Game World Economy

[rentauri]

I curious how other people do the economy in their games. Do you have on money standard everyone uses (Gold, Gems, Water, Paper, etc..) or do you have different kingdoms have different money types and/or stamps on them? Is the money of one kingdom worth more/less then another kingdom and if so is it a static difference or does it change in the campaign? How do you handle the Money Perk or do not you allow it?

[Old Man]

Re: Game World Economy

 

It really depends on the campaign. Lighter, more swashbuckling games I'd use the gold piece standard. Dark Sun, one of my favorite published settings, of course used water. For more in depth games, I like the added flavor of using different currencies. Especially since you can use them as plot points, i.e. why is this supposed brigand's purse full of Darian gold talents? Regardless, I tend not to sweat the actual economics of a fantasy world. As long as there nothing glaringly weird about it, rich areas are rich and poor areas are poor because I say so.

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: Game World Economy

 

For me, economics move at the speed of plot. You could try to build a coherent fantasy-world economy that makes sound internal sense, but the presence of mages and monsters complicates things. If it's commonplace to be able to change metals from one type to another, does metal coinage become uselessly unreliable? Do the prices of basic necessities go up if wealthy adventurers come into the area and go down after they leave? How much money can someone reasonably carry on their person in a world without reliable banking (and how do they keep it from being swiped by pickpockets and cutpurses)? All questions that can give a GM a blinding headache.

 

On the other hand, if you're writing a fantasy novel it does pay in the long run to think about these questions, as much to see what type of magic you should suppress to avoid throwing everything completely out of kilter for everyone else in the societies. (You can of course suppress the magic by having it not work as opposed to it being illegal, or by making it so rare that the ability to use it is, in itself, a plot point).

 

Alchemy could change currency, but keep in mind that medieval alchemists weren't really all that interested in making artificial gold. Metals would hopefully give them an insight into how the universe worked -- as much a religious and spiritual pursuit as a scientific one. Of course, with so little actual data to go by a lot of alchemists ended up poisoning themselves with excessive exposure to things like mercury. (Strangely, mercury had a strong association with the idea of extending human life despite being one of the deadliest poisons accessible at the time.)

[Starcloud]

Re: Game World Economy

 

That's because Mercury was clearly a "transitive" metal. Clearly metal, but also clearly a liquid. Therefore, the thinking went, it was good for transformations and lifespan extension.

[Old Man]

Re: Game World Economy

 

Well, if you drink it, it'll transform you all right.

[Outsider]

Re: Game World Economy

 

In my game world, I preserved the value of copper, silver, and gold by declaring them magically immune. Magic effect powers would not do anything to them, and they blocked the passage of any magical effect. Just how much of each you needed to block magic depended on which material you were using. Conveniently, 0.1mm thickness of gold worked as well as 1.84mm of silver, worked as well as 21.4mm of copper, thus setting the basic exchange rate between the numismatic metals. (1 mass unit of gold = 10 mass units of silver = 100 mass units of copper)

 

As to actual coinage used in game, every nation of note minted its own, but pretty much everyone used gold/silver/copper as to do so. Anything else was too easy to counterfeit magically.

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: Game World Economy

 

In my game world' date=' I preserved the value of copper, silver, and gold by declaring them magically immune. Magic effect powers would not do anything to them, and they blocked the passage of any magical effect. Just how much of each you needed to block magic depended on which material you were using. Conveniently, 0.1mm thickness of gold worked as well as 1.84mm of silver, worked as well as 21.4mm of copper, thus setting the basic exchange rate between the numismatic metals. (1 mass unit of gold = 10 mass units of silver = 100 mass units of copper)[/quote']

 

One would think something with those protective properties would be almost wasted as coinage. I can see gold being used to line the walls of chambers at court to prevent mages from scrying into them and seeing what was being discussed or similar uses. Perhaps private ownership of certain quantities of gold might be a government monopoly for that reason -- don't want to impede the king's spying mages from looking in on merchants or crime bosses!

[Escafarc]

Re: Game World Economy

 

I don't really worry about it unless it's part of the plot. Counterfitting, secret payments for spies, blakmail stories, etc.

[Manic Typist]

Re: Game World Economy

 

One would think something with those protective properties would be almost wasted as coinage. I can see gold being used to line the walls of chambers at court to prevent mages from scrying into them and seeing what was being discussed or similar uses. Perhaps private ownership of certain quantities of gold might be a government monopoly for that reason -- don't want to impede the king's spying mages from looking in on merchants or crime bosses!

 

Reminds me distantly of a.... Forgotten Realms novel? Dragonlance? Whichever had Raistilin.

 

Anyway, in times of war, the most valuable currency (IIRC) was steel coins, since they could be melted down for weapons.

 

So, it makes a kind of sense to me.

[Kraven Kor]

Re: Game World Economy

 

I brush over "the economy" except where indicated by plot; I basically use gold and then explain in passing how one might have to trade in one currency for another or whatever. In most cases, any serious wealth will be in gold coins or trade bars, or valuables like jewelry or fancy dishes or the like, but it all translates to "X Value" for the purposes of buying stuff.

 

I do make sure that encumbrance for all that gold is taken into account; sure, you can get rich, but you better have a lot of thickly-armored wagons and hired guards if you want to travel with it and have any hope of keeping it.

[Old Man]

Re: Game World Economy

 

One thing I got from the movies was the idea of a royal-issued letter of credit, which would be a plausible sort of precursor to checks or paper money, and which would solve some of the encumbrance issues. It would also help require that the characters stay on good terms with whoever issued the letter, which might or might not factor into campaign plot elements.

[Cancer]

Re: Game World Economy

 

Alchemical transmutation, if widely practiced, makes the pre-20th-Century concept of "coinage" based on the unreactive metals more or less unworkable.

 

Money would still be printed or minted, but it would be like coinage in the modern world, where the trading value of the money is based on a promise by the government of which the coin/bill is a token rather than an intrinsic value of the specie of which the coin is minted. Commerce gets a lot more contorted. That letter of credit or bearer bond idea is good, but it requires really powerful and enduring -- and, of course, trustworthy -- governments to ensure lasting value of the currency they issue. Considering the powerful temptation to debase your currency when deeply in debt -- and historically that meant minting a new set of coins with a lower precious metal content -- that's a huge trust in whatever entity is circulating currency whose instrument has no intrinsic value.

 

For that reason in my fantasy worlds I hamstring alchemy, making transmutation impossible, and/or making alchemical fakery easy to detect and/or reverse.

 

I admit I like to use a variable bimetallic ratio (that is, the relative values of gold and silver), like existed at times in the real world. Buying silver metal in one location, shipping it to another location where you can get more gold for that mass of silver, and then bringing the gold back ... it's a medieval sort of arbitrage, and makes treasure caravans/fleets a plausible thing in the game-world. Which have all the adventure hooks you could possibly wish for.

[Doctor Agenda]

Re: Game World Economy

 

I usually use the standard FH silver piece standard, but without being specific...if you 'have 100 silver pieces' you have an amount of silver coinage worth that much, but it could be more or less than exactly 100 pieces. More likely I would just tell a player they have 100 sp worth of coins and gems. It gets me out of having to justify why everyone in the world is using the same standard.

 

As far as alchemy goes, I made noble metals resistant to transmutation, that's why turning lead into gold is such a big deal. It can be done if you want to spend decades mastering the art, and even then a reverse-transmutation spell will reveal if someone is doing it...worth checking if a lot of gold starts mysteriously turning up.

[Kraven Kor]

Re: Game World Economy

 

Alchemical transmutation, if widely practiced, makes the pre-20th-Century concept of "coinage" based on the unreactive metals more or less unworkable.

 

Money would still be printed or minted, but it would be like coinage in the modern world, where the trading value of the money is based on a promise by the government of which the coin/bill is a token rather than an intrinsic value of the specie of which the coin is minted. Commerce gets a lot more contorted. That letter of credit or bearer bond idea is good, but it requires really powerful and enduring -- and, of course, trustworthy -- governments to ensure lasting value of the currency they issue. Considering the powerful temptation to debase your currency when deeply in debt -- and historically that meant minting a new set of coins with a lower precious metal content -- that's a huge trust in whatever entity is circulating currency whose instrument has no intrinsic value.

 

For that reason in my fantasy worlds I hamstring alchemy, making transmutation impossible, and/or making alchemical fakery easy to detect and/or reverse.

 

I admit I like to use a variable bimetallic ratio (that is, the relative values of gold and silver), like existed at times in the real world. Buying silver metal in one location, shipping it to another location where you can get more gold for that mass of silver, and then bringing the gold back ... it's a medieval sort of arbitrage, and makes treasure caravans/fleets a plausible thing in the game-world. Which have all the adventure hooks you could possibly wish for.

 

Similar theory here.

 

But, as Silver, Gold, Lead, Cold Iron, Gems, etc. are all metals with magical properties or to which supernatural beings are drawn or vulnerable to... it makes sense that, in a Fantasy Setting, transmuting things to gold or other valuable materials would be incredibly rare or non-profitable. Maybe gold just has some magical property that prevents transmutation or makes it expensive.

 

Thus, in my FH campaigns, you cannot create wealth with Magic, in the sense of creating or transmuting worthless materials into valuable materials.

[teh bunneh]

Re: Game World Economy

 

In my FH world, magical transmutations wear off after 1 full day has passed. So you could turn a few lead slugs into gold coins, spend them, and then leave town in a hurry. But anything transformed by magic has a magical aura that even an apprentice mage can easily detect (and there's a fair number of people who can't cast magic, but do know how to do one or two really simple spells). Someone new shows up in town with a whole lot of gold and no good explanation of where it came from is going to have to be quick on his feet.

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: Game World Economy

 

Which brings in the question of what dragons do with their enormous quantities of gold -- and what happens when you slay one and try to inject all that gold into the economy. I've always wondered why dragons, who are supposed to be hyper-intelligent in addition to greedy and conniving, don't go into merchant banking more often (especially if they can take human forms) -- makes it far more difficult on random groups of dragon-slayers when the local lord has an interest in protecting your safety (because he may need to borrow money from you at some point).

[Old Man]

Re: Game World Economy

 

Which brings in the question of what dragons do with their enormous quantities of gold -- and what happens when you slay one and try to inject all that gold into the economy.

 

In "reality" of course this would cause all sorts of inflation problems, but I'm generally not interested in modeling inflation in a fantasy game. More interesting would be the unsavory types that would swarm all over the area as soon as rumors of the hoard got out.

 

I've always wondered why dragons, who are supposed to be hyper-intelligent in addition to greedy and conniving, don't go into merchant banking more often (especially if they can take human forms) -- makes it far more difficult on random groups of dragon-slayers when the local lord has an interest in protecting your safety (because he may need to borrow money from you at some point).

 

I really prefer beastly, if cunning, dragons for this reason.

[Outsider]

Re: Game World Economy

 

One would think something with those protective properties would be almost wasted as coinage. I can see gold being used to line the walls of chambers at court to prevent mages from scrying into them and seeing what was being discussed or similar uses. Perhaps private ownership of certain quantities of gold might be a government monopoly for that reason -- don't want to impede the king's spying mages from looking in on merchants or crime bosses!

 

Preventing scrying was a primary sink for excess gold/silver/copper in the economy. A layer of gold/silver/copper sandwiched between stone walls was also a dandy way to prevent desolid characters from waltzing into your keep/manor/what have you. One could also incorporate those metals into one's armor and/or equipment to provide defense against magical effects. That heavy gold crown on the king's head had an actual practical use in this game. It prevented magic based mental powers from working on him very well or possibly at all.

[Doctor Agenda]

Re: Game World Economy

 

It's the natural cycle: adventurers put hoards into circulation, dragons take them back out again. Gold only causes temporary inflation because the wily and cunning dragons extract the gold from the inflated economy by various means; then sit on it when they have enough for a comfortable bed or to attract a mate or whatever it is they need a big pile of treasure for.

[Cancer]

Re: Game World Economy

 

I figure that dragons are predatory opportunistic investors, and there wasn't any better way in that era to maintain a large pool of liquidity needed for a fast large strategic purchase than sitting on a big-a$$ pile of gold. Until you have electronic-speed global communications and a large network of banks, it's probably the best you can do.

[Ninja-Bear]

Re: Game World Economy

 

In the original Oriental Adventures book, it notes that Gold in the orient was to be reserved for use of artists. So even though it was valuable, it wasn't to be used as a currency. Just an interesting twist on currency.

[Kraven Kor]

Re: Game World Economy

 

In the original Oriental Adventures book' date=' it notes that Gold in the orient was to be reserved for use of artists. So even though it was valuable, it wasn't to be used as a currency. Just an interesting twist on currency.[/quote']

 

This was not the case in Feudal Japan, but was likely the case in China. I seem to recall that China was one of the first civilizations to use paper money, and before that clay tokens (could very well be mistaken, just random recollection rather.) But Japan was using gold Ryu (and other metallic coinage, IIRC) well into the late 1800's.

[Old Man]

Re: Game World Economy

 

I figure that dragons are predatory opportunistic investors' date='[/quote']

 

Now there's a loan shark you wouldn't want to cross.

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: Game World Economy

 

Now there's a loan shark you wouldn't want to cross.

 

And principal employers of would-be dragonslayers would be magnates or rulers looking for a quick way out from under their burden of debt. Which, of course, can only get them into more trouble and put the PCs in a serious ethical bind if hired for that task.

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: Game World Economy

 

This was not the case in Feudal Japan' date=' but was likely the case in China. I seem to recall that China was one of the first civilizations to use paper money, and before that clay tokens (could very well be mistaken, just random recollection rather.) But Japan was using gold [i']Ryu[/i] (and other metallic coinage, IIRC) well into the late 1800's.

 

The Chinese governments were, in general terms, far more stable than their Japanese counterparts, largely because of the omnipresent Imperial Bureaucracy. So they would have less trouble managing a non-specie-based currency. Even conquering powers like the Mongols and the Manchurians found it in their interest to keep the organs of state largely intact so they wouldn't have utter chaos that would have made it impossible to govern. It was said that China usually conquered her conquerors.