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Morph Bark
2013-01-14, 07:06 PM
In my campaign setting, one of the major countries is supposed to be a communist one, with a twist being that through becoming a knight, someone can gain recognition, status and a measure of wealth. (This is because the knightly orders have been vital to the survival of the country for centuries and the Party decided that both attempting to get rid of them and actually getting rid of them would be dangerous, so they integrated them into the new society by law. More here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=13636167#post13636167), for those interested.)

Now, what I'm mainly wondering at this point, of course, is... how does such a state work in D&D? Such a state functions without money for its citizens, so gp is right out.

Well, I suppose it's pretty easy to say how it would work, since a moneyless society would work exactly like on Earth, kind of like the times of great crisis during which people bought stuff using coupons instead of money. What is more interesting (and indeed, a more pressing matter) is how would something like that work... for adventurers? WBL is prettymuch effectively eliminated and null. I guess the only way in which they could gain stuff would be to do quests and other jobs for people? What do you think?

Please note that I want to have a discussion purely about a moneyless society in D&D, not about the merits of it or communism as an ideology.

Gildedragon
2013-01-14, 07:10 PM
one has to ask: what regulates adventurers and who supplies them. are they state sponsored/appointed or mercenary?
one could deal with wbl as training which makes you more effective at wielding your weapon (the bonuses to hit & damage that come from enchantments). or loans to make them more effective, not unlike a scientist getting access to research materials
or contraband

Deophaun
2013-01-14, 07:29 PM
In my campaign setting, one of the major countries is supposed to be a communist one, with a twist being that through becoming a knight, someone can gain recognition, status and a measure of wealth.
That's not as big a twist as you might think. Members of the politburo in the USSR were rewarded much the same way. However, since they weren't supposed to own property, their nice cars and furniture will all stamped as being property of the state that they were allowed to "borrow."

But even communist countries have money. It's just that your pay and what you are allowed to buy are controlled by the state. Gold specie wouldn't be used for trade within the system, though. Since the state is the exclusive buyer and seller, it can dictate what its little pieces of paper are worth. Gold would be reserved for the state to use in trade with other nations where the state doesn't have that power, or found in the blackmarket (which would be huge, especially in a mideival setting where the state's apparatus will be technologically limited).

holywhippet
2013-01-14, 07:37 PM
I was playing in one home brew 2nd edition D&D setting where one location didn't use money but instead you had to barter goods or services. It was a pain in the ass in my opinion if you didn't have a useful non-weapon proficiency you could use.

Animastryfe
2013-01-15, 01:09 AM
I think it would be a difficult task to create a plausible society that does not use money. Money is not just for making transactions much easier to perform; from basic economic theory the relative prices of goods are needed to have an efficient allocation of resources.

Ravens_cry
2013-01-15, 01:31 AM
Even if there isn't money, people still want other things people have and vise verse, which means barter and trade will still be important. Another important part of societies without money per sae,and even those with, is patronage.

Arbane
2013-01-15, 02:21 AM
I think it would be a difficult task to create a plausible society that does not use money.

It's arguably possible. I read an interesting book ("Debt: The First 5000 Years") which proposes that money first showed up as a way of keeping track of social obligations (debts) between groups - inside a family/clan/group, it's not so much needed. Barter only occurs when the existing monentary system and society have largely broken down.

More than likely, there will always be money, even if it's cigarettes or bags of grain.

Kelb_Panthera
2013-01-15, 04:11 AM
Such a society exists in the Eberron setting. The Sarlonan nation of Riedra is a communist state of exactly the sort you've described. The rulers achieve this by extremely subtle psionic manipulations of the people through their dreams.

I'm not easily freaked out but riedra gives me the creeps.

Morph Bark
2013-01-15, 08:58 AM
That's not as big a twist as you might think. [...] since they weren't supposed to own property, their nice cars and furniture will all stamped as being property of the state that they were allowed to "borrow."

Hmmm, I see. Yeah, that's sort of what I'm going for.


Such a society exists in the Eberron setting. The Sarlonan nation of Riedra is a communist state of exactly the sort you've described. The rulers achieve this by extremely subtle psionic manipulations of the people through their dreams.

I'm not easily freaked out but riedra gives me the creeps.

Yeah, that isn't quite what I'm going for. :smalltongue:


I'm thinking the government might maybe regulate it so people get care packages based on what kind of job they have? Like, people with more important jobs get more access to luxury goods, wheras people with jobs that are more physically taxing might be given more food than most others. All the money in the country would be in the hands of the government to use to trade with other countries. Does something like that sound about right and functional?

CarpeGuitarrem
2013-01-15, 09:40 AM
I'm thinking the government might maybe regulate it so people get care packages based on what kind of job they have? Like, people with more important jobs get more access to luxury goods, wheras people with jobs that are more physically taxing might be given more food than most others. All the money in the country would be in the hands of the government to use to trade with other countries. Does something like that sound about right and functional?
Functional insofar as said government can be trusted to possess such power and only use it for the good of its people. This does also leave quite a lot of potential space for corruption, such as people doing favors for government officials in order to get "evaluated" differently. (Operating off of the presumption that you'd use lower-ranking government officials to evaluate citizens, to determine what special goods they receive in their care packages.)

There's also the fact that what the government thinks are "important jobs" and what a citizen thinks of the importance of their own job are likely not to coincide; you'll get a lot of people saying "Well my job's important too, why don't I get as much shiny stuff as they do?"

Neither of these mean that you should abandon the idea. On the contrary, they make veritable seeds of intrigue and plot.

awa
2013-01-15, 01:04 PM
Adventurers are often depicted as being outside the system so one way you could deal with it is if you use the government controlled tokens route, the pcs can buy stuff but only after they have exchanged gold for tokens. (Whether the government’s exchange rate is fair is up to you of course)

Yukitsu
2013-01-15, 01:45 PM
I made a pseudo moneyless state with one of my characters following a communist pattern.

Citizens who met quotas were allotted food vouchers and a small number of limited duration coupons essentially that let you rent property from the state. Citizens were not allowed to sell property which was a minor felony.

The basic necessities of living were all granted for free from the state so long as quotas were met, so the ~250 bucks a month a labourer could earn were all spent on luxury goods, but you couldn't amass them. If you've exceeded your quota and pass all quality control, you were awarded with more coupons to rent more or nicer things. This meant working harder, not working in a specific field was rewarded.

They were a communist mageocracy however, where universal education was their main notable feature.

Animastryfe
2013-01-15, 05:53 PM
I mistakenly equated 'using money' with 'the existence of a free market'. Of course, prices can be set using a barter system. If, for example, the state's citizens were part of a hive mind, then the whole thing would be rendered moot.

That Pathfinder nation seems interesting; I will go read more about it.

GnomeGninjas
2013-01-15, 05:59 PM
The state provides them with weapons and magic stuff in exchange or service. Looting dead people gives the PCs magic/mundane items.

Morph Bark
2013-01-16, 07:42 AM
Neither of these mean that you should abandon the idea. On the contrary, they make veritable seeds of intrigue and plot.

Oh, certainly not! It'd be rank with plot. :smallamused: Besides, even in non-communist societies there are plenty of people who think they should earn more money, or that other people should earn less. It's not specific to that kind of society, it's just how people are.


The state provides them with weapons and magic stuff in exchange or service. Looting dead people gives the PCs magic/mundane items.

That probably wouldn't work though, considering the things those dead people would have on them would most likely be government property and only "borrowed".

Gavinfoxx
2013-01-16, 10:19 AM
There are a few ways to make a state which doesn't generally use currency... One with authoritarian control and the government simply has vouchers and such for state-allotted food and supplies and such (like some forms of Communism), and another method is a post scarcity economy where everything is so abundant that no-one needs to actually buy anything.

You should maybe also consider the second as an option as well?

kardar233
2013-01-16, 02:05 PM
Eclipse Phase has a few post-scarcity societies that have abandoned money as a useless construct. However, a Tippyverse is really the only post-scarcity society in D&D, so I don't know how helpful that is.

Kadzar
2013-01-16, 02:44 PM
That probably wouldn't work though, considering the things those dead people would have on them would most likely be government property and only "borrowed".Obviously those people the PCs killed were misusing public property, and what they find in chests is public property which has been illegally hoarded. If they bring it to their nearest Department of Redistribution center, they will be commended for their dutifulness to the state, and more likely to have their requests to "borrow" better gear fulfilled. If the DoR finds out they've been using items without authorization, even if they later turn them in, the consequences will be severe. Likewise with hoarding.

A conflict may come in in the fact that bringing back a high value item will not necessarily guarantee that you'll be able to "borrow" the equivalent value of gear. Now, the DoR is not omnipotent, but, if you want to use a high value item without authorization, you have to be careful, because they do have eyes all around.

Yukitsu
2013-01-16, 09:14 PM
Assuming psychopath PCs are a good litmus test for adventurers stealing things from the communists, best way to insure that they always bring gear back in good time is to make it so everything you rent out to them is super specialized for certain encounter types, extremely high value, and to let them use anything they find prior to returning for assessment and item returns. Worked well when I was running that.

valadil
2013-01-17, 09:35 AM
I have nothing useful to contribute but I keep reading the title as "A monkeyless state in a D&D setting" and wondering why anyone would want to play in a setting without any monkeys.

Straybow
2013-01-17, 01:08 PM
If you've exceeded your quota and pass all quality control, you were awarded with more coupons to rent more or nicer things. This meant working harder, not working in a specific field was rewarded 1. How are quotas determined?
2. What happens when a rented thing breaks or otherwise wears out during your rental?
3. What about quality? Not all food "provided by the state" is equal. Who gets steak and who is stuck eating muskrat? Not all shelter is equal. Who gets the nice location and who is stuck way out in the back alleys, or the low spot where the street floods?

Just getting rid of "money" doesn't magically make value differences disappear. That's why it has never worked and never will, as shown by Nobel laureates Friedman and Von Hayek.

Yukitsu
2013-01-17, 01:44 PM
1. How are quotas determined?

Through a similar analysis to the one used in stock trading, finding what industry standards are, and where they are being exceeded. It's a metric for determining worth in manufacturing stocks.


2. What happens when a rented thing breaks or otherwise wears out during your rental?

If stuff never breaks, that's a lot of good communists out of jobs.


3. What about quality? Not all food "provided by the state" is equal. Who gets steak and who is stuck eating muskrat? Not all shelter is equal. Who gets the nice location and who is stuck way out in the back alleys, or the low spot where the street floods?

Theoretically, everyone has a small ration of the former per year, while the latter everyone could have every day. Unless muskrats are really rare or something. In practice, that depends on the size of the Empire and the geographic disparity.

In practice, there are places where housing was very heavily homogenized. Pure geographic disparity like streets flooding, that's an urban planning error, that area shouldn't have been built over at all, it should have been used for either parks with an artificial lake with a center piece of all your glorious leader statues.


Just getting rid of "money" doesn't magically make value differences disappear. That's why it has never worked and never will, as shown by Nobel laureates Friedman and Von Hayek.

Value differences don't automatically equate to the idea that the high value commodities should be monopolized by a small class, or that they suddenly become a completely unobservable phenomena. The idea that for some reason, meal tickets handed out one month can't include a small amount of high quality steak for every person, so everyone has it once per month doesn't really equate to any real limitation of the system for example, the fact that it doesn't happen is simply indicative of corruption within the system.

Kelb_Panthera
2013-01-17, 04:00 PM
Two elements keep even such an idealistic communist state from functioning.

A) Vouchers are a type of currency unless they have the name of the person they're for printed on them. What's to stop a peon from trading his steak ticket for 2 or 3 muskrat tickets? Maybe he likes muskrat better.

B) Criminals. As long as there's a system, there will be people that try to game the system and people that flout the system. If any of them gets the idea of producing forged meal tickets to trade for other rationed goods then a black market is born and you now have a criminialized free market screwing with your economy and making people unequal again.

Riedra's communist state works because the people are being manipulated psionically on top of the state's propoganda and their culture being built around the idea that their government is operated by exemplars of the national faith to which everyone ascribes.

Kobold society works because they're universally despised by all of their neighbors and troublemakers are "sent to scout new warren locations" (read; shown the door and told don't come back 'till you're useful). Combined with the small size of the community and cramped living space making secrecy nearly impossible, the lack of familial ties to conflict with duty to society, the universal "we are dragons" mentality, and the overarching faith in Kurtulmak to provide a good afterlife in the dragon-queen's realm makes for a remarkably stable, communist society that humans simply can't emulate.

Communism can work on a small scale with humans, but a communist state just has too many cracks for problems to slip through.

Yukitsu
2013-01-17, 04:09 PM
Two elements keep even such an idealistic communist state from functioning.

A) Vouchers are a type of currency unless they have the name of the person they're for printed on them. What's to stop a peon from trading his steak ticket for 2 or 3 muskrat tickets? Maybe he likes muskrat better.

Generally, the point of the system is that everyone has what they like some of the time, not all of the time. The inverse question for a capitalist society is, why do the poor never get to eat steak even if they'd prefer it? So the question is, why is it wrong for some people to get things they don't want some of the time, when it insures everyone gets the things they want some of the time? This isn't even a real problem.


B) Criminals. As long as there's a system, there will be people that try to game the system and people that flout the system. If any of them gets the idea of producing forged meal tickets to trade for other rationed goods then a black market is born and you now have a criminialized free market screwing with your economy and making people unequal again.

It's not really fair to flaunt that as a functional problem, because it's a legitimate problem in all socio-economic models. It's no different than criminals forging money or checks, or stealing identities. The general and bizarre assumption is that capitalist societies are more likely to crack down on that. That isn't actually necessarily true, government corruption relates more to democracy rather than the economic system.

As for it creating a secondary unilateral society, the scope of that would have to be easily traced, save for tremendous government corruption. Black markets work either when they can control a sector of the government, or they're small enough in scope that they don't destabilize much of the normal economy.

Friv
2013-01-17, 04:10 PM
Two elements keep even such an idealistic communist state from functioning.

A) Vouchers are a type of currency unless they have the name of the person they're for printed on them. What's to stop a peon from trading his steak ticket for 2 or 3 muskrat tickets? Maybe he likes muskrat better.

Either,

a) the law, or
b) nothing. If a citizen decides that they would like to make that trade, let 'em! As long as both sides of the trade are happy, the system is working, and as long as the vouchers don't have durations, you can't really stockpile them or play the markets in big ways.


B) Criminals. As long as there's a system, there will be people that try to game the system and people that flout the system. If any of them gets the idea of producing forged meal tickets to trade for other rationed goods then a black market is born and you now have a criminialized free market screwing with your economy and making people unequal again.

Uhh...

That just means that you have a police force whose tasks include catching counterfeiters... much like in a capitalist state.

I would elaborate, but I don't want to drift into RL politics.

Kelb_Panthera
2013-01-17, 05:23 PM
We're talking pseudo-medieval society here. Law enforcement being able to quell a large, powerful black-market is not even remotely guaranteed. No matter what form the government takes putting significant measures in place against a black-market that's got a firm foothold will require that the law allow law enforcers an uncomfortably great deal of agency. The more able the government is to quell black-market dealings, the more it moves toward a totalitarian government. Totalitarian governments have a rich history of rebellion and general internal strife.

For the magic replacing technology argument for law-enforcement techniques, remember that such methods require the employ of spellcasters and that such measures are god-awful expensive. I often see as an example of interrogation technique a zone of truth effect in the interrogation room. However, zone of truth isn't a permanency = yes spell. This necessitates either employing a cleric or paladin to cast the spell every time its needed or the creation of a magic device worth over 10,000gp. The same money could provide over a million pounds of wheat or more than 3300 pigs.

That brings to mind the subject of mages. IRL if someone that's very intelligent and dissatisfied with the way society works he's got to deal with other people through manipulation and planning to get what he wants. A wizard can employ these methods, but also has the personal power to effect significant changes without any help at all.

A D&D world has many more and much more powerful destabalizing factors for any government to deal with. A government based on the idealistic notion that all people are equal in worth is adding one more onto them by working against human nature. People are born equal. What they do after that creates discrepancy and as long as there's more than one person somebody's got to be at the bottom and nobody wants to be there.

Yukitsu
2013-01-17, 05:47 PM
We're talking pseudo-medieval society here. Law enforcement being able to quell a large, powerful black-market is not even remotely guaranteed. No matter what form the government takes putting significant measures in place against a black-market that's got a firm foothold will require that the law allow law enforcers an uncomfortably great deal of agency. The more able the government is to quell black-market dealings, the more it moves toward a totalitarian government. Totalitarian governments have a rich history of rebellion and general internal strife.

Haven't said anything at all about mages, so setting aside the remainder, I'm interested as to why you believe only a totalitarian government can suppress the spread of black markets. All countries have controlled substances or weapons in some form of black market, and all countries have always had controlled substances or weapons hanging around. Whether or not the government is totalitarian or liberal leaning has no real relation to the strength of the black market. Hell, most completely totalitarian governments are the ones that have the strongest black markets.

Kelb_Panthera
2013-01-17, 06:56 PM
Haven't said anything at all about mages, so setting aside the remainder, I'm interested as to why you believe only a totalitarian government can suppress the spread of black markets. All countries have controlled substances or weapons in some form of black market, and all countries have always had controlled substances or weapons hanging around. Whether or not the government is totalitarian or liberal leaning has no real relation to the strength of the black market. Hell, most completely totalitarian governments are the ones that have the strongest black markets.

Actually, a totalitarian government is one of the least able to quell a black-market, in an ironic twist. The discontent bred by trying to control every aspect of the citizen's lives creates a greater demand for the black-market goods and services and pushes the majority of people to do only what is explicitly required of them and nothing more to help the government that they don't like. However, limiting what law enforcers can do without becoming criminals themselves gives the black-market room to flourish since the enforcers can't just kick in peoples doors to find what they need to move against the black-marketeers in a meaningful manner.

A government needs capable law enforcers that have enough leeway to do what they can without creating enough discontent to make the citizenry uncooperative. It's a delicate balancing act just to minimize the black-market.

Incentivizing the people's cooperation can help immensely, but then you get people that are constantly watching their neighbors for illegal activity so they can gain the incentive and constantly stepping on eggshells to avoid the appearance of wrongdoing so that they're not unjustly punished because of an overzealous neighbor, effectively making everyone an agent of the regime and causing more discontent if it's not very carefully balanced.

Then there's the methods available to law enforcement. Lack of technology means that all they have to go on is classical field work. Asking questions of people and following rumors. There's no money or merchants in this society, except perhaps in a foreign quarter, so criminals can't be found by using ledgers to "trace the money." Fingerprinting's not a thing so evidence only matters in so far as you can prove it's actually relevant evidence or if you catch the criminal with it on his person. There're no recording devices so testimony about what someone said has to come from witnesses who are capable of misremembering or outright lying.

Many of these limitations can be circumvented by magic. The object reading power can be used to determine an items previous owners, psychometry and sensetivity to psychic impressions can see what happened in a location after the fact, scrying effects can be used for unobtrusive surveilance, and enchantments can force or trick people into telling the truth of what and how much they know. These effects are not cheap though. Even in a society that has no contact with other societies, why would anyone bother learning magic if it won't get them any more government stipend than being a dirt farmer? Magic items require expensive ingredients that are explicitly rare, requiring either commerce with other nations or that the goverment make do with whatever it can find in its territory.

In any case, black-market or no, society will stratify because people of differing abilities exist. The society will treat certain qualities as desireable and others as undesireable, resulting in people with the desireable qualities being more highly regarded than the people with the undesireable qualities.

By eliminating financial success as one of these qualities you leave mostly only the personal qualities of the individual and consequently force many of the people that end up at the bottom to stay there.

They can't really do much with their appearance since they can only work with their hair and makeup, clothing being limited to functional attire by the lack of incentive to make anything else and the lack of ability in most people to craft anything noteworthy on their own while braiding techniques and plant squeezings can be used to make standout hair and makeup choices.

Political power is generally a quality that's seen as desireable by some and some of those people will do whatever they must to get that political power, even if it means breaking the law. In any case the idea that being the guy in charge is better than being the guy he bosses around and that being partnered with those people for mating purposes is a desireable thing will persist.

After appearance and social standing there's nothing but personality.

If too many people end up on the bottom or if a few particularly clever and/or motivated people stay on the bottom too long then they begin the stirings of revolution. The lack of social mobility and equality that's more prevelant in a communist society with no monetary system makes revolt more likely than in a communist society with currency.

Yukitsu
2013-01-17, 08:16 PM
For your black market discussion nothing there really qualifies communism as automatically falling into the trap of huge amounts of criminal activity in all honesty. Communism is not a totalitarian form of government. Marxist-Leninist Communism is, but it's not actually a communist system, because it's enforcibly stratified.

The nuance of the stratification that you're leaning into there, when physical and material possessions are no longer the defining quality, are pretty much fine according to communism. Though I should mention I did say that more successful workers should be better rewarded, they simply should not be rewarded in a manner that allows them to accumulate wealth over the long term, and especially not hand it down the future generations. When you start talking about things like physical appearance, I'd just say let them compete over it.

Should also note, when I was talking about it, the route I think it should follow, is to provide incentives to the more skilled or harder working labourers, but not through permanent economic gain. A temporary boost to status through conspicuous consumption is a way to produce an incentive to work harder without necessitating accumulation of wealth, which is the stratification that communism functionally focuses on as un-just. It's slightly against Marxist inclinations, but I don't think Marx' ideal person is realistic. It doesn't deny the core principles of communism though.

Morph Bark
2013-01-18, 05:48 AM
Lets not get too deeply into the political side of communism here, as I'd hate to see this thread get locked. Earlier, some very nice examples and thoughts were provided, which has given me some food for thought.


We're talking pseudo-medieval society here.

As the campaign setting is more post-Renaissance, I had to think for a bit what society to compare this particular country that got this whole thing started to. I think it's most comparable to Edo Japan (if you compare the knights to samurai), except of course that the country has no Emperor or politically struggling clans due to the Party (besides old noble families who adapted to the new regime or went into hiding, intrigue is instead largely provided by parties of common folk). Geography-wise, the country is most comparable to Norway/Sweden, including the spread of population (which is to say, towns and cities are pretty far-off from one another, generally).

For this particular setting, I'm thinking the country has pretty good education in the big cities, provided for free to their own citizens (and maybe for high prices for foreigners, they wouldn't want foreigners to start cribbing off them by the free education). Law enforcement would be present in decent number, but could easily be corrupt in some places, or have been infiltrated by opposition to the Party.

Ravens_cry
2013-01-18, 06:24 AM
Early feudal society was probably pretty moneyless, being based more on tiered obligations from what I understand.

Straybow
2013-01-18, 03:18 PM
I think Roland missed this one :smallsmile:

Straybow
2013-01-18, 03:23 PM
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Yukitsu
2013-01-18, 04:57 PM
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Straybow
2013-01-20, 08:32 PM
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Straybow
2013-01-20, 09:16 PM
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headwarpage
2013-01-20, 10:00 PM
Eh, I'll weigh in on this.

First, you need to define exactly what you're looking for. Moneyless is not necessarily the same thing as communist, and communist is not necessarily the same thing as totalitarian (there's a lot of overlap - let's leave real-world arguments out of this). But it sounds like you're going for a totalitarian state that directs production and allocates all resources, thereby removing the need for money.

Now, I'm not an economist, but it seems like (in very simple terms) you need a few things for this to work long-term:
- A government that is sufficiently omniscient (or close to it) to determine the optimal production of goods and the optimal allocation of scarce resources. This includes labor, food, material resources, and anything else you can think of. Also, the government needs to identify innovations (and innovators) proactively so the country doesn't stagnate.
- A government (top to bottom) that is not corrupt to any appreciable extent. That is, they're actually acting in the perceived best interests of the nation as a whole.
- A public that is willing to work hard at whatever the government tells them to, and to do everything to the best of their ability even though they might not personally reap the benefits.
- A public that will play by the government's rules and not participate in black markets.

You could expound on these in various ways, but those seem like the basics. In the real world, nobody really knows what's optimal, and capitalist societies use the market to sort it out. In the real world, (some) people are corrupt, lazy, and selfish. In the real world, people (given the opportunity) demonstrate unexpected skills, do things on their own initiative, come up with innovative ideas, and change the status quo. These are real problems, and you should have a solution in mind in case your players start asking questions.

That said, if you can come up with a convincing way to handwave those concerns, there's no reason it couldn't work. Yes, that's a lot to handwave. Of course, if this communist state only has to exist for a brief period, you can dodge a lot of it. If the state came into existence twenty years ago, and it's going to collapse twenty years in the future, that's kind of irrelevant to the campaign you're running in the present.

Also, and I'm not sure if this has come up, but unless you're totally isolationist, there needs to be some way for your communist state to engage in commerce with the rest of the world. I suppose the state could issue normal currency to government traders for the purpose of foreign trade, then distribute whatever it imports to the populace (and use the cash from any exports to fund more imports). That's getting away from the moneyless state, but it's not necessarily in general circulation.

As for adventurers, if they serve some purpose in the society, there's no particular reason the government wouldn't give them the resources they need to serve that purpose (at approximately the rate of WBL). Once you've handwaved everything else, adventurers are the least of your problems.

Gavinfoxx
2013-01-20, 10:13 PM
There's also an absurd overproduction of goods so that no one ever has to work...

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aG4P3dU6WP3pq8mW9l1qztFeNfqQHyI22oJe09i8KWw/edit

Yukitsu
2013-01-20, 11:22 PM
{Scrubbed}

Morph Bark
2013-01-21, 05:54 AM
For the magic replacing technology argument for law-enforcement techniques, remember that such methods require the employ of spellcasters and that such measures are god-awful expensive. I often see as an example of interrogation technique a zone of truth effect in the interrogation room. However, zone of truth isn't a permanency = yes spell. This necessitates either employing a cleric or paladin to cast the spell every time its needed or the creation of a magic device worth over 10,000gp. The same money could provide over a million pounds of wheat or more than 3300 pigs.

That brings to mind the subject of mages. IRL if someone that's very intelligent and dissatisfied with the way society works he's got to deal with other people through manipulation and planning to get what he wants. A wizard can employ these methods, but also has the personal power to effect significant changes without any help at all.

A D&D world has many more and much more powerful destabalizing factors for any government to deal with. A government based on the idealistic notion that all people are equal in worth is adding one more onto them by working against human nature. People are born equal. What they do after that creates discrepancy and as long as there's more than one person somebody's got to be at the bottom and nobody wants to be there.

I've thought a little about this, and you're right. The original sketchings of this country were for a non-DnD setting, and there they had laws against magic, though that might have to be changed. (Many kinds of magic were illegal, but at least divination was not, and it was used in law enforcement in that country's form.)

Zone of truth does not have costly components, right? I suppose that with some amount of indoctrination, or only picking extreme nationalists for magic education, law enforcement could employ spellcasters that receive much less for the casting of a spell than they would in other countries. (Hence the indoctrination and/or extreme national loyalty being necessary, so they don't just up and leave.)


Eh, I'll weigh in on this.

First, you need to define exactly what you're looking for. Moneyless is not necessarily the same thing as communist, and communist is not necessarily the same thing as totalitarian (there's a lot of overlap - let's leave real-world arguments out of this). But it sounds like you're going for a totalitarian state that directs production and allocates all resources, thereby removing the need for money.

Well, I'd like to go for a state that isn't completely totalitarian, but because there are few real-world examples to base things off and give some insight into it, it's hard to figure out how to make a non-totalitarian state of this sort.

The moneyless aspect is of course the biggest thing about the country (hence why I lead in with that, plus of course the rules of the board), but if it weren't for the bit about the country being communist, then it would just be easy: I'd use bartering and trading for goods.


Now, I'm not an economist, but it seems like (in very simple terms) you need a few things for this to work long-term:
- A government that is sufficiently omniscient (or close to it) to determine the optimal production of goods and the optimal allocation of scarce resources. This includes labor, food, material resources, and anything else you can think of. Also, the government needs to identify innovations (and innovators) proactively so the country doesn't stagnate.

Diviners would likely be a big part of the Party, and there'd likely be a network of agents throughout cities and towns (at least one per town, more for bigger cities, like 1 in 300 people).


- A government (top to bottom) that is not corrupt to any appreciable extent. That is, they're actually acting in the perceived best interests of the nation as a whole.

Mostly, yes. As a group, they are doing that. Of course, it's impossible to always vouch for each and every single cog in the entire clockwork.


- A public that is willing to work hard at whatever the government tells them to, and to do everything to the best of their ability even though they might not personally reap the benefits.

Since the country is made up of elves and governing and other high positions are often stressful, a state of mind which elves wish to ignore, I don't think that'll be a problem.


- A public that will play by the government's rules and not participate in black markets.

That, of course, is also not entirely possible, as you can't always vouch for everyone, as above. However, with a strong law enforcement, many who would otherwise make use of the black market will not.


You could expound on these in various ways, but those seem like the basics. In the real world, nobody really knows what's optimal, and capitalist societies use the market to sort it out. In the real world, (some) people are corrupt, lazy, and selfish. In the real world, people (given the opportunity) demonstrate unexpected skills, do things on their own initiative, come up with innovative ideas, and change the status quo. These are real problems, and you should have a solution in mind in case your players start asking questions.

That said, if you can come up with a convincing way to handwave those concerns, there's no reason it couldn't work. Yes, that's a lot to handwave. Of course, if this communist state only has to exist for a brief period, you can dodge a lot of it. If the state came into existence twenty years ago, and it's going to collapse twenty years in the future, that's kind of irrelevant to the campaign you're running in the present.

As it is right now, the current form of state of the country happened 60 years ago. Twenty would likely make it too fresh and new for its inhabitants.


Also, and I'm not sure if this has come up, but unless you're totally isolationist, there needs to be some way for your communist state to engage in commerce with the rest of the world. I suppose the state could issue normal currency to government traders for the purpose of foreign trade, then distribute whatever it imports to the populace (and use the cash from any exports to fund more imports). That's getting away from the moneyless state, but it's not necessarily in general circulation.

It does share its southern border with other countries, but is otherwise in a rather isolated location, but not completely. Trading happens the way you describe, and along the border a lot of trading occurs. The country is relatively wealthy though, in manner of food and iron at least.


As for adventurers, if they serve some purpose in the society, there's no particular reason the government wouldn't give them the resources they need to serve that purpose (at approximately the rate of WBL). Once you've handwaved everything else, adventurers are the least of your problems.

Then you haven't read about my players yet. :smalltongue:

Either way, thanks for your more in-depth economic look into this, Headwarpage. :smallsmile:

Straybow
2013-01-25, 02:21 PM
{Scrubbed}

Straybow
2013-01-25, 02:23 PM
Since the country is made up of elves and governing and other high positions are often stressful, a state of mind which elves wish to ignore, I don't think that'll be a problem.
Well, you didn't say that before. Of course Elves are communists and run their economy on IOUs written on silk handkerchiefs.

Yukitsu
2013-01-25, 05:10 PM
{Scrubbed}

GnomeGninjas
2013-01-25, 10:44 PM
Here is my idea for a non-totalitarian advanced moneyless state in a dnd setting. It might violate some fluff you have all-ready came up with, I'm not sure:
The nation is divided into small governmental zones each covering a small area of land. From each zone a council of leaders are elected. The resources produced by the individuals in the zones are given to the council which then divides them between the subjects of the zone, a portion of the resources are given to the central government(could be a monarchy, theocracy, one-party dictatorship, parliament etc) and stockpiled(to be given to a zone which fails to produce enough for it's citizens, fallen victim to a plague, has been attacked, etc). If a zone feels the need to reward somebody (thank you kind PCs for rescuing the mayors daughter from the ninja ogre bandits) its council could decide to allocate some of its resources to loaning the PCs the tools necessary to protect against similar threats (yay magic loot). The council wouldn't exploit this power (too much) because it would endanger there reelection (because of the individual basis the citizens know the council).

P.S. I'm pretty tired, I apologize for any incomprehensible phrases, spelling errors, etc.

Roland St. Jude
2013-02-08, 01:24 PM
Sheriff of Moddingham: Real world politics and religion are inappropriate topics on this forum, even when they intersect a gaming issue. Please give these topics a wide berth.

nedz
2013-02-08, 07:53 PM
One minor tweak you are going to have to fix are all those spells which require cash as a material component; you know things like Identify and Stoneskin.

I suppose you could leave them as is, which would create minor plot hooks every time you needed to get your hands on some, or maybe even just have permission for owning some cash.

This could get tedious very quickly though, if every time you wanted to cast Identify you had to go and find an apparatchik — and how would you bribe them anyway ?

Item creation is a whole other thing — what are you going to do if someone wants to play an Artificer. Now Artificer is a very 'worker' style class, so this is a bit of a conundrum.

Since I've touched on the whole class thing: you could also have certain classes which are seen as bourgeois — Wizards and Clerics spring to mind, for obvious reasons. I suppose you could have Clerics of a party ethos, and even the same with Paladins. You would have to change the whole alignment thing too.

Straybow
2013-02-09, 01:16 AM
A 100 gp pearl is still a 100 gp pearl. Everything still has value, they just don't use "money" in their exchange system.

There doesn't have to be the class warfare slant or any prohibition on wizardry. I don't know that this Elven version of "communism" is necessarily atheistic, they could still worship typical Elven deities. Think commune-ism rather than a modern political system transplanted to Morph Bark's world, warts and all.

JusticeZero
2013-02-26, 03:29 PM
There are always MULTIPLE economies in a place.

The legal economy is, in your case, intended to be moneyless. This is no more silly than using yellow metal as a form of exchange, and basically means that everyone is obligated to work for a certain amount of time in return for rations and housing.

The simple state "All peasants must produce, and in return you will be fed, housed, and taken care of", is pretty mellow and non-problematic. The problems spring up after the peasants go home for the day, and try to sort out the stuff they want that weren't accounted for by the rationing manual. Combining a welfare state (Everyone gets fed and housed and such) with a certain amount of required work seems fine in and of itself and leaves people with a lot of time, during which they may want to do other economic stuff. Things people want are really hard to predict and account for, though, and every bit of complexity that you add in to deal with special cases means you have to hire more people to administer it.

There is also an UNDERGROUND economy that exists everywhere. If you tell a friend "Hey, if you can babysit for me this week, i'll help paint your living room like you've been needing", you are in the underground economy.
Peasants everywhere are massively tied to the underground economy.

The fighter can still get her MW sword, but she has to arrange a bunch of favors for the smith to get it. She has to find the metal, probably from dealing with the guy who digs for metal in his spare time. The smith is going to spend a bunch of time on it and the fighter might spend a lot of time doing the chores that the smith and the miner want done, because there isn't that many things they might need that are helped by an afternoon of applying a high BAB.

Wizards can achieve a lot of things for quid pro quo, so even in a pure barter economy they will have no problem earning all the pearls and diamonds and such they need. The guy who finds pearls for a commonly cast spell will probably also have a bunch of relatively low level magic items that were created for trade, and lives like a king because of all the "If you give me five 100GP pearls, I will cast spells XYZ on behalf of you or for people who you are asking favors of.." The problem there may be because of the ridiculous amount of wealth involved. At a certain point, the pearl diver just doesn't need anything else done.

This sounds pretty annoying, and it is, so there may be an informal currency in use. If it's illegal to use this currency then you get into a problem. In the case of Leninist communism, the model for all subsequent Communist states, people would do extra work in the garden and grow food to trade. This economy was illegal, and so it became dominated by criminal elements, essentially ceding the entire non-subsistance economy to the Thieves Guild. Then corruption in the state started taking a bite out of the supplies available for the "legal" economy, so the gardens and underground economy became needed for basic survival and suddenly the Thieves guild owned the ENTIRE economy.

Meanwhile, the bureaucrats are trying to figure out how to do rationing right, and building up a huge army of bureaucrats with not enough oversight who are lining their own pockets.

The bureaucrats, having just skimmed a few hundred pounds of beans, want something other than beans, so they go to trade the beans for other things they like in the illegal economy, and suddenly the Thieves own your bureaucrats too.

At this point your whole bottom layer is corrupt, so you want to crack down on the corruption. But since the whole system is corrupt, that really means you want to crack down on EVERYONE BUT YOU, so your government becomes increasingly repressive, with the majority of the people you are trying to use to crack down on the Thieves Guild being de facto employed by the Thieves Guild.

This is pretty much the point where your government locks the curtains down and hobbles along for a few years before collapsing in a heap.

If you just allow for a standard economy on top of a welfare state, a more moderate approach, you would avoid some of these pitfalls, but also remove the different feel that you are looking for; it would look like a normal place, just with government stores that hand out food free for the asking and lots of apartments that are free for anyone to move into. Most "successful" economies in the world right now are some variant of this moderate state.

You will have a lot of waste or corruption nonetheless, which will spawn reformers trying to find ways to address the problems, often by advocating for more extreme systems involving either more or less administration and the like, usually guided by some central theory.

By the way, trying to push for the opposite extreme (the full out Classical Liberalist approach of absolute free market forces) comes apart JUST AS BADLY in a completely different way, blowing apart faster the more extreme of a system you use.

That's the main reason why the natural state of politics is a succession of nations rather than a continual state; a nation will tend to become increasingly corrupt and depraved until it is no longer seen as legitemate to its citizens, at which point they rebel and overthrow the nation behind the banner of a populist LG hero who creates a Good nation which is itself unstable and will over time become corrupt and depraved.

erikun
2013-02-26, 04:08 PM
What, exactly, is your goal with this idea? Is it to give the PCs a set, limited amount of resources for each mission? Or is it to produce a moneyless society for the PCs to interact in?

Because the first idea doesn't need communism or any other form of government. A simple "employed by X company/king" plotline and not going after anything with treasure will accomplish the same thing. The party's employer would be giving them resources just for the adventure, and the party would be getting no wealth for doing so.

If you want the second idea, then you start running into problems when PCs start hiding/disguising/creating their own equipment. Unless the government has some incredible ability to detect treasure, there won't be much preventing the PCs from just scribing their own scrolls, crafting their own equipment, casting Leomund's Secret Chest to hide their equipment, or any of a dozen other methods.

The first is rather easy to work with, as long as you tell your players and everyone agrees to play that kind of game. The second will probably see a lot of PC vs NPC fights after a few levels.

JusticeZero
2013-02-26, 06:04 PM
What, exactly, is your goal with this idea?..is it to produce a moneyless society for the PCs to interact in?
...you start running into problems when PCs start hiding/disguising/creating their own equipment. Unless the government has some incredible ability to detect treasure, there won't be much preventing the PCs from just scribing their own scrolls, crafting their own equipment, casting Leomund's Secret Chest to hide their equipment, or any of a dozen other methods.

Actually, it wouldn't be that hard; EVERYONE IN THE COUNTRY would be facing the same problem, so just ask around.

Alejandro
2013-02-26, 08:41 PM
What happens when some other, non money-less country offers the PCs a better deal, in order to steal that resource from their enemy, the money-less country?

sidhe3141
2013-05-30, 10:51 AM
Eh, I'll weigh in on this.

First, you need to define exactly what you're looking for. Moneyless is not necessarily the same thing as communist, and communist is not necessarily the same thing as totalitarian (there's a lot of overlap - let's leave real-world arguments out of this). But it sounds like you're going for a totalitarian state that directs production and allocates all resources, thereby removing the need for money.

Now, I'm not an economist, but it seems like (in very simple terms) you need a few things for this to work long-term:
- A government that is sufficiently omniscient (or close to it) to determine the optimal production of goods and the optimal allocation of scarce resources. This includes labor, food, material resources, and anything else you can think of. Also, the government needs to identify innovations (and innovators) proactively so the country doesn't stagnate.
- A government (top to bottom) that is not corrupt to any appreciable extent. That is, they're actually acting in the perceived best interests of the nation as a whole.
- A public that is willing to work hard at whatever the government tells them to, and to do everything to the best of their ability even though they might not personally reap the benefits.
- A public that will play by the government's rules and not participate in black markets.

You could expound on these in various ways, but those seem like the basics. In the real world, nobody really knows what's optimal, and capitalist societies use the market to sort it out. In the real world, (some) people are corrupt, lazy, and selfish. In the real world, people (given the opportunity) demonstrate unexpected skills, do things on their own initiative, come up with innovative ideas, and change the status quo. These are real problems, and you should have a solution in mind in case your players start asking questions.

This seems like an excellent place to say A Wizard Did It (http://arcana.wikidot.com/a-wizard-did-it). If used cleverly, spells like these can easily repay the cost of casting them.

(Descriptions of the spells below.)


- A government that is sufficiently omniscient (or close to it) to determine the optimal production of goods and the optimal allocation of scarce resources. This includes labor, food, material resources, and anything else you can think of. Also, the government needs to identify innovations (and innovators) proactively so the country doesn't stagnate.

There's not much in core for this, but since this is a separate campaign setting you can make things like predict supply changes, predict population growth, find talent, find fated hero, predict weather, analyze soil, and many more.

- A government (top to bottom) that is not corrupt to any appreciable extent. That is, they're actually acting in the perceived best interests of the nation as a whole.
Detect good, detect law, mark of justice, and some kind of homebrewed lesser voluntary geas, voluntary expunge behavior, and curse of Damocles might work.

- A public that is willing to work hard at whatever the government tells them to, and to do everything to the best of their ability even though they might not personally reap the benefits.
Propagandists with high Diplomacy, Gather Information, or Perform. Societal expectation. If you want to go the dystopian route, there's homebrewed mass enhance civic pride, drive behavior, enforce empathy and mind meld.

- A public that will play by the government's rules and not participate in black markets.
See above. Also, homebrewed comparison shop or reveal secret.

Homebrew spell descriptions:

Analyze Soil: Learn the composition of a sample of soil.
Comparison Shop: Learn where a described good can be bought nearby most cheaply.
Curse of Damocles: Named population of at least 500 sentient creatures may place nasty curse on target by unanimous agreement.
Drive Behavior: Target must make Will saves to avoid engaging in named action when possible.
Enforce Empathy: Target feels the emotions of nearby creatures.
Enhance Civic Pride: Target becomes more likely to follow cultural expectations.
Enhance Civic Pride, Mass: As enhance civic pride, but applies to a large group of creatures.
Expunge Behavior, Voluntary: Named action runs counter to a willing target's nature.
Find Fated Hero: Find a creature destined to complete a named task.
Find Talent: Find a creature with specified abilities, such as skill ranks or extraordinary abilities.
Geas, Lesser, Voluntary: As lesser geas, but target must be willing.
Mind Meld: Targets mentally merge into a single being.
Predict Population Growth: Learn how many of a specified kind of creature will be present in a named area at a named time.
Predict Supply Changes: Learn how much of a specified good will be present in a named area at a named time.
Reveal Secret: Learn a random piece of information known to no more than five creatures/caster level.

(I hope this is within the time limit)

Blightedmarsh
2013-05-30, 01:52 PM
From what I understand of feudal japan it pretty much was a moneyless society. Apparently the state systems had collapsed so badly that they where unable to print currency. Let me say that again ...They couldn't mint money.

The unit of exchange was rice; peasants got taxed to the very limit of survival and often times even the nobility had to go without; hell at certain points even the emperor had to resort to selling his signature to make ends meet. People got "payed" (for want of a better word) in privileges, hand-me-downs and honor.

As for the outside world they pretty much shut themselves off for centuries. No outsiders allowed in and almost no one with the means or knowledge to leave.

Salbazier
2013-05-30, 07:05 PM
From what I understand of feudal japan it pretty much was a moneyless society. Apparently the state systems had collapsed so badly that they where unable to print currency. Let me say that again ...They couldn't mint money.

The unit of exchange was rice; peasants got taxed to the very limit of survival and often times even the nobility had to go without; hell at certain points even the emperor had to resort to selling his signature to make ends meet. People got "payed" (for want of a better word) in privileges, hand-me-downs and honor.

As for the outside world they pretty much shut themselves off for centuries. No outsiders allowed in and almost no one with the means or knowledge to leave.
Spoilered because off-topic
Wait, what time period exactly is this? Feudal Japan encompasses a very long time just as feudal Europe encompasses a very long time.

My knowledge of history of Japan may come mostly from fiction but I'm pretty sure it was never that bad. You make it sounds like Japan was a country of paupers for a long time.

As far as I understood coins always existed and used. The nobility measure their income and pay their retainers with rice (presumably because they receive tax in rice from rice farmers) but they still have use for coins. The no outsiders thing in more like limited outsiders and only existed in certain era (forgot exactly when. Tokugawa era or something) They would not have guns and Christianity otherwise. IIRC there was also some major trade with China during Kamakura period.

Also, condition where goverment cannot print money would not create a moneyless state. Maybe for a short while, but eventually people would use something else as currency. Aything that people agreed that it has value would work. See Fallout and their bottlecaps. Moneyless state happens when there is no need for money (like maybe within small and/or isolated communities that would do with barter and favor) or when it is enforced.

Blightedmarsh
2013-05-30, 10:39 PM
Spoilered because off-topic

From what I understand trade with china was an on again off again affair between the 9th and 14th centuries because:

A)They did not sign up to the tributary system
B) Lots of pirate activity and an unwillingness or inability to suppress this on the part of the japanese
C) Poor diplomatic relations with yuan china stemming from the mongol invasion.

I think a lot of the poverty issues they suffered from was as a direct result of the endemic civil conflicts they suffered from. This lead to massive over taxation and massive overspending on the military.



Also, condition where goverment cannot print money would not create a moneyless state. Maybe for a short while, but eventually people would use something else as currency. Aything that people agreed that it has value would work. See Fallout and their bottlecaps. Moneyless state happens when there is no need for money (like maybe within small and/or isolated communities that would do with barter and favor) or when it is enforced.

A gift economy, a barter economy,an obligation economy, a staple economy. In the end is a voucher economy really worlds away from a cash economy?

Salbazier
2013-05-31, 01:15 AM
From what I understand trade with china was an on again off again affair between the 9th and 14th centuries because:

A)They did not sign up to the tributary system
B) Lots of pirate activity and an unwillingness or inability to suppress this on the part of the japanese
C) Poor diplomatic relations with yuan china stemming from the mongol invasion.

I think a lot of the poverty issues they suffered from was as a direct result of the endemic civil conflicts they suffered from. This lead to massive over taxation and massive overspending on the military.


True enough, I think. Anyway, what I was trying to argue was that Japan does have working money economy and that they do had foreigners come and go.

I don't argue that they have economic problems but AFAIK they do still have trade and relatively rich population while your previous post give impression that whole Japan's population are no better than paupers for 700+ years.




A gift economy, a barter economy,an obligation economy, a staple economy. In the end is a voucher economy really worlds away from a cash economy?
Umm, I understand those terms somewhat but I don't get what you are trying to say in regards to my point.

Mastikator
2013-05-31, 03:58 AM
In my campaign setting, one of the major countries is supposed to be a communist one, with a twist being that through becoming a knight, someone can gain recognition, status and a measure of wealth.

Now, what I'm mainly wondering at this point, of course, is... how does such a state work in D&D? Such a state functions without money for its citizens, so gp is right out.

Just make it what it says on the tin. A society made up of small communes in which all things are owned in common and from each according to his ability, to each according to his need they all share the burden of work.

In order to become a knight you must prove that you are competent in skills required of a knight and trustworthy enough that people will vote for you to have the power of a knight.

There's no money because there's no trade, dept or even barter

Blightedmarsh
2013-05-31, 10:55 PM
True enough, I think. Anyway, what I was trying to argue was that Japan does have working money economy and that they do had foreigners come and go.

I don't argue that they have economic problems but AFAIK they do still have trade and relatively rich population while your previous post give impression that whole Japan's population are no better than paupers for 700+ years.


Rich in terms of influence, prestige, power and command of the land? Certainly. Rich in terms of cash? Perhaps. You have got to remember the three most expensive things in any noblemans life is war, taxes to ones liege and keeping up with the Jones, taken beyond their means these can quickly become ruinous. Remember just because you control the means to generate wealth and have absolute power does not mean to say you have a single ounce of financial sense. All it means is that you don't have to listen to the people who do.



Umm, I understand those terms somewhat but I don't get what you are trying to say in regards to my point.

What I am saying is that at the end of the day cash is a fairly arbitrary construct. Is there that much fundamental difference between an economy based on the exchange of vouchers of universal credit (namely cash) and an economy that is based on the exchange of ration vouchers?

Salbazier
2013-06-01, 12:02 AM
Rich in terms of influence, prestige, power and command of the land? Certainly. Rich in terms of cash? Perhaps. You have got to remember the three most expensive things in any noblemans life is war, taxes to ones liege and keeping up with the Jones, taken beyond their means these can quickly become ruinous. Remember just because you control the means to generate wealth and have absolute power does not mean to say you have a single ounce of financial sense. All it means is that you don't have to listen to the people who do.


First, this is moving further from what I actually want to say: That you are exaggerating how bad the economy of feudal Japan was. Accounting for smaller foreign trade, it does not seem worse than any other feudal society - your explanation above is easily applicable to nobility in any other feudal society. They are also still relatively richer in general than peasants. Plus, when I'm saying 'relatively rich population', I also included the merchant class.

BTW, you haven't answered what time period is this exactly is this because I never heard about the 'government unable to print money' thing. I'm honestly being curious as well not believing that such condition can last for the +700 years that was feudal Japan.




What I am saying is that at the end of the day cash is a fairly arbitrary construct. Is there that much fundamental difference between an economy based on the exchange of vouchers of universal credit (namely cash) and an economy that is based on the exchange of ration vouchers?

Not that much from that point of view, especially since it not hard to twist voucher economy into other forms of economy as some posters explained above. Though there are difference - or it is intended to be. Still, what this has to do with my point that goverment being unable to issue money would not create moneyless state? Voucher economy, as an example, would not arise spontaneusly when state stop issuing money. By definition, it would require a governing body, whether this the official one or an informal, newly formed one to issue those vouchers and guarantee it.

Straybow
2013-06-01, 01:04 AM
Any producer can issue pay in the form of the product. The value may not be constant, as with Japanese rice economy. Any producer can issue vouchers based on future production. How the market values those vouchers is a different problem.

The government can try to outlaw it, but anybody can say, "I'd gladly pay you next Tuesday for a hamburger today."

Salbazier
2013-06-01, 01:24 AM
Any producer can issue pay in the form of the product. The value may not be constant, as with Japanese rice economy. Any producer can issue vouchers based on future production. How the market values those vouchers is a different problem.

The government can try to outlaw it, but anybody can say, "I'd gladly pay you next Tuesday for a hamburger today."

Hmm, true. I retract the last sentence of my post.

Haarkla
2013-06-01, 10:29 AM
In my campaign setting, one of the major countries is supposed to be a communist one,

...

Now, what I'm mainly wondering at this point, of course, is... how does such a state work in D&D? Such a state functions without money for its citizens, so gp is right out.
What most posters are forgetting is that in medival times most villiages were largely self-sufficient groups of subsistence farmers. The vast majority did not get wages and most things were not brought with money.

Real wealth mainly consisted of land. I expect the role of the state would be to allocate and divide up the land equiably amongst the citizens, and take a portion of the surplus crop to support the machinery of government, the knightly orders and specialised facilities such as mines.



What is more interesting (and indeed, a more pressing matter) is how would something like that work... for adventurers? WBL is prettymuch effectively eliminated and null.
I expect professional adventurers would be outcasts on the fringes of society raiding long forgotten ruins, and trading what they find on the black market.

Or adventurers could be professional monster hunters, expected to kill monsters in exchange for their daily ration of food and shelter.

Or the party could be on a government scientific or mapmaking expedition. Or religious pilgrims. Or a state anti-piracy patrol.

Blightedmarsh
2013-06-01, 02:47 PM
First, this is moving further from what I actually want to say: That you are exaggerating how bad the economy of feudal Japan was. Accounting for smaller foreign trade, it does not seem worse than any other feudal society - your explanation above is easily applicable to nobility in any other feudal society. They are also still relatively richer in general than peasants. Plus, when I'm saying 'relatively rich population', I also included the merchant class.

In many respects you are not wrong in that. Millitary overspend was a cripping factor for the soviets as well as a certain east Asian country today. Keeping up with the Jones led to the downfall of slavery in the colonies (slave estates operated on debt to keep up with extravagant parties, the slaves suffered as a result and this lead to a massive slave uprising; the final nail in the coffin)



BTW, you haven't answered what time period is this exactly is this because I never heard about the 'government unable to print money' thing. I'm honestly being curious as well not believing that such condition can last for the +700 years that was feudal Japan.


~1000AD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heian_period#Economics)
Though I can't for the life of me remembered when it ran to.

Incanur
2013-06-01, 03:13 PM
3.x D&D rules actually make abundance economies easy, especially if you're willing exploit the labor of genies and efreets. You can find details in various spots on the web; here (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aG4P3dU6WP3pq8mW9l1qztFeNfqQHyI22oJe09i8KWw/edit) is one solid guide for bringing magical prosperity to the masses.

Needless to say, this sort of thing breaks D&D combat into tiny little pieces. But with wishes to go around, why bother fighting? :smallsmile:

Salbazier
2013-06-01, 05:23 PM
I~1000AD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heian_period#Economics)
Though I can't for the life of me remembered when it ran to.

Ah, Thank you! I was thinking of Kamakura-Edo era as feudal Japan. No wonder I'm confused.

DMVerdandi
2013-06-01, 10:26 PM
In a world of resource abundance, the service industry becomes the most important thing.

In a DND setting rationally made to end currency expendature, this is how power flows.

level 20+ spellcasters downward. If they can get divine rank, they become theocracies. From there, all the tier 1's are used for magic item production, education, and everything. In the perfect City-state, each city would have it's own regional deity whom creates society, governs justly, dispenses boons for good behavior, and punishment for bad behavior.

There would hardly be any room for non-magical classes. Each citizen would be educated magically. Psionics would also have it's place. Most training would not be done in dungeons, but in simulated training rooms, with monsters being summoned in closed off pocket dimensions at the magic colleges.

The education of the spellcaster will be seen as the highest precedent, as all riches flow from their miracle-working.

Socially, they will most likely be tied together by nationalism, and or religion in their own regional deities.


It would be an interesting game to have the deities always striving for power, but having armies with excessive resources, focusing on different classes, governing styles and economies wrecking each other.
God, that would be cool.

Randel
2013-06-02, 02:32 AM
Humorous ways a moneyless society could function in a DnD setting:

1. It doesn't.

2. They use violence and the threat of violence instead of money.

Those in positions of power get that way literally by leveling up in some combat-oriented class and becoming strong enough to threaten those they dislike and protect those they like. Ones position in society is basically determined by either being a baddass or being friends with a baddass.

If there trade goods in common use, it's probably something like healing potions, arrows/bolts, or various weapons or armor.

Things like food, shelter, clothing, or economic infrastructure are rarely considered by the guys in power and deligated to "things non-badasses worry about". Food is grown by farmers because farmers don't want to starve to death while clothing is made by people who are actually bothered by nudity (alot of powerful warlords and sorceresses walk around almost naked because they just don't care about needing clothes).

If said warlords or their immediate friends need food, they either get it from a peasant or kill something themselves... sometimes a peasant (times of famine can get pretty unpleasant).

There is no shortage of bandits, monsters, rebels, or invaders... and the guys in charge see nothing particularly wrong with that since it gives them something to fight and fighting builds character. They love killing goblins and orcs because otherwise they'd have to fight eachother.

Salbazier
2013-06-02, 02:52 AM
fighting builds character.

Interesting turn of phrase there.