Tabletop Game "Currency"
This week…
I’ve spent much of this week prototyping the game. I’ve made a ton of small paper cutouts and placed them in card sleeves. As I’ve identified details, I’ve started writing them in. Little by little, I’m piecing together this puzzle in my mind. During all this, I debated over writing a post on game mechanics, but it would be long and honestly I still don’t quite know for sure if I’ve got it down. Just something as simple as turn order can quickly get complicated. But I decided to save that topic for another day and instead focus on money.
Types & Materials
Thinking back to my younger years of playing Monopoly, there is something familiar and nostalgic about paper money, but is that really the best? I personally find myself drawn to metal coins, at least more recently. Any time I get a game that has cardboard versions of coins, I jump online to find out if I can get a metal alternative. In my research, I’ve found this to be the breakdown of categories and types of tabletop game currency or money:
Bills
Made of Paper
Made of Cardboard
Coins
Made of Cardboard
Made of Plastic
Made of Metal
Chips
“Poker” style clay / metal chips
Other?
There are also games that you simply write down your “money” more like points on a score sheet, and some games have digital currency trackers or "credit cards”. I’m going to skip over talking about these because I don’t really feel like they are true forms of currency (at least not what I’m going for).
Decision Implications
The decision of what type, material, and denominations of currency you choose can have a pretty significant impact on a number of key aspects of the game. One of the significant impacts is ironically money itself - I’m taking real money or cost. Choosing to go with high quality metal coins in a tabletop game can easily add $15, $20, $40 to the cost of the game depending on how many players, price range of items, and denominations you have. Here I’m referring more to the retail cost of coins, where I’m sure there is some level of markup. Metal coins are also heavy and thus add to shipping cost due to the added weight. Certainly if I were to go with something like metal coins I’d have to factor all the cost implications in. Here’s a list of implications I can think of:
Cost
Weight
Longevity
Water / Food Proofing
People with Lobster Claws (people who somehow seem to “bend” everything in their hand)
Sense of Realism
Storage & Organization
Denominations
When gong through this debate, I also considered denominations. When considering denominations, I think it’s important to also consider the price ranges in your game. For Game X, I’m considering items that range in price from 1 to 50,000 (not sure what unit of measure will be yet). I thought about something unusual like the Fibonacci sequence. Didn’t take long to realize why no one uses that for currency. When picking denominations it seems like there are a few major implications. Let’s assume you choose to use coins in this example:
How many different denominations of coins do you have in total
Ten should probably be a MAX for any game
Most games seem to fall between 3 and 5
What is the most of any one denomination you need before making the next denomination
The US monetary system requires 4 or less
The Euro has a design that is actually 2 or less
Conclusion
Denomination
Right now I am considering a simple breakdown of denominations based on 5’s
1 - 5 - 10 - 50 - 100 - 500 - 1,000 - 5,000 - 10,000 - 50,000
that means with 10 different denominations, I could get to a 50,000 unit denomination without requiring more than 4 of any single denomination to get to the next level. To make change for every possible permutation up to 50k you would need 4+1+4+1+4+1+4+1+4+1+1 or 25 “coins”.
The other options built off the euro would be based on a 1,2,5 pattern
1 - 2 - 5 - 10 - 20 - 50 - 100 - 200 - 500 - 1,000 - 2,000 - 5,000 - 10,000 - 20,000 - 50,000
this would require 15 denominations to get to 50,000 and to make the next level denomination you would either need no more than 1 or 2 of the prior demonization (less than the 4 of a single type required above. To make change for every permutation up to the 50k among you would need 1+2+1+1+2+1+1+2+1+1+2+1+1+2+1 = 20 “coins”. Thus, less coins but more denominations if I did all my math right.
Type
If quality and realism is my top priority then i think metal coins are the best approach. I’ll still have to play test it and price out how realistic it is to do. A lot of games these days seem to be selling with cardboard coins, and having metal coins as a buy-up option.