Quote:
Originally Posted by Anthony
I'd probably just note that this is really just applying the 80/20 rule to income as well as initial resources. I'd probably do something simpler for PCs such as "hourly income = base wealth/1,000; CoL = base wealth/10", so it takes 100 hours/month to cover your cost of living.
|
That puts Average hourly income at $20/hour at TL 8, which at first I thought was high, but a bit of online research indicates that's roughly where "middle class" was defined in 2004. So, ~$2000 per month, and CoL of $1000 per month, making Starting Wealth worth around 20 months - 1 year, 8 months - worth of savings. That sounds workable - but again, you're looking at less spending money during play for employed PC's ($1000 per month instead of $2000 per month).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Anthony
This also means 1 level of independent income is worth 10 hours per month (1 point in less sleep would be half an hour a day or 15 hours per month, but less sleep doesn't count against your limit of 8 hours per day for long tasks; this in turn implies "can work long hours without penalties" is worth 1 point for +1 hour/day).
|
That works.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Anthony
The 1/10 rule, while simple, does produce costs below survivable levels for Struggling at TL 0 and Poor at TL 1-3, so there might be a need to tweak things at TL 3 and lower.
|
If Starting Wealth scaled at a more constant rate, this wouldn't be an issue. Going with $20k for TL 8 as the standard and following SSR, TL 6-12 would be largely unchanged (the only difference: TL 11 would be $70k instead of $75k), but TL 5 would be $7k (or $7.5k), TL 4 would be $5k, TL 3 would be $3k, TL 2 would be $1.5k, TL 1 would be $1k, and TL 0 would be $700 (or $750). That puts the bare-minimum floor - TL 0 Poor - at $140 ($150) Starting Wealth, and $14/month ($15/month) for CoL. That's a bit below your suggested $25/month floor, but not egregiously so. Of course, we could adjust it so CoL goes down a bit relative to income as TL increases - if TL 0 Poor has CoL of $25, that's around 1/6th of Starting Wealth; with TL 8 being 1/10th, that implies +0.5 to the divisor per +1 to TL (TL 3 is 1/7.5, TL 12 is 1/12). Those all seem workable.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stormcrow
No it shouldn't, because GURPS IS NOT A SIMULATOR. It's not trying to model the economic forces behind personal income. It's just giving you some sliders that let you earn more or less money, and some more sliders that determine what happens when you have more or less money. And the main purposes of all these rules are to see if you can buy stuff and to see how you interact with people. The pretend money is just a means to an end. The character points are just a means to an end.
|
From a gamist ("not a simulator") perspective, what makes more sense to base a wealth-generation trait on - the rules that are already in play for generating wealth (jobs) or something tangentially related (starting wealth, which is equal to 10 months' wages minus 10 months' CoL)? I'd argue for the former as more narratively useful - "Each [1] means you need to work 4 hours less each month to gain your normal monthly wages" makes more sense as a trait to me.