Monetary Systems for Alternate Dimensions with low to medium tech/magic:
Roll a 3d10 to get a number from '3' to '30':
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3-There are sixteen different types of barter chits to use. If one has a cow, then you take four 'animal' chits, and try to trade them for chits that represent what you want. This chit system allows you to avoid having to carry a bushel of corn, or tote a cow through market. The chit represents that good. All goods in this fairly primitive society are divided into limited number of typed. Sumer had sixteen chit types.
4-Three chit types: Plantfood, animal, and clothing are used in this simpler barter system.
5-Time Hours are banked by someone agreeing to serve an hour in exchange for them being able to require the service of another who owes an hour to the bank. This is a more egalitarian system than money as everyone has only so much time, and thus the price paid to experts is much closer to the price paid to non-experts.
6-Pounds of Pepper are used in some medieval society as payment.
7-Salt is more common as it is neccessary for life.
8-Koku is a unit of rice production used in feudal Japan, and elsewhere in the Multiverse such as on the Planet Oleander in the Psyclone Station setting.
9-Copper, tin, lead shekels with barley as 'small change' has been done with the richer sort using silver shekels and rings.
10-Leather branded Triangles with some group symbol hard to make are one method.
11-Baked pottery 'wheels' with a rattle inside it are used by some cultures. If the wheel is damaged or the rattle is let out, then the wheel has no value.
12-Glass beads are a popular choice. Some hi-tech societies use holographic storage beads for a similar purpose. This can be to trade with less sophisticated peoples, or as the primary money since it can be made very hard to copy.
13-The Roman Denarii is worth one day's wages for the common laborer.
14-The Deben is an Egyptian money that weighs in at three ounces. For larger amounts of money, it can be found in short rods.
15-Silver shekels: A shekel is a nugget weighing close to 1/3rd of an ounce. Their use is very common. Gold and other shekels are used as well.
16-Silver coins (For example: Denarii, Lancaster Marks, Francs, Silver Pennies, Gleams, Silver Pieces, Silver Eagles, and JFK Half-dollars).
17-Paper Fiat Money. This money is given value by the statement of the government, and by its legally being legal tender. (For example: Pounds, Dollars, Rubles, Newbucks, and Yen.)
18-Gold Redeemable Dollars/Pounds/Yen/Bolivars. You can take your paper dollar (or other note) and take it to a bank, and ask for and receive the fixed amount that that dollar is worth by definition.
19-State Dollars. Individual States, Provinces, and Regions have their own monies.
20-Private banks are able to print their own dollars, and these dollars are backed by the wealth of the principal owner.
21-Company scrip has been used in many company towns.
22-Cowrie shells are clipped, and put on a string as a method of storing wealth. Sometimes these necklaces are a hundred long, and the money is stored by hangin it under the owner's arm.
23-Cigarrettes can be the basis of a monetary sytem.
24-Time Hours are a local currency where local businessmen are contracted to accept them. This is a method for an oppressed community which has its skill underutilized since the regular national currency has been sucked out of the community.
25-Clean drinking water.
26-Sealed drinking alcohol is one form of money to many.
27-Chocolate can be used in cold climates.
28-Ounces of various types of dye with royal purple being the most valued.
29-Ounces of Saffron and Yards of silk form the basis of this monetary system.
30- As on the Isles of Yap, giant stone circles and cut out, and made to serve as money. These circles are usually placed in front of a house. They might not be moved even when spent. Instead, ownership is verbally transferred.
Good list; I've a couple notes.
The denarius had buying power equivalent to about $20; on the other hand, a day laborer was not expected to have many bills and did not eat at restaurants generally.
Somewhere between fiat money and gold-redeemable money there lies a wealth of monies backed by something else. The most significant is probably the Confederate Dollar, which was backed by the cotton in warehouses--which is why the Union blockaded the ports and burned the city (Atlanta? memory is failing me), thus destroying the economy.
You should at least give nod to the company store model--although there was money, railroad workers were extended credit to buy goods through the company store, paid out of their paychecks. The punchline of the song Sixteen Tons ("I owe my soul to the company store") reflects the fact that workers usually spent more than they earned, and thus they never saw any cash.
It occurs to me that from one perspective that's very like a socialist system: as long as the worker promises to keep working, the company/government allows him to draw food and goods on credit to be paid from his future labor.
I conclude that no one in your house is a smoker, by virtue of the fact that you don't know how to spell "cigarettes". Hey, I wish I didn't know how to spell it, either. My impression is that this is only really common in prison populations and isolated military posts, where cigarettes are difficult to get and a lot of people are addicted. That suggests that you could use any addictive drug similarly--coffee/caffeine at the top of the list, but a long list of what we would call illicit drugs as well.
You missed the creditos system of Brazil. This evolved from "merchant faires". In essence, it was originally a barter system in which someone sponsored a gathering of merchants and craftsman who had goods to trade, and who traded with each other on a barter/haggling basis. The bartering was streamlined by the introduction of "creditos", slips of paper which participating merchants could give in exchange for the goods of other participating merchants. (I'm not certain how these were initially issued, given that the desire is of course to go home having sold your own goods and acquired those of others.) Over time the various faires became established institutions, so merchants not at the faires would accept creditos for goods or even services when the faires were not in session, in the expectation that they could redeem them for goods at the next faire; faires began accepting each others' creditos for much the same reason, and a board was created to oversee the system, and some faires began permitting services to participate (a creditos for a haircut) within certain limits. It thus evolved into a cash system, but it is backed entirely by the agreement of the participants.
It is reminiscent of the Holland tulip bulb bubble, when people were paying hundreds of dollars for tulip bulbs as an investment, until the bottom fell out of the market. I keep reminding people who want to go back on the gold standard that the only reason "precious metals" are "precious" is because people want them, and thus they have not much more value than strips of paper, since what gives money its value is always that people want it.
That's more than I expected to write, but I hope it's helpful.
--M. J. Young
1. Ok. $20....
2. Only so much space on the list, and there really is a huge amount of variety in human finance, but I think I can at least fit a cotton backed dollar.
3. #21....
4. I've got minor, very minor asthma, and I probably would never have married a smoker. No, there are no smokers around here.
4b. I think cigs got used in post-war Europe too..but I can blend it with some other things....just saw on the History channel today about people using 'shine as money which is #26.
5. I didn't actually miss it. I skipped it feeling I didn't have enough knowledge. Now you've given me enough.
6. I did consider after finishing it a Tulip based currency because I think that happened sorta for a while. Of course it would be a massive financial bubble...but that should occasionally happen to versers...you arrive and the first person you meet is a taxidriver who tries to sell you on his new stock for a dot.com....
Its certainly helpful.
I was wondering if I needed to increase the level of detail (kinda like you have the list of values and coins for Denarii in Graeme's game) for this to be useful to other gamemasters.
I am a smoker, and I can say with certainty that cigarettes would be worth their weight in gold in some societies. I've been to the point where I would have sold my grandmother into slavery for a carton of cigarettes. Good list, but I don't see the general effects odds curve of it. It would have the same statistical odds as a GE roll, so 3 should be amazingly good, and 30 amazingly bad, and so on. I personally would put the precious metals and gems at the 3 side of the scale (they could be used in other universes) and the more worthless currencies at the 30 side of the scale. That's just my two bits on it though.
John - I got the impression that this table was designed to reflect the actual probabilities of running across these systems rather than to act as a GE roll based on players' wishes. With this kind of set-up, you want the weirdest/least likely on 3 and 30, the most normal/likely on 16 and 17, and the merely uncommon filling in the gaps. Of course, if you as a referee wanted a GE roll, you could easily re-arrange the results on the table to reflect your player's hopes and fears - much more easily than Eric could anticipate the unique situation at your gaming table at home.
William's right, although toward the end my path of logic kinda disintegrated. BTW, the end points were some of the ones I filled in first along with the midpoints,a nd then I worked out from there on both sides.
Eric
Thanks for endorsing the Cig Standard,also.
Eric
Good points by both of you. I see your point now, and it does make good sense, put in those terms. I'm still not so used to this game setup, so bear with me if I seem ignorant or downright stupid at times.
And yes, to someone who is hopelessly addicted to cigarettes, they would make excellent trade items. The other thing to consider though is that in some situations, gold, silver, and diamonds would be worthless, and things like cans of beef stew and blankets would be far more valuable. I mean think about it. You come to me cold, tired, and hungry, and wanting to trade. Which would you rather have? A can of stew and a warm blanket, or a nice, shiny, worthless piece of gold? I didn't look at the list closely enough to see if that was covered on it, but you see what I'm saying.
I'm still not so used to this game setup, so bear with me if I seem ignorant or downright stupid at times.
Nah, you're fine. I saw the three-to-thirty spread and I started assuming the same thing. When I noticed that the result for 4 was a lot simpler and more convenient (to my mind) than the one for 3, I was confused for a moment until I remembered a table I saw in the First Book of Worlds that was arranged this same way. Whenever you needed a random person out the group of non-player characters, you rolled on the table; the people on the ends were those least likely to be involved in the random events (the leaders), and the ones in the middle were the most commonly used (the grunts). Having already seen a table arranged a different way made it easier to drop the GE-roll assumption.
You should become a teacher Scott. I think you would be good at it.
Do you see the point I'm making about the beef stew and blankets vs gold and silver? That's something I was thinking about the other day. During the Y2K scare, I stocked up on guns and ammo, when I should have been stocking up on food. I mean what was I planning to do? Hold up the grocery store with my assault rifle????????? Thank God nothing happened, I would have been screwed.
John,
Its fine.
I'm not sure my table is flexible enough to take in a post-apocalyptic scenario....perhaps I could.
I do definitely see your point.
Let me make a different point: One I've made probably a dozen times before. Multiverser NEEDS a vast array of worlds, data, tables, charts for all the variant possibilities. 18 worlds plus a fifteen or so Placeholder sketches is not nearly enough.
So...Why don't you make a GE chart for say..."Items I'd like to find if I landed in Post-Apocalyptic Worlds." Make it broad enough that it could be useful in a bio-plague doom, or an asteroid strike, or just general collapse of morality and civilization leading to anarchy.
A '3' could be a can opener and a '30' could be a bank bag full of thousand dollar bills with a paint bomb still functioning or whatever.
Interested?
Eric
Personally, I'm more comfortable coming up with things on the fly than writing out a random chart in advance, or even using someone else's chart that they've written out in advance. If I made use of your monetary-system chart, I wouldn't ever roll on it; I'd use it as a handy list of possibilities, an idea-chart to glance at right before I made a snap decision.
That's a style thing, I think. I'm sure there are tons of gamers who would love to have a 180-page alphabetized workbook full of tables and charts for the random generation of everything from social-political systems to "what did I just find in this hobo's pocket?" People who learned on 1st Edition AD&D, for example, are probably quite comfortable with that approach to play. I grew up on 1st Edition Gamma World, which was so rules-sparse you practically had to grow wings before you could run it, and my primary referee approached gaming as an opportunity to weave stories in front of a captive audience; my inclinations have always been away from random tables and toward referee fiat and reliance on native imagination.
Native imagination has its limits, though. I'd be more inclined to use a random table for "Things I Run Across in a Post-Apocalyptic Scenario" if the results were more abstract - 12, "Something that can be re-purposed to be applicable to the current problem," 14, "a tool or supply that might be useful later on, but not now," 16/17, "junk, possibly salvageable for raw material," 19, "utterly and obviously worthless," 21, "seemingly useful but will only waste time and resources," 5, "completely resolves current troubles," 3, "the perfect find: completely solves current troubles and arms against the future," 28, "immediate and unexpected mortal peril" 30, "immediate and unexpected mortal peril which cannot be fully escaped, those who survive are heavily disadvantaged/still in lesser peril," . . . that kind of thing. Possibly with two or three separate columns for examples. Example column B is "Party turns down blind alley while pursued by mutant thugs in Neo-Detroit," column C is "Starving character opens black garbage bag," and column D is "leader of human survivors against the zombie hordes cautiously searches an abandoned home."
I think I might write that one up, actually.
Interested in writing it, yes. Do I think I have the ability to? Not Really. Let me give it some thought.
The thing there is that to me, a 17 would be "Junked out car with a half tank of gas" What else is in the car? Or should I write up a list of things that would be in the car? If it is a post-apocalyptic scenario, what you would want most would be weapons and food, obviously. I think I might write a list of weapons you would find in such a scenario. I think that would be much easier. A 17 would be "A 2x4 with nails in it" a 3 or 30 would be "Heavy military armament of some sort" Perhaps I will write that out.
Eric, I started writing out that "List of weapons to be found after a holocaust" but the thing is that in that case, it would greatly depend on how long the holocaust had been taking place. Firearms and ammunition would be far more likely if the holocaust had just begun, but not so likely after a few years. However, blunt striking objects would always be available. Also, it would depend on where you were. If you landed in Merry-Ole-England, guns would be a rarity, but places like Sierra Leon, you would be wading through piles of them. In the US, it would vary from state to state, and even from one neighborhood to the next. If you came into my apartment, you would find quite a few weapons, my next-door neighbor, probably not. There's far too many variables, I don't think I can do that.
John,
1. Don't worry that Wodium is also interested. The Multiverse is broad enough that you could have two people working on the same thing, and still come out with something completely different.
I've said it before...Valdron NEEDS more 'stuff'. It desperately needs more creators, or its going to as predicted a long time ago in a review...vanish down a black hole.
The Apple approach of trying to hold onto everything tightly is slow-motion doom. The Microsoft approach of being promiscuous, and wild is the way to go for Valdron.
This is scary because it means someone may come up with something better than you did. I've occasionally felt a tinge of jealousy when I see someone else working on an MV world. Fear. What if they're better than me? One, I'm pretty ragingly confident...I can create a publishable world in three days. Two, the Verse is huge. Three, I need those guys to work on their projects because I'd like to see Valdron succeed, and I can't do it by myself (even as insanely prolific as I am, its still not enough.)
Lets examine my first point: MJ has a Ninja World. Its a parrallel world. It focuses on the socio-political aspect, training, and small missions.
I could write a ninja world (not just a semi-one like Psyclone Station), but it would probably focus a lot more on Kewl Ninja Powers and life and death training....it would be a wholly different thing than MJ's worlds on Ninjas.
So too with you and Wodium doing tables on the Post-Apocalypse.
I hope that was helpful.
Point two, John: My very best bit of advice to novice game designers (thats you, btw, welcome to the Club) is Start Small. Make a very limited goal, and then accomplish that.
A 3d10 table intimidates you? Fine. Do a 1d10 table. Forget about ranking them according to likelihood of finding them. Write "Random Weapons Found After the Apocalypse: 1d10 Table".
Once you've got that done, you can think if you want to expand it to the larger one, or move on to another small project.
I do have to say, what you've got so far looks interesting....
Wodium,
I personally don't go much into the 180 pgs of charts...but....
1. It'd be a real short book if I said: "Read a lot of history, think a lot, and observe a lot. Now go forth and make it interesting."
2. I personally don't use such charts that often. However, I have found that for me, and some other GM's that certain situations seem to boggle the mind a bit.
So in Temple of the Dying Sun, me and Mentat put in a library with ten books. Most of them are not that important,but interesting. And its that type of situation where a lot of refs boggle..."Name the books in the library" or referencing my alternate movie list "tell me what movies are showing on the theatere marquee'."
I think some of its fear because you don't want to give away too much data by handing them a Book of All Magic or something silly like that.
Others, well, its easy for a ref to come up with one or two interesting details, but ten of them? On the spot?
3. A fair amount of GM's just don't have the breadth of useless knowledge :) required for some of these charts. How many people off th etop of their head could describe the basic details of the Roman Denarii and its sister coins?
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I like the idea of a 'Vague' Chart.
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Unrelated to anything, but the Rolemaster Ye Olde Critical Hit Charts were always a hit. "You've rolled an 18, and that means...hmmm...you lost your left foot by sword cut, broke your right elbow, after you fell, and are concussed from the same fall." Or something like that.
Botch charts would be nice too, along with a few Special Botch Charts...heh, heh..."You've used the telepathy to contact the Noosphere and tapped into the Akashic Field and all the knowledge of the universe. Unfortunately the overload has driven you completely insane. Roll 1-5 on a d10 for you plucking out your right eye as you claw at your face....Roll 6-10 for the other eye."
Wodium,
Also, I'd like to include things that the average referee could simply not do....like MJ's three Gaming and Law articles, or my ...how to make a world setting in five minutes that will be brilliant article.
I'd like to see articles on "How to Run the Table for a Split-Up All the Way Table"; "One Basic Theory of Psionics" (which would have quantum mechanics and the Heisenberg effect, and untapped areas of the brain a la Thomas Sowell); "How to Run a Romance" which I'm working on now; and "How to construct a murder mystery"; "Various Multiversal Structures" which would cover things like Shadow Universes, Four Square Universe Sets, Sliding Scales (Like Amber); and Multiversal Hallways and Multiversal Nexuses; "Different Means of Being Faster than Einstein" which would cover say eight different forms of FTL ranging from Hyperspace (with its multiple variants) to Jumpgates to Stutter Warp to Bubble Travel; and I'd like to see some Schools of Magical Thought dealt with, and perhaps a "How to Construct your own magic system".
I'm sure you can think of a lot you'd like to have as well. I just remembered MJ's articles on Plot (one of them is Antagonists which is one method I use frequently.)
Eric, do you work for Valdron, or are you just like me, a friend of MJ's that wants to see him become a millionaire in his lifetime?
I see your point of the 3D10 table. I think I will do a 1D30 table. That way, I can use most of what I already have.
I have permission to produce products under a license agreement.
I am a game designer/novelist who would like to become famous and economically successful in my own right, but recognizes that you can't get there by yourself.
I also find Multiverser to be one of the most remarkable rpg's to be invented. I find furthermore that it has had a remarkably freeing effect on my imagination enabling a flowering of immense creativity as it serves as an excellent framework to put stories inside it.
I am also a guy who is learning from MJ as a master game designer and a journeyman game designer. Or as Yoda put it 'There are always two...' And in turn, I occasionally teach him something, and just make stuff that could be useful in his system.
I am also a guy who can find a comfortable rut, and stay there. Which is why I'm trying to look around a bit and find some other stuff to work on as well even though its not as fun as Multiverser.
I hope to see Multiverser become a great success because that would mean I likely became one as well, and because I think MV becoming successful would be a 'good thing' in and of itself.