Local currencies

[Black Globe Generator]

Originally posted by far-trader:
I don't think the analogy is quite right though. What you're comparing is more like offering Imperial Credits to the barkeep of a satellite who can call the Imperial Starport for the latest exchange rate in a few seconds.

That hasn't been my experience - I'm thinking of more places than I can count that simply quote a consistent price in dollars and don't bother with calculating exchange rates. While I agree that over several parsecs this becomes less likely, certainly a cluster of J1 worlds would offer this courtesy to travellers, particularly when there is considerable traffic between the worlds.

 

[JAFARR]

My general approach is to ignore local currency and just use credits for simplicty, but once I was a player where there was an interesting development with a local currency.

We purchased a lot listed as "forms". I don't remember the amount, but it a fair amount. We were traveling from a 12 or 13 TL world to a 5 to 7 range TL world and were speculating that it was a comodity that would sell well there. (Ref was using his own mods to the trade systed.) During jump, I discovered that we were low on one of the forms we routinely used. I decided to see if there were some forms in the cargo we had purchased that would work, and to see just what it was we had purchased so we would know how best to sell it on arrival. I went to the cargo bay and opened the first container. Full of money! So were the rest! After alerting the rest of the crew to what I had found, we started planning what to do. Turns out that someone had a bright idea on how to "safely" ship that money between banks on different worlds within the system. That backfired when it actually got lost in a warehouse for several years. When discovered, nobody checked to see if it was actually what the papers on the containers said it was. We knew a little about the world we were going to and figured that we could make about double the cost of shipping, so we bought it to finish filling our hold. Almost passed it up for something else, but changed our minds at the last minute and barely had time to get it on board before lift off. After contacting the proper legal personal at our destination world, we ended up owning tons of money worth about 2/3's of it's face value in Credits. How much money? Don't remember, but due to friction in the party, I secretly teamed up with another player who was also fed up with the way the rest of the party was acting. The whole party agreed to sell our ship (a non-standard 250 ton job). We went through an agent and bought it back. Then we went to Darrian and paid cash up front for a brand new TL 16 ship, arranged an anneuity that would fund the annual maintence cost from the the interest, and still had money to operate our old ship while the new one was being built. That was like hitting a record Power Ball lottery win followed by hitting a record Mega Millions lottery win. The best part was the look on the other player's faces when we arrived as the new owners to take posession of our "new-old" ship because it had been their idea to sell the old one and they had accepted our offer of about 25% of it's new cost. The two of us had quietly agreed to what ever they had proposed. Sure gave the Ref some grief because he now had 4 parties to worry about instead of 3 (seems that we were working aginst 2 other parties instead of just 1 like we thought.)

 

[BillDowns]

Best of JTAS Vol 1, had this exhange table, which I have used many times.

</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;"> A B C D E X
15 1.00 0.95 0.90 - - -
14 0.95 0.90 0.85 0.80 0.75 -
13 0.90 0.85 0.80 0.75 0.70 -
12 0.85 0.80 0.75 0.70 0.65 -
11 0.80 0.75 0.70 0.65 0.60 -
10 0.75 0.70 0.65 0.60 0.55 0.50
9 0.70 0.65 0.60 0.55 0.50 0.45
8 0.65 0.60 0.55 0.50 0.45 0.40
7 0.60 0.55 0.50 0.45 0.40 0.35
6 0.50 0.45 0.40 0.35 0.30
5 0.45 0.40 0.35 0.30 0.25
4 0.35 0.30 0.25 0.20
3 0.30 0.25 0.20 0.15
2 0.20 barter barter
1 0.15 barter barter
0 barter</pre>[/QUOTE]Starports across, Tech Level down. LBB2 prices are local, not Impie.

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by Black Globe Generator:
That hasn't been my experience - I'm thinking of more places than I can count that simply quote a consistent price in dollars and don't bother with calculating exchange rates. While I agree that over several parsecs this becomes less likely, certainly a cluster of J1 worlds would offer this courtesy to travellers, particularly when there is considerable traffic between the worlds.

Personal experiences differ for sure

Have you ever tried to use Canadian money to buy something in the US? Or Pesos? Or Reals?

US currency is widely accepted yes, like the Imperial Credit. Those other funny currencies are harder to use outside of thier homeland. You usually have to go to a bank or take a big exchange loss with the local merchant/moneychanger.

The courtesy of exchange you suggest between currencies in a close cluster would certainly be there, and usually convieniently located at the starport. But in some small shop half a world away from the starport? Not likely, though with the right TL they will be able to make you an offer on the exchange rate.

 

[aramis]

It's also somewhere in the MT rules, too. I'm fairly certain it's also in TNE.

 

[mbrinkhues]

It also depends on the seller and wether he can profit.

You had no problems paying with Marks on a Dutch market or even in Dutch shops in Enschede. Partially because they had a lot of german customers back before the blew up the city, partially because the used exchange rate (1:1) was better for the Dutch than the official one (IIRC about 0.9 Marks to the Gulden).

The other way round normally did not work since there where less customers, you had to use an exchange rate and german banks where fuzzy about exchanging coins.

We once managed to pay a French traffic toll with Marks, the French uses a fixed course, most likely the daily course to compute the amount. Given that he had a rap-sheet with the courses and a calculator present, I assume they accepted other currencies as well.

During last years holiday in GB I payed an extra charge for the Dover-Callais ferry in Euros and got back pounds in exchange. Same three years ago on the Dublin-Hollyhead, payed the Burger in Euros got back pounds. Again they used a rap-sheet, not the "up to the second" courses

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Originally posted by Black Globe Generator:
/SNIP/don't bother with calculating exchange rates.

Just about everywhere I have been (30+ countries) that they will take foreign money, they have a rate they get from the bank at the beginning of the day. They use that rate all day (or week, possibly). And, they usually round it off to the most convenient amount for doing math. (And, occasionally they screw up the math - never in my favor....)

Originally posted by Michael Brinkhues:
During last years holiday in GB I payed an extra charge for the Dover-Callais ferry in Euros and got back pounds in exchange. Same three years ago on the Dublin-Hollyhead, payed the Burger in Euros got back pounds. Again they used a rap-sheet, not the "up to the second" courses

That's a fun way to collect foreign money - buy with your currency and get back local in change.

 

[parmasson]

The modern world is small. Pick up any newspaper and see the up to date exchange rates. A one week minimum for news that could be a problem for that off the cuff system. Europe is a small place with rather open borders and trade (vs space) Imperial Cr to local I don't see a problem with. It is the local currency to local currency that is an issue.

 

[mbrinkhues]

Originally posted by Kurega Gikur:
The modern world is small. Pick up any newspaper and see the up to date exchange rates. A one week minimum for news that could be a problem for that off the cuff system. Europe is a small place with rather open borders and trade (vs space) Imperial Cr to local I don't see a problem with. It is the local currency to local currency that is an issue.

Agreed. Local to Local will work in three situations:

+ Close by (say 2-3 Parsek) planets with a long history of trade, maybe something like the "Triangle" trade of the 17th-19th century

+ Large Planets with "known solid" currencies like Regina and Mora

+ Planets with a currency that is valuable in itself like the equivalent to Krügerrand Gold Coins or "Gold pressed Latinum"


Trying to pay the "Whatshamacallit Wallys" on Planet "Dunno" will most likely NOT work. Paying with Regina Reals on Mora most likely will.

 

[Lochlaber]

If you aren't adding problems with local currencies to bug the heck out of your players, do as I do and use trade credits for non Imperial worlds or closely related. Basically these are coins/bars of various precious metals/gems that are tied into the speculative price of gold. 1 ton of these gold coins are worth approximately 8 million credits, then modified a little due to local conditions. These metals cannot, repeat CANNOT be used for further speculation.
As for not making money on speculative trading, if you have the skills, you can't help but make money. That is after all why they put trader and broker skills into the game. Heck, our trader has a 35 and I've had to modify so he doesn't take over theworlds, according to the strict rules of the game.

 

[Liam Devlin]

Aramis has the rright of it again, it is in TNE, gentlemen, ladies...

In our current T20/TNE-1248 era campaign across the great Reft Sector (subsectors O,P, & M) I adapted the exchange tables from the starports given out of the GDW work, and made my own exchange table with those. Several planets now print their own "credit", and how it stnds against the relic pre 001-1117 Imperial credit is the measuring stick. Several worlds that have extant starports & still conduct trade off world have precious metal-mineral (diamonds, lanthanum, gold, silver) backed currencies and they've encountered worlds thus far with 2-1 to 100-1 versus the ICr (imperial credit), as well as the worlds that merely conduct barter (X-class starports, worlds of TL-4 thru TL-0).

Adding it to your campaign is a w orthy touch of detail your characters will have to pay attention to, and adds depth to the game sometimes "credits" doesn't apply.

as ever was, good day!

 

[parmasson]

TNE? Really....

(Loads PDF.)

 

[Liam Devlin]

Yes, KG: IIRC, you will find it under the chapter "Trade & Commerce" (deadtree version, page 230, the one I'm perusing again now).

Nice table, covers TL-0 through F, and starports A-X.

 

[parmasson]

There it is! I feel I have seethis before in a JTAS article or something.

Good if you are using the 3ICr as a standard. Still could work if you were converting a TL-12 Staport B to a TL-10 Starport C.

So my TL-12/B seashell will buy 15% more on that TL-10/C world if both have stable political economic profiles.

For simplicity of gaming purposes I turn in 100 Tl-12/B seashells and get 115 pTL10/C pebbles to spend?

 

[Ptah]

A very nice thread, lots of good ideas on exchange rates.

A bit towards the original post, IMTU most worlds do not accept other local currency, either the TL of the accepting world is lower or the same (in which case they fear undetectable counterfeits) or the TL of the accepting world is higher (in which case they have little confidence in the other world's currency).

The Imperial Credit is one of the big advantages IMTU of being part of the Imperium, it provides a currency worlds have confidence in as the Imperium is run by the generally highest TL worlds and they expend tremendous efforts stopping counterfeiting. So the Imperium likes that most worlds force traavllers to exchange credits for local currency as it keeps the credit out of general circulation except for interstelalr trade. Local worlds like it as they get a cut on eahc exchange.

 

[aramis]

Kurega: you did. It made Best of JTAS. But that's of arguable canonicity. TNE isn't nearly so arguable.

And actually, only post 1050 is the A15 Cr the CrImp; prior to that it's the A14 entry... (wicked evil grin...) in M0, it should be the A12 or A13.

For a multiworld polity, use the best of their major (highest pop) world's Port and TL's.

 

[Eduardo]

The old GURPS book CyberWorld had a currency system using 'flux' numbers and volatility dice for calculating exchange rates between lots of Earth countries that would work great for balkanized worlds and balkanized sectors in the Hard Times, Rebellion, or TNE milleus, if anybody happens to run across that old book at a sale or something. It's not all that good except for that set of rules, and I don't think it sold well, either, so there may be stacks of them piled up somewhere and priced pretty cheap.