Pretty much all the fantasy campaigns I've run have used a form of currency, but there are certain areas in the world where currencies are pretty much useless.
Then such things as equipment, food, useful stuff is much preferred or currency is not accepted at all.
Usually in wild, remote, primitive areas or places totally alien, such as extra-planar places etc.

Quote from: rway218;823726In the Tribulation setting from 218 Games! They use chip implanted electronic transfer of wealth.  And like any good post rapture setting, players who wish not to get the implant trade in goods and services.

Oh, lord...  you know that whole deal was esoteric metaphor, right?

Since it's all just words and scratches on paper, what practical effect does it have if you call one unit of wealth a sheep, a keg of beer, or a gold coin?  In play at the table, it functions exactly the same: player records said units of wealth and keeps them until they want to trade them for something else.

Unless someone wants a game based around detailing that Bob the fighter has to run his goats to New City in order to pay the trainer (or whatever), then to me all this type of stuff is just distracting play from the fun parts.  

I might as well roleplay studying the Voynich Manuscript - that's something that would be pretty realistic for lots of RPG characters to be doing.

Quote from: EOTB;824415Since it's all just words and scratches on paper, what practical effect does it have if you call one unit of wealth a sheep, a keg of beer, or a gold coin?

One practical effect is it's feasible for wandering PCs to carry around 100 gold coins. Unless they are sheep herding nomads or a wagon train caravan the other forms of wealth are going to have to be traded, given away, or abandoned before they move on.

Now if the GM ignores the practical differences, then yeah there is not effect. But it would be a really weird thing to both include the composition of the loot while ignoring the practical implications. Who would do that?

Quote from: Bren;824417One practical effect is it's feasible for wandering PCs to carry around 100 gold coins. Unless they are sheep herding nomads or a wagon train caravan the other forms of wealth are going to have to be traded, given away, or abandoned before they move on.

Now if the GM ignores the practical differences, then yeah there is not effect. But it would be a really weird thing to both include the composition of the loot while ignoring the practical implications. Who would do that?

Which is my point - usually these types of changes are made in an effort at "realism" that chews up the time people have to game because they're trying to find out how their pastoral wealth can be watched over so they can go back and do that kickass stuff that players actually remember years later over beers.

I have no issues with a variety of treasure found, that might provide challenges to convert to gold.   But I see that effect as quite different than that of perpetual herder-adventurers.  No thanks to the latter.

Quote from: EOTB;824422Which is my point - usually these types of changes are made in an effort at "realism" that chews up the time people have to game because they're trying to find out how their pastoral wealth can be watched over so they can go back and do that kickass stuff that players actually remember years later over beers.

Yeah some players like all kickass all the time and that's all they want from their gaming. On the other hand, some people like some realism in their gaming. Which is one of the points of actually tracking wealth and the forms that wealth takes. You don't have to track it or you can track it using money of account rather than specie or goods, but choosing to track it and choosing not to use money of account and then complaining about it seems weird.

Think of it this way, the rules for writing poetry and for writing free verse are different. Iambic pentameter places restrictions on what the poet writes. That's the point of writing in that style after all. Skipping the rules because they restrict what you can write misses the point. Same thing with "let's just ignore X" for any X in gaming. Yeah you can do that, but not everyone wants to do that.

Quote from: EOTB;824422Which is my point - usually these types of changes are made in an effort at "realism" that chews up the time people have to game because they're trying to find out how their pastoral wealth can be watched over so they can go back and do that kickass stuff that players actually remember years later over beers.

I have no issues with a variety of treasure found, that might provide challenges to convert to gold.   But I see that effect as quite different than that of perpetual herder-adventurers.  No thanks to the latter.

My experience is roughly the opposite. I find that in many games, a large amount of time in many fantasy games is spent on searching for treasure, opening chest locks and traps, tallying up and dividing treasure, calculating encumbrance, appraising and selling gems, finding stores in town, going over price lists, and so forth.

In my vikings game, for example, the characters were all in some sense herders, since they were generally part of the landowning class who owned houses, cattle, and ships. However, it's not like there was any time taken up by herding. That's just part of the background. Instead, they just geared up and went a-viking in their ships. (Or off to hunt down an outlaw, or to broker a deal, or some other adventure.) They had whatever gear was reasonable for their wealth - which was judged quickly and simply. If their raids were successful, then at the end of the adventure, their wealth level got bumped up a little.

Obviously, experiences differ. I'm sure there are GMs who eat up time with non-coinage economics, but I don't think that's universal.

Quote from: RPGPundit;824397Oh, lord...  you know that whole deal was esoteric metaphor, right?

Esoteric metaphors make great RPG worlds.

Easily portable wealth tends to trump barter unless you are a settled craftsman or traveling trader with some sort of support structure. Barter gets harder when you are wandering adventurers and tend to travel light.

Quote from: RPGPundit;823579Have you ever run (or played in) a setting where the economy doesn't generally run on gp, sp, or cp, but on some totally different system (be it barter, or something weirder)?

What was it? How did it go?

Yes, in Prof. Barker's Tekumel campaign. We were out to the east in the islands on the edge of the map, where they don't use currency. Everything was done by barter or social interaction, and we had a great time.

Later on, Dave Arneson (Captain Harchar, the Honest Seafaring Merchant) created a sub-routine for Phil's meta-game where he rolled up thirty-some sea captains and their ships; the system he did handled the trade routes and barter systems for ship-loads of cargo. The idea was that players could go down to the docks in a city, and the sub-routine would generate who was in port, where they were going, and what they were carrying as 'plot devices' to get the players off on adventures. It worked fine, and we had a lot of fun.

Quote from: chirine ba kal;824606Yes, in Prof. Barker's Tekumel campaign. We were out to the east in the islands on the edge of the map, where they don't use currency. Everything was done by barter or social interaction, and we had a great time.

Later on, Dave Arneson (Captain Harchar, the Honest Seafaring Merchant) created a sub-routine for Phil's meta-game where he rolled up thirty-some sea captains and their ships; the system he did handled the trade routes and barter systems for ship-loads of cargo. The idea was that players could go down to the docks in a city, and the sub-routine would generate who was in port, where they were going, and what they were carrying as 'plot devices' to get the players off on adventures. It worked fine, and we had a lot of fun.

A subroutine like that sounds handy.

Quote from: rway218;824452Esoteric metaphors make great RPG worlds.

Ok, granted.

Quote from: RPGPundit;823579Have you ever run (or played in) a setting where the economy doesn't generally run on gp, sp, or cp, but on some totally different system (be it barter, or something weirder)?

What was it? How did it go?

In Atomic Highway and Apocalypse World games I was in, there were no money. In AW, it's just called "barter". In AH, your equipment list was your purse, too.

In Exalted's setting large parts of the setting don't run on silver coinage (and practically nowhere is gold used for money, I believe - using it as treasure was fine). Then again, you have different systems in different Directions.
You could try and buy what counts as money in the West using silver. The gods of trade and currency would take a dim view on that, though, and on your trading enterprises in general.

I'm pretty sure that in my own version of Mars it was a certain kind of diaphanous cloth that served as money. The people needed it for sails for skyships, but the only method of producing it was water-intensive.
However, since cutting it in pieces reduced the price, they also had elaborated an extensive system of credit.
Well, the players didn't use that fact, so it didn't impact the game much, other than for underlying that wasting water is a capital crime.

Quote from: EOTB;824415Unless someone wants a game based around detailing that Bob the fighter has to run his goats to New City in order to pay the trainer (or whatever), then to me all this type of stuff is just distracting play from the fun parts.

Once again it comes down to what your group thinks is fun.

Our Wednesday night group recently acquired some loot in the form of a magical fountain... a very cool thing we had no use for (and are unable to move) but figured would be a lot of value to someone somewhere. Whole sessions have transpired regarding finding a buyer for the thing and dealing with complications of owning it in the meanwhile. All of them loads of fun.
When we finally did find someone who would/could take it off our hands he gave us some land in exchange for it... and if we keep the land we are expected by local law to improve it and pay taxes... so more adventures are peeling off of that bit of barter.
We haven't run a combat in weeks and AFAIK nobody is complaining.

Anyway, I can totally see the fun to be had in barter, even just livestock or crops... and fun complications that can spin out of it that wouldn't come up if it was all just down to coinage.

Quote from: Simlasa;836470Once again it comes down to what your group thinks is fun.

Our Wednesday night group recently acquired some loot in the form of a magical fountain... a very cool thing we had no use for (and are unable to move) but figured would be a lot of value to someone somewhere. Whole sessions have transpired regarding finding a buyer for the thing and dealing with complications of owning it in the meanwhile. All of them loads of fun.
When we finally did find someone who would/could take it off our hands he gave us some land in exchange for it... and if we keep the land we are expected by local law to improve it and pay taxes... so more adventures are peeling off of that bit of barter.
We haven't run a combat in weeks and AFAIK nobody is complaining.

Anyway, I can totally see the fun to be had in barter, even just livestock or crops... and fun complications that can spin out of it that wouldn't come up if it was all just down to coinage.

That is exactly how it works with a good GM, IME!