying to cheat them because of the difference in silver/gold percentage, or get upset and accuse you of being a sympathizer/spy for a foreign adversary?

This could be cool fluff and extra atmosphere if a game were big and good enough. Also, as long as the mechanic wasn’t too invasive or annoying. I can’t think of many games that would really benefit from these mechanics though. Time and effort would usually be better spent elsewhere.

[Roderick]

Gold coins are king.

[Tadeusz]

Also, WHY would the money suddenly lose all value? It doesn't actually have any real value now. It's meme money, existing as money only because everyone agrees it is money.

Well, it depends on the scope of apocalypse. Is some semblance of previous life still remains or do people struggle to find food and shelter? Is apocalypse local and some islands of safety still exist? If the calamity is not so disastrous perhaps people may still use previous currency out of inertia. But in more serious cases I'd doubt that a currency will be of any concern until some government is rebuilt.

[rusty_shackleford]

irrc, In daggerfall, gold has weight. You carry large sums of money in gems & bank notes. Bank notes are specific to the province they were issued in, banks of other provinces won't honor them.

That is, the "gold is gold" view has a major flaw: Gold is heavy.

[WaterMage]

A sci fi game where your currency is a crypto wallet in your cellphone and a historical medieval game should treat currency vastly different. For eg, ammo being currency in metro makes sense. Water un CoQ too. Multiple currencies in UnderRail too. If money weights or not also depends on game proposal.