Once upon a time there was only barter:  I will give you a chicken, but only if you give me three cows.  Or ... something.  I will allow you to slay the dragon but only if you posture heroically while doing so.

Currency is ... it's better in a lot of ways.  You pick one (or more) thing and say "This has a fixed value, agreed upon by everyone, and if you are willing to pay enough of these symbolic units then you can get these specific things."  I will sell you a chicken for $20.  Later I can then rent video-games.  But you, personally, do not need to have video-games in order to get my chicken.  You just need money.

Likewise:  I will allow you to slay the dragon, but only if you pay 5 Heroism points.  I can then pay Eddie to your left a heroism point to reward him for posturing heroically in the next scene.  In RPGs currencies are often called "points" ... Experience points, Fate points, Drama points, Miracle points, etc.  There are many different currencies in many different games, and they cover different types of value that are on offer in that game.

Currency facilitates exchange, which encourages exchange.  Literally, I am more likely to sell my chicken if currency exists.  I don't have to find something that I want to trade for right now.  I know that when my future wants emerge, the money will be as good as a chicken.

Likewise:  You are more likely to do heroic posturey stuff, even if you don't need to slay a dragon right now, because you know the hero points will be as good as heroic posturing when you do come upon a dragon you need to slay.

Is this sufficiently "Well DUH!" obvious to everyone for us to move on to discussing how currency is implemented on a practical level?  Or are there questions about the general sense of what a currency is or should be?

One could argue that they could well be the same, but are you talking about character advancement or wealth?

Ummmm ... no?

I'm talking about currency in general.  Character advancement is one type of currency that a lot of games have, and wealth is another.  But neither of them is the general idea of currency, right?

Like, if I were teaching a real-world currency section in an economics course, would I be talking about dollars or yen?  Well, sort of about both of them, and sort of about neither.

Sorry if I explained myself poorly the first time out.  Does that make more sense?

So, Tony, are you advocating some kind of medium of exchange in an RPG, like pints and stuff?

MADNESS and FOREGITE INSANITY, I say.  

Okay, not really, you're just stating the blatantly obvious, do you have a point?

Well, I actually have multiple points.  I'll assume that the lack of confused posts means a lack of confusion, and move on.

Currency encourages exchanges in the dimensions that the currency measures.  If you design a game where players get currency every time they kill things and take their stuff then you get a different game from one where players get currency every time their characters get screwed by their own internal faults ... even if the kill-things game encourages the GM to reward people who play to their internal faults, and the faults game encourages the GM to reward people who kill things.  One system has a currency, and one system can only happen through barter, and the system with currency is encouraged.

So if you want to analyze a game, you can take a look at its currencies in order to figure out the focus that will appear in play.  Likewise, if you want to make a game with a certain focus you can apply currency to it.

It's not that there's only one possible path through a game.  Far from it.  It's just that the path that goes by way of currency is a greased slide down a steep slope.  You can take a different path, but the one that's got currency helping is faster and easier.

At the same time, if you have a bunch of rules focussing on something, but they don't form any currency system ... do they really focus attention on that thing, in-game?  I'm skeptical.

For example, oWoD Vampire:  Vampire has a fair number of rules about Humanity.  It's got an explicit measure of it, and lots of things that you can do that effect it.  But can you spend humanity for anything?  Not that I recall.  And my experience is that, despite the many rules, humanity doesn't actually play that crucial a part in the game.  My experience is that blood pool and willpower (both which you can both earn and spend) get a lot more attention.

You know what happened when money was first introduced?

Lots of farmers ended up in debt.

Tony is trying to introduce a Forgie term.

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/_articles/glossary.html

"The exchange rate within and among Character Components. Currency may or may not be explicit (e.g. "character points"), but it is a universal feature of System, specifically as it relates to Character. "

Basicly just more evangelizing, attempts to universalize their language. Thats why he's here.

Abyssal, does it really matter to you where an idea existed beforehand? I'm sure the forge talks about plenty of things; hell, I'm sure [old game you hated] came up with a mechanic that is bounced about nowadays. Who  cares? Pure ad hominem. Examine the idea - if there's a problem with it, say so. Count me out of your quest for ideological hygiene.

End pointless derail.

Tony, I think I get what you're saying. Some people say that a game rules determines what the game is about, other people say the rules are just there to deal with the boring stuff so you can do what the game is about. You're saying that some parts of the game system do encourage some types of play - but that only when it involves some exchange (or possibility of) of currency.

Hmm. Mind ticking over for counterexamples....

Ticking.

Okay, so are you sayin' that if a game says it does something then the rules should reflect/encourage/reward players who do that something ? They can use currency earned from doing that something to improve their characters.

Regards,
David R

The reason it matters is that

1) forgie terms should not be adopted here or universalized in any way. There's no outright banning, but since we're all free to recognize and rebuff the evangelizers, I'm having some of that. Personally, I see it as a form of spam aimed at encouraging an acceptance of dogma.

2) If it's "just" a concept or topic, explain that, and leave the forgie shit out of it. In other words: if we're going to talk about what game system do or don't encourage- Don't call it "currency". Currency is an established term and it means money. Look at every single other post up to this point and understand that we're not accepting the term. Everyone up to the very last post before mine was still talking about money.

3) If we must come up with our own imaginative new term, lets do that right here.

PART II: WE DON'T ACTUALLY NEED AN IMAGINATIVE NEW TERM

Fine, I'll engage.

What we are talking about doesn't have anything to do with what game systems "say" they encourage. It has to do with this

In any given game system, certain mechanics can be used to influence play. So a character in DC Heroes can "burn" hero points to add to his roll, or a character in Earthdawn can add a Karma dice to influence his roll. That much is obvious. But how do you get more hero or karma points or whatever? It depends on the Game System. You might have a point pool that you have to manage or whatever. It could be tied into the choices you make at Chargen (for example a D&D cleric with the luck domain can reroll once per day), or you could have a pool that just refreshes once per game. (Or maybe you have an entire subculture of fuckers who fetish on failure and want the GM to reward them for intentionally portaying failure with extra points or whatever.) But...whatever thing.  

The mistake is the poisonous belief that if a game involves doing X to gain Y, then people only really like the game because they only care about that exchange of X for Y.

In other words: this is a belief that people only play Super Mario World because they like to press the jump button.

Quote from: Abyssal MawIn other words: this is a belief that people only play Super Mario World because they like to press the jump button.

Yeah - I can help but feel it is related to the nice, if rather naive, view that if only people would put in rules for something other than killing shit young men loaded with testosterone and living in a society that doesn't give them much opertunity to blow off steam would stop dreaming of being lejendary badasses and play Deep Emotional characters.

Yeah right.

Quote from: Abyssal MawDon't call it "currency". Currency is an established term and it means money.

The definition is a bit broader than that, though: "a medium of exchange, especially the money in general use in a country", according to the Concise Oxford Dictionary, while Wikipedia describes it as "a unit of exchange, facilitating the transfer of goods and services" and "a form of money, where money is defined as a medium of exchange (rather than a store of value)". In other words, it's a perfectly valid term in its own right when discussing, say, earning and spending XP.

This is, for me, where things get dicey.  I was, at first, going to respond that Currency wasn't a valid term for many of the same reasons as Abyssal Maw did.  And it made me think it through and, for a moment, agree that games do/should have this meaningful concept, etc.

But there's the rub.  If we start talking about whether or not the term fits the concept, in a way we have defacto accepted the concept as valid and useful.

I'm not saying Currency is or is not the right term.  I guess I'm saying Eric is right.  Just because a game encourages a certain action X to gain Y, doesn't mean you're are necessarily going to have people play it that way.

For example, in the Living Greyhawk Campaign there is at least one web site I've seen that is all about how not to advance your character.  This is a result of a series of issues with Living Grewyhawk, but here are people playing against stereotype - to the point where they are actively avoiding what for purposes of this discussion would be considered Currency.

Or I could be way off base.

EDIT: My typing sucks this morning.

Quote from: David ROkay, so are you sayin' that if a game says it does something then the rules should reflect/encourage/reward players who do that something ? They can use currency earned from doing that something to improve their characters.

"Should"?  I dunno.  I think that what I'm saying is that currency is a prime way that games do encourage one sort of behavior over another.  It's a recognizable tool that crops up in all manner of games, and seems to have a fairly reliable impact.

Does that mean that the currency thing is the only thing that players ever can or will do with the system?  'course not.  It means that it's a thing that is easier than other things.

Like, if you have a hundred different paths down a mountain, you can take any one of those paths.  Nobody's saying that the other paths are impossible to traverse.  But that doesn't mean that it's not valid to point out that one of the paths is a bobsled run with greased rails, that can take you down the mountain in thirty seconds, and the others will require more effort.