Core D&D: Part 7

I still havent quite figured out how leveling will work, but a bunch of minor ideas have floated around that could at least help in that regard, and from a surprising corner: money.

A bunch of ink has been spilled on coin standards, price lists, etc already, but i do think the idea of simplifying how money is handled is a worthy goal. That said, theres a lot of room to expand the concept, especially into spaces that D&D usually handles with oddly set up, specific, and independent sub-systems.

Now, im no economist (not by a longshot haha), but ive always seen money as transferable value, with its strength being that multiple people with their myriad desires being able to use it to purchase/sell a number of products as long as each side sees the currency as legit and they bot agree on its value (im sure theres a bunch of little things wrong with that statement, but work with me a bit). In rpgs, money is usually the only way in which value is transferable, making money one of the things that most people desire/look for, sometimes to the detriments of common sense or expediency.
Likewise, oftentimes things like information, art, alliances, or training is forgotten in the shuffle of things because its a lot harder to put realistic value to them, let alone them then needing to be noted down somewhere (which tends to leave them forgotten altogether).

My solution, though im sure it isnt too novel of an idea, is to replace money/gold with value points (VP). VP would handle anything and everything that PCs would run into while still allowing them to increase their grubby little murderhobo hoards to their hearts content. Originally, the idea was a a tiered system that placed everything into on of about 6 'value levels', but it felt arbitrary and made grafting the system onto most versions of D&D a hassle; this one just replaces whatever word people have for money with VP and calls it a day.

A PCs VP is found by adding together the values of any and all equipment that they have on them, useful information they have (and depending on how far you want to go with this, where that info is useful), the amount (and cost) of training they have, and the amount and type of currency they have on them (if your campaign has multiple currencies for multiple locations; you can skip this if theres a universal standard). At first glance, this seems like a LOT of bookkeeping, and it is, but it can also be seen as the major engine around which the game runs.

On thinking on it for a second, VP is the perfect way to handle advancement, since the way you can gain it isnt directly material; a monk meditating on a mountaintop may be gaining the same amount of 'value' as a pirate captain trawling the high seas. Further thought would need to go into to figure out all the corner cases, but im thinking this is the solution to at least some of the earlier problem.