Writing Currency balance in my world (Need Help)

[Nolff]

While I was busy making a backlog of my upcoming novel, I stumbled upon a fact that I had ignored for the past month: Economy in my world building. Specifically, currency. Some people might just skim through the economy side of their story, but I'm not one of those. And right now, I feel like I need to make a proper currency based on a real world currency. So, can someone help me make one? Any ideas are welcomed. Oh, and by the way, the currency name will be Hicks.

 

[Eldoria]

Currency is one of the most complex yet simple economic logics. Speaking of currency... you need to establish a standard exchange rate.

Currency is just empty paper if it has no product value. It is just a medium of exchange for the exchange and distribution of goods and services equally.

If you want to create a currency in a fictional world, think about what exchange rate your currency represents.

In the real world, gold is often the standard exchange rate because it often represents stable wealth owned by a society.

In a fantasy world, you might think of a specific product that is always in demand by society and has a stable value as a benchmark for currency.

For example, 1 ounce of potatoes = 1 piece of iron currency. This way, you can build a coherent economic exchange logic.

 

[Nolff]

Currency is one of the most complex yet simple economic logics. Speaking of currency... you need to establish a standard exchange rate.

Currency is just empty paper if it has no product value. It is just a medium of exchange for the exchange and distribution of goods and services equally.

If you want to create a currency in a fictional world, think about what exchange rate your currency represents.

In the real world, gold is often the standard exchange rate because it often represents stable wealth owned by a society.

In a fantasy world, you might think of a specific product that is always in demand by society and has a stable value as a benchmark for currency.

For example, 1 ounce of potatoes = 1 piece of iron currency. This way, you can build a coherent economic exchange logic.

Holy shit. I've been spending 2 hours diving into articles upon articles about this and you somehow simplified it. Gee. Thanks I guess.
So does that means more gold = less numbers on the currency? Because I think that's the reason why some countries has lower numbers while others goes into thousands. Like, Indonesian has their currency started at minimum 100 rupiahs, while international currency uses dollars which started from a single penny.

 

[Eldoria]

Holy shit. I've been spending 2 hours diving into articles upon articles about this and you somehow simplified it. Gee. Thanks I guess.
So does that means more gold = less numbers on the currency? Because I think that's the reason why some countries has lower numbers while others goes into thousands. Like, Indonesian has their currency started at minimum 100 rupiahs, while international currency uses dollars which started from a single penny.

If you read scholarly articles about currency, you'll encounter complex technical terms. These experts aren't very friendly to the lay reader.

Simply put, currency is simply a medium of exchange for goods and services (products) to address the unequal exchange that occurs in barter transactions.

For example, in barter, you exchange 5 chickens for 1 goat. How is that fair or equitable? With currency, you have a precise benchmark to measure the value of the product. Thus, the exchange of products becomes equitable.

Of course, there are sociological and economic constructs underlying the emergence of currency. So, even currency has an internal logic about how transactions work, how its value is determined, and how it circulates... and these explanations are often complex.

 

[Yubel]

Holy shit. I've been spending 2 hours diving into articles upon articles about this and you somehow simplified it. Gee. Thanks I guess.
So does that means more gold = less numbers on the currency? Because I think that's the reason why some countries has lower numbers while others goes into thousands. Like, Indonesian has their currency started at minimum 100 rupiahs, while international currency uses dollars which started from a single penny.

No, more gold does not mean fewer 0s in the currency. It always depends on how much the thing you used as currency existed in the market. For example, the Spanish suffered from gold inflation, which crumbled their economy, as they had so much of it while they did not produce enough civilian goods for everyone.

 

[Nolff]

Okay, so the name is Hicks? That’s cool. What’s the vibe of your world? Like, is it fantasy, sci-fi, or modern? You don’t have to go full stock market nerd with it. Most readers just want to know:
Is it coins? Paper? Digital? Magic rocks?
Is a loaf of bread like 1 Hick or 100 Hicks?
Are people broke or rich?
If you want real-world inspo, you could base it on the yen (no cents, just numbers) or the dollar (100 cents = 1 Hick). Easy peasy.
Also… don’t stress too much. Readers care way more about characters than coins.

Les fucking go.

Now I feel like that one markiplier meme.

Thanks y'all, very cool.

 

[Emotica]

I don't have enough context on your world, but currency is one of the last things I write in. I think it's best used as world flavor, and not over-explained, unless the economy is super important to your plot. I'd say firstly Hicks should have a value that's relative to a real world dollar, or whatever currency you're familiar with. When you need to explain the price of something, you simply convert it yourself. Is a Hicks worth one dollar? Half a dollar? If a coffee is about $3 in your world, how many Hicks is that? That's the easy part. Now you move on to scarcity. If you world has a different currency, has it always been that way? If so, it's even easier. You can pretty much make up whatever you want. If your currency emerged after the currencies of the real world, then you'll just want to explain (to yourself) why, and if it affected the scarcity of any resources. If coffee beans are harder to get now, then the price of coffee should always be higher than it would be IRL. If your currency co-exists with ones we know, then it's really not that difficult to just keep converting as necessary, maybe account for inflation if it takes place in the real world. If it exists in it's own world, then the only thing left to do is explain any foreign currencies, which is just more conversion math. Now, this all changes if your currency isn't as simple as digital, paper, or coins, but currency exists because of convenience. It isn't made to overthink, even if it's cows instead of coins. All modern currency is are I.O.U's so you can carry around paper or plastic instead of a whole cow.

If your currency is deeper than that, then all the things I said still apply, you just have to double down on scarcity logic, if you care. I care. It annoys the hell out of me that the Fallout series uses bottlecaps as currency, because it doesn't make any sense. There's no way to make a common and easily produced object without a central bank make any kind of sense. In my world, gems are used as currency. The whole lore isn't explained yet, and may never be even though I know it. (I may release a lore book eventually.) Basically, the main issue with a world that uses gems as currency, is explaining the origin of them, which isn't super relevant right now. The other issue is if there would even be enough gems to support a global economy, so I simply did the math on what population size could reasonable use gems as currency without issue, based on all the hearty economic research of our real world. I'm never going to exposition dump the world population, or write 30 pages on the economy, so basically all I did was create a framework that won't narratively break. If my world had billions of people, the logic would collapse. If it doesn't? Then it doesn't really matter if I have 500k people or 5 million. I checked the math. I made sure to pick a currency that equates to a real world dollar as my basis, and there are 16 other currencies that I handpicked for the independent worldbuilding of different regions. If Character A has Currency 1, and Character B has Currency 2, then it's just a matter of conversion. At least in my story, the currency is just that, worldbuilding, proof that different regions and areas are different places. I don't think anyone is reading a fantasy adventure for an economic epic, so as long as effort goes into it at all, then it should be an "easy" victory.

 

[corruption]

You could use commodity currency. Set an assigned value to a commodity and use them as trade goods. Japan used to do that. They tried coins, but counterfeiting made them drop it after a while.

Since you can use the item, it has inherit value that does not exist solely in people's imagination.

 

[Juia_Darkcrest]

While I was busy making a backlog of my upcoming novel, I stumbled upon a fact that I had ignored for the past month: Economy in my world building. Specifically, currency. Some people might just skim through the economy side of their story, but I'm not one of those. And right now, I feel like I need to make a proper currency based on a real world currency. So, can someone help me make one? Any ideas are welcomed. Oh, and by the way, the currency name will be Hicks.

If you want something different, is there an overarching business that controls your world?

In a universe like BattleTech, money is all in C-Bills, Comstar currency. I always thought this was an interesting concept: all the different countries (innersphere houses) use the same currency issued by the people who control communications across most of the galactic population centers.

 

[Nolff]

If you want something different, is there an overarching business that controls your world?

In a universe like BattleTech, money is all in C-Bills, Comstar currency. I always thought this was an interesting concept: all the different countries (innersphere houses) use the same currency issued by the people who control communications across most of the galactic population centers.

It is. Even though it's not the main focus, it is still somewhat related to the plot and MC's journey.

My novel is about the experience of being a gamedev. Coding, programming, in another world, with no assist from system whatsoever. And you know what that means when it comes to publishing a game.

You could use commodity currency. Set an assigned value to a commodity and use them as trade goods. Japan used to do that. They tried coins, but counterfeiting made them drop it after a while.

Since you can use the item, it has inherit value that does not exist solely in people's imagination.

I could try, but if the end result isn't good, I might not apply it in this novel.

I don't have enough context on your world, but currency is one of the last things I write in. I think it's best used as world flavor, and not over-explained, unless the economy is super important to your plot. I'd say firstly Hicks should have a value that's relative to a real world dollar, or whatever currency you're familiar with. When you need to explain the price of something, you simply convert it yourself. Is a Hicks worth one dollar? Half a dollar? If a coffee is about $3 in your world, how many Hicks is that? That's the easy part. Now you move on to scarcity. If you world has a different currency, has it always been that way? If so, it's even easier. You can pretty much make up whatever you want. If your currency emerged after the currencies of the real world, then you'll just want to explain (to yourself) why, and if it affected the scarcity of any resources. If coffee beans are harder to get now, then the price of coffee should always be higher than it would be IRL. If your currency co-exists with ones we know, then it's really not that difficult to just keep converting as necessary, maybe account for inflation if it takes place in the real world. If it exists in it's own world, then the only thing left to do is explain any foreign currencies, which is just more conversion math. Now, this all changes if your currency isn't as simple as digital, paper, or coins, but currency exists because of convenience. It isn't made to overthink, even if it's cows instead of coins. All modern currency is are I.O.U's so you can carry around paper or plastic instead of a whole cow.

If your currency is deeper than that, then all the things I said still apply, you just have to double down on scarcity logic, if you care. I care. It annoys the hell out of me that the Fallout series uses bottlecaps as currency, because it doesn't make any sense. There's no way to make a common and easily produced object without a central bank make any kind of sense. In my world, gems are used as currency. The whole lore isn't explained yet, and may never be even though I know it. (I may release a lore book eventually.) Basically, the main issue with a world that uses gems as currency, is explaining the origin of them, which isn't super relevant right now. The other issue is if there would even be enough gems to support a global economy, so I simply did the math on what population size could reasonable use gems as currency without issue, based on all the hearty economic research of our real world. I'm never going to exposition dump the world population, or write 30 pages on the economy, so basically all I did was create a framework that won't narratively break. If my world had billions of people, the logic would collapse. If it doesn't? Then it doesn't really matter if I have 500k people or 5 million. I checked the math. I made sure to pick a currency that equates to a real world dollar as my basis, and there are 16 other currencies that I handpicked for the independent worldbuilding of different regions. If Character A has Currency 1, and Character B has Currency 2, then it's just a matter of conversion. At least in my story, the currency is just that, worldbuilding, proof that different regions and areas are different places. I don't think anyone is reading a fantasy adventure for an economic epic, so as long as effort goes into it at all, then it should be an "easy" victory.

Holy. I've found a businessman disguised as an author.

AND HE CHECKED THE MATH.

Salutation for you.