A proposed fix for Cost of Living at higher TLs

[Michael Thayne]

Hmmm, honestly since my big problem seems to be giving PCs too much discretionary spending, it happens that the rules for abstract Wealth from Pyramid #3/44 are more reasonable: instead of having a spare $2000 every month, your threshold value is $400. Anything over $400 is a serious purchase, anything less than $40 is trivial and not tracked. It's not a perfect system—spending $40 a day on lunch would blow a hole in the average person's budget—but it does seem like a better approach for large purchases.

[hal]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Single (by definition) for any single male household. Usually single for households in general, it doesn't wind up majority two income until the 4th quintile.

If that's the case, per GURPS rules, I must be in the Struggling range of income, and perhaps even social status -1 based solely upon my own income. The fact that I'm married and can count on my wife's struggling income means what in GURPS terms exactly?

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by hal

If that's the case, per GURPS rules, I must be in the Struggling range of income, and perhaps even social status -1 based solely upon my own income.

Well, it's a problem that almost all economic statistics are for household income, and GURPS is per person. Checking wikipedia, $60,850 is around the 55th percentile for household income, but the median household does that with 1.46 incomes (not 2), and you live in an expensive area, so you're probably about midway between struggling and standard.

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by Anthony

No, that just makes the cost of living rules worse. If what cost of living got you was actually constant, having it be a constant amount of money would be fine.

That seems like an impossibly unrealistic expectation. During the Klodike gold rush, a single egg cost $1 in the Yukon and a nickel in Vancouver. And they were in the same country at the same time, not spanning multiple TLs.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

That seems like an impossibly unrealistic expectation.

It's consistent with the general GURPS rule that any specific thing you might want to buy has constant price. It produces smaller errors everywhere, but the problem with cost of living is that it's not actually a constant thing.

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by Anthony

It's consistent with the general GURPS rule that any specific thing you might want to buy has constant price. It produces smaller errors everywhere, but the problem with cost of living is that it's not actually a constant thing.

Any specific thing you want to buy has the price your GM says it does, often influenced by your Merchant skill or the rarity of the thing in your setting.

Any effort to make Cost of Living constant would impinge on the ability to make settings behave as the GM designs them.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

Any effort to make Cost of Living constant would impinge on the ability to make settings behave as the GM designs them.

Cost of living is currently a constant price for an inconstant amount of stuff. Either 'constant price for constant stuff' or 'both price and stuff are variable' would produce less visible errors than the way it currently works.

[scc]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Cost of living is currently a constant price for an inconstant amount of stuff. Either 'constant price for constant stuff' or 'both price and stuff are variable' would produce less visible errors than the way it currently works.

From a rules perspective it is actually 'constant price for constant stuff', it's just that that 'constant stuff' isn't goods your character can use, but rather the Reaction Bonus the character gets.

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Cost of living is currently a constant price for an inconstant amount of stuff. Either 'constant price for constant stuff' or 'both price and stuff are variable' would produce less visible errors than the way it currently works.

I don't see these "errors", but inasmuch stuff and price are measured in relation to each other, it is perfectly possible to adjust their relationship by adjusting just one without altering the other.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by scc

From a rules perspective it is actually 'constant price for constant stuff', it's just that that 'constant stuff' isn't goods your character can use, but rather the Reaction Bonus the character gets.

Reaction bonus isn't 'stuff'.