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Children of the Nile is a video game which is set in a real-life environment, where barter is used.  That is not an RPG, though.

Keeping a tab at the shops of various sellers is the first refinement of the barter system.  In that system, each shop accepts any goods of worth that I happen to have.  In return, I get whatever goods that shop keeps in stock.  Then the shopkeeper has to figure out how to convert metal scraps into flour, for example.  Possibly he can trade the dented armor to the blacksmith for knives.  Lots of people would probably accept knives as trade goods.

The next step is paying for goods at the above shop with credit chits from the blacksmith, obtained by dropping off the metal bits at that place.  Now we have currency, issued by every shop, or at least by major shops.  Then it becomes currency issued by the local ruler, to consolidate the value of it and incidentally make taxes easier to assess and collect.

Now we have modern times, and our trade is carried out using a mix of issued currency, credit chits issued by banks (checking), and tabs kept also at banks, and sometimes at shops (credit cards).  We've progressed almost back to before currency again by not needing to carry individual items to represent our buying power, but the concept of relative values is still there.  It always was.  One mammoth steak was always worth two frozen yucca roots, or whatever.

Which is to say that we always have some kind of numerical valuation in mind even if we don't specifically assign numbers to everything before we trade.  The kid who trades his peanut butter sandwich for a pickle doesn't assign explicit numbers to the two items, he just knows that he wants that pickle more than he wants the sandwich.  I think that would be a weird trade, but then I'm not that fond of pickles as compared to peanut butter.  *laugh*

So, it should be possible to write an RPG with nothing but the purest barter visible to the player, even though the game must make numerical valuations in order to present the proper choices.  Bandits would be stealing anything of value, not just gear.  They would not attack people who are better armed than themselves, for the given reason that they would die, but they could prey on weaker victims.  Knives, leather boots, personal jewelry, and anything else that could be bartered would be fair game for them.  There would not be the concentrated value of leather pouches of coins, so probably cutpurses would not flourish, but a dead body can always be stripped of everything and provide some kind of loot.

Edit:  I seem to recall that some communities in the United States have attempted to re-establish barter in an attempt to circumvent paying taxes of all types.  I'm not sure where, but for some reason I think it was in New England.  People were getting "paid" in barter points and trading those in to local shops, who in turn "paid" their bills back to the companies who had hired their customers as workers.  I can't remember how well it worked, or if the goverment(s) figured out a way to tax them regardless, but I'm not betting against the government's persistance on that issue.

[Loud Whispers]

there's relatively little trading in a centrally planned economy, so there's neither widespread currency nor bartering. your link mentions axe-monies, so there was an established currency in the parts of the empire where it was justified

They used the currency to trade with outsiders who would accept nothing but currency. Their society was entirely without money.

A video game in a currency free world would probably be more interesting than what we have now; you do something for me, I do something for you as opposed to you do something for me, acquire currency.

[GreatWyrmGold]

I'm kinda impressed by myself. We've just broken into the second page and there's been discussion not only of the original topic, but of how "natural" it is to develop currency and computers without written language.

Anyways...I think that I really don't have much to add, except skepticism about if currency really is such a "logical" thing to develop. To address some concerns brought up early on:
I understand that a society with video games but no currency is improbable. The level of sophistication required for computing is much more difficult to reach without something that's a standard of exchange, a unit of account, and a store of value, and that such a concept would be come upon much more easily than computers. I also understand that a society without currency would be harder-pressed to develop many people who had disposeable income (or even the concept of disposeable income) to spend on video games.
Ignore all that for a sec and enjoy an interesting thought experiment.

I'm kind of interested that some people think that the numbers required for video games would lead to the concept of money. I'm not sure if it's true, but it's a neat idea.

A lot of people seem to agree with the hypothesis that a sort of "tier system" of item value would be used (e.g, a flaming sword is worth less than a diamond chalice but more than a steel axe), or a more story-based idea of exchange would occur, if trade even existed in those games. Assuming the tier system for a moment, how would such a system allow one to purchase, say, multiple Light Healing Potions by giving the shopkeep a single diamond chalice?

[Trollheiming]

We've yet to get a game that handles even a currency-based economy well. I'd recommend Patrician for a decent currency-based trading sim, but honestly, how many other games have even tried a dynamic economy, beyond arbitrarily fixing the iron sword at 100g and the steel sword at 200g?

What's necesssary for a barter-based trading game is, unsurprisingly enough, what's also necessary for a currency-based trading game. Coins and bills were just barter by other means, as Askot describes, up until governments began making them irredeemable for gold. And that happened only a few decades ago.

You would have to know the rate at which something can be produced, and how much of it each game entity needs. That's actually pretty hard. Patrician does try to do it, though.

[Lectorog]

I'm kind of interested that some people think that the numbers required for video games would lead to the concept of money. I'm not sure if it's true, but it's a neat idea.

Not that directly. The point is that assigning values to items is the easiest way to make a game's trade system. You wouldn't need to trade coins in this system, but you'd have to trade something like three knives and a leather boot, regardless of the other's desire for each, so it's not really different from currency. Currency is just a logical step.

Assuming the tier system for a moment, how would such a system allow one to purchase, say, multiple Light Healing Potions by giving the shopkeep a single diamond chalice?

It can't. The only way is the one I suggested, which is very messy, computationally intensive, and subjective. Some keepers on some days might give three potions for a chalice, some might give ten, some might only give one or refuse the trade altogether because they don't have use for a chalice and can thus get better items from someone else wanting to trade for the potions.
This is where assigning value is at least useful, if not necessary.

I'd recommend Patrician for a decent currency-based trading sim, how many other games have even tried a dynamic economy, beyond arbitrarily fixing the iron sword at 100g and the steel sword at 200g?

I think there's a mod for Oblivion that does something dynamic, but it's not very good/full/realistic.
Doesn't Mount and Blade have a dynamic economy?

[Askot Bokbondeler]

They used the currency to trade with outsiders who would accept nothing but currency. Their society was entirely without money.

yes, but i'd guess that that's because their society was almost without interpersonal trade. the bulk of the resources and status was centrally distributed and managed, and what evaded government control probably didn't require a a very complex trade system, but i'd still imagine some portable commodities would fill in the role of money whenever needed. money wasn't invented, it's a natural consequence of systematic trade. if you can expect to be able to trade items for others, you'll automatically hoard items that you don't immediately need for the purpose of trading them later

[Loud Whispers]

They used the currency to trade with outsiders who would accept nothing but currency. Their society was entirely without money.

yes, but i'd guess that that's because their society was almost without interpersonal trade.

Yes because they didn't use money. Ta da!

Very much a human construct. Not natural.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

i don't disagree that trade is a human construct, i postulate that money is a natural consequence of trade. this is "barter world", not "centrally planned economy world", trade is implied to be a thing in this hypothetical universe.
also, before they were an empire with centrally planned economy... they weren't. so trade and commodity currencies might have been abolished or made obsolete some before, making the lack of trade the unnatural thing, not money.

[FearfulJesuit]

The thing is, people have been looking for a society for decades that has a real barter economy, and it just doesn't exist. If they trade, they generally have currency.

Note that the currency doesn't have to be physical; it's just a unit of account. The famed islanders of Yap, for example, use those giant stone rings; but they don't actually move them around. Rather, everyone knows everyone else, or just about, so it's not the stone that moves around but who owns the stone.

Or, take medieval Wales. Medieval Wales, like most medieval states, had almost no actual currency floating around. Still, there are medieval Welsh lawbooks detailing exact values for everything in a home, from pans to floorboards- not so that they could be bought with money, which almost nobody had, but rather so that you could get exact restitution for them if they were stolen or destroyed. Even in a world without physical currency, there will still be currency!

[GreatWyrmGold]

i don't disagree that trade is a human construct, i postulate that money is a natural consequence of trade. this is "barter world", not "centrally planned economy world", trade is implied to be a thing in this hypothetical universe.
also, before they were an empire with centrally planned economy... they weren't. so trade and commodity currencies might have been abolished or made obsolete some before, making the lack of trade the unnatural thing, not money.

Or maybe currency didn't exist there in the first place?

The thing is, people have been looking for a society for decades that has a real barter economy, and it just doesn't exist. If they trade, they generally have currency.

Note that the currency doesn't have to be physical; it's just a unit of account. The famed islanders of Yap, for example, use those giant stone rings; but they don't actually move them around. Rather, everyone knows everyone else, or just about, so it's not the stone that moves around but who owns the stone.

Or, take medieval Wales. Medieval Wales, like most medieval states, had almost no actual currency floating around. Still, there are medieval Welsh lawbooks detailing exact values for everything in a home, from pans to floorboards- not so that they could be bought with money, which almost nobody had, but rather so that you could get exact restitution for them if they were stolen or destroyed. Even in a world without physical currency, there will still be currency!

Trade came before currency. Trade does not imply currency. If I give a friend a book or something in exchange for, um...something else, I don't need to be considering the monetary values of each. I just trade. You don't need currency for trade any more than you need language for a brain.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

The thing is, people have been looking for a society for decades that has a real barter economy, and it just doesn't exist. If they trade, they generally have currency.

Note that the currency doesn't have to be physical; it's just a unit of account. The famed islanders of Yap, for example, use those giant stone rings; but they don't actually move them around. Rather, everyone knows everyone else, or just about, so it's not the stone that moves around but who owns the stone.

Or, take medieval Wales. Medieval Wales, like most medieval states, had almost no actual currency floating around. Still, there are medieval Welsh lawbooks detailing exact values for everything in a home, from pans to floorboards- not so that they could be bought with money, which almost nobody had, but rather so that you could get exact restitution for them if they were stolen or destroyed. Even in a world without physical currency, there will still be currency!

i don't know about that, bartering definitely happens, even in modern western society. just today, my mom traded a bunch of power tools with a neighbour in exchange for a remodelling service on our kitchen

Trade came before currency.

yes. probably by a few hours, maybe by a couple generations. actually, i retract that. will post why after the inevitable ninjas

[Loud Whispers]

yes. probably by a few hours, maybe by a couple generations.

Or 1100 years.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

yes. probably by a few hours, maybe by a couple generations. actually, i retract that. will post why after the inevitable ninjas

early hunter gatherer societies probably didn't engage in much trade, hunter gatherer clans seldom encountered each other, and probably wouldn't keep items for the explicit purpose of trade. once trade became a regular activity, and clans could expect to trade and started to plan it beforehand, commodity currency became a thing.

[Loud Whispers]

yes. probably by a few hours, maybe by a couple generations. actually, i retract that. will post why after the inevitable ninjas

early hunter gatherer societies probably didn't engage in much trade, hunter gatherer clans seldom encountered each other, and probably wouldn't keep items for the explicit purpose of trade. once trade became a regular activity, and clans could expect to trade and started to plan it beforehand, commodity currency became a thing.

And even when farming was a thing, most subsistence farmers never used currency nor did they when they started farming more than what they needed - they payed in crop.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

crop was a formal currency in many early market societies