Independent Income at later TL stages

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Since starter jobs are free, creating such blatantly superior jobs (this 'job' gives you heaps of money for no effort and means you own a big chunk of capital outside the regular system! Or you could be stuck in an office 50 hours a week, if you'd prefer.) radically imbalances character creation...

In the real world, some jobs are easier than others. It's entirely up to the GM to rule what kinds of Jobs are available to PCs.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Rupert

The character is in play. None of those situations apply. The player wants to have the character invest money and gain an Independent Income. How much should they have to invest per point of II?

As I stated upthread, I don't think it's really an option to acquire II via personal investment. I could see justification for a character to get a choice of quest reward, however - either the character gets some lump sum of cash or the character has the quest-giver invest markedly more* in the character's name, paying [1] and gaining an II (without the option to liquidate, and with the sum returning to the quest-giver upon the character's death or similar). In games where impulse buys and the like are appropriate, you could also pay the [1] to state the character gains some windfall (possibly related to the adventure, although that makes it difficult to justify not spreading it around) but has to immediately invest it, getting money off of the dividends and being unable to liquidate it (perhaps the "investment" is actually a complex money-laundering scheme for the character, to turn his flithy lucre into spendable cash).

A character can also make investments and the like without any expenditure of character points, provided the GM allows that, but there's no guarantee on the return - it would be a random roll (possibly assisted by the character's relevant skill(s) and how much time the character invested in playing the stock market rather than just hodling) that might be a gain or a loss.

*An idea, for those (like myself) who dislike the uncertainty of the 80/20 split and "What CoL Gets You," is that characters might be able to divide their starting wealth into fixed assets (generally unusable for adventures, outside of simply providing a place to sleep, transportation, or whatever, and not able to be readily liquidated) and liquid assets (adventuring gear and other bits that can be readily turned into cash). Being a "fixed" asset markedly reduces the purchase price - perhaps to 20% or lower (so a $100,000 home can be purchased for $20,000 - a TL8 character with Comfortable Wealth could start play outright owning such by giving up 50% of his/her starting cash, rather than needing to be Very Wealthy to afford such a home). Realistic characters would have the 80/20 split (with the "20% cost" I suggested, this would work out to fixed assets worth 40 months' - 3 years, 4 months - net income and liquid assets worth 2 months' net income), but you could do any break you'd like - a murder-hobo with a home-base hovel might do a 10/90 split (again, with the "20% cost" option, that works out to fixed assets worth 5 months' net income and liquid assets worth 9 months' net income), for example. Probably something for a new thread, however.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Long-term average of P/E for the S&P 500 is about 15, which if adjusted to monthly works out to 180x the income. I've seen similar numbers for rental property. I would note, however, that a net worth exceeding 100x monthly income, while it would be weird in GURPS, isn't that weird in reality, a 50 year old couple with a combined income of $120,000 ($10k/mo) and $1,000,000 in assets (IRA and home equity) is on the high side but hardly unbelievable.

Given housing prices where I live it's entirely believable, but is also not at all the historical norm. On the other hand, currently getting an inflation adjusted ~12% annual ROI right now from anything but residential real estate seems unlikely.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

In the real world, some jobs are easier than others. It's entirely up to the GM to rule what kinds of Jobs are available to PCs.

No part of which rectifies the point that you've invented a job that's in all respects better than other jobs at its Wealth level.

You can say that you're okay with jobs other than 'rent collection' being sucker bait. You can unmake the invention by saying PCs shouldn't allowed to have it. But shrugging and blaming any issues on a hypothetical GM for taking your suggestion is absurd...

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

No part of which rectifies the point that you've invented a job that's in all respects better than other jobs at its Wealth level.

You can say that you're okay with jobs other than 'rent collection' being sucker bait. You can unmake the invention by saying PCs shouldn't allowed to have it. But shrugging and blaming any issues on a hypothetical GM for taking your suggestion is absurd...

If we state that GURPS jobs consume 200 hours per month (based on LTC3; note this works out to somewhere around 47 hours per week, which if you include commuting and lunch break is about right for a nominally 40-hour workweek), then jobs that require fewer hours are actually high-Wealth jobs that the character is only working part-time at. Let's say that "rent collection" job calls for only 30 hours of work per month (about an hour a day if you take no days off); if it pays $3000 per month (a bit better than a typical Average Wealth job at TL8, IIRC), it's actually a $20,000/month job (somewhere between Wealthy and Very Wealthy at TL8, IIRC) that the character is only working part-time. Which should kind of put things in perspective - in the above case, the GM has allowed a character to take a job that pays around 10x as much as a typical one.

[safisher]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

But because they are tradition, people will defend them.

You'll have to forgive me, but I've been around long enough to take the rule criticism with a grain of salt. Very often the critic can't think of anything better, or has not read the rules closely, or whose draft rules make things worse. Most rules in GURPS were written pretty well by default. Of course it's also part of the rules to ignore the rules. That's why there is a GM.

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by Varyon

If we state that GURPS jobs consume 200 hours per month (based on LTC3; note this works out to somewhere around 47 hours per week, which if you include commuting and lunch break is about right for a nominally 40-hour workweek),

The default assumption of GURPS is 40 hours of work a week for all jobs. See the Time Use Sheet on p. B569. That number is not set in stone (notice the "if unsure" note), but it is the working assumption.

If you work less than 40 hours a week, you earn that fraction of 40 hours that you work as a fraction of the normal salary for that job. See Independent Income, p. B26. This passage reiterates the assumed 40-hour work week.

Notice that the definition of Independent Income is that it is "a source of income that does not require you to work." If you spend any significant time doing it, it isn't Independent Income, it's a job. You might or might not spend an hour a week trading stocks online or standing in a benefits line, but for GURPS purposes you don't have to do any work to get it.

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

No part of which rectifies the point that you've invented a job that's in all respects better than other jobs at its Wealth level.

I didn't specify any wealth level or anything about the setting. All of those things are GM choice and don't need any 'rectification'.

You can say that you're okay with jobs other than 'rent collection' being sucker bait. You can unmake the invention by saying PCs shouldn't allowed to have it. But shrugging and blaming any issues on a hypothetical GM for taking your suggestion is absurd...

What "issues" are you imagining?

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

The default assumption of GURPS is 40 hours of work a week for all jobs. See the Time Use Sheet on p. B569. That number is not set in stone (notice the "if unsure" note), but it is the working assumption.

If you work less than 40 hours a week, you earn that fraction of 40 hours that you work as a fraction of the normal salary for that job. See Independent Income, p. B26. This passage reiterates the assumed 40-hour work week.

40 hours of work, yes, but typically a 40-hour-a-week job takes up more than 40 hours each week - a 10 minute commute each way and an hour of lunch each day (neither of which are atypical) for a 5-day workweek would add 400 minutes, or 6 hours and 40 minutes, to each workweek, which happens to be the same value you get with LTC3's "200 hours a month" if you assume a 30-day month. Granted, if the GM decides to include commuting and lunch time in that 40 hour workweek, that's certainly an option, but I'm pretty confident the idea was to roughly match the current US standard (I think the fact 200 hours per month happens to match what you get with lunch and commuting was more of a happy accident, however - 40 hours a week for a month is ~171.5 hours, and I assume the authors of LTC3 simply rounded that up to 200 for a clean number).

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

The default assumption of GURPS is 40 hours of work a week for all jobs. See the Time Use Sheet on p. B569. That number is not set in stone (notice the "if unsure" note), but it is the working assumption.

The use of time use sheets is (per B499) an optional rule to begin with. The 40hr statement is guidance for players to assume only "if unsure". Accordingly I think it would be a mistake to consider 40 hours a working assumption.

It would be odd for the rules to establish a working assumption that defies the possibility of part-time employment, gig work, or non-traditional occupations, and in fact where the actual rules about Jobs are provided, there are no such restrictions.

If you work less than 40 hours a week, you earn that fraction of 40 hours that you work as a fraction of the normal salary for that job. See Independent Income, p. B26. This passage reiterates the assumed 40-hour work week.

That passage is specifically framed as an "example" of how II could reduce your need to work, certainly not to established an assumption about a rule that is not stated anywhere.