On 27 Feb 2016 06:17, "Richard Aiken" <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 4:05 PM, Craig Berry <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> As soon as you start applying real-world economic thinking to Traveller, you start nudging the game in a post-scarcity, perhaps post-human direction that looks more like Star Trek or Banks's Culture novels than the gritty, hardscrabble Traveller future we all know and love.
>>
>> On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 12:43 AM, Tim <xxxxxx@little-possums.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Earth, the value of gold is mostly due to the sparsity of deposits
>>> near the surface. . . Virtually all of the accessible gold in the solar system is still out
>>> there in asteroids.
>
>
> <trying to think of a non-fiat reason to maintain gold scarcity in the OTU . . . >

Does it work to say that the 'thing' is just an analogue that we all understand as a place holder for the unknown thing that would be scarce or unfixable or whatever?

I was thinking about this in relation to some invented disease or syndrome (and a couple of other things).  So yes, I would like to think that by the 57th century Chronic Fatigue Syndrome will be easily curable BUT there will still be *something* <insert fancy name> that might have whatever medical or debilitating effect you're looking for in a game.  (See the "Skefflig's Syndrome" I put into the adventure All in the Genes).

So gold might not be rare/valuable but there would be something that is needed for machine X or process Y or person Z that is worth the PCs chasing/shipping/lusting after.

Or does that not work because there's always an expert player who will have the knowledge to point out that, yes but this whole *class* of things will have gone?

tc