RPG without gold/money/coins...

Good idea or bad?

I don't think I've ever played a fantasy rpg that didn't have some form of currency, usually gold coins. But when you're deep in the dungeon, it seems a bit absurd that the shopkeeper is charging some ridiculous amount of gold for items, so I was considering other options...

There are some variables that could be considered currency I guess, when the player kills a monster they gain 1 soul and some xp. I could let the player cash in either of those along with ingredients, to receive upgrades to their weapon/armor.

The other thought was I could still give everything a gold value, but only behind the scenes, so when the player goes to trade something, it checks if the value of what they put up is equal or greater to the value of what they want to trade for.

So far the only interaction I have are for quests and npcs just giving the player potions/bandages randomly, and the blacksmith will upgrade your equipment. Basically when you're underground in the cavern/dungeon you can get various types of metal ores and some ingedients. The blacksmith can give your weapon/armor various upgrades with it's power depending on the type of ore used in the upgrade. I was going to have him take gold as well for the upgrade, but might just have him take some xp or souls in place of the gold.

Thoughts?

 

Consider the shop keeper/blacksmith's motivation. Does he live on he surface or in the dungeon? Why? What would he want in exchange for his services? If getting out of the dungeon is his goal, it would be reasonable that he helps you as well as he can because you're his best shot of getting out.

Souls sounds like it's just a gimmicky version of gold/money/coins. D&D had trading experience for upgrades, I never cared for the idea but it does make (fantasy world) sense that a character is pouring his power into his items.

Works well enough in Fallout and it'd make sense - especially if your gameworld had no currency (for whatever reason) or it wasn't as important as actual goods.

EDITED for typo

 

Would you work for XPs or souls? Although gold being common money is too. Copper pieces were with silver in bigger transactions, Gold being used only in large scale taxing and banking.

 

The Polish PnP RPG Neuroshima about PA USA doesn't use currency. Most people trade ammo, cigs or food/water. The more items you have, the richer you are.

 

The souls are just a particle effect when you slay a monster a particle effect makes smoke come out of their body and flow into your chest, and increments the player's variable. Other than that it doesn't have any point, yet. I was considering tying it into winning the game. Maybe during the final boss battle you get a bonus/buff based off your soul count, for that fight....

XP was just another variable I threw in there when I added the skilling/item system, I have gold coins currently implemented but the guy helping me with the story didn't like the idea, I'd never thought about not using them prior to his mentioning it.

The only effect XP was going to have, because I have a skilling system similar to Ultima Online instead of levels, originally was going to make items cheaper from storekeepers. So the higher your XP the cheaper the normally expensive stuff became. But I don't really have a huge item selection, mostly just upgrades to the same weapon/armor you start with. It's not great, but it's FPS so you can't even see shit other than your arms/sword.

This is a FPS hacknslash, mostly sword based but there are 14 spells. The spells don't require reagents, you put forth a combination of 4 runestones to cast 14 different spells. There's a cooldown for it and you start with 0 runestones and have to get them during the game.

Also there are 2 blacksmiths and 2 villages, one above ground, one below ground. The above ground village is the starting village, the underground is a fae village (the guy doing the writing refers to some as seelie and unseelie, I have no clue what he's talking about).

Thanks for the examples guys I actually haven't played any that didn't rely on gold.

 

Unreal World where you larp being a Finn in iceage Scandinavia doesnt use gold or currency. You can make your own, like small fish roasted, or dried reindeer meat pieces, but basically the game use a barter system, not trade.

 

http://www.nbbmuseum.be/2007/01/cowry-shells.htm

 

we are talking about game world, not history.

 

I like their system. Simple enough and effective even if some things have odd values to them like javelins are strangely valuable considering how easy it is to make them. I like the whole getting a vibe of what a shop keeper will or will not be interested in.

I would be down with this being used more, though it obviously only works if you aren't going to get swamped with random crap that all has value.

 

Yes but it is hard to create credible setting without some kind of currency, be it gold, paper chits, cigarettes or shells. Unless it is some community totally cut off from the world pure barter system would be strange.

 

The tabletop RPG Rogue Trader doesn't use currency. Instead, you have a stat called Profit Factor that represents both your riches and influence, and when you want to acquire something you test it with modifiers based on local availability, quality, rarity, quantity, etc. To increase it, you have to do rogue tradey stuff like charting new routes, taking cargo, bringing the light of the emprah to isolated human worlds, recovering relics...and it can also decrease if you fuck up. It can also be used for other things, like getting favors and respect from people and organizations.

 

I like the idea of NPC's generating offers for things they're interested in, not everything the PC has. Or different villages having different items they're interested in.

The most valuable items at the moment are metal ores which can be received off bosses or by turning pickaxes collected from killing dwarves in at a resource pile (one on each level of the dungeon and are guarded), which generates randomly a few items and takes the pickaxe away. Metal ores go straight into armor/weapon upgrades.

I was thinking of adding body parts to monster loot tables, hearts, livers, ears, etc. which an archanist can use to "enchant" your weapon. But they'd have to be really rare otherwise the player would have more than they'd ever be able to use. I made a couple upgraded sword "effects". If the sword is "poisoned" when it hits a monster a green cloud particle effect spawns at the point of impact and does a small DoT. I was thinking similar effects for a "static charge" and "acid burn". Imbuing your armor with metal ores beefs up it's defense rating. I could make the archanist charge a lot more resources than it takes to enchant the sword, as compensation, so it might take 20 livers, 5 hearts, and 3 ears + silver ore. The numbers could even be generated so it's a range from 15-25 livers, 5-10 hearts, and 1-5 ears required. Similar for all the offers, randomly generated costs within ranges.

I might make potions craftable, currently you get potions/bandages in lump sums when you get them, from quests, npc villagers, boss monsters, treasure chests, etc. Crafting would take some items out of the pool and give them more value.

The underground city is divided into 2 sects, the first group gives you a quest to kill the leader of the other sect, when you find the leader you're supposed to kill he gives a counter-offer to kill the first group. If you accept it the first group becomes hostile to you, but after killing them the second group is friendly towards you and give you rewards, which could make them more interested in helping you.

The player can also recall so that might screw up having different villages giving different offers if the PC can just recall back to either.

Might have to figure out a hybrid system where 1 group of items has a secret value behind the scenes, while the other group of items fits into a barter system.

 

Games which are all about being deep in the dungeon do not have any currency, nor any opportunity to spend it. Like EOB, or Ravenloft/Menzoberranzan.

 

As a side question, do you guys think a remake of heretic/hexen style gameplay with better models(well, comparable to hexen 2), and far more fantasy based original story/world, heavy on RPG, would be fun on mobile tablets? I've got the basic world and tons of mechanics running great on kindle fire and my 4g phone, though the phone's a bit small, but the input is very responsive and smooth. I can port it backwards to web player and increase the texture resolutions, shaders (make it prettier), swap out some models, and input when I'm done but distribution on mobile is really tempting and what I'm working towards.

 

Well, certainly it wouldn't work in a modern setting or even a few centuries past, but I see no reason why it wouldn't work further back. I also think games should be smarter about what is and isn't allowed to be traded. It makes sense for a blacksmith to trade ores or old iron weapons for a new iron weapon, but why would he want herbs or something? For that matter, in Fallout it was kind of retarded that you could buy a gun from a gun seller by trading spears and boxes of old TV dinners.

I know that would piss off people that just want to loot, dump it in one spot, and move on, but then that sort of game probably shouldn't have a bartering system anyway (and typically don't)

I'd love that on a PC, but would have no interest in a mobile.

I always thought that Hexen 2 could have been expanded more into an RPG than it was. Shit, add a world map, NPCs with quests, a shop system and it'd be a decent start, though I can only picture this in the first continent.

 

You really have to consider what purpose an economy serves in your game. Many games actually have multiple economies - skill points, gold, etc. being the most common. Currency is usually used as a way to create a global resource that items and equipment feed into - sell what you don't need, buy what you do need. In practice the balance is usually handled very poorly for a variety of reasons, but suffice to say, if buying and selling gear isn't a major part of your game, then the standard currency economy has no place in it and should probably be done away with, at least if you want to maintain efficiency.

If your goal is to have player upgrade gear over time, then something like souls, as you proposed, works well, because it ties success in one system (combat) to another (character progression) in a way that feels natural to the game world you've established. In such a game I wouldn't ever bother implementing currency unless looting plays a role in gameplay.

 

There's no currency at all in my game, only goods that you can barter between you/npc etc. There are old dollars and coins, but no one wants them, they only serve to power up ambient sceneries like old jukeboxes etc.

All in all, I think too few games go this route. You should go for it, OP!

 

Love the screens for your game... When it will be released? but Gold bullion would be back in use, here in Potatoland during WII and Economic crisis people were still using Austrian and Russian gold (and silver) coins from before WWI... Paper money was basicly worthless on its own though.

 

Dollar bills = toilet paper. Coins = for smelting into something else. Recycle!

 

I think the main problem with the OP is doing it ass backwards.

Instead of getting an idea of how stuff should work in universe, then developing a system for it, he got idea of the system "hey, let's use XP/souls/whatever as monies!!1" without even asking himself how or why it should work in universe.

Secondary problem is replacing single variable money with just as single variable non-money. As if it made any fucking difference.

And yeah, barter systems can be neat, if they allow value of stuff to be dynamic and relative.

 

OP is larper.

Seriously though, a non-gold system would be fun but i would propose items being bought from xp instead a la gurps.

 

Like I said, I did use Gold coins normally in my original design and I'm looking to change it now. XP was originally going to make items cost less gold coins. So as your XP climbs shopkeeper prices would drop.

There are no, and never will be "levels" for XP to unlock, skills/attributes are raised from using them successfully...

Souls was the only one I threw in as an afterthought after watching demon souls, simply because it took a couple minutes to add a particle effect that travels from dead body to player body and increment a variable when you slay a monster. I have a few ideas about tying it into the world, one of which I mentioned here, to give the player a buff during the last mob fight, so he has reason to want as many souls as possible to have the highest buff while fighting something way overpowered. Another similar idea I had was for souls to buff the player more, the deeper he went in the dungeon. But maybe I should just scrap it.

Another valuable item was lamp oil, which "lightens" the ambient color, fog thickness, etc and gradually gets darker/thicker as your lampoil runs out. I'm sure many underground npcs would be interested in trading for it.

 

Bills could be used to lighten up the campfire too! Hey, just gotta be creative. smelting coins into cheap ammo sounds actually pretty cool, hm.

 

If lamp oil is so valuable (and rare?) it could be a really cool form of currency to consider fleshing out. Unconventional, but it makes a lot of sense and reinforces the game world. Maybe exchange lamp oil for goods/services, while souls are your XP/upgrade material?

 

Aside from the starting village the entire game is basically underground in caverns and dungeon sections, lots of scary noises, fog, darkness, with some larger cavern sections, one of which has an underground city with 2 sects of NPCs that don't like each other.

Initially the lamp oil was going to be somewhat prevalent, but you had a tank that you could only fill so full. With a full tank, everything was at their max lightness/brightness, while over time your lamp oil would decrease and the levels would darken.

It could probably be a pretty universal currency, especially if I use some other term for a liquid naturally flammable from way back then.

Here's a shitty not-even-alpha video of what I worked on yesterday, a heat seeking behavior for shooting moving targets (or getting shot by npcs more accurately) if you can actually target their hitbox while they're flying around (eventually will be cool flying monsters and snakes instead of un-animated mage placeholders that you see), today I worked on adding climbing mechanics to the controller for ladders and ropes. My modeling and UI sucks badly, I'm just trying to build out a prototype, then look for an artist.