Cost of Living and Income in areas listed as Dead Broke?

[Icelander]

GURPS Transhuman Space p. 128 and GURPS Transhuman Space: Changing Times p. 36-38 uses a multiplier for local Wealth level to Cost of Living and Income from Jobs, i.e. Monthly Pay. That multiplier is listed for local Wealth between Wealthy and Poor.

Several countries, however, are listed as Dead Broke. These include many sub-Saharan countries, including Tanganyika, where we're proposing to set our next campaign.*

Tanganyika is part of the SAC and borders Kenya, presumably booming with the Olympus Project, so it's not as if there are no jobs, even if there might be massive unemployment and living standards may be very poor.

What multiplier does one use for Cost of Living and Monthly Pay in a Dead Broke country?

*Which will be a cyberpunk campaign set in THS.

[vicky_molokh]

Doesn't Fifth Wave (or maybe its Errata) have something to say on the matter?

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Doesn't Fifth Wave (or maybe its Errata) have something to say on the matter?

Searching the PDF for 'Dead Broke' reveals nothing I can find about Cost of Living or Monthly Pay in GURPS Transhuman Space: The Fifth Wave. The two pieces of errata have nothing to do with the subject, either.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Searching the PDF for 'Dead Broke' reveals nothing I can find about Cost of Living or Monthly Pay in GURPS Transhuman Space: The Fifth Wave. The two pieces of errata have nothing to do with the subject, either.

Hmm. I can't recall from where, but I think there was an instruction to treat Dead Broke regions as 1/5 where zero wouldn't make sense. But I might be mistaken.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Hmm. I can't recall from where, but I think there was an instruction to treat Dead Broke regions as 1/5 where zero wouldn't make sense. But I might be mistaken.

That was my instinct if pressed to make a ruling (but I'm not the GM for the game), but I haven't found a mention of this as a rule anywhere.

[Phil Masters]

Yeah, my bad in Changing Times. Sorry. Honestly, though, listing a country as "Dead Broke" makes no sense (which is why I didn't think to check if it was done anywhere); it implies, logically, that no one there makes any money at all. So the entire population should be rapidly starving to death.

I'd just say treat those countries as "Poor", with a footnote saying "No, really, here we mean that the place is a totally poverty-stricken hell hole."

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

Yeah, my bad in Changing Times. Sorry. Honestly, though, listing a country as "Dead Broke" makes no sense (which is why I didn't think to check if it was done anywhere); it implies, logically, that no one there makes any money at all. So the entire population should be rapidly starving to death.

I'd just say treat those countries as "Poor", with a footnote saying "No, really, here we mean that the place is a totally poverty-stricken hell hole."

Countries being actually Dead Broke in GURPS terms makes no sense, it is true, but Transhuman Space: The Fifth Wave seems to use it for about a third of African countries.

In fairness, it does make sense for there to exist a distinct category where the economic situation is obviously and measurably worse than that of Benin, Nepal, Nigeria, Turkmenistan or Zambia, to take some examples.

All of the 20 poorest nations listed on p. 85 of the GURPS Transhuman Space book (and some others) are meant to be clearly less economically successful than the nations listed as 'merely' Poor.

On the other hand, it may be viable for Cost of Living in these Dead Broke hellholes to stay the same as it is for Poor countries, simply with proportionally fewer people being able to afford any better than Status -2, at $83 and change per month.

Whether it makes sense for Tanganyika (to take a random example) to have been admitted to the SAC with such a terrible, terrible economy, however, may be a different issue.

Of course, I don't know what duties, if any, admitting a nation to the Coalition imposes on the other member nations, but presumably admittance comes with some implied benefits. I would expect, for example, that people with Tanganyikan citizenship have an easier time getting work permits in other SAC countries, like booming (and neighbouring) Kenya.

[Anthony]

I would assume 'dead broke' is 1/10 or less of average (since struggling is half and poor is 1/5).

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by Anthony

I would assume 'dead broke' is 1/10 or less of average (since struggling is half and poor is 1/5).

That would (probably) work. (I haven't crunched the numbers to make sure that the population can still manage to eat something.) It's not what the rules as written say, which is "Dead Broke = No money at all", but it's a plausible workaround.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Anthony

I would assume 'dead broke' is 1/10 or less of average (since struggling is half and poor is 1/5).

The modifier of x1/2 and x1/5 applies to personal Wealth. The area Wealth level modifier to Cost of Living and wages is x2/3 for Struggling and x1/3 for Poor, as per p. 37 in GURPS Transhuman Space: Changing Times.