Quote:
Originally Posted by Kromm
Rent is a whole other crazy thing, of course.
I spent most of April and May searching for an apartment. I saw the same surface area, with the same amenities, in the same state of repair, going for everything from $600/month to $2,000/month. The sole difference was neighborhood. I don't mean "How classy/safe/upscale is the neighborhood?"; I mean "How easy is it to get from this neighborhood to others?" Which I should add has nothing to do with access to goods and services . . .
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In Portus Argenti, transportation is slightly less of an issue, because there are 30,000 inhabitants occupying 75 hectares of built-up land, or less than 200 acres; noplace is very far from any other place, even on foot.
However, the $100/month is only rent for the house. The space has to be rented separately from a landowner (legally this works like a mobile home park, partly reflecting long experience with floods carrying houses away), at a price ranging from $25/month to $100/month, which at least gives some variability. The city's occupants are mostly amphibious, so ground rent varies with how far they are from the river; shoreline houses and setts go for more, partly but not entirely for easy access to transportation. I'm going to let the player decide where Nergul wants to live, though her Miserliness may come into play here.
But I find it simplest, in my own campaigns, to say that everyone pays rent, but that if you own the house where you live, you pay the rent to yourself and get it back as Independent Income. Then the cost of housing as such can be folded into Cost of Living, just as the cost of furnishings can be subsumed under the 80% of starting wealth that covers fixed assets.
Of course all this is amazingly simplified. But even with the PCs moving into the bourgeoisie (NOT the petit bourgeoisie, please note!), I don't think they want a whole campaign that treats real property and cost of living in quite as much detail as GURPS uses for combat. . . .