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Old 05-02-2021, 05:45 AM   #11
Stormcrow
 
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Default Re: [IW] A Question About Campaign Tech Level

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Originally Posted by maximara View Post
Only in the way the symbol is used. In all other ways they are very different. At TL0 $200 is more "expensive" (as the average monthly wealth is $625) then TL8 (average monthly wealth being $2,600)
No, it's the same value at all TLs. You just earn more of it at higher TLs. The standard of living at higher TLs is higher.
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Old 05-02-2021, 10:13 AM   #12
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Default Re: [IW] A Question About Campaign Tech Level

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Originally Posted by Stormcrow View Post
No, it's the same value at all TLs. You just earn more of it at higher TLs. The standard of living at higher TLs is higher.
The Tech Level and Starting Wealth box on B27 goes into the function of the "$": "The $ can stand for “dollars,” “credits,” “pennies,” or even units of barter. In a contemporary setting, $1 is a modern U.S. dollar. In other periods, $1 equates roughly with the amount of local currency needed to buy a loaf of bread or equivalent staple – not with historical U.S. dollars." (sic)

Effectively a "$" is akin to "corn" in Wealth of Nations. A thing Game theory has done several times is try to figure out how wealthy game characters could become or what items are worth. Game Theory: What is a Minecraft Emerald WORTH? case in point. Low TL and especially TL0 are insanely labor intensive.

While within a TL "The GURPS $ is a constant" when you cross TLs "the price of an item of equipment is doubled for every TL by which its TL exceeds that of the campaign!" (sic)

So a TL8 $200 item would be $200 x 2^8 or $51,000 in a TL0 setting and if the converse was true a $200 TL 0 item would be in terms of raw value $0.78125 in a TL8 world.
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Old 05-02-2021, 11:33 AM   #13
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Default Re: [IW] A Question About Campaign Tech Level

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Originally Posted by maximara View Post
The Tech Level and Starting Wealth box on B27 goes into the function of the "$": "The $ can stand for “dollars,” “credits,” “pennies,” or even units of barter.
Correct. Currencies change over time and distance. But GURPS doesn't measure things in currency; it measures them in $. And the $ is an absolute value across every setting regardless of currency changes.

Quote:
In a contemporary setting, $1 is a modern U.S. dollar. In other periods, $1 equates roughly with the amount of local currency needed to buy a loaf of bread or equivalent staple – not with historical U.S. dollars." (sic)
I haven't spoken about historical US dollars at all.

Quote:
While within a TL "The GURPS $ is a constant" when you cross TLs "the price of an item of equipment is doubled for every TL by which its TL exceeds that of the campaign!" (sic)
Sorry, you're wrong. A TL0 hip quiver costs $15. A TL8 hip quiver costs $15. A TL0 canoe costs $200. A TL8 canoe costs $200. An Average Wealth person living in a TL0 campaign has a cost of living of $600. A TL0 1-man tent costs $50. A TL8 1-man tent costs $50. An Average Wealth person living in a TL8 campaign has a cost of living of $600. GURPS $ are invariant across all settings.

The rule you're quoting is about how much $ you need to spend to start your character with higher-TL equipment than the campaign TL using your starting Wealth, not how $ prices change across TLs.
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Old 05-02-2021, 12:37 PM   #14
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Default Re: [IW] A Question About Campaign Tech Level

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Originally Posted by Stormcrow View Post
Sorry, you're wrong. A TL0 hip quiver costs $15. A TL8 hip quiver costs $15. A TL0 canoe costs $200. A TL8 canoe costs $200. An Average Wealth person living in a TL0 campaign has a cost of living of $600. A TL0 1-man tent costs $50. A TL8 1-man tent costs $50. An Average Wealth person living in a TL8 campaign has a cost of living of $600. GURPS $ are invariant across all settings.
TL6 Bank Teller (Accounting 11+), $150/month (GURPS WWII)

That is the same as a TL8 bank teller?! Only if they worked 20 hours for the whole month at $7.50/hr!

TL6 Street cop (Guns (Pistol) 12+, Status 0+), $75/month (Cliffhangers)

Also the wiki touches on something else:
Even within the US the cost of living fluctuates wildly. There are places where $20,000/year is average wealth and others (such as New York City) where it would be considered struggling or even poor. Different locations exact same TL.
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Old 05-02-2021, 12:54 PM   #15
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Default Re: [IW] A Question About Campaign Tech Level

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Originally Posted by maximara View Post
TL6 Bank Teller (Accounting 11+), $150/month (GURPS WWII)

That is the same as a TL8 bank teller?! Only if they worked 20 hours for the whole month at $7.50/hr!
The 3e GURPS$ is not the same as the 4e one, and I don't think it is intended to have the constant-price feature. The table of starting wealth in the sidebar on p. 16 of the 3e Basic Set makes that pretty clear: starting wealth for medieval worlds in 3e is set at $1,000, and for the late 19th century it is $750.

GURPS WWII uses a different $ again, I think it's intended to be an actual period US$. The 3e Basic Set has WWII-period starting wealth at $5,000, and G:WWII has starting wealth of $1,500.

Trying to interpret pre-4e prices as being in 4e GURPS$ is doomed. Abandon that idea now.
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Old 05-02-2021, 12:59 PM   #16
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Default Re: [IW] A Question About Campaign Tech Level

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TL6 Bank Teller (Accounting 11+), $150/month (GURPS WWII)
That's a third-edition book. In GURPS third edition, prices changed in different settings. The fourth edition altered this, making $ an absolute value. I was very careful to repeatedly say "fourth edition" earlier on. I didn't realize I was supposed to keep saying it. Were you not aware that the way $ works changed in the upgrade to the fourth edition?

Quote:
That is the same as a TL8 bank teller?! Only if they worked 20 hours for the whole month at $7.50/hr!
Sounds to me like you're confusing real-world dollars for GURPS $.

Quote:
TL6 Street cop (Guns (Pistol) 12+, Status 0+), $75/month (Cliffhangers)
Also a third-edition book, and thus uses a different meaning of $ than in GURPS fourth edition. Not relevant.

Quote:
Also the wiki touches on something else:
Even within the US the cost of living fluctuates wildly. There are places where $20,000/year is average wealth and others (such as New York City) where it would be considered struggling or even poor. Different locations exact same TL.
You're confusing real-world dollars with GURPS $ again. In GURPS fourth edition, if two areas have different standards of living, that's represented in the rules by giving people different Wealth levels or different "What Cost of Living Gets You" tables. The Cost of Living in $ for a given Status remains fixed.

Fourth edition supplements have very little in the way of job information, unfortunately. Jobs and Costs of Living are features sadly neglected nowadays. But there are some, so let's take a look at them.

GURPS Fantasy has the job Barmaid ($360/month, adjusted for margin of success or failure, Struggling job, supports Status -1). You pay a Cost of Living of $300 a month, leaving you with $60 a month left over for adventuring expenses.

The Tavernkeeper ($650/month, adjusted, Average Wealth, supports Status 0), meanwhile, pays a Cost of Living of $600 a month, leaving $50 a month left over for adventuring expenses.

These make perfect sense whether you're playing in medieval fantasy (TL3) or modern-day espionage (TL8). The $ earned and spent are exactly the same wherever you are.

The only difference is in "What Cost of Living Gets You." If we suppose the TL3 barmaid and tavernkeeper are on Yrth, then the TL3 barmaid gets "a single rented room in town or minimal quarters in the dingiest corners of some large establishment" and has "adequate clothes for your work, and probably some rags in case of emergencies." Meanwhile, the TL8 barmaid gets "a small or shared apartment, or a decaying or derelict house in a bad neighborhood, and possibly a used (or stolen!) car."

The TL3 tavernkeeper, meanwhile, gets "several rented or small rooms in town," "possibly a servant or two, or at least family members to help you out," "a couple of changes of clothes, one set adequately smart," and "enough credit to hire or borrow a mount if you need to travel short distances." The TL8 tavernkeeper, on the other hand, gets "A house (heavily mortgaged) or large apartment, and a car."
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Old 05-02-2021, 01:39 PM   #17
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Default Re: [IW] A Question About Campaign Tech Level

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That's a third-edition book. In GURPS third edition, prices changed in different settings.
They change in 4e as well and 4e refers back to Classic edition books a good hunk of the time. Heck, B566 clearly states "he following books are still in print and easy to use with GURPS Fourth Edition. The descriptive material, of course, is usable as is. "

Descriptive material, as in what a job pays.

Never mind Basic Set 3e classic pg 189 says "All prices in GURPS (whatever the game world) are indicated by a dollar sign – $ – just to make it easy on the writers and typesetters. GMs are welcome to translate this to credits, copper farthings, Martian foomphra or whatever they feel is appropriate to the adventure." That is effectively the same as "The GURPS $ is a constant, however."

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The fourth edition altered this, making $ an absolute value. I was very careful to repeatedly say "fourth edition" earlier on. I didn't realize I was supposed to keep saying it. Were you not aware that the way $ works changed in the upgrade to the fourth edition?
But it did not change.

Here is how classic explained the $: "For an authentic medieval English (14th- century) economy, treat the $ as a “farthing,” a copper coin about the size of a quarter. A silver penny is worth $4 and is smaller than a dime; 250 such coins ($1,000) weigh one pound."

Now compare that to 4e: "For example, in a high medieval society, each $ might be a copper farthing. In WWII-era America, each $ would convert to $0.10 in deflated 1940s-era dollars. And in a cyberpunk world with hyperinflation, each $ might equal $1,000 in grossly devalued 2030-era dollars! "

Heck, they even use the same example for the medieval society: $ = 1 copper farthing.
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Old 05-02-2021, 02:16 PM   #18
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Default Re: [IW] A Question About Campaign Tech Level

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Originally Posted by maximara View Post
They change in 4e as well and 4e refers back to Classic edition books a good hunk of the time. Heck, B566 clearly states "he following books are still in print and easy to use with GURPS Fourth Edition. The descriptive material, of course, is usable as is. "

Descriptive material, as in what a job pays.
That's not what "descriptive material" means. Prices are not descriptive material, they are rules like character point costs and available equipment and weapon stats. Descriptive material is like explaining how the class structure of the society works or relating the history of the setting — things that don't call for game-related numbers.

When using a third-edition supplement, you have to recalculate or reassign $ prices.

Quote:
Never mind Basic Set 3e classic pg 189 says "All prices in GURPS (whatever the game world) are indicated by a dollar sign – $ – just to make it easy on the writers and typesetters.
Yes, never mind that, because the third edition rules for this do not apply to the fourth edition.

Quote:
GMs are welcome to translate this to credits, copper farthings, Martian foomphra or whatever they feel is appropriate to the adventure."
This remains true, and this sentence, in fact, remains in the fourth edition rules. But it's irrelevant, because it's about currencies, not listed $ prices.

Quote:
That is effectively the same as "The GURPS $ is a constant, however."
The two are not the same. One is saying the (fourth edition!) GURPS $ is a constant, while the other is saying you can convert the constant $ to whatever local currencies you want. When you change localities, the currencies change, but the $ value of the item doesn't.

Quote:
But it did not change.

Here is how classic explained the $:
I KNOW how the third edition did $, and it's irrelevant, because it was CHANGED for the fourth edition.

When I decided to convert GURPS Vikings to the fourth edition, one of the first things I noticed was, "Yikes! None of these prices are calibrated to the fourth edition $!"

Quote:
"For an authentic medieval English (14th- century) economy, treat the $ as a “farthing,” a copper coin about the size of a quarter. A silver penny is worth $4 and is smaller than a dime; 250 such coins ($1,000) weigh one pound."

Now compare that to 4e: "For example, in a high medieval society, each $ might be a copper farthing. In WWII-era America, each $ would convert to $0.10 in deflated 1940s-era dollars. And in a cyberpunk world with hyperinflation, each $ might equal $1,000 in grossly devalued 2030-era dollars! "

Heck, they even use the same example for the medieval society: $ = 1 copper farthing.
Because all this is about currencies, not the value of a GURPS fourth edition $.

If in your medieval TL3 setting, each $ equals a copper farthing, then a meal of TL3 medieval traveler's rations costs two farthings. If, in a different TL8 setting, each $ represents three Martian foomphras, then you can buy a TL8 Martian meal of traveler's rations for six foomphras. Martian traveler's rations cannot be bought for any price on the shelves of medieval shops because they're simply not available, but if you're playing in that medieval campaign world and you decide to be a Martian carrying TL8 Martian traveler's rations, you're going to have to use $64 of your starting wealth for each meal for the privilege of possessing superior technology (vacuum-sealed, sterile, freeze-dried dessert, etc.). And your Martian foomphras never come into it because the local currency is copper farthings, and foomphras are valueless here.

The "keep doubling the $" rule for high-TL items doesn't apply after character creation because you can't buy Martian rations in the medieval shops, and if you sell them there's no standard retail price for these exotic Martian rations — you get what you can get.
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Old 05-02-2021, 04:17 PM   #19
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Default Re: [IW] A Question About Campaign Tech Level

Since we have now the discussion about TL, payment and living standaerds, is there any good reference for the different TLs.
3rd Ed. had job tables nearly in every book or supplement, while 4th Ed. has covered the living standards in the basic book and at least several job templates with a suggested payment, further fleshed out in diverse supplements.
Is there somewhere a general list of 4th Ed. jobs over the TLs and there status / payment ?
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Old 05-02-2021, 04:30 PM   #20
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Default Re: [IW] A Question About Campaign Tech Level

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Is there somewhere a general list of 4th Ed. jobs over the TLs and there status / payment ?
Detailing of jobs is somewhat spotty in the fourth edition, in part because the rules in the Basic Set cover most cases generically. But there are job lists in a few books, including GURPS Fantasy, GURPS Banestorm, and especially a whole chapter on them in GURPS Low-Tech Companion 3. I don't think there's much for high- or ultra-tech, though I would be happy to learn of some.
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