Why do settings have a universal currency?
Is it advantageous in a way or something?
>>46839836
>Easier to keep track of from a mechanical standpoint, mostly. The number of gamers who would appreciate the immersion and realism is much smaller than the ones that would rather not play Currency Exchange 2016.
People don't want to deal with the bookkeeping, so they are willing to handwave it and cut to the exciting parts of the game.
>>46839836
its because its simpler and easier to remember, because otherwise in case some dickass starts playing around with multiple currencies at the same time something can easily get fucked and everything goes full retard in that case.
>>46839836
Less bookkeeping, you don't need to keep track of exchange rates. Especially considering those exchange rates could be frequently changing depending on geopolitical situation.
Obviously it takes away the possibility ow working with those mechanics and playing the ever changing exchange rates in your advantage, but that's usually not something adventurers want to focus on, so such simplification is acceptable.
>>46839836
It's more convienient for the players, sacrificing realism/immersion for playability.
That's why settings made for books are more likely to have multiple currencies. Though even then, it's rarely mentioned because such a detail is rarely relevant.
My settings do have multiple currencies. But it only comes up when it's interesting or relevant. I abstract it to a generic currency system (Or further to entirely abstract wealth systems, which I personally prefer) for ease of use.
>>46839836
A universal currency makes the purchasing and selling of goods significantly easier. There's no need for changing money when crossing borders, as long as you have currency you can rest assured that you'll be able to get what you need.
Some players probably won't appreciate the added complexity of multiple currencies with varying exchange rates, especially if it distracts from anything else.
>Shopkeeper's face when you only have Republic Credits, and they're no good here.
>>46840022
This famalam.
Thwre is a reason all the countries in the European Union stopped using there own currencies and switched to the universal euro
>>46839836
Along with what everyone else says OP, in fantasy or older-world settings the value of a precious metal coinage is IN the actual value of the metal itself rather then the economic unit it represents.
A coin of gold as long as it is the same relative weight and precious metal content as another gold coin is more or less the same approximate value as any other gold coin because the GOLD ITSELF is the valueable part.
One of the only fantasy settings where differing monetary values was done correctly was Forgotten Realms (back before WotC shat it up) and it notes that certain nations had special currencies that WITHIN the nation had higher values but outside were worth less or even nothing at all because the coin is an internal value-exchange system agreement while everyone else was judging the value of the coinages based purely on the weight and quantity of the metal.
>>46840167
>all
Except for the ones that didn't.
>>46839836
The thing is, premodern societies HAD universal or near-universal currency, usually weight-of-silver (or gold.) The various units were denominations of it and the various coinages merely obfuscated/debased this currency. Traders and explorers reckoned everything in metal weight or the closest thing to it (ducats.)
In modern settings with fiat currency the British pound or USD works pretty well. In the far future you can imagine shit like global/solar "credits".
>>46840206
Or the ones that just join the European economic zone, gaining most of the economic benefits, meaning no tariffs for trade for them, or the uk which might leave, maybe, or it will stay, maybe, who knows?
>>46840271
Well, we have to leave the EU, really. How else will we be able to protect our steel industry from deliberate economic destruction by the chinese? The EU has these pesky regulations in place which prevent us from applying protectionist policies and levying significant tariffs on chinese imports. Yes, I mean, I know the UK helped to defeat the motion to try and defend the european steel industry in the first place, but how else were we supposed to make friends with the chinese? Pay them extortionate sums of money to build our energy infrastructure rather than stimulating the economy in our own country? Okay, yes, we did do that as well, but haven't you ever heard of a two-pronged attack?
My, I'm feeling political today.
>>46839836
In my setting at least, all the major empires had already adopted an energy credit based currency, so it was just a question of denomination. The few political entities that keep their own currency don't tend to trade with foreign powers and lean to more isolationism so all of their trade is in the black market and uses credits anyways, while everyone else adopted the credit denomination that was strongest and most widely used at the time, which would be an alien credit tied to their equivalent concept of the Joule.
The Energy Credit works similarly to the petro dollar for all intents and purposes, but instead of the Fed and banks themselves creating money from debt, power plants are the primary methods of creating credits, which trickle outwards and deflating in value the further from a source of power it gets. Turning on a light may cost, say, 5 credits per day, just as an example, within the city, but 10 or 20 credits per day in the middle of nowhere since you are also paying for the costs of getting that power to you.
Due to this, power plants are under a greater degree of federal control in most nations as well as a greater increase in more distributed power generation, debt is more difficult to use to create wealth from the perspective of speculative economics, and the credit's value tends to be more stable due to it being tied to an inherently practical resource that is renewable and essentially limitless.
>>46840357
The UK has industries?
>>46840498
Well not anymore.
>>46840498
Coyse it does, it makes my miniatures, thats some kinda industry right?
>>46840498
It's not what it used to be before Thatcher, but there's some still.
>>46840498
>>46840513
We did, but Thatcher started destroying them in the eighties, and Nu Labour did the rest of the job. Nowadays the lion's share of our economy is the in the City of London's financial sector, i.e. people making money by basically moving money around in ways that are complex and often ought to be illegal.
>>46839836
Because people forgot how to roleplay over time, and this is but one symptom.
>>46839836
How many currencies do you carry in your pocket or use in everyday life?
>>46839861
End thread immediately. I learned this one the hard way too, since I wanted to GM fantasy Currency Exchange side quests.
Desired scenario: "We could hire the mercenaries to stave off the Dark Lord's gnoll army, but only the most expensive companies will take it with any chance of victory. We have to use our flying ship to take advantage of the difference in purity levels and buying power between the Dwarven silver mark and gold crown compared to the forest gnome's nickel vallen and the sky elves silver tare!"
Response: [utter bafflement about why NPCs keep talking about weight standards and the price of butter and trying to find an old burial mound to rob for the money.]
In a similar vein, nobody wants to play my gripping survivalism and orienteering games.
>>46841001
>nobody wants to play my gripping survivalism and orienteering games.
get LARPers, they're gonna love it
>>46841001
Oh yeah. I meant to say that since then, my fantasy settings always have an international concern that manufactures counterfeit-immune magical coins that every major country and trading concern honors for convenience.
So how do I go about creating fairly simplistic currencies for let's say four colonial powers? Just go by ounce of gold is worth x ounces of silver, each worth y ounces of copper, and then decide how many of each coin to an ounce?
>>46839836
>Why
Because settings with magic are post-scarcity by definition. What peasant would accept wizard gold or gemsin exchange for goods or services? None: Without Newtonian physics, dirt - even shiny dirt - would be as valueless as anything else lying about in drifts. At first, handwavery would have everyone living in gold mansions with diamond windows, but that would get old pretty quick amongst the non-Liberace/ Pagan Min crowd, people would move on to collecting personal possessions displaying every sign of having been painstakingly crafted by human hands - most likely their own.
Until some dickass wizard cloned them, then the circle of fashion would go round once more. Eventually though, Style would rise above Fashion as it always does, and so our adventure begins ...
Without compulsively stacking shekels to justify having "an economy" in a cartoonish setting with Unicorn Maintenance and Detect Evil as A-level subjects. tl;dr:
Stop it. Just stop.
