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Old 06-12-2021, 02:28 AM   #41
maximara
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Default Re: Independent Income at later TL stages

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Originally Posted by Rupert View Post
The synergistic way II and Wealth interact definitely has problems. Just about everything to do with GURPS' rules on income, living expenses, and wealth past "pay X points for Y starting cash" have problems.
Incanus' The Color of Money: Revised Wealth Rules tried to fix things by tying starting wealth to monthly income.

Problem is because of how monthly and starting wealth are its a major money boon (except for multimillionaire) until one hits TL5 ($5,000 vs $1,100) at which point it rapidly goes pear shaped.
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Old 06-12-2021, 03:42 PM   #42
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Default Re: Independent Income at later TL stages

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Incanus' The Color of Money: Revised Wealth Rules tried to fix things by tying starting wealth to monthly income.
Incomes and starting wealth are already linked. The standard monthly income is equal to cost of living plus 10% of starting income.

This leads to the problem that at higher tech levels people supposedly have huge disposable incomes, and many players will see no reason not to just turn that into stuff, probably guns and armour and warhorses and so on, and that means they can climb the wealth tables about as fast as they can pay for it in points, which feels very unrealistic. Worse, anyone can do it by the RAW, so why isn't every TL8 person a millionaire?

The simplest solution I've found so far is to declare that your 'stuff' requires 10% of its value spent on upkeep, replacing old stuff, property taxes, staff (at higher standards of living), and so on. Thus at TL10 you have $50K of starting assets and at Status 0 personal living costs of $600/month, and an income of $5,600/month. $600 goes on you, $5,000 goes on your stuff. It's not realistic, but it's simple and explains where the money goes.
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Old 06-12-2021, 03:47 PM   #43
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Default Re: Independent Income at later TL stages

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The synergistic way II and Wealth interact definitely has problems. Just about everything to do with GURPS' rules on income, living expenses, and wealth past "pay X points for Y starting cash" have problems.
Preach it brother!

The rules work OK at TL 1-4, except that preindustrial people did not have goods worth a month or two's income, they had goods worth a year's income but that much income bought much less stuff than it does today.
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Old 06-12-2021, 05:03 PM   #44
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Default Re: Independent Income at later TL stages

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Incomes and starting wealth are already linked. The standard monthly income is equal to cost of living plus 10% of starting income.
I double checked and standard monthly incomes are not equal to cost of living plus 10% of starting income. Starting wealth and standard monthly income are determined by Tech Level while cost of living is determined by status.

The best B265-266 gives us is a energetic cost of living table.
The idea that the Roman Emperor had a Cost of Living of $600,000,000 at TL 2 (monthly income of $675) doesn't past the giggle test. Applying the wealth rules that is between multimillionaire 4 (675*100*10^4) and 5 (675*100*10^5) with it closer to 5 levels

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Originally Posted by Rupert View Post
This leads to the problem that at higher tech levels people supposedly have huge disposable incomes, and many players will see no reason not to just turn that into stuff, probably guns and armour and warhorses and so on, and that means they can climb the wealth tables about as fast as they can pay for it in points, which feels very unrealistic. Worse, anyone can do it by the RAW, so why isn't every TL8 person a millionaire?

The simplest solution I've found so far is to declare that your 'stuff' requires 10% of its value spent on upkeep, replacing old stuff, property taxes, staff (at higher standards of living), and so on. Thus at TL10 you have $50K of starting assets and at Status 0 personal living costs of $600/month, and an income of $5,600/month. $600 goes on you, $5,000 goes on your stuff. It's not realistic, but it's simple and explains where the money goes.
Part of this is already covered in Cost of Living: "average of your typical expenses for one month. It covers food, housing, clothing, and entertainment ... and, at Status 1 or higher, servants, if this is customary in your society."
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Old 06-12-2021, 06:45 PM   #45
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Default Re: Independent Income at later TL stages

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Incanus' The Color of Money: Revised Wealth Rules tried to fix things by tying starting wealth to monthly income.
I don't know who Incanus is, but his premises in that article were fundamentally wrong.
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Old 06-12-2021, 06:48 PM   #46
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The standard monthly income is equal to cost of living plus 10% of starting income.
I've never heard of GURPS giving a standard for monthly income. Jobs are the closest I can think of and they vary.
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Old 06-12-2021, 07:28 PM   #47
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Default Re: Independent Income at later TL stages

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Some of this is completely different from the way I think of the various wealth advantages. If you use the wealth system, in whole or in part, you're making a deliberate decision to deal with some of the game's economics abstractly. If what I was wanting was a detailed accounting of a portfolio of stocks and real estate, the income that would generate, and considerations about its liquidity then using the wealth rules is the very last thing I would do.

I use the various parts of the wealth subsystem precisely because I don't want to think about those things, not because I do.
Right. To that end Wealth blurs the distinction between income and capital, between wages/salary and investment income. But that makes it work badly with rules that expect you to keep track of specific possessions, monthly income and expenditures — such as Debt, Independent Income, Cost-of-Living, Settled Lifestyle, and Jobs.

My own financial circumstances are impossible to represent with GURPS rules, at least without a complex build, counter-intuitive interpretations, and paying points twice for the same thing. The problem is not that my wealth and income are unusual. It is that I own my house.
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Old 06-12-2021, 07:35 PM   #48
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Default Re: Independent Income at later TL stages

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I don't know who Incanus is, but his premises in that article were fundamentally wrong.
Incanus was a prominent Gurpser during the 3e period 20 years ago or more. I once named a character "Incanus Montoya" as a tribute to a witicism he one made.

If you notice the page references given in the article are to the 3e book rather than the 4e ones. I hope you will forgive me if I do not immerse myself in the 3e rules again to see if his concepts were more accurate in that period.

I have used Wealth both in 3e and 4e only to determine starting money. No other use has ever arisen in actual play.
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Old 06-12-2021, 07:43 PM   #49
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Default Re: Independent Income at later TL stages

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The synergistic way II and Wealth interact definitely has problems. Just about everything to do with GURPS' rules on income, living expenses, and wealth past "pay X points for Y starting cash" have problems.
Preach it!

I find the whole tangled mess of Wealth, Independent Income, Jobs, Status, Settled Lifestyle, Debt, Cost-of-Living, What Cost-of-Living Gets You, Adventuring Gear, and so on to be such a morass of inconsistent abstraction, false distinctions, incomplete analyses, overlapping definitions, and outright contradictions that the only advice I have is to cross out everything except for Wealth.

Rank was rescued from this pig's-breakfast by the rules for it in Action.

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Well, actually, it means that you get $X per month and you don't have to work for it. Back in 3/e it cost 5 points; that seemed about right for "you have some money coming in but it doesn't take time away from adventuring." That free time was the main thing the advantage was intended to buy.
I think that that approach was much better that mucking about with monthly income linked to Wealth. But 5 points seems a bit too steep a cost, given how rarely GMs ever tell a player that his character has to miss a session because of commitments to work. I'd call it a Perk.
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Old 06-12-2021, 08:00 PM   #50
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Default Re: Independent Income at later TL stages

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I think that that approach was much better that mucking about with monthly income linked to Wealth. But 5 points seems a bit too steep a cost, given how rarely GM ever tell a player that his characters has to miss a session because of commitments to work. I'd call it a Perk.
Back in 3/e, perks had not yet been defined as a concept.
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