AD&D Campaign Spotlight: Money Changers, Banks, Loans, and Jewelers
Note: I tried something new for the video on YouTube, added some game play in the background for the podcast. People said they wanted to see a little something and they suggested some game play. So wish granted :)
This is the grease that makes a city feel real. You haul treasure in, someone takes a cut, and you walk out with lighter pockets and a paper promise.
Use the book’s numbers and keep it simple. Changers swap coin for a fee. Bankers hold it with no interest. Loans hurt if you are unknown and get cheaper if you have a name. Jewelers buy low and sell high. That is the world.
The fun comes from the details. Ledgers, seals, references, and collateral. A lost chit can start a full session. A bad appraisal can start a fight. When players win a better rate with smart talk or proof, it feels earned.
Bring this into play and your city stops being a backdrop. It becomes a machine the party can work with, or against.
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A great deep dive into this subject.
I don't think banks or loans would be a thing for a medieval society, unless you were noble, maybe when a character gets to name level and wants to build that stronghold, and there may also be usury for established religions that forbids it anyway.
In the absence of banks there is only one place to get large sums of cash from someone willing to negotiate for suitable interest rates - perhaps that dragon under the mountain!
In Basic edition, you didn't get xp for magic items and you could not really buy or sell them, although there were rules about pricing magic items in Rules Cyclopaedia, they were seen as a way of helping characters gain future xp rather than treasure.
As regards too many magic items, not an issue in Basic with it's high fatality rate, as possessions would normally perish along with the deceased, in my experience any excess weapons would be stored and given to new characters (of which there were many) to jump start them in adventuring.