08-08-2022, 01:49 AM | #51 | |
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Re: Costs in GURPS dollars
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In certain situations Wealth is irrelevant. Many late TL5+ solders have their equipment provided by their government so its cost is irrelevant. The same would be true of a Star Fleet crew though it would be the ship providing the stuff. James Bond inspired spies are much the same way.
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08-08-2022, 04:51 AM | #52 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Buffalo, New York
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Re: Costs in GURPS dollars
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Might be worth your while to dig into it. I don't use it myself, but that's because I have my own "equipment lists" that are period specific. I could run an 1812 campaign set at Sea if I wanted to - using GURPS rules (and GURPS VEHICLES 2nd edition). I could run period specific games set in the American Old West if I wanted to (Have an interest strong enough to have picked up TIME/LIFE librarary books, an Encyclopeida of the Old West that's 3" thick, along with a lot of other references including Old Montgomery Ward and Sears catelogs from the time period). I have an OLD 1900 Catelog that measures some 18 to 20" tall by about 12" wide that I inherited from my Grandfather through my parents. It is really FRAGILE now that I almost HATE to open it. Some of the products contained within it are definitely NOT politically correct today - but one such product is a device/contraption for people who talk too much whom the head of the house hold could/would buy and society would not blink twice at it. Different times to be sure... It is very easy to find 1920's goods lists on the net, and it is also relatively easy to find earning values of various occupations in various states - one need only look online for the US Census material by Census. It is amazing what you can find in that.
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08-08-2022, 04:56 AM | #53 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Buffalo, New York
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Re: Costs in GURPS dollars
For what it is worth - any time I try to convert prices from one game system or currency system for use with GURPS - or vice versa, I make it a point now, to look at PURCHASING POWER before I go with any given "ratio of coins to a given GURPS Dollar" concept.
If for example, you find an item whose value requires a FULL month's income in GURPS for struggling income, then in the other game system or currency system, that same item should take about 1 month's income for a struggling job. Thus, if it is 30 silver coins in the other game system for a struggling job's income for a month, and in GURPS, a Struggling income provides $350 income with a cost of living for $300 (just pulling numbers out of thin air here for purposes of illustration), then the cost of the item should be 30 silver pennies. GURPS use of $4 = one Silver penny clearly doesn't work in this case. 350/4 ends up being 87 silver pennies. My advice is simple enough - compare apples to apples, pears to pears (Or is it oranges to oranges?) in terms of purchasing power. It helps make things fall into sequence a lot easier.
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08-08-2022, 07:00 AM | #54 | |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: Costs in GURPS dollars
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The other option is to convert your GURPS wealth to contemporary currency, and charge contemporary prices. $20,000 GURPS is $20,000 US in 2004, and a gallon of milk costs $3.20 US in 2004. $15,000 GURPS is $1,111.70 US in 1940 (which you'd round in some way - maybe just say Average is actually $1,000 - in play, but we'll just go with the raw numbers here), and a gallon of milk costs $0.54 US in 1940. So, at TL 8, a gallon of milk costs 0.016% Average Starting Wealth, while at TL 7, a gallon of milk costs 0.049% Average Starting Wealth - you can afford more milk at TL 8 than TL 7. The GURPS wealth rules understate the difference in this case - by quite a bit, honestly, given we're looking at x1.3 to proportional cost at TL 7 under the first case, but x3 under the second - and may well do so in many others, but the general trend - that you can buy more stuff at higher TL's - is maintained.
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08-08-2022, 11:18 AM | #55 | |
Join Date: Mar 2017
Location: Brazil
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Re: Costs in GURPS dollars
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Regardless of that, the amount is the same, no matter if your character plays in Scandinavia, South East Asia or the Caribbean islands. I dont think that "average" here means dividing the GDP of a location by the number of people; that's not it. What the starting "average" wealth means is a life without much hardships but also without luxuries, given the TL of the setting, irregardless of the local economy. A group of TL1 semi nomads may all have "Poor" or "Dead Broke" as their particular "average", due to how poor their civilization is. That doesnt mean their sheets have their "average" starting wealth being 0, it rather means that everybody in this tribe have "Dead Broke" in their sheets, as they are constantly starving. People living in (the most boring RPG setting ever) "Grand Utopia" where EVERYBODY has access to a bunch of luxuries without any effort dont have their starting average wealth being $1.000.000, instead all those citizens have Wealth or more (perhaps even 1 or more Multimillionaire levels!) at their sheets, as a sort of "cultural trait" common to all. The Wealth trait doesnt measure local economies, but rather the capabilities of individuals to have access to goods and services. Thus, someone with a Comfortable weath could be considered rich in a dirty poor society of mostly serfs, while someone with a Wealth level would be just a common citizen in a post scarcity Utopia. |
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08-10-2022, 01:50 PM | #56 | |||
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Re: Costs in GURPS dollars
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08-10-2022, 02:09 PM | #57 | |
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Re: Costs in GURPS dollars
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08-10-2022, 02:53 PM | #58 | ||||
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ronkonkoma, NY
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Re: Costs in GURPS dollars
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You're just letting the word "average" confuse you. Quote:
You might put a specific Wealth level in a character template to reflect a certain kind of character stereotype, but you wouldn't put it into a template just because it's the typical Wealth level around you. |
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08-10-2022, 03:17 PM | #59 | ||
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: Costs in GURPS dollars
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I would add a clarification to maximara's statement, however - what you get out of Average Wealth is typically set by the TL, but there's nothing preventing a GM (or setting-designer) from changing this. As an example, DF is functionally around TL 4 (most TL 4 gear is present at normal prices, not at the doubled cost one would expect for being a TL early), yet someone with Average Wealth only has $1000 (rather than the $2000 that is the default for TL 4), and the other Wealth levels are relative to this.
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08-10-2022, 04:27 PM | #60 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: traveller
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Re: Costs in GURPS dollars
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