Banking deed

[Jingo]

Three things.

1. I'm not against this in principle. Pickpockets would be in the business of making loads of cash now. There may need to be some added check to prevent (too much) abuse from pick pockets. Perhaps you'd need a merchant house member (con artist who can write cavilish) to forge a document using the code from the original ticket. I like this idea because you wouldn't be able to steal someone's ticket and just cash it in. You would need to make connections with other player characters. Or if you're a templar, you could perhaps whole-sale loot someone.

2. Using ic justifications to prevent fixes to fundamentally game-level problems is pretty lame. (See no warehouses because merchant houses wouldn't allow them something something. See no psi intercept)

3. Psi intercept 2016.

[Case]

I'd be interested to see banking only allowed for highborn and house clan accounts.

It'd make crime and economy far more interesting and give clans specialised benefits. It'd probably drive PC to PC prices down, and reduce the benefits of spamming stuff for coins. You can still be wealthy, you just need to be able to protect it.

[Suhuy]

I'd be interested to see banking only allowed for highborn and house clan accounts.

If banking were made available to nobles only they might as well just store their money in their bedrooms. There's not much difference in the long run.

Some of these ideas seem to inadvertently be suggesting to just remove banks completely. I understand the minor differences involved between having a bank note in my backpack and stuffing all my life savings there, but ultimately if things ran that way I'd just as soon not use a bank, period.

I'm all for change within the game, but with the banking system my vote is that it stays as it is now. Psionics are only half-fleshed out by the code and documentation, there are lots of other variables that would be included in a world where everyone has basic psionic powers. For example, how could torture exist when everyone can just willfully knock themselves unconscious to avoid the pain? There are other possibilities involved with psionics here too. It's entirely plausible that people leave a sort of psionic "signature", unique to their own identity, which allows Nenyuk to know who you are when you come in to withdraw or deposit money. I think these things are better left vague for purposes of playability. It could be that if there were no banks, more money would be floating about and in the hands of the players, but I think there are certain options every player wants to have available, even if it's not always realistic to the setting. One of those things is the ability to store your hard earned cash somewhere.

As for banks in Red Storm and elsewhere, I think it's fitting that they exist only in the city-states. One of the reasons people willingly suffer though the cruel and harsh dictatorship of Allanak, policed by corrupt and brutal templars, is that they have access to more infrastructure than you would hoofing it out in the desert all alone. And one of those benefits is probably the banking system. So whatever the explanation for how banks work, how Nenyuk knows you are you, etc., I think they function pretty well under their current design, for reasons both IC and OOC.

[Case]

I'd be interested to see banking only allowed for highborn and house clan accounts.

If banking were made available to nobles only they might as well just store their money in their bedrooms. There's not much difference in the long run.

Which Seniors or thieves can raid.

[Vositus]

I'm all for a ticket/deed system. Have been for a long time. I also really like the idea of nobles and gmh keeping large sums of hard cash in locked chests in estates as well, just to tempt thieves and on the odd chance a large scale robbery plot might happen and it gets stolen. I don't like universal banks. If you want to travel from Allanak to Luirs and shop big with Kurac, then you should be transporting lots of coins and NEEDING Byn escort, not just hiring them because you want to give them something to do. I hope Red Storm never sees a bank. Don't take that away from the raiders.

A 100% fool proof system shouldn't exist in keeping your coin safe with Nenyuk. A deposit slip or whatever you want to call it I think would work much better. Join a clan if you want more security of your shit. This system would even make more sense because Nenyuk wouldn't need to remember every single face, you just have your deposit slips and hand them in for their value and that's that.

Yes.

I'd be interested to see banking only allowed for highborn and house clan accounts.

It'd make crime and economy far more interesting and give clans specialised benefits. It'd probably drive PC to PC prices down, and reduce the benefits of spamming stuff for coins. You can still be wealthy, you just need to be able to protect it.

YES!

Employ PCs now, hire the goddamn Byn!!!

[Desertman]

When the banking code changes went in initially I was playing a wealthy PC.

It convinced my character it was worth it for them to keep around ten large out of the bank as "non-taxed income" basically on an IC level.

I kept a large portion of my funds in the bank for a rainy day.

But I had a  "daily operations bank" outside of Nenyuk's secure vaults that let me withdraw and deposit without having to pay a fee.

OOC'ly to be honest I just liked the idea of having that horde there incase a thief or something ever got ballsy enough to come for it. If they did, I enjoyed the concept of it being possible for them to actually have a chance to get at my wealth.

Most people aren't into the whole "actual risk" thing though, and I get that. I personally found it enjoyable to risk a large portion of my wealth in a realistic manner that offered a potential reward to villains beyond my clothing.

[Patuk]

I'd be interested to see banking only allowed for highborn and house clan accounts.

Some of these ideas seem to inadvertently be suggesting to just remove banks completely.

Why, yes, I am in favor of that.

[nauta]

I'd be happy if coins were replaced with papers or coins were made to weigh far far far far far less.

I think a lot of people don't carry around coins because there's a significant (coded) hassle to carrying them around.

[evilcabbage]

carry around five dollars worth of pennies for an hour and tell me how it feels.

[BadSkeelz]

The weight of coins is fine - it's probably too light if anything. There should be a random chance of your (glass) coins shattering and/or cutting a hole through your pack and spilling on to the road.

[Delirium]

*cough*denominations*cough*

[evilcabbage]

The weight of coins is fine - it's probably too light if anything. There should be a random chance of your (glass) coins shattering and/or cutting a hole through your pack and spilling on to the road.

sorry, obsidian is nigh unbreakable.

[Case]

I'd be interested to see banking only allowed for highborn and house clan accounts.

Some of these ideas seem to inadvertently be suggesting to just remove banks completely.

Why, yes, I am in favor of that.

Well yeah that is what I was mostly saying.

[BadSkeelz]

The weight of coins is fine - it's probably too light if anything. There should be a random chance of your (glass) coins shattering and/or cutting a hole through your pack and spilling on to the road.

sorry, obsidian is nigh unbreakable.

And yet somehow someone is carving Tek's face in to itty bitty little bits of it

It's one of the reasons I kind of like the Dark Sun use of ceramics for currency instead of an (abundant) stone. You think about how obsidian is used and represented in Armageddon and you start scratching your head over how this coinage thing even begins to work.

Probably because of magick. Sigh.

[hyzhenhok]

Ideally a primitive world would be using something for currency that has intrinsic value. What we have in the game is basically fiat currency--tiny bits of obsidian that only hold value because they have Tek's face engraved on them. Their value is entirely derived from the fact that Allanaki templars make and demand payments using them. That's another modern financial tool that is probably out of place in game. It's part of why in-game accumulation of wealth by simply stockpiling currency is so silly. Replacing obsidian coins with paper money won't fix these problems.

A primitive money should be something that has an innate value, which is why I don't think Dark Sun's ceramic coins work, either. Historically standardized money was almost always metal of some form, so that makes things tricky. One exception to this was cowry shells. It'd be cool if Zalanthas could replace the silly obsidian coins with something like that. Heck, you could almost use spice grains. It would be a windfall if we replaced the coins with something else that also happened to be lighter.

[Jihelu]

But spice is illegal in the highlords city!

HERESY!


Uh
Maybe coin shaped ivory?

[Patuk]

Remove currency from the game as well. All trade is now done in barter, favors, and influence. NPC shopkeepers will get animated every time you need a new knife.

[hyzhenhok]

But spice is illegal in the highlords city!

HERESY!


Uh
Maybe coin shaped ivory?

Yeah, wouldn't it be cool if spice grains were used as currency everywhere in the known except Allanak? You can never have too much innate conflict built into the setting.

Coins of any kind can't have intrinsic value unless you can flawlessly reconvert them into the raw material. Obsidian coins don't make sense because the coins themselves have no value, because you can't melt a pile of them down and make them into something else. Making coins out of anything non-metallic has this problem. Something like gemstones or cowrie shells make more sense because you aren't destroying their value when you make them currency.

[The Silence of the Erdlus]

I would like it if we could trade spice for items in some stalls in Storm. Like the food tent will take any kind of spice in differing amounts for any of its food, but the resizing tent guy will only take zharal.

[nauta]

Kooky idea: What if we just had two kinds of coins: one worth 100 sid and another worth 500.  NPC vendors would not give change.  This would (1) solve the heaviness problem; (2) encourage more bartering among the masses and PC-to-PC trading.  It'd probably have negative consequences on off-peaker crafters who want to buy short bones, though.

[Jihelu]

Kooky idea: What if we just had two kinds of coins: one worth 100 sid and another worth 500.  NPC vendors would not give change.  This would (1) solve the heaviness problem; (2) encourage more bartering among the masses and PC-to-PC trading.  It'd probably have negative consequences on off-peaker crafters who want to buy short bones, though.

So how would we buy multiple items in one go?

[fourTwenty]

Yes, leather tickets as banking deeds. Have them with a password printed on them that you have to know because who the hell can read? This prevents most people from just finding tickets on dead bodies like the lottery and I can see leading to some interesting encounters.

Yes, the banks should not be connected. I love that idea. You want to go buy some shit from Luirs. I want to raid you. Works out for both of us and the byn, right?

Also, if you want to get rid of coins and use a new currency I have the perfect idea. Salt. It was used as a currency in RL history at one point. It has intrinsic value of its own.

[evilcabbage]

Kooky idea: What if we just had two kinds of coins: one worth 100 sid and another worth 500.  NPC vendors would not give change.  This would (1) solve the heaviness problem; (2) encourage more bartering among the masses and PC-to-PC trading.  It'd probably have negative consequences on off-peaker crafters who want to buy short bones, though.

you are pure evil.

love it.

[fourTwenty]

Kooky idea: What if we just had two kinds of coins: one worth 100 sid and another worth 500.  NPC vendors would not give change.  This would (1) solve the heaviness problem; (2) encourage more bartering among the masses and PC-to-PC trading.  It'd probably have negative consequences on off-peaker crafters who want to buy short bones, though.

you are pure evil.

love it.

Oh shit! nauta, run! He's going to turn you into a cabbage!

[The Silence of the Erdlus]

Your plan still involves having our version of pennies, right?

I had an elf once who rarely had more than thirty sids on him at any one time and I'd like the option of being able to play a poor person again.