I'm still trying to ramp up on the generic setting contained in the Traveller universe.  My problem starts with these two elements:

QuoteLimited communication
A central theme to Traveller is that there is no form of faster-than-light information transfer – meaning no ansible, subspace radio or hyper-wave communication technology is available, thereby recreating an "age of sail" feel to the game. Most interplanetary communication is handled by courier ships, most commonly "X-boats", which are small Imperial vessels with long-distance jump drives that travel between systems transmitting and receiving vital data. Systems not on an X-boat route must rely on mail runs brought in by visiting ships.

Feudalism
The limits on the speed of information means huge empires cannot directly command all member worlds. Since local rulers cannot be directly controlled by central authority, affairs are managed by independent nobility, who make use of classic titles such as Baron, Duke and Archduke.

In this setting, I can't picture how a central bank would work.  And if there's no central bank, and therefore no reserve currency, then we're not looking at something where a 'credit' (or dollar or anything else) is going to have a universal value.  And history tells us that currencies that can't maintain a constant value lose out to those that can.  Especially in a 'feudalistic' society, because there's no central authority to make it illegal to use competing currencies.

So how does this work, exactly?  What is a 'credit'?  Who issues them, who/what controls interest rates, etc?

I thought about this question a lot myself when I was putting together the Suns of Gold trade supplement for SWN. My eventual conclusion was that there was no clean way of explaining a universal currency in a politically fractured ship-speed universe.

The consequences of this are rather drastic, however. Minor peddlers might be able to change a few tens of thousands of foreign credits on a world's exchanges, but major players don't have a single credit balance- they have separate credit balances on different worlds. What's valuable to these merchants aren't the credit totals they have, but the tangible wealth they have- the goods, the real estate, the minions, all the stuff that's either portable or valuable in of itself. Big traders keep their money in stuff as opposed to credit accounts, because if a world gets mad enough at you or feels like striking a blow against the foreign colonialist oppressors they're just going to zero out your local bank account.

This doesn't work so well for the conventional "space trucker" style of small merchanting that Traveller encourages, however, so I'd suggest two possible rationalizations:

1) The amounts of credits the PCs throw around are small enough that they can find counterparties to exchange them on any given world.

2) A "credit" is just a convenient abstraction of a large amount of negotiation, currency market trading, bearer bonds, letters-of-credit and other footwork that is boring and irrelevant to play, and so is shuffled offscreen. Yes, each world has its own local credit but tracking them is more work than it's worth so it's just handwaved, sort of like the causality issues of FTL flight.

QuoteThe Imperial credit itself is backed by the Imperial and Subsidiary Fleet, or (to be precise) its transport capacity. One credit is equal to the cost of transporting one metric gram through one jump. This has made the Imperial credit safe from the economic effects of inflation and deflation for over a thousand years.

Here's one explanation of what a credit is.

Hopefully this article will answer your questions.

Also, I have to say, you are the first I have encountered who thinks that the Official Traveller Universe is flawed because the Third Imperium does not have a central banking system.

Quote from: mcbobbo;695291So how does this work, exactly?  What is a 'credit'?  Who issues them, who/what controls interest rates, etc?

IMO, like the US has, there would be regional reserve banks, that would set the various currency policies for their regions. Money creation is done by individual banks by loaning money, same as now. Similar to the way every currency in the world is valued against the dollar, any local planetary currency would be pegged to the credit.

See, I don't see this as any different than Earth's history before the telegraph was invented.  The United States managed to have a functional, non-feudal government (and, as to that, a central bank) a long time before instantaneous communications.

In like fashion, international finance existed millennia before instantaneous communications.

One factor was that there were always some currencies that, because of the stability of the issuing nation and/or the acknowledged purity of the coinage, were widely acknowledged as having superior trading value.  Since the Traveller universe already has the Imperial government, it's not a stretch to assume that its purchasing power is mandated by the finance ministry.  As far as fringe planets go, I expect there'd be the official currency peg and the black market peg.

Quote from: jeff37923;695304Hopefully this article will answer your questions.

Also, I have to say, you are the first I have encountered who thinks that the Official Traveller Universe is flawed because the Third Imperium does not have a central banking system.

Thanks everybody, and Jeff that link is exactly what I needed.

So there is a 'central bank' in concept, but the Empire is somewhat hands-off about it.  Underwriting closes most of the gaps.

Sweet!

Quote from: mcbobbo;695291In this setting, I can't picture how a central bank would work.  And if there's no central bank, and therefore no reserve currency, then we're not looking at something where a 'credit' (or dollar or anything else) is going to have a universal value.  And history tells us that currencies that can't maintain a constant value lose out to those that can.  Especially in a 'feudalistic' society, because there's no central authority to make it illegal to use competing currencies.

This is addressed in detail in GURPS Traveller Far Trader. The credit works because it is backed by the full faith and credit of the Third Imperium. The Third Imperium has this prestige because of the near universal presence of Imperial starports on nearly all member worlds. (All those with E or higher).

Basically Cleon, first emperor, main goal for the the Third Imperium is to foster interstellar trade. To this end the early Imperium built out a network of starports to facilitate trade. These starport do business in Imperial Credits. This was the main engine behind the acceptance of credits as a universal currency.

I forget exactly which ministry handled this but basically the Third Imperium collects economic data and determines the amount of credit needed to expand the economy. It very low, way less than a 1% growth rate. The extra credits are distributed to the sector nobility to spend as they see fit.  Abuse is checked by same mechanism used to keep the nobles in line. Peer pressure on steroids.

Now with all this being said, Traveller does have rules for credits of varying values if you want that complexity. I believe one place they can be found is in Trillion Credit Squadron. It is a chart cross-indexed by Starport and Tech Level. Basically a planet with a A class Starport and Tech level 5 has a Credit rating of 1.0.  Every other combination is lower.

Jeff's source appears to have a wealth of other info on it as well, and I finally found the root page...

http://www.ayahuasca.net/pub/rpg/traveller/links.html

Quote from: estar;695333Now with all this being said, Traveller does have rules for credits of varying values if you want that complexity. I believe one place they can be found is in Trillion Credit Squadron. It is a chart cross-indexed by Starport and Tech Level. Basically a planet with a A class Starport and Tech level 5 has a Credit rating of 1.0.  Every other combination is lower.

The T20 book I picked up has charts for this. They're handling it through price fluctuation.  I can roll with it.

I suppose the biggest reason I wanted to know was more along the lines of what might be possible in the setting.  Earth's age of sail was very much driven by precious metals. An Italian coin could be restruck, for example, so always carried some value.  The wife is confident they used letters of credit then as well, but I am less convinced.  Wikipedia doesn't seem to think those pages need "history" sections, and I don't personally know any experts on it.  I know individual establishments certainly ran tabs, accounts, etc, but at what point were those assets transferable?

Case in point - do I do a lost temple of gold site-based adventure?  Or what about Cassie Chadwick? (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassie_Chadwick)

Trying to grok it...

Quote from: mcbobbo;695349Or what about Cassie Chadwick? (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassie_Chadwick)

Tech level and remoteness are the keys here. The lower the TL, the more difficult it will be to get positive IDs on known criminals/frauds. The more remote the world is, the longer it will take for communications to bring in that vital piece of information law enforcement may need.

Quote from: mcbobbo;695349Case in point - do I do a lost temple of gold site-based adventure?  Or what about Cassie Chadwick? (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassie_Chadwick)

Trying to grok it...

Nice merc/bounty hunter mission with that link.

Money is weird, sometimes it was cowrie shells - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_money
I think, same as today, reputation plus a certain amount down would have acted as good faith for a purchase or loan. However, iirc, in one of my economics classes, I heard the Chinese issued the first checks over a thousand years ago.

Quote from: mcbobbo;695349The T20 book I picked up has charts for this. They're handling it through price fluctuation.  I can roll with it.

I suppose the biggest reason I wanted to know was more along the lines of what might be possible in the setting.  Earth's age of sail was very much driven by precious metals. An Italian coin could be restruck, for example, so always carried some value.  The wife is confident they used letters of credit then as well, but I am less convinced.  Wikipedia doesn't seem to think those pages need "history" sections, and I don't personally know any experts on it.  I know individual establishments certainly ran tabs, accounts, etc, but at what point were those assets transferable?

Promissory Notes and basic banking instruments existed back in the Middle Ages.

Quote from: mcbobbo;695349I know individual establishments certainly ran tabs, accounts, etc, but at what point were those assets transferable?

The most simple and gamable way of thinking about it is that the system is based on who you know. If the House of Medicis in Florence knows and trust the House of Pizarro in Seville (and vice versa) then assets are transferrable as both know the other is good for it. But if you go to some grain merchant in Bremen likely they are going to tell you to pound salt. However if you can find a factor of the Medici in Bremen then probably you can get something done although it will probably cost you.

If you want this aspect in your game then make up a small social network of Banking Factors up to whatever number you can handle.

I don't get it, why would a setting with FTL travel have difficulties with information communication? At a minimum surely capable systems would have mailboats, I mean information is a lot more valuable per gram than almost anything else, especially financial information. The Gap series setting by Donaldson had a similar premise and regular drones were dispatched to maintain the flow of data.

Quote from: The Traveller;695407I don't get it, why would a setting with FTL travel have difficulties with information communication? At a minimum surely capable systems would have mailboats, I mean information is a lot more valuable per gram than almost anything else, especially financial information. The Gap series setting by Donaldson had a similar premise and regular drones were dispatched to maintain the flow of data.

It takes a minimum of a week to travel between systems and there is a minimum size on Jump capable ships. so no Jump Torpedoes to automate the process.

The big problems doesn't show up until you get beyond your subsector 8 parsec by 10 parsecs. It take over a year to cross the Imperium from one side to the other.