5 Ways to instantly make your currency worldbuilding better!

Currencies can be a great way to world build, especially in science fiction, but too often they're just... boring. Let's take a look at 5 mistakes writers make when designing currencies.
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Chapters
0:00 Credits are old hat
01:43 Value vs Money vs Currency
07:03 Universal Currencies
11:36 Alternative Resources
14:14 Logistics of Exchange
18:29 Boring Currencies
#justintimeworlds #mariemullany #worldbuilding #fantasy #spacefantasy #sciencefiction #currency #fantasyworldbuilding

[@JustInTimeWorlds]

The giant fantasy survey closes on Thursday! Get your responses in! forms.gle/vC1K4kJNA4hFcHVY9

[@ronecotex]

Where I would love to see in an RPG game is the idea of currency fluctuation where you have two main factions and their currencies but your choices affect which currency is worth more

[@JustInTimeWorlds]

That would be a fascinating campaign for sure.

[@Joulederschreckliche]

In my main setting you always pay with "dwarven gold/silver/copper" because when the races first met they of course all wanted to use their own currency. But it turned out that dwarves are very particular about their coins and they always have the same weight, size (and purity) so they endet up being the universal exchange medium.

[@IndustrialBonecraft]

I find it fascinating that in the 21st century, these genre fiction that is typically associated with escapism and often derided for not being rooted in reality, etc, are increasingly preoccupied with economics.

[@JustInTimeWorlds]

Sci-fi has always had a lot of fantastic thematic elements missed by literary types who can’t get over “but that’s not real”

[@lupulul]

Gem of a channel

[@JustInTimeWorlds]

Thank you so much :)

[@dminard1]

I really enjoyed your slightly deeper dive into this topic. I enjoy an economic layer to stories because it makes them feel more alive.

[@drizztiley8740]

I'm reminded of Mass Effect's credit. While it doesn't impact the player, reading the lore we discover that one of the member races of the Citadel - the "galactic governmental body" - major contribution was the creation of a universal credit. It fit quite well in the setting because said species, the Volus, are a mercantile society and it took thier race working together with the other races to create this. But while this happens, another species who live as migrant travellers, only use said credits with other races and rely on barter with each other. A small bit of lore but i appreciated it 😀

[@JustInTimeWorlds]

A well integrated currency (even if it's called credit haha) can add so much flavor to a world for so little effort. As long as it is well integrated.

[@AlanoDantas]

I'm starting to dip in TTRPG and for my campaign where the group will travel across realities (something kinda like Dr. Who), I'm using the concept of "salvage material". I borrow it from another D&D Adventure where the group accumulate salvage points and exchange for improvements in their fort/home base and create stuff there like potions or weapons. Since in my campaign the group will travel across planes and see different civilizations they use the salvage as a way to create their version of the local currency (basically counterfeiting) and expend that.

[@JustInTimeWorlds]

I like that, very nice abstraction of currency in a way that still allows you to use it as flavor.

[@MemphiStig]

Company money, just like in the old song "Sixteen Tons" "You load 16 tons, and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt. St. Peter, don't you call me cause I can't go -- I owe my soul to the company store." They paid you just enough of *their* money to keep you indebted to them so you could never quit.

[@JustInTimeWorlds]

Not gonna lie, that song played in my head while I was scripting this 😅

[@MemphiStig]

@@JustInTimeWorlds I wondered if you knew it.

[@pabillidge02]

thank you! I was excited to get to this video and it's awesome! I'm still working on the concept of a currency based on a deity of wealth from a pantheon, but I'm polishing the details like the degree of intervention of such deity (at least I don't want it to be zero). Currencies that I found interesting are from two books that take place on a moon colony. one is Artemis by Andy weir in which a currency is directly related to weight since weight is what is important when bringing something from earth, and the other is New Moon by Ian Mcdonald in which the currency is heavyly important since every the people need to pay for the air they breath and if they don't pay some mechanism sofocates them.

[@ronecotex]

I never thought of having a Foreign Exchange Market infection I think it's very interesting so many points for conflict

[@tomgsa7766]

Love this. Btw Energy as money was used in Mega Man Legends (video game 😅), and other Mega Man games.

[@JustInTimeWorlds]

There has been some great world building in games :)

[@DanielBranigan-cn3nz]

I love that you have the treantmonks temple intor graphics.

[@JustInTimeWorlds]

Heh, so I had to look up who that is. I guess treantmonk and I worked with the same animator. I didn't create my own intro, just explained to the animator what I wanted and made a few tweaks. If my animation skills were good enough to create that intro, there would be a LOT more animation in my videos :D

[@holothuroid9111]

Star Trek, the explanation is that there is no money on Earth. It's the New Earth Economy (sic!). Federation credits are meanwhile used in the Federation. Bolarus in fact has the bank of Bolarus that can be robbed.

[@dylanbuttera]

One could use something like Bitcoin (blockchain tech) to get around the need for trust. It's designed to be trustless. No government attached, simply an algorithm determining its production rate. Still requires a common network of some sort though.

[@dylanbuttera]

Also it could represent energy since it uses electricity to mine them into existence initially.

[@JustInTimeWorlds]

Hmm, yes, the tech doesn't need trust, but the concept still does, if you see what I mean? You still have to get people to use the currency and that requires trust.

[@tabbywolf801]

@@dylanbuttera Try to Keep the Value of the Cryptocurrency, Equal to the Market Value of the Energy used to Mine the Coins of that Cryptocurrency. Otherwise, Investment in the Form of Energy Supply to the Crypto Miners will be Discouraged.

[@StarlasAiko]

Further, it requires the people's willingness to use that currency, no matter how secure, stable or "trustless" it may be.

[@FattyMcFox]

Credits is an acceptable term, because it is understandable and Star-Trek, Star wars, and many other sci-fi stories are not about money and economics, even if they have economic backdrops. When it comes to startrek, the times currency is supposed to be important, they go with 'Gold pressed Latinum' the currency that most cultures, including the Ferangi. World building money is only really important, if the economics is important, like it is in the expanse. An example of how currency world building getting in the way, is the currency used on the world of Ravnica. Zibs and Zinos can be thought to be equivlent to silver and gold in D&D, but everytime i have been around people playing in Ravnica, there has been immense confusion when it comes to money, and people just start saying silver and gold. TLDR: Currency world-building only gets in the way unless currency and economics is a main player in the story, otherwise it is confusing. If you just slap a new currency into a world and not spend enough time on it for the reader/player to become familiar with it, then it becomes a stumbling block.

[@JustInTimeWorlds]

Alright, I take your point, but hear me out: Fallout didn't do anything massively unique with economics and money, but by using caps, they built on the flavor of the post apocalyptic world. It was both memorable and massively flavorsome. They could have just gone credits and skipped the whole caps thing, and nothing about the gameplay would have been affected, but in my opinion, the world would have been poorer. Now, I don't know about Ravnica, but if it's a DnD world, they probably haven't integrated the currency very well with the rest of the world, they just slapped the name down because it sounded cute and then yes, 100% I agree, it just gets in the way. I don't think currency needs to the central focus to add flavor, I just think it needs to be well integrated with the world.

[@FattyMcFox]

@@JustInTimeWorldsOh good point. Fallout adding flavor but keeping it simple enough to quickly grasp does bypass most of my contentions.

[@ShiftyMcGoggles]

The main reason behind latinum being that important, and something that should be noted, is that it's radioactive enough to be impossible to replicate, but has such a low level and long-lived half-life that it's relatively safe to handle as currency. The setting having replicators means that stuff you can't replicate, such as living organics, radioactive materials, and hyper-complex objects, are the commodities that are valued in trade.

[@jamarcusstrahan8597]

Great information, great video, thankyou.

[@JustInTimeWorlds]

Glad it was helpful.

[@jarydf]

A local currency in a hub world where the exchange rate to buy is very favorable but to sell is poor works to be a local tax system. Also making it interesting for the player to want to travel off world to earn coin to return to spend riches.

[@rommdan2716]

I don't think my science fiction world would use any currency, since most civilization have figure out ways to make matter and energy functionally infinite

[@JustInTimeWorlds]

Right, like The Culture or Star Trek. So there, the very interesting question is what does that society value? Because once you divorce value from what you need to survive, it brings up all kinds of interesting options :)

[@rommdan2716]

@@JustInTimeWorlds Maybe the sci fi currency it's just the friends we make along the way

[@bernadmanny]

To be fair in Star Wars the Republic Credits seem to be a trade/reserve currency with a lot of local or regional currencies around. Somewhat like the role the USD serves. Though the idea they were rejected because they were traceable is good.

[@JustInTimeWorlds]

What's your favorite currency in science fiction or fantasy?

[@saboogly]

Lol might make you mad but my favorite science fiction currency is........ Credits lol its simple and almost every culture knows it lol but I would "steal" the Traveller Mega Credits (MCr) all it is 1 million Credits lol Good video, like always.

[@JustInTimeWorlds]

@@saboogly For better or for worse, we all like what we like!

[@tabbywolf801]

a Classic Answer to this Question is Gold. it is Common in Fantasy and has Historical Weight in Real Life, so why not?

[@shwarmashwar1415]

Caps in the original Fallout. Such an interesting way to show a society trying to rebuild itself out of the common rubble of the civilization that came before it

[@JustInTimeWorlds]

@@shwarmashwar1415Caps are awesome, I love them.

[@johncowart9536]

This video seems to have some confident inaccuracies. Currency isn't only about trust, trust isn't required. Yes it can be sufficient, but generally on smaller, communal scales. Power is what is needed for larger scales. Citizens are REQUIRED to accept the currency of the land if they wish to legally do business there. Not just because that's the currency there, but because a ruling body will NOT LEGALLY ALLOW you to reject their currency. The rebels issue their own currency to throw off the POWER the empire has (taxation and trade). Also, not all currency has to reflect what is valuable. There were groups of different native peoples (can't remember where in the world) who use salt as currency for small things. Not because it was valuable persay (not scarce), but because it was a useful and a necessity. So someone could always use a little salt, even if just to "trade" it away down the line.

[@JustInTimeWorlds]

So I grew up in Africa. In Zimbabwe, despite the US Dollar not being legal tender, every shop keeper would accept USD and actually very few would accept Zim dollars. They would also accept South Africa Rands. Most countries on the border of South Africa would accept ZAR in fact. Most of Africa will accept USD without blinking, only in a few do you have to change currency. I've spent USD in the souq in Cairo on tourist items. And the reason is quite simply that many African citizens don't trust their inflationary currencies and would rather have USD. You can make all the laws you like, but unless you're going to go full police state (and perhaps even more so then), people will do business in the currency they trust. Trust is deeply intertwined with currency, power alone is not enough. We can also see this in fiction, where the Belters use poker chips in the expanse. That being said, in my previous video I also talked about different ways in which currency can be used, including as a nation building exercise.

[@ewfisher89]

Company script is a very real thing. The coal mining companies used it in my home state of West Virginia right up to 1967.

[@JustInTimeWorlds]

They were used in South Africa too. It’s a pretty nasty exploitation of people. Great way to tie the worker to the company 😒.

[@lloydgush]

Your book sounds interesting!

[@ronecotex]

What would you think of having a story based on the currency Traders perspective

[@JustInTimeWorlds]

It would be a very interesting concept, but probably very ... mathematical haha

[@IndustrialBonecraft]

The Dark Profit saga is a satirical take on this. The Masquerade series delves into economics a bit, as does the Dagger & Coin series with a banker as a significant character. The Folding knife is interesting - Byzantine empire via way of banking.

[@dezlikesZombies]

Hello! I have a currency system i am building that follows the copper/silver/ gold/platinum system but it is backed by harvested dragon parts (wings, fangs, claws, scales etc) Copper fangs, silver claws, gold scales, and platinum wings. Gold Scales and Platinum Wings are the ONLY currency allowed to buy magic spells, legally that is 😅

[@JustInTimeWorlds]

Heh, cute :D How about illegally? What does the black market use?

[@dezlikesZombies]

@JustInTimeWorlds Still working out the details there :) I do enjoy all your videos! And they have helped me tremendously with my worldbuilding. Your series on the worldbuilding through the ages was definitely my favorite. I am a Stone Age and Bronze Age nerd and your overview was exactly what I needed to build my world 😊

[@kaiserrat70]

My players led a dragon into the bank and it melted all the gold, Im peaking the prices for that entire empire and cant wait for them to freak out over travelling like, 100 miles for 40 gold

[@JustInTimeWorlds]

Hahahaha! Talk about inflationary action!!!

[@PomaiKajiyama]

Hmmm...so a realistic "Adventurer's Guild" might pay the local adventurer's in something similar to company script, for the same reasons of keeping the adventurers perpetually stuck in poverty and forced to do dangerous work like monster hunting.

[@JustInTimeWorlds]

That's a pretty great application actually :D

[@elgordo107able]

Ok, se me ocurren unas ideas ¿Qué tal si el oro lo utiliza un gobierno galáctico y los créditos los utiliza un reino medieval?

[@JustInTimeWorlds]

Heh. I still wouldn't call them credits :D But it would interesting to take the principle of credits (keeping track of virtual money) and use magic to facilitate it.

[@grantflippin7808]

Grams of silver, take it or leave it

[@kiwilemontea4622]

Company scrip is, unfortunately, a real historical thing. It was made illegal in the US a long time ago, but big companies are still trying to bring it back.

[@JustInTimeWorlds]

It existed in South Africa too. It’s a really exploitative system.

[@mikko272]

food as currency

[@JustInTimeWorlds]

I'd take it deeper and say energy, but yes, you could use food as a direct currency. And then you could eat money :D

[@sprinkle61]

Star Trek is a utopian fantasy, and part of that fantasy is the idea of a perfect communism that requires no coercion or payment of any kind to get people to build a futuristic society with spacecraft and megastructures in space. While there is a logic to this system, based on replicator technology making everything (that is not land) basically free, the writers on the show can't escape their experiences in the real world, and cannot figure out how to buy and sell stuff if the plot of a movie or show require it, thus they had to shoehorn in medpacks as a kind of barter money, later replaced with actual Federation credits. The idea of universal credits is just lazy story writing, conserving writing effort for the actual plot. This is also something of a utopian fantasy in and of itself, as having lots of currencies is inconvenient for world trade. The part of Star Wars where the republic credits are no good was also lazy writing, where Lucas just wanted to get to the pod race quickly, in an already bloated movie, and didn't want to do any world-building over how money works in Tatooine, as clearly Watto would have made that deal for off-world cash, if Qui-Gon Jinn had enough of it, but apparently they didn't want to think this out logically. The Republic was the main force in the galaxy, so there is no way their money would not have any value, even on a remote world, and how remote really is Tatooine, if they have their own hyperdrive ships, and extra hyperdrives just sitting around in their repair shops, it would be trivially easy to send one small ship to cash in the money, and buy more hyperdrives to resell to foolish rich jedi, that clearly at least sometimes visit, and will pay a premium for such things. Also, we know hyperdrives are repairable, as we saw more than once in the original trilogy, and of course they have to be repairable, otherwise you could just die in deep space, if it burned out and you had no options to deal with it.

[@tabbywolf801]

Credits are such a Cringe Currency for Science Fiction

[@JustInTimeWorlds]

I'm not sure I'd classify them as cringe, but they surely are boring. :D

[@SnakeWasRight]

I think it's just useful because it sounds like money, without using words like dollars.

[@helpmyass]

This showed up in my recommended and I immediately subscribed. Your tips are very clear and precise

[@JustInTimeWorlds]

Welcome to my tiny corner of KZbin.