Monday, December 9, 2013

Wealth Checks with the Speed/Range Table

Simple resource system for GURPS for less Bean Counting. Use the Speed and Range Table in B550. Basically

Begin with a Professional Skill, Merchant related Skill, or Administration. The GM sets a bonus or a penalty depending on the skill used. Typically Merchant or Administration is used. The farther the skill is from some fiscal management role, the more the skill becomes a default. Someone completely clueless of fiscal management has -5 default to their Highest professional skill. So a bartender with skill-15 still has a clue regarding finances at 10.


Looking at/Using the Range/Speed Table Yards in B550 x500USD to set the Task Difficulty modifier. The assumption is an Average Person of Status 0, Wealth Average has a very poor chance of scraping up $1000 USD. After a transaction the margin of failure plus 5 becomes a Future penalty to resources checks. On a success, Half the Margin of Success reduces the -5 penalty in future rolls. The resource penalty diminishes every month with another Job Roll for every margin of 2 success.

Before every income period, for every transaction has a Time Cost. Typically 40 hours, borrowing from GURPS Traveller Interstellar wars. Allow for Extra Time and Hasted Action rules in Basic Set. You can allow for -10 for almost instantaneous or within the hour.

Basically this Follows the Size Modifier to hit in B550
Poor -4
Struggling -2
Average -0
Comfortable +2
Wealthy +4
Very Wealthy +8
Filthy Rich +12
Millionaire +18
Multi-Millionaire 1 +24
Multi-Millionaire 2 +30 

Debt 
1-3cp -1
4-6cp -2
7-9cp -3
10-12cp -4
13-15cp  -5
16-18cp -7
19-20cp -10

Independent Income
+10cp +1
20cp +2

Cultural Familiarity Penalties also apply to this and so will Reaction Roll penalties B560.

So example The Prince and the Knight (GURPS modern fantasy) are Filthy Rich. 
So they are +12 modifier to Resource rolls, but have 10points of debt at -4 to the resource rolls. This totals to +8 (their lifestyle and resources are as though they are Very Wealthy since with 10cp of debt they have 60,000/mo left; 60k/2600 = 23 so roughly like a x20 wealth modifier). 

The Knight has Merchant-18 with +8 to his resources he can a total resources score of 26 when making deals. If he is dealing with Banks and Financial Companies his Merchant Defaults to Finance-4 at skill 22. The prince on the other hand has a Merchant of 13 with the same debt at +8 modifier (total of +21).

Resource Rolls are useful for bribes and a lot of circumstance in a Technological Setting with Financial Instruments, Credit, and a Complex Economy.  

Example.
Thomas is trying to source Peiter some NVG equipment. The cost is about $5,000 USD but x2 its cutting edge and needs to be imported. So Thomas has a -6 penalty for a total of 20. Thomas Rolls a 9! an 11 margin of success, he does it without a dent to his finances. He knew a guy working in one of the multinational who wanted to trade for a rack of old Avayas and a Ciscos that was getting old in his storage. 

Example 2
The Prince is in a party, and uses his Politics to look for someone in the group to influence. He finds Lady Palatabalanza and notices the strained smile in her eyes. He approaches her, and graciously wards off her sycophants with a Performance-16, spilling some drinks on them and embarrassing them(TDM -4; (critical success at 6). The sycophants seem outraged, and he calls his manservant who brings him his Tablet. He sweet talks them helps them repair their attire, while calling his manservant to seek help from the Host's servants to mend the circumstance. He makes a grand show of using his tablet to peruse a worthy reparation to the slight, (part of the performance) bringing the Lady Palatablanza in the joke as they choose the clothes of for their helpless victim. The new attire ends up costing $15000 -7 penalty, but he Fast Talks the sycophant into getting something else at Fast-Talk-16+8 -10 hasted for 14. He rolls a 6 (I was using the Roll20 dice reference and it came out a 6! lolz) with a margin of 8. While he fast talks the sycophant, he gives well placed nudges and winks to Lady Palatabalanza who almost cries out laughing hiding her expression behind her fan.
The prince manipulates the sycophant to owe him, wins lady Palatabalanza's humour, and it didn't make a dent on his pockets. Until the end of the month, after his job roll he has a -1 penalty to succeeding Sourcing rolls. 

Example 3.
The Legba group, has Antonio Ugandale taking point in a financial acquisition of Dawn's Light Holdings. The Legba Group has resources of +24 and a Antiono has expert staff +2 to his Merchant skill of 15 and while the DLH has resources of +18, a merchant staff of +1 and a CFO who has Finance of 14. A total of 34 for DLH and LG 41. DLH choose to fight out in the backroom while Ugandale chooses to the boardroom. LG rolls 9 for a whopping MoS of 25 while rolls also a 9 for a 32. They have MoS of 6 over the other. This lets them acquire 60% of DLH, a controlling interest, if they want more they have to spend 40% more translating for a 4 added penalty to the -5 to future rolls until they recover their resources as they streamline DLH for their own uses. 



  


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