The Currencies of Chan-la
by Jeff Crook
February 12, 2001
In the last article on the religions of Chan-la, I realized that I mentioned ‘Ken’ without really explaining what it is. And at the same time, the recent world-building posts on the StoryBuilders Forum got me to thinking about how things are valued and what exactly is valued within a game.
Sometimes, the things that the designer believes will be valuable in his game aren’t the things that evolve into the greatest currency among players, as evidenced in Castle Marrach. I am sure things will change when the castle goes p-f-p in April, but right now the expected currency – the queen’s favor – doesn’t seem to be as important as reputation among fellow players, and especially participation in plots. During the period of the Winter Ball, the currency of favor had a brief flare of importance, but it seems to have once again faded to the background, at least judging by the forum posts.
Firs of all, what is currency? Currency is often thought of as something you can trade, but this isn’t always true. How does one trade the favor of the queen? I suppose that technically, you could say you are trading your self-esteem to gain her favor; you could barter with the reputations and feelings of those you trample in your relentless drive to be allowed to wear the largest furry codpiece. But once gained, you can’t really trade your favor for anything else, because though given, the queen still holds the commodity. You can’t actually give another character three points of your favor, because it doesn’t really belong to you. It is the queen’s to give or take away.
But in general, currency is something that can be traded, either between characters, between characters and CNPCs, between players, between the character and the setting, or between the player and the game.
The most obvious form of currency is Physical Currency: money – gold pieces, dollars, florins, etc., and goods – food, drink, slaves, swords, horses, buildings. These things have values either set by some governing force, like a Treasury department, or by market pressures, supply and demand. These are objects, as defined by Shannon in his latest article, that exist within the game. Some of these overlap with the next category, as will be seen below.
A less obvious form of currency is Intangible Currency. These are things you can’t put in your pocket. In Castle Marrach, favor is to be the major form of intangible currency, and favor will play a role in Chan-la as well, especially as the game progresses. But there is also knowledge, the ability to train another person in a skill, and power, the ability to command or influence others to do your bidding. Other forms of knowledge currency could be where to go to beg for food, how to find and open the secret door that leads to the emperor’s harem, or who is a member of the cult of Zhi. The most common form of intangible currency is, of course, experience/skill points and all their permutations. And finally, there are the services, from healing to... well, let’s just say there are all sorts of services, and leave it at that.
Some intangible currency can be made into physical currency, and vice versa. The illegal Death Kicks technique could be written on a scroll and sold. Your skill at alchemy could be used to create a healing potion. The secret whisperings of the emperor’s favorite concubine could be written down and used to blackmail him. The influence of a government official could be purchased to gain you admittance to a powerful guild or an hour with the emperor’s most trusted advisor.
The Qigung game also has some other kinds of intangible currency that may not be so obvious, or are particular to the setting of Chan-la, like luck, reputation, and player points.
Physical Currency
In Chan-la, the standard physical currency is the Ken - a paper note issued by the government, the value of which was guaranteed before the cataclysm. The value of money is largely a perception of the stability of the force which guarantees its value, for it is essential a worthless thing – a piece of paper. It may prove during the course of the game that the Ken loses all its value, or not. I’ll allow the markets of the game evolve as they will.
The Ken represented a measure of staple food, and each note has a value in Ken similar to dollars, marks, or pounds sterling. The note could be exchanged at any government repository for a number of measures of unground staple food equal to the value of the note; thus a five-Ken note was worth five measures of food. A Measure is a volume set by the government as the amount needed to feed one person for one day.
A staple food is either unground rice or wheat, or dried mung beans. Rice is the most popular exchange staple, since it needs the least amount of processing to be consumed. Unscrupulous government officials have been known to secretly decrease the volume of the official Measure and pocket the profits, but this crime is considered high treason against the state. Counterfeiting Ken is also treason, and treason is punished with death by torture.
Since the value of the Ken was guaranteed, there was little need for any other kind of monetary system. A few old silver and gold coins from the days of ancient Xao are still floating around, and these are honored by most merchants for their weight and purity, but silver and gold are used mostly for jewelry and spellcasting, or as historical artifacts, and are not recognized benchmarks of trade.
A silver coin's value can range from 10-100K, depending on size (dime to silver dollar size), purity (for common coins) and age or rarity (Xao empire to Jade Empire). Very old coins may be worth even more. The same is true of gold coins, except that values range from 100-1000K.
Pretty much any item of value can be traded, and its value will largely be determined by availability. At first, I’ll assign values to items, but then I hope to let market forces direct prices within the game.
Intangible Currency
By its very nature, intangible currency is harder to grasp. You can’t put the emperor’s favor in your pocket and trade it for a water buffalo. You can, however, use it to get someone to give you a water buffalo. You’ll still have the favor, provided you don’t lose it performing whatever task or favor you agreed to in exchange for the water buffalo, like presenting the peasant’s son as a likely candidate for post as a minor official. And you’ll get the water buffalo without having to spend money on it. So the favor of the emperor becomes a find of in-game currency.
Experience or skill points is a kind of currency that exists between your character and the game. You won’t be able to spend them, as they will be ‘spent’ as they are earned. Skill points are earned for the performance of the skill, and the amount earned depends on the difficulty of the attempt. Killing chickens with your sword might earn you a few points the first time you do it, but never again. And killing chickens with your sword won’t do a thing for your brewing skill. Whatever skill points you earn are automatically applied to the skill used to earn them. So you can’t trade skill points. The trade is already written and the transaction made without player input. It exists outside the game. But it is still a form of currency, as it ‘buys’ greater skill. And skill can then be used to earn other currency, either through performing a service, producing a product, or sharing knowledge. On the flip side, you can spend other currency to gain skill points, usually by paying a master to teach you a skill.
Luck, Reputation, and Player Points
These are all things that I would like to be able to implement in Qigung, but it remains to be seen whether they are possible.
Luck is one of the Blessings of the gods. There are five, the others being Beauty, Charm, Wisdom, and Patience. I address Luck because it seems to be the one characters most want. I’d rather be lucky than good, as the saying goes. The blessings of the gods are purchased, either through actions performed on behalf of the gods, or by actually going to a temple and offering prayers (which costs money and time). The gifts of the gods affect how well you perform skilled and unskilled actions, which is any action in which fate or chance can have a hand.
Reputation is a system that I hope to implement partially as a safeguard against anti-social player behavior. I’m not talking about IC evil behavior; this is perfectly acceptable, provided you can get away with it. I mean PKs, players whose only goal is to disrupt the game. When you play Qigung, you will have the opportunity to rate the other characters you meet, recording your character’s opinion of the other character’s basic goodness or badness. Is that rice merchant rude and obnoxious? Is the priest helpful and gracious? You’ll be rating other characters and other characters will be rating you. My plan is that this will affect not only the physical description of that character, but also how CNPCs react to him or her. If he gains a reputation as being abusive and violent, innkeepers will shut their doors when they see him coming down the street, children will throw rocks at him, geese will scream and flee.
But here’s the trick about reputation. You can cultivate a good reputation even if you are evil. A good reputation will open doors for your character, gain you the power and influence you need to carry out your evil schemes. At the same time, you can cultivate an evil reputation even if you are good. An evil reputation might open other doors, and it might save you from an ass-whipping when you get lost and wander into the wrong part of town.
Reputation will help safeguard against PKs in that you will be able to see them coming from a distance. They’ll be carrying around a big red flag that they can’t get rid of except by cultivating a better reputation among other players, something you can’t do if you are trying to kill them and steal their stuff.
Player Points are a form of currency between you and the system itself. In Qigung, slain characters will not be respawn unless they are raised from the dead with a spell (this will be rare and illegal, not to mention an evil act). There will be some safeguards and options in place to help prevent accidental character death through disconnects, but at the same time, players must be aware that if you enter a dangerous situation, you may lose your character.
However, the longer you play and the more skill your character gains, the more Player Points you (the player) receive. Should you then lose that character, you can create a new character at somewhat reduced overall skill level. The amount of reduction depends on how many player points you have built up. You spend these to start your new character at a higher level, and once spent they are gone, not cumulative. You don’t have to spend the points if you don’t want to; you can start all over if you want, but you will have the option of starting over somewhat nearer the skill levels of your previous character than if you were starting over at the beginning. You can also do things like have your new character be the son, daughter, cousin, sister, brother of your old character, thereby providing some in-game continuity for yourself as a player.
Naturally, I can’t hope to cover every form of currency here. And I am sure currencies that I never expected will crop up according to the perceptions and needs of the characters and players. All I can hope to do is build a framework in which the value of those currencies can exist, and without direct intervention by the StoryBuilder.
