In case you've ever wondered if it is
worthwhile to save some extra cash and live below a certain status.
This is mainly a reminder when players game the systems, which they
should, to see if there is any consequences to choosing the cheapest
options in all things (not the most cost effective options).
It begins with where you live.
Status is not just appearance, or an
aesthetic. One of the most keenly felt aspects of status is where you
live. In Low-Tech and High-Tech settings this means Sanitation,
Protection from Polution, Public Transportation, Crime rate of the
area, access to Heal-care facilities and expertise, and general
access to various skilled services and resources.
The worse off you are, the worse lot
you get. This translates to all the hazard poorer people suffer:
disease, food poisoning or poor nutrition, ailments due to pollutions
and toxic hazards in their living conditions, and criminal elements:
parasites or overlords, are a RISK in a lower status environment.
Being a RISK it has some circumstantial and random factors, more
often (and like all risks over the long run) a character suffers its
burden. You may be saving some money, being in a cheap and high crime
rate neighborhood but your gambling that saving and more, potentially spending more or getting in way over your head.
GMs have the opportunity to screw the
players through crime, disease saves, being constantly probed for weakness in their security, and being pawned scamy products or resources. Because this is the poorer section of town, shops
have a higher overhead because of security or the criminal overlord
taking a huge cut. The players have some serious risks of spending
more.
Opportunities, Access and Education.
In the modern or High Tech settings,
the first big problem you encounter being poor (and a lower income)
is having less diposable income for education, training,
certifications and tools. A higher status person in the modern era,
has more disposable income or privilages for all these personal
enhancement opportunities. If your poor, struggling to meet basic
needs and maintain relationships, then you don't have these things.
Before you meta-game and decide that
the character will maintain optimal social mobility and invest highly
in education, training and access (in Low-Tech this can be
apprenticeships, guilde access, or paying the high price that goes to
having a much greater amount of knowledge) there are trade-offs and
characters begin certain economic limits.
A character that came from a certain
status and background, has opportunities, typical of that status and
background (a matter of a social dominant strategy). When that
character makes trade-offs to climb higher, he has to take much more
risk and work than almost everyone in their status. The lower the
status, the more painful and severe the consequences of failure
(again reference to the matter above).
Access to Special Resources and Credit with Peers.
The better off
one's peers are, the better the resources one has at his/her disposal
when they tap their social connections. I left off to dealing with
this last because sometimes this is the most ignored because this is
sometimes the hardest for the GM to enforce. Typically a GM has to
have a “thesis” of how society works in their setting or
subscribes to that of a setting with a developed set of social norms.
There is a balancing act the GM has to perform accommodating a varied
group of characters, and when players all choose to ignore this
aspect of society.
Ideally, if
players and the game chooses to ignore this element of the setting,
it is ignored at the consequences of the opportunities lost. Certain
status has access to various resources: the healthcare, experts, the
best toys, and people who will do absurd things for them. All too
often, everything is on the menu of the players when it comes to
gear, magical and non-magical expertise, and man-power. I can't blame
the GM, to make special lists of what to allow and what is available
takes time and careful consideration of resources. Its not like there
is a table that will help Gms quickly narrow these down (this would
make a great spreadsheet btw; organized by degree of technological
sophistication to determine what kind of community might have this
and something to randomize whats available).
Financial Independence
Greater Financial Independence happened when people didn't need the special advantages of having a family provide their basic needs. instead certain levels of urbanization and financial comfort the market can meet these needs, instead.
- Housing
- Food Preparations and Optimization
- Social Security in the form of Children or Dependents
- Management of extra-man power in the form of Children or Dependents
TL:DR
- Consider the conditions that making poor suck
- Characters has no cash to pay for training
- Some resources supposed to be monopolized by the elite, shouldn't be accessible to low-status characters.
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