GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

The handling of living above your Status in GURPS: Social Engineering strikes me as... not nuanced enough to be true to real life. If you don't try to conceal what you're doing, everybody reacts negatively, which doesn't strike me as particularly realistic. It makes the nouveau riche social incompetents to the last, when as far as I can tell, the reality is that it causes you to be looked down by higher-status people, but it will impress at least some people.

I guess you could model this with the rules for False Identities, but while this may work for modeling Jay Gatsby, it seems unlikely that men who have car speakers worth more than the car aren't trying to be mistaken for lawyers, they're trying to impress people who can only afford the car--and to some extent it works.

There are also some weird game-mechanical aspects to how this works in GURPS. If you luck into Multimillionaire 1, and you don't pretend you got the money some other way, you're required to live a lifestyle that's less than 1% as expensive as what you could afford (i.e. a Wealthy lifestyle, assuming you get imputed Status from Weath), lest you get an Odious Personal Habit. Which seems odd, plus, if you don't advertise your wealth through spending, how does anyone know you're Status 2 rather than a guy who merely has Wealthy (and the 1 level of imputed status that comes from it). It seems like in real life, part of the reason for the nouveau riche to live as lavishly as they can afford, rather than how old money thinks they should, is to avoid being mistaken for someone who doesn't have money at all.

Similarly, in a classless meritocracy, it's impossible to have higher than Status 5 unless you have Rank. But in fact, do multimillionaires with a job that could justify Rank live more lavishly than those without? I confess I don't know the world of multimillionaires that well, but it seems unlikely.

Thoughts?

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

Note that this is not put forth as a rule for all societies. The paragraphs where this is discussed open with In many worlds, your Status falls to match what you actually spend. But in more traditional societies, you’re born to high or low Status and can’t do much to change it. The rules that follow apply in that case, up to Some societies follow a different rule and the rule for societies where achieved Status competes with ascribed Status. Neither case—purely ascribed, nor ascribed vs. achieved—applies to societies where there is only achieved Status, which would, I think, include most classless meritocracies.

You should use your own judgment as GM as to which case best fits your setting.

Bill Stoddard

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

So there's discussion of how Status can fall to match what you actually spend, but nothing about status rising to match what you actually spend. And the rules for classless meritocracies say you can't buy more than two levels of Status.

Maybe I would have been clearer if I'd talked in terms of a concrete example: a wealthy heiress with Filthy Rich [50] and Independent Income 10 [10] can at most have Status 3 [10] (1 level imputed from Wealth, 2 levels purchased) if she lives in a classless meritocracy and doesn't have a job that could justify Rank. This means that she must live well below the means provided to her by her Independent Income or else acquire an Odious Personal Habit.

Now it's plausible that she could acquire Reputation (Ditz who inherited all her money), but it's not obvious that that reputation should affect everyone, the way an Odious Personal Habit affects everyone.

Or maybe the rules about "classless meritocracies" that limit purchased Status to 2 levels do not accurately describe US society, and were actually intended for societies that are more meritocratic than the US?

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

.

That's because status only rises to match what you spend if you spend it in the right ways.



No. Actually classless meritocracies are unlikely to react that way to conspicuous consumption. It's the very class-aware cultures that react negatively to people getting above themselves.

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

In a society that still has a wide streak of aristocratic values, yes. Though there's nothing to say she can't live in solid bourgeois comfort, with all modern conveniences, a personal collection of fine art or natural curiosities or pornography, and so on, just as long as she doesn't make a big public display of it. Or she can engage in charities or fund parties of adventurers.

But in the modern United States, none of that applies, or not very much. There's very little sense of old money being better—not none, but not a substantial amount.

Being, say, Filthy Rich gets you +1 to Status for free, raising the heiress from Status 0 to Status 1. But she can afford a Status 4 lifestyle. She doesn't get penalized for that. Spending money on a higher standard of living, that associated with a higher social class, raises her Status; it doesn't just get her a discount on the Status she was born to. It pretty much has to work that way, because being Wealthy/Very Wealthy/Filthy Rich gets you only one level of Status free, but supports Status 2-4.

There's a middle ground between classless meritocracies and aristocracies of birth, and the rules you're referencing apply to aristocracies of birth—and especially to societies moving from aristocracy of birth to bourgeois free-for-all, with the upper classes resenting the incursion of people in trade who put on airs.

Bill Stoddard

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

I would not call the US a 'classless meritocracy'. The modern US is somewhat less class-conscious than the USA of WWII, and certainly less so than the USA of the Gilded Age, but classless we certainly are not. We have an upper class that can be divided into 'upper upper (the 1% of the population that controls so much of the wealth), 'middle upper', and 'lower upper', the latter overlapping a bit with the vanishing upper middle class. Then we have a shrinking middle class, and a growing lower class, both of which can likewise be divided in three or more. Just because it's possible to get out of the class you were born in (though it's getting harder to do that), and people in the class above yours aren't generally allowed to screw you over without consequences nearly as badly as they used to be, doesn't men social classes don't exist.

I don't so much want to start an argument about this, but you hit a point that I felt really needed correction. I suppose you might be using a different definition of 'classless meritocracy' than I've ever seen before, though (that's not sarcasm, and I'm not trying to be rude).

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

It's the one from the Social Engineering.

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

I'd be willing to call old money a net zero or even net negative -- there's actually a fairly strong 'self-made man' meme that favors new money.

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

"Classless meritocracy" is a technical term in GURPS. It means a society where Status (also a technical term in GURPS) is primarily gained from free bonuses granted by Rank or by Wealth (likewise), and where you can only gain a level or two of Status by paying points for it.

So, for example, the president of the United States has Political Rank 8 [costing 40 points], which grants +3 Status; he also is almost always at least a Multimillionaire 1 [costing 75 points], which grants +2 Status; but his Status, as head of the world's most powerful nation, is almost surely 8, of which he has to pay for three levels [costing 15 points]. And that makes the United States not a classless meritocracy; it has at least residues of Status as inherent dignity or prestige. But such social positions are unusual in the United States; we're close to what GURPS calls a classless meritocracy.

What you seem to be talking about is more what Social Engineering calls an egalitarian society: One where differences in Wealth are restricted, to the point where no one ever gains a Status bonus from being rich.

You can, if you like, object that this terminology does not match the way the words are used outside of GURPS. But a lot of words have special definitions in GURPS or any game system.

Bill Stoddard

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

Wow. What an amazingly strange definition, as it seems to presume that Wealth is a measure of merit. This can be true, but wealth being controlled by the upper classes is very common in societies with strong class systems.

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

Actually, I remember the Chinese making fun of Obama for not being accorded 'deserved' levels of Status. So probably not TL8 Status 8 after all.

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

Nonetheless it's how the term seems to be used in the Basic Set. I wasn't making up a new definition for Social Engineering; I was just spelling out the implications of the rules as I read them.

It might make it seem less counterintuitive if you thought of wealth not as "a measure of" [some inner, spiritual form of] merit, but as "a" merit.

Bill Stoddard

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

The upper classes controlling the wealth is very different from wealth making you part of the upper class. The thing being discussed isn't the platonic idea of a classless meritocracy but a rough approximation, just as the term democracy rarely refers to the platonic ideal of democracy, but just a system that includes democratic elements.

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

This is far from being the only bizarre use of a common word as a technical term in GURPS; perhaps the best-known example is "Honest".

Another very strange thing about a "classless meritocracy" as defined by GURPS (page B.28) is that it has exactly the same range of Statuses as one that is ruled by a powerful emperor (i.e. Status -2 to Status 8) and actually a wider range than one that is ruled by a mere king. In fact, the rules for Status in GURPS are a bit of a mess, with multiple serious problems ranging from their being badly scattered, through a persistent but not total confusion between government and society. Social Engineering made some effort at cleaning them up, for example in distinguishing Imputed Status clearly, but they are still ugly and complicated and work badly.

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

Every society in GURPS has that range of Statuses because GURPS only has those statuses, and those statuses don't cease to exist just because your country is ruled by a king, or your tribe by a chief. It's just that in those societies, the higher statuses are unachievable.

A classless meritocracy is going to find those high statuses virtually unachievable - as in Bill's example of the PotUS, who might have to purchase up to three levels of Status in order to hit a hypothetical Status 8. In a pure classless meritocracy, he can't buy those levels, and thus is probably Status 5.

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

In a society with only imputed Status, that's true. But a "classless meritocracy" can still have a level or two of Status based on "intangibles such as family background, education, lifestyle, and personal achievements or failures." The head of state very likely has at least some of those. They might have, say, Political Rank 5 [25], Wealthy [20], and Status 5 [10] with three free levels. Or if Wealth differences are steeper, Political Rank 6 [30], Multimillionaire 1 [75], and Status 6 [10] with four free levels. Getting up to Status 7 or 8 is going to be really hard, though, if you don't have vestigial politically based Status for the head of state.

Bill Stoddard

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

That seems like the obvious interpretation of the rules on B. 25–30, and it's the way I thought things worked until others set me straight during the Social Engineering playtest. But this interpretation plays merry hell with the cost-of-living rules and scattered examples that use people of high government rank as examples of high status, for example the cost-of-living table on page B.265. There is an example (in blue text on page B.265) that states that a "person from a good family (Status 1) …becomes "president of a sizeable country (Status 7)" and then enjoys the Status without having to pay the Cost-of-Living. The confusion between government Rank and social Status is pervasive and problematic. The bonuses to Status from Rank and Wealth pretty much have to work differently in a Classless Meritocracy than they do in a standard society (otherwise you end up with the Queen of England at Status 9 and the Duke of Westminster a couple of statuses higher), but there are no rules to support the difference.

That is, in a Classless Meritocracy the bonuses from Wealth and Rank definitely add on to purchased Status. If you apply that procedure to a standard society you get kings &c. with Status above 8, and members of the upper nobility who are fabulously wealthy and also generals come out higher-Status than the king. But the examples make it clear that that is not the way it is supposed to work. And there aren't even hints about how it is supposed to work in detail.

The rules really look as though the designers decided to just make Status such a bad deal that no-one would buy it above 2.


Anyway, if you figure that the President of the USA is typically about Status 5, do you think he ought to react at +5 to the Duke of Westminster? That the Duke of Westminster would react to the PotUS at -5?

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

On the contrary, there are quite explicit rules there. The rule for a society with imputed Status is that Rank and Wealth boost your Status; the rule for a society with Ascribed Status is that they decrease the cost of the Status you have because of your birth. SE spells this out.

Remember that the point cost of your Status has no reality in the world of the game. It's purely an accounting device.

Bill Stoddard

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

No I don't because you are misconstruing those bonuses. Your status is what it is. Getting bonuses to it because of of things like Wealth or Rank doesn't necessarily or even usually increase your status. It makes it cheaper to buy. Also possibly cheaper to maintain.

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

That is definitely not the way it works in a Classless Meritocracy: see B.28. And there is no rule that I know of that explains that it works any differently in a standard society—or at least there wasn't until Social Engineering.

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

Social Engineering invented "imputed Status" and "ascribed Status", it did not distill them out of existing rules and examples. Those rules are not in Basic, and they do not amount to an extension of the games' scope. They repair a defect in the basic rules. And they still don't mesh with that wretched example on B.265.

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

Yes, I was talking about SE; that's what I meant by "there."

On one hand, I don't fully sympathize with your complaint about the rules in the Basic Set, because when I wrote the rules for SE, I didn't see them as an innovation; I saw them as spelling out what was necessarily implied by the Basic Set, and was the only way its rules could make sense (your criticisms certainly helped get me to see that!). In other words, what I was doing was "saving the appearances."

On the other hand, though, it wasn't clear to me whether this explanation—whether you view it as a clearer account of how the rules already worked, or a new rule—addressed the concern you were raising about it. That is, when you say but there are no rules to support the difference, it seemed to me that your use of the present tense suggested that you meant that even now, after SE has been in print for a year and a half, there are still no rules. Because my perspective is that whether there were such rules in the Basic Set or not, there are certainly such rules now. They may not be ideally logical, but they exist.

Bill Stoddard

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

My apologies, that was an error on my part, and not defensible in a thread that was started to discuss a rule in SE.

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

No problem, then. I certainly will agree that the rule isn't obvious from the Basic Set; I had to think about it for a while to work out what it had to be to make sense of the data.

Bill Stoddard

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

To be honest, I'd be tempted to totally delete Status and Rank as advantages. Instead, you just get Wealth (Limited: only for doing your job) and Reputation (whatever level you wish to buy). Means being prez is more points (Filthy Rich [50], Multimillionaire 6, Only for Official Duties [120]; Reputation (President) +4, Always [20]), but it helpfully solves figuring out the proper level of rank for someone in various organizations, and eliminates the issues with scaling where max status is 8 in a kingdom of 10 million and an interstellar empire of 1 trillion.

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

New money is considered to be significantly better than old money in the US, at least when it's been 'earned' (as opposed to won in the lottery or something).

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

I agree that the complex of advantages and systems surrounding Wealth, Rank, Status, Social Regard/Stigma, Reputation, Independent Income, and Cost-of-Living is too complicated and too rigid, and doesn't work well enough. I think it ought to be cleared away to make room for something simpler and more flexible. But I think that you might be suggesting throwing out the baby with the bath-water.

If Status were well modelled as a reaction modifier you'd be right, but I've always thought that that was a poor representation of the advantages of high social standing anyway. As for Rank, I think the "Pulling Rank" rules in Action gave it an entire new lease on life, so that it is now a splendid way of simplifying complicated and fussy builds involving Patron, multiple Contact Groups, etc.etc. It is now simpler and works better than what we had in Basic.

I'd like to see Status stripped of its peculiar reaction modifiers and re-built along the lines of the new Rank. It would then simplify the complicated and fussy builds that you need to reflect having social access to the rich and powerful: multiple Contacts, Claim to Hospitality, etc., etc.

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

A partial rebuild can in fact be found in Chapter 5 of SE, as Benefits of Status.

Bill Stoddard

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

That depends where you're trying to use it. It won't get you a legacy admission to Harvard, for example.

Bill Stoddard

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

Do the Lowells still speak only to the Cabots?

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

I don't move that high, myself, so I don't know.

Bill Stoddard

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

"Wealth (Only for doing your job)" sounds a lot like it should maybe be Patron instead.

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

Nah. The President doesn't own the US armed forces, but he has the ability to deploy them, so they are basically 'his' assets as long as he uses them in a manner consistent with his job.

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

But I think the mechanics for Patron handle that fairly well; in fact, the support provided by Patrons is described in Social Engineering as being similar to that provided by Rank, so Patron seems the natural replacement for Rank.

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

Patrons have actual personalities. Also, I'd probably delete the Patron advantage too, it's just a 'provided by patron' limitation on various other advantages.

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

That could work well, especially for societies with multiple competing social structures (which is at least all modern societies).

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

To further the point Prince Charon is making, the USA also has remnants of old class systems in some areas. Individuals and families, who while not fabulously wealthy, do have socail status. You've find these people in the Northeast, the Southern Tidewater, and a few other places. They are their own in groups. some of these folks used to have power on at least a regional basis a few generations ago. The power is largely gone, as is much of the wealth and influence, but the status seems to linger, for now.

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

I think both families can talk to Lodges these days, and if, in a daring mood, Kennedys.

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

I'm not sure what Wealth (Only for doing job) would mean. If the character can only use these assets for stuff according to the job, this is neither Wealth nor a Patron. It's his employer's asset. E.g. you have an Equipment-Granting Patron if and only if you are free to use the equipment for your own purposes.

If you'll get impeached and/or arrested and/or fired for using the friendly local aircraft carrier other than in protection of USA's interests, for using your spysat to check up on your neighbor, for bringing a lover to the office on Sunday as a secrecy measure etc., you don't have any traits - you've got a job.

This is also why I dislike some situations of characters paying for Rank: if your Rank only applies when following the orders of the next upper character, and comes with greater and greater responsibility, one has to wonder why pay points for it at all instead of going freelance. It just doesn't provide as much benefit as it costs.

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

Kind of a good point.
You are just doing your job. You might command 10K subordinates, but you BETTER command them to do stuff that YOUR boss wants to get done.

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

It depends a bit.

If your job and your adventures are orthogonal or opposed, then Rank (without abuse of position) is useless or detrimental aside from possible imputed status. On the other hand, when an adventuring goal falls within the scope of your job, Rank is among the most potent Advantages possible.

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

If the job is the adventure, then one still has to ask the question:

Assuming the same rank was occupied not by the PC, but by a reasonably competent NPC, would he do the same thing? As in, if the adventure is about taking a castle, and the PC knight orders an airstrike using wyverns, by pulling Rank, because that's beneficial for storming the castle, one has to ask: would a moderately competent NPC of the same Rank order the same thing? If yes, it doesn't change anything and isn't worth [5/level].

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

It will still be highly useful in the cases where the NPC isn't moderately competent or has other priorities - maybe his son is one of the wyvern riders or he considers using air power against a castle unsportsmanlike. Still not necessarily worth 5/level, but useful.

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

Rank has value because it implies an ability to use authority for your own purposes, either discreetly (or, if one is willing to accept consequences later, somewhat less so.)

Come to think of it, if you want to replace Rank, the best option is probably Reputation (Legitimate Authority).

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

If the job is the adventure as opposed to the adventure intersecting with the job and highly ordered such that the place that the PC is in would be filled with an NPC and you don't value the PC being able to do a thing so long as it gets done... then maybe.

But those conditions are variously improbable.

The first is certainly a possibility, though I think 'there is no hierarchical organization of people to do the stuff you do' is a very common thing.

The second is quite rare. It implies that the PCs, wherever they are, are playing cogs in a tightly-fitted machine of some kind. In that situation...sure, if the PC knight were replaced with an equivalent NPC, the NPC is likely to order the airstrike. But will they be? Or would the storming force be commanded by someone without sufficient rank to demand wyvern support? Or perhaps by a knight who, not being a PC, hasn't been doing the zany PC-ish things necessary to be aware that a wyvern strike on the south face of the wizard tower will disrupt the ritual powering the Stench moat...unless the PCs can convince him.

And the third...well, will players not pay more points to play the dragon-slayer than to play their torchbearer?


I'd suggest considering, say...an occult investigator with Rank (and a day job) in the EPA (Probably not 5/level, haven't run the numbers). Most of the time, that's not terribly useful in their night work. But that time the bad guys were manufacturing ferric aerosols to attack your Fae allies without properly disposing of the chemicals...

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

The thing is, we really do consider (Job with a budget of $100,000k per year and no underlings) and (Job with a budget of $1,000,000,000 per year and 10,000 underlings) to be different, and differences in status and rank largely do correspond to differences in budget. The simplest way of implementing that is to just call your budget a specialized form of wealth.

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

But why is the job budget related to personal wealth? If I get a TIE-Bomber when on the job, but can't fly it for personal use, this isn't Wealth. If I'm given it as part of an assignment, but can keep it and use it as I see fit once I go on shore leave, that's Patron with the Equipment enhancement.

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

Because a job-budget of $1M is less relevant if I have a personal budget of $1M than if I have a personal budget of $1k.

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

I don't get what you mean. If the budget is still not yours to use for personal purposes, and you still have legal responsibility for messing with it or badly managing it (even if in the strictly financial sense you can immediately pay out any losses from your personal funds), I don't see what difference it makes.

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

I think he means that if you have 1M$ pocket cash then you don't give a hoot if your company gives you a car or not. If it grieves you that you can use it only at company time etc. you can just buy one or ten or whatever.

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

But modeling the whole thing as a specialized form of wealth to replace Rank isn't good if we consider a job with a budget of $100M a year and 10,000 underlings meaningfully different from a job with a budget of $100M a year and 100 underlings. Which I think we should, especially if the budget is largely discretionary within the scope of the job except that the underlings can't be arbitrarily dismissed without cause or replaced on a whim.

Re: GURPS: Beverly Hillbillies (or: annoyed by GURPS' handling of the nouveau riche)
 

I don't; if I only have 100 underlings, it either means I'm not spending as much of my budget on underlings, or I'm spending on higher value underlings.