A campaign with multiple currencies...

[ZeroGear]

So, a strange thought that I had not too long ago:
One of the things that is kinda odd about D&D is that almost every single nation in every setting has a single type of currency: platinum, gold, silver, and copper coins.
While I fully understand that it's done for the sake of simplicity, that's not really how world economy works.
As such, for the sake of argument, let's assume that I wanted to flesh out a world, and to do that I established multiple nations.
As a base line, items would, in practice, cost the same amount as they do in the rule books, but each nation had its own form of currency. What would be the best way to handle keeping track of PC wealth in a system like this?

One thought that I had was that PCs could store most of their spoils as trade items that each nation recognized as an intermediate form of wealth, such as bars of precious metal or gemstones. When the PCs arrived in a nation, they would trade the goods for the local currency, do their standard shopping, then convert what is leftover back when they left. In this way, each nation would keep its currency within its borders, and the players wouldn't have to deal with keeping track of how much of each type of coin they had.

I know it seems a little convoluted, but how reasonable would a system like this be if done to make the world feel a little more believable? Or is there a better way to handle this?

[Kaptin Keen]

Well ... they told me in school that before banking they would weigh the coins rather than count them. I mean, not always, obviously - you'd count your own currency. Mostly. Because then some kings would water down their own coins, reducing the gold content, or in the case of one famous danish king, simple cut off pieces of the coins.

I have to say the hassle of micro managing a dozen different currencies likely outweights the benefits. I'd just fluff it, and explain to the players how the merchants of Æhrengaard are distrustful of coins minted in Madripore, and always weigh them to make sure they're actually getting the amount of gold they need.

[johnbragg]

So, a strange thought that I had not too long ago:
As such, for the sake of argument, let's assume that I wanted to flesh out a world, and to do that I established multiple nations.

I wouldn't do this just for Muh Realism. It's not worth it. But if you want to do it as a reason for PCs to adventure to different locales, and to put a brake on PC wealth/ give them a way to spend all that gold, then I have some things to throw at you.

EDIT: The point is, do this if you want "Well, that dragon horde has 11,000 Morian gold pieces, 35,000 Rivendell electrum crowns, 80,000 Gondorian silver, and as much Shire copper as you'd ever want. Are we heading to Rivendell, Moria or Gondor to try to spend it?" The idea is, you now have a huge supply of coins, which you need to travel (and adventure) to effectively spend.

As a base line, items would, in practice, cost the same amount as they do in the rule books, but each nation had its own form of currency.

First item: Everything is list price--in the locally acceptable currency. Which probably isn't what the PCs find in the ancient tomb. The outland raiders probably have a mix of locally-acceptable-currency, generally-acceptable-currency, and distant-lands-currency.

What would be the best way to handle keeping track of PC wealth in a system like this?

Wealth is abstract, so you just won't be able to effectively set WBL until you acquire system mastery of whatever Frankenstein currency system I advise you to set up.

One thought that I had was that PCs could store most of their spoils as trade items that each nation recognized as an intermediate form of wealth, such as bars of precious metal or gemstones. When the PCs arrived in a nation, they would trade the goods for the local currency, do their standard shopping, then convert what is leftover back when they left. In this way, each nation would keep its currency within its borders, and the players wouldn't have to deal with keeping track of how much of each type of coin they had.

That does a lot of the lifting.

What I'd like to do, using dimly recalled medieval Europe as a knowledge-base. The value of a currency varies, depending on how easy it is to trade that currency for its full value.
Divide currencies into four groups. Local, international, neighboring, distant.

Divide the campaign kingdom into segments, geographically and socially. How close is the buyer to international trade? How easily can they spend international currency, neighboring-kingdom currency, distant currency?

Everyone will take local currency. They can buy what they need in local currency.

Neighboring currency could trade at full value in border cities, at half-value elsewhere in the kingdom. But only to high-status types who would are plugged into trade networks.

Imagine you have a suitcase full of Mexican pesos in Texas. You probably can't buy lunch in Dallas, because it's not worth the restaurant's time to deal in pesos. You probably could buy a car for that suitcase full of pesos though, because for that kind of money, it's worth the car dealer's time to figure something out.

Imagine you have a suitcase full of euros in Texas. You can't buy anything in Dallas because nobody has a way to turn those euros into dollars.

(Please do not pick this apart for factual problems--yes credit cards make these examples trivial, yes you could go to the airport or a bank, yes a suitcase full of cash screams "shady person who will attract law enforcement to your door" yes yes yes. The point is to make the situation comprehensible why Dorian gold pieces in your campaign trade for 1/2 value in Corinth and 1/10 value in Troy or whatever.)

[BWR]

I know it seems a little convoluted, but how reasonable would a system like this be if done to make the world feel a little more believable? Or is there a better way to handle this?

The easiest way to handle this is to assume that in universe there are a wealth of coins and weights and purities and possible economic weight behind them, different prices based on these, conversion issues, etc., but for ease of record keeping they are considered the basic PHB units.
So describe new currency when PCs come across it but use the basic gp system for prices and get on with the game.

[RedMage125]

The easiest way to handle this is to assume that in universe there are a wealth of coins and weights and purities and possible economic weight behind them, different prices based on these, conversion issues, etc., but for ease of record keeping they are considered the basic PHB units.
So describe new currency when PCs come across it but use the basic gp system for prices and get on with the game.

This is something that I know has at least been mentioned in past editions.

The "gold piece" from one country may actually be made of silver, but larger than the "silver piece" from that same nation.

The idea that the OP espouses works great for flavor and realism, but there should be some transparency of equivalence with the currencies. Most merchants deal in wares that cross national boundries, so they can reasonably exchange foreign currency for what it's worth. If you want some kind of mechanical effect of these different coins, I would only suggest that smaller, more local businesses may only take their nation's local currency.

[Mastikator]

Whether that's not "how world economy worlds" depends entirely which century you're basing your campaign setting on. The modern world economy is drastically different than just a couple of centuries ago, a millennia ago there basically was no "world economy". Using precious metals in an early dark age is perfectly reasonable but barter should also be the default, not currency. Even late renaissance (1794) France used livre which were coins which contained gold.

So yeah I take issue with the premise that using gold or silver is not realistic for a fantasy campaign setting based on a medieval European time period.

Edit- I just realized who the OP is. ZeroGear I'm honestly not just being contentious for the sake of arguments.

It also occurred to me that you might not be talking about classic fantasy since you mentioned nations, which is a fairly modern concept, so as a citizen of the European union and Sweden let me give you my experience with traveling abroad. This is pertinent because Sweden has not adopted the Euro, when I go shopping here in Sweden I pay with Swedish Kronor, but if I travel to Germany I can use my Swedish bank card to buy stuff or even extract Euros from an ATM. The fact that I have to live with two currencies (Euro and Swedish Kronor) actually doesn't affect me at all.
There are also currency exchanges everywhere where I could exchange basically any currency for the local one so even something like Yen or Dollars wouldn't really be a hindered.

My point is that YES it's absolutely realistic to have multiple currencies, and even in medieval ones have "pounds" or whatever (but those are still gold) but this should not offer the players or PCs any problems. The existence of multiple currencies all but guarantees services that make it a non-issue.

Edit2- I think it comes down to laziness. The reason many system just has "gold pieces" or "credits" or whatever is the same reason they have "Elven Lands™" instead of multiple kingdoms or something where elves live with real names. It's lazy to invent and easy for players to understand. The price you pay is immersion.

[Lapak]

So yeah I take issue with the premise that using gold or silver is not realistic for a fantasy campaign setting based on a medieval European time period.

The OP is not objecting to gold pieces; they are questioning why Country A's gold piece is worth exactly the same as Country Z. And that is a legitimate question, not just between countries but within a country from ruler to ruler; go to a good numismatics museum that covers a European country's currency history and you will often see "[crowns/ducats/whatever] minted under King Economist were pure metal and valued well, but three kings later the economy was tanking and they were tied up in three wars so King Makeitwork debased the [coin] with lead and other countries started giving Country's money a side-eye in trading. Then fifty years later King FixThings came into power, opened a new silver mine, and the same [Coin] minted during his reign is 99% pure."

Which is a lot to manage in a game, so we do tend to elide a lot of the issues involved here for ease of play, but it is a fine thing to question.

[Max_Killjoy]

The OP is not objecting to gold pieces; they are questioning why Country A's gold piece is worth exactly the same as Country Z. And that is a legitimate question, not just between countries but within a country from ruler to ruler; go to a good numismatics museum that covers a European country's currency history and you will often see "[crowns/ducats/whatever] minted under King Economist were pure metal and valued well, but three kings later the economy was tanking and they were tied up in three wars so King Makeitwork debased the [coin] with lead and other countries started giving Country's money a side-eye in trading. Then fifty years later King FixThings came into power, opened a new silver mine, and the same [Coin] minted during his reign is 99% pure."

Which is a lot to manage in a game, so we do tend to elide a lot of the issues involved here for ease of play, but it is a fine thing to question.

Yeah. I've been tempted to give treasures / hoards a "quality rating", and then when it comes up really low, and if a PC has the right skill(s) or background, tell them something like "The chest is full of gold coins, but as you examine them more closely, you recognize them as coins from Mesopopolois minted during the reign of King Cheapus, so they're cut with base metals and won't fool an educated eye like yours... they're worth half the normal rate unless you find a sucker".

[ZeroGear]

Edit- I just realized who the OP is. ZeroGear I'm honestly not just being contentious for the sake of arguments.

I never hold things that happen in other threads against other people, you have nothing to worry about, and I truly value your insight.

[jjordan]

As people have pointed out, gold pieces, silver pieces, copper pieces is just an abstract system for keeping track of wealth that assumes (mostly correctly) that players don't want to muck about with exchange rates and so on. If that's what you want, fine.

I, on the other hand, did my research on relative scarcity of precious metals during the Middle Ages and Renaissance and coin weights and relative values and had myself a grand old time diving down that rabbit hole. And when I came up for air I did this:

-Copper pennies 4cm diameter, 1 ounce. Thirty-two copper pennies make one silver penny.
-Silver penny 2cm diameter 1/12 ounce. Twelve pennies to the gold coin.
-Double weight silver penny 2.5cm diameter, same thickness, ⅙ ounce is worth two regular/thin silver pennies. Six double weight pennies to the gold coin.
-Gold coin 1cm diameter 1/12 ounce is usually about 90% gold and 10% silver

For modern reference:

1 gold coin = ~$100
1 double silver coin = $16
1 silver coin = $8
1 copper coin = $0.25
These values are approximate and provided for reference purposes.

In my setting coins are used in three states.
-Das Eisenreich puts the precious metals in the center of a thin iron band (similar to a Euro) because they hate elves.
-The Realm of the Three Ladies (the Lawless Isles to everyone else) uses coins made of pure metals. But they only use silver and it comes in three sizes. Copper and gold are used for jewelry and traded by weight.
-The Kingdom of Cerus doesn't use coins. Gold, silver, and raw or unset jewels are illegal to own without documentation. They use paper currency and will exchange it for the value of the precious items less a 10% fee. They will exchange worn money for new money at the same rate (less the 10% fee, of course). People are allowed to buy precious items for use the production of goods/artworks or to pay foreign traders.
-Bele'Ath uses a similar system to Cerus, but they use copper coins instead of paper. Bele'Ath also doesn't mint their own coins but uses coinage produced in the elven lands. Precious metals can be purchased from brokers without any limits, though brokers claim to not keep much on hand. Brokers also tend to be elvish.
-The elves don't actually use physical money. They operate on a system of debts of service and trade raw materials and finished goods. As custom and, in some places, law prevent non-elves from participating in the debt economy their halfling servants use gold and silver bars for foreign trade and their gray-market economies.
-Orcs barter raw materials and finished goods.

[Mastikator]

The OP is not objecting to gold pieces; they are questioning why Country A's gold piece is worth exactly the same as Country Z. And that is a legitimate question, not just between countries but within a country from ruler to ruler; go to a good numismatics museum that covers a European country's currency history and you will often see "[crowns/ducats/whatever] minted under King Economist were pure metal and valued well, but three kings later the economy was tanking and they were tied up in three wars so King Makeitwork debased the [coin] with lead and other countries started giving Country's money a side-eye in trading. Then fifty years later King FixThings came into power, opened a new silver mine, and the same [Coin] minted during his reign is 99% pure."

Which is a lot to manage in a game, so we do tend to elide a lot of the issues involved here for ease of play, but it is a fine thing to question.

If you're just calling money "gold pieces" then it's not exactly obvious that you mean Livre or Gold Stags or whatever it may be. If you're saying "no these aren't gold pieces these are Marks which contain gold but they're not the same currency as our Pounds" then you immediately have to specify an exchange rate. If you're calling both "gold pieces" it implies they are actually the same. If you go further and say "in this here land we use kronor and what you have is just pure gold pieces" then obviously the gold should be usable as money provided you're using it in the correct context.

[Lapak]

If you're just calling money "gold pieces" then it's not exactly obvious that you mean Livre or Gold Stags or whatever it may be. If you're saying "no these aren't gold pieces these are Marks which contain gold but they're not the same currency as our Pounds" then you immediately have to specify an exchange rate. If you're calling both "gold pieces" it implies they are actually the same. If you go further and say "in this here land we use kronor and what you have is just pure gold pieces" then obviously the gold should be usable as money provided you're using it in the correct context.

Was this in response to something I said?Because:
* Yes, that's the premise of the thread as I understand it and what they are looking for advice on, and
* I am not sure what part of my quoted post you are responding to?

[Corneel]

Yeah. I've been tempted to give treasures / hoards a "quality rating", and then when it comes up really low, and if a PC has the right skill(s) or background, tell them something like "The chest is full of gold coins, but as you examine them more closely, you recognize them as coins from Mesopopolois minted during the reign of King Cheapus, so they're cut with base metals and won't fool an educated eye like yours... they're worth half the normal rate unless you find a sucker".

This.

Also, even though the coins might be similar across nations, domains and cities, people might trust their own coins better then those coming from far away (or from a long time ago) and there might be a mark up on prices if you pay with foreign or ancient gold. On the other hand some countries or cities might have such a good reputation of never debasing their coins that their coins are valued even higher than local coinage.

And then there is of course the fact that while a merchant might accept your Fauxrabian dinars instead of Fauxnetian ducats, he will do so while muttering some blessing over the gold and signaling you as an untrustworthy friend of those heathen camellovers to the local authorities later on.

[johnbragg]

This thread has actually got me thinking in the opposite direction--making wealth entirely abstract, there are no GP SP CP, art, gems, etc. Everything the PCs are just going to sell for cash anyway is just cash with weight.

Is it really "fun" to pretend to haggle over selling art and gems, before you haggle to buy equipment/magic items? Or should we just go ahead and abstract that process as much as possible, just like we abstract exactly what food the PCs are ordering at the tavern?

[Lord Torath]

I suppose a lot of it depends on where you want to focus your game. I personally don't really enjoy the haggling aspects, and prefer to make purchasing gear and such to be as painless as possible. To me, multiple currencies is just complication for the sake of complication.

Giving treasures/hoards a quality rating strikes me as whipping the reward right out of the party's hands:

Here's a cool, uber-powerful magic item! Whoops, you had to destroy it in order to escape. Such fun!
Look! A huge pile of treasure! Think of all the cool things you can do with it! Whoops, turns out it's only worth 10% of what you thought it'd be! Isn't this just the best?!?

It can lead to further adventures, but it can also lead to frustration as the party tromps back and forth across the continent desperately trying to find someone who will accept their coinage. Sometimes you just want a reward, you know?

I'm kind of reminded of the Red Fel quote The Glyphstone keeps in his signature.

"Is a stack of ten pancakes too many pancakes to give to the party, even if most of them fell on the floor and one or two were stepped on? I wanted to give my party pancakes as a reward but I'm unsure if it's too much. The pancakes are also laced with blowfish poison so the party would have to get an antitoxin before they could eat the ones which weren't pulverized by shoes."

I don't think anyone would want those pancakes even if you paid them to eat them.

Sometimes the treasure is just not worth the effort of redeeming it. Just leaves you feeling cheated.

---but I'm not bitter...

[Max_Killjoy]

This thread has actually got me thinking in the opposite direction--making wealth entirely abstract, there are no GP SP CP, art, gems, etc. Everything the PCs are just going to sell for cash anyway is just cash with weight.

Is it really "fun" to pretend to haggle over selling art and gems, before you haggle to buy equipment/magic items? Or should we just go ahead and abstract that process as much as possible, just like we abstract exactly what food the PCs are ordering at the tavern?

I've never met an abstract wealth system I liked.

"Roll to see if you can afford that right now!" What?

[johnbragg]

I've never met an abstract wealth system I liked.

"Roll to see if you can afford that right now!" What?

I misspoke. I just meant that instead of finding 12,000 cp 2300 sp 800 ep 1100 gp, 6x300 gp gems, 2 art objects worth 100 gp each, you just find ....3650 gp worth of "Treasure". So if they party splits the loot 5 ways, you each get 730 gp and go buy potions or maybe a wand in 3rd edition, or the party could pool the money and buy a 2000 gp magic item and one guy owes the party money.

If you're in a bag-of-holdings campaign anyway, why are we even worrying about coinage?

[ZeroGear]

Hey, before this gets too out of hand, some clarification may be needed here:
While I do appreciate people talking about markets and relative value, I think you may be reading into this just a slight bit too much.

The thought that brought this about was that I imagined a character jumping from one world to another, but it made no sense to me how he would have money to buy meals in that world. Then I thought: “you know, gold bars always seem to have value, maybe he would convert one back and fourth every time he went to a different world”. Then it occurred to me that this concept could apply to adventurers:
If a group of “heroes” lived in a world full of different kingdoms that had their own currency, it would make more sense for them to carry and store their wealth in a form that’s universally accepted, such as in gold bars or gemstones, and just convert it to the currency of the kingdom they were in when they needed to go shopping. Then I wondered if this kind of a system would work on a larger scale.
Then I questioned wether or not something like this would be reasonable/practical and made the post.
I’ll fully admit that it’s mostly cosmetic and done for the sake of flavor, but it seemed like something that would make a world more believable. And I wanted peoples opinion on this.

[sktarq]

As a base line, items would, in practice, cost the same amount as they do in the rule books, but each nation had its own form of currency. What would be the best way to handle keeping track of PC wealth in a system like this?
...
I know it seems a little convoluted, but how reasonable would a system like this be if done to make the world feel a little more believable? Or is there a better way to handle this?

Well the real question seems more like
"when would this add more fun and immersion to the game than the time cost of supporting it?"
and I could think of a few types of games where it could.

I)A very nationalist game. 90% of the time you are working with domestic currency (which will prolly match to classic coinage) and you use "outsider" coinage in part to play up ideas of "us vs outsiders"
II) a long distance trading game-maybe the players mostly act as trader guard most of the time and go on delves when the merchant sets up in town for a few weeks or has missions to find some rare things on their next trip and political/social/intrigue is at play etc. Or are just the most powerful people going through at the time in some smaller population centre and they don't have the wish/time/etc to take care of something themselves and offer to hire the players to solve some problem. Here the changing coinage is used to give the game a sense of movement and place. Somewhat more helpful if the players are going back a forth on a single trade route (so visit the same nations repeatedly)
III) delving into the past...the home region of the adventurers has seen several nations rise and fall on the same land over time. The different coinage is used to separate out treasures and ideas of the various eras which may otherwise all just blend together.

in each case I wouldn't really go above a small basket of currencies
as for using them-make sure currency traders charge a significant vig otherwise the players may just switch everything into one currency and ignore all your work. Which is also true of the gold bars idea too.

also I am pretty sure the 2e DMG actually has a section on this idea somewhere...may be worth looking at a PDF if you can find one.

I've never met an abstract wealth system I liked.

"Roll to see if you can afford that right now!" What?

Actually rolling does make a lot of sense in many per-industrial settings. Since in many cases it is a combination of haggling, having the barter items that the other side of the transactions wants/values, insider/outsider prices, credit, social norms of prices, ability to call on resources from a person higher up the social order, etc etc....all of which are various muddled rules that overall translate in a wealth check.

[False God]

Typically, I have found multiple currencies to be burdensome, both on player and DM side. Exchange rates, annoying bankers, merchants who won't take your money, so on and so forth, it's just kinda tedious; taking up time that could be spent doing more adventure-related stuff.

I'm sure there's a party and a table for this. But it's never been any of mine.

[Lapak]

I've never met an abstract wealth system I liked.

"Roll to see if you can afford that right now!" What?

The best abstract wealth systems I've seen don't involve rolling. They run more like:

Your character currently has Wealth Level [X]. This gives them a standard of living at level X, with associated benefits (or penalties.)

When you want to buy something, consult that item's Price Level.

If the Price is less than X, sure. You buy the thing (assuming it is available.)

If the Price equals X, you buy the thing, but cannot buy another thing at Price >= X for [Time Period.]

If the Price = X+1, you can buy the thing, but your character's Wealth drops to X-1 afterward as you've sunk so much of it into the thing. (Or in one system I saw, you incur a level of Debt to an organization or faction that might call it in later.)

Simple, straightforward, Wealth level shifts are difficult and only applied for drastic changes in circumstances (acquiring a huge treasure haul, having a business bankrupted, being promoted to an Earldom, etc.)

[LordEntrails]

So, a strange thought that I had not too long ago:
One of the things that is kinda odd about D&D is that almost every single nation in every setting has a single type of currency: platinum, gold, silver, and copper coins.
While I fully understand that it's done for the sake of simplicity, that's not really how world economy works.
As such, for the sake of argument, let's assume that I wanted to flesh out a world, and to do that I established multiple nations.
As a base line, items would, in practice, cost the same amount as they do in the rule books, but each nation had its own form of currency. What would be the best way to handle keeping track of PC wealth in a system like this?

Sounds like a pain in the ass. Who wants to play Bankers and Bookkeepers? Anyone?

One thought that I had was that PCs could store most of their spoils as trade items that each nation recognized as an intermediate form of wealth, such as bars of precious metal or gemstones. When the PCs arrived in a nation, they would trade the goods for the local currency, do their standard shopping, then convert what is leftover back when they left. In this way, each nation would keep its currency within its borders, and the players wouldn't have to deal with keeping track of how much of each type of coin they had.

Have you asked your players if they want this? What's the point? Are you going to change the weight? Are you going to have currency conversion fees? I bet your players just care that they have 1,253 gold pieces worth of liquid assets. They don't care if its in salt, or gold, or gems or anything else.

I know it seems a little convoluted, but how reasonable would a system like this be if done to make the world feel a little more believable? Or is there a better way to handle this?

Most GMs have had this thought once or thrice when when building, and almost all of us over the decades have learned from our players, they don't care. The best way to handle this is to just track wealth as Gold Pieces and ignore the form that it takes. You're the only one that is going to care except maybe when you describe "You find a hoard of electrum pieces, investigation reveals that they were minted by a dwarven kingdom that fell 3 millennia ago." (And then you tell them it's worth 32,450gp.)

[kieza]

The way I incorporated this into my setting is that there was a treaty between the major powers, requiring that they standardize the size and value of their gold, silver, and copper coinage. But, it doesn't say anything about other metals, so some nations mint iron, nickel, electrum, etc. coins in odd denominations. The treaty also isn't binding on the smaller nations, but a lot of them adopted it anyways because it eliminated a barrier to trade.

So, most of the time treasure is just gp, sp, and cp, but once in a while I throw in a hoard consisting exclusively of Waystone half-guinea electrum coins, worth exactly 3 gp, 1 sp, 5 cp each, and legal tender only in Waystone.

[GloatingSwine]

Yeah. I've been tempted to give treasures / hoards a "quality rating", and then when it comes up really low, and if a PC has the right skill(s) or background, tell them something like "The chest is full of gold coins, but as you examine them more closely, you recognize them as coins from Mesopopolois minted during the reign of King Cheapus, so they're cut with base metals and won't fool an educated eye like yours... they're worth half the normal rate unless you find a sucker".

Question:

Are you ever not going to let them find a sucker?

Because if not you've just given them the normal amount but with extra steps, and not really interesting steps that challenge their characters, just ones that test their patience to keep trying.

And if so, just give them half the treasure and put up with them complaining there and then, not a session later when you're holding out on someone to give them something useful for their treasure.

[Galithar]

Hey, before this gets too out of hand, some clarification may be needed here:
While I do appreciate people talking about markets and relative value, I think you may be reading into this just a slight bit too much.

The thought that brought this about was that I imagined a character jumping from one world to another, but it made no sense to me how he would have money to buy meals in that world. Then I thought: “you know, gold bars always seem to have value, maybe he would convert one back and fourth every time he went to a different world”. Then it occurred to me that this concept could apply to adventurers:
If a group of “heroes” lived in a world full of different kingdoms that had their own currency, it would make more sense for them to carry and store their wealth in a form that’s universally accepted, such as in gold bars or gemstones, and just convert it to the currency of the kingdom they were in when they needed to go shopping. Then I wondered if this kind of a system would work on a larger scale.
Then I questioned wether or not something like this would be reasonable/practical and made the post.
I’ll fully admit that it’s mostly cosmetic and done for the sake of flavor, but it seemed like something that would make a world more believable. And I wanted peoples opinion on this.

My suggestion to do this would be to follow the abstraction idea posted earlier. You tell them that everytime they go shopping they are first exchanging the "valuable thing" for local currency, but not actually play it out. Maybe mention it in passing each time to keep the idea of the exchange alive.

Example:
Player 1: I want to buy a "expensive thing" do I know where a store that would sell that is?
DM: You ask around and eventually find that "Shopkeep Bobby" sells "expensive thing". On your way to his shop you stop and exchange your "valuable thing" for "local currency" so you can pay for it.
Player 1: *Haggles with Bobby*
**Sometime later**
Player 2: Alright we're ready to head out to "plot location"
DM: On your way out of town you exchange your local currency for "valuable thing" and head West on the road towards....

This way you have the realism that you're looking for with multiple currencies, but don't have to add a bunch of bookkeeping that slows your game down. You could then occasionally add a haggling section for the exchange of you and your players enjoy that, but I wouldn't do it everytime, and I'd make sure that sometimes that actually get a better deal then expected. This would essentially just be tracking money in current rules (GP, SP, CP etc) and when you do an exchange haggle then their actual value would change up or down by the agreed amount. I wouldn't ever haggle the exchange rate in to AND out of local currency. One or the other.

[King of Nowhere]

So, a strange thought that I had not too long ago:
One of the things that is kinda odd about D&D is that almost every single nation in every setting has a single type of currency: platinum, gold, silver, and copper coins.
While I fully understand that it's done for the sake of simplicity, that's not really how world economy works.
As such, for the sake of argument, let's assume that I wanted to flesh out a world, and to do that I established multiple nations.
As a base line, items would, in practice, cost the same amount as they do in the rule books, but each nation had its own form of currency. What would be the best way to handle keeping track of PC wealth in a system like this?

One thought that I had was that PCs could store most of their spoils as trade items that each nation recognized as an intermediate form of wealth, such as bars of precious metal or gemstones. When the PCs arrived in a nation, they would trade the goods for the local currency, do their standard shopping, then convert what is leftover back when they left. In this way, each nation would keep its currency within its borders, and the players wouldn't have to deal with keeping track of how much of each type of coin they had.

I know it seems a little convoluted, but how reasonable would a system like this be if done to make the world feel a little more believable? Or is there a better way to handle this?

the thing is, after roleplaying it the first time, it gets boring. and then you will just handwave it. happened something like that in our campaign, when at first we would have to go to each city and look for each shop and there would be a limit of gold that we could get and we would have to haggle...
and it got gradually reduced until now whenever we have a couple days of downtime we convert the loot to gold, assuming that we spent those days going to various shops and haggling. a single diplomacy check will change the total revenue by a few %.
because roleplaying shopping gets old.

So, I say try it. implement your way, and do it the first time to get a deeper sense of immersion. handwave it later. something like "since you are buying in this kingdom and you have money of that kingdom, you suffer a 2% mark-up for money-changing fee"

[Gallowglass]

the thing is, after roleplaying it the first time, it gets boring. and then you will just handwave it. happened something like that in our campaign, when at first we would have to go to each city and look for each shop and there would be a limit of gold that we could get and we would have to haggle...
and it got gradually reduced until now whenever we have a couple days of downtime we convert the loot to gold, assuming that we spent those days going to various shops and haggling. a single diplomacy check will change the total revenue by a few %.
because roleplaying shopping gets old.

So, I say try it. implement your way, and do it the first time to get a deeper sense of immersion. handwave it later. something like "since you are buying in this kingdom and you have money of that kingdom, you suffer a 2% mark-up for money-changing fee"

This^

Much to my chagrin, I've found very few players who want to play "economic simulator" with me, not matter how much I enjoy the world building aspects of coming up with more realistic and detailed rules around economics or currency.

The parts of the game that are simplified are simplified for a reason.

For the last several years, no matter how detailed I make the treasure horde it still ends up like this:

"Okay, in the ogre's den you find *detailed descriptions of different coinage, gems with unique cuts, paintings, ornate rugs, artistic carvings, rare wines and cheeses*"

"How much is it all worth?"

"Sigh" *give GP value for all the treasure.*

"Great, thats 1237 gp for each of us with another share to the party coffer."

[Max_Killjoy]

Yeah. I've been tempted to give treasures / hoards a "quality rating", and then when it comes up really low, and if a PC has the right skill(s) or background, tell them something like "The chest is full of gold coins, but as you examine them more closely, you recognize them as coins from Mesopopolois minted during the reign of King Cheapus, so they're cut with base metals and won't fool an educated eye like yours... they're worth half the normal rate unless you find a sucker".

Question:

Are you ever not going to let them find a sucker?

Because if not you've just given them the normal amount but with extra steps, and not really interesting steps that challenge their characters, just ones that test their patience to keep trying.

And if so, just give them half the treasure and put up with them complaining there and then, not a session later when you're holding out on someone to give them something useful for their treasure.

I've GMed for players who eat that sort of thing up, would see it as an irresistible plot hook, and would love the choice between X gold now or 2X gold with some effort.

It's not for everyone, some players I wouldn't bother with doing it -- but others love that kind of combination of setting depth and B-plot hook.

[Beleriphon]

This is something that I know has at least been mentioned in past editions.

The "gold piece" from one country may actually be made of silver, but larger than the "silver piece" from that same nation.

The idea that the OP espouses works great for flavor and realism, but there should be some transparency of equivalence with the currencies. Most merchants deal in wares that cross national boundries, so they can reasonably exchange foreign currency for what it's worth. If you want some kind of mechanical effect of these different coins, I would only suggest that smaller, more local businesses may only take their nation's local currency.

Which is exactly what Forgotten Realms has. In Sembia they use square iron coins instead of the literal copper piece. In Waterdeep there is a local currency in the taol (worth 2GP in the city, worthless else where) and the harbor moon 50GP in Waterdeep, and some lesser amount in other places. The Cormyrian gold coin, locally stamped with a lion, is considered such high quality and purity that "golden lions" are a common name for gold coins well outside of Cormyr.

Another option is to use trade bars. Rather than a bag of loose coin worth X gold piece, you have a stack of silver bars worth the same and stamped with a mark from the issuer. That way they're worth their weight in silver quite literally.

[King of Nowhere]

Now that I remember, I did something similar with hextor-dominated land using tin pieces and lead pieces (worth respectively 1/10th and 1/100th of a copper) to pay workers, because, well, suckering the working class is practically mandatory for the god of tiranny. prices of common goods were in line with those wages. the players showed gold in a seedy place, and half the peoople there tried to kill them for it.
actually, the gross pay is even higher than in most lands, but the workers are left with a few lead pieces after they pay all the taxes. which included the tax on sunlight, the tax on rainwater, the tax on breathable air, the tax on pauperty, the tax on internal organs, the tax to step on the ground, and so on.
it was played for laugh, though.

I did something similar more seriously by having some places more rich than others, with all prices in proportion. so a gold coin is the daily wage of an average worker in Mirna, but the monthly wage in Alorien. However, magic gear for advennturers had the same price (in the poor lands, they didn't have magic gear for sale), so it didn't impact the players.