Economic critical successes

[whswhs]

A week ago, I ran a session of Tapestry, my historical fantasy campaign, for my San Diego players. One of the characters, Hanno, has chosen a prospective wife from the three candidates his mother suggested to him, proposed to her, and been accepted. He's decided he wants to have a house of his own, so some of the session was spent on shopping for one.

Hanno is a nixie, with half the Basic Lift and food consumption of a man; so I divided his cost of living by 2. His player decided to have him go for a Status 2 lifestyle, one step up from his established Status, but equal to his fiancée's Status (he was a rich entrepreneur marrying into an established family fallen on hard times). I estimated that cost of living for Status 2 was $1500, of which $1125 went for food, $225 for incidentals, and $150 for rent. Hanno would be buying the house, but renting the land; I took that to be $100 house rent and $50 land rent. So that was $1200 a year rent, which I equated to a purchase price of $6000. (Interest rates are high in Portus Argenti, as a reflection of many ventures being risky.)

So then Hanno's player asked about rolling to get a good price on the house—and got a natural 3 on Finance! That was so good a roll that I figured the seller wasn't going to beat it. So I told Hanno's player that Hanno could get the house for half of its fair market value, or $3000—and that that would represent Independent Income of $100 a month, since that was the amount of rent he was spared paying.

Then Hanno's player wanted to look at furnishing the house. I allowed the fiancée to roll against Scrounging as a complementary skill (she had done a lot of that to keep up appearances despite her family's shortage of funds). She succeeded and gave him +1 to Merchant—and then Hanno's player got another critical success! This time I offered her the choice of spending $3000 on furnishings and getting $5000 worth, or spending $1800 and getting $3000 worth; she took the former option. So now Hanno has a nearly fully furnished house (it still needs his wife's hope chest and his accumulated possessions from his mother's house) at a bargain price, $6000 rather than the $9000 he had planned on.

This isn't the sort of thing most players roll critical successes on, but Hanno's player was really happy.

The next step is going to be hiring servants. Hanno has a manservant, and Iltani has a lady's maid/chambermaid (who's been doubling as a maid-of-all-work), but they need a footman/doorkeeper and a housemaid, and perhaps a cook. And Iltani is also going to be looking for a respectable companion to protect her good name while Hanno is away on his next voyage.

[Donny Brook]

half the Basic Lift and food consumption of a man; so I divided his cost of living by 2

Why such a generous divisor? CoL covers a lot more than just food.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

Why such a generous divisor? CoL covers a lot more than just food.

Historically, no, not always. I've seen estimates that before the Industrial Revolution, between two-thirds and nine-tenths of the labor force was occupied with farming. I use that as a rough guideline to how much of cost of living is spent on farm products.

In a TL1 society, the average monthly income is $650, and the average starting wealth is $500. And that's relatively privileged people, adventurers or rich farmers or free urban craftsmen. So the ordinary person's possessions come to less than a month's pay. They aren't spending much on clothing, or furniture, or kitchen utensils.

Also, another important part of CoL is housing, and a race whose body surface area is half that of men will need half as much housing, too. And they'll need less cloth for their clothing, which is another concern. Fuel also will scale down with the size of their houses. Expenses that don't scale with size are going to be comparatively minor.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Historically, no, not always. I've seen estimates that before the Industrial Revolution, between two-thirds and nine-tenths of the labor force was occupied with farming. I use that as a rough guideline to how much of cost of living is spent on farm products.
.

The higher the social status level the lower a proportion of it is going ot be spent on food.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

The higher the social status level the lower a proportion of it is going ot be spent on food.

That's partially true, yes. But part of social standing at TL1-4 is having a big house. You need servants to run such a house. And you also need servants just to maintain your position in society. Servants have to be fed.

And also, at Status -1 to 1, a large share of income goes for food. So if you need half as much food, you can maintain your Status at a lower cost of living.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by whswhs

That's partially true, yes. But part of social standing at TL1-4 is having a big house. You need servants to run such a house. And you also need servants just to maintain your position in society. Servants have to be fed.

The point is, unless your servants, guests and family are all as small as you are, a middle class or higher character can't actually maintain his Status for much less, meaningfully, regardless of his personal eating habits.

If he wants to have human guests and human servants, he needs a human size house where almost everyone in the household eats like a human. The small savings from the master himself eating less are probably ignorable (or spent on fancy furniture that will make him look less silly when interacting with his larger staff and guests).

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Icelander

The point is, unless your servants, guests and family are all as small as you are, a middle class or higher character can't actually maintain his Status for much less, meaningfully, regardless of his personal eating habits.

If he wants to have human guests and human servants, he needs a human size house where almost everyone in the household eats like a human. The small savings from the master himself eating less are probably ignorable (or spent on fancy furniture that will make him look less silly when interacting with his larger staff and guests).

That's a valid point in the abstract. But in this case, we're looking at a city of 30,000, the overwhelming majority of whom are nixies. The family are nixies; the servants are nixies, as a rule; most of the guests are nixies. This isn't Miles Vorkosigan living it a city of normal sized people.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Historically, no, not always.

If you're going to keep the fixed $600 CoL for status 0 regardless of TL, it covers a lot more than food regardless of TL. Food cost if you go with semi-raw ingredients (rice, flour, etc, rather than prepared foods) and mostly eat grains and other normal low tech food is maybe $50 per month in GURPS $.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by whswhs

That's a valid point in the abstract. But in this case, we're looking at a city of 30,000, the overwhelming majority of whom are nixies. The family are nixies; the servants are nixies, as a rule; most of the guests are nixies. This isn't Miles Vorkosigan living it a city of normal sized people.

Ah, I see.

Somehow I assumed from "Hanno is a nixie..." that only he enjoyed that distinction.

Living in a nixie city, employing nixie servants, I can see how Hanno might enjoy a higher standard living for less. In GURPS terms, I'd probably call it a benefit of being smaller and charge for what is effectively a small Independent Income, but that's more because a lower SM is already far superior than a high SM and from a game balance point of view, really doesn't need any extra benefits.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Living in a nixie city, employing nixie servants, I can see how Hanno might enjoy a higher standard living for less.

On the other hand, if CoL is locally lower, average wages will likely to be lower across the board. Just about everyone's income comes out of their neighbors' CoL - which includes not only your servants' salaries and the production of life's necessities, but the grocer's profit margin, the barber's salary, the taxes that pay for public safety, etc.