Steve Jackson Games Forums - View Single Post - Conversation Rate of G$ To Real World Dollars

Stormcrow · 10-11-2018, 07:40 AM

If you insist on treating Status, Wealth, cost of living, and income in GURPS as an economic system, rather than simply a playable framework on which player characters sit, of course you're going to find contradictions. Real economics is far more complicated; no handful of traits and numbers can accurately reflect it.

The point of the system is not to be realistic or to simulate an economy. NPCs do not participate in the system. Nobody works out the cost of living of NPCs they include in an adventure. Nobody bothers to figure out whether Generic Fighter met on an adventure has an Independent Income, or whether it's enough to pay his bills. None of that matters. The system is there just to put player characters into some kind of context in the game setting. It tells players whether their characters can pay their bills this month or if they need more loot from an adventure. It tells players whether their characters happen to own cars or apartments or houses or a wardrobe. It lets some characters start with more money than others. It give the game a veneer of an economy without actually having an economy.

It'll never pass a reality check, because it doesn't reflect reality and isn't supposed to.

10-11-2018, 07:40 AM	#76
Stormcrow Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Ronkonkoma, NY	Re: Conversation Rate of G$ To Real World Dollars If you insist on treating Status, Wealth, cost of living, and income in GURPS as an economic system, rather than simply a playable framework on which player characters sit, of course you're going to find contradictions. Real economics is far more complicated; no handful of traits and numbers can accurately reflect it. The point of the system is not to be realistic or to simulate an economy. NPCs do not participate in the system. Nobody works out the cost of living of NPCs they include in an adventure. Nobody bothers to figure out whether Generic Fighter met on an adventure has an Independent Income, or whether it's enough to pay his bills. None of that matters. The system is there just to put player characters into some kind of context in the game setting. It tells players whether their characters can pay their bills this month or if they need more loot from an adventure. It tells players whether their characters happen to own cars or apartments or houses or a wardrobe. It lets some characters start with more money than others. It give the game a veneer of an economy without actually having an economy. It'll never pass a reality check, because it doesn't reflect reality and isn't supposed to.