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Old 08-03-2022, 12:34 PM   #21
Stormcrow
 
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Default Re: Costs in GURPS dollars

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Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
Yes, a single static starting Wealth for an entire TL isn't strictly realistic - a typical person in 1975 (near the end of TL 7) probably didn't have only ~70% of the buying power of a typical person in 1985 (near the beginning of TL 8), for example, and as you note someone at the start of TL 6 had much less buying power than someone at the end of that TL.
Which is why you deal with local currencies. If you declare $1 equal to 30 US cents in 1975 and 60 US cents in 1985 (just to pick some unresearched numbers), then the time traveler carrying one dollar and fifty cents in 1975 can afford to buy personal basics ($5), but when he goes to 1985 he won't have enough money to buy the exact same thing, as it now costs three dollars.

It's as realistic as the effort you put into determining local currency exchange rates with the GURPS $.
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Old 08-03-2022, 12:48 PM   #22
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Originally Posted by Stormcrow View Post
Which is why you deal with local currencies. If you declare $1 equal to 30 US cents in 1975 and 60 US cents in 1985 (just to pick some unresearched numbers), then the time traveler carrying one dollar and fifty cents in 1975 can afford to buy personal basics ($5), but when he goes to 1985 he won't have enough money to buy the exact same thing, as it now costs three dollars.

It's as realistic as the effort you put into determining local currency exchange rates with the GURPS $.
Oh, believe me, in a campaign that pays attention to this sort of minutiae, doing everything in the setting's currency is ideal. It helps with immersion, has volume/weight effects already factored in, and if you do indeed deal with a situation like getting flung a decade into the future (or if you enter a polity where silver and gold aren't worth as much, or where you need to exchange cash, etc), it's ideal for it.

But one doesn't have to convert everything - or indeed, anything - to period currency. Having a TL 6 campaign where players start with a default of 10,000 "credits," and you simply use the prices in HT and elsewhere for gear and the like, can be perfectly legitimate. And if you're already running a game like that, and suddenly one of your players decides he wants his character to buy a comfy couch to put in the base for relaxation when the characters aren't having two-fisted adventures, you need a price... and just looking one up online and eyeballing off of that is a lot easier and faster than converting everything to period dollars right then (and then tracking down the item you're looking for in an archived catalogue from that time period).
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Old 08-03-2022, 10:48 PM   #23
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Default Re: Costs in GURPS dollars

Remember, Starting Wealth is designed for PCs suitable for a given campaign.

In a military campaign, or a campaign set aboard a ship, much of the gear the PCs use will be issued, rather than purchased, so starting wealth can be lower.

GURPS 3E also wasn't consistent in converting period prices into standardized GURPS $. Prices and Starting Wealth might be more or less accurate for the era, but don't necessarily "convert" when using other books.
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Old 08-03-2022, 10:56 PM   #24
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Default Re: Costs in GURPS dollars

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Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
But one doesn't have to convert everything - or indeed, anything - to period currency. Having a TL 6 campaign where players start with a default of 10,000 "credits," and you simply use the prices in HT and elsewhere for gear and the like, can be perfectly legitimate. And if you're already running a game like that, and suddenly one of your players decides he wants his character to buy a comfy couch to put in the base for relaxation when the characters aren't having two-fisted adventures, you need a price... and just looking one up online and eyeballing off of that is a lot easier and faster than converting everything to period dollars right then (and then tracking down the item you're looking for in an archived catalogue from that time period).
The one thing you have to keep in the back of your mind when using any of the Classic books that involve TLs other than 3 or 7 is that the starting wealth given in them is totally off the wall by 4e standards. Heck, the Classic Basic set has $15,000 for both a Modern (late 20th century) and Interstellar campaign.

Prices are also not constant with the change over.

For example the Thompson machine gun in WWII (p 96) is $70 (4.6% of average, $1,500, income) but in High Tech (p 124) it is $2,300 (23% of average, $10,000, income)

Similarly the Ford GPA Jeep goes from $365 or 24% (pg 106) to $12,000 or an eye watering 120% (pg 237)
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Old 08-03-2022, 10:58 PM   #25
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Default Re: Costs in GURPS dollars

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And if you're already running a game like that, and suddenly one of your players decides he wants his character to buy a comfy couch to put in the base for relaxation when the characters aren't having two-fisted adventures, you need a price...
No. Your player needs the price. Get them to do the research for oddball items that aren't immediately pertinent to the adventure. Make up a price that seems fair at the table, then have them look up the actual price when it's more convenient.

If you're doing a 1930s Cliffhanger game, or something similar, make it a house rule that any item advertised in a mail-order catalog of the era is legitimate equipment, using period prices and currency. Then, give your players a link to relevant catalogs before play begins.

It would be even cooler if it was possible to get reproduction mail order catalogs from various eras. Having books from the era you're gaming in is very immersive. I've got a few 1920s-era Baedaker Guides which are great for that sort of thing.
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Old 08-03-2022, 11:23 PM   #26
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Default Re: Costs in GURPS dollars

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Originally Posted by Pursuivant View Post
Remember, Starting Wealth is designed for PCs suitable for a given campaign.

In a military campaign, or a campaign set aboard a ship, much of the gear the PCs use will be issued, rather than purchased, so starting wealth can be lower.
Which is what made the prices in books like WWII a little on the weird side.

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Originally Posted by Pursuivant View Post
GURPS 3E also wasn't consistent in converting period prices into standardized GURPS $. Prices and Starting Wealth might be more or less accurate for the era, but don't necessarily "convert" when using other books.
The only TLs that were the same were 3 and 7 everything else was all over the place.

I don't think there was any "conversion" with Classic GUPRS with regards to GURPS $. If anything it looks like they used actual dollar amounts and adjusted starting wealth accordingly. Greece seems to be an exception with its $5,000 for TL1 as that is totally insane.
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Old 08-03-2022, 11:42 PM   #27
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Default Re: Costs in GURPS dollars

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Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
Yes, a single static starting Wealth for an entire TL isn't strictly realistic - a typical person in 1975 (near the end of TL 7) probably didn't have only ~70% of the buying power of a typical person in 1985 (near the beginning of TL 8), for example, and as you note someone at the start of TL 6 had much less buying power than someone at the end of that TL. But your posts read as though you were treating GURPS $ as USD in the time period observed - such as your statement that GURPS wasn't properly accounting for the ~12x increase in costs from inflation when going from 1930 to 2004 by giving characters only 2x the funds.
Because in Classic that is how GURPS $ seams to be have been used.

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GURPS $ are a semi-arbitrary unit of worth that is inflation-proof. Think of them as "credits" if you're getting stuck on the fact they use the same abbreviation as USD. A character with 20,000 GURPS credits would have around $20,000 US in a campaign set in 2014, around $1,700 US in a campaign set in 1930, around $1,000 US in a campaign set in 1890, around 250 gold pieces (or 5,000 silver pennies, or 20,000 copper farthings, or some mix) in a DF campaign, etc.
You are high balling those numbers a bit:

"$20,000 in 2014 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $768.79 in 1890"
"$20,000 in 2014 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $1,410.85 in 1930"

Never mind that average wealth at TL6 is half that of TL8 in GURPS $. So that average TL8 income would be Comfortable at TL6. 10 character points please. :-)
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Old 08-04-2022, 01:06 AM   #28
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Default Re: Costs in GURPS dollars

Depending upon which eras you want realistic costs for, determines what sources you may want to dig up.

For me, I utilize Montgomery Ward's catalog from 1875 (Free PDF if you google for it). I also have both the Sears Catalog from 1897 and Montgomery Ward Catalog for 1895 as well. I also have access to a complete Times OLD WEST series books that i can use for research purposes. That I utilize ACES AND EIGHTS price lists for goods and services also helps to fill in the void.

For 1920's stuff? Just google Sears catalogs and you'll find a fair number of them. Our own Hans-Christian Vortisch has had articles published in the Call of Cthulhu books by Chaosium Publishing that you may want to get your hands on. 1920's investigator's Companion and Investigator's Companion II are good sourcebooks for prices AND wages if you're inclined. One of the books has a fair bit of information on automobile prices as well as aircraft prices - along with steam ship pricing if I recall correctly.

Feel free to message me off list via the "email" function (ie, click on my name for the drop down menu and select email) and ask me if there are any recommendations I can offer. If you want a specific price for a specific item, I can always look or let you know i don't have it.

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Old 08-04-2022, 07:26 AM   #29
Varyon
 
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Default Re: Costs in GURPS dollars

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Originally Posted by Pursuivant View Post
No. Your player needs the price. Get them to do the research for oddball items that aren't immediately pertinent to the adventure. Make up a price that seems fair at the table, then have them look up the actual price when it's more convenient.
If you're comfortable making up prices on the spot, sure. And if you have the player do it as a homework assignment, if your campaign is using GURPS $ you still need to know how to convert it from whatever price they find into what your campaign is using.

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Originally Posted by Pursuivant View Post
If you're doing a 1930s Cliffhanger game, or something similar, make it a house rule that any item advertised in a mail-order catalog of the era is legitimate equipment, using period prices and currency. Then, give your players a link to relevant catalogs before play begins.
Sure, that's a good way to start things out. But if you decided to just start up the campaign using GURPS 4e books (which typically use GURPS $) and didn't do the work to convert everything to period dollars, find relevant period catalogs, etc, then when someone wants to buy something that doesn't have a price listed in any of your source books, you have the options of a) making up a price that you think is fair (not all GM's are going to be comfortable doing this), b) go back and rework your game so everything has prices in period currency (and whatever funds the players still have get similarly converted) and then find the price of the item in a period source, or c) find a current price, convert to GURPS $, and maybe apply a fudge-factor like my idea of doubling modern prices if the campaign takes place prior to TL 7.

If option a isn't something the GM wants to go with, option b is markedly more work, and potentially likely to cause issues at the table (take a player who's character has $10,000, then tell him that, no, his character actually has $850 in period dollars, that player's immediate knee-jerk reaction is going to be something like "You just stole most of my money, what the hell?"). And some GM's and players may well favor not needing to track exactly how much money the characters have in period currency, being perfectly comfortable using GURPS $ - for example, some DF groups want to track every gold piece, silver penny, and copper farthing*, while others are fine with just saying a character has $620 or whatever.

*Or even more precise; I previously came up with a monetary system in which coins could be made of copper, silver, igneum (70/30 silver/gold alloy), electrum (50/50 silver/gold alloy), crown gold (10/90 silver/gold alloy; pure gold wasn't used for coinage), and rarely platinum, and coins came in three sizes - a penny, with similar dimensions to a US penny; a bit, with similar dimensions to a US quarter or dollar coin; and a groat, which is just a doubly-thick bit. I suspect if I had ever actually tried to use it in a game, however, it would have been quickly abandoned in favor of just tracking GURPS $, but I could be mistaken.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Pursuivant View Post
It would be even cooler if it was possible to get reproduction mail order catalogs from various eras. Having books from the era you're gaming in is very immersive. I've got a few 1920s-era Baedaker Guides which are great for that sort of thing.
Yeah, that would be pretty awesome.

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Originally Posted by maximara View Post
Because in Classic that is how GURPS $ seams to be have been used.
Useful to keep in mind, but we're discussing 4e.

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Originally Posted by maximara View Post
You are high balling those numbers a bit:
I had a typo, which I'll correct momentarily. The first year listed should have been 2004 (where GURPS $ are roughly calibrated to), not 2014. In 2014, 20,000 GURPS credits would be worth around $25,000 US.

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Originally Posted by maximara View Post
Never mind that average wealth at TL6 is half that of TL8 in GURPS $. So that average TL8 income would be Comfortable at TL6. 10 character points please. :-)
Well, yes, starting with $20,000 GURPS at TL 6 would typically mean having Comfortable Wealth. Similarly, starting with $20,000 GURPS in a DF campaign would typically mean being Very Wealthy [30], as you're looking a 20x Average Wealth. I went with a constant amount of GURPS $ rather than a constant Wealth level, both to avoid confusion and because, realistically, a character of Average Wealth in 1890 (near the beginning of TL 6) and one in 1930 (near the end of TL 6) probably shouldn't have the same GURPS $ (although for most campaigns, this is probably fine).
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Last edited by Varyon; 08-04-2022 at 07:54 AM.
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Old 08-04-2022, 01:25 PM   #30
dcarson
 
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Default Re: Costs in GURPS dollars

For my current here and now campaign I just told the players. Look on Amazon and divide cost in half.
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