Steve Jackson Games Forums - Cost of living and Create Food

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Re: Cost of living and Create Food

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anthony (Post 2505250)

Honestly, the reason an adventuring wizard doesn't use create food for meals is "I want better food than this and I can afford it"

What if he has Essential Food, which is just 1 point away from Create Food?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Magic, p. 79

Essential Food
Regular
Transforms food, or any other material, into unbelievably good, filling, and nutritious food.

Which seems to be as good as any fancy food.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anthony (Post 2505250)

...possibly with a side order of "I have better uses for magical energy".

Energy is trivial when the delver is in his/her downtime, specially with things like Energy Reserve and Recover Energy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anthony (Post 2505250)

DF doesn't have any real incentives for the PCs to go out and live the high life (nor did D&D), but that's the realistic likely money drain on adventurers.

Because the goal of dungeon crawling games - whether it's Dungeon Fantasy or D&D - are the adventures, not parties. It's all about killing monsters, getting better items, becoming more powerful and killing stronger monsters.

Yet, GURPS has disadvantages like Compulsive Carousing that can cover that part.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anthony (Post 2505250)

A house rule I've considered is something like
Easy Come, Easy Go
If your net worth (including items and cash) exceeds your base wealth (from wealth and points for cash), you're inclined to go out and live the high life. Add 1% of the difference to your weekly cost of living.

Sounds like you're giving your players a free disadvantage.

Re: Cost of living and Create Food

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carlos (Post 2505545)

Sounds like you're giving your players a free disadvantage.

Nope, that's called "making Wealth worth its cost".

GURPS has always had a confused attitude towards money; either the wealth advantage shouldn't exist, or it should reflect your actual wealth. The latter means that if you gain money in play, you have to either raise your wealth level, or expect the money to go away.

Re: Cost of living and Create Food

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anthony (Post 2505547)

Nope, that's called "making Wealth worth its cost".

Wealth is worth its cost. Better Wealth means you're better equipped, which can make the difference between life and death in dungeon crawling.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anthony (Post 2505547)

GURPS has always had a confused attitude towards money; either the wealth advantage shouldn't exist, or it should reflect your actual wealth. The latter means that if you gain money in play, you have to either raise your wealth level, or expect the money to go away.

And the money will go away with better weapons, armor, potions, grimoires, scrolls, magical items, dungeon equipment of very fine quality, etc. A group of delvers can carry huge fortunes with themselves, even if they have a few gold coins in their pockets.

Re: Cost of living and Create Food

In case it is useful to those of you who use the unofficial GURPS Discord, in 2022 we had a discussion about how one might break down cost of living (linked here).

Based on some of the numbers in Taverns, we ended up with food being the bulk of the $150 weekly cost of living. The breakdown was something like $30 for room, $100 for board, $5 for clothing, and $15 for miscellaneous expenses. One could adjust the numbers to fit with your sense of historical/fantasy verisimilitude, of course.

Re: Cost of living and Create Food

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carlos (Post 2505548)

And the money will go away with better weapons, armor, potions, grimoires, scrolls, magical items, dungeon equipment of very fine quality, etc.

That's not the money going away, that's the money being converted into assets. The money going away means... it's gone to no benefit.

Re: Cost of living and Create Food

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anthony (Post 2505550)

That's not the money going away, that's the money being converted into assets. The money going away means... it's gone to no benefit.

Fine. It's still an example about how money can be used by delvers, which means that your dichotomy ("...you have to either raise your wealth level, or expect the money to go away") is not true.

Re: Cost of living and Create Food

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carlos (Post 2505554)

Fine. It's still an example about how money can be used by delvers, which means that your dichotomy ("...you have to either raise your wealth level, or expect the money to go away") is not true.

Go away does not mean "used". It means "lost without benefit".

Re: Cost of living and Create Food

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anthony (Post 2505557)

Go away does not mean "used". It means "lost without benefit".

Ok. As I said, delvers can use money without falling in one of the two cases that you mentioned, so you don't have to either raise your wealth level or expect to lose money without benefit. You can use that money to buy expensive delver stuff. This is why I said that your dichotomy is not true.

Re: Cost of living and Create Food

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carlos (Post 2505561)

If they use the money to buy expensive delver stuff, they should raise their wealth level.

Re: Cost of living and Create Food

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carlos (Post 2505531)

What spell is that?

Vigil, Spells pg 56. It's a Mind Control spell, PI 4. It's not cheap but it'll do the job.