The money chapter gives the referee a baseline to work from when she creates a money system for her own milieu. Personas can come across money in two different ways: they start with it; or they find it during play. The money that a persona starts out with is dependant on her persona class. The coin is doled out in Chapter 10: Incidentals
Kinds of Currency
The most standard form of money is coins. Currency can actually come in any form: cards, chemicals, credit vouchers, or paper. Currency also has an endless source of common names: bucks, domars, cubits, credits, crillos, units, bytes, sense, and doll hairs.
The standard unit of money arbitrarily chosen for EXP is the electrum piece. The value of equipment is listed in electrum pieces, unless otherwise stated. Other standard coins are coppers, silvers, golds, and platinums. Whether these coins are actually composed of their described metal or backed by some ephemeral reserve is up to the referee. The coins are all the same size and wate of a Canadian quarter dollar (25 gms). So every 42 coins would have a wate of about 1 kilogram. It is recommended that the referee always select her own money format, and make the coin a metric wate. Each coin type has an abbreviation and an individual value (relative to the electrum piece). Consult Table 23.1: Currency Type for an explanation.
Table 23.1 Currency Terminology and Units
The standard unit of currency is the electrum piece (eps). Other types of slang are suggested here. This list is not exhaustive.| Equivalent | Coin | Paper | Electronic |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1/100 | Copper (cps) | Fling | Sentee |
| 1/10 | Silver (sps) | Sling | Dekkee |
| 1 | Electrum (eps) | Bling | Unit |
| 10 | Gold (gps) | Wing | Dekka |
| 100 | Platinum (pps) | Wazing | Sentah |
| Values | Coins | Paper | Electronic |
Barter
If your milieu has currency you are already implying a certain level of a cohesive society. The most likely form of exchange for a technologically collapsed society would be barter. Currency represents a cross society acceptance of a substance which is equivalent in all bartering situations. I will not, and probably could not, offer any suggestions on how to run a bartering system for your campaign. The bartering system does conjure up an infinite supply of role-playing situations. If barter is being used the ref should be happy to know that the values of all equipment are relative, and the assigned values do not represent fluctuations due to supply and demand.
Real Money
Hypothetical gaming money cannot be converted to present day dollars, yen, pounds, or drachma. The world’s money market is hairy enough, let alone trying to create a conversion procedure for non-existent equipment. Even if a conversion procedure did exist it would be made obsolete by inflation or deflation. If the procedure included inflation/deflation then supply and demand would upset it. The complexities are endless. Finally, how many tech level 22 fusion pistols do you have around the planet which can be compared for a conversion to a present day dollar value? Not many.