>The adventurers return with their treasure to discover the

>>50959522
>fiat currency means precious metals are literally worthless
You do know that people still trade gold IRL, right? And gold coins have enormous value in part due to their rarity, despite not being accepted as legal tender. Even if the crown doesn't want to trade paper for gold, someone will.

I love you, /tg/, but you have such a poor grasp of economics.

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>>50959688
A gold coin is worth more than it's weight in the constituent metals (assuming it's alloyed), always.

No country is so stupid that they would make a coin that costs more than the coin is worth

>>50959522
Precious metals are called that for a reason. It's not like you can just declare that intrinsic value stops existing. You have this backwards. Gold can never be "worthless", because it's both USEFUL and SCARCE.

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>>50959522
Shitty currency thread?

>>50959809
>gold
>USEFUL
>in a society without circuitry

Ok buddy.

>>50959885
>Wildly non-standard currency whose eligibility changes depending on the day or time.
I love it.

Maybe would work in some sort of Federation, where the capital is under shared administration from all the states. Each prince mints their own currency, and due to politicking and demands to institute their currency in the capital, ridiculously-complex laws have arose surrounding which currency is legal, when and where.

In the capital, non-locals have basically no chance to understand the market, and need to hire merchant advisors to accompany them and aid them in transactions.

>>50959889
Jewelry you dunce. It doesn't need to be useful, the pretty color and rarity make it valuable even without being currency, just so that someone can say they have more of it than another.

>>50960272
>It doesn't need to be useful
>because it's both USEFUL and SCARCE.
>It doesn't need to be useful
>because it's both USEFUL and SCARCE.

>>50959522
Obvious answer as to what happens? Murderhobos start murderhoboing because all their precious, hard-earned/stolen gold is now worthless.

How much do you want to bet that dragon-proofing an economy doesn't adventurer-proof your country?

>>50960306
Not him, but gold is pretty useful when making gold jewelry

>>50960306
Gold doesn't rust

>>50960306
Useful for jewelry, not for much else. Which, believe it or not, is all it really takes. Humans do not operate on raw logic, they end up wanting pretty things or to have what others cannot. Shiny and scarce are things that gold is good at.

>>50960327
And it's too soft to be useful at anything you would want to not rust, before wiring rolls around.

>>50960323
Jewelry is by definition not useful in any way you would consider "intrinsically valuable."

Hold on, can't the Adventurer's just take their gold to a place that does accept it?

Heck, it could be a whole other quest to fence the stuff.

>>50960368

No because this is the only kingdom in the world and the king's word is taken as absolute law, and a dozen other things that have to be true for OP's retarded situation to happen.

>>50959522
> Dragons start hoarding fiat currency instead, because what they really want into their hoard is stuff that has perceived value.
> Dragons gain stranglehold on the realm's economy as they hold onto significant percentage of its currency.
> More and more fiat currency is pumped into market, resulting in massive inflation spikes.
> The campaign turns into an economy sim.

>>50959522
>>The steward informs the party that they are one day late to exchange their gold coins for the fiat currency
Isn't the purpose of fiat currency to be used in the place of older currency? If so, why would there be one printing and nobody is willing to trade fiat currency for gold?

>>50960378
And this reminded me,

Isn't Gold a magical catalyst? You could probably sell it to the Magic groups.

>>50960410
Or you could just kill the dragons.

>>50960351
Giant nitpicking faggot. Thread is already over, gold still has value independent of it's use as currency or applications in industry.

>>50959734
Why do they still make the penny, anyway? Is it somehow impossible to make it so that all prices end in a 0 or a 5?

>>50960442

Not with sales taxes.

>>50959734
Ankh-Morporak was.

>>50960464
We did it in Canada for cash transactions. Nobody sweats the occasional 2-cent difference.

>>50960519 also for >>50960442

>>50960519
Certain European countries (mine included) do cash transactions to the nearest 5 cents, not using 1 and 2 cent coins. Over here at the very least, it is not perceived as an issue since not so many people pay in cash.

>>50960442
Psychology of sales. 4.99 is seen as cheaper than 5; people see the 4 and, even though they know the .99 is also there and even though they know that means 5, they're more likely to buy the same thing in the same circumstances if it's priced .01 cheaper. (or .05, etc etc)

Pennies don't cost more to make than their face value; pennies go in and out of circulation all the time (as they're passed through the banking system by merchants and other mass-users of physical currency); they also carry the value of 1/100 of $1 (or whatever decimal currency you're working in). Some countries have phased out small denomination coins - even notes - but what tends to happen is that very quickly the next lowest denomination begins to be traded the same way (eg the 5c) and people start moaning about all these 5c coins they have to carry around. In fact the only practical reason to phase out the smallest denomination coin in any currency is when it becomes impractical for use; that is, when you need at least several of them to buy anything, and that several is the same as, at a minimum, the next highest denomination coin. Consumer banking transactions are usually only carried out in whole pennies, and commercial banking doesn't give two shits about currency, but there are situations (such as when the UK went decimal) in which a half-penny has been temporarily useful, and longer-term dependent on the currency and situation.


>>50960413
>>50959688
From the sound of things they've decided gold attracts dragons.

>>50959734
Gold coins hold worth because nobody's making them any more. It's scarcity rather than bullion value.


>>50959522
It's an interesting but probably very limited scenario, and you'd obviously based on the replies here need to carefully explain that GOLD BRING SKYBURNWORM because some people mang i don't even

>Party mints Buttcoins
>For some reason, magical libertarians really think these are great
>They tell everyone in town to buy them
>Most people tell them to stop spamming, but some idiots buy them
>Value shoots up
>The PCs sell all their buttcoins and wash their hands of the whole process
>Townspeople discover that about half of the buttcoins are counterfeit
>Value plummets

Time to start killing dragons.

>>50960442
>>50960519
>>50960612
>>50960618
American pennies cost over twice their face value to mint, but so do American nickels (or close to twice), so if one goes then so has to the other; else they won't actually save any money.

Canadian nickels are cheaper than 5 cents to make.

>>50960618
>Psychology of sales.
Dunno about that. I automatically round prices first thing before I start considering them. A cost of 4.95€ is 5€ in my eyes. 19€ becomes 20€. 195€ is 200€. And so on.

>>50960410
Hording fiat currency is almost always a terrible idea, because a central bank exists. They can keep a constant, reasonable rate of inflation which will continually deplete the horde's value.

The dragon is much better off investing his horde into treasury bills or a series of privately-issued securities. It is likely beneficial for them to hire a number of ministers to keep track of their investments, as well, since a good portfolio of a horde's size is too diversified for one creature to keep track of (although the dragon can obviously manage most of it in its wisdom).

This essentially turns the dragon into the CEO of an investment bank, and uses all the money in his horde to provide necessary capital to venture and keep the economy moving. You're just turned the scourge of the land into a helping hand automatically, while making both parties better off in the process.

Capitalism is magic.

>>50960707
Which is greater, something with a 1 at the beginning of the price, or something with a 2?
It doesn't matter what math you do in your head, your automatic response is going to be that 1 is less than 2, which will cloud your judgement. As long as you don't immediately buy whatever it is you are looking at without thinking, then you are fine, but some days you will be tired, or distracted.

>>50960827
> Capitalism is magic.
Well, I know there are people who think IRL capitalism with its fiat currencies and whatnot is basically handwaving aka relying on magic to make it all work.

Can communism be practiced in a standard fantasy setting, or does the quasi-medieval state of things prevent the large government that's necessary for it?

>>50961308
If there's magic then yes. Communism requires enough resources to go around more than it requires a government to run it. The communist dictatorships of the real world exist as a stopgap measure until such a post-scarcity "economy" can be accomplished. 20 first level druids could provide for a small village's basic needs in a DnD setting. A single 10th level druid could take care of 90 meals every day simply by casting Goodberry.

>>50961308
>>50961409
Oh god, the stupidity of communism can't even be escaped in the land of imagination, now can it?

>>50961528
>an imaginary utopian fantasy can exist in a fantasy world
wow who wouldve thunk it
how can you be so dumb, anon? genuinely curious

>>50961528
I just want to see if I can vary things up from feudalism, monarchies (in absolute and constitutional flavor), or theocracies.

>>50960442

Up here, we don't.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_(Canadian_coin)#Abolition

>>50961550
>imaginary utopian fantasy
How stupid are you, really? If you want some kind of "everyone shares everything and works together" ideal, that exists in a lot of primitive societies and has familial motivations, not economic.

Unless you are referring to the brutal dictatorship brand of communism, which is in no way utopian.

Just kill yourself already, you are too dumb to live and I'm surprised you figured out breathe in-breathe out.

>>50961595
The idea of "class warfare" is absurd prior to the industrial era, since most people are subsistence farmers. If they stopped farming, they starve. If they got rid of their lords, they get invaded or social order breaks down.

The industrial era allowed a shift towards cities and new systems of government and economy.

>>50960341
Status symbols and role accessories do have real effects, doing things like making one's high wealth and social power obvious to display desired values or awe people of lower rank. Crowns, watches, and expensive suits do have utility in that regard.

>>50962026
P.S. Scarcity will ALWAYS exist. If not food scarcity, then other forms. Scarcity does not mean "food is scarce" but rather, the idea that not everything can be provided for everyone. Even if a magic device gave everything physical they wanted, scarcity will begin to exist in the forms of whatever becomes desired... skilled musicians, for instance, for the sake of entertainment of the need-free drones.

Also, level 20 druids are basically demigods and shouldn't be just sitting around acting as food factories.

>>50962026
no, you're definitely the one who is too dumb to live
communism is most definitely a utopian fantasy
and there is no reason it could not exist alongside other FANTASY governments in a FANTASY world
but god forbid a FANTASY world in a FANTASY game have FANTASY in it, huh?
you should absolutely kill yourself, you pathetic sack of shit

>>50962082
(Also, level 10 druids are basically huge heroic figures, and even level 1 druids are the equivalent of the village medicine man.

Of course, if everyone were a level 20 druid and just cast goodberry all day, nobody would ever need to farm, and bizzarre and impractical social theories could begin to form, but it's a pretty dumb and contrived premise based off of gaming mechanics).

>>50962084
Assmad communist detected. When will you realize that this shitty form of government has failed every time it has been tried. Well, you will never realize this because you are deficient; but art imitates life, and any fiction based on stupidity will come across as such.

>>50962182
>When will you realize that this shitty form of government has failed every time it has been tried.
well shit absolute monarchies have failed (eventually) every time they've been tried so that must mean they can never exist in any fantasy setting ever
>but art imitates life
yeah man, magic is definitely deeply steeped in reality
you're such a pathetic idiot its not even funny

>>50959522
>The steward informs the party that they are one day late to exchange their gold coins for the fiat currency

I point out to the Steward that even our Bard, our FUCKING BARD, has already proven on more than one occasion that he can solo the entire army while impregnating each and every princess within a 20-mile radius. The Cleric is considered a Demigod in the local pantheon. The Wizard is an actual Archmage in twelve planes of reality. Our Ranger commands the loyalty of a Dragon familiar. I myself am but a lowly swordsman, though the last time I drew my weapon Uncaliaboth the Unherald of Undying Wrath I accidently evaporated a small county just over the hill. Our taxes make up a majority of the economy anyway, to the point where our party doesn't actually pay taxes; we give the kingdom an allowance. We've defeated Dragons, Orc hordes, and a Demonic incursion in order to save this kingdom, so either he reimburses us in the new currency, or we repossess the kingdom.

In summation: You got a rather lovely kingdom here. Shame if something were to happen to it.

>>50962239
Most absolute monarchies did not fall, but simply gave way to a parliamentary system or began relinquishing power as a compromise. Pretty much anyone who knows history knows this.

Why are you so angry? Did I really strike that much of a nerve when I called you an idiot?

Just relax man, you can still live a perfectly functional life with a subhuman IQ.

>>50962481
To be fair, a functioning communist society is pure fantasy, so maybe it's not so far-fetched.

>>50960618
That's psuedoscience and complete bullshit. If I see 4.99 I think 5, and have done so since I was old enough to read numbers.

People should gather up pennies and throw them at shopkeepers that do it.

>>50960846
That's a lot of assumptions there, mate. Were you in the smallest class in school and had to be escorted to the toilet by any chance because you must be retarded.

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>>50959522
>>The steward informs the party that they are one day late to exchange their gold coins for the fiat currency
Then sell it at a massive profit to a jeweler.

If gold is so rare that they can't reliably make coins out of it anymore then it's going to be expensive as fuck to make pretty things out of it. Vapid nobles will spend a King's ransom on rare, pretty things.

>>50960351
You mean apart from tooth-fillings?

>>50959522
Dear God some fantasy artists irritate the shit out of me.
This is a well drawn piece of art, especially on the armour and equipment the knight is using.
But that pose, he might aswell be doing a super hero 3-point landing.
Motherfucker you have a shield, why are you swinging it out behind you? I wish more artists knew how to fight.
Happy 2017 BTW.

>>50962026
>The idea of "class warfare" is absurd prior to the industrial era, since most people are subsistence farmers. If they stopped farming, they starve. If they got rid of their lords, they get invaded or social order breaks down.

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.

Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.

In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold gradation of social rank. In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights, plebeians, slaves; in the Middle Ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in almost all of these classes, again, subordinate gradations.

The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones.

>>50960827
That's what happened in my campaign once. I had to take a break to calculate out what kinds of monies would be played around with.

It got a little extreme.

Also, apropos of nothing, a portable hole in 3.5 can hold about 3 million gp.

Also also, I don't think my players ever expected to turn the dragon hunt into a social campaign so quickly.

>>50962691
But when everyone is struggling, not for the resources of their fellow man or the opportunity to profit from those struggles, but merely for the basic elements of survival, the conflict is not against the upper class, but against nature and the earth itself.

Pre-industrial society does not fight class warfare, but wars of survival. In effect, the modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has instituted class antagonisms, by virtue of having such plentitudes that they no longer struggle to survive, but instead to thrive.

Communism is a failure, not because of its methodology or its understandings, but because it is a philosophy that prizes survival over thriving. It is a broken system that seeks to fix problems humanity has progressed beyond. Look not to ensure the survival of all, but deal with systems where all can thrive.

Also, you need to deal with the fact that some people are such dickbags that they aren't happy unless everyone they know is worse off then they are. In capitalist america, we call those people CEOs and call it a day.

>>50962481
That's more related to culture and development than anything else. The Russians and French loved their respective leaders - it was only one they started getting shitty, and things started getting shitty as a result, that they seriously went for reform and eventually revolution. If they had been good, strong rulers, they likely never would have made the switch to democracy/communism.

>>50960306
it doesn't have to be useful for a utilitarian/industrial purpose, but it is useful for a frivolous/decorative purpose.

stop being intentionally obtuse/stupid.

>>50961595
Republics, both merchant and the other sorts.

>>50963290
What other kinds were there? I'm a little familiar with Venice and other Italian city-states. Did Poland count?

>>50962481
>Most absolute monarchies did not fall, but simply gave way to a parliamentary system or began relinquishing power as a compromise. Pretty much anyone who knows history knows this.
doesnt change the fact they aren't around anymore, now does it?
gee you sure are dumb

>>50959522
I sell the gold for more than it was worth before. The kingdom admits that most of it is locked in dragons hoards making it rare and therefore valuable. Nobles will pay out the ass with thier new currency so they can show thier status by wearing my gold.

>>50960481
>Using discworld as a measure of what reasonable people would do
A recipe for disaster, my friend

>>50959688
But the assumption that gold will always hold its value doesn't follow. Aluminum used to be more valuable than gold and now we use it to hold sandwiches and Coke. Intrinsic value cannot exist for something that doesn't have intrinsic value. Gold is literally useless for pretty much any practical purpose in a pre modern society, it's value is entirely arbitrary, outside of being rare and pretty.

>>50962631
This. If anything the fact it's no longer currency and dragons are hoarding it will have made my gold's value skyrocket.

Just as.me and my dragon waifu planned.

>>50962932
Point of order,.Take a look at Rome and you will see that pre industrial societies very much had class struggles. It goes back to the very founding of Times republic

>>50965958
I'm not saying that nothing could ever shake gold from its perch, but that nothing in the OP indicates it would lose value. If anything, those events would increase the value.

>being rare and pretty.
The former quality is enhanced by conditions mentioned in the OP (extreme hoarding, not being used as currency), and the latter one is not diminished by the use of fiat currency. Which means that gold's price would surge, barring some apocalypse-level crisis or the introduction of the philosopher's stone.

>"intrinsic value"
Gold is a luxury good. It has value because people pay a lot for it. That is in part because it's beautiful, very rare, stable, and a useful status symbol. It has held up for millennia in our world, even though it doesn't feed us or make our cars run. In times of uncertainty, people buy US treasury bills, gold, and jewelry because their value is notoriously reliable and almost certain to survive most crises.

Again: I'm sorry to say it, and I don't mean any offense, but so many roleplayers just don't understand basic economic principles. If you get the chance, take some intermediate econ classes and pay attention: it can really change your worldview.

>>50966645
Gold has been fluctuating in quantity for years due to the dragon-hero cycle. The intrinsic value has already accounted for that. And again, the coin would be worth more than the value of its gold or it would get debased accordingly.

A gold coin would have more value as currency than as a lump of precious metal.

Magic reagents not withstanding

>>50965958
The context of the OP is that gold is much rarer due to the depletion of gold mines and dragons hoarding the rest and somehow a party of adventurers bringing in a bucket of gold is disappointed that they are unable to exchange their gold into papers.

>>50959522
>Leave campaign

>>50959688
What part of MOTHER FUCKING DRAGONS do you not understand?

Who the fuck in their right mind WANT gold around their homes and family if it means a god damn DRAGON tearing your home apart and burning everything around you to the ground?

>>50966358
While your point is well received, I should have been precise and stated that class struggles were the exception, not the rule, for pre-industrial societies. There were also struggles between the clergy and monarchy, and struggles between various states; nevertheless, most people were more concerned with where their meals would come from than with maintaining temporal power.

Industrialization was the rising tide that lifted all boats, shifting the populace in general away from local production of food towards mass-production of goods and services, making it a normal, general thing that people would do something that doesn't directly feed them in order to acquire food from someone who produces a vast surplus. In that sense, Industrialization was the process of freeing people from the tyranny of the soil, and automation was the process of beginning a service-based economy. It also happened to make the lines between haves and have-nots and between owners and makers common lines for dividing societies, rather than exceptions wherein the bulk of the population was needed to feed everyone, so whatever else people were doing was unimportant.

Basically, in a pre-industrial economy, a transition to a fiat currency would be just as traumatic as one on multiple independent standards, such as wheat-backed copper pennies (which you can exchange at your local granary for a pound of unmilled wheat), or silver coins for the terribly saving-oriented. Bear in mind that most farmers wouldn't see the buckets full of gold that adventurers would have. Instead, that would be the province of a very rare class of people, who would need to be handled independently.

>>50967173
I imagine the only people who would want gold around would be the people who think they could fight off a dragon.

>>50960410
Inflation is caused by the amount of currency in circulation growing faster than the amount of goods and services it can buy. Currency which is hoarded is effectively removed from circulation, causing deflation. If the bank is even remotely competent, it can easily balance these two effects to create a perfectly stable economy. And if the dragons are even remotely rational, they can be persuaded to aid the kingdom because, after all, the more prosperous its economy, the more valuable their hoard.

Heck, dragons could become valuable and respected members of society in such a setting simply by having both interest in the long-term viability of the economy which backs the value of their hoard, and enough personal power to force that interest to be taken into account against speculators and business "geniuses".

>>50959889
>corrosion proof metal
>useless

There are lots of applications where gold could be at least potentially useful, if it wasn't so damn expensive.

>>50962082
Scarcity might always exist, but scarcity of food and scarcity of skilled musicians are not even remotely similar, thus making the claim extremely deceptive. So, perfect for Internet holy wars but useless otherwise.

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>>50962182
Communism has been tried exactly once. Even in the worst country on Earth, in the hands of a literal paranoid lunatic, it turned the ruins of an utterly collapsed medieval hellhole into a modern superpower. Meanwhile, communism lite - also known as social democracy - turned neighbouring country, an agrarian backwater which is basically all frozen arctic swamp, into one of the richest and best to live on the planet.

What could full-on communism do if it was tried in a normal, sane country? As capitalism continues to kill the middle class, and a new world war brewing, we'll see sooner or later.

>>50968758
Do you mean Russia and China? Because economically, modern Russia and China are capitalistic as fuck. Today's USA is commie-er than Russia and China, and look where USA have gone into with all the welfare babbies saddlebags.

>>50968758
>communism turned russia into a modern superpower
>not the result of ww2
>not the stockpiling of nuclear weapons to keep from being wiped off the face of the planet
I'm pretty sure this is bait

>>50960055
That was basically how it was for colonial times.

We have reports of some merchants being arrested, whipped, then charged 1000 times their original price increase because... the actually could make a profit off of their goods, and it was seen as "ripping people off" and "sinful" by some ultra-zealous puritans.

We also have reports of Merchants being pissed that even the *weights and measurement* system used for determining whether an item is an equal exchange was horribly inefficient and different merely from travelling from one village in The Holy Roman Empire to another. They could travel to one village that measures everything in stones and finger length while another uses foot length and pounds.

>>50962182
>guy explicitly calls communism a fantasy, i.e. not real; non-viable
>he must be a communist!
Do you also bitch when people talk about in-setting gods and magic? How can you be this dumb?

I feel like this would be useful to this thread
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhyKYa0YJ_5CL-krstYn532QY1Ayo27s1

I wonder how many people will have a kneejerk reaction

>>50960827
>Capitalism is magic.
Dark Magic.

>>50968758
Get off 4chan, Sven, you're falling behind on your cultural enrichment quotas.

>>50971437
No it's history, but reading a book is hard, isn't it?

Basically Stalin dragged Russia kicking and screaming into the 20th century via massive industrialization projects that he ordered, along with all the other horrible things he did. If he hadn't done that, they'd basically have been fighting WW 2 with pitchforks.

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>>50960618
>Gold coins hold worth because nobody's making them any more. It's scarcity rather than bullion value.

But gold coins are minted all the time, anon.

>>50959885
If I'm remembering the right thread, that was a deliberate attempt to make as complicated, obtuse, and pointless a currency as possible.

>>50967233
This.

Also, even when the bolcheviks took control in Russia, most people were still peasants doing survival farming.
The whole "class struggle" thing wasn't even something your average russian was so concern about, since he understood very well that it wasn't much of a difference if he had to give some of his crops to the local boyard or to the People's Party for "protection".

>>50972139
Or there wouldn't have been a WW2 in Europe.

>>50960827
This sound like interesting setting idea.

>>50972617
lolwut?

>>50959885
I should do this to my players.

good thing all my treasure is in silver pieces.