Create Air in Space

[whswhs]

The value of air is not the amount of money you can jack out of somebody who's a few breaths away from asphyxia. It's the equilibrium market value in your particular setting. If the characters are human, then they are breathing air routinely, and obtaining it without ruinous expense, and so there is either free air for the breathing, or a functioning air market (and possibly even an air utility). The price of air in that market is the basis for the point cost of creating air.

This whole argument is what classical economists called the "paradox of value": water is necessary for life, whereas diamonds are a minor industrial material and a decorative luxury; why does water cost less than diamonds? The answer is that the price is determined not by the value of the total stock, but by the value of the last marginal unit . . . and there's a lot more water, so the last marginal unit is worth less.

And pretty much anything that's essential for physical survival is going to be available most of the time in large amounts. So its last marginal unit will have a low value.

Otherwise, if you created gold in a place where gold was abundant, and for a moderate point cost, and then you went to a place where it was far more scarce, the point cost might jump up by a factor of several, and then either character points would be sucked out of you or most of the gold would evaporate. Which is too silly and too much bother to keep track of for most campaigns.

Bill Stoddard