Why would it require history to be re-written?!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Nuyen sometimes referred to as "Creds" in some of the verbage from the books' flavor-text?

Why would it be a bad idea to make that the standard?

Favoring dollars is also favoritism.

I fail to see any strength at all in your argument. Nuyen is a flavour for the currency and a strong emphasis in the background of the game as others have said.

Plus, there is still UCAS and CAS dollars in the game if you want to use that also.

Right. Calling it anything remotely resembling the "Dollar" would be favoritism -
And that is exactly what I'd like to avoid.
That is why I suggested it be renamed to "Credit(s)" or "Creds", officially.

And, this is not an argument - It is a suggestion.

I am happy whenever someone reference the Ultimates.

A "Ultimate" SR universe would be very cool but I doubt the fanbase of shadowrun is in anyway comparable to Marvel's so sadly it probably would not be economically viable.

Could be something fan developped, though. Who knows.

Yes... Certainly... But it's a hideous hideous word!
Yuck!

That's complete bull. Doubly so if you look at what they did with Japan.

~J

So is the greenback. So? Does that make the greenback the world's only currency? I wouldn't know if it did. Last time I checked my wallet, it was full of Euros, and my bank account is, too.
There still are many currencies in the SR world. Europe has the ECU/Euro. UCAS has it's dollar (I guess CAS has a CAS dollar too), it's just not what it used to be. Azania has the Rand. Britain still has the Pound Sterling. Soviet-Russia-thingy has the ruble, if I remember Target - Smuggler Havens correctly. Except for the NAN and Japan's vassals in Manchuria and the Phillipines, few countries have given up the idea of a currency of their own, even if the Nuyen might be accepted too.

Changing Nuyen - a remnant of Cyberpunk's core assumption that Japan would rise to be superpower number one - an evil one of course (I could rave a long time about Cyberpunk's innate racism, but I will snip that) - to Dollar or Credit (now THAT's a ghastly word!) just to satisfy some overeager Americans or Scifi fanboys is idiotic.

Yeah, the core presumptions of hwo the world develops were all wrong. The US didn't disintegrate, the EU didn't disintegrate (yet), China rose to become the US' chief rival, and Japan suffers through the 15th year of economic slumber. But in the game world they did. You can always write a net book for another Shadowrun setting. Hell, I have a half finished one for Germany (and Europe) too, as a matter of fact, written when I read the Germany sourcebook first and was thoroughly pissed about just what a shitty piece of bovine excrement it was.

But that won't make it to canon, ever. Canon is based on what was written (Imperial Japan, US, EU and China disintegrating, wireless internet never invented, that megacorps-are-nations ruling, fusion power in 1998), and it cannot just be made to fit the real world because someone says "geez, I don't like this Japan inc. thing, it's favouritism, hey, let's change the currency to FunkyWingCommanderStarTrekJediCredits instead!" Canon background evolves (or, to word it better, should evolve) out of previous canonical material.

One thing I have always wondered about (and my group just assumes): Is there still hard currency? I imagine it difficult if there was none, as there would be no way to pay for anything if there wasn't a credstick booking thingy at the ready (or people had enormously bloated wallets with tons of checksticks in them). It would also make bribing and giving change to the scarescrow-like beggar practically impossible. I vaguely remeber somemthing about money chips in the Germany sourcebook and Sprawl Sites, but that's hardly up to date, so any answer would be appreciated.

No... I never said to change the Shadowrun currency to the "Dollar".
Yes... I suggested changing it to "Credit" or "Cred".
Yes... I am an American.
Yes... I am a fan of Science Fiction.

But why would you deliberately try to offend or insult me?

You - and everyone else, hopefully - realize that...
In Shadowrun ... There is an item ... Called a "Cred Stick".

Yes - It's called the "Cred Stick", not the "Nuyen Stick".

Fancy, huh?

Then use something else. You said yourself that your players already use 'dollars.' I doubt they'll change the whole system dating back to SR1 just because you don't like it, though.

Well, no. The closest thing(s) to a Cred Stick are Debit Cards and Check Cards.

Credit Cards, as you say, assume you're spending someone else's money.

holy carp man.

He is saying that credit IS NOT CURRENCY so why would you call currency credit? or cred? Sheesh.

Haha... Good one. I didn't catch that.

Though, you are bending my words to make your own point...
But we all do that, so I can't be offended.

You'll note that I got to my "point" by referrencing the "Cred Sticks" of Shadowrun. They (Various Devs of Shadowrun) are calling currency "Cred". That is, as found in various flavor-text in the book(s).

Wasn't trying to. Should have inserted a third, hilarious option to make that more clear - but I was too lazy to look up that slightly impractical galactic main currency in the hitchhikers' guide. Sorry.

It's in flavour texts. But does that make it nescessary to change the name of the currency used to slang terms? Do you see the Fed changing the name of the Dollar to "buck" or "greenback"? Lots of people refer to dollars as either. Does that mean "buck" is the official name?
Also, your point with cred sticks (likely a short form for "credit stick" that got adopted as the official term by overeager marketing people in the world's major banks - oh, in the Germany book it says there's a different slang term for credstick in German, so I guess canonly, "credstick" is an English-only term) is still invalid. It's a 'credit stick', which you can use to spend money, which then will be charged to your account (presumably) monthly - like with a credit card. While this opens some nice possibilities for handling the player characters' finances, it still doesn't mean currency = cre in the shadowrun universe.

I personally loathe the term "cred" for currencies. It's so unimaginative. A currency is part of the national identity of nations, the form of organisation humans prefer. Note that megacorps in shadowrun have their own currency! By sharing the same currency, you get a feeling of belonging. What would America be without the Dollar? Why did the EU countries launch the Euro with such a ruckus, and why is England struggling to not adopt the Euro as much as it is? Money is something people handle daily, it's a part of their lives. I see little reason why anyone would give that up for some unimaginative 'credit'. Plus, even the megacorps would hate it. Currency exchange is always good for business, and what would their franchise stores do if all the wage slaves could just spend their corp wage everywhere, even at (gasp) a shop owned by the competition?

I say, let's keep the Nuyen. Cred makes no sense.

I don't know, it can get a bit technical once you get into mullet-hawk territory.

Did you read my posts at all?...

Thank you.

This was exactly my thinking before posting.
If so many things in SR are changing - Combat Rules / Magic / Tech / Terms ( names ).

Changing the default or standard currency is no longer so far-fetched.


To sum up, though. I completely understand the fans of Shadowrun on these forums wanting to protect - or preserve as much of old SR as they can. I admire that dedication to something held so dear.

I did. You do want the Credit introduced, though you also said you *use* the dollar as generic currency. Also, did you read my posts? This isn't about the dollar as such, it's about not messing with SR's currency or allowing different currencies for different regions again. UCAS (and CAS) could have dollars. Asia-Pacific might still use Nuyen. Europe uses Euro. SA uses whatever SA uses. Africa uses gold coins. Makes preparation for runs abroad much more interesting.

Streamlining doesn't mean killing the varieties of different settings. Besides, if your characters are always working abroad, tit's only realistic they will need to concern themelves with currency conversion. So long as decking and rigging rules are unbloated, I guess a little more flavour in terms of money won't hurt.

Sure, but does it have to be changed to the most unimagnative name ever made up for a currency? Also, with Shadowrun's trend of balcanisation, I fail to see why after the crash, one monolithic currency must come out.

You didn't read my posts, then. Because I said that my fellow players called Nuyen "Dollars". They are new to SR, and so certain terms escape them.

And I'll even quote myself from the 1st page. :

Newyen was an invention of Gibson coined in Neuromancer.

I dislike using the rather overused credits. However, I was thinking about it yesterday that there should be some mention of the UCAS dollar in SR4. I'd keep nuyen as the global standard, but considering how much of SR centers around Seattle, a UCAS territory, there should be at least a blurb about the currency in the main book. I had even thought there should be different prices listed, one in nuyen and the other in UCAS dollars, but realize that could just add additional word count to an already large book.

I've also thought that WizKids should perhaps make the UCAS dollar not only available as a digital currency, but as a paper one as well, which would definitely seperate it from nuyen.

Now that sounds like a more sensible idea! Besides, after SF, the whole "digital money only" thing would look a tad stupid, and I'd expect any major currency to be available digitally as well as in some hard format (needn't be paper money, can also be chips, plastic clips, clamshells ...).

Or the devs just steal blatantly from GitS SAC and introduce the €$.

Actually, I don't think we'll move from the coin and paper based currency to some bizarre hard currency. I do think that "paper" money would be more like BOP poylmer banknote.

As for "the UCAS dollar should be in SR4 BB", this was based off my experiences last year realizing that the nuyen isn't the worldwide currency, even thou there's no mention of it in the base book. You have to pick up the sourcebooks to find that information out.

I think that's because a credstick is a lot more than just a credit card; a reprogrammable minicomputer that stores a whole bunch of data about you and has the descendent of the USB plug on the end so it can be slotted for transactions. I could see that in a pen size, or based on current tech in the size of one of those keyring USB flash drives - mine holds 256mb of data in a stick a couple of inches long and about half an inch wide, so by the time of Shadowrun I think they could easily handle the credstick necessities.

In my opinion, wallets would have died out. What would you use them for?

~J