There’s something truly aesthetically pleasing about coin. There’s the image of a fat coinpurse being paid out to an informant. The feel of flipping a coin in your finger and catching it, and getting to call “heads or tails?” One of the most important things about an in-game economy, is that you have the coin needed to to exchange goods and services.
Step one: getting the coin. Every player starts with 3 copper that comes with their arrival in the world. Everyone has the available resources to get a drink, join a guild, and play with the economy. The preregistration store has often included packages to allow someone to start with a nice fat coin purse. But what is that coin worth?
Anyone who has ever played a tabletop fantasy roleplaying game will recognize the currency immediately: copper is the basic currency you’ll use most often. Silver is fancier, and worth 10 copper, using it is much more about status than practicality. Worth 100 copper, or 10 silver, is a gold piece. Gold pieces are impossible to get outside of in-character interactions. Attempting to actually spend one is going to be nigh impossible except for the richest camps and most well funded Bazaar enterprises. Starting in 2024, there are actually going to be three player run banks that will support financial roleplay.
You may ask yourself: why does all of this matter? Among other things, you can’t buy soup from the Broth-Hal without spending some coin. The majority of the enterprises in the Drachenfest take your coin, and can you really gamble over cards without something to set the stakes?
Other exciting avenues are opening up this year: for the first time, there is a shakedown mechanic to allow criminals to run protection rackets. They provide a bag of money to their targets, who consent to being shaken down. Depending on time and story threads players want to follow, they can choose to simply hand over the bag, or they can get in a brawl with the criminal element to protect their shop.
In the end, the real Drachenomics are the roleplaying opportunities that coin provides. Ask yourself: what is your character’s goal, and how does coin factor into it? The answers may surprise you.
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