Wealth > Status Pyramid Article

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

As a game, I'd say there's a pretty big difference between 'you have the use of the equipment' and 'you own the equipment'. As Kale's post observed, in fact.

I agree. My point wasn't 'gear you are borrowing' but 'gear you now own because of X'. X can be your employers, gambling, inheritance, GM, etc.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

GM says you own extra goodies over your wealth is, well, the kind of thing that may or may not be a problem in a given case but is a bit obviously unfair unless every PC is getting the same treatment.

Right, which is why it's for anyone with a settled lifestyle. You absolutely can't buy a house with Average starting wealth but you get one as part of the 80%. Taking 100% of starting wealth as actual quantifiable money is usually worse but the benefit of effectively x5 money for buying whatever gear you feel like (as opposed to what makes sense for your station) can be worth it, and in campaigns without settled lifestyles you aren't a soldier (ex-soldier maybe) and thus not given equipment.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

You absolutely can't buy a house with Average starting wealth but you get one as part of the 80%.

Average starting wealth in a TL 8 setting is rental, not home ownership, which is totally possible for $20,000 or less; the average PC is 'young adult fit for service', which is not the type of person that owns a home, and it's totally justified to require a point cost for having unusually high net worth.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

Right, which is why it's for anyone with a settled lifestyle. You absolutely can't buy a house with Average starting wealth but you get one as part of the 80%. Taking 100% of starting wealth as actual quantifiable money is usually worse but the benefit of effectively x5 money for buying whatever gear you feel like (as opposed to what makes sense for your station) can be worth it, and in campaigns without settled lifestyles you aren't a soldier (ex-soldier maybe) and thus not given equipment.

I don't know where you got the idea that having 80% of your Wealth tied up in a settled lifestyle allows that '80%' to be inflated into whatever larger amount is deemed to fit the lifestyle in question. But I don't share that notion and don't know of any canonical support for it.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Average starting wealth in a TL 8 setting is rental, not home ownership, which is totally possible for $20,000 or less; the average PC is 'young adult fit for service', which is not the type of person that owns a home, and it's totally justified to require a point cost for having unusually high net worth.

That's one specific example and it includes a car. Even Status 1 includes a house and multiple vehicles, and that's just the extremely expensive stuff. Plus, the point isn't that you have a house you can turn around for quite a lot of money, but rather you merely have a house. If you have a settled lifestyle but need to liquidate it quickly, then the amount you'll get for doing so is a full starting amount of money for game purposes.

What a settled lifestyle gets you is some sort of home with all the amenities of your Status. Unless you're saying I'd actually have to buy the lawnmower, furniture, three televisions, unsorted boxes of who-knows-what, and water filter that most Status 0 people in this country seem to have on average?

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

I don't know where you got the idea that having 80% of your Wealth tied up in a settled lifestyle allows that '80%' to be inflated into whatever larger amount is deemed to fit the lifestyle in question. But I don't share that notion and don't know of any canonical support for it.

Alright, in a given setting, what does the Status 0 NPC with Average Wealth have? Do you actually have to piecemeal go through and buy everything?

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

That's one specific example and it includes a car. Even Status 1 includes a house and multiple vehicles, and that's just the extremely expensive stuff. Plus, the point isn't that you have a house you can turn around for quite a lot of money, but rather you merely have a house.

'Having' a house does not mean owning a house. Likewise, a car isn't necessarily paid off.

Having a real net worth equal to 8 months wages is not unreasonable for the majority of the population that does not own their own homes. There should probably be a means of adjusting net worth separately from the other effects of income (I'd eyeball it at 1 point for +100% net worth in investments, which will provide the equivalent of 0.5 points of independent income), but RAW works okay for up to at least Comfortable and maybe Wealthy as long as you assume assets are either rented or highly leveraged (there are very few people at higher wealth levels that don't have extensive investments).

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

Alright, in a given setting, what does the Status 0 NPC with Average Wealth have? Do you actually have to piecemeal go through and buy everything?

That's an odd random goalpost to set? Of course not, that's basically the whole point of the 'settled' option. However, the setting creator should (A) know to a decent approximation what the standard-of-living stuff they give you is worth in aggregate, and (B) make that actually fit what you paid for it.

Also (C) make sure that the player and (if separate from the setting creator) GM can actually understand what that stuff constitutes. So that we don't have to have these arguments about what it implies when it says you have a house when "a house" can easily run from a small, cheap, rural place worth low 6 figures, maybe less, to a modest townhouse that's worth over a million dollars just for its footprint. And can be anywhere from owned in the clear to in an underwater mortgage.

[Flyndaran]

You' should have that kind of discussion anyway. An X$ value house in rural Colorado is going to be VERY different from an X$ value house in New York City. Property values are all over the place for all sorts of reasons.

[Donny Brook]

Do PCs start play with a job? Who chooses it?

If a GM is using the 80/20 rule, and the 80% includes whatever you need for your job, how dumb would a player have to be to choose the job of, say, notary instead of kataphract?

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

That's an odd random goalpost to set? Of course not, that's basically the whole point of the 'settled' option. However, the setting creator should (A) know to a decent approximation what the standard-of-living stuff they give you is worth in aggregate, and (B) make that actually fit what you paid for it.

Also (C) make sure that the player and (if separate from the setting creator) GM can actually understand what that stuff constitutes. So that we don't have to have these arguments about what it implies when it says you have a house when "a house" can easily run from a small, cheap, rural place worth low 6 figures, maybe less, to a modest townhouse that's worth over a million dollars just for its footprint. And can be anywhere from owned in the clear to in an underwater mortgage.

Status 0 Average Wealth is the 'default' assumption for PCs with the assumption that PCs and regular NPCs with settled lifestyles of the same Status and Wealth have close to the same assumptions as to what they have available to them. And I agree, that's the point of the 80/20 is that a lot of mundane equipment can be handwaved if the setting already assumes it.
A) I couldn't possibly tell you what that is even in modern day in the culture I live in. I have an idea, possibly...
B) ...which leads into the assumption that if everyone at a specific Status seems to have something, I'll assume someone with a settled lifestyle has it. This isn't for gear that the player wants but that setting assumes the player has. If someone is a soldier, I assume they have appropriate basic armor, a shield, and whatever two weapons soldiers are assumed to have (and the skills to use them). Is that too much money? If so, then it sounds like either the equipment is too expensive (always possible) or that the soldier actually has higher Status/Wealth (always possible).
C) The simple rule I've heard from PK is that if you want to 'liquidate' all your belongings for money from having a settled lifestyle, you'll get the money you'd receive for not having a settled lifestyle. It doesn't make sense but it solves the main problem of C very neatly. As for what kind of house they 'have', all prices for maintaining it (which range from rent to mortgage to actually maintaining it) are included in CoL and the 'quality' of the home is within your Status. If the PC is actually interested in figuring out house costs and thinking of selling it and wanting to play a game based around money and taxes then I'd let them know I'm more interested in a game based around narrative, combat, exploration, and social interaction than a game based around exact money management, keeping track of when to use the bathroom, and other extreme levels of inconvenience.

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

Do PCs start play with a job? Who chooses it?

If a GM is using the 80/20 rule, and the 80% includes whatever you need for your job, how dumb would a player have to be to choose the job of, say, notary instead of kataphract?

I'd personally still give them roughly as good of stuff if those two jobs are the same level, but it would be wildly different, just like how gear for a combatant is very different from a scout, mage, or face.