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Old 04-27-2021, 08:44 PM   #12
The Colonel
 
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Join Date: Jul 2006
Default Re: Grain-based local currencies in medieval fantasy games

Quote:
Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
It's certainly an interesting concept, a step removed from barter. It ultimately means that, if the party does work for or otherwise engages in trade with such a community, they basically have their payment be in the form of goods and services rather than cash. The advantage (in terms of roleplaying) of such a system over more typical cash economies is the characters need to be clever about what they ultimately leave with - general-use money isn't an option. The advantage over a bartering economy is they don't have to play a fetch-quest to get what they want - the shepherd gives you local currency you can use to buy whatever it is you need (or whatever is more generally fungible in the world at large, if the town doesn't have anything you need), rather than needing to trade the bale of wool he gives you for a crate of eggs that you then trade for a carpenter's services, which you then trade for the armorer to repair your weapons.
This, to my mind, is the main problem with it for standard fRGPs - the same degree of realism that would bring this sort of currency into the game, would tend to imply that there's very little in the community that a passing adventurer would want: any community likely to be host to armourers, swordsmiths and the like is almost certainly at the city level or above and unlikely to be receptive to a local grains scrip.
Also, does anyone else find that there's a feeling of push-back against even as much realism as national currencies in the RPG scene at the moment? Like languages and encumbrance, I get the feeling that immersive currency is being downrated as "not fun"...
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