GURPS/Space/Earth - Page 2

Stormcrow · 01-09-2019, 03:51 PM

I think what we have here is an attempt to simulate the world using GURPS. It just wasn't built for that. Use GURPS to decide what happens to characters in play, not to watch the flow of global wealth.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alonsua

Thats not what the GURPS wealth represents though, since it relates to income and personal assets. The only way to represent this would be to divide the Wealth advantage in two different parts, one for income and the other for assets.

A character can be Poor in a world where the average Wealth is, well, Average. They have Poor jobs even though there may be Wealthy people working nearby.

~~Alonsua~~ · 01-09-2019, 04:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

A character can be Poor in a world where the average Wealth is, well, Average. They have Poor jobs even though there may be Wealthy people working nearby.

How does that change the system math? One would compensate the other, but unless you separate income from assets, you will be in the same place at the end.

talonthehand · 01-09-2019, 05:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alonsua

How does that change the system math? One would compensate the other, but unless you separate income from assets, you will be in the same place at the end.

Not really - people have different levels of personal assets as well. Someone living in a mansion has more stuff than someone living in a mud hut. It comes down to what many others have told you - GURPS is a gameable abstraction. It is not, nor is it intended to be, a reality simulator.

David Johnston2 · 01-09-2019, 05:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alonsua

How does that change the system math? One would compensate the other, but unless you separate income from assets, you will be in the same place at the end.

Income is separate from assets. Wealth (the game advantage/disadvantage) only determines starting assets. Your house can be hit by a bomb. You can save up lots of money while living a Scrooge-like existence of self denial at home. Your Wealth does not determine how much dosh you have piled up at any given moment.

And the point of giving a number for how money you'd have if you stole everyone's assets still escapes me.

AlexanderHowl · 01-09-2019, 10:05 PM

Wealth only gives you starting personal assets, not private assets such as trademarks, patents, copyrights, companies, or other difficult to liquidate revenue generating instruments. Without Independent Income, a character only has personal assets. With Independent Income, they may have revenue generating instruments.

For example, a character with Multimillionaire 4 and Independent Income 5 would earn $12 billion per year, suggesting revenue private assets worth $240 billion (a modest and sustainable 5% annual return). The character also has personal assets with $20 billion, of which $4 billion is adventuring gear. With $1 billion a month, they can decide to add to their personal assets or to their private assets.

dataweaver · 01-09-2019, 11:19 PM

Regardless, the issue is that Earth's society is highly balkanized. As such, having one set of sociological ratings (Wealth, population, TL, CR, etc.) isn't particularly useful: if you find a society on Earth that conforms with such overall ratings, it will be by sheer coincidence.

AlexanderHowl · 01-10-2019, 07:34 AM

Unfortunately, the GURPS formula works when you adjust for the more than 2x difference in value between a GURPS (1985) $ and a 2019 $. That means that the per capita income for a TL8 society would be around $62,000 (2019). If you assume that Earth us Affinity 8, it is 3x the population that it can sustain, reducing per capita income to around $20,000 (2019). The official per capita (PPP) figure from that UN is around $18,000 (2019), so the GURPS formula is actually quite good. Since we are on the cusp of TL9, there carrying capacity and average wealth will both increase, though we will never reach sustainability.

capnq · 01-11-2019, 03:06 PM

I wonder if one of the Transhuman Space books has one. (I can't check, because I lost my copies in a fire.)

~~Alonsua~~ · 01-11-2019, 03:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by capnq

I wonder if one of the Transhuman Space books has one. (I can't check, because I lost my copies in a fire.)

There are many of those, it would take ages to check XD

dataweaver · 01-11-2019, 03:50 PM

Fourth Wave and Broken Dreams dealt with Earth. I'm pretty sure that the first one had statistics on countries.

01-09-2019, 10:05 PM	#15
AlexanderHowl Join Date: Feb 2016	Re: GURPS/Space/Earth Wealth only gives you starting personal assets, not private assets such as trademarks, patents, copyrights, companies, or other difficult to liquidate revenue generating instruments. Without Independent Income, a character only has personal assets. With Independent Income, they may have revenue generating instruments. For example, a character with Multimillionaire 4 and Independent Income 5 would earn $12 billion per year, suggesting revenue private assets worth $240 billion (a modest and sustainable 5% annual return). The character also has personal assets with $20 billion, of which $4 billion is adventuring gear. With $1 billion a month, they can decide to add to their personal assets or to their private assets.

01-09-2019, 11:19 PM	#16
dataweaver Join Date: Aug 2004	Re: GURPS/Space/Earth Regardless, the issue is that Earth's society is highly balkanized. As such, having one set of sociological ratings (Wealth, population, TL, CR, etc.) isn't particularly useful: if you find a society on Earth that conforms with such overall ratings, it will be by sheer coincidence. __________________ Point balance is a myth.[1][2][3][4]

01-10-2019, 07:34 AM	#17
AlexanderHowl Join Date: Feb 2016	Re: GURPS/Space/Earth Unfortunately, the GURPS formula works when you adjust for the more than 2x difference in value between a GURPS (1985) $ and a 2019 $. That means that the per capita income for a TL8 society would be around $62,000 (2019). If you assume that Earth us Affinity 8, it is 3x the population that it can sustain, reducing per capita income to around $20,000 (2019). The official per capita (PPP) figure from that UN is around $18,000 (2019), so the GURPS formula is actually quite good. Since we are on the cusp of TL9, there carrying capacity and average wealth will both increase, though we will never reach sustainability.

01-11-2019, 03:06 PM	#18
capnq Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Pittsburgh PA USA	Re: GURPS/Space/Earth I wonder if one of the *Transhuman Space* books has one. (I can't check, because I lost my copies in a fire.) __________________ Cap'n Q When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained. -- Mark Twain

01-11-2019, 03:50 PM	#20
dataweaver Join Date: Aug 2004	Re: GURPS/Space/Earth Fourth Wave and Broken Dreams dealt with Earth. I'm pretty sure that the first one had statistics on countries. __________________ Point balance is a myth.[1][2][3][4]