Wealth > Status Pyramid Article

[Hyrneson]

Matt Rigsby wrote a fine article in Pyramid titled, "What Status Gets You". About that same time someone also wrote an article where they proposed that instead of the 3:1 Wealth to Status, it increments the same but gives advantages at every increment of wealth.
I am pretty sure that it wasn't Rank > Status.

Is anyone familiar with the article I am failing to remember and does their Wayback Machine tell which issue it in?

Thanks!

[Hyrneson]

I found the article that I was looking for but not as I remembered.
It is "Building the Low-Tech Landscape" by Matt Riggsby. In it he proposed a Fractional wealth system to allow more varied starting wealth.
It's a good idea and when brought to 4e and jobs are appied it makes a fuller set of circumstances.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by Hyrneson

In it he proposed a Fractional wealth system to allow more varied starting wealth.

How does it work? I've broken up starting wealth from actual wealth as -50% limitations on the Wealth advantage, then let players break up a level of Wealth into 1pt pieces (From Average to Comfortable is double for 10pts. With 'Starting Money -50%' it comes down to 5pts, or +20% per 1pt up to 5pts. But this is intentionally simplistic and didn't take into account of jobs.

[phayman53]

Originally Posted by Hyrneson

I found the article that I was looking for but not as I remembered.
It is "Building the Low-Tech Landscape" by Matt Riggsby. In it he proposed a Fractional wealth system to allow more varied starting wealth.
It's a good idea and when brought to 4e and jobs are appied it makes a fuller set of circumstances.

What Pyramid issue is that in? That sounds like something I would be very interested in as I keep trying to "fix" the wealth system to make LT games make sense with the cost of gear from Low-Tech. Try paying for the gear of any soldier in Loadouts: Low-Tech with the wealth appropriate to their status (from high status soldiers to low) and it is impossible. This is even the case of you don't use the 20% of wealth on adventuring gear limitation.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by phayman53

Try paying for the gear of any soldier in Loadouts: Low-Tech with the wealth appropriate to their status (from high status soldiers to low) and it is impossible. This is even the case of you don't use the 20% of wealth on adventuring gear limitation.

From what I've heard from PK, gear appropriate to their status and job are included in the 80% of a 'settled' lifestyle and that's without considering Rank and 'how many of these possession are actually owned by the soldier in question?'. As cool as this system sounds, I'm not sure it would fix that.

[Kale]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

From what I've heard from PK, gear appropriate to their status and job are included in the 80% of a 'settled' lifestyle and that's without considering Rank and 'how many of these possession are actually owned by the soldier in question?'. As cool as this system sounds, I'm not sure it would fix that.

If I was running a game where the PCs were all fighter pilots in the military I wouldn't expect them to pay for their aircraft; just consider it issued gear. The tradeoff is if you lose that gear you could get into some pretty serious trouble as it's technically government property, and you can't just up and use it for personal reasons without repercussions.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Kale

If I was running a game where the PCs were all fighter pilots in the military I wouldn't expect them to pay for their aircraft; just consider it issued gear. The tradeoff is if you lose that gear you could get into some pretty serious trouble as it's technically government property, and you can't just up and use it for personal reasons without repercussions.

At the same time, a lot of Low Tech governments didn't issue equipment that a modern government certainly would. Bring-your-own armor, horse, and weapons was pretty commonly applied except perhaps for the lowest-end troops.

[phayman53]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

From what I've heard from PK, gear appropriate to their status and job are included in the 80% of a 'settled' lifestyle and that's without considering Rank and 'how many of these possession are actually owned by the soldier in question?'. As cool as this system sounds, I'm not sure it would fix that.

Originally Posted by Kale

If I was running a game where the PCs were all fighter pilots in the military I wouldn't expect them to pay for their aircraft; just consider it issued gear. The tradeoff is if you lose that gear you could get into some pretty serious trouble as it's technically government property, and you can't just up and use it for personal reasons without repercussions.

Generally in low tech societies gear was owned by the soldiers. There were some exceptions, but even Ronan Legionaries owned their own gear. That said, the cost of armor in Loadouts: LT is almost always more than 100% of the starting wealth for the status of the warrior in question, often significantly more, and this is before things like weapons, other gear, and horses (if horses are part of the usual gear for that soldier).

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

At the same time, a lot of Low Tech governments didn't issue equipment that a modern government certainly would. Bring-your-own armor, horse, and weapons was pretty commonly applied except perhaps for the lowest-end troops.

Originally Posted by phayman53

Generally in low tech societies gear was owned by the soldiers. There were some exceptions, but even Ronan Legionaries owned their own gear. That said, the cost of armor in Loadouts: LT is almost always more than 100% of the starting wealth for the status of the warrior in question, often significantly more, and this is before things like weapons, other gear, and horses (if horses are part of the usual gear for that soldier).

Sure, but I'm saying if you have a settled lifestyle, as a game effect it makes perfect sense to just say you have whatever gear makes sense for your job, even if technically your job didn't supply it (there's no mechanical difference between getting equipment for free from the job and getting equipment for free because the GM says so).

Now, if the tech required for the job is significantly higher than the money you'd get from the Wealth related to that job, then I definitely think that either equipment is too expensive or that the required Wealth/Status for the job is actually higher. If a job required $4k in equipment, then that means the people doing the job can afford to acquire $4k in equipment in some manner.

Mind, this is Low Tech. Status 0 soldiers might be settling for Cheap equipment, which IIRC is -60% on cost and lines up with what I know of historical soldiers. Having even regular quality gear is a pretty recent thing for soldiers, guards, police, etc.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

Sure, but I'm saying if you have a settled lifestyle, as a game effect it makes perfect sense to just say you have whatever gear makes sense for your job, even if technically your job didn't supply it (there's no mechanical difference between getting equipment for free from the job and getting equipment for free because the GM says so).

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.

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.