Currency

[kalos72]

So I have been thinking bout the type of currency my players are trying to design and thought you guys might have some feedback.

In a T2K world, assuming the area has some central government/authority, how would you handle a currency?

You could just use food but thats a very primitive or starter currency I think. Krakow just uses paper notes that hold a certain value. But what if people started to forge those notes? Happens all the time in history...

Could mint metal coins or clay coins with your "seal" on them but the same thing could happen with forgeries.

How does your campaigns major settlement handle a currency?

[pmulcahy11b]

Something you want to consider with coins (aside from the counterfeiting issue) is ridged edges, like on most world coins these days. This prevents clipping some of the metal off of the coins to re-sell the clipped metal (believe it of not, that used to be a problem until about the late 1800s).

I think, however, that counterfeiting will be rampant in the first few years after currency is re-introduced, and there may be little anyone can do about it. It was a problem in Colonial America and post-Revolution US, complicated by each state making its own currency. One way around it might be to use still-existing prewar currency, and assign whatever value the local government decides to assign to it. Maybe put some sort of mark on it to tell where it was issued. (Many countries have stocks of currency stored up, including the US, who has stocks of currency stored in various places in the world).

Penalties for forgery could be made quite severe (i.e., long stretches of hard labor, reduced rations, or even death).

[simonmark6]

I'm trying to say this in a way that doesn't sound flippant, but what about something like POGs or bottle caps?

What I mean is something finite produced pre-war that would be nearly impossible to replicate after the war. What sort of goods might be suitable, if any?

Another possibility is that the government just prints its own money and doesn't worry too much about forgeries as anyone with the resources to forge money is likely to be very rare.

What do you think the economy would be based on? I'd suggest linking it to calories, all money is redeemable at government establishments for a requisite amount of food (this is essentially what Krakow does).

[kalos72]

If we are going printed money, I would say value should be one days meal to start.

I was thinking something like the money would be rotated each week. Each week a different color combination, number sequence or something. And then rotate say 8 different patterns every 2 months or something. Also limit the number of "currency" any one person can use per day/week.

Not sure something like that is reasonable in a T2K world but it would help limit the effect of forgeries.

[simonmark6]

To be honest, the amount of time it would take to co-ordinate that a government would probably just wear the loss to counterfeiting. In the FCoK the currency was changed every few months to stop stockpiling and you could also limit how many were exchanged for food every day.

You would still have to exchange notes for ones of teh new design or you'd be choking free enterprise (you may not see this as a negative), or have a way of swapping surplus currency for some other sort of benefit. Capitalism might suck in some ways, but if a government wants a recovery it's going to have to stimulate the economy in some way.

[kalos72]

FCoK was a starting point for our group talking bout this. I dont think there is another published source of a settlement that goes into that sort of detail.

Kinda OT here but I wanna talk bout that too. Economy.

For awhile to start I think most settlements will focus on just getting the basics down. Food/water/shelter/electricity and the industry that supports it. A currency would be used to project a normalcy to the citizen and give them SOME flexibility in what they "buy" with their hard earned "money".

From a command perspective, capitalism is a weight my guys dont wanna bother with for now. They see the way other settlements work, offering protection for the food/products the locals make on their own and wonder why not just take control over the whole thing and paying the civilians for their effort in food?

Once populations stabilize and their immediate situations become less "survival" and more "rebuilding", then you might see some true semblance of an economy but not anything supported by the 'government'.

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by simonmark6

I'm trying to say this in a way that doesn't sound flippant, but what about something like POGs or bottle caps?

Maybe with some sort of special punch shape in it, to stop those who find a bunch of unopened bottles from "making" their own money.

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by simonmark6

I'm trying to say this in a way that doesn't sound flippant, but what about something like POGs or bottle caps?

Have you, by chance, ever played Fallout 3?

[kalos72]

Fallout 3 best game EVAH!

[Canadian Army]

Here are couple of Links that I found, dealing with the US Government's Emergency Stockpile of Paper Money.

http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/c3i/mt_pony.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationa...rvation_Center

[copeab]

For currency, you need to use something that has no real value outside of being used as currency. While they may be fine for barter, gasoline, food and ammo make for poor currencies. For the most part, gold and silver are pretty worthless, so they make good currency.

Paper currency is probably too easy to forge; metal coins are somewhat more suitable since a 100 gram gold coin is still a 100 gram gold coin, no matter who made it. OTOH, metal tends to stay radioactive a long time ...

[Raellus]

Barter seems to be the default form of commerce in every T2KU I've ever set virtual foot in. Although realistic, it can feel a bit cliché. Aside from barter, gold is most often mentioned in the published materials as a medium of exchange in the T2KU. But how many common people would have access to more than a couple of ounces of gold? This would go quickly in the post-collapse economy. The closest thing to modern currency that I can find is the ration chits mentioned in the Free City of Krakow. It's printed by the city government and used as payment for laborers in the city's service. It's also accepted as payment by many local merchants.

I'm not an economists, and I find most aspects of monetary theory quite baffling. I've heard modern currency described as a "globally accepted, mutually agreed-upon hallucination" and it's hard to argue with that. In other words, money only has value because we all agree that it does. This was brought home to me a few years ago while I was playing Fallout 3, in which the denizens of the game universe use bottle caps as money. There's no explanation given in the game- not that I came across, anyway- as to why people attach any sort of value to said caps, but, in the game world, they're universally accepted as a medium of exchange.

Feudal Japan is a periodic interest of mine. In the original Shogun: Total War computer game, one's clan measures its annual income in Koku, a unit representing the amount of rice that can feed one person per year. A system like this would make sense in many parts of the T2KU, where food is an incredibly sought-after commodity. I'm not sure how it would translate into a widely used currency system, though. Is this the "food standard" as the "gold standard"?

In the T2KU, there aren't many central governments with the power and resources to issue and regulate paper money. Would forms of currency only work on a very local level? Could one exchange Krakow ration chits for paper currency issued by the Lublin government and vice-versa? Would different polities accept others' money? Without central banks, who would determine the exchange rates?

I feel really ignorant- I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around this idea. I'm hoping that a few of you understand this better than me and can explain it well enough to help me get there.

How do you see currency making a comeback in T2K? Has anyone here put any thought/work into this? If so, I'd love to look at what you've come up with.

[SionEwig]

Yes, I think that "currency" in some form not too dissimilar to what we have now would make a come back. Maybe not extremely fast, but it would make a come back. Probably at first more like the Krakow ration chits, where it is backed by some form of food. I remember some PA short story that one state level sucessor government had "corn bucks" which represented some amount of corn (I'll try and find the title). Other things that the temporary currency could be backed by might include ammunition, salt, equipment, or other commodities. Wasn't there something like that in one of the episodes of Jericho? There was something like this (local chits for various things) in a PA book titled Among Madmen if my memory is serving me correctly. Later the chits/credits/whatever it's called might be backed or represent an amount of labor. But most of these currencys would need to be backed by something. Only later would fiat currency make a come back and only once people had a trust of the issuer.

Yes, I think that such backed local currencys would be accepted, after a while, in other places, probably at a discount and only of course from places that had earned a reputation for honoring their currency.

Just a few things on gold as currency. The majority of the gold "currency" would probably be in the form of jewelry. That's how most people encounter (and own) gold. I think that a lot of businesses would have scales, and probably use grams as the unit of measure. The jewelry could evn be broken or damaged, but would generally need to have the proof mark still visible. The actual coins and ingots would probably be well accepted and more valuable, but also more rare.

Also, silver would be much more common for use as currency than gold. Lots more folks have some, maybe a lot of sterling (.925) jewelry, and more than a fair number have at least a few silver coins around (at least in the US). For that matter, you can still come across silver coins in change from stores and banks. I usually come across around 4 coins a year in loose change, and when I go seriously looking for them from banks will find 10 to 20 (40%) half dollars a year.

[Targan]

Ammunition was used extensively as currency in my last T2K campaign, at least by the PCs. They'd trade calibers they little or no use for to obtain either ammo they could use, or other goods such as decent quality food.

This wasn't quite as standardised as in Metro 2033, mind, but at least in areas where ammunition was still to be had, I can see it making a very useful "currency" of sorts.

[kato13]

Currency will have to develop. I don't know the rate or exactly how it would be standardized, but trade would demand portable currency.

Perhaps every local currency will be valued in relation to the French Franc.

The French would certainly still have paper currency.

A franc could have half its value in the areas just east of the Dead Zone and perhaps a similar amount in Krakow. The value elsewhere would depend on how easy it is to reach the French borders or French territories.

[Silent Hunter UK]

Originally Posted by Raellus

But how many common people would have access to more than a couple of ounces of gold?

Diamonds would also likely be a form of currency.

[SionEwig]

Originally Posted by Silent Hunter UK

Diamonds would also likely be a form of currency.

Other gemstones also. The only problem would be knowing what stones are "real" and which are fake.

[Raellus]

Agreed on diamonds and gemstones. We're not looking at a very high-volume in circulation, though, so although they would be widely-accepted, they wouldn't be widely/frequently used on a day-to-day basis.

Ammunition might work but not everyone would want ammunition. It's essentially a barter item, which relies on the double coincidence of wants, where both parties want/need the item that the other is offering for trade. In the T2KU, ammo would have value, but not to everybody. Although folks with weapons or who deal regularly with such folks might value ammo as currency, others who don't likely would not. Currency is a universally accepted medium of exchange.

The Franc is an interesting idea. I think it would see fairly widespread use in regions bordering France (or French colonies) but I don't see it being used much beyond that. Poland, for example, is too far away from the issuer/guarantor/regulator. Maybe after a few years, if France does indeed become the major power in Europe but not really until.

I don't know much about Wampum, but shell beads were used as a kind of fiat currency by Native Americans and Dutch traders in the New Holland area in early colonial times. There was even an exchange rate between Wampum and Dutch coinage. What could be the Wampum of the Twilight world?

[kato13]

France wants to be a major power.

I can see them sending Agents/Ambassadors to regions of stability (like Krakow) and trying to facilitate regular trade with those regions. Trading local script for francs would increase France influence.

One of the reasons the US is a major economic power is that most countries currently use the US dollar for transactions. (Though BRIC is trying to change that)