One question:

In an RPG that takes place in a non-capitalistic society, how would currency be handled? In particular, how would you handle the player earning money from battles or selling items and then buying new items in a non-capitalistic society?

The same systems would operate automatically, to reflect the player's enslavement to the state. The game chooses how your equipment and settlement are upgraded and permits the learning of specific skills; rarely would these restrictions align properly with whatever challenges stand before the player, leading to a poor build most of the time.

In other words, it would be garbage game design. A citizen can better serve the state when allowed to pursue these matters on their own terms. There have been many games where I level up in time that the next monster or trap is clearly visible and I have the euphoric opportunity to choose the perfect perk or skill upgrade to counter it. Most notably was in Fallout 3, I leveled just after talking with the boy who was fleeing from giant fire-breathing ants; I picked the Entomologist perk/increased Small Guns to 100 and had a grand old time never letting those 6-legged freaks get close.

Coins are nothing more than "your amount of might exchanged into coins"; thats it. If you are a well known "very mighty being" but you lack any coins... you will have no issue getting the stuff you want or need in order to execute your task.

Simply the well known "trading system". The whole capitalistic issue actually started with coins... and since coins are not any real value you could produce near endless amount of them. The same will not work with real goods, as those goods are limited in quantity.

Some people may bring up "but coins are way more convenient to use", well not really... some currency or even the wrong format of a currency is not always accepted and some traders even are not accepting a golden-coin in term it is the "wrong golden coin" because there is a fixed validated format they are asking for... and anything outside of the validated format is not requested at all.... even if made of gold.

So in other words: Value is a relative matter and we all value different things. However, usually we value the socially and officially validated currency the most. Still, in theory you could offer any service, any goods, or even just offer your "good will"... which of course only works between friends.

In a less capitalistic world a vendor simply got certain preferences for goods he is in need for... some goods he is demanding a lot and other goods much less, but only a few goods he may not want at all as he may not have a trading partner and no own demand.

Anyway, the whole capitalistic "outbreak" has started with producing coins. In the beginning the coins actually had some real value because made with "rare materials"; and at some point the coins was made with common materials without any real value... and even further into the future the coins was not even made with a real material anymore, nothing more than encrypted bits in almost unlimited quantities: The bloody edge of capitalism, this is certain.

However, the problem is, because the amount of "fake currency" has been bloated up so massive and it is still increasing, the inflation will hit very hard and without mercy... and it will generally favor the "strongest", almost never the weak because this system is with a very strong hierarchy, way stronger than the good old times with "kings and queens".

Anyway, simply going back to the roots... not reducing almost everything "to coins".

Nope, the game industry is STRONGLY against... because the entire economy has been build using "digital coins" and it seems to be the most successful system ever... at least until it may break down. So, they surely will always use some narrative which is supporting their view.

Hints: https:/.../videogames.si.com/news/sony-ps5-sales-q2-fy-2024

Capitalism is hard to define as one thing. It's a giant monolith that encompasses so much and has so many facets.

The main issue is owning other peoples stuff under capitalism.

It's roughly the difference between personal property and private property.

Personal property:
is the stuff you own and use. I and others have no problem with personal property. Nor do we have a problem with buying and selling personal property. So that aspect of some game would be no problem.

Private property is distinct from Personal property and sometimes in direct conflict with personal property.

Private property:
is owning other peoples stuff as means of extracting value from them. Landlords are quintessential private property owners, they own other peoples homes while doing nothing to earn the value they extract. Renting and debt are forms of Private property. You get a loan from the bank, that money is the banks, even when it is in your hands, it is their private property.

Even employment can be seen as a form of private property, someone owning your time, your efforts, even your intellectual product.

Stock exchanges/markets are all about private property.

What all these have in common is extracting value from other people like a parasite.

This is not usually shown in games directly. And games and books that do show capitalism, some of them are somewhat critical of some of capitalism. Like a corporation may be the evil enemy. But it's almost always a criticize of select people or organizations, never the system behind it all.

The Expense is a series that has some more direct criticisms of capitalism.

But what even these stories that criticize capitalism often lack is showing alternatives to capitalism, acting like there is no alternatives and usually focus on dealing with the fruits of that capitalism at the time. Like capitalism is why the Belters had it so bad in The Expanse, but the series focus on how to make peace and bring more equality between Belters, Mars, and Earth. Not new socio-economic systems.

this attitude twisting that old expression for democracy to say capitalism "Sure capitalism is the worst, except for all the other options" Like we can't do better.

The difference between private property and personal property is indeed important. For example if someone is owning a house and living inside this house, it can be considered "personal property" but if someone is owning a house and someone other is living inside this house, it can be considered "private property".

The "level of capitalism"; can most likely be seen at 3 spots:
1. How many private property is owned
2. How many coins has been made
3. How is the distribution, simply the gape between "rich and poor".

So, capitalism is nothing absolute, although there are certain parameters able to grant some insight.

I could argue that employment is, from the employer's perspective, more like renting than owning; you (as an employer) have to pay a periodic fee (the employee's) salary every so often or you'll lose them and could face legal repercussions.

You rent the person, you typically own their physical and intellectual product during this time. Like if a employee designs a program it's the employer that owns (not rents) that product. Which is just another facet of theft of value of private ownership.

And that's when things aren't real bad like they are sometimes. In some places and times employment is more like full ownership of a person AKA slavery. Look at how 'employment' often works in Qatar with people brought in from outside for just a small example.

Or how many "illegal" immigrants are treated once you allow employers to put fear of deportation into them and force them to use underground methods of coming in leaving them vulnerable to victimization.

Don't get hung up in the semantics. The point is employment is one person profiting off another persons effort. It's theft of value and it's control over other people.

First off all, a capitalistic system is easy to define. and easy to find the definitions of... wipedia, for example, state it as:
"Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price systems, private property, property rights recognition, voluntary exchange, and wage labor In a market economy, decision-making and investments are determined by owners of wealth, property, or ability to maneuver capital or production ability in capital and financial markets—whereas prices and the distribution of goods and services are mainly determined by competition in goods and services markets"

The distinction between private and personal property does not exist in a captialist system, it is socialist, marxist or anarchist concept. How it is usde depends on the political system you are using.

Within a general socialist point of view, personal property is things that a person owns (and has to have gained through whats is called "fair manner" within the socialist doctrine) This includes things like your clothes, your vehicles, your personal items. These are objects that the person within a fair socialist sytem has the right to distribute, and the rights to exclude others from. (money is usually excluded from personal property)

Private property is not a relationship between a person and a thing, but the social relationship between an owner and a person. This includes things like factories, mines, infrastructure, parks and so on, which has an owner and generates capital for that owner through manual / physical labor of workers.

Going further into Marxist theory, they say that private property is those who holds the means of production or the capital, while personal property refers to cunsumers of non-captial goods and services.

it means that you are talking a lot of hogwash, and dont even know how to use the correct terms. feel free to talk about different social and economic models in games and media, but at least use the terms correctly.

If you do not like the Wikipedia definition, I can find you numerous others that say the same, I just used Wikipedia right now as it is quite succinct and easily accessible. The main thing is that capitalism can be summed up as "Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit". the rest was just some explanations and charcteristics

if you dont like the terms "competitive markets" and "voluntary exchange", take it up with The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, American Capitalism: A Reader, and Harris, Neal; Delanty, Gerard (2023): "What is capitalism? Toward a working definition" - where they are from. to be honest, i trust that they know what they are writing about much more than I trust you

It's not about the terms, under capitalism in the end competition is crushed and most "exchanges" are not "voluntary"

I can link you to online definitions of "competition" and "voluntary" if you like. These aren't terms, just regular English words.

Let's imagine a world where the majority of the world has accepted chattel slavery. Even if most people agree that "slavery" is defined as 'a system of voluntary labor where the slave happily accepts master rule for the good of all humans' or something, that doesn't mean abolitionists will agree to that shit. You can do appeal to authority fallacy till your blue in the face, that definition is shit!

Here's the thing though, we like using force to get what we want. It's fast, direct and works most of the time. So no matter what kind of system we employ, it has to either be better than that or be able to defend against it effectively, in every shape it may appear.

Do you have such a system that can be employed without extreme waves of violence from those who only stand to lose by implementing it? Can you stop those implementing it from exploiting and adding loopholes that will allow them an unfair advantage over all others? Is there any way to prevent it from degenerating as all those before it unequivocally have, with and/or without outside interference? And do you honestly believe that we as humanity can unite towards a singular purpose long enough to complete it when we are known to kill each other over the slightest of grievances?

Keep in mind that simply trying isn't enough. It's expensive, it's bloody and can explode towards unwanted and unexpected consequences.

Honglath, all that is extremely vague and confusing. Violence was necessary to implement and escape from monarchies and slavery. You want entirely bloodless change no matter how many people suffer and die under the current oppressive system?

Regarding "finding loopholes" and exploiting, escaping capitalism is closing loopholes and removing exploitation.

i have not intetion to dicuss this with you, just pointing out that you are miundersdanding and using wrong terms, which makes it... a bit pointless....

the whole post here is an example of that.

I might also add that English is a vague and contextal language, which means the meaning of words arises in the context in which they have been used. The meaning of a word in one context, is different than the meaning of that word in a different context. the way you place the words together, often creates terms with specific meanings within that context. The word "Voluntary" has several meanings, the word "Exchange" has several meanings. Putting the two words "Voluntary exhange" together and used in a social-economic context, it becomes a term with a specific meaning. This is how English language works

you need to study more politics and economics, and now you also need to study linguistics.

You're generalizing. Violence was not a necessity to change from monarchies in all cases. Just like how not in all cases did escaping monarchy result in democracy. And yes, I do want bloodless change because that is the best kind. Any change baptized in blood will be marred by that blood and forever be dragged by its chains.

In any imperfect system, closing loopholes will force the creation of others with unpredictable results. Which is why often the solution isn't plunging into the unknown, but moderating and balancing the already existent loopholes into manageable exploitations. Escaping capitalism without something certain already in place will only devolve into unmanageable chaos where only exploitation remains.