Oddities in Monthly Pay Table

[hal]

And herein lies the problem with GURPS is not an economic simulator...

If you want to try to determine how reasonable prices are in society - you need to either go with the rules you got (a variant of you right the war with the weapons you have) or you create a new tool to handle what the current tools can not.

I've researched the cost of land per acre during the 1870's for use with my Old West Campaigns. That is why I know that getting your hands on all of the older Census data holds a wealth of information for a GM if they but want it.

I've researched costs for the 1920's - secured online copies of order catalogs such as SEARS and MONTGOMERY WARDS just so I can get the prices to a more realistic level. It helps that again, I can download the census data to get wages for various career categories and take it from there. That is HALF the fun of being a GM in the first place - RESEARCHING real world data. ;)

If you ever want to have your eyes opened, go visit some of the older mansions of tycoons from the turn of the century and the luxuries they had that the common people didn't have. Our day to day stuff is superior to their luxuries for sure, but keep in mind one thing...

Socioeconomic levels compare each class of people against each other in the same time period, not from 1 or more generations prior to today. My dad purchased a parcel of land that was unimproved. He commented that the time, the lot was appraised in value to equal that of a high end car. When he finally sold it after having owned the lot over 30 years - he sold it for...

Yup, you guessed it, what it would cost to buy a high end car.

[rkbrown419]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Um.... that's not actually true. Absolute discretionary income certainly increases, but as a percentage of income it really doesn't; the rule for the last few thousand years is "a single male, couple without children, or couple with adult children is net income positive; a couple with young children and no working offspring is struggling and likely needs external support". This tells us that lifestyle as a percentage of income is pretty close to a TL-invariant 50%.

Shouldn't cost of living be per individual? That is a household has to be able to cover the personal cost of living of the parent(s) and children. Granted, the social stigma of Youth puts the children's cost of living somewhat lower than that of the parents, probably one or two status levels less. The need to keep the rapidly growing children clothed and fed probably keeps their cost of living from being as low as it should be considering their room and board situation, ie. The child has a room or part of a room of their own and has to depend on the parents for transportation. Consequently, a modern family can struggle to cover the middle class cost of living for two parents and the kids on an average income but a single person or couple without children has a great deal of income left for discretionary spending. The lower income and wealth at lower tech levels fits into the phenomenon of child labor. Cave men probably had the children helping forage for food, with supervision, as soon as they could be trusted to know what was and wasn't edible. As technology advanced children still helped weed, collect eggs and so on and only the children of the wealthy could afford to be idle. It's been a fairly recent phenomenon, historically speaking, to expect children to have time for full time education instead of helping to feed the family and that's due to the parents making enough to feed everyone without the children pitching in.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Varyon

I had thought part of increasing TL's was that people could maintain their lifestyles more readily if they have to take time away from working, albeit not quite to the extreme of GURPS.

According to the world bank, 80% of the global population lived in extreme poverty in 1800 (while that is nominally TL 5, most of the population would be subsistence farmers at the equivalent of TL 2-3). This tells us that cost of living for a subsistence farmer is less than around $40 (it's $1/day in 1996 dollars, GURPS $ is more like 2004), and that's not even low status, if it's 80% of the population that's status 0.

Note that this ignores PPP, but that's probably appropriate for GURPS, most of the reason for PPP is things that aren't traded on the larger market, and most things that have specific prices in GURPS would be unaffected by PPP.

A significant issue is that low tech economies just aren't cash-based for most people, and in particular most things that are covered by cost of living, would not be purchased in cash, they'd be paid for in labor. It's probably more reasonable to discard spending money on cost of living entirely and just say it costs 10 days per month at medium status.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

NPCs who remain at a steady Wealth level do not save enough to raise their Wealth level. It's not necessarily that they cannot raise their Wealth level; they simply do not. There may be in-game reasons why they can't raise their Wealth: often Debt, maybe bad jobs. But if an NPC keeps a steady Wealth level, it is explained by their not saving whatever discretionary money they get each month.

And the NPCs (and PCs) that are spending all that extra money on 'nothing much' are thus living at a rather higher standard of living than their status and the quality of their job suggests they should be. People being people, that means that either they get to count as higher status or (more likely), the expected cost of living for their status becomes what the vast majority to people of that status are spending. For TL8 and status-0 that means the CoL would rapidly rise from $600/month to something around $2,000 per month, and we're back to the 'CoL rule' and the 'monthly income rule' not working together.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by rkbrown419

Shouldn't cost of living be per individual?

Cost of living is highly nonlinear in household size.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Varyon

I had thought part of increasing TL's was that people could maintain their lifestyles more readily if they have to take time away from working, albeit not quite to the extreme of GURPS.

Doesn't the average person in the US only have a few hundred dollars that they can access in an emergency? Someone with that level of savings, should they lose their job or be unable to work, is relying outside support (family, credit, state support) almost immediately. Even if you assume that's the case for someone of Status -1, it doesn't suggest a lot more disposable income as a percentage of gross income (or after tax income, which is what we're probably talking about here).

It's a fact that only spending the minimum necessary to maintain your quality of life will result in your overall savings increasing over time, absent disasters, unless your quality of life involves living above your means. But note someone who saves money until they have nominal funds comparable to someone of a higher Wealth level doesn't suddenly gain the Wealth trait - their default jobs still match their Wealth level (if they have the skills they can potentially qualify for a better job, one matching a higher Wealth level, but by RAW this is divorced from their actual Wealth level; for balance purposes, it may be appropriate for them to suffer penalties for this, as their interviewers, clients, supervisors, peers, and possibly even underlings look down on them for being too poor), in settings like DF they still only get as much from selling loot as their actual paid-for-with-points Wealth level allows, the stuff they started with from having a settled lifestyle (if applicable) doesn't magically get upgraded to something appropriate for a higher Wealth level (and considering their holdings should represent a lot more than 80% of their Starting Wealth, replacing it piecemeal will require a lot more cash than just what a higher-Wealth unsettled character would start with), etc.

And if you apply that to NPCs, you'll have a whole lot of very rich Status 0 (and lover) people living in big houses, etc., and then they'll buy investments that mysteriously don't have good returns, and when they get wise to this they'll just live higher status lives. But applying the rules about point spends to NPCs is silly (and not what the RAW say), so most of them will gain extra Wealth, and then they will have nice II passive incomes. All of them will, and even relatively incurious players will start wondering where the labour to support everyone having II is coming from (at least my players would).

If we say, "Those rules are only for PCs", that just raises the question "So what are the rules for NPCs?"

When it comes down to it, the problem is that after about TL4 the listed incomes leave so much free money after CoL that things come apart quickly enough that they're noticeable in play, especially at higher TLs (I had it happen when my players noticed how much money their characters made during a few months of downtime). CoL needs to rise with TL.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by rkbrown419

Shouldn't cost of living be per individual?

The rule of thumb seems to be that a second adult in a modern household costs 1/2-2/3rds extra, and children are estimated at 1/2 each, though with some 'economies of scale' for multiple children. Modern taxation schemes, rebates, refunds, support payments, subsidies, etc. make anything more precise next to impossible to find, even before variables in people's living situations mess things up.

Another rule of thumb, for pre-modern families was that children under 5 counted as half an adult, those over 5 provided enough labour to come out as a net zero cost.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Anthony

According to the world bank, 80% of the global population lived in extreme poverty in 1800 (while that is nominally TL 5, most of the population would be subsistence farmers at the equivalent of TL 2-3). This tells us that cost of living for a subsistence farmer is less than around $40 (it's $1/day in 1996 dollars, GURPS $ is more like 2004), and that's not even low status, if it's 80% of the population that's status 0.

I disagree that Status 0 means extreme poverty at low TL's. Extreme poverty is more akin to Status -2 - or maybe even a theoretical Status -3. Status 0 isn't "This is where most people rank socially" any more than Average Wealth is "This is what most people have" - they represent something between a rough average and a nominal middle class. At low TL's, you generally don't have much of a middle class, and so Status 0 (and people with Average Wealth) are relatively rare, as there's a great deal of socioeconomic disparity - the Haves have a lot and the Have-Nots have very little, and rare is a person who sits somewhere in between.

Originally Posted by Anthony

A significant issue is that low tech economies just aren't cash-based for most people, and in particular most things that are covered by cost of living, would not be purchased in cash, they'd be paid for in labor. It's probably more reasonable to discard spending money on cost of living entirely and just say it costs 10 days per month at medium status.

Yeah, this is my assumption, particularly at something like TL 0. Jon isn't out there working a 9-5, his "Job" is hunting, gathering, building tools and shelter, etc, and his wages are a full belly, a warm fire, a primitive roof over his head, and the means to protect himself (and his tribe/family) from predators (including other humans). GURPS $ values are simply an approximation to represent this without having to game it all out.

Making CoL into something that calls for labor rather than money can certainly be a workable option, and you can still have the option of having characters pay for it with money - they pay someone else to do the labor for them. In some cases this will cost them more time on the job than the time they save by having someone else do it, but in other cases (particularly for those with high Wealth) paying for someone else to do it will ultimately save them time.

Originally Posted by Rupert

Doesn't the average person in the US only have a few hundred dollars that they can access in an emergency?

A quick look online states that the average American has around $65,000 in savings, so no. The same quick look does indicate that roughly 1/4 have less than $1,000, however.

Originally Posted by Rupert

If we say, "Those rules are only for PCs", that just raises the question "So what are the rules for NPCs?"

NPC's aren't misers, so they tend to spend a lot of money on non-essentials. A lot (but by no means the majority!) of those Americans with less than $1000 in savings actually have Average or better jobs, but they still tend to live paycheck-to-paycheck because they spend money rapidly once they have it.

Of course, another part of it is that the CoL rules don't particularly represent the reality that not all Status 0 lives have the same CoL. People who are renting rather than own their home have to spend a lot more per month; the case is similar for those who don't have the means (time, transportation, etc) to go grocery shopping and prepare meals at home and thus have to pay others to prepare meals for them (buying premade meals, eating at restaurants, etc). I believe there's a somewhat-famous quote revolving around boots, and how more expensive ones last longer and thus wind up ultimately costing less, but I can't recall who said it now.

And, of course, there's the fact that NPC's don't need rules for this, because GURPS is not a reality simulator. And if you do feel you need rules for such, honestly the Abstract Wealth rules from Pyramid would be better for NPC's than what is used for the PC's, because having the GM do an economic minigame akin to PC's shopping for every NPC isn't really an option.

[Anthony]

I think the simplist gamist answer to lifestyle costs is "characters are assumed to have an X point disadvantage, typically a duty that is non-dangerous but time-consuming, that they must carry out to maintain their status and lifestyle". This is actually more realistic than spending money in the first place, most forms of status are jobs and if you don't do your job you won't keep your status. Looking at this in GURPS terms:

Jobs: a job is, essentially, a duty that is non-hazardous but time consuming. Assume that it requires 2 days of work per month per point of base value; thus, a part-time job is effectively a 9- duty, a full time job is 12-. This is no modifier to the base value of a duty. Most people need a part-time (9-) job to maintain their social position (low status people, or people with low wealth relative to their status, may need more). If you work more days than your job requires, gain 0.5% of starting wealth per day of extra work. If you don't do your job, you may lose respect, assets, or worse, depending on wealth, tech level, and status.

Originally Posted by Varyon

I disagree that Status 0 means extreme poverty at low TL's. Extreme poverty is more akin to Status -2

If 80% of the population is living at no better than a given way... that's status 0.

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by Anthony

If 80% of the population is living at no better than a given way... that's status 0.

No, Status 0 does not mean "the majority of people." Status 1+ means a member of the ruling class. Status -1 or -2 means a serf, slave, or simply very poor. Status 0 is just the default: not a ruler, nor in dire straits. Often in history, the majority of the population were in dire straits.

See, for instance, the What Cost of Living Gets You table in GURPS Banestorm. A Status 0 person gets a rented cottage or several rented rooms and a servant or family members to help out, a small wardrobe, and a work animal if you're in the country or enough credit to hire or borrow a mount for short distances.

That's pretty well off compared to most medieval peasants. In fact, the "Peasant Hero" character template in the book assumes Struggling Wealth and makes Status -1 one of the suggested disadvantages. A Status -1 character in Yrth has a small cottage held in fief or a single rented room, or a small quarters in a dingy part of some large establishment. A set of clothes, some extra rags. The Peasant Hero might be Status 0 with only Struggling Wealth, representing the free-wheeling life he is pursuing, probably making up his lifestyle shortfalls with adventuring loot.

That Status -1 is pretty much the picture of extreme poverty that most of the medieval population lives in.