Large variance of SMs together

[Apollonian]

Originally Posted by Armin

I can't even fathom how commerce would work without extensive magic. Human coins would be too huge for faeries to use, and too tiny for titans to use.

With extensive magic, either every coin is a magic item that sizes itself, or perhaps everyone uses counter checks written on resizing paper.

Unless people tend only to deal with others of similar sizes. Faeries only do daily commerce with Faeries, titans with titans. The middle groups can probably get by with human sized coins. Faeries and titans could deal in bulk from the mid-folks, where transactions would be in large enough quantities for larger coins/bars to work, or banker-level transactions.

There's a lot of issues the more you think about the situation. Groups that cohabitate but don't interact much is much easier to comprehend.

Sounds like an opening for a money-changing profession. I expect letters of credit and accounts to be a lot more common - instead of carrying a lot of cash, you have accounts with your usual vendors and settle up every so often. Of course, illicit transactions get a lot more difficult since the trust isn't there, and people on the down and out or with a bad reputation are also up a creek.

[Dalin]

Originally Posted by Armin

I can't even fathom how commerce would work without extensive magic. Human coins would be too huge for faeries to use, and too tiny for titans to use.

I'm not sure about how cash would work, but I can easily imagine faeries producing commodities that might be in high demand. Pixie dust would be the prototypical item, but they might also produce other highly concentrated magical dusts and potions. Perhaps some sort of spice (e.g., faerie saffron) or drug (e.g., faerie snuff), too.

Faeries may not want cash in payment. Or, if they do, perhaps they vanish it in a poof and the big folks aren't quite sure where it goes. If they don't want cash, they may have bizarre payments required that rarely make sense to others, but scale in difficulty with the desired product. This could be a great source of mini-quests in the game: "I'll give you a gram of pixie dust, but I need a silver whisker from the oldest rat in the sewers..."*

Because of their inherently magical and whimsical nature, I can imagine the faerie side of the size scale more easily than the titan side.

* Ok, now I'm thinking about the gargantuan sewers required to deal with titanic waste...

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Fairies would make great micro-surgeons.

[Apollonian]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

The ideas are vague but I wanted to solve the logistics issue before trying to worry about extra issues that can crop up from racial differences (for instance, there might be a race that talks using Mind Sending instead of voice). Really, a place where a SM -6 faerie, a SM +0 human, and a SM +6 titan can live together is the crux of this, since the intermediate sizes would be less of an issue.

Can you give some details on the titans? As the extreme example on the large end, they're going to shape much of the city with their needs. For example: how much do they weigh, on average? How much do they eat, if they eat? How much do they excrete? Ent-like titans are going to be quite different from scaled-up humanoids, sapient golems, or sky whales.

[Flyndaran]

+6 SM is larger than T rexes. Their every step will shake human buildings let alone pixie homes.
I suggest "cartoon logic". Only intentional use of size based abilities matter. Or if it matters for plot or humor. Drunk giants being a clear and present danger, for example.

[Phantasm]

I agree with Flyndaran's points. As a size reference, each Titan's bed will be as large as a rural high school football field; a studio/efficiency apartment would be larger than the SuperDome! A mansion (or castle or even keep, if still medieval) built for Titans would be several square miles in floor space; if they build up as well as out, their mansions would be skyscrapers. This is why I don't normally make my giants anywhere close to SM +6; most are SM +3, with some at the low end of +4, and notes that they take up A LOT of space. Most of my giants are herdsmen, raising elephants and brontos.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by Dalin

It could be something like when the original council of nine formed, they created a pact that the city would be built for all. Maybe it only applies to civic buildings, but that set the tone for the larger culture. There should be some cool history about why the nine races chose to (or were forced to) form an alliance back in the beginning.

This is a cool idea for me to think on. It lines up with some of the history I know, since this is the only settlement even capable of such a feat. Any other
major city will be much smaller, often without the capability of mixing too many sizes together, and not even being called a city, due to how scary and crazy the wilds are. The nine long ago probably did this out of necessity, thinking it was the only way to survive, and everyone working together found a way to have the equivalent of a modern major city in nomadic times.

Originally Posted by Armin

With extensive magic, either every coin is a magic item that sizes itself, or perhaps everyone uses counter checks written on resizing paper.

There are a few solutions I had about money, but a fellow worldbuilder I know had something that makes sense for this; "Money" is some sort of detail inherit to the person. For instance, lets say you want to buy a loaf of bread. You go up to the merchant, make the exchange, then your money number goes down and the merchant goes up by 1. It would be like a money card but even more extreme; how much money you have would be etched onto or be a part of who you are.

The coin size-changing is a cool idea, with money automatically changing size to whoever is carrying it.

Originally Posted by Apollonian

Can you give some details on the titans? As the extreme example on the large end, they're going to shape much of the city with their needs. For example: how much do they weigh, on average? How much do they eat, if they eat? How much do they excrete? Ent-like titans are going to be quite different from scaled-up humanoids, sapient golems, or sky whales.

Right now, I have two ideas;
Humans (with some small other details, I know they have a rough blue skin) but scaled up exactly to ten times height (which is an extreme thousand times bulk, if I'm cubing correctly). This would give them even more strength than Gurps would suggest, since I imagine them able to do things like carry another titan.
As above, but "amphibious" with a tentacle, squid or octopus lower body. However, I'm not certain I like this idea and it would further fan out the width of the largest race, making it even more difficult for them to be here.

I do like the "cartoon logic" approach. I also am pretty sure there won't be a problem with "drunk giants" because I'm pretty I won't have alcohol exist.

I was worried a bit about ratios. I could work backwards, figuring out how many titans exist, then using their combined weight divided among each race to figure out how many of each live together. That would give a huge amount of faeries compared to the other races, though.

[Flyndaran]

Even with cartoon light logic, you don't need them to weigh what realistic giants would. They'd need god-level strength to lift each other otherwise.

A human scaled up 10 times would have 1/10th the strength per pound. So to lift each other as easily humans lift each other, they'd have to be 10 times as strong as even semi-realistic titans would be.

That's pretty extreme.

[Culture20]

Originally Posted by Armin

I can't even fathom how commerce would work without extensive magic. Human coins would be too huge for faeries to use, and too tiny for titans to use.

All you need is an agreed shared valuable tradable thing. But “thing” doesn’t have to be physical. There was a sci-fi story a while back about people trading lifespans as currency in an overpopulated world. In a medieval world, people might use favors, souls, fatigue, or jaunty tunes. Favors work well for a debt system, allowing people to owe favors outpacing their ability to repay. Souls might work for a dark world, especially if you need a durable thing that can’t be created on a whim (like a favor)

[Flyndaran]

Coins really could work seeing as how everything a giant could want or do would be of massive value and the reverse for tiny pixies.
A meal, a hat, an 8 hour work shift, etc.