Costs in GURPS dollars

[Donny Brook]

Is there a rule of thumb for figuring out what things that are not listed in a rule book should cost in GURPS dollars?

Like, what should furniture cost in a TL6 setting?

[ericthered]

For items that are freely available in the modern day you can use 1994 or whatever year it is dollars. year 2000 US dollars are probably the easiest. A good deal of the gurps economy is founded on NOT varying the base prices for different time periods.



There are also a couple of odd gurps resources that can give you prices: mostly notably the Low Tech Companion 3, and Dungeon Fantasy 8. In this case, DF8 page 15 has a small section on furniture.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by ericthered

For items that are freely available in the modern day you can use 1994 or whatever year it is dollars. year 2000 US dollars are probably the easiest. A good deal of the gurps economy is founded on NOT varying the base prices for different time periods.

Actually, both Classic and 4e adjust prices depending on the time period.

1934: Dell Publishing releases Famous Funnies, the first comic book for the public – cost: 10 cents. (Cliffhangers)

Ford Model T Truck 1925: $550
Ford Model T 1926: $260
Ford Model A 1927: $450 (Cliffhangers)

"As a general rule, if you want to cross-reference to costs from historical sources, divide the GURPS $ price by 22 to get historical dollar prices, or multiply dollar prices from historical sources by 22 to get GURPS $ values" (GURPS Steampunk 1: Settings and Style pg 27)

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

If you're using GURPS $ as your setting's currency, you need to take the extra step of converting that to 2004 American dollars.

This creates loads of problems as income and cost of living are set by TL (Classic Basic Set had something similar but it was more setting dependent)

The classic books are kind of broken with regards to starting wealth. For example, GURPS Greece (TL1) is at a jaw dropping $5,000 while GURPS Cliffhangers (TL6) is a paltry $750.

[Anaraxes]

If you have a modern price, then GURP$ = USD 2004 = 1.6 USD 2022, per the US Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator, which goes back to 1913 if you have a fairly recent historical setting. Before 1913, dollar values were largely flat back to about 1800 (with a couple of exceptions, like right after the War of 1812 and the American Civil War).

Basic (B27) gives us the $1 = 1 loaf of bread (or equivalent staple) conversion.

Ancestry.com has an online, searchable database of Sears, Roebuck catalogs from 1896 to 1993. They'll show you little snippet images of where your search term appears, which might or not not be helpful, but you have to pay for an account to get full access (along with the other stuff the company provides).

Of course, if your setting is sufficiently different from real/historical Earth, the economy is possibly skewed in all sorts of ways, and in different directions for different types of goods.

[RGTraynor]

And really, look: a lot of the GURPS $ conversions in various books -- especially the further back you get -- are fiats. Far too much of what we surmise about pre-17th century pricing comes from estate records, and once you get into the medieval era, the more honest economists freely admit that they're guessing a lot of the time about what coinages are worth and measures weigh.

Beyond that, there's the biggest fiat of all: that even over a particular TL, prices are stable between regions and years. I was a college freshman just 45 years ago next month, and the cost in Boston at McDonalds of a hamburger + small fries + small drink (this being my typical afternoon meal) was 99 cents. It's rather more now. Heck, my grocery store charges nearly 20 times as much for an 18 oz loaf of bread than the Egyptian subsidized prices for a KILO of bread. When I moved out of Boston eleven years ago to a town in the western part of Massachusetts, just ninety miles away, my apartment price nearly HALVED.

So ... ultimately, just set your prices. They're not going to be "wrong" if they're consistent to your setting. And when in doubt, things are going to cost what they cost. If the price you set for an automobile is somehow twice normal, all that means is that my character's less likely to own one.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by whswhs

However, ten cents in 1934 is not $0.10 as defined in GURPS 4/e. GURPS 4/e uses 2004 dollars, approximately. Those seventy years made a big difference to the purchasing power of a dollar.

As I mentioned the starting Wealth in Cliffhangers is a paltry $750 and since all the prices in the book are hanging off that you have to a lot of price fiddling to get things to line up. The only books that aren't off the walls are the ones set at TL3

As I mentioned there is a lot of range even within a TL especially the early ones which cover insanely huge amounts of time. The income of 1890 and 1930 way different even though they are both TL6.

Also there is inconstancy with saying GURPS 4/e uses 2004 dollars, approximately. $10,000 in 2004 is $846.03 in 1930 (TL6) but TL8 has $20k as the base which is $1,692.07 in 1930 — that is a huge difference.

Originally Posted by RGTraynor

And really, look: a lot of the GURPS $ conversions in various books -- especially the further back you get -- are fiats. Far too much of what we surmise about pre-17th century pricing comes from estate records, and once you get into the medieval era, the more honest economists freely admit that they're guessing a lot of the time about what coinages are worth and measures weigh.

Beyond that, there's the biggest fiat of all: that even over a particular TL, prices are stable between regions and years.

This is something that the Gurpwiki goes into: "Even within the US the cost of living fluctuates wildly. There are places where $20,000 is average wealth and others (such as New York City) where it would be considered struggling or even poor."

"Actual pay at each TL varies within a range bracketed by the typical monthly pay of the previous TL and that of the next TL." (Basic Set p 517)

Personally I prefer Pyramid 3/44: Alternate GURPS II's "Abstract Wealth" as it bypasses all the fiddling with the prices.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by maximara

1934: Dell Publishing releases Famous Funnies, the first comic book for the public – cost: 10 cents. (Cliffhangers)

However, ten cents in 1934 is not $0.10 as defined in GURPS 4/e. GURPS 4/e uses 2004 dollars, approximately. Those seventy years made a big difference to the purchasing power of a dollar.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

Is there a rule of thumb for figuring out what things that are not listed in a rule book should cost in GURPS dollars?

Like, what should furniture cost in a TL6 setting?

GURPS dollars are close to 2004 US dollars. For historical settings in recent centuries, Measuring Worth can calculate the value of money. Scans of mail-order catalogues can be found on-line with a bit of digging and give you period pricing.

[Varyon]

Generally speaking, you can just take whatever the item currently costs - or find how much it cost at some other time, if you're using an old catalogue or whatever - and convert it to 2004 USD, which is roughly where GURPS $ hover around.

At lower TL's, some items should realistically cost more. Roughly speaking, TL 7+ items tend to be of Fine quality at no additional cost, while those of simply Good quality are cheaper than the default (and those of Cheap quality, cheaper still). Absent specific rules (as for weapons), it might be alright to say that, if you're going off of TL 7+ real-world prices, you should double them for campaigns at TL 6 and lower. Find a set of wooden table and chairs that's normally $100 (probably Cheap quality...)? $100 in 2022 is worth roughly $64 in 2004*, so an equivalent table-and-chair set in TL 6 costs around $128. It's hardly perfect, but should give you at least some decent estimates. I typically use this site (on account of it being first in the Google search results) to handle inflation calculations, but undoubtedly you can find others.

*A notable complication is the fact the US - and much of the rest of the world - is currently experiencing record inflation, and not everything is going up in price by anywhere near the same amount. If you can find a price catalogue from early 2020 or earlier, you'll probably get some better estimates.

[Stormcrow]

Most of the time you don't actually need to figure out a cost in GURPS $. Just figure it out in the setting's local currency. If you're playing in a modern American setting, just find a listing for the item in US dollars. If you're playing a fantasy game, come up with a price in silver pennies, or whatever currency you're using, based on the prices of other local items. Never mind what the generic GURPS $ value is; those are only important when the item is intended to cross between settings or TLs.