Economics

Each game world has its own eco-
nomic situation. But money, in some
form or another, is important in
almost every setting.
Money is anything
you can
exchange for what you want. It varies
from one game world to the next. In a
high-tech world, everything might be
done by credit card. In a low-tech
world, gold and silver may be king.
For the sake of convenience,
GURPS prefixes all prices with a dol-
lar sign – $ – in all settings. The GM is
welcome to translate this to credits,
copper farthings, Martian foomphra,
or whatever he feels is appropriate to
the game world; see Tech Level and
Starting Wealth (p. 27).
In a low-tech world, jewelry is also
money. It might not have a set value
imprinted on it, but it is small and
portable, and easily traded for coins or
bartered directly for needed goods. In
fact, many societies exist largely by
barter – which can be a test of the
players’ ingenuity.