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Old 09-27-2018, 02:43 PM   #31
Kromm
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Default Re: Conversation Rate of G$ To Real World Dollars

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Originally Posted by whswhs View Post

The size of house she wants rents for $100/month.
Rent is a whole other crazy thing, of course.

I spent most of April and May searching for an apartment. I saw the same surface area, with the same amenities, in the same state of repair, going for everything from $600/month to $2,000/month. The sole difference was neighborhood. I don't mean "How classy/safe/upscale is the neighborhood?"; I mean "How easy is it to get from this neighborhood to others?" Which I should add has nothing to do with access to goods and services . . .

I passed on several places with half my current rent not because the area was bad and not because the area lacked shops, but because the neighborhoods were far from downtown and because mass transit to my girlfriend's place, my doctor, my therapist, where I go to dance, etc. wasn't a sensible option.

This doesn't map in any useful way to GURPS Status. In fact, a few of the lower-rent areas are generally regarded as more prestigious here . . . I guess the fact that you need to be able to afford a car, or that you're isolated from the riff-raff, is the deciding factor. Or something.

But honestly, the real world doesn't nicely map to game reality, where gamers expect more $ to buy more utility or prestige in some predictable way. Reality is that random noise on some parts of the curve produces error bars taller than the range of the curve, at least locally.
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Old 09-27-2018, 03:12 PM   #32
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Join Date: Jun 2005
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Default Re: Conversation Rate of G$ To Real World Dollars

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Rent is a whole other crazy thing, of course.

I spent most of April and May searching for an apartment. I saw the same surface area, with the same amenities, in the same state of repair, going for everything from $600/month to $2,000/month. The sole difference was neighborhood. I don't mean "How classy/safe/upscale is the neighborhood?"; I mean "How easy is it to get from this neighborhood to others?" Which I should add has nothing to do with access to goods and services . . .
In Portus Argenti, transportation is slightly less of an issue, because there are 30,000 inhabitants occupying 75 hectares of built-up land, or less than 200 acres; noplace is very far from any other place, even on foot.

However, the $100/month is only rent for the house. The space has to be rented separately from a landowner (legally this works like a mobile home park, partly reflecting long experience with floods carrying houses away), at a price ranging from $25/month to $100/month, which at least gives some variability. The city's occupants are mostly amphibious, so ground rent varies with how far they are from the river; shoreline houses and setts go for more, partly but not entirely for easy access to transportation. I'm going to let the player decide where Nergul wants to live, though her Miserliness may come into play here.

But I find it simplest, in my own campaigns, to say that everyone pays rent, but that if you own the house where you live, you pay the rent to yourself and get it back as Independent Income. Then the cost of housing as such can be folded into Cost of Living, just as the cost of furnishings can be subsumed under the 80% of starting wealth that covers fixed assets.

Of course all this is amazingly simplified. But even with the PCs moving into the bourgeoisie (NOT the petit bourgeoisie, please note!), I don't think they want a whole campaign that treats real property and cost of living in quite as much detail as GURPS uses for combat. . . .
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Old 09-27-2018, 03:21 PM   #33
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Default Re: Conversation Rate of G$ To Real World Dollars

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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 $811. If we assume that not all income goes toward CoL and remember that not all the world lives at TL8, I imagine it isn't too nuts to say we're looking at Struggling, supporting Status -1, for much of the world.
Thinking about it biologically, an approximate answer might be to have a warm-blooded animal's food consumption be proportional to the square of its ST. So, for example, the "men" in my fantasy world would consume 121% of daily rations, if male, or 81%, if female, and children would need proportionately less.
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Old 09-27-2018, 04:18 PM   #34
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Default Re: Conversation Rate of G$ To Real World Dollars

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Status 0 means the same thing in both.
Wait, a TL 3 free farmer has WiFi in his home?

On the topic of ST and CoL, calorie requirements are going to scale with metabolic rate, and it's fair to set that as a multiple of BL, but the difference between a 1,500 Calorie diet and a 3,000 Calorie diet is noise-level relative to anything above status -2 CoL.
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Old 09-27-2018, 04:22 PM   #35
scc
 
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Default Re: Conversation Rate of G$ To Real World Dollars

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Wait, a TL 3 free farmer has WiFi in his home?
No. That sort of thing is where GURPS Status breaks down, but things like accommodation footage and amount/quality of food don't change with TL, what does change if what level of lifestyle you can afford at a given Status.
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Old 09-27-2018, 04:34 PM   #36
Anthony
 
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Default Re: Conversation Rate of G$ To Real World Dollars

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Originally Posted by scc View Post
No. That sort of thing is where GURPS Status breaks down, but things like accommodation footage and amount/quality of food don't change with TL, what does change if what level of lifestyle you can afford at a given Status.
Um... no, accommodation size and quality and food quality most certainly does change. Among the features of a reasonable TL 8 apartment which would either be only for the wealthy or completely unavailable at TL 3 include:
  • Indoor plumbing.
  • Glass windows.
  • Bright smoke-free lighting.
  • Smoke-free heating and cooking. In some climates, cooling as well.
  • A refrigerator.
  • Telecommunications.
  • Urban services -- trash collection, fire fighting, police.
etc. Almost certainly square footage is different as well.
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Old 09-27-2018, 04:38 PM   #37
David Johnston2
 
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Default Re: Conversation Rate of G$ To Real World Dollars

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Originally Posted by Anthony View Post
Um... no, accommodation size and quality and food quality most certainly does change. Among the features of a reasonable TL 8 apartment which would either be only for the wealthy or completely unavailable at TL 3 include:
  • Indoor plumbing.
  • Glass windows.
  • Bright smoke-free lighting.
  • Smoke-free heating and cooking. In some climates, cooling as well.
  • A refrigerator.
  • Telecommunications.
  • Urban services -- trash collection, fire fighting, police.
etc. Almost certainly square footage is different as well.
In our history it got smaller as average family size declined and live in servants became less of a thing.
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Old 09-27-2018, 05:01 PM   #38
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Default Re: Conversation Rate of G$ To Real World Dollars

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In our history it got smaller as average family size declined and live in servants became less of a thing.
Yes, but what you want is square footage for a single status 0 person. The actual living space per person is increased.
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Old 09-27-2018, 07:11 PM   #39
dcarson
 
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Default Re: Conversation Rate of G$ To Real World Dollars

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Yes, but what you want is square footage for a single status 0 person. The actual living space per person is increased.
For Status 0 maybe. The traditional 2 room farmer cottage with a family of 8 in it has a lot less room then now.
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Old 09-27-2018, 07:16 PM   #40
scc
 
Join Date: Mar 2013
Default Re: Conversation Rate of G$ To Real World Dollars

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Originally Posted by Anthony View Post
Um... no, accommodation size and quality and food quality most certainly does change. Among the features of a reasonable TL 8 apartment which would either be only for the wealthy or completely unavailable at TL 3 include:
  • Indoor plumbing.
  • Glass windows.
  • Bright smoke-free lighting.
  • Smoke-free heating and cooking. In some climates, cooling as well.
  • A refrigerator.
  • Telecommunications.
  • Urban services -- trash collection, fire fighting, police.
etc. Almost certainly square footage is different as well.
Gawk, you're right of course. My point is that most people seem to think that if someone has Status 0, that's all they'll pay for, even if they can afford more.
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