Starting Wealth, What cost of Living gets you, and Cost of a Sedan

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by Kromm

The box on p. B266 exemplifies the things you can count on having without any need to itemize them or do detailed accounting, under two conditions: (1) you set aside 80% of your starting money to reflect a settled lifestyle, per the box on p. B26, and (2) you pay the cost of living on p. B265 each month.

That's really bizarre, though. A wealthier character sets aside several times more money, but only gets the same stuff as another character with the same Status who pays the same monthly payments.

[Kromm]

Status is supposed to track Wealth. And note that the rules do let you pay the cost of living for higher Status and get the purely material goods, even if you lack the Status. However, you don't get authority to go with.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by vitruvian

Has anybody calculated what level of Multimillionaire is required to have assets equal to the net worth of the entire planet, and what level of Independent Income to go along with that so that you get the entire GDP of all nations combined? Just curious how many points to get the Man Who Owned The World.

Roughly 300 points. World GDP is under 100 trillion US$. GURPS$ are roughly equal to US$ at TL8. In scientific notation, world GDP is $1E14. Value of everything in the world is a really complicated concept, but let's put it at 100 times GDP, $1E16.

TL8 starting wealth is $20,000, $2E4. Multimillionaire 1 gets you 1000x that, 2E7. So you need 9 more levels of Multimillionaire, which cost 25 points each, added to the 75 points for Multimillionaire 1, making 300 points. 1 point of Independent income then gets you an income of 1% of your capital, per month, well in excess of world GDP.

[Hilary_155]

"Realistically, if you have a settled lifestyle, you should put 80% of your
starting wealth into home, clothing, etc., which leaves only 20% for
“adventuring” gear. If you are a wanderer (pioneer, knight-errant, Free
Trader, etc.), or Poor or worse, the GM might allow you to spend all your
starting wealth on movable possessions."

So either take "poor" and start with the same amount of normal starting money (This gives you a free 15 point disadvantage for something you had to play anyhow). Or tell the GM you are a "wanderer" and get all your starting money.

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Maybe there is something wrong with my brain. But I think role playing a bunch characters who are salesmen or cashiers or lawyers is "drill a hole in your own head" B O R I N G !!!!!!

If the players want it, then there are rules for it and that is fine. But I think it is "clowns riding pantomime horses" silly.

Most of the time, characters want money for equipment. Making them pay points for starting cash is also fine, but there should be a way to buy starting money more cheaply than paying the same cost for wealth. 1 point per 10% is the same cost as buying the first level of wealth (Comfortable). Hey, whatever. Do what you and your players want. In my game world, we make starting money cost 1/2 (in point cost) what 'wealth' costs. And you cannot take "less starting money" as a disadvantage. There, you have to take full wealth disadvantage. (which is really unplayable unless they take this as a vow of poverty or the equivalent)

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Hilary_155

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Maybe there is something wrong with my brain. But I think role playing a bunch characters who are salesmen or cashiers or lawyers is "drill a hole in your own head" B O R I N G !!!!!!

This is, of course, one way to read the rules. The other would be "if you're in a settle lifestyle, and adventure in your spare time, having to fight monsters, rescue damsels, and save worlds while working around a busy, boring schedule, then 80% of your stuff should reflect that, and only 20% will be of direct rah-hoo adventuring use."

I'm not a gigantic fan of the GURPS rules for money and wealth, and a few alternate systems and house rules have been bandied around which I like better, but the rule above is for differentiating between full-time wandering adventurers with those who need to maintain some semblance of normality.

Heck, given the number of zeros after his likely net worth of $6.5 billion (Source: Forbes) the 20% rule could be applied to Bruce and he'd STILL have over a billion in Batman-ish stuff. :-)

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Hilary_155

Most of the time, characters want money for equipment. Making them pay points for starting cash is also fine, but there should be a way to buy starting money more cheaply than paying the same cost for wealth. 1 point per 10% is the same cost as buying the first level of wealth (Comfortable). Hey, whatever. Do what you and your players want. In my game world, we make starting money cost 1/2 (in point cost) what 'wealth' costs. And you cannot take "less starting money" as a disadvantage. There, you have to take full wealth disadvantage. (which is really unplayable unless they take this as a vow of poverty or the equivalent)

Wealth isn't too expensive as a way of buying adventuring gear. If anything, it's too cheap and grows too fast. The entire space of plots that boil down to 'need more money'? Cost about 10 CP to blow away. Not that you can't prevent that if you want to. But Wealth is extremely powerful. Having enough Wealth to knock over African governments doesn't cost all that much.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Hilary_155

Maybe there is something wrong with my brain. But I think role playing a bunch characters who are salesmen or cashiers or lawyers is "drill a hole in your own head" B O R I N G !!!!!!

The campaign I was playing tonight is GURPS Transhuman Space, on Mars. The characters are a diplomatic team, whose job is to help out European citizens who get into trouble with other governments. This involves investigating some very weird murders, accidents and other crimes, helping the intelligence services and the military, and a variety of other things that only make any sense in a THS context. We go all over Mars, and have plenty of excitement. But we definitely have homes and non-adventuring property, and routine work that we do between missions. We don't play through that work, but it often provides the starting point for missions.

More generally, working for an organization that sends you on missions is a useful campaign structure. It provides you with a means of making a living that isn't "killing people and taking their stuff", information, and backup. It makes it possible to have adventures within a society that has effective laws. What's wrong with that?

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Hilary_155

Maybe there is something wrong with my brain. But I think role playing a bunch characters who are salesmen or cashiers or lawyers is "drill a hole in your own head" B O R I N G !!!!!!

I find accounting for pens and socks and lightbulbs to be boring, so I generally prefer the 80% for characters that own more than one set of clothes, and a place to keep them.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Status is supposed to track Wealth.

That is not very well explained in Basic. On B.516 the rules say "In many game worlds those with high social standing must buy up Wealth by one level past Average per Status level above 0, but can have high Wealth without high Status. In others wealthy characters must buy an additional level of Status per level of Wealth past Average, but can purchase high Status without high Wealth. The GM might even enforce both requirements and rigidly associate Status levels with Wealth levels...." This describes three options for connection between Wealth and Status all of which are different from the one described on B.26 ("In **some** game worlds... if you are Wealthy or better you get +1 Status for free. This bonus increases to +2 at Multimillionaire 1 and to +3 at Multimillionaire 2."), and from the presumed default in which there is no connection.

In total Basic implies the existence of five different types of connection between Wealth and Status: six if you include "Classless Meritocracies" from B. 28.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by Hilary_155

Maybe there is something wrong with my brain. But I think role playing a bunch characters who are salesmen or cashiers or lawyers is "drill a hole in your own head" B O R I N G !!!!!!

Perhaps. But playing police detectives, private detectives, intelligence agents, special operators &c. is classic F U N !!!!!!! Such people have homes and families and 401ks. Playing secret superheroes, wealthy nobles, and other [apparent] "rich twits with no day job" such as Batman and the Scarlet Pimpernel can be classic fun too. Itinerant thugs don't have all the fun.