[benz72's Wealth Variant] Where do big purchases come in?

[nerdvana]

This is related to benz72's Wealth Variant (posted in the Alternate GURPS thread here)

Apparently another poster and I both asked him the same fundamental question, so benz72 asked me to make a post to open a discussion on the topic.

My question was about buying a spacecraft... would it be considered starting equipment or property? I can see it either way.

[benz72]

When I originally wrote those rules I had figured property to be narrowly defined as 'real estate'.
A few people asked questions about what the boundaries on property should be (spaceships? yachts? anything that is difficult to quickly liquidate?) and it got me thinking.

The best answer I can come up with at this point is this:
Since neither one of those resources regenerates and Starrting Cash and Property both use the same point/$ structure so it shouldn't matter.
Selling 'proprty' later shouldn't be fundamentally different from selling equipment later, either way, the points are spent.

If you start play with it, use whichever makes more sense for the character. e.g. If the yacht is one of many toys bought off of starting cash it will be easier to think of it as equipment
If you like on it, pay maintenance on it, etc. then it makes sense to treat it as property (at full price since you are constantly occupying it).

At some later point I may try to write more detailed rules for really nitty gritty $ tracking (Mr. Cole has made some superb suggestions in that regard).

If your GM wants to allow restricted use discounts on Property purchased as part of a toy chest full of starting equipment that is up to him (her). The only thing I worry about here is having the details and record keeping start to dominate the character sheet. There is of course no reason you couldn't record it all seperately, just don't let rules override fun.

[nerdvana]

Originally Posted by benz72

When I originally wrote those rules I had figured property to be narrowly defined as 'real estate'.
A few people asked questions about what the boundaries on property should be (spaceships? yachts? anything that is difficult to quickly liquidate?) and it got me thinking.

The best answer I can come up with at this point is this:
Since neither one of those resources regenerates and Starrting Cash and Property both use the same point/$ structure so it shouldn't matter.
Selling 'proprty' later shouldn't be fundamentally different from selling equipment later, either way, the points are spent.

If you start play with it, use whichever makes more sense for the character. e.g. If the yacht is one of many toys bought off of starting cash it will be easier to think of it as equipment
If you like on it, pay maintenance on it, etc. then it makes sense to treat it as property (at full price since you are constantly occupying it).

At some later point I may try to write more detailed rules for really nitty gritty $ tracking (Mr. Cole has made some superb suggestions in that regard).

If your GM wants to allow restricted use discounts on Property purchased as part of a toy chest full of starting equipment that is up to him (her). The only thing I worry about here is having the details and record keeping start to dominate the character sheet. There is of course no reason you couldn't record it all seperately, just don't let rules override fun.

Good ideas, about the answer I thought of. On the topic of record keeping, that was often part of the fun back in my youth when I was playing D&D and Star Frontiers and the like.