Magical Birth Control

[hal]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Somebody is already buying the oil. Sure if there are enough light mages, the price of oil will start to drop. But magic can compete with lots of products, and if there start to be enough mages to saturate competition with all of them, then you're back to the old problem of magic should utterly transform the economy.

Fundamentally it's not really solvable - adventurers are cool in large part *because* they can do stuff ordinary people can't. And if you can do stuff ordinary people can't there will be lucrative stuff you could be doing that is much less risky than going on adventures.

Your options are basically either ignore it (adventurers don't all retire to do those safer jobs for incomprehensible reasons), or make the adventurers not particularly cool by allowing lots and lots of other people to do the same thing. Since one of those is generally more fun, and if you opt for the other you're going to transform the economy in ways you can't possible predict accurately enough to plug all the possible holes in your setting from people determined to nitpick it anyway, well, there's a reason game settings usually don't dwell much on the economics of magic.

Fundamentally speaking - the whole point of role playing is to determine how would you react if you were really there and you had specific resources available to resolve issues.

In reality (ok ok, cue the LAUGH sign in the audience *teasing grin*) the nature of man being what it is, results in applying some methodology for resolving issues. Depending upon how large the "specialist group" is relative to the general population - determines just how transformative the abilities to cast magic really should be. Throw in the "metaphysics" of what magic can or can't do (for an example of this, take a look at PENDRAGON magics, where it states outright, that certain capabilities of magic is impossible such as bringing the dead back to life, restoring youth, etc) - and you end up with essentially the same kind of problems facing the imaginary humans in a magic capable universe as you have with man in what we call reality. As a beast - man tends to look at problems and resolve them as best as he can.

Wages - in a perfect world, would be such that each person's labor is given the same value as the next person. Unfortunately, this is not the case.

Unfortunately, the Nit picking that comes to the fore, generally only shows up in the world building aspects, not in the play aspects (for the most part). Those who would argue at wealthier characters by virtue of their specializations, are free to do so. Those who want to argue for the "cult of stat normalization" are also free to do so, and those who argue, tend to have someone who takes the contrary position (else, there would be agreement, not arguments *teasing grin*)

None the less - there is the inherent problem of having a structure with a foundation, upon which the rest of the structure rests, and then finishing up said structure (metaphorically speaking) with those things that make it look nice. But if the foundation is largely intended for one type of building, and what gets built upon it is something that was never intended for that original foundation - there WILL be structural inconsistencies at best, or structural infirmities at worst.

Put another way - as you note, there will be issues that can't be resolved easily.

So, the first thing that I see overall - is that it would be BEST if - the spells themselves had more specific limitations that preclude or limit the effects that magic have on society to where it makes it vastly unrecognizable from what we saw happening historically. If a trader shows up saying "I want more for my thing" and the people he's trying to trade with don't have the ability to afford what he wants for his trade item (or thing), then it doesn't get traded. Simple as that. If the item is worth it, and the people who decide "Ok, I'll get by with less of what makes me happy to have that one thing that makes me REALLY Happy" - then the item gets traded and everyone more or less ends up happy. That is why "specialists" evolved in historical terms in the first place. Specialists who hewed at rock, did so in exchange for food or clothing or anything else that farmers were willing to part with. How much effort for the miner for what the farmers produced, over time, shook down to an agreed upon value that became the norm over time, or the historical after a long period of time.

But miners get paid a given amount of the surplus or "discretionary" production - and not one bit more. Veterinary personnel or animal husbandry people got a given amount for their services supported by the farmers who were willing to part with x bushels of grain for Y square feet of hide (or Z lbs of meat or what have you). That is a large part of what economics ends up being. <shrug>

Are mages worth what they charge? Ok, let's go with that. But then, don't be surprised if in the grand scheme of things, only 1/4 of the available mages will ever be able to afford to become wealthy spell casters - supported by 2% of society (the upper wealth level people). And if the wealthy have a finite limit of resources in the form of discretionary spending, if they spend it on magic items, they're not spending it on being patrons of the arts (fewer artists) nor on building structures, or throwing lavish parties, or what have you.

So when I sneak out of my cave and mention these world building issues - it only means "hey, maybe you might want to think about this for YOUR game world". It doesn't mean "hey, ALL games HAVE to hew to my vision, otherwise your game worlds aren't worth playing in". That's just NOT something I'd support for or against anyone.

In the end? Sharing ideas is just that. You pay what it is worth, and ignore what you don't want. Since ideas over the net are in theory "free of charge", their worth is strictly what the readers assign to it.

Possibly one thing that influenced my thinking recently, was a publication titled...

ORBIS MUNDI - where the author makes a point of showing the reader HOW to price things in general rather than giving you a strait up "this is how it is priced" by fiat. The invitation is for the GM who is world building, to actively make decisions on the value society places on individual's work before saying this is what their income should be.

In any event, economics isn't strictly driven top down in lower tech societies. If it took 10 farmer families to support 1 non-farming specialist - then the existence of that one specialist is wholely dependent upon the fortunes of the non-specialists. That equation is not going to change for the city folks, if anything, it is going to become even worse. The balance between the specialists and the non-specialists will ultimately determine just how much "wealth" is available for specialists at all, let alone mage specialists.

[AlexanderHowl]

But magic really changes the economy with the most basic of spells. With just Shape Earth-15, a mage can move 10 cubic yards of hard soil per hour a distance of 120 yards, allowing for the rapid creation of canals, foundations, roads, etc. The same amount of work would require a team of forty laborers, meaning that one mage would do the work of forty men. Even if the mage was paid enough for a Comfortable income, he or she would cost ten percent as expensive as forty laborers at Struggling income.

[roguebfl]

Hal, that's only an argument of how many skilled artisans the location an support, and not an argument that they would charges less for the work than artisans who require far less training they do

[hal]

Originally Posted by roguebfl

Hal, that's only an argument of how many skilled artisans the location an support, and not an argument that they would charges less for the work than artisans who require far less training they do

The point is - the amount of training required to engage in your profession is largely immaterial.

All of the specialists will be in direct competition for the limited resources of the discretionary spending afforded to the "specialists". The basics such as housing, food, taxes, fees etc - need to be met first, before the luxury items can be met. If the specialists provide essential services (such as a butcher might provide), then theirs will get the lion's share of business as far as the discretionary spending of the others.

Granted, if the mageborn can provide essential services, then they will get a certain amount of business. If "lighting" costs are essential to someone, and spending $2 a shot for a spell that provides light for a given amount of time - then those who can afford the service of the spell caster might say "Yup, worth every silver penny we spend on it". But that's the point that was being made. If a mage can charge $2 per spell casting, and have a total of 80 customers a week, then that spell caster is making 160 a week, or about 640 a month. At TL 2, that's social status 0 income. By TL 3 (per GURPS RAW), that's still in the struggling income territory.

A doctor who serves the poor won't make the same income as a doctor who serves the rich. If a butcher charges so much that he can only get four customers for a week, then that's all his income will provide him, even if GURPS specifies that he should be making nearly $200 a month.

In the end - wages paid to you by an employer is different than an income you derive by running your own business. More importantly, if you're competing for the same money that everyone else is - if your services are not essential, but essentially a luxury to your clients - then your income will be severely curtailed.

But - that's not something people look at, which is fine <Shrug>. It ends up resulting in a "Let's agree to disagree" and leave it at that. So - I'll leave it at that, and let this drop.

On to a different note...

I did neglect to mention one issue that, RAW, Enchanter's income levels do not match those of GURPS rules...

Specifically? If a mage is working on an item that takes say, 400 energy to enchant, the enchanter has to work non-stop for 400 consecutive days. The worth of his item being manufactured and sold on the open market (not inclusive of the underlying cost of the item the enchantment is laid upon) works out to $33 x 400 days or $13,200.

400 days is 1 year, 35 days worth of labor or 1.09 years (give or take) or 13.15 months. Dividing 13,200 by 13.15 works out to be roughly $1,007 income per month, but the poor schlep is working a fully 30 days per month instead of the 20 days per month that a 40 hour per week worker normally works.

No holidays, no days off, etc. so we're not measuring apples to apples, oranges to oranges. ;)

Hell, who'd WANT to be an echanters under those circumstances? Not time for a family, no time for your own self, and lastly - no margin of error in the event one gets sick and can't work.

But, that's nothing people look at when they discuss the economics of GURPS and GURPS MAGIC...

;)

[a humble lich]

Originally Posted by hal

...

No holidays, no days off, etc. so we're not measuring apples to apples, oranges to oranges. ;)

Hell, who'd WANT to be an echanters under those circumstances? Not time for a family, no time for your own self, and lastly - no margin of error in the event one gets sick and can't work.

But, that's nothing people look at when they discuss the economics of GURPS and GURPS MAGIC...

;)

Its even worse when you look at enchanters working with Quick and Dirty enchanting. They get weekends, but their job requires them to work themselves to the point where they collapse from exhaustion, several times a day, five days a week. For this the get average income, the same as a butcher. To qualify for this top flight job, they have to have Magery, at least three spells at 15+, and at least 8 other spells, which seem like tougher prerequisites than modern doctors.

Another thing which is often lacking from these discussions on the economics of magic is critical failures. Each casting has a 0.004% chance of summoning a demon. On average, the guy maintaining 80 continual light spell will last about 5.6 years before he summons a demon. For most casters who are not at the archmage level, the demon will kill him and several bystanders. Again, not the sort of job I would like.

This can be countered by hiring guards, but that cuts into profits, and to be safe you probably would like at least three or four guards. Several wizards can work together so they only need one set of guards between them, but that also will increase the rate at which demons appear. A high rate professional wizard is not a safe occupation.

Other critical failures are much less severe, but looking at the critical table there are issues like injury and forgetting your money making spell for a week.

Another thing that is often left out of these source of discussions is the wizard will have to spend a not insignificant time on non spell casting activities, like finding clients, meeting with clients, advertising, financial activities, etc. They can hire assistants to help, but again that cuts into profits.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Then you have to consider what kind of GURPS magic:

With Sorcery you don't have to worry about critical failures or much of a FP cost, but depending on the spell a professional sorcerer could end up having only the one thing they can do (because their character budget can only afford the one).

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by hal

The point is - the amount of training required to engage in your profession is largely immaterial.

Untrue. It influences what profession people choose to enter. This does have a rather long lead time, but unless the economy is rapidly changing that probably won't matter.

[AlexanderHowl]

I do think that the critical failure table is rather harsh for magical jobs. I think that any non-combat magic should just cost them an extra 1d FP on a critical failure. When it comes to monthly job rolls, only a critical failure on them would result on a roll on the magical critical failure table.

[hal]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Untrue. It influences what profession people choose to enter. This does have a rather long lead time, but unless the economy is rapidly changing that probably won't matter.

agreed. Whether or not someone will become a practicing mage is not only dependent upon having magery that permits spell casting in the first place, but also the income that accompanies the ability to cast the spell while on the job.

I guess the best way to get my point across (as I told my wife today driving, sometimes I can get a point across easily, and sometimes I struggle to get my point across clearly...)

Thought experiment:

Assumption: only the "discretionary" spending income of any given individual, may be used to pay the wage of a given Mageborn spell caster.

Stipulation: only 10% of any given discretionary expenditure - will be considered to be a viable incentive to buy a given non-essential service supplied by a mageborn professional.

Question: how many struggling families does it take to provide enough income (ie a month's wage for any given social status mage professional)?

Showing of the math: Struggling income is 1/2 standarding income, or $350 per month at TL 3. Cost of living for a status -1 individual is $300 a month. Discretionary spending is now $50 per month. 10% of 50 is 5. 700/5 = 140.

The number of struggling income customers required to keep a single mageborn professional earning $700 per month becomes 140 customers for 4 weeks. Dividing this by 4, that works out to 35 customers per week. At 5 days a week, that works out to 7 customers a day. This is all predicated upon the idea, that the spells being cast 7 times per day, on average, costs $5 per spell casting.

If you change it to "status 0 customers" the numbers change. Their discretionary income at TL3 works out to $700 per month less $600 for cost of living for status 0. 10% of 100 is $10. 700/10 is 70 customers per month. That works out to 17.5 customers per week, or about 3 customers per day, each paying for services worth about $10 per spell cast.

Now, change the assumption that the mage isn't earning social status 0 incomes and is living at Social Status 1. The mageborn would need to make roughly $1,400 per month.

So, how many "struggling status -1" customers are required to maintain such a mage? How many status 0 customers? The moment you reach the $33 per day of enchantment for magic items, and the magic items take over 100 days to enchant, just about every single one of those items being sold by the enchanter will only be purchased by status 1 or higher individuals. Now our "specialist" is competing with all of the other specialists that cater to the needs of the status 1+ clientel. Now, money spent on the mageborn specialist is money not being spent on the other specialists. The more the mageborn specialist sucks up out of the available funds - the less the other professionals will be able to make, thereby potentially causing their numbers to go down, or their incomes to take a hit and drop their social status a bit down the ladder.

in the end? The only people who might care about this are the world builders. All of the rest couldn't care one whit - and perhaps rightfully so. <shrug>

[AlexanderHowl]

Why would basic magic not come under standard of living? In a fantasy world, magic should be as much a part of standard of living as technology is a part of our standard of living. In the case of Continual Light, I imagine a Status-1 household would have one such light, a Status 0 household two, etc, until a Status 7 household would be multiple properties awash with light.