Conversation Rate of G$ To Real World Dollars

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Which is fine, but GURPS uses the USA as the baseline because it is produced by a US company.

Does it? I'd argue that it uses Medieval England as the baseline because the place where it started was as a TL 3 fantasy game and from there they bolted on coverage of other genres with varying amounts of success. This is also reflected in the fact that cost of living is a real issue at TL 3 but an afterthought at TL 8.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Does it? I'd argue that it uses Medieval England as the baseline because the place where it started was as a TL 3 fantasy game and from there they bolted on coverage of other genres with varying amounts of success. This is also reflected in the fact that cost of living is a real issue at TL 3 but an afterthought at TL 8.

Pretty much. It's a flaw, but I've never backed down from admitting those.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Which is fine, but GURPS uses the USA as the baseline because it is produced by a US company. Therefore, the baseline should reflect the reality of life in the USA, with everything measured relative to that baseline. For example, the average person in the world is Poor relative to the average person in the USA but, since they live in a Poor society, they have Status 0 relative to their neighbors.

That's not how GURPS actually works. The TL8 income baseline more or less reflects the United States (current U.S. median household income is above $50k, which is not far short of two Average incomes of $2600/month or $31,200/year. But the CoL for Status 0 is not adjusted to reflect present-day technology or economics; it's based on how people lived from the invention of agriculture up until the Industrial Revolution. The U.S. is not the baseline for Status.

So take C and me. Our household income supports Status 2 by GURPS standards. That gives us a roomy one-bedroom apartment, utilities (including Internet and videoconferencing), more than enough to eat (as in Overweight rather than Skinny) and of decent quality (we have spices that would make a medieval nobleman envious!), 100 shelf feet of books and access to vastly more online, recorded entertainment that an eighteenth-century bourgeois couldn't have imagined, travel by bus or train or (in emergencies) cab—I can travel from Riverside to San Diego most months to run a game for friends, and the train fare is barely noticeable, though if C goes with me the cat care is pricy. By American standards I think our standard of living is Status -1; not having a car and never having owned a house puts us well short of "middle class." But I think it's more accurate to say that "American" is worth at least +2 Status relative to the global economy and society.

Originally Posted by Kromm

And I'd argue that in a multiple-income, no-children situation, the per-capita figures might be more relevant: $243 a month. This argues for Struggling/Status -1.

On the other hand, that's a big perplexity of GURPS for me. Does Status 0 cost of living of $600 support one person, say an adventurer when they're at home? And then if two people live together, do they need $1200? That's handy for adventurers, who are overwhelmingly likely to be single, for some reason; and it's a tolerable fit to millenials (just as it was to boomers when I was just out of college). But for most of history, a single man didn't have a full set of life skills, and was going to be paying more in the way of living expenses than a married man would, because he had to pay to get his meals cooks, his clothes washed and mended, his quarters swept, and so on. Even armies needed camp followers for more than sexual reasons. It's more accurate in a lot of cases to say that $600 supports a married couple. The wife is doing a lot of labor that isn't paid for with money, but that's part of the household's income . . . in a way that goes far beyond the uneven household division of labor in our time.

And of course in a tribal society, no one is "paid," and we could say that a man has a virtual income of $300/month from hunting or fishing, and a woman has the same from gathering, and they add up to Status 0. But even as early as TL3, the man is treated as having an "income" and the woman usually isn't.

I'd also note that "per capita" is misleading in that it counts children as part of that "capita." But a child doesn't need as much food as an adult, or as much fiber, or as much room. So the child is probably getting less than $243/month, and the parents more.

[Anthony]

Cost of Living has been a hot point since 4th edition first came out, because it's setting-independent.

There's a reason for this: GURPS 4th edition wanted a generic table of prices, and that meant the same thing should have the same cost in every setting.

The problem with this is that a TL 3 status 0 lifestyle is not the same thing as a TL 8 status 0 lifestyle, and the way lifestyle cost varies with status is much more complicated than the simple rules in 4e.

[sjard]

For another comparison, I feel that my wife and I live quite comfortably.

Own - 2 bedroom house, with detached 2 car garage, on a fairly large (for local anyway, about .2 acres) plot of land for city center.

I own a car. I have gigabit fiber internet.

I have more toys/luxuries (toys for me categorizes games (all types), as well as any other entertainment) than I have time to actually enjoy.

But, my wife and I live on less than $10,000/year.

Do I have everything I may want? No. But want isn't need.

I still have enough to choose to to drive a 50 mile round trip to shop at a store with a bit more selection and lower prices (enough lower that insurance, fuel, maintenance added into food prices makes it cheaper than shopping at the store a block away).

On the other hand, I haven't seen bread cheaper than about $2.50/loaf in a couple decades.

My point is, the much vaunted (usually by players) Realism of GURPS isn't always a good thing.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by sjard

For another comparison, I feel that my wife and I live quite comfortably.

Own - 2 bedroom house, with detached 2 car garage, on a fairly large (for local anyway, about .2 acres) plot of land for city center.

I own a car. I have gigabit fiber internet.

I have more toys/luxuries (toys for me categorizes games (all types), as well as any other entertainment) than I have time to actually enjoy.

But, my wife and I live on less than $10,000/year.

Do I have everything I may want? No. But want isn't need.

I still have enough to choose to to drive a 50 mile round trip to shop at a store with a bit more selection and lower prices (enough lower that insurance, fuel, maintenance added into food prices makes it cheaper than shopping at the store a block away).

On the other hand, I haven't seen bread cheaper than about $2.50/loaf in a couple decades.

Someone who owns revenue-producing property like a house probably has Independent Income in GURPS (it generates the rent you don't pay, or could get by renting it out) ... but definitely, the difference in cost of living between big, fashionable cities and smaller, out-of-the-way ones is one of many details which is impossible to cover in simple rules.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

Someone who owns revenue-producing property like a house probably has Independent Income in GURPS (it generates the rent you don't pay, or could get by renting it out) ... but definitely, the difference in cost of living between big, fashionable cities and smaller, out-of-the-way ones is one of many details which is impossible to cover in simple rules.

One of the PCs in my current campaign is planning to buy a house in the city they're based in. The size of house she wants rents for $100/month. She's currently at Wealthy, which is $2500, but I expect she'll be buying herself up to Very Wealthy, which is $10,000 (the character has over $40,000 in profits from a recent trading voyage, and has the prospect of continuing income from future voyages); that will make $100/month amount to 1% of her new starting wealth, or Independent Income 1.

[Polydamas]

Also, we have talked about taxes, but benefits like pensions and health insurance are another can of worms which an economic model (versus a quick rule to get back to the adventure). Just because money does not pass through your hands does not mean you are not receiving valuable compensation, and which of these are taken for granted, which available to a lucky few, and which available to nobody varies widely from country to country.

The problem with Status and standard of living is that a student in a rich country is certainly not a respected, influential member of his or her society (high Status), but is living better than average globally (expensive standard of living).

For a game set in the present, I would be inclined to ignore prices in G$ (especially the cost of living rules!!!) and just use real-world prices from teh interwebs.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by whswhs

On the other hand, that's a big perplexity of GURPS for me. Does Status 0 cost of living of $600 support one person, say an adventurer when they're at home? [...] I'd also note that "per capita" is misleading in that it counts children as part of that "capita." But a child doesn't need as much food as an adult, or as much fiber, or as much room. So the child is probably getting less than $243/month, and the parents more.

Yeah, that part gets messy, and I'm not sure how to finesse it. All I can say is that the truth is probably in between (household annual income)/12 and (per-capital annual income)/12, or in this case $243 to $811. If we assume that not all income goes toward CoL and remember that not all the world lives at TL8, I imagine it isn't too nuts to say we're looking at Struggling, supporting Status -1, for much of the world.

[scc]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Cost of Living has been a hot point since 4th edition first came out, because it's setting-independent.

There's a reason for this: GURPS 4th edition wanted a generic table of prices, and that meant the same thing should have the same cost in every setting.

The problem with this is that a TL 3 status 0 lifestyle is not the same thing as a TL 8 status 0 lifestyle, and the way lifestyle cost varies with status is much more complicated than the simple rules in 4e.

Status 0 means the same thing in both, but the people in a TL8 society are probably making enough to afford Status 1 whilst not actually paying the points for it.