Money and the Sixth World, A question and answer thread for some issues that arrise in Shadowrun Options

[Thadeus Bearpaw]

I'm an economics nerd and I was thinking about the way money works in Shadowrun and the variety of currencies and different methods of payment that are supposed to exist in the world and it gave me some questions.

1. What is the benifit of using corp scripts, alternate currency, and the like over New Yen? I understand the utility of bartering, but what purpose does the alternate currencies serve exactly? Is it like the scrip mining towns used to use to make sure that the workers were only able to spend money for their corp?

2. How does resale on lifestyles work? For example, I'm wanting to upgrade my character's lifestyle from low to medium with my first paycheck (after all my dog needs a better place to live), can i sell my old lifestyle? What is actually involved in that sale if I can? Do I seel my P.O.S. car and get a lease on a new one, what actually happens?

3. How do escro services and the like work in Shadowrun? Do they work like they do in real life? Do you have to have an account with a great deal of registered information in order for even a Shadow MSP to provide escrow service? If that's not the case does it work more like modern Zurich vaults were all you need is an access code and some particular bit of prioritzed information?

[Ancient History]

I'm an economics nerd and I was thinking about the way money works in Shadowrun and the variety of currencies and different methods of payment that are supposed to exist in the world and it gave me some questions.

1. What is the benifit of using corp scripts, alternate currency, and the like over New Yen? I understand the utility of bartering, but what purpose does the alternate currencies serve exactly? Is it like the scrip mining towns used to use to make sure that the workers were only able to spend money for their corp?

For the corps, that is the primary purpose - aside from the utility of having a private, secure currency for internal transactions, it frees up liquidity and makes the workers more loyal because they can't spend their cred outside. Its part of controlling the corp's internal economy, much as how national currencies.

2. How does resale on lifestyles work? For example, I'm wanting to upgrade my character's lifestyle from low to medium with my first paycheck (after all my dog needs a better place to live), can i sell my old lifestyle? What is actually involved in that sale if I can? Do I seel my P.O.S. car and get a lease on a new one, what actually happens?

With most upgrading, you just pay the difference rather than go through the hassle of "selling" - it makes it cleaner than saying "Okay, you've wrangled out of your lease on the apartment and into the new condo, signed up for Matrix service and the soytap, and you've sold the scooter for a nice used car." The exact details are left up to the player and GM.

3. How do escro services and the like work in Shadowrun? Do they work like they do in real life? Do you have to have an account with a great deal of registered information in order for even a Shadow MSP to provide escrow service? If that's not the case does it work more like modern Zurich vaults were all you need is an access code and some particular bit of prioritzed information?

More like the latter. Although generally the access code will do.

[Fix-it]

if all questions are answered, I'm gonna throw another one in:

how is it that cred sticks are supposed to be anonymous? I have a basic understanding of cryptography and credit, and isn't the point of credit that you know and trust the lendee? and anonymity would kinda go out the window if you have to authenticate whenever you made a transfer. self-authentication doesn't make sense. as that's easily hacked.

or is it more like digitally secured cash, (kinda like a gold standard, only backed up by crypto, instead of shiny metal?)

[Ancient History]

Much as in older science fiction novels, the casual term for currency has switched from "cash" to "credit" or "cred" for short. When you buy something with your credit card today, you make no real distinction between the "cred" you are spending and "hard cash." In Shadowrun, things work much the same - except that in this case, the "cred" you are spending does not represent a short-term loan, but actual virtual currency.

A credstick, then, is like a debit card, and the original versions did indeed have various measures to make sure the bearer was the person who owned the account attached to it. With the advent of the wireless Matrix however, the credstick has largely gone the way of the dodo, as it is much faster and easier to do the same thing wirelessly with your commlink - which, like the credstick, had biometric data et al. and was tied to your specific account(s).

The thing about hard currency is that it is anonymous; anyone who finds a dollar on the street can pick it up and spend it. Physical possession of a dollar constitutes legal ownership (or, at the very least, people recognize its your money in most cases and let you spend it). Virtual currencies like nuyen work differently, as each transaction of every nuyen on the Matrix can be traced, with a clear and unbroken chain.

The certified credstick is a method for anonymous cred, because the virtual funds are not transferred from account to account (which leaves a datatrail), but downloaded into the certified credstick itself. This cred is tagged to the certified credstick, not a particular user; sort of an escrow account you can carry, or a debit card that anyone can pick up and use. In this case, physical possession of the credstick is counted as ownership of it and the funds it carries. This allows parties to anonymously exchange nuyen by physically handing over certified credsticks, or by transferring cred from one certified credstick to another, or from a certified credstick to a commlink-based account.

[Thadeus Bearpaw]

For the corps, that is the primary purpose - aside from the utility of having a private, secure currency for internal transactions, it frees up liquidity and makes the workers more loyal because they can't spend their cred outside. Its part of controlling the corp's internal economy, much as how national currencies.

Okay but can corp scrips be exchanged legally for actual currencies? What separates currencies from credit, contracts, or other forms of representive exchage are what the currency is backed by (whether its the nation's gold, GPD or whatever), and its recognition by other countries. So if Corpscript a currency or not?

[Ancient History]

Okay but can corp scrips be exchanged legally for actual currencies? What separates currencies from credit, contracts, or other forms of representive exchage are what the currency is backed by (whether its the nation's gold, GPD or whatever), and its recognition by other countries. So if Corpscript a currency or not?

Corpscrip is currency, but its an internal currency which is not meant to be exchanged for nuyen or other currencies outside the corp. Exchanging corpscrip for nuyen (or other corpscrip, or national currencies) is illegal. I would draw a parallel to US gold certificates intended only for intragovernmental transactions.

The details of corpscrip, its uses and limitations and backing, vary by corp.

[Thadeus Bearpaw]

Corpscrip is currency, but its an internal currency which is not meant to be exchanged for nuyen or other currencies outside the corp. Exchanging corpscrip for nuyen (or other corpscrip, or national currencies) is illegal. I would draw a parallel to US gold certificates intended only for intragovernmental transactions.

The details of corpscrip, its uses and limitations and backing, vary by corp.

Gotcha that's what I figured but I wanted independent confirmation. Cheers AH.

[Zaranthan]

Corp scrip can't be "converted" to nuyen per se. The moneychanging works out more like a barter. You have to find someone with nuyen who can turn your corp scrip into some good or service he needs or wants. Generally, you can expect to pay through the nose for some shady wageslave's kid to buy your monopoly money.

[TheOOB]

There is a thriving moneychanging market our there in the shadows, and if you have a money changing contact you can do some pretty good buissness. Buying different corps scripts at the right time can be a good chance to make money(for example, if you buy a lot of renraku script while the corp is down, then the corp gets a spike in buissness, it's currency gets more valuable), about the only transaction you can never earn money on is turning corp script into nuyen, since nuyen is usable anywhere any moneychanger is going to charge a big fee to change it, well bigger then changing your script into a different corp script.

Even if you don't want to play shadow stock market, you still should know a money changer, if MCT is PO'd at you right now, you might not want to be carrying around a big pile of their money which they make an effort to track.