test driving GURPS Realm Management

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by whswhs

So at TL8, a realm with 1000 people would have 600 people in the workforce, earning $1,560,000 a month. And 1% of that would be $15,600, or the monthly income of 6 people, or of 1% of the workforce.

And since that represents, not workers who are currently keeping things going, but workers who are available for special needs and projects, they amount to what Marx called "the reserve army of labor." That is, they're not currently employed, but can be hired or drafted when suitable projects come up. Yes?

Yes, that is correct.

[Christopher R. Rice]

You can take it a step further as well I suppose: AP turned into cash can represent surplus stock it takes to feed a person a month. The only number we really have for that is on p. B265 which is 5% of CoL for a week of "meh" food and 1% of CoL for break/lunch or 2% CoL for dinner. So each AP could feed 1 extra person one month per (0.001 x RV) / (0.2 x CoL).

So maybe something like (0.001 x $100,000,000) / (0.2 x $600) = 834. So 1 AP is approximately worth 834 man-months of food/supplies for Status 0 people. That's MREs, meal paste, pills, etc. Not full on lush, fresh cooked food. FOR THAT, it would be 1/120th (since each person would be 4% of COL per day) or 7ish man-months of food.

Again, this is just off the top of my head.

Luxury/Precious Goods and Natural Resources would stay best as a dollar amount since those vary wildly from genre, TL, and setting.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

Luxury/Precious Goods and Natural Resources would stay best as a dollar amount since those vary wildly from genre, TL, and setting.

Well, except when you're treating Natural Resources as food.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Well, except when you're treating Natural Resources as food.

That's true. But when that happens its often not very well cooked, probably not preserved, and more foraging than stocking for the most part.

[Kallatari]

I debated whether I should start a new thread or not, but figured I may as well add it here.

While I've made stats for realms in my game for while now just to have it as a background/description, I'm only now actually starting to bring it more into play and looking at actual management of the reals (e.g., The Wheel). And that's raised to questions I didn't have at first.


1. Citizen Loyalty vs Corruption: GURPS Realm Management p. 11 says Citizen Loyalty gives a modifier to rolls to look for "corruption" (black market, criminals, etc.), but then says to use GURPS City Stats Corruption stat instead. As was pointed out in this thread already, the two are different effects, with Corruption representing a modifier to "effective CR" if you have an "in" to the corruption. Is it balanced/fair to use both effects in tandem: The Citizen Loyalty determines the penalty to skill roll to get "in", and the Corruption indicates what being 'in" lets you get away with? Would these be independent stats, or should there usually be a correlation/typical range between the two (with exceptions allowed under special GM-fiat circumstances, just like type of government having a CR outside its typical range, etc.)?


2. I'm having trouble visualizing Workforce Points. I fully grasp Agriculture, Natural, and Luxury. A positive value is essentially a "surplus in storage", and you can use it for something, thus spending it/transforming it into something else, and it's gone, removed from your surplus. That's easy enough to understand. A positive Workforce Points is essentially "surplus labour." That makes sense... until you spend it. Where does it go? Presumably those people did your one-time task/maneuver, and got the intended results (e.g., Gather/Extract to get more resources). But what happens next turn? When the task is over, is that workforce not now free to do something else? Or are they considered to have settled into the overall economy and then no longer produce any significant surplus resources? I would think that the loss of a mobile/transitory workforce may mean you can't reallocate between different tasks/maneuvers easily, but if they're not a free workforce are they not then fully in the economy and thus contributing to revenue? (I'm probably overthinking this one combined with my real-life lack of Economy skill)


3. Why is Military Resources (MR) (p.30) separate from Revenue (p.30-31)? Can I not use my Revenue to pay for military units, or is a realm absolutely limited in military forces according to its MR? Can you use your funds from the MR for something else, at the cost of dismantling some of your forces? Basically, what flexibility is there with cash resources?


4. Is there no cost to maintain the various features of a Realm? If I have two realms that are identical in every way (e.g., size, population, wealth, etc.) except Infrastructure Rating (IR), shouldn't the one with the higher IR have to pay more to maintain that higher IR, and thus have less revenue than the one with lower IR? The Improve Maneuver can let you maximize all the enhancements of your realm, increasing and eventually maximizing your realm value, ER, IR, effectiveness, etc... permanently. It costs money to first put such things into place, but then there's no cost to maintain them, or no way for such things to degrade over time. (As a comparison, the better the quality of a military unit/element, the greater its cost to maintain is).

Related, how would you reflect "I've cut the city's education and road infrastructure budgets so we can save money"? I didn't see any rules for degradation for lack of maintenance.



Anyway, I'm sure I'll have more questions the more I play with this (haven't really hit disruptions/windfalls that much yet), but these are the ones I'm dealing with at the moment.

[Kage2020]

Thanks for this thread. I'm currently looking at Realm Management for how to stat up the "kaers" in the Earthdawn setting (as well as an ersatz, post-apocalyptic version).

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Kallatari

Related, how would you reflect "I've cut the city's education and road infrastructure budgets so we can save money"? I didn't see any rules for degradation for lack of maintenance.

No rules per say but there is this: "The realm-wide Infrastructure Rating has been reduced due to natural calamities, sabotage (by an enemy or internal faction, failure to budget for maintenance, or anything similar – GM’s choice. " (Realm Management pg 41)

[Kallatari]

I have another question to add to the (still unanswered) questions from a couple posts ago:

5. What is the purpose of Realm Size Value (the numerical value)? It seems to suggest that it will be used in calculations later on, but the only place I've seen it be relevant is under Trade, as it establishes a sort of "exchange rate" for Resource Points between realms of different sizes. The definition says Realm Size Value affects Population calculations but that actually requires the Total Area, not the Realm Size Value (and is actually only used for the maximum carrying capacity rather than current population, but this last point is not relevant to this question).

Could the Realm Size Value statistic be eliminated if for Trade we simply indicated that RP are exchanged proportionately to the Total Area of both realms (i.e., a Realm whose Total Area is twice as large as its trading partner trades at 2:1.)

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Kallatari

I have another question to add to the (still unanswered) questions from a couple posts ago:

5. What is the purpose of Realm Size Value (the numerical value)? It seems to suggest that it will be used in calculations later on, but the only place I've seen it be relevant is under Trade, as it establishes a sort of "exchange rate" for Resource Points between realms of different sizes. The definition says Realm Size Value affects Population calculations but that actually requires the Total Area, not the Realm Size Value (and is actually only used for the maximum carrying capacity rather than current population, but this last point is not relevant to this question).

Could the Realm Size Value statistic be eliminated if for Trade we simply indicated that RP are exchanged proportionately to the Total Area of both realms (i.e., a Realm whose Total Area is twice as large as its trading partner trades at 2:1.)

Well Realm Size Value does have meaning for TL when sustainable population level comes into play. A Realm Size Value of Russia or the US (+21) is not really going to be TL8 if you only have 1 million people stumbling around in them unless they have a lot of robots also wandering around.

Realm Size Value matters for the result Flood in the Disruptions Table

[Kallatari]

Originally Posted by maximara

Well Realm Size Value does have meaning for TL when sustainable population level comes into play. A Realm Size Value of Russia or the US (+21) is not really going to be TL8 if you only have 1 million people stumbling around in them unless they have a lot of robots also wandering around.

Where are the rules related to this? I've seen nothing to remotely suggest size vs population impacts TL in any way. (And even if it did, I'm not sure I'd agree with it as TL comes from more than just your own realm, but let's see the actual rules first before going down that rabbit hole.)

Originally Posted by maximara

Realm Size Value matters for the result Flood in the Disruptions Table

True, but it simply gives the Realm Size Value where the flood maxes out. It's therefore just a threshold. You could just as easily have given a Total Area threshold with the same result. (And this has made me think of another question, which I'll make in the next post)

I've not seen anything where the actual Realm Size Value number has any actual use (it doesn't apply in any formula or modify any die rolls that I've noticed). Unlike stats such as Control Rating where each level represents something different and thus gives relevant/important information, the Realm Size Value number doesn't give you any information that Total Area doesn't already give you. With the sheer number of traits you already have to keep track of, why do we even need a Realm Size Value number? It seems redundant.

Was there maybe an equation or modifier that was in draft rules that were removed due to space or otherwise cut that it applied to?