Currency in a POL setting

[ZappoHisbane]

... or, Where are all these gold pieces coming from?

I really like the concept of a POL setting as it sounds like great fun to both run and play in. However, the one thing that's really straining my disbelief factor is the issue of currency. Now, I'm perfectly fine with there being a lack of 'Ye Olde Magick Shoppe' franchises everywhere. Especially since we've done away with the Xmas tree effect, I can live with adventurers getting most of their nifty stuff via looting and whatnot. However I still want to be able to get paid for clearing out the barkeep's basement of rats, and not just in free room & board for a couple of nights. I'd also want to take that payment and be able to spend it in the next town or two over.

Any thoughts? How do we rationalize the existance of a common currency without there being an overall government or nation providing that currency?

 

[Cabled]

... or, Where are all these gold pieces coming from?

I really like the concept of a POL setting as it sounds like great fun to both run and play in. However, the one thing that's really straining my disbelief factor is the issue of currency. Now, I'm perfectly fine with there being a lack of 'Ye Olde Magick Shoppe' franchises everywhere. Especially since we've done away with the Xmas tree effect, I can live with adventurers getting most of their nifty stuff via looting and whatnot. However I still want to be able to get paid for clearing out the barkeep's basement of rats, and not just in free room & board for a couple of nights. I'd also want to take that payment and be able to spend it in the next town or two over.

Any thoughts? How do we rationalize the existance of a common currency without there being an overall government or nation providing that currency?

It comes from all ages, from every empire that once rose and has now fallen, as well as any number of local lords minting thier own coins. Before the rise of powerful, stable governments in the modern era (or a few in the ancient eras), money had value because it was made from valuable things, like precious metals and gems, not because of some confidence people had in a government's ability to honor its debts. The same goes on here...it is valuable because it is GOLD..not because it is any particular person/empire/merchant guild's gold. Though some of those institutions might exist, and issue trade notes valued at different rates in different places based on the receiver's idea of how valuable the word of that institution is, the raw standard of wealth is gems and precious metals, which have an inherent value.

 

[FadedC]

The existence of a unniversal currency has always been one of those unrealistic things about D&D that most people just accept. Not only do gold pieces work in every culture and every continent, but they generally work in other planes of existance too. It's silly, but the POL setting doesn't really make it any more silly.

The only way to somewhat justify it is of course that these are GOLD pieces, and supposedly gold is valuable everywhere. They might be coins from completely different cultures but everyone sitll accepts them because they are made of gold. Of course realistically different cultures would use different amounts of gold altering the value, but again that's one of those things tha is usually happily swept under the rug. No reason why your campaign couldn't go into that much detail if you really wanted to though.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

The existence of a unniversal currency has always been one of those unrealistic things about D&D that most people just accept. Not only do gold pieces work in every culture and every continent, but they generally work in other planes of existance too. It's silly, but the POL setting doesn't really make it any more silly.

The only way to somewhat justify it is of course that these are GOLD pieces, and supposedly gold is valuable everywhere. They might be coins from completely different cultures but everyone sitll accepts them because they are made of gold. Of course realistically different cultures would use different amounts of gold altering the value, but again that's one of those things tha is usually happily swept under the rug. No reason why your campaign couldn't go into that much detail if you really wanted to though.

I don't see anything wrong with there being a more-or-less universal system of weights and measures, and that money is based on some weight from that system. Given the implied history, the system could be based on an imperial standard, and so every gold coin minted since that empire existed would be weighed on that basis.

Also, don't forget that when you use gold as a currency, it's handy to melt it down into ingots for easy transport, then cut slices or mint new coins when it reaches its destination. Gold is valued by weight, and it doesn't matter what it looks like.

 

[Irda Ranger]

Huh? Gold is gold by weight. It's a universal currency by its very nature as a rare element that can neither be created nor destroyed. It doesn't matter if you use Dwarven links or Elven sliphs. Unless you're trying to sell some rare coinage to a collector, it's just weight on the scales.

The idea of "the gold piece" is abstract. If your game is in the Forgotten Realms your PC may actually find "thirty-three Double Eagles (currency of Baldur's Gate)" which is worth exactly eight s.p. (not ten). Do the math and those 33 coins are worth 26.4 Cormyrian Lions (the "standard" g.p. of the Dalelands and Western Heartlands) simply as a result in difference by weight. Most DM's just don't bother with this level of detail though.

I think your conceptual problem arises from the fact that you think fiat money (the kind issued by a central government) is the only kind of money there is. That is not the case. There are many, many kinds of money. D&D-world has settled on gold, and even the real world could go back to using gold as money under the right circumstances.

 

[WyzardWhately]

The existence of a unniversal currency has always been one of those unrealistic things about D&D that most people just accept. Not only do gold pieces work in every culture and every continent, but they generally work in other planes of existance too. It's silly, but the POL setting doesn't really make it any more silly.

The only way to somewhat justify it is of course that these are GOLD pieces, and supposedly gold is valuable everywhere. They might be coins from completely different cultures but everyone sitll accepts them because they are made of gold. Of course realistically different cultures would use different amounts of gold altering the value, but again that's one of those things tha is usually happily swept under the rug. No reason why your campaign couldn't go into that much detail if you really wanted to though.

Because almost every civilization with the wherewithal to put mines and mints together uses the standard used by the ancient empire of Bael Turath, whose currency was spread far and wide and became nearly universal. The incredibly precisely cast weights, crafted of precious adamantine so that they could never be easily altered or forged, have been passed down through generation upon generation of merchants and jewelers. They ring unchanged against merchant's scales to this day when coins must be weighed or measured. This is the true legacy of that dark era, which will stand long after their last tower has fallen into ruin.

[And since they had truck with the devils themselves, it's not too great a leap to believe that they might have set their standard according to some scheme set up by the more Lawful planar powers. In fact, there might be an adventure seed here. Perhaps one of the noble families that first turned tiefling was in fact the house of Bael Turath that had the patent for running the Mint. Somewhere out there is the devil that personally passed on to them the standard currently used in nearly every nation on the earth...and IT knows the location of that House's secret hoard, unknown to its contemporaries and now forgotten to all mortal races. But still, under endlessly burning magical lights, glitter those perfect first coins, the wealth of an empire yet un-looted.]

 

[Lackhand]

Someone with a greater knowledge can correct me if I'm wrong, but chiming in: The reason gold gets stamped into coins with famous emperors heads stamped on them is to guarantee the weight of the coin.

This is why forgery was occasionally punished by death; it was essentially treason, falsifying the king's word. Common methods of gaming the system involved shaving or clipping bits off of coins, so that you could make (say) 51 gold coins from a pound of gold, using impure additives to make the volume match up. It eventually caught on as a good idea at the national level, when the need to measure wealth outstripped the ability (or desire) to produce actual ingots of ore.

So coinage in a POL setting can be both reasonable and interesting. Perhaps there are a small number of individuals (heros) who sponsor their own coinage, enforcing its value with their own good names? Perhaps the larger cities still have mints, and honor each others coinage by weight alone? Perhaps fallen empires leave behind bales of the stuff; dwarven city-states make the stuff, temples commission the stuff...

Just view the coins as specie, not currency.

 

[Irda Ranger]

Because almost every civilization with the wherewithal to put mines and mints together uses the standard used by the ancient empire of Bael Turath, whose currency was spread far and wide and became nearly universal. The incredibly precisely cast weights, crafted of precious adamantine so that they could never be easily altered or forged, have been passed down through generation upon generation of merchants and jewelers. They ring unchanged against merchant's scales to this day when coins must be weighed or measured. This is the true legacy of that dark era, which will stand long after their last tower has fallen into ruin.

Stolen.

As my added bit of flavor:

Throughout the centuries a few less than honorable souls have tried to alter the weights and measures that came into their possession. These attempts always resulted in the death of the forger. Although no magic can be detected on their adamantine surface, it is suspected that the cruel and ancient masters of Bhael Turath enacted a great and lasting curse on each weight forged, one that would ensure the correct accounting of their currency through the end of the last Age of the world.

Of equal value are the Dwarven Scales. Their manufacture is one of the Dwarven race's great secrets; one they will not divulge for any reason. The magic and value of the scales is that they will weigh only the true gold (or silver) placed upon them, and discount the weight of all baser metals to nothing. Many of these Scales have been created over the centuries, and they assure that leadeners do not escape the notice (or justice) of merchant leagues for long.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

I think I would actually enjoy not having a universal currency, and using trade goods between locations and local marks of credit within them. (One currency system I always enjoyed was the one used in Anne McCaffrey's Pern novels. The money was small chits stamped with the mark of a guild and honored between guilds. There were occasionally comments indicating that some guilds had a stronger or more stable Mark than others.) If you want a universal currency, my suggestion would be to rename the Gold Piece the Silver Piece. Silver has an objective and fairly universal value in the magical world of D&D, from it's use in spells and utility against various dangerous critters. Don't even bother minting it into coins, just have a pea sized piece of silver be a "gp". (You could even call the unit of currency "peas" )

 

[WyzardWhately]

Someone with a greater knowledge can correct me if I'm wrong, but chiming in: The reason gold gets stamped into coins with famous emperors heads stamped on them is to guarantee the weight of the coin.

This is why forgery was occasionally punished by death; it was essentially treason, falsifying the king's word. Common methods of gaming the system involved shaving or clipping bits off of coins, so that you could make (say) 51 gold coins from a pound of gold, using impure additives to make the volume match up. It eventually caught on as a good idea at the national level, when the need to measure wealth outstripped the ability (or desire) to produce actual ingots of ore.

So coinage in a POL setting can be both reasonable and interesting. Perhaps there are a small number of individuals (heros) who sponsor their own coinage, enforcing its value with their own good names? Perhaps the larger cities still have mints, and honor each others coinage by weight alone? Perhaps fallen empires leave behind bales of the stuff; dwarven city-states make the stuff, temples commission the stuff...

Just view the coins as specie, not currency.

To be fair, they punished all KINDS of stuff with death back in the day.

The best reason to use "real" gold is that it's reliable. Problems of time and distance arise if you want to sail across the sea or last centuries. Empires fall, and your name might be worth nothing on the other side of the world. Real gold is forever and everywhere. Representative money only works as far as your influence extends.