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

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by whswhs

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.

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.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Brett

Social Engineering invented "imputed Status", as a patch because the existing rules had a serious problem.

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

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by whswhs

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.

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

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Brett

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

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

[Anthony]

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.

[Langy]

Originally Posted by whswhs

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.

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).

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by Anthony

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).

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.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Brett

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.

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

Bill Stoddard

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Langy

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).

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

Bill Stoddard

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by whswhs

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

Do the Lowells still speak only to the Cabots?