Time = Currency

[Twin Dragons]

I remember watching an episode of Tales From The darkside many many years ago where standard currency was non-existant and goods were purchased by exchanging your life force to another person.

I've been wanting to homebrew something like this, but I've never gotten the chance.

Original Formula:

1 Copper = 3 Days
1 Silver = 1 Week
1 Gold = 1 Year
1 Platinum = 10 Years

Formula 2.0:

1 Copper = 1/7 Day
1 Silver = 1 Day
1 Gold = 1 Week
1 Platinum = 2 Months

Formula 3.0:

1 Copper = 1/14 Day
1 Silver = 1/7 Day
1 Gold = 1 Day
1 Platinum = 1 Week

[arguskos]

I remember watching an episode of Tales From The darkside many many years ago where standard currency was non-existant and goods were purchased by exchanging your life force to another person.

I've been wanting to homebrew something like this, but I've never gotten the chance. Anyways, here's the formula I came up with;


1 Copper = 3 Days
1 Silver = 1 Week
1 Gold = 1 Year
1 Platinum = 10 Years
So, a longsword is 15 years of life? Doesn't seem workable as it stands. The pricing is just too steep.

Cute idea though. Could work out.

[tyckspoon]

So, a longsword is 15 years of life? Doesn't seem workable as it stands. The pricing is just too steep.

Cute idea though. Could work out.

A little more workable when you expect to be receiving other people's time in exchange for your own goods and/or services, but it still seems quite harsh unless you make almost everything drastically cheaper.

Edit: And your typical adventuring group would probably wind up with a multi-hundred-year lifespan after just a few adventures. Time to retire and run an inn!

[Andraste]

That doesn't add up well. One copper is 3 days, but 10 times that value is 3.3 times that time, and 100 times it is 520 times that time.

[arguskos]

This further creates issues with longevity. Successful business folk can live forever. Actually, someone who profits ONE copper piece every two days will live forever. :smallconfused: That cannot possibly be intentional.

[ajkkjjk52]

Yeah, the idea's cool but the scale's way off. Think of 1 GP as a dollar and a cp as a penny. Then ask yourself, how much would I pay to live a year longer. $5,000? $10,000? $500,000?

The find the time per GP, and convert to PP, SP, and GP as needed.

[Twin Dragons]

This further creates issues with longevity. Successful business folk can live forever. Actually, someone who profits ONE copper piece every two days will live forever. :smallconfused: That cannot possibly be intentional.

I can't remember the episode the episode all that well just the idea behind it and the conclusion, and that is clearly the intention.

I guees my chart needs a revamp:

1 Copper = 1/7 Day
1 Silver = 1 Day
1 Gold = 1 Week
1 Platinum = 2 Months

[Fiery Diamond]

Well, now your chart works fairly decently until you get to Platinum. It's increments of 7, rather than 10, which means you'll still need to adjust prices, but they're all the same. Until you hit platinum, which is x52 instead of x7. This puzzles me.

[Twin Dragons]

Fixed.....

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Fixed.

You'd give up 5 months of your life for a single longsword, and 20 years of your life for a Spyglass? These numbers still all seem to high. A year of your life should be an incredibly serious purchase, in my mind, not just an appreciable fraction of a carriage.

[IcarusWings]

there's also the fact that long-lived races such as elves would be instantly rich and successful businessmen.

[AstralFire]

I think that this is only going to work if this is something applied to objects in excess of 1,000 GP. The economies of the average person and the D&D adventurer are totally different, and the latter one is a smarter one to use as long as you're running something like Planescape or Spelljammer, which both feel appropriate for this kind of system.

Make it also scale proportionately to those of greater or lesser lifespan, I would suggest. For those of infinite life, they pay out a value in Con instead.

[Ashtagon]

A house should be worth about 20 years, given what mortgages take to repay these days.

[Morph Bark]

there's also the fact that long-lived races such as elves would be instantly rich and successful businessmen.

Elans got it definitely beat. And if I recall right, Warforged and Dragonborn as well.

[Twin Dragons]

For my final draft I present the the following;


1 Copper = 1/14 Day
1 Silver = 1/7 Day
1 Gold = 1 Day
1 Platinum = 1 Week

[AstralFire]

Are you trying to make a system of currency for NPCs, or PCs, or both?

[Twin Dragons]

Are you trying to make a system of currency for NPCs, or PCs, or both?

Both......

[AstralFire]

Both......

Alright. How do you plan to address the massive boost in starting wealth to an elf versus a half-orc?

What level cap are you looking at here, too? Because a 50,000 gold item will cost someone 100 years. I'd better live a damn long time if I'm gonna spend 100 years on a shinier sword. The lower in level you go, the lower in expected wealth, the better a system like this works.

[Havvy]

The CWBL goes up about 30% per level (or so says a sidebar in the epic level guide...I didn't look to see if it's true...didn't care).

As such, this could scale with your level.

At level 1, a year would be n gold (I'd say 500 gold). At level 2, a year would be 700 gold. And so on and so on. At ninth level, a year would be 39,000 gold pieces.

[Twin Dragons]

The CWBL goes up about 30% per level (or so says a sidebar in the epic level guide...I didn't look to see if it's true...didn't care).

As such, this could scale with your level.

At level 1, a year would be n gold (I'd say 500 gold). At level 2, a year would be 700 gold. And so on and so on. At ninth level, a year would be 39,000 gold pieces.

I really like this idea.

[Eldan]

What do you do with naturally immortal races, like Warforged and Elan? How about demons, fey, devils, any other number of creatures commonly making pacts with mortals? Can a devil just give a mortal 50'000 years of lifespan?

[AstralFire]

The CWBL goes up about 30% per level (or so says a sidebar in the epic level guide...I didn't look to see if it's true...didn't care).

As such, this could scale with your level.

At level 1, a year would be n gold (I'd say 500 gold). At level 2, a year would be 700 gold. And so on and so on. At ninth level, a year would be 39,000 gold pieces.

Having it scale with your level not only makes the outside world completely borked, it doesn't actually work consistently until level 7 or so.

[thubby]

The CWBL goes up about 30% per level (or so says a sidebar in the epic level guide...I didn't look to see if it's true...didn't care).

As such, this could scale with your level.

At level 1, a year would be n gold (I'd say 500 gold). At level 2, a year would be 700 gold. And so on and so on. At ninth level, a year would be 39,000 gold pieces.

you're average human starting wizard is 21. middle aged is 35. assuming you want to avoid the age debuff, that's 13 years to play with.

a ninth level wizard would thus have access to 500,000 gold.

a ninth level rogue could have somewhere close to a million

[Hanuman]

How much time before you could just as well sell the time to a demon and get a wish spell?

[Morph Bark]

Since someone else proposed an XP = currency sort of thing where XP can be turned into money and such, perhaps that can be used to calculate this better, using standard NPC level growth as a guide.

[Eldan]

Well...

A wish spell used to cost 1 year of your life.
Now it costs 5000 XP.
5000 xp is worth 25'000 Gold.

Therefore: one year is 25'000 gold? That's absolutely insane, really.

[Morph Bark]

Well...

A wish spell used to cost 1 year of your life.
Now it costs 5000 XP.
5000 xp is worth 25'000 Gold.

Therefore: one year is 25'000 gold? That's absolutely insane, really.

Hence why I'd use standard NPC level growth, not something that is already broken.

[Hanuman]

Well...

A wish spell used to cost 1 year of your life.
Now it costs 5000 XP.
5000 xp is worth 25'000 Gold.

Therefore: one year is 25'000 gold? That's absolutely insane, really.
If you consider humans hit age 15 and in those days a low magic campaign could have you dying at 35 instead of 60-80.

But, elves have huge lifespans, tree people even more (forgot the name, obscure plant race), and some races are immortal >_>

What about a different factor-- we know aging deterioration accelerates with age, so why not have the years be different in their "vitality worth"?

Let's say 0-12 years old is a factor of 1, because those are the years when you are at your peak in growth and your "vitality" is at it's highest, you recover from illness, mend bones, are flexible and learn well with no effort and always have energy.

Factor 12-18 as a factor of 1.5, because it's those years which you develop a lot of your structure and your body has to constantly exert vitality to bring you there.

19-24 is a factor of 2, because that's when your body has reached it's maximum physical potential and after 25 it will slowly decline.

25-30 is a factor of 2.5, minimal decline.

31-45 is a factor of 3, heavy decline.

46-55 is a factor of 4, rapid decline.

55-80 is essentially free-fall and is a factor of 5.


Now for some groundrules, draining vitality saps years off the life directly from their age, this means they do not develop as they would have if a fundamental year is removed, making early years MUCH more important than later years.

Factor | Age
1 - 0 to 12
1.5 - 12 to 18
2 - 19 to 24
2.5 - 25 to 30
3 - 31 to 45
4 - 46 to 55
5 - 55 to 80


So let's say we use the ring example using the factor of 1 as the 5000xp, to gain 10,000xp the following would happen:

A 10 year old would become 12 years old, without the advantages.
A 13 year old would become 16 years old, without the advantages.
A 20 year old would become 24 years old, without the advantages.
A 25 year old would become 30 years old, without the advantages.
A 32 year old would become 38 years old, without the advantages.
A 46 year old would become 52 years old, without the advantages.
A 60 year old would become 70 years old, without the advantages.

Hows this system for you?

[Morph Bark]

A simpler solution might be to have the person "paying" with life force age a year, rather than have a year taken off at the end of their life.

[lesser_minion]

The CWBL goes up about 30% per level (or so says a sidebar in the epic level guide...I didn't look to see if it's true...didn't care).

IIRC, it's roughly GP == XP. The WBL charts cream off 10% of that to account for consumables, new pairs of shoes, inn stays, and similar expenses.

(The game charges an 80% conversion fee if you want to use GP to purchase something that would cost XP to do yourself -- that's just there to provide a disincentive to players who want to short-circuit the XP cost for spells and magic items by getting NPCs to do it).

[Qwertystop]

Well, this certainly brings a new meaning to the phrase "time is money".

I agree with Morph Bark about having the loss of a year be counted as instant aging, except that then any mental-stat character would buy everything they could, simply for the bonuses to Wisdom and Intelligence for aging. On the other hand, taking a year off the other end would be both hard to keep track of for the DM, and not matter much for the average group that never changes age categories anyway. Anyway, anyone who is likely to be killed in their day-to-day work (most PCs) would likely never reach the end of their natural lifespan anyway, unless they know a high-level cleric.

Also, for those who complain about incredibly high prices, such as:

a 50,000 gold item will cost someone 100 years. I'd better live a damn long time if I'm gonna spend 100 years on a shinier sword.
Don't forget that by the time you would have had that 50,000 spare gold by the normal system, you would have the 100 spare years by this one. And for the problem of "anyone who earns more money per day than gives one day" (> 1/3 cp/day, >7 cp/day, or >14 cp/day depending on the version from the OP), don't forget that anyone who does that would have to spend less per day than they make, so they would live a "subsistence" life, no luxuries, unless they were very profitable. Very few people would choose that, so it is fairly unlikely that anyone would be that stingy.

[AstralFire]

Well, this certainly brings a new meaning to the phrase "time is money".

I agree with Morph Bark about having the loss of a year be counted as instant aging, except that then any mental-stat character would buy everything they could, simply for the bonuses to Wisdom and Intelligence for aging. On the other hand, taking a year off the other end would be both hard to keep track of for the DM, and not matter much for the average group that never changes age categories anyway. Anyway, anyone who is likely to be killed in their day-to-day work (most PCs) would likely never reach the end of their natural lifespan anyway, unless they know a high-level cleric.

Also, for those who complain about incredibly high prices, such as:

Don't forget that by the time you would have had that 50,000 spare gold by the normal system, you would have the 100 spare years by this one. And for the problem of "anyone who earns more money per day than gives one day" (> 1/3 cp/day, >7 cp/day, or >14 cp/day depending on the version from the OP), don't forget that anyone who does that would have to spend less per day than they make, so they would live a "subsistence" life, no luxuries, unless they were very profitable. Very few people would choose that, so it is fairly unlikely that anyone would be that stingy.

I haven't forgotten that, but I can't help but feel that you end up losing the impact of the currency system if, at high levels, you're bartering in millenia of life back and forth casually - it becomes not-all-that-different from gold. There's not a lot of attachment made to the decision. Just, "oh, there's a hundred gone. I'll get two hundred in profits this month though."

[Epsilon Rose]

I haven't forgotten that, but I can't help but feel that you end up losing the impact of the currency system if, at high levels, you're bartering in millenia of life back and forth casually - it becomes not-all-that-different from gold. There's not a lot of attachment made to the decision. Just, "oh, there's a hundred gone. I'll get two hundred in profits this month though."

The problem is, that's true of any currency system. If you can't make what you spend back whatever you're buying needs to be absurdly awesome, especially if you're spending year's of you're life. You could get away with that in a low magic world where absurdly awesome equates to a lot less but in a high magic world like D&D that quickly becomes impractical.

To me the real use of this system is to prevent people from simply minting money at high levels and to have a system that holds value for upper-level mages, as such it should probably be exclusively used for magical items or services (which would actually hep to keep lifespans down since you can't sell everything you find for life, some of it's only going to be worth gold) but immortals still cause a problem: it makes sense for gods to be infinitely rich (there gods after all) but there are plenty of races and classes that handout immortality and it makes less sense for them to be infinitely rich. The only solutions I can think of is to 1) implement a conversion rate, like how a yen isn't worth a dollar an elven year isn't worth a human one; and 2) have years spent ignore non-divine immortality (though you might want to have immortals slowly return to their "proper" age if more years aren't spent [it could be interesting if you made this work in both directions, i.e. if they make a profit they slowly gain years (faster than normal aging).

Edit: I forgot to mention, I think that the years should be taken from the front of someones life not the back since many campaigns don't last long enough for characters to gain age categories let alone die of old age. That said I'd make it so age categories gained or lost in this way only change physical stats unless the vast majority of the years were gained naturally (~80-90%). While it doesn't make sense for a particularly pore wizard to be a charismatic genius (or for significant profits to be bad [which they would be for the mental classes]) it does make sense for older and highly effective adventures to be more spry and agile than their years would indicate if done this way people have a reason to not spend copious sums of years and profits are good for all classes.

[GnomeWorks]

A simpler solution might be to have the person "paying" with life force age a year, rather than have a year taken off at the end of their life.

The social ramifications of doing so are... mind-boggling.

[ajkkjjk52]

Therefore: one year is 25'000 gold? That's absolutely insane, really.

Really? Is it? I think most people wouldn't even hesitate to spend $25,000 to extend their life by a year.

That's what I think the problem with this system is, in fact. I'd set a day as being 100gp or more, given the value people (at least, irl humans) seem to place on our lives.

I mean, really. Is a suit of normal, nonmagical plate mail worth 2 years 10 months 15 days 20 hours off your life? Two YEARS of life for a suit of platemail? 7 years 8 months 1 day 16 hours for Bracers of Armor +2?

Either people in this world don't care about how long they live, or I'm seriously underestimating the value of a gp.

But would you trade two days of your life for a backpack? Or a crowbar? Is a 1oz bottle of ink worth 8 days of your life? It's certainly not worth that much of mine.

[Dragon Star]

The big problem with this is that
a. We think our life should be vaulble
but b. if a year is 25000 (which is about right ithink) then everyone is rich.
so to mak this sytme work , everyone starts of knowing exactly howmany years they will live, each year is worth a certin amount, ant short lived races lives are worth more because there life force is more concentrated and others are more diluted. and life holds its value becuase creatures that are sposed to be immortal arnt but can exstend ther lifspan by takeing years off a willing human. sorry had to post ths quick so no fully thought out:smallredface:

[Hanuman]

The big problem with this is that
a. We think our life should be vaulble
but b. if a year is 25000 (which is about right ithink) then everyone is rich.
so to mak this sytme work , everyone starts of knowing exactly howmany years they will live, each year is worth a certin amount, ant short lived races lives are worth more because there life force is more concentrated and others are more diluted. and life holds its value becuase creatures that are sposed to be immortal arnt but can exstend ther lifspan by takeing years off a willing human. sorry had to post ths quick so no fully thought out:smallredface:
1 year = 25,000 means that in a perfect system a person COULD be rich.

But consider this:
A) Anyone able to build or obtain such a system will either be rich in the first place, or will probably not invest years of his life into building such a thing just to drain his own life.
B) The system works at 100% energy efficiency? That's pretty unbelievable.
C) Lives should be valuable, but not unattainable as then it would have no practical use in societies. I can see demons and drug lords using this as currency, evil empires who already have rule could be draining the life force of their people and trading it.

That's why I suggested the quality year system, so you get a superior drug from the innocent and an inferior drug from the past-ripe.

[Eldan]

I haven't forgotten that, but I can't help but feel that you end up losing the impact of the currency system if, at high levels, you're bartering in millenia of life back and forth casually - it becomes not-all-that-different from gold. There's not a lot of attachment made to the decision. Just, "oh, there's a hundred gone. I'll get two hundred in profits this month though."

Two suggestions on that:

1) You advance in age when paying currency. However, when aging that way, you do not gain mental bonuses. Your body ages, but you don't gain the experience that normally comes with aging.

2) Gaining this currency, however, does not make you younger. Instead, it increases your maximum age. So you'd still be old, just not die from old age.


Really? Is it? I think most people wouldn't even hesitate to spend $25,000 to extend their life by a year.


I meant the other way round. Way too cheap.

[AstralFire]

Two suggestions on that:

1) You advance in age when paying currency. However, when aging that way, you do not gain mental bonuses. Your body ages, but you don't gain the experience that normally comes with aging.

2) Gaining this currency, however, does not make you younger. Instead, it increases your maximum age. So you'd still be old, just not die from old age.



I meant the other way round. Way too cheap.

I think you've got it solved with Point 2. That just leaves the massive bonus to wealth long-lived races have.

[Eldan]

Yeah. As has been suggested, moving up to percentages would probably help.

I.e. you sell 1% of your remaining life. That still favours long-lived races, though, and doesn't solve the problem of true immortals.

[thubby]

Yeah. As has been suggested, moving up to percentages would probably help.

I.e. you sell 1% of your remaining life. That still favours long-lived races, though, and doesn't solve the problem of true immortals.

what would be interesting is if immortals couldn't give their own life force, and would have to accumulate outsider's time in order to spend.
it would really make deals with the devil and the like interesting and sensible for demons.

[Epsilon Rose]

what would be interesting is if immortals couldn't give their own life force, and would have to accumulate outsider's time in order to spend.
it would really make deals with the devil and the like interesting and sensible for demons.

And make gods, especially good ones, paupers.
Same with any good immortal really.

[Eldan]

Well, their believers could voluntarily give up their life force. After all, they would then die and go to their god's version of paradise.

[Morph Bark]

Well, their believers could voluntarily give up their life force. After all, they would then die and go to their god's version of paradise.

Which in turn will make a bit of an unbalance on the Material Plane, as many good people will have died for their god and many evil people will have sold their souls to devils for financial gain, though they'd still be alive. Hence doing this will make it so that most of the world is ruled by evil corporate overlords, probably, which good adventurers would fight against.

It certainly would have far-stretching consequences in any campaign setting.

[Eldan]

Well...

Good people give away ten years of their life for divine favour, evil people do the same for money. It's just a different kind of balance.

Though it certainly explains why there are evil empires and such an abundance of good heroes.

[Morph Bark]

I figure we might easily end up with something somewhat reminiscent of Dark Sun, or perhaps the continent the OotS is currently on.

...thinking about it, the current continent has some similarities to Dark Sun, except the "stable" leaders remain hidden and aren't godlike (for as far as we know). Makes me wonder when we're going to see more psionics.

[thubby]

And make gods, especially good ones, paupers.
Same with any good immortal really.

what do gods need with currency? they have worshipers who give them the power to nuke continents if they want.
good outsiders are in a similar circumstance, they don't need money, and good players who gain levels to become immortal will have tons of "money" already.

[Epsilon Rose]

what do gods need with currency? they have worshipers who give them the power to nuke continents if they want.
good outsiders are in a similar circumstance, they don't need money, and good players who gain levels to become immortal will have tons of "money" already.

That works if you're actually converting the years into physical gold. I sort of pictured this as an alternate system or a system for more valuable/magical things where there mundane wealth would be irrelevant.

And while good gods and outsiders do have vast amounts of power they're not supposed to just start swinging it around whenever they want something. It's part of the whole "good" thing.

[thubby]

That works if you're actually converting the years into physical gold. I sort of pictured this as an alternate system or a system for more valuable/magical things where there mundane wealth would be irrelevant.

what about that makes my idea not work?

[Epsilon Rose]

what about that makes my idea not work?

Since mundane currency wouldn't an acceptable form of payment good PCs that achieve immortality, gods and d outsiders wouldn't be able to purchase powerful magical items (really the only items they'd be likely to have an interest in) regardless of how rich they might be where as evil or mortal characters would be able to purchase them creating a power gap.

[mikeejimbo]

What if instead of paying a flat amount of time, you have to pay a certain percentage of your "life force" (whatever that may mean) that effectively ages/cuts down on your lifespan, but works out to a different number of years for each race? That way, you solve the problems of "Well wouldn't long-lived races be inherently rich?"

[thubby]

Since mundane currency wouldn't an acceptable form of payment good PCs that achieve immortality, gods and d outsiders wouldn't be able to purchase powerful magical items (really the only items they'd be likely to have an interest in) regardless of how rich they might be where as evil or mortal characters would be able to purchase them creating a power gap.

i wasn't thinking they would accumulate gold, they would keep "life" in a jar or something.
they're still obscenely powerful beings, so they can trade for other beings' time.