No more gold

Hi ya'll! I've been homebrewing and wondered what a D&D style game would be like without gold (or any physical currency). Think of it like the Star Trek Earth where money isn't the motivating factor. There are still adventurers, but they go out searching for resources and to vanquish evils that threaten civilization. Has this been done before? What would you reward players in a D&D game if there's no gold? I think a bunch of single-use magic items would suffice. Also, this has gotten me thinking of what would people desire if money wasn't the motivating factor - and in my world, political power is almost zero because of systems in play.
Just some thoughts. Curious what kind of thoughts others have.

Gold is simply an artificial convention to simply barter. Trading a chicken for a bag of turnips is easier when you confer both to an equivalency system. So you're asking, what if nothing has intrinsic value and can not be traded for anything else. This is too deep for my evening brain, but I look forward to the discussion.

Sounds like the contents of my apartment.

I've seen some game using a "wealth" attribute. Give players some sort of wealth attribute. Anything with a "purchase rating" below their attribute, they can easily purchase, within reason. Anything above, they need to roll for. Very expensive items would not only require a success, but then also lower the wealth attribute. Large monetary treasures or rewards would increase it instead.

So, there seem to be like maybe as many as 3 different conversations going on here within the span of 4 posts. Impressive.

One about playing a campaign where the PCs aren't motivated by money.

One about the very nature of material value and standardized/backed currency.

And one about alternate wealth mechanics, beyond the "counting beans" approach of traditional RPGs.

They could all be interesting, but which if any of them were you actually trying to have, exemplar?

I know I have a couple games that run exclusively on barter and no gold. Make it interesting what someone will part with to get something they really want.

A friend of mine created a Filipino-inspired D&D 5e hack that uses a karmic wealth mechanic called Utang Na Loob (roughly translated, "debt of gratitude").

It's interesting in that "wealth" isn't measured solely in tangible currency, but also in good or ill will, reputation, owed favors, etc.

Link to pdf at this page.

I very rarely play characters that are wealth motivated. They adventure to fight evil or explore new areas. Sometimes both.

Gold is just a token to represent arbitrary resources (e.g. food, weapons, labour). This is assuming we're looking at the desire for gold as a medium of exchange and a store of wealth (rather than people wanting it for its intrinsic properties - e.g. it's pretty in jewellery).

1. It's not trusted or needed as a mechanism of resource exchange
It's no good giving someone gold for something, if the receiver doesn't believe that they will be able to convince somebody else to exchange the gold for resources in the future. There's barter for exchange, but for wealth storage people might trade favours. If you give me resources now, then we both understand that I'll do the same for you in the future. Literally, owing someone a favour.
There's evidence that it's a bit of a myth that primitive societies used barter, it appears that favours were more often used.

2. There's no need to exchange resources
If everyone has sufficient for their daily needs and wants, and they could requisition extra-ordinary needs then what use is gold?

I think it's the last one that you're asking about. Where money isn't a motivating factor, because it can't be exchanged for something people want.

Character motivations might be fame, games, sports, self-improvement, solitude, exploration, good deeds, service to a higher cause (God, military, civil service, their pet), or a whole bunch of things which can't easily be bought with resources.

For some people, money is useful only in that it provides a baseline standard of living, and the things that really motivate them can't be bought or sold. Put it this way - how much are you being paid to play RPGs or design campaigns for your friends?

In a world where magic or technology ensures that everyone has enough food, houses can be conjured from the air (or built by robots), there are other planets so that living space is never scarce, if you want use of a spaceship (or horse) then one can be conjured - then I suspect the motivations would be as varied as the people.

Some futurists think that technologies like fusion power and automation could transform earth's society, where money would seem as archaic as barter. A world where robots build the houses, grow the food, create luxury items.

I'd recommend Isaac Arthur's videos for inspiration. He has a whole video series on post-scarcity economies, including one on finding purpose in a post scarcity economy: https://youtu.be/6qcggatwPBk

Now, you'll have to excuse me - it's time for me to earn some gold.

This is amazing. Gift economies and reciprocity are things RPGs haven't done a good job of exploring. Genesys's Shadows of the Beanstalk kind of gets some of this with its Favor system, but it still includes currency and bean counting. I like the idea of a system where your reputation and obligations are the only "coin" of the realm. (For what it's worth, this sort of economy is/was quite common before capitalism arose a few hundred years ago. The idea that everyone used to barter isn't true for much of the world.)

So, to the OP's point: There are a few adventure paths and such out there that try to get around the quest for gold and stuff. There's the Pathfinder adventure path War for the Crown that is much more about gaining political influence and power, for instance. Mutant Year Zero and its various spinoffs are very much about having a home base and building up its resources in a post-apocalyptic setting. And others are right that, even if modeling a capitalist economy, you can do so obliquely rather than through accounting. This is the Call of Cthulhu approach, for instance, where you just have a Credit Rating (kind of like a combo of wealth and status) that says how much you can reasonably spend in a given day.

Personally, I'd love to play in a game that tried to emulate a system based exclusively on favors and reciprocity.

While not exactly the same, White Wolf Vampire: The Masquerade operates on both an abstract wealth system (you don't track dollars), but also more importantly on a system of Prestation: trading boons (favors) between vampires is the only currency that matters in this highly political game. This system is formalized by 'harpies' (a formal title in Vampire society) who publicly track boons in play, and how deep the boon is. The system was broadened by the community to create an economy where boons could be traded (are two minor boons worth a regular boon? Do three regulars count as a life boon?).

Burning Wheel really embodies all of these values.

PCs are, ideally/"supposed to be", entirely motivated by their Beliefs, and by attempting to either prove them to be "true" or "incorrect" - known as "testing" your Beliefs in the game. In addition to "living up to" their mechanically-defined Instincts and Traits.

There is, when used at it's best, a very reciprocal relation between all PCs through their Beliefs. Ideally, no single PC should be able to test all of their Beliefs without making a couple other PCs upset (by virtue of that preventing that PC from testing their Belief). So there is often a lot of tough deal making and compromise that PCs must play it amongst themselves. It also has very robust political and social mechanics in Circles, Relationships, and Duel of Wits, etc. that generally facilitate social and political campaigns very nicely.

It also uses an abstract wealth mechanic (no bean counting), that is dynamic but also pretty restrictive. Wealth is rarely anything other than a means to an end. A never ending better-gear-treadmill is generally not a part of the game.

I would also throw the D&D 5E expansion, Adventures Middle Earth out there as an example if a very traditional system that had campaigns that are not motivated by money. If money is what motivates your character in that version of the system, you will almost assuredly eventually fall to the Shadow. The system eschewed the traditional D&D alignment system, and replaced it with "the Shadow". Your Characters are asked to be generally heroic people who are motivated by improving the lot of the world. The more you do selfish things, like seek "unnatural" power or wealth, the more you fall to the Shadow (think Boromir, Sauruman, etc.). It's a brilliantly thematic take on 5E.

Wow, that sparked quite the discussion. I suppose I could have been more clear in my first post.
Thank you for the YouTube link, Adam! This is precisely what I meant. Needs are met and gold/money is "worthless" because it's not used.

I think it is a fantastic idea... depending on the base system... I feel like a game like Fate could easily incorporate such an idea without an issue, but d&d is so gold based (gold literally was exp in older editions) that I don’t know if you could remove it simply because there is so much balance based on the adventurers’ equipment.
So what system would you want to use?

My apologies for not responding. I must have missed the email.
Since my last post, I haven't worked on my idea much. This is all about my homebrew world where currency isn't a thing.
PhoenixScientist, my first thought was D&D, since in 5e gold doesn't seem to be so heavily relied upon. Sure it's there, but it's no longer EXP and things can be done without gold with some workaround.
My idea is that no money exists because its been melted and repurposed. I found this great webpage to help me decide what metals could be used for instead of currency.
I remember there being a 3.x supplement with bonuses that gems could give magic items such as wands. That's another currency to figure out.
The whole point of this is that trade/barter through currency has been eliminated in my homebrew world.

It really isn't relevant to the original question, but my campaign runs on a silver standard. There is even a place where barter is the order of the day and coinage is worthless. And of course, different places have different coinage and each is worth differing values depending on where you are. Silver is pretty much global (except Keltoi, where they rely on barter), but as another example, one country values bronze pieces as worth a half-silver, but in a neighboring country, they are worthless.

More on topic, I often give out ornate weapons and armor in place of mere currency, or objects d'art, or even boons. There are so many ways to reward players other than heaping coins on them.