120
votes
Accepted
Can coins be made out of concrete or cement?
Anything someone values can be made into and used as money. That ought to be Rule of Acquisition no. 1, but it ain't.
The point being: if you want to make currency out of concrete or cement, it is ...
- 39.5k
114
votes
Currency that can stand extreme temperatures
If the spells only protect living creatures, and you need a portable form of currency, you are left with only one rational choice... I give you...
ChinchillaCoin
- 5,870
88
votes
A land where money is negative
This couldn't work at all.
The reason why money needs to be "positive" is that the one with the incentive to have it is the one who has control over having it. If money is negative, you can just ...
- 2,488
87
votes
Accepted
Aftermath of a Midas-weapon war - what to do with all that gold?
All that gold makes gold virtually worthless so people would put it to practical use like construction.
The Pantheon is held together with iron bars coated in lead to slow down corrosion. You could ...
- 45.8k
85
votes
Accepted
Currency that can stand extreme temperatures
Just use gold. Really.
Yes, when you are walking on the sun, you need to keep it your magical purse tightly closed to keep the high pressure vapor from escaping. When you get back, it happily ...
- 2,028
81
votes
Accepted
Despite slain monsters continually yielding gold coins, why does gold's trading value seem to remain constant over the years?
Stuff appears. Stuff also disappears.
There is a large but finite amount of gold coin. When a monster spawns out of nowhere, gold coins to accompany it disappear from their various locations ...
- 304k
67
votes
Accepted
How do I sell 100 gold bars without getting into trouble?
Melt down small amounts and use it to manufacture gold plated "ultra fidelity lossless" audio/video/network/iphone charger cables that you sell at \$100 - $500 a piece to pretentious fools. This ...
- 22.4k
59
votes
Selling food to the enemy
It makes no sense, as the attackers will obtain all the gold of the besieged anyway, as soon as the defense has fallen. Selling food to the defenders is the worst possible action, as it increases the ...
- 5,559
55
votes
Why do wild creatures carry money?
You kill the creature, you sell its fur/hide/meat/whatever and that turns into money.
Thanks to the real time service of RPGazon, you don't need to reach the closest village to monetize the bounty, it'...
- 275k
53
votes
Could a society use bullets as money?
You have a fundamental problem
Bullets are incredibly common
While they have intrinsic value, that value is going to be very low. It's like having a currency with only pennies. It could be fine ...
- 116k
52
votes
Accepted
Using fire as currency?
1) Business and commerce would be nearly impossible for three reasons: It's incredibly cumbersome, you can't make change, and you can't save.
If the going rate is three loaves of bread for one jar ...
- 28.5k
51
votes
Could a society use bullets as money?
No
Money, as we understand it, is essentially worthless, and it should be worthless. It serves as a medium for exchange, where a given amount of money is agreed to have a certain value, but the tokens ...
- 14.9k
49
votes
Accepted
How far back in time can I go before people stop accepting my money from the future?
With some planing (buying 20yo money), you can go back to ~1929. Without any, you can only go back to ~1996.
There's a pretty good chance of getting away with it, going as least as far back as 1929, ...
- 3,390
47
votes
Despite slain monsters continually yielding gold coins, why does gold's trading value seem to remain constant over the years?
Monsters get killed.
Gold comes out.
A "Hero" takes the gold.
They buy a sword.
With it, they commit more murder on innocent monster natives.
They buy another sword.
However, they never sell ...
- 3,321
46
votes
How do I sell 100 gold bars without getting into trouble?
Laws are local with that sort of money
If you want to clear the whole lot out at once, you could to sell to a national government. The advantage of this option is that it's legal. If it's not ...
- 116k
45
votes
Accepted
What form of currency to do transactions between us and droids?
US Dollars, Euros, or any internationally strong currency used by humans in your world.
Let's face it - most of our "currency" is already in bank accounts; not as any physical form but as electronic ...
- 33.1k
44
votes
How do I safely sell off gold coins of unknown provenance?
Why the black market? You can just sell the gold and be done with it.
Disclaimer: The legality of the following will definitely depend on the country you're in. The laws I'm considering are those of ...
- 3,566
41
votes
Despite slain monsters continually yielding gold coins, why does gold's trading value seem to remain constant over the years?
The wizards creating the monsters are being paid in gold, which they use as an ingredient in the monster spawning spell. The gold is used but not consumed, so it ends up with the new monster.
Because ...
- 14.2k
40
votes
Accepted
How would you get a medieval economy to accept fiat currency?
Limited purposes at first.
Medieval societies did accept and use 'paper money' for specific purposes. In a way, there is a step between specie and fiat currency. Say that first, you had silver. At the ...
- 112k
39
votes
Accepted
Money and Money, can two different currency types be realistically maintained in the same economy?
I don't see why not
Disclaimer: This answer heavily depends on the definition of same economy. This answer also does not claim that a fix 1-to-1 exchange can be ...
- 12.1k
39
votes
Aftermath of a Midas-weapon war - what to do with all that gold?
The primary reason why gold is so valuable is because of scarcity. Once you eliminate scarcity there are many uses that gold can be put to.
Chemically it is highly nonreactive making it a good fit ...
- 7,119
36
votes
A land where money is negative
I remember reading a sci-fi story many, many decades ago about a similar theme. I completely forget the title, or the author, it was so long ago, but I remember the theme, since it was so unique. It ...
- 9,640
35
votes
Accepted
Justification of physical currency in an interstellar civilization?
Let's start with a bit of a Frame Challenge: you really don't want perfect digital currency
It's important for you to understand that you can always ascribe more magic to digital currency. You can ...
- 116k
35
votes
Accepted
How would fairies in a human-dominated society handle money?
I can see a huge market for fairy (or human) merchants doing most of the buying and selling of human goods, which to them will be in bulk, and acting as an intermediary between the two groups. The ...
- 79.9k
34
votes
Accepted
Creating a living currency
Could it be used as a currency? Possibly. It is reasonably valuable and durable. There are some issues:
Inflation
Depending on how slow they reproduce, and how long they live, you could just get a ...
- 5,523
33
votes
Accepted
How do I determine the value of a currency?
An example of a Gold-Silver-Copper coinage system
The standard D&D gold/silver/copper system with its multiples of 10 comes from the Roman currency system of ~200BC-200AD. There were other Roman ...
- 85.1k
33
votes
Can coins be made out of concrete or cement?
Possible, yes. But not useful.
You could make a cement coin. It could be pressed into a shape like a coin with embossed details, etc.
But it would be far too brittle to survive common coin usage. An ...
- 13.7k
33
votes
Everyday life in a world and civilization which do not have any money in the economy ( and not barter too)
There are two possibilities, really:
A post-scarcity economy
Goods are produced by automated factories, by robots clever enough to require little supervision but not smart enough to demand civil ...
- 112k
32
votes
Can I use mana as currency if people are constantly generating more mana?
Consider mana as labor and you will see the system is fine.
Suppose I want some of the fine decorated pants you make. I offer to pay you with my labor. I can only do so much before I get tired so I ...
- 304k
31
votes
Currency that can stand extreme temperatures
Use an animal as your purse.
As already noted, since no form of matter can stand the temperatures required, the only way is to store the currency inside living things.
There are many animals that ...
- 8,092
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