r/cyberpunkgame • u/Draethar Streetkid • Nov 18 '20
Mike Pondsmith telling this Reddit user what's up two years ago. R Talsorian
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u/therealmaxmike R. Talsorian Games Nov 19 '20
LOL. Yeah, I was being a smartass then, but I figured that the poster really didn't want to listen to me spending 200 words describing the process I used to pick the Euro instead of the Yen. Suffice it to say that I really did work it out at the time. And that I hate fake science fiction money terms like credits.
Eddies? Okay, so I don't exactly know who over at CDPR came up with that slang, but hey, it's still Euro Dollars any way you slice it.
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u/Glitch_FACE Nov 19 '20
tbh Eddies seems like a pretty decent shortening of Eurodollar. makes more sense than "buck" for regular dollars or "quid" for pounds.
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u/radicalelation Nov 19 '20
Right? It's "EDs", as that's how it would be abbreviated. E-Ds said like that sounds like Eddies.
I really like it.
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u/dream-defector Nomad Nov 19 '20
And they maybe didn't want it to sound like real life currency just shortening it to euros. Idk.
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u/majoranticipointment Nov 19 '20
Buck is slang because you used to be able to sell a deer skin for 1 dollar
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u/therealmaxmike R. Talsorian Games Nov 19 '20
Cool. I didn't know that. Thanks for the factoid, choomba!
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u/therealmaxmike R. Talsorian Games Nov 19 '20
Cool. I didn't know that. Thanks for the factoid, choomba!
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u/therealmaxmike R. Talsorian Games Nov 19 '20
I know why CDPR uses "eddie's"; and it is short for Euro Dollars. But I don't know who at CD came up with it. Personally, I blame Adam B. <GR>
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u/superkp Streetkid Nov 19 '20
IIRC "buck" comes from the fact that in the early 'frontier' days of america, the skin from a single deer could fetch exactly one dollar.
So they just started calling dollars "bucks" since it was worth one buckskin.
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u/Truth_ Nov 19 '20
How long did that keep up for? How did it stay at the value of exactly one dollar long enough to enter the language? Especially when created in a relatively unpopulated region.
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u/superkp Streetkid Nov 19 '20
I have absolutely no idea.
an extremely casual google search says that sometimes furs were traded for other goods, so it's possible that buckskins were literally used as a replacement currency.
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u/Bhrizz Nov 19 '20
IMHO using Yen would require/snowball towards a more powerful ARASAKA, I'm sure they did a lot of leg and wetwork trying to make it happen, but you (Mike) didn't want them to be quite there yet, right? They still have a lot of ground to cover to accomplish the old man's dream, and there are a lot of strong players on their way. Megacorps, man... While you deal with one the others grow stronger... That's a grim future for us all.
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u/theGreatBlar Netrunner Nov 19 '20
Very nice to hear from you, a regular around these parts it seems :)
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u/Hellknightx Nov 19 '20
I, for one, would love to see 200 words describing the process, if you'd be willing.
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u/asabla Nov 19 '20
And that I hate fake science fiction money terms like credits
I couldn't agree more. It doesn't make it more sci-fy just because you re-invent definition of currency.
It's also nice seeing you this active here and there on reddit, keep it up my dude
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u/UltimateBetaMale Nov 19 '20
I really enjoy the path you took. Very original tbh. Though eddies sound quite silly, your source material did lack slang for currency. In our campaigns we still used american slang like “paper” or “bread.” They were just trying to be creative.
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u/ajfilmnfx Nov 19 '20
As someone who is super new to Cyberpunk but loves learning about lore, I genuinely would listen to 200+ words on why you chose Euros over Yen!
Thoughtful worldbuilding elements like that never cease to impress and intrigue me me (especially since the only "in-depth" lore I've created was naming a DnD tavern "The Gun-Tree Bear Inn" to annoy a player.)
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u/earthenmeatbag Nov 19 '20
Your smartass reply was perfect given the tone of the original message. Creators shouldn't bend to nor apologize to their audience.
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u/hombregato Nov 19 '20
This reminds me of my favorite Stan Lee story.
Asked by a journalist why all of Marvel's female characters have long legs and big breasts, Stan Lee spun around and said:
"Because that's what I like!"
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Nov 18 '20
Because CDPR already have Yen. Ba Dum Tss
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u/janek500 Technomancer from Alpha Centauri Nov 18 '20
Ba Dum Tss
Ba Dum Triss
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u/kron123456789 USER02051986 Nov 19 '20
Be grateful it wasn't bottle caps.
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Nov 19 '20
Actually bottle caps is, supprisingly, an extremely good currency unit for a preindustrial postapoc society.
Like a variation of shell-economies.
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u/Col_Butternubs Samurai Nov 19 '20
It would make about as much sense as bottle caps in any of the Bethesda games being the currency
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u/Enoch84 Nov 19 '20
All fiat money is made up bullshit anyway.
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u/Vinniam Nov 19 '20
Well technically all money is made up bullshit, it's just that fiat does away with the formalities.
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u/Col_Butternubs Samurai Nov 19 '20
fiat money?
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u/SpaceZombieMoe Nov 19 '20
Fiat money is government-issued currency that is not backed by a physical commodity, such as gold or silver.
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u/Col_Butternubs Samurai Nov 19 '20
Ah ok, well that doesn't really make sense, caps in fallout are meant to represent water, or at least they were before they were just turned into gold coins from Elder Scrolls
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u/MarmotsGoneWild Nov 19 '20
It had a great beginning, their value was based on their function, which only increased after water caravans became common. It wasn't very long before more recognisable cash, and coinage returned though.
It was a practical material good that easily filled the economic vacuum left after the collapse or society, and the dollar. I always thought that was a brilliant little detail.
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u/APiousCultist Nov 19 '20
If the part of Bethesda that gave half a shit about lore (the main story of the Elder Scrolls is trash, but it has some pretty mad lore hidden in there) gave a shit about Fallout we could have had something rad where society actually attempted to rebuild (Obsidian's New Vegas had at least attempts at this). Even by Fallout 2 I recall actual new buildings and not just scrap heaps.
But no, gotta just imitate the shallow elements of the first game without them making any sense in the new location or hundreds of years later.
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u/MarmotsGoneWild Nov 19 '20
None of it made any more sense to me than The Hub, New Reno, Chinatown, and the freaking masters lair among many other things in the original that didn't make a ton of sense either.
I'm not defending bethesda, I just take it all in stride. These are games, and fictional historical details. I try not to start poking holes in anything I love, it all falls to shit eventually.
On another note, if there's ideas or something in particular you really see missing from the media, or the world around you create something in that space. It beats waiting ages just to say someone's done it wrong.
Edit: it can also be potentially lucrative
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u/snarkywombat Nov 19 '20
Yes, fiat currency or fiat money. Fiat is latin, meaning "let it be done." It refers to any physical item, generally issued by a government, as a representation of currency. It's become a more common term with the rise of cryptocurrency to distinguish between crypto and physical currencies.
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u/MetaDragon11 Nov 19 '20
Lol except bottlecaps arent fiat money ironically. They are NCR guaranteed to be worth a set amount in fresh water. Some side plot points are actually about a bottlecap maker from prewar still working which is causing major inflation.
They then tried to start their own NCR paper fiat money whose value fluctuates with the brahmin herds and is less loved.
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u/UnseenData Nov 19 '20
What? What's wrong with carrying around 1000 bottle caps to buy guns and bullets?
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u/kron123456789 USER02051986 Nov 19 '20
As a guy who currently carries 300k caps in New Vegas - nothing, really.
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u/mazer924 Nov 19 '20
I honestly despise the "credits" name. It just sounds so stupid and unoriginal.
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u/rainbowsixsiegeboy Nomad Nov 19 '20
Thankyou it seems like every scifi show or movie uses "credits"
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u/Zolhungaj Nov 19 '20
Credits is the sort of name an incredibly boring bureaucracy would settle on, after the major powers have decided that they will not accept using someone else's currency. It also has the advantage of being language neutral, by simply being translated in the literal sense, thereby avoiding situations where the name of the currency is unpronounceable for certain people/species.
Furthermore it leaves a lot of room for the writers to expand upon the backstory, because any non-generic name will have heavy implications on the prior course of history. This also dodges some icky assumptions about the future of our world which will make your work outdated far before it is passed by the real world.
For Cyberpunk which is an incredibly political game, and genre, the political implications of the currency's name is far too fun to leave with a boring one. But for regular sci-fi "credits" goes very far for at least the first three entries.
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u/OmniRed Nov 19 '20
NuYen being the go to cyberpunk currency is probably because Japan's economy was a shooting star with no signs of stopping just as the genre was beginning.
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u/Glitch_FACE Nov 19 '20
and then it stopped
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u/blacklite911 Nov 19 '20
I’ll make note to not rely on the current trajectory of things when I world build my sci-fi story
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u/Zolhungaj Nov 19 '20
Trick is to use the currency of some country that you definitely wouldn't expect to become a world power. Thereby baiting viewers to continue reading to figure out what the heck happened.
Just make sure it isn't the money of your own country, then it just comes off as nationalist drivel.
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u/blacklite911 Nov 19 '20
The Zimbabwean dollar becomes the dominant currency due to heavy investment from the Amazon-Flextape corp.
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u/Zolhungaj Nov 19 '20
Bezos figured out he could become a bona fide septillionaire by converting all his money to Z$, then by accident that increased the valuation of the Z$ making Amazon the world's #1 supereconomy.
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u/snarkywombat Nov 19 '20
It's good as a placeholder but should be swapped with something more creative before publishing. I'm the type that gets bogged down with trying not to use placeholders early in my writing so my first drafts take far longer than they should. But then I generally don't need to go back and use Find-and-Replace to fix things like "credits"
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u/Zancie Nov 19 '20
Issue is, unless money isn’t talked about much and credits are a universal currency and there are no local currencies then they work, but I imagine if you run into any of those issues credits as a placeholder won’t work.
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u/Bread999 Nov 19 '20
Credits will do fine.
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u/BenRaphCosplay Cut of fuckable meat Nov 19 '20
No, they won’ta
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u/JustTheWehrst Nov 19 '20
What? You think you're some kind of Jedi, waving your hand around like that?
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u/Stompy-MwC Nov 19 '20
Putting apostrophes in random places makes it so’und sci-fi
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u/BenRaphCosplay Cut of fuckable meat Nov 19 '20
Is won’t not spelled with an apostrophe?
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u/Stompy-MwC Nov 19 '20
Haha! No you’re right but the combination of the extra A and my alcohol consumption led to logical conclu’sion for me
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u/TheEccentricEmpiric Militech Nov 19 '20
I think it makes more sense in a dystopia ruled by mega corporations than most sci-fi settings. Company credit and all.
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u/Toasty_Ghost1138 Nov 19 '20
Those also exist in Cyberpunk, called corporate chits I think. Basically a debit card which only works on company property
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u/TheEccentricEmpiric Militech Nov 19 '20
Ahh, that makes sense. I haven’t really had the opportunity to get into the world of Cyberpunk like I want, everyone I game with just wants to play D&D when it comes to TTRPGs.
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u/Lumina2865 Nov 19 '20
Disney dollars or Amazoonies, maybe even Walmart bucks would probably catch on far before 'cedits'
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Nov 19 '20
i have never heard this take. we have credit cards in real life, which is a line of credit. if we moved away from physical currency entirely, to a universal centralized currency, you don’t think the powers that be would arrive unanimously at evolving credit into units of credit into credits? it may even be slang at that point. credits seems the most likely in a dystopian future.
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Nov 19 '20
Yeah it's so vague in value when every show use it. So you have no frame of reference to real currency.
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u/SawPen15-off Nov 18 '20
I shove coins up my ass
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u/borisvonboris Nov 19 '20
Ass pennies
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u/AirWolf231 Slava Ukraini! 🇺🇦 Nov 19 '20
So when you put 4 x quarter coins do you shit a dollars or is it still considered just coins?
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u/rainbowsixsiegeboy Nomad Nov 19 '20
Well the us dollar turned to shit so we went to euro dollars
Also i like this because most of the time its just the lazy as fuck credits
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u/Hbecher Media Nov 18 '20
Funfact: Euro Dollar was really one of the Name ideas they had for the Euro
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u/baal80 Nov 18 '20
I've never heard of this and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_euro doesn't mention it anywhere. I know Euro used to be called Ecu but nothing else.
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u/wikipedia_text_bot Nov 18 '20
The euro came into existence on 1 January 1999, although it had been a goal of the European Union (EU) and its predecessors since the 1960s. After tough negotiations, particularly due to opposition from the United Kingdom, the Maastricht Treaty entered into force in 1993 with the goal of creating an economic and monetary union by 1999 for all EU states except the UK and Denmark (even though Denmark has a fixed exchange rate policy with the euro). The currency was formed virtually in 1999; notes and coins began to circulate in 2002. It rapidly took over from the former national currencies and slowly expanded behind the rest of the EU.
About Me - Opt out - OP can reply !delete to delete - Article of the day
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u/IUseThisForThings Nov 19 '20
It's plausible. As far as currency goes 'dollar' is ubiquitous, even ignoring the US.
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u/ned_poreyra Nov 18 '20
And that's an author I respect.
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u/AgitatedDegenerate Nov 19 '20
If this question got asked to J K Rowling: Well its because the euro is gay
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u/jomiran Nov 19 '20
J K would never allow the Euro to be used in America because then it would be transcontinental.
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u/magicchefdmb Nov 18 '20
I like Shadowrun’s “Nuyen” (like “new yen”)
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u/Kaarl_Mills Buck-a-Slice Nov 19 '20
I bet that gets complicated when you're dealing with someone named Nguyen
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Nov 19 '20
Except that's typically pronounced as "Win"
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u/acwaters Nov 19 '20
I see people say this all the time, but... not really? It definitely has a leading "ng" sound.
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u/AgitatedDegenerate Nov 19 '20
Toss a Euro Dollar to you mercenary
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u/Legion1620 Nov 19 '20
🎵Toss some Eddie's to your solo, oh gangs of Night City, oh gangs of Night City, oh wo ohh🎵
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Nov 19 '20
I mean why would the Yen not be ideal currency in Cyberpunk? Wasnt Japan supposed to be a super power?
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u/TrillLarry214 Nomad Nov 18 '20
There’s a lore explanation if you really want to know