rules for property ownership

[midnight77]

I'm running a TL8 game and one of the characters want's to start with owning a farm and some land. Are there rules for something like this during character creation?

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by midnight77

I'm running a TL8 game and one of the characters want's to start with owning a farm and some land. Are there rules for something like this during character creation?

Rules don't cover it completely since part of it depends on your setting.

Figure out the in-setting value of the farm he wants to own. Determine how much of his starting wealth he wants to apply to that, then figure out how much Debt disadvantage is needed to make up the difference, if any.

Here's a calculator to determine how much loan value you can get for a given monthly payment:
https://www.calculatorsoup.com/calcu...n-i-afford.php

Another option is to consider the payments to be part of Cost of Living, but that's a bit more of a judgment call.

[Anthony]

You can spend money on whatever, though it tends to be expensive relative to what it gives you. You can use the 'settled' modifier.

[Ulzgoroth]

What's the farm expected to do in the game?

Owning a farm could be mostly Independent Income (though not generally for anybody who could be called a farmer as such). It could be mostly Debt. It could be the explanation for your Wealth level.

Being the sort of farm owner who does most of their own farm work tends to impede adventuring, since you absolutely need to be home at least during the most vital agricultural seasons.

If the farm itself is expected to have a big on-screen presence, that has little rules infrastructure. Though buying it as a Signature Asset might be desirable to keep it from winding up as collateral damage.

[whswhs]

My general approach would be this:

If you own household goods and minor tools of your trade (up to, perhaps, a plow), those come out of the 80% of starting wealth that settled people have in fixed assets.

If you are paying rent for a farmhouse, that counts as part of your monthly cost of living. Likewise if you're paying rent for land.

If you own a farmhouse, or the land it's on, that's Independent Income with a value equal to what your monthly rent would be (since it frees up that much money for other uses).

If you work the land, that's a job. Typical income will be Struggling.

If you work AND OWN the land, the ownership gives you a larger Independent Income, probably about equal to what your income from labor would be—but you have the option of having someone else work the land and pay you half the yield.

That's kind of sketchy, I know. If you have questions, please state them.

[Anthony]

The usual problem of treating investment property as independent income is that you can also realistically sell or borrow against it, and it's going to have a real value generally 100-200x the income it provides; providing 1-2x starting wealth for 1 point may be problematic.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Anthony

The usual problem of treating investment property as independent income is that you can also realistically sell or borrow against it, and it's going to have a real value generally 100-200x the income it provides; providing 1-2x starting wealth for 1 point may be problematic.

That's why I originally defined II as representing capital that you could not or would not invade.

And if you're dealing with a farm, or any other productive enterprise, the "going concern" concept applies: It's not there for you to liquidate for cash, but for you to keep running as a source of revenue. If you liquidate you've fired yourself from your job.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by whswhs

And if you're dealing with a farm, or any other productive enterprise, the "going concern" concept applies: It's not there for you to liquidate for cash, but for you to keep running as a source of revenue. If you liquidate you've fired yourself from your job.

Selling the business out from under yourself is an option, though. And if you've got a tenant or hired hand operating the farm rather than working it yourself, you don't even have that concern.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Selling the business out from under yourself is an option, though. And if you've got a tenant or hired hand operating the farm rather than working it yourself, you don't even have that concern.

Yes, and if you want your character to have that as an option, you shouldn't take Independent Income, which specifically disallows it.

GURPS isn't intended as a realistic economic simulation engine, and it won't produce sane results if you try to use it that way. It's designed to tell stories about people. The story in this case might be that you have an entailed estate, or you're a remittance man or woman, or you have royalties from an invention, or you have a pension from your time in the army ("Lucky to touch it, shillin' a day!"). Mr. Darcy wasn't going to sell his estate, and Kipling's retired sergeant gets his pittance of retirement pay by right and can't sell that right.

I have no idea how to turn GURPS into a game of wealth maximization.

[a humble lich]

Originally Posted by whswhs

My general approach would be this:

If you own household goods and minor tools of your trade (up to, perhaps, a plow), those come out of the 80% of starting wealth that settled people have in fixed assets.

If you are paying rent for a farmhouse, that counts as part of your monthly cost of living. Likewise if you're paying rent for land.

If you own a farmhouse, or the land it's on, that's Independent Income with a value equal to what your monthly rent would be (since it frees up that much money for other uses).

If you work the land, that's a job. Typical income will be Struggling.

If you work AND OWN the land, the ownership gives you a larger Independent Income, probably about equal to what your income from labor would be—but you have the option of having someone else work the land and pay you half the yield.

That's kind of sketchy, I know. If you have questions, please state them.

I agree with this approach with a couple additions.

If you "own" a farm, but have a loan with the bank, I would'd require an independent income as the loan payments would be part of your cost of living.

If you have a farm that is not profitable, you don't have to buy Independent Income either. If the farm is a big enough money pit it might justify some points in Debt. I'm thinking of a 19th century English lord whose farm is failing, but he has to put money into it to keep up appearances.

For most games, cost of living should include an abode for the character as fitting the character and his status. Whether it is a country house with land, a suburban McMansion, or a penthouse apartment, that depends on the PC. And as long as the PC pays the required cost of living, they can give their house any ownership conditions they like.