[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

I don't have a problem with those numbers. Cavemen spend all their working time just to subsist. Starfarers work a full-time job, and most of their cash goes to entertainment, vehicles, travel, whatever they like. For adventurers, most of the extra cash will go toward heaps of adventuring equipment. This is what the system is trying to do.

If that's you think the flat CoL trying to model, well it doesn't. Firstly, TL0 'cavemen' worked less hard, and had a better standard of living, than TL1-2 farmers, to the point that a TL2 farmer with Status-0 was reasonably well-off, while a TL0 hunter-gather probably couldn't have Status-0 (though having to rely entirely on themselves they could end up with limited Wealth and income for various reasons).

Why can't an Average Wealth, Status 0 citizen of a TL12 society spend their $10,600/month wages on a Status 4 Cost of Living? They can! If their society cares about things like Status, then they'll trigger the consequences of living above their station as given on page B265. If they live in a classless meritocracy, then there might be no consequences to living a Status 4 lifestyle, and everyone of Average Wealth will do it. They'll still be Status 0, unless they have ways of getting more Status, and won't be able to influence people with their high Status, because they won't have any. (If everyone has a fancy car and fancy clothes, then you can't drive up in your fancy car in your fancy clothes to impress on everyone that you're in charge here.)

So, just about every 'middle class' person in modern western societies is 'living beyond their Status?'. If so, then they aren't, because that new level of expenditure becomes the norm for their Status. Also, even after converting for time and place, the $600/month for Status 0 won't buy you Status 0 living here in NZ (and it didn't in the early 2000s either, even after conversion for a different place and currency). It might-ve bought Status -1 living, barely (and by living in a cheap part of the country, which has its own problems and is arguably an indicator of lower Status anyway).

There is no such advantage as "Doesn't Have to Work." Independent Income is not the "doesn't have to work" advantage. Independent Income is the "extra cash without needing a job to get it" advantage. I think this is at the heart of your difficulty with this. The point of Independent Income is not to support your Cost of Living in place of a job; the point is just to have a source of income other than a job. What you do with that extra income is up to you. How that extra income compares with your Cost of Living is irrelevant.

No, it's really not. It's one determinant of how much value 'doesn't have to work' has. At TL5, II-10 gets me about the same money as taking a part-time job for half hours (assuming the job pays correctly for my Wealth). At TL10 it means I get almost as much as I would from a full-time job (as much as a slightly low-paying one).

At TL5 when the GM says "... and nothing interesting happens for six months), the fully employed PC gets 26 weeks x 40 hours x 1/4 / 200 = 1.3 points in on the job skill points (quite possibly that means in skills they aren't that interested in), and has to spend their off-work hours to get training in what they want.

At TL10 those same points mean 0.65 points in one-the-job training, and 1.3 points in whatever they want and they have their spare time still free for whatever they want.

At TL12, they have 40 hours a week in extra spare time.

That's all aside from having a silly amount of extra money every month if you use the CoL as presented. At TL12 II-10 gives you the money to go from Average to Comfortable Wealth in under a year, without having to work. That kind of Wealth accumulation is the hallmark of the extremely wealthy, not Status 0 people of average means (and II-10 should not be the indicator of extreme wealth).