Saturday, May 11, 2013

More on Haven

More on Haven if you want to imagine living there:

  • Developed world standard for Middle Class describes $7200-21,600USD Cost of Living Annually and describes the top 5%. They meet developed world standards for Education, Job Security, and can find work anywhere in the world but in Haven they are the "Wealthy" population. Housing makes up half and healthcare varies, because its a emerging market (aka 3rd World), they have a middle class life expectancy of about 70s, which is unlike developed worlds which have about x2-x3 the CoL and have a life expectancy of 100s. 
    • Pretty much as busy and varied as the Middle Class of Dev.World. 
    • Wealth: Comfortable are Upper-Bands of the Middle Class.
  • Struggling Class $3600-$7200USD Cost of Living in Dev. World; but considered Comfortable by the Haven Standards. If your single and doesn't have any expensive vices, you can pretty much live like Middle Class. 
  • Poor - $1440-$3600USD anualy this is the "Working Class" 
  • Dead Broke. Surprising GURPS deadbroke can accommodate the UN and Economist definition of less than $1 a day. There are a lot of people in the world that still operate without Money but live on squatting or "rented" housing, and scrounging or "subsidized" food and necessities by the Political or Criminal "Houses" to maintain Vote Dominance and 
    • Some very powerful individuals have started using these as labor and votes producing assets, housing them in Vessels creating Floating Towns. The population shift back to the Politico's lands during Elections.   
  • Wealth and Filthy Rich (Status 1-2) - these are people pretty much the middle management of the ruling elite as well as their Idle Family. 
  • Millionaires (Status 3-6) - "the Taipans". Modern day Kings would envy the way these families and patriarchs (and a few matriarchs) live.    
Any public service is terrible, public infrastructure never serves the public it serves one of the many factions in haven (as a monoploy or an excuse to charge taxes). In game terms, when it comes to a public service, expect crap. it costs x3-x10 more in time or money. 

Local Expertise is a valuable skill
Your Local Area Knowledge can be used as streetwise at -2 penalty. Area knowledge allows you to survive "Police Traps". So if you have it high, understand that you have points well spent. You can substitute Area Knowledge-3 for Navigation as in RAW. 
The skill allows you to cancel out "Noise" from living in there, there are many scams and spammers living in Haven, it takes some skill to sort out the "Noise" from the "real thing". 

Most Public Services that are decent come from the "Factions" and are 2-3x the price, especially necessities. Non-Necessities, Luxury Goods, are 1/2 the price as compared to the rest of the world. If you are part of the Weapon Specialized Factions, certain lethal goods can be cheaper. 

Special Note on Weapons 
Some Very Old Weapons have flooded the weapons market because their license to produce is un-enforcable. You will notice Modernized WW2 weapons being available and half their GURPS listed cost. Despite modernization the sweat shops that produce these guns are poor in skill. 
G44s, 40s, 42, MG42s. 

There are some "Diesel Punk" equipment to be found.  

Players are free to make up other Factions/"Houses"/Corporations. Note that this is a Cosmopolitan Country, factions is bizarrely any ethnic or cultural background.

Despite "Ethnic" profiles listed, expect 1/3 of all ethnic groups as mixed ethnicity. Despite the ethnic diversity, intolerance is healthy and strong in Haven. 

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