Making a weird city/megadungeon setting, and I'm trying to create a currency system that is deliberately obtuse, confusing, circular, and illogical as possible. Here's what I have so far.
>1 Groat=12 shillings
>1 Shilling is equal to a sixpenny
>A sixpenny is half of a Bobhog
>A Bobhog is three Tanners
>1 Tanner is a quarter of a Eightpence
Could you guys help me out a bit? What can I add to make this as frustrating to deal with as possible?
>>47183895
>4 Eightpence equals a Sixpenny
>>47183895
The coins are pointy, the smaller their value, the more spikes they have. Some assassins use them as shurikens.
>>47183979
Trying to focus more on the monetary system rather than the coins themselves.
>>47183961
>4 eightpence is 1 sixpenny
>4 tanners is 1 eightpence
>16 tanners for 1 sixpenny
>3 tanners is 1 bobhog
>2 sixpennies is 1 bobhog
>thus, 3 tanners equal 32 tanners
Good start, but I think we can still fuck it up further.
>>47183895
When you pay with certain coin combinations, their whole value changes
>>47184045
>16 Tanners gets you a Groat and 3 Sixpennies
>>47184079
Maybe their value can change based on the day of the week or phases of the moon or something.
>>47183895
It costs twenty sixpenny in materials and labour to make a groat.
>>47184105
>economical hardships coincide at certain moments of the month
>businessmen take advantage of it
I love this
>a currency system that is deliberately obtuse, confusing, circular, and illogical as possible
You fucking monster.
I like it.
>>47183895
Give names to combinations of coins.
>Six shillings is a north river
>A groat and a sixpence is a tankard
>Two groats is a magic sword
Then make some combinations considered lucky or unlucky, or portentious.
One kind of 'coin' is a piece harvested from a creature.
Another actually IS a tiny creature.
>>47184154
>said living coin's diet consists of other coins
>>47183895
All of the coins are nigh identical with only a series of notches along the rim and the exact indistinguishable to the human eye mixture of metals used to create it to distinguish between each different obtuse value.
In this setting, attempting to short change or using the wrong coins by accident is a serious crime heavily frowned upon legally and socially.
>>47183895
Will gold, silver and diamonds only have value in industrial applications?
Like the party finds a cache of gold bars and think they're rich, when they might just as well carry around copper or titanium.
>>47184105
I came here to post this.
Basically you are encrypting the coin value.
If you want to make it completely inscrutable, the values of each coin should be re-determined at least daily by a one-time pad.
If you want it to be less cumbersome, you feed the date and maybe some other information into an algorithm which pumps out pseudo-random numbers.
>>47183895
>1 Shilling equals two Tanners, but only on Tuesdays
>12 Eightpence is 4 Schilling while the waning moon is in the constellation of Taurus
>A Bobnog is an amount of Tanners equal to the decimeter the current high tide is above the annual average, but only while your left foot is in a bucket full of water, at least up to your ankle but only up to three quarters of your right pinky below the edge, and whith a mink in your right hand.
>>47184154
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowry#Human_use
>>47183895
>you can only pay with a Tanner if you also pay 4 groats. Then the shopkeeper has to pay you a shilling with your change.
>>47184189
Now THAT'S evil.
>>47184229
>giving such coin is the world's equivalent of having a debt
>the coin's giver doesn't win anything it just means that its owner won't win that much money
>it's called awife
>>47184210
>A Bobnog is a slang term for a counterfeit coin, usually made of wood.
>Due to their widespread use and confusion with the Bobhog, they are an officially recognized substitute
>For the Eightpence.
>>47184252
It's actually called a gift economy.
It's pretty interesting.
>All rules stated here apply, but there is a complicated system when which rule has priority
>>47184285
Which rule has priority depends on a game of riddles between the merchant and the buyer.
>>47184278
Dang it, thanks for the reading material.
>The government has ruled that a human tooth may be substituted for 15 Groats
>Two days later, they amended the law, limiting the substitution to once per transaction.
>>47184105
Each lord mints their own currency and the value changes with their position in Court, but also depending on which faction is in charge at the time. So during war the militaries steel groats are worth twice that of the artists, but on festival days the copper Jesters are the only legal tender and anyone caught trying to use say dulled pieces of the royal harems bronze mistress minting would be locked in the stocks and pied for an eight pence Jester a piece until they had exactly ten times the value of the coinage they used from 6 months ago when it would have been legal tender. They have to count as they are pied and call it out when the amount is reached or else they have to start over.
Actually doing so has made some men rich for a day as they are allowed to keep all the Jesters collected.
You can buy 3 pies for a tanner, or a rotted apple for a sixpenny.
The Emperors "Imperials" is the only minting to have a constant set value in relation to all the others, but he refuses to tell anyone what it actually is and the penalty for shortchanging him or his coinage is death for weakening the dollar and thereby srealign from the state. Ambitious nobles have tried hiring mathematicians to track his purchases to pin down the exchange rate, but the tend to resign early and pay the forfeit of their contract with shiny new Imperials.
Enthusiastic hobbiest statisticians with no noble patron or position tend to end up dead.
>>47184374
The Queen has her own mint "Rosies" which cannot be accepted as payment for any goods or services and only given as gifts between close friends, stalwart companions, lovers separated by distance, station, or obligations as a sign of truly valuing them beyond any price.
Roses can however be exchanged for Imperials at a strict 1 to 1 rate, however it's considered to be a complete abandonment of any vows or feelings towards the person who gave it to you and people think it's a complete dick move.
Then there are the low coins minted for merchants who trade outside the kingdom and they are specific weights of precious metals but are considered to be the property of the nation and therefore not truly owned by anybody except the person who happens to be holding them. The low coins are therefore quite risky to have a lot of.
>>47184327
Groats cannot be used as currency and aren't accepted at shops, though you might get your change in Groats. To pay with them you must take them to a designated Currency Office which will exchange them to Tanners.
>>47184386
>Tanners can't be exchanged in a Currency office
>>47184380
Ooh, this could be good even for a serious campaign.
>>47184153
>>47184154
>>47184189
You utter fuckers.
>A shilling, a sixpenny and a number of groats corresponding to the how many months the month is away from winter solstice constitutes a snowfall.
If the payer can roll the sixpence further than the distance of the groats lined up together, then he pays a groat. If he can't, he pays as many shillings as can fit in a jar which has a volume equal to that of a volume of water with weight equal to the weight of ten tanners.
>>47184572
Each mint/noble houses/merchant house wastes vast amounts of resources smelting their competitor's coins. They actively try to flood the market with their own "brand" to establish a monopoly. This never happens, but some merchants will not take certain sorts of coins, regardless of value because "we don't like X house's money here".I believe unless draconian measures are enforced to make people use a convoluted system that changes on a multifactorial situational or seasonal basis, chances are people will just use base metal weight and barter to trade
Careful, anon. If you make it too complicated you'll never be able to explain it and will fuck it up trying to apply it. Nothing makes me roll my eyes like a DM who tries to inflict something complicated and frustrating on us, then gets confused and frustrated and gets it wrong. Well, except when they then try to save face by pretending they didn't, and there was actually another rule that we weren't aware of.
>>47184380
>Roses can however be exchanged for Imperials at a strict 1 to 1 rate, however it's considered to be a complete abandonment of any vows or feelings towards the person who gave it to you and people think it's a complete dick move.
This is legitimately unbelievable. I find it impossible to believe the Queen has her own personal coins that are only used for Valentine's Day and yet, legal tender so long as you have bad blood towards the person who gave them? That's beyond stupid.
>Then there are the low coins minted for merchants who trade outside the kingdom and they are specific weights of precious metals but are considered to be the property of the nation and therefore not truly owned by anybody except the person who happens to be holding them. The low coins are therefore quite risky to have a lot of.
You really don't understand how economics work, do you?
>>47184710
I think that's exactly his purpose
One must posses a license to use more units of currency in a single exchange than ones age in years, unless buying something for someone else, in which case the maximum amount is the average of yours and the person you are buying for's age.
>>47184434
> You plan a heist to steal a bunch of low coins since you were broke after three days in this kingdom
> Turns out the box was full of weird red coins with the Queens face on them
> Get thrown out of a tavern when trying to spend one for a room.
> Prostitute outside spits in your face and starts calling you names accusing you of making fun of her when you try to ask her if she knows anything about them.
> Finally, desperate to get something out of this you go to the money changer who originally screwed you with his fold out charts that were . . . Unexpected in size and demand he change them all at once for you.
> He goes pale with shock and says he will have to get the supervising noble to handle such a large transaction, and any comfort you could possibly think of needing will be provided while they prepare.
> Party is whisked away to an opulent townhouse for visiting nobles. Courtesan wait on them and top quality booze and food is provided as courtesy to a guest of the bank. Party ends up hammered for three days and sexed up by a prime factor of that.
> Come back to the bank and are given gaudy golden discs with purpled garnets the size of grains of sand embedded along the edges and a noble base relief etched with the clear skill of a master artisan. Nigga what the fuck. There's as many of these as there were the other coins.
> Flip a coin to the bank manager as a tip and he faints, immediately swarmed by horny women with booze from the guest house.
>The next day they're all gone with a coin or two each, whatever you've got a bunch, and suddenly the Queens Guard is knocking down the door saying she'd like to meet the man who valued money over so much of the love she gives to her citizens.
> Wow. Those are REALLY Sharpe swords.
And now your party has to track down where the coins came from or have given the most grevious possible insult to the Queen and the Emperor both. Without losing all their cash again.
>>47184153
There should be slightly different names for slightly different amounts. Like a North River is actually slightly different from a Nor'River.
>>47184713
And you really don't understand the point of this thread.
>>47184758
>slightly different amounts
Make it -extremely- different amounts just to fuck up with the players
>>47184572
Wut
>>47184713
Roses are used whenever, and are supposed to be exchanged for the Emperors coin as the ultimate abandonment of who you value most. It's like fucking your wife's most hated rival in your front yard while calling her worthless.
They are never legal tender unless they're exchanged for an Imperial, so to get one in the first place you've already spent a coin that you can claim any value for - so long as you think the Emperor will back you up if the person files a complaint.
Or you can be given one by the Queen herself who rules the Emperors Harem. That usually is done for Maidens of May at spring festivals festivals and publicity events etc.
The point regarding the low coins is that the coins are only worth the metals themselves and not really tied to the internal economy of the Empire. I mean, you could steal them to melt down and mint into proper coins backed by current events and authority if you want.
I don't think you have very good reading comprehension. The value of the coins change thematically, some tied to festivals, others to concepts, or are backed by ascended factions who are directing the government under the auspices and with the blessing of the Emperor, or are minted by individuals who hold positions with authority of their own independent of which court factions are currently holding favour.
The coins are both money, politics, fashion and language all rolled into one and the transactions are as much a discussion as they are an exchange of promissory notes.
>>47184713
low coins make perfect sense because they are
>backed by themselves
>minted by an authority
>intrinsically valuable
Most tradesmen adopt extremely heavy accents during working hours, in order to avoid prices being haggled down too low.
>>47184849
Sorry. That is supposed to be "Roses are used NEVER." Nobody will accept a Rose as tender for goods or services and would be 100% offended if you tried. They can be given as a gift, or exchanged for Imperials. But then you've pretty much publicly traded a token of someones love that is priceless for a set amount of money. Not a known amount, but everyone knows an Imperial has a set value, and by definition that means it's worth infinitely less than a Rose.
Only the Queen can trade Roses for Imperials, because her love for the people of the Empire is as endless as her love for the Emperor whose harem she rules. So for her, the Imperial is really just the least anyone can do to repay her endless love. For her, the Imperial of her Emperor is the one thing that is equal to her love and she treasures each one as a reminder of him.
And for one who gives her the only love that can match her own, what else could she give in return but a Rose of her love.
I am also really fucking high here.
>Shops servicing the poor, like bakers and fruit stalls, often accept coins cut in half as being half the value of the coin. However, these half-coins are not officially backed. The rule of etiquette is that you shouldn't give a half-coin in change unless the payer paid with a half-coin.
>be at local crab shoppe
>go to purchase a Nor'River worth of crablegs
>shopkeep insists he wont take groats
>i forgot it was a full moon, left all my sixpennies at home
>go to local currency exchange, trade my groats for tanners paying my last shillings for exchange fee
>attept to re-enter trade district
>mfw they wont take tanners
>mfw I'm taxed a tankard for a tanner substitution fee
>>47184189
DnD actually calls that a goldbug. It IS a living creature, but it works.
>What appears to be a small gold coin secretly has six stubby legs and a small beak which it uses to eat other gold pieces.
> ... Designed to appear like a generic gold coin itself, the hungry goldbug is actually a vermin which eats precious metals (primarily copper, silver, gold, and platinum) which it coats its shell with and uses to spawn more of its kind.
and of course
>Goldbugs slowly adapt to the type of coins they eat. After only one or two generations, future goldbugs will match the pile of coins they have fed on.
Is this our living coin?
>>47185029
Can you see it being used as actual legal tender instead of just something DMs throw at players to fuck with them?
>>47185029
I've been thinking about a very large series of missions which at first seem to be a simple "raid a dragon's dungeon and take its hoard" thing, with amongst other elements, the hoard itself is both unbelievably, unbelievably valuable (something more in line for total party wealth in five levels over) and has enough complications to set them for five levels over.
>goldbugs
>coin mimics
>everything mimics
>cloakers
>living armor
>those swords that are really tentacle monsters
>haunted stuff
>many different orders of thieves and bandit companies after the PCs
Basically a cash advance.
>>47185045
>>47185029
There's really no problem making towns themselves into what are essentially dungeons filled with totally insane, impractical people.
I've, in fact, contemplated campaign settings where entire cities were slowly taken over by hordes of vampires, mimics, house mimics, castle mimics, living statues, changelings, doppelgangers, animated objects, gargoyles, water elementals (that live as fountain etc), mockery bugs, and so forth that at first glance appear to be towns full of incomprehensible foreigners and maybe some confused, diehard surviving rogue types who think that they are merely criminal immigrants but are in reality the only normal people.
Some currency may have simply the same name, but a slightly (or completely) different value. It do happens with units in the real world (see short and long tons for example). Or there have been a devaluation (or a revaluation) and there's the old shillings and the new shillings.
Some places would explicit which currency they mean (an apple - 2 short shillings) and other would not (an apple - 2 shillings) and expect you to know because they're in the trade district and the trade district have always used the short shillings.
>>47185045
In this society, yes actually. There are things horribly wrong here.
>>47185064
I'd play that. Make a relatively easy quest out of actually getting there though, and then the hard and long part is to get all the treasure safely out and cleared.
This is going to end up with a player or three buying some stuff that should have been waaay out of their league because not even the DM realised what the actual cost ended up being before running the calculations.
>>47185176
With an economy like that, not even the merchants know how to settle a value in what they're selling
Every item that's bought has another hidden value. Which is so you can represent to yourself how much it costs.
And all the denominations of coins are then determined from this value, but the exchange ratio is fucked up so everything always costs in different coinage.
For example, you have a dagger that has a Value of 25, which is pretty normal. But it would cost 2 Groats, 3 Shillings, Two Bobhog, etc. Never have anything cost just 1 Groat, or just 5 Shillings.
Point is, always use as many coins necessary to buy anything. So they have more calculations to do to determine how much something really costs. For you it would be easy, use an Excel sheet and just type shit in.
>all these complicated rules when you can easily fuck up the system by using fractions
Just make some of the coins have obtuse often improper or mixed fractions as value that don't add up easily. Like:
>a sevensixpence is 7/6 of a sixpence
>a dollar 2 and 3/4 of a shilling
Hell, we can get even more stupid by making coins have irrational or even imaginary values.
>even poor-quality metalworkers demand to be payed in eightpences in keeping with tradition
>most of them don't actually charge an eightpence, so they give lots of change on all their orders
>then they buy a token product from the customer, like an apple, for an eightpence
>then the customer gives them back as change the change they recieved
>>47185172
Yeah, everything but the hoard would be relatively easy, or at least quick.
In general, besides humor factor, D&D's general setup makes me think of a heist movie, and often in those the problem isn't getting the $$$, its getting away with it, hiding it, keeping it...
>>47183895
There is a coin called the Twogroat. It is of course not worth two groats. Rather it comes about because six years ago, a forger began stamping fake "two groat" coins containing less proper metal than two groats are worth and pocketing the difference. However, the coin proved popular for the many varied designs (resulting from the forger changing obverse every week so that one week's production could not be compared to the next) and after the forger's mysterious disappearance, the twogroat was eventually declared an official coin determined to be worth 20 shillings based on metal content.
This whole story is complicated further by 1) a second round of forgeries of new fake twogroats have begun appearing recently, and 2) some runs of original fake twogroats, while technically legal tender, are also sought as collectibles. Numismatists will pay 5-10 groats for certain original fake twogroats.
>>47185319
Keep adding in currencies. Old ones that haven't yet gone out of circulation but aren't made anymore. Let the players play for a few sessions and then someone pays them in Double Dragons, and if they try to beat up the merchant he'll just say that it's an old coin but still worth their weight in Silver Crowns. If they ask what Silver Crowns are, well, the answer is simple, they're like Gold Crowns, and their worth depends on their size compared to the Gold Crown. Large gold crown = 3 Large Silver Crowns, Medium Gold Crown = 12 Medium Silver Crowns, etc.
Never stop OP.
Across the City are secret enclaves of shops and restaurants that accept peculiar printed papers as their own private form of currency. This currency actually uses sane denominations and is always worth the same amount no matter what other monetary madness is going on in the city at the time. However, all those that use this paper money are in fact part of political movement that wishes to overthrow the Emperor/Lords/What-Have-You, and printed on each bill are various bits of the movement's manifesto and pictures if their martyrs.
Using this currency is much easier than the alternatives, but being caught with it is grounds for arrest and possibly imprisonment.
>>47185450
>the paper is customarily folded into origami animals, with different animals being used for different denominations
>>47183895
Bobhogs come in three flavors from different mints. Officially, all of them are legal tender and valued at par.
In practice, Black Bobhogs are the most accepted as valid everywhere, New Bobhogs are shunned by the people of insert-district-here due to their tendency to deform slightly under pressure (although this is only due to people there abusing their coins more + confirmation bias, not inferior metallurgy) and so trade at a slightly reduced rate on the black market, and Royal Bobhogs are all unique by having a tiny number stamped on them, diffferent for each one. It's unknown what these numbers do, and no inspection or divination reveals any function, but people are suspicious and prefer Black Bobhogs nonetheless.
The mints were established in that order and have all been printing for a while, so it's possible to get old New Bobhogs.
Possible rumors the players might hear about what's up with the Royal Bobhogs:
-the court magician can use the numbers to see everyone who's ever handled a specific one
-the crown has been counting their use and is going to reduce their value
-odd-numbered Royal Bobhogs disappear if left alone for too long
-two Royal Bobhogs with the same number will merge together into a single coin if they come into contact
>>47185450
I actually have something similar in my setting. Basically it's a city of wizards that have enchanted glowing paper money in a world where everyone else uses coins of various denominations. Only difference is the paper money is in base 12. Each bill of a certain value glows faintly in a specific color so everyone can easily tell them apart. Also they're a bit oversized compared to today's money in imitation of some older irl paper currencies. Don't know why I'm bothering to type this all, I guess you can call itmy two cents.
>>47185367
That's actually pretty neat. Could make for some cool sidequests.
>All these fucked up currencies.
My character's reaction would probably be to leave the country on a stolen boat.
>>47183895
From what I can gather from the OP, a Shilling is equal to a Sixpence and the Tanner is the lowest form of currency
If we gave the Tanner a value of 1, then we can assume the following:
Shilling = 1.5
Groat = 18
Bobhog = 3
Tanner = 1
Eightpence = 4
Unless my math is wrong, that is.
>>47184153
>Give names to combinations of coins.
>Six shillings is a north river
I second this idea. Also some combinations are named for an item or job or something that's changed in value over time, so now "a bucket" (=1 groat, 1 eightpence, 2 tanners), doesn't buy you one bucket of whatever it is any more. Old people complain about how "back in MY day, one bucket o' [thing] cost ya a bucket and that was it! Now you'll be lucky to pay a bucket and a tanner and a half."
>>47184849
>They are never legal tender unless they're exchanged for an Imperial, so to get one in the first place you've already spent a coin that you can claim any value for - so long as you think the Emperor will back you up if the person files a complaint.
I know that this thread is all about retarded currency, but this is fucking stupid. Why would anyone exchange Roses for Imperials? What does it benefit a bank or a merchant or a random ass Joe to trade his Imperials for Roses? Congrats, you now have a bag full of Super Special Valentine's Day Dollars that aren't usable at all.
Oh, what's that? I can trade these Roses I just acquired for Imperials? Then why bother trading in the first fucking place?
Lay off the weed and exercise your brain for once.
>>47185649
Don't forget that you can trade 3 Tanners for 32 Tannersthough it would probably be a ridiculously silly and time-consuming process and need several legal loopholes.
>>47183895
Everliq is a common substance on your world.
Everliq prevents heating from diffusing from liquid metal.
When you melt shillings, and tanners, you get an alloy called kokuroi.
five liters of kokuroi equals an imperial gallon of liquid bobhog.
>>47185677
No you can't. That trick relies on the assumption that a sixpenny is three-quarters of an eightpence, which is not in the rules as written.
It might seem like a sensible assumption, sure, but this currency system is explicitly not supposed to be sensible, so you can't assume that sixpenny and eightpence are 6 and 8 of the same thing.
>>47185677
You also need to figure out if they're New Tanners, Old Tanners, Ol' Tanners, or just regular plain Tanners, as they each have very slightly different values.They all look the same though.
By convention, the more similar the coinage is to the goods or services being purchased, the more favorable the price. Royal groats have a sailing ship minted on the obverse, so are better for purchasing fish than, say, Millers' groats. Smiths' eightpence, featuring an armored knight ahorse, might seem advantageous for purchasing an oxcart wheel - an iron coin portraying transportation for an iron-rimmed object used for transport. However, copper tanners have a hole punched in the middle making them literally a wheel, thereby getting most favorable exchange. (Incidentally, copper tanners must always be strung on a leather thong to represent the Tanners' Guild; no member of ANY guild will accept loose tanners from a coinpurse.)
>>47185319
Even better if you cram as many in there as you can. Like a tanner is 3 sixpence and 2 shillings, and a sixpence is equal to 7.2 shillings or something
>>47184099
>a Groat and 3 Sixpennies get you 15 Tanners
>>47185029
Why is that a big deal
Just kill the bugs, and it's regular coins again, big whoop
>>47185916
The bug will devour an unobservant party's funds before they realize it isn't a normal coin.
>>47183895
Groats are the size of cartwheels and a Tanner is an actual tanner you drag around by a collar.
Also 128 tanners and 1 Bobhog=1,33 groats
>>47185319
>a value paid in bugnums, squared, has the equivalent of the sum of the squares of two integer amounts of intercoins and demidollars, with the amount of intercoins being the lesser of the two latter
>>47185968
I get that but the gold doesn't just vanish, the gold is turned into more gold bugs, which are made of gold. IE, as long as the bag doesn't have a hole for them to crawl out of, you still have all your gold, all you have to do it kill the bugs and burn their organic matter out of the coins/shells
>>47186075
This reminds me of these AD&D monsters called auromvoraxes, dunno if they're in 3rd or 4th, they're golden hexabadgers aka golden gorgers. They can smell and eat gold, they then process it into very heavy golden fur, giving them great defenses for what is essentially an animal.
If its soft enough I can imagine this sort of golden fur being worth at least as much as the gold that took to make it, even though some would be lost in the process.
>>47186150
You could raise them and harvest them to make golden fur clothing.
>>47186178
Yeah that's what I was thinking.
You would probably want to use them as fine gold threads as accent on clothes, although demigods, solars, demon lords and so forth may be strong and vainglorious enough to not give a fuck. Or they may just have a low enough gold content to be pretty and not to be ultra heavy.
>>47185666
Not the anon who came up with the idea, but I like it. You can get away with a lot under the guise of culture.
Invent some story about the Empress and the Economist, where the Empress was aghast at the Economist's boast that all things could be valued in coin. Upon further reflection the Empress decided to mint coins of her own, that could be fairly said to reflect the value of a bond between two people. Thus the Rose; to value each other, and to serve as a reminder to the money mad that to spend your intimate bonds is to destroy them.
You could have the empress act as a central bank, she'll always redeem Roses for Imperials.
Or go back to >>47184278
Gift economy. You give someone a Rose who isn't a romantic partner or close friend you're giving them something that probably works as a dowry slash wedding ring. Motherfucker OWES you, and everyone will know it.
If it's the apple harvest, then 4 Tanners = 1 Groat per pound of Shillings you can stack atop an apple no larger than five bobhogs laid together.
There's also another coin, the crown. They're not legal tender for private purchases, but they can be exchanged for normal currency at the royal treasury. They're flat and square with small round magnets in the center in order to fill up a chest completely and without shifting around and have one rounded corner to make it easier to pry one out.
Crowns have a set exchange rate with normal currency, determined when they're first minted. There's a dozen different kinds of crowns (gold, silver, pewter, wood, chocolate, etc), and each one has a wildly different exchange rate from the others, because the values of the normal coins change over time and new kinds of crowns are only minted when the exchange rate of the current crown is no longer representative of the current exchange rate.
Also, because crowns are rare and not used for personal debts, taking one to the treasury for exchange when you're not a noble implies that you stole it. You have to find a fence in order to redeem that chest of crowns you found in the dungeon, and fences will try to cheat you on their value all the time.
For example, the marble crown is nearly worthless because it was minted during the Great Shilling Shortage, over 700 years ago. Despite having very favorable exchange rates in other coins, it's still only worth 1 shilling, which is all the treasury will give for it. Meanwhile, the onyx crown is worth a minimum of 200 groats (in tanners). Fences are the only people (apart from the royal treasury) that know the value of the various crowns, and they will all lie to you about how much they're worth. That means shopping around can get you a better deal, but not too much better unless you can find out the actual exchange rates. Also, if you get a reputation for shopping around, fences will refuse to due business with you, in order to prevent unprofitable price wars.
>>47183895
OP, can you give us some idea of which ideas you like so far and what your accumulated currency system draft looks like so we can see in which directions we should keep gnurling it?
Decimalisation was a mistake.
>>47185025
react angery
This thread is glorious!
How about using combinations of coins in sequence like a game of cards? This is referred to as haggling.
>>47185025
You should have carried an anvil.
It is improper to pay a lady with Bobhogs, that is as long as you are paying with less than 9 Bobhogs. So you are sometimes supposed to pay more, because of common etiquette.
>>47184386
>>47184406
genius
>>47186823
It's gonna take a little bit to go through and pick out the bits I really like and get an actual system going. But I can tell you right now that I love the idea of combinations of coins having names and different variations on the same coin.
Not a fan of the Queen's coins thing, doesn't really fit with the setting, and I don't like the idea of coinbugs. That just seems like taking things too far in terms of dickishness. I don't like the idea of a player's currency constantly fluctuating in worth, I just want that worth to be uncertain.
Also don't like bartering involving "mini-games" like coin rolling or stacking. Buying something's already going to be complicated enough, I'd rather not put a dice roll on it too.
>>47183895
We had a setting once where the value of currency was based on the current stock market and updated by the second. All store owners had a device that kept track of the value and when a sale took place, had the purchaser press a button on the top which locked in a price they were both forced to agree with by law.
>>47187224
When you make those dice rolls you better use dice matched to the used coins.
Sixpenny is worth a whole Bobhog, but if and only if you successfully roll it towards the bartender in a bar. Sixpenny thrown with a spin into a target metallic mug is worth two tanners.Bartender is allowed to sweep the mug from under the flying sixpenny or even turn it upside down - unless it's s fake sixpenny, in which case he owes you two free drinks.
>>47187224
Have each type of shop use a different coin as their standard for listing prices.
>Item shops sell their goods to the bobhog
>Weapon shops are all priced in tanners
>Inns only accept groats
>>47187326
>Nobody accepts sixpennys, but only sixpennys are available from the currency exchangers
>>47187224
Be sure to post the final result, if only so we can use it as inspiration.
>>47187326
>>47187346
>There are professional coin counters who handle strange ass transactions for you
>Have to pay them in bales
>No one uses bales.
>>47187376
Will do. Might have to make a new thread though, depending on how long this one stays up. Might post setting info as well.
>>47187285
I could see this used in a specific tavern or pub as a sort of game. Get 3 Bobhogs at the door, four pence gets you another. A beer costs 6 pence, so if you're good and can sink Bobhogs no trouble then you're in like Flynn till you get too drunk to play
>>47183979
>assassins demand lots of money for contracts
>not because of the actual deed itself, but because they need ammo
The military is paid in dragons. Dragons are generally made out of Electrum. It's considered dishonorable for anyone not inside the military to handle these coins, because it implies that you have stolen this from a knight of the realm.
>>47183979
>>47187697
>>47187697
Dragontoes are highly valuable, maybe, but only if you have three witnesses to having witnessed a dragon. All of the witnesses must not have witnessed the dragon you witnessed, however they are allowed to have witnessed the same dragon on a different occasion. That, of course, requires its own set of witnesses.
>small, solid gold dice whose value changed depending on what's rolled during the transaction
>>47187959
>some people thought they'd be clever to make those dice loaded, only to have to give them away
>>47184045
I can now die happy having read this
>>47187464
>a bale is a set of at least one of each coin
>Nobody know how many of each except the exchangers
>You know they aren't shortchanging you because that's punishable by death, but you can't shake the feeling that you're somehow getting either more or less than what you put into the exchange
>This entire thread is only true on Mondays and Thursdays.
>There are different economic currencies for Friday/Tuesday, Wednesday/ Saturday, and no currency except for talians can be exchanged on Sundays.
>"I go to the shop and try to buy a dagger"
>Okay. *Five minute long explanation of currencies and the shopkeeper explaining this to him*
>"... And that's how the economy works here"
>What were you saying? I kinda stopped listening after the exchange rates. Do I get advantage for stealing the dagger while the shopkeeper is distracted?
>>47188628
This is exactly the kind of behavior I want to encourage. I don't want the players spending an hour shopping around and looking for the best price on rope. I want them to either work for their stuff via quests and favors, find what they need in the more dangerous parts of the city, or outright steal what they want.
As a result of their irregular shape, every sheet of eightpence, sixpennies, and Bobhogs (which are all produced twelve to a sheet) produces an extra coin with an extra side. These are known as Butchers, bakers and candlestick makers, respectively.
As a result of a nursery rhyme no one can seem to remember, everyone in the city knows that one of the three coins is considered lucky while the other two are considered unlucky. No one can see to agree which is which though, especially the upper-crust, on-the-up-merchants and nobility, who refuse to deal in 'unlucky coins'. It is not uncommon for stores of a certain class (or those trying to give the impression that they are of a certain class) to simply refuse payment in one of these coins.
Taking this a step further, as a result of this, its not an uncommon tourist trap to see people exchanging 'unlucky' coins for 'lucky' ones at a rate of 2:1, only to catch them in the same trap again when they find that what counts as a lucky coin varies from shop to shop.
>>47188567
>2016
>Still using talians
This is all well and good, but how many tanners would you get out of six krog?
The exchange rates of all currencies are inverted (IE, 1 shilling=12 groat, a bobhog is half a sixpenny, etc,) When it's Six Bong.
Nobody knows when six bong is and six bong should never be confused with "Bloody six bong" when the only legal form of currency is the Fnerb, and posession of other currencies at that time is punishable by death. At the same time though, posession of a Fnerb outside of bloody six bong is punishable by death so...
>>47189011
That's retarded.
Reminds me of:
The Triganic Pu is a unit of galactic currency with an exchange rate of eight Ningis to one Pu. This is simple enough but since a Ningi is a triangular rubber coin six thousand eight hundred miles along each side, no one has ever collected enough to own one Pu. Ningis are not negotiable currency, because the Galactibanks refuse to deal in fiddling small change.
>>47184045
Money is based on Modular Arethmatic so that 3 tanner being equal to 32 tanners is acceptable.
>Many types of coin are associated with one of the four seasons and their value differs depending upon their season. This practice is usually thought to have derived from the coins representing fixed weights or volumes of commodities such as flour, which varied in availabilty and thus in value depending on their harvest season.
Building on similar ideas in the thread, every coin type has a different connotation associated with it, such that the nature of the exchange takes on a different meaning depending on the type of coin or combination of coins used.
So 1 Groat=12 shillings, but when paying for a meal:
1 Groat = Good meal
12 Shillings = Worst shit I have ever tasted
But when paying for a whore:
1 Groat = Marriage proposal
12 Shillings = Thanks for the sex
Let's not even get into foreign exchange.
>An Imperial Dragon trades for roughly a whole Northriver, unless it is Sunday, in which case they are only worth Ninepennies.
>Dwarven Irons are worth their weight in iron, but can only be traded with Bobhogs.
>Surprisingly, the bartering system of the tribal borderlands is also accepted as currency. The value of livestock is determined by size, breed, virility, ate of birth, and, of course, taste. Any tradesman worth their salt carries a Guidebook, resembling more a twelve-inch tome of sorcery than any kind of ledger.
>Said Guidebook can also be used as currecy.
>>47188040
>This has led to an unofficial and eccentric way to standardize value:
>Different dice are loaded to land on specific numbers.
>There's a long list of understood rules for the use of them, breaking any is very impolite at best
>For example, trying to use solely high-rolling dice in a purchase is tantamount to cheating at a regular dice game, and can land an unwise buyer in very sharp trouble.
>Re-loading the dice *in the upwards direction* is only allowed by professional currency handlers (which includes counterfeiters); lowering their value can be done by anyone so long as they don't let anyone know.
>Most importantly, these rules must NEVER be talked about with anyone you wouldn't trust with your life.
>>47185619
it'll be two thirds of a groat to bribe the naval patrol that catches you
This is one bloody good thread. I may have missed someone else say it but instead of the exchange rates, why not just mess with the people who take the coins?
>Linen Merchant won't take Bobhogs on the eve of an important weddings
>A particular merchant will never accept Shillings because he's prejudice towards the group that mints them
>A small group of merchants covering various basic necessities will only accept currencies predetermined by the lot of them. They gather on a weekly basis to change it but never announce it.
>Smiths will only accept coinage with a high iron content so in trying times they can smelt them for products.
>>47187731
So the military can only buy from the military, eh?
>>47183895
>deliberately obtuse, confusing, circular, and illogical as possible
Just use the imperial measurement system as coins, this works great unless you are from one of the 3 backwater countries that still use it like Liberia or Myanmar
>>47184572
oh baby, that's a new gambling game I want in my runs
thanks senpai
>>47191061
No, even that was designed to be used properly. The point of this system is to be as teeth gratingly annoying as possible.
>>47191061
HOLY FUCKING SHIT WAAAAY 2 EDGEY 4 ME NIGNOGOMIR
>>47191061
Honestly, the most fucked up measurement of all is time. The base unit of time should be the gigaparsec, equal to roughly 3 seconds.
Legit question -- who is this fun for? I would hate it as a GM and a player.
>>47192810
OP already explained it upthread. He wants to make it so obtuse and frustrating that the players will just steal or trade goods or services for what they need.
>>47192830
There are simpler ways to do that.
>>47192945
Well, if you want to be a boring sod, sure. But this way is more fun for the brainstorming element and terribly amusing because of how ridiculous it is.
>>47192476
Whats it like in the land of the freebecause I assume you are in Liberia
>>47183895
A Denat is a note of credit from the grain merchants guild and is worth a large bag of grain. In theory. It's worth between 3-6 tanners depending on the season. It's the only currency accepted by foreign markets who use their own currency system.
The Promissory Note, or ProN, is worth exactly 1.5 Tanners but is only accepted by banks and companies that make extensive use of banking. It's technically credit, not coinage.
The UmWalt is a 5 gram pure platinum coin. It's worth exactly the metal it's made out of and nobody knows who printed it or where they got all their platinum.
The Zeth is worth one human life. Don't ask how you get them. You don't want to know.
>>47193137
Does that mean I can buy troops with Zeth? Slaves? What do I buy with them?
>>47193951
If you have them, you already know.
>>47183895
This is what i used in my game.
Every coin is a holding container for a riddle. Riddles can be put into chambers which call forth stored mystical energy in the form of a raw spell. One "groat" = one calorie of energy. So you can burn a bunch of riddles for sustainance, but it's less efficient than them sloshing around the system and using the energy to train for goods.
Deep under the sphinx's bank, the puzzle golems are searching for the one true riddle, and producing smaller riddles at random. The efficacy of a riddle adds to the magical energy bank
Mages can use coins in spell components by answering riddles or unlocking the energy contained within. Illusions, divinations and enchantments are the lowest energy cost, and a particular brand of cutpurses have created a new secret practice of street magic.
>>tl;dr
If you want the coins to be confusing, make them important to someone. Find out why it's complex, and new names will flow from that
>>47188774
I like this. Wealth as a barrier instead of a door.
Instead of an explanation, everyone rolls their eyes at the PCs and overcharges them a little for having the wrong coins.
OP btw, I really like the queens coins thing. They'd be a plot hook instead of a currency
>>47191024
Until you leave the military. Then they give you a certificate saying that you've been in the military and let you exchange Dragons for Bobhogs. Unfortunately, the exchange rate fluctuates from day to day and is always an irrational number.
>>47197634
Oh, incidentally: the certificates are also accepted as a form of currency, provided the current owner has no Dragons on their person.
>>47184189
Omfg this this the greatest.
>>47197648
Change for this is customarily given in Dragons, which represents the disrespect they showed to a token of their service.
>>47186075
The problem is that most gold coins aren't pure gold. It's usually alloyed for durability.
That means that once the bug processes the gold, the alloy material is lost or separated, leaving you with a hollow piece of pure gold that's going to get warped and dinged easily. Merchants wouldn't want to accept them because they're deformed and, thanks to being hollow, they'd fail a displacement test and look like a shitty attempt to undercut the metal content.
You might not lose any actual metal, but you lose time and convenience getting the remains exchanged for properly minted coins again.
Dear anons, I have a couple of sanity checks to suggest regarding the line between "overcomplicated obtuse currency system" and "lol randumb" so you can stay on the human-usable side.
Much like learning the nicknames and backstories of your friends, learning the currency might be a *long* process but it should be a *finite* process. If Bob should be called something funny on his birthdays because of that one cake incident, that's fine. If Bob wants to reroll his name every day, fuck that shit. Currency which is a lengthy process to learn is fine, locals have years to learn it during childhood. But currency that you can't learn, and you can't know if you'll be able to buy a loaf of bread tomorrow, is currency that people are going to drop in favor of barter and bread-IOUs. Legalism and bureaucracy is a loose constraint where things can be subpar forever. Starvation is a hard, strict constraint where you fix it or you die. "Roll to see if you starve" can GTFO. (And that's not even getting into the way it'll get eaten by arbitrageurs in short order.)
Irrational numbers, imaginary numbers, derivative/integral values, and all other forms of higher mathematics are also bullshit that does not belong in anything for common use. Half the population is below Int 10. That half of the population has to use currency too. Mathematician-only currency stays in the mathematician's guild.
Constraining the system at the other end are the few people below Wis 10 but above Int 16, who are so occupied wondering if they CAN that they don't stop to think if they SHOULD. If you suggest infinite-money loopholes (anything of the sort "1 widget equals 3 wangles, but 2 widgets equal 9 wangles") you should assume that these people would find and attempt to exploit it. At which point we apply the anthropic filter: since such people aren't sitting on infinite money, their trick must have not worked, so there's no loophole.
>>47183895
okay, I'm getting confused by all this, so I'm putting what I like into one post more for my sake than anything else. Not OP, but he's free to try the same thing.
>1 Groat=12 Shillings
Blacksmiths only take payment in Groats and give change in Shillings. They either split Grouts into their component fuel and metals, or go to the moneychanger as the only people legally allowed to sell Groats.
>1 Shilling is equal to a Sixpenny
But a General Store accepts only Shillings, Bobhogs, and Eightpence while a Restaurant only accepts Sixpennies.
>A Sixpenny is half of a Bobhog
Most production careers are paid in Bobhogs and Sixpennies. They often try to get Bobhogs exchanged, but Bobhogs are usually required to be exchanged in bulk, in sacks of 20.
>A Bobjog is 3 Tanners
Tanners are more like barter tokens, in that people use them to pay for raw materials, and usually get them back by selling products. Most of them stay within a small circle of circulation, so much so that some rich nobs pay top Shilling to get one, rarely to INJECT some into circulation.
>1 Tanner is a quarter of an Pesoct
Hardly anyone even knows what a Pesoct IS, let alone treat it as legal tender. Moneychangers tend to destroy these on sight, without compensation.
>Coinbugs are worth 6 of whatever they're copying.
They also tend to eat the coins they copy. Since it takes about 8 coins for a Coinbug to reproduce another one, covered in the useless and foulsmelling leftovers of what was eaten, people are careful of keeping a lot of coins in one sack. Unfortunately, sacks durable enough to keep coinbugs from digging out of are also expensive...
>A bale is one of every type of coin
A moneychanger will ALWAYS accept bales, provided that they are each in separate bags. No law new or old can change this.This whole thing was a botched attempt by the old, old government to regulate food rationing and keep craftsmen insulated from the rest of the town.
>>47197881
Additionally, a historical point related to such loopholes and to proposals to fidget with value in general: the reason coin-money started being called "currency" in the first place was that it *remained current*. (Early grammar nazis were very upset when people first started saying that money "is currency" rather than "has currency".) Meaning that when I trade for a coin, it keeps being a coin and is still just as good as any other coin sometime later and requires no maintenance. This is a property that's relatively unique to coins compared to most other things. If I buy bread, beer, a loom, a cart, an ox, a shirt - it's going to be pretty difficult for me to turn around and trade these for the exact amount I bought them for, but with a coin, it's practically guaranteed.
A couple of trade goods like silk or gold share this property of stable fungibility, but silk can still get torn or frayed or whatnot in various ways that coins generally won't.
If your proposal wants to be something that earned the name "currency", it should be something that also has this property of currency. It should remain current. Money that decays in value over time, rerolls based on something arcane, changes with the amount of it you have, or changes with your social status might be a trade good, it might be valuable, it might be collectible - but it's hardly currency.
The limit to what's reasonable as currency that varies with time in any way is probably coins that you can only spend on certain occasions.
I'll get off my econ-hist soapbox now.
>>47183895
>physical coins are subject to interest
>every coin has a different interest rate and interval; the shortest is biweekly, the longest is the first of every other month which starts on a Sunday
>sixpennies actually have a negative rate, so you need to pay for having them
>on interest days, all transactions add a small processing tax unless you pay exclusively in the coin experiencing interest
>interest payments can only be paid in groats, except on groat day, when they're paid in quartershillings
>a quartershilling is a tiny bronze coin closer to a bead in shape which exists solely to pay out fractional interest payments, and can only be exchanged on interest days for the associated coin (groats on groat day, bobhogs on bobhog day, etc)
>a quartershilling is worth a third of a groat, one fifth of a shilling, a tenth of a sixpenny, a quarter of a bobhog, four fifths of a tanner, or an eighth of an eightpence, depending on what day you're exchanging them
>quartershilling interest day is held on every leap year day which falls on a weekend and is traditionally celebrated with a closing of all the shops and a city wide festival, closing with a parade and marching band where people attempt to toss quartershillings into the instruments
>the position of royal sousaphonist is a highly coveted one
>>47197947
You taught me two new words today.
>>47197923
There are various lowkey implications when using certain currencies outside their "official" use.
>paying a Restaurant in Groats
"I think your cooking is so bad that I'm risking the law to tell you to buy better cookingware from the blacksmith"
>Paying a whore in Groat
Invitation as a concubine/mistress. The Groat represents the cost of the marriage ring.
>Paying in Tanners in any place other than the expected
We bros, man. True Fucking Bros. Like, you can marry my sister let's be real bros.
>Sixpennies in a General Store
An insult not just to the store owner, but to the town as a whole.
>>47197931
>The limit to what's reasonable as currency that varies with time in any way is probably coins that you can only spend on certain occasions.
I still think coins which have a greater or only value on their "harvest season" (simplified to one of the four seasons) are a cool idea.
If ' square groats ' were originally a guarantee of being able to buy ten apples, then they would be worth more when people had any apples - in autumn. Therefore square groats would have more value in autumn, even after they become a currency of semi-abstract value. Then Autumn would be abstracted to, say, the period between the Autumn Equinox and the Summer Solstice.
A little ovekill, but fun nonetheless,
Is this whole thread the economic equivalent of the old London underground game where you just named routes and made up silly rules?
>>47198048
>Summer Solstice
* Winter Solstice
>>47197994
Only Groats, Sixpennies, and Tanners are ever used for attempts at forgery.
Fake Groats often ended up exploding, so that stopped pretty quickly.
When word came up of Fake Tanners, weekly mobs rose up hunting down whoever had the gall to deal in Fake Tanners.
Fake Sixpennies are actually more valuable than real ones, because coinbugs can't eat nor copy these. Foreigners rightfully freaked the fuck out over the currency system and decided to only deal with this town in Fake Sixpennies. Unfortunately, there is only one minting machine of Fake Sixpennies, pumping out 1 every third of a month.
>>47197947
Holy shit this is convoluted.
I love it.
>>47183895
Don't use real denominations and just change their value arbitrarily. That's the worst kind of gotcha DMing.
Everyone celebrates a holiday similar to Groundhog Day, only if the Groundhog sees its shadow...
A Groat is worth thirteen shillings instead of twelve.
>>47198048
I would agree that that is a valid approach.
>>47197947
This is simultaneously stupid and detailed enough that I wonder if you're trolling. In case you're not, try to think past the lulz for a moment and consider how this would work in actual use. This is like proposing to introduce critical failures, not merely on skill checks, but on damage rolls. It will bog down and annoy people so much that it wouldn't survive long enough to calculate the less-than-once-a-year variable interest.
>>47198051
Basically, yes.
Can we get a wiki or some shit for this beautiful mess?
>>47198067
During the Winter Solstice or on days so hot that paper left out in the heat spontaneously combusts, 7 Shillings can be converted to 1 Groat at the moneychanger.
On a summer solstice, a 3 Bobhogs can be traded in for 15 autumnpennies, which are worthless during the summer but are worth half a sixpenny during winter. Autumnpennies are only minted in Spring, so shortages are common.
The city has an imageboard, where it costs one shilling to post. If your post has trips or better, you get paid a number of shillings equal to the sum of the numbers in your post.
>>47185679
Liquid cash seems like the best idea. Make it also look exactly like water, and have it be scentless too so you can't distinguish it from water.
>>47198115
I think we ought to archive it on Sup/tg/ before we wiki it.
>>47198067
>Only Groats, Sixpennies, and Tanners are ever used for attempts at forgery.
What the hell stops someone trying to forge a Bobhog? If the forgers are breaking the rules against forging money in the first place, they're hardly going to stop for a second rule against forging bobhogs.
>>47198318
The fact that Bobhogs are notoriously hard to forge and you're only getting two tanners worth of goods for a forged bobhog
>>47198346
> Only Groats, Sixpennies, and Tanners are ever used for attempts at forgery.
> What the hell stops someone trying to forge a Bobhog?
> The fact that Bobhogs are notoriously hard to forge and you're only getting two tanners worth of goods for a forged bobhog
That just raises MORE questions, like explaining the Loch Ness monster by saying it's actually Bigfoot riding a stolen Nazi submarine!
Why is this "make it notoriously hard to forge" technology only applied to half the coins? In particular, why is it applied to some less valuable coins and not to more valuable ones? Why is forging for two tanner's worth of goods not worth it when you've stated that people will forge a tanner, which, just in case the point isn't clear, only gets you one tanner's worth of goods? Why does a forged bobhog not get you a bobhog's worth of goods?
>>47198318
this >>47198346
and they're called Bobhogs for a reason. Rotting pig corpses are involved.
>>47198051
You mean Mornington Crescent?
>>47198288
Nah, not the sum. The digital root.
>>47198403
>explaining the Loch Ness monster by saying it's actually Bigfoot riding a stolen Nazi submarine
This should be another currency.
The "nessie dollar" is not a coin in regular production. Instead, nessie dollars are recovered from the sunken treasure hoards of a lost evil empire. However, the ocean where these treasure hoards are sunk is guarded by giant furry humanoid monsters. They have no civilization, but they will occasionally set to sea on chunks of driftwood or anything else they can get their paws on that floats.
>>47198435
I think it might work a bit better if a "nessie" was any coin so filthy that you can't work out what it's supposed to be even after a cursory rub. They can be exchanged for groats at a 1:100 groat-to-nessie ratio.
Have a Key, a piece of paper with a currency's name followed by a blank.
Have it labeled:
A Groat is Worth:
A Tanner is Worth:
Etc.
Every month a series of riddles shall be posted that result in a number. The riddle one will answer a Groat, riddle two will answer a Tanner, and so on. The only problem is that each riddle will have multiple answers and its your job as a haggler to make the opposition see your way of thinking.
Use this in conjunction with
>>47184045
And
>>47184105
>>47197634
stahp
>>47197947
stahp
>>47198207
what are you doing
>>47198404
plz stahp
>>47198475
okay now this isn't an obtuse and confusing currency system any more, it's a piece of surrealist performance art
--
Everything said in this thread is a pack of lies printed in tourist guides and other information pamphlets. The actual currency used by the locals is decimalised. Groats, voats and scoats only lie around as decoration.
>>47198538
You get a 50% discount if you wear a non-standard but common enough garment in one of those shades of red that only women are physically capable of seeing, but only on tuesdays.
Debates rage to this day on what that shade is and what exactly is considered a non-standard garment in your culture and region.
It's accepted that foreigners will be confused by the currency, and the locals will often go to great lengths to explain how it applies to their own profession, so anyone can trade with anyone just fine, provided they're willing to listen to the excessively convoluted histories of how the system(from the viewpoint of the trader in question) came to be. On tuesdays, however, expressing confusion is considered a blashemy and will, at best, get you chased out of town.
>>47183895
>im making something more complex than it needs to be
>in a world full of bullshit.
>>47198639
Tourist guide:"Okay so todays Tuesday. Best you folks stay inside."
Random tourist group:"WHY?!"
Tourist guide:"and you were such nice people too."
>>47197931
> Meaning that when I trade for a coin, it keeps being a coin and is still just as good as any other coin sometime later and requires no maintenance.
I find you lack of historical materialism disturbing.
Currency is just a tool. We have (had) stable currency only because the ruling class wanted currency to be stable, so as to exploit their hoarded wealth. Not because of some natural law. Should the powers that be demand a change - the change will happen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracteate#Early_medieval_bracteates
> The bracteates were usually called back regularly, about once or twice a year, and could be exchanged for new coins with a deduction (Renovatio Monetae). This system worked like a demurrage: People wouldn't hoard their coins, because they lost their value. So this money was used more as a medium of exchange than for storing value. This increased the velocity of money and stimulated the economy.
Somebody archive this thread. This is a masterpiece.
>>47199042
Please don't, it really isn't.
>>47199042
Please do, it really is.
>>47199002
> I find you lack of historical materialism disturbing.
And I find your exception-based design disturbing. Besides, this is only barely an exception: bracteate exchanges approximate taxes, while >>47197931 was complaining about the more bullshitastic brand of fluctuations.
>>47183895
don't forget that you can add "dead" aswell as foreign currency
for example, you find a dead zweillian merchant in the dungeon, he got 40 crowns, the current zweillian- megadungeoncity exhange rate is 3/5 bobhogs per crown
also, they find a chest in a deep, untouched part of the dungeon, it contains various strange silver and gold pieces, none of which is currently in circulation
>1 Green Groat=12.37 bronze shillings
>1 Bronze Shilling is equal to 1/5th of a sixpenny, or 6/9th of a Wet Bobhog
>A sixpenny is 3/4th of a Dry Bobhog, or 3.2 of a gold shilling
>A Dry Bobhog is 3.83 Young Tanners, or 1/8th of a Royal Groat
>1 Young Tanner is a 2/7th of a Eightpence, or 1 7th Rude
>A halfpenny is worth 2 eightpences
A North River is a Wet Bobhog and 3 Royal Groats, as that was the price for a trip up river 20 years ago
A Wet Boghog is 2 Eightpence and a Sixpenny, since it was the price of a pound of Boghog meat 5 years ago
A North Road is 1 Bronze Shilling and a Halfpenny, the price paid in a myth
A "Handful of ha'pennies" is a 2 Dry Boghogs
For "unclean" services (prostitution, washing, cleaning, hair cutting and digging, serving food) it is customary to pay in Bronze Shillings or Wet Boghogs. To pay with unpaired eightpences or a Dry Bobhog implies the work was subpar (stemming from the belief that unpaired eightpences are lonely and unlucky, while Dry Bobhogs have 9 corners, a "ugly" number), while paying with a 7th Rude is so polite as to be condescending (7th Rudes are commonly referred to as "Duke's Delight"). Change given that includes Young Tanners is a cultural "you're welcome" (they have a picture an ox, a symbol of good health), while a Royal Groat is considered arrogant by the tradesman (he's so wealthy he doesn't have Green Groats).
For "clean" services (food, drink, animal handling, exorcisms or baking, but not serving of the baked goods) it is expected that payment will be done exclusively in 7th Rudes or odd Dry Bobhogs, a Handul of ha'pennies being dismissive (Dry Boghogs are printed in pairs). If your change has any gold shillings or a single sixpenny, they might have a crush on you.
From smallest coin to largest:
>Dry Bobhog
>7th Rude = Bronze Shilling
>Eightpences = Royal Groat
>Young Tanner
>Halfpenny = Green Groat = Gold Shilling
>Sixpenny
>Wet Bobhog
How's that?
>>47183895
Unless your players are really into this, 'humorously' obtuse currency is a pain best left for novels. Alice in Wonderland is fun to read, but it'd be a pain in the ass to play a game in.
>>47199271
> And I find your exception-based design disturbing.
That was my first post here and I don't even understand which of the currency systems you refer to as "exception-based".
> Besides, this is only barely an exception: bracteate exchanges approximate taxes, while >>47197931 was complaining about the more bullshitastic brand of fluctuations.
He was giving hideously incorrect definition of currency. He claimed it must have stable value. This is explicitly wrong.
Currency is a specific exchange medium. That's it. That's what defines it. That's its only true purpose. It is irrelevant how hard or rapid the currency's value fluctuates. It is still currency. It is still money.
>>47199497
JAGS Wonderland begs to differ.
>To pay for goods with coins including three sixpennies is considered a feminine way to complement the quality of the products
>A single sixpenny on one's person is considered to keep away monsters and evil spirits. Some people wear one on a string around their necks.
>>47199852
>But to wear a single sixpenny on a neck without a bobhog on their belt is to draw a terrible luck or a curse on oneself.
>However, if one pairs a single sixpenny with an eightpence on a wrist, said curse will befall one's worst enemy.
>But if it's the wrong wrist, then it's a sign that one intends to use services of a prostitute.
>Which wrist is a proper one is a subject of debate.
>>47200904
>But if it's the wrong wrist, then it's a sign that one intends to use services of a prostitute.
>Which wrist is a proper one is a subject of debate.
H-how does that even happen?
>>47183895
am i the only one thinking this is stupid as all fuck?
>>47201712
No, but you're the only one thinking its unfunny.
In "Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon" by Cyrano de Bergerac, Moon inhabitants use poems as a currency, I didn't read it though, so I don't know how it work exactly.
>>47184713
No. But the kingdom doesn't either
>>47198403
>That just raises MORE questions
Then it's perfect, isn't it?
Did OP ever post the completed list?
Not much I can do to help with that idea. in my games. friends and I simply renamed the Copper, Silver and Gold pieces. to Chits, Kaers and Fuqs. if a player was broke he can literally say they got no (shits cares or fucks to give)
>>47183895
money enters the complex plane
i.e a groat is 3 sixpennies and i*5 tanners
all cashiers need a university maths degree with a heavy emphasis on complex analysis
>>47209302
concepts as currency
You can slot a demi-thurmble into a thurmble to make a one-and-a-quarter thurmble. There are little locking clasps to make this easier. If you want to be a real asshole to someone, pay them in thurmbles, but bend the clasps.
A Parthulian fifth Mint Mark (also known as a Malarky) fits into the central hole of a thurmble to make what the lower classes call a Markule. Markules are seen as something fancy gang leaders use to show off their wide-ranging criminal networks, and commonly trade at one Young Tanner to three Markules.
>>47210804
Now the Parthulians also use a spherical "coin" carved from a particular rock formation in the centre of their kingdom. They're called Kings Marbles. It's a pretty distinct blue colour with beautiful veins of blue and white. Since prisoners are traditionally involved in the carving and polishing of the stones, rumours of them smuggling the coins out of the gaol have given the coin other, less polite, names. "Arse-bandits delights", "Fancier's Friends", or "Catamite Eyes" are worth a shilling at the official exchange rate, or one and one half sixpence on the black market.
A Midsummer p'farthing is only legal tender in a few villages between the summer solstice and the "first fallen leaf", usually three months later. It's apparently some sort of religious tradition, but it's also a great way of cheating foreigners out of their hard-earned cash. As new p'farthings are printed every year, the old ones are only so much paper once autumn begins and conventional currency returns to use.
Model the conversion factors as a connected directed weighted graph, as pictured. If you follow an arrow from one coin to another, it means "an x is worth n ys", as in, on this particular graph, "a shilling is worth two eightpence".
Bonus: randomize the edges and weights daily.
Double bonus: make it so the conversion factors are one-way; for instance, on this graph, you could convert five sixpennies into a shilling, but not the other way around.
Diabolical bonus: make your players pay in exact change in the coin listed for the price of things, and go to the bank to exchange their coins to another type (if they can today) for a fee.
Using a graph to model the exchange rates makes it easy to be both consistent and knowledgeable about what the exchange rates are today.
>>47211728
*convert a sixpenny into five shillings
herf derf
Since all of this culture is too confusing for the simple minds of other areas not under the rule of the kingdom, the kingdom has begun the setting up of Coin Schools.
Coin Schools are a cross between a College specialising in coinage and a Nunnery.
Those who are initiated into the School/Sect are bound to study there for no less than 1/3 of their lifetime. For this reason if they graduate they are only allowed to live to twice the time they were enrolled.
Upon their release they often travel to the city outskirts or even into other regions, taking up work with bankers, royals, towns, anyone who might need help understanding the rich tapestry of the kingdom's coinage.
(un)Fortunately, the Coin Schools each specialise in one type of coinage, and only that type of coinage.
What this effectively means is that each graduate should be able to tell you the history and conversion rate of the coin they have learnt. But only that coin and only in one direction i.e. A Coin Scholar (CoSch) of the Shilling can tell you how many Shillings go into a Bobhog and why, but not how many Shillings a Bobhog can buy or why. To do so is heresy and punishable by death or whatever death-causing punishment the relevant Coin Schools agree to.
>>47184105
>>47184140
one day every seven years the shifting values wind up at (or near) zero, and every debtor repays their creditor.
Shops just close up on that day, and everyone parties.
>>47214774
>cue a homocidal several months of people hunting down debtors for their cash before everything goes to shit and 80% of the population goes bankrupt
>>47215055
Nah, it's a weird city of fantasy npcs. They just deal with it and are confused when the pcs don't act like it's perfectly normal.
but yeah you could have the purge, I guess.
>>47183895
For what purpose? Trade must be in such a way that it is understood by those participating in it. Just have the normal, historical fluctuations of minting changing all the time, with new coins, old coins, clipped coins, foreign coins, etc. Go read Spice and Wolf.
>>47199365
This is going to be the money system of my greedy dwarf kingdom. Thank you.
>>47186278
It's a status thing. Like a diamond ring, either a flagrant waste of money or alternatively a sign that you've been rewarded personally by the Queen.
It's also proof of your bond, because at any time yes you COULD just turn it in for an Imperial much like you could pawn your wedding ring. Keeping it shows you value that bond, more than a coin that is worth as much as the Emperor says it's worth.
Anyways, the rest of it is just fiat currency in a microcosm with some weird rules randomly thrown in because of culture like special coinage for festivals or realpolitek where the Emperor has the most power so he can set his coinage exchange rate to whatever the fuck he wants.
>>47200989
Laws against handing money to a prostitute so you use your wrist coin, and taboos for using the hand you wipe yourself with but prostitution also being seen as dirty.
>>47218006
>so he can set his coinage exchange rate to whatever the fuck he wants.
That's going to be ignored in a hurry. If he claims a coin is worth twice of what the metal content supports, then watch all the prices double.
>>47218006
As added complication, some couples might cut their Rose in half and wear them as pendants, putting them together being a proof of their love.
These Rose Hips are considered of much greater value as cutting a Rose is difficult, but good luck finding someone legitimate to buy it off of you, because having both halves is either disgraceful (particularly bad divorce/proof of cheating) or evidence (that you wrongfully obtained the Rose Hips form their original owners) and most legitimate converters want nothing to do with it. Having the Empress convert it is right out of the question.
>>47217105
>Trade must be in such a way that it is understood by those participating in it.
>"What do you MEAN I owe $350 if I cancel my cell service?! I didn't even know I was IN a contract!"
Obfuscating the entire ramifications of a given transaction is as old as trade.
>>47217808
Glad you liked it. I feel that the 7th Rude is the masterstroke, what with all the fractions.
>>47219229
I actually got out of a cell contract by saying that I was going to be putting on my uniform and fighting overseas.
In truth I was going to visit family in Germany and play some Battlefield.
Okay that was a lie I've never been abroad in my life, but they believed me.
>>47183895
>>47209432
The characters in the comic True Swamp use city names as currency.
