Independent Income at later TL stages

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by whswhs

In the case of a TL0 society without money, I'd say that the $ in monthly income represent, not money, but a certain amount of credit with other people for some kind of material aid.

This also works to represent high-tech/ultratech UBI. A low level of Independent Income might represent "credits" of various types or access to subsidized goods or services. The idea isn't to provide wealth with no work, but instead to boost monthly income to the point that someone who would otherwise be at Dead Broke or Poor moves up to Struggling status. Add a Quirk level Duty or Vow to model social pressures to not just live off of UBI alone.

[mburr0003]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Then you can't Trade Points for Money at all, and it's not relevant. Although "leaving you behind" always seems like a weird argument to me. RPGs aren't zero-sum races to see who gets the highest point character.

No, but... depending on "how far behind" it does eventually become a limitation on enjoyment if your PC is constantly being niche trampled or 'left behind' because you're 25 points behind when everyone started at 25 points...

At higher starting points, you you can get to "higher gaps" before you start to 'feel left behind'.

It's very noticeable when you have a 500+ point DF/RPG Character in a party of 250s. Which is very easy to end up with if you're playing ye olde 'paper mans' style of DF.