Cost of Living, Status, and Wealth
Cost of Living is the expense incurred for living in town for one week. Normally in GURPS and DFRPG, this would be charged each and every week, whether adventuring or not (well actually the default in GURPS is to charge monthly, but the ratio is the same). However, I do things slightly differently.
I assess Cost of Living expenses for the first week (only) of any period of downtime. The rest of the downtime the PC is assumed to be subsisting (perhaps earning enough from odd-jobs here and there to cover costs, but not making a profit). This has the benefit that any returning player doesn't re-join with a PC who is broke because they were absent for OOC reasons. This is yet another idea I stole from Peter.
The CoL exemption never applies mid-adventure. For that I charge the full weekly rate, although I may charge per day if that makes more sense. The default Cost of Living rate is 150 coppers ($150) per week, although this can be modified by disadvantages (such as Compulsive Carousing), and also by Status (see below).
Some GURPS traits were changed or omitted in DFRPG (e.g. the new take on Stubbornness, which I would also use in other GURPS games). Status is completely missing from DFRPG, as it's not normally relevant when down in the dungeon.
We reintroduced Status as an advantage, specifically because the player of Miao and the original player of Yvor both wanted their noble positions (in the pregen PCs' background descriptions) to matter in play. For the status to give a game-mechanical benefit, even a "merely" social one, then it should be treated as an advantage which is paid for in character points. Both of the above pregens now have Status 2 (landless knight or lady) in my game, at the cost of 10 points each, paid for out of earned character points (XP).
I assess Cost of Living expenses for the first week (only) of any period of downtime. The rest of the downtime the PC is assumed to be subsisting (perhaps earning enough from odd-jobs here and there to cover costs, but not making a profit). This has the benefit that any returning player doesn't re-join with a PC who is broke because they were absent for OOC reasons. This is yet another idea I stole from Peter.
The CoL exemption never applies mid-adventure. For that I charge the full weekly rate, although I may charge per day if that makes more sense. The default Cost of Living rate is 150 coppers ($150) per week, although this can be modified by disadvantages (such as Compulsive Carousing), and also by Status (see below).
Some GURPS traits were changed or omitted in DFRPG (e.g. the new take on Stubbornness, which I would also use in other GURPS games). Status is completely missing from DFRPG, as it's not normally relevant when down in the dungeon.
We reintroduced Status as an advantage, specifically because the player of Miao and the original player of Yvor both wanted their noble positions (in the pregen PCs' background descriptions) to matter in play. For the status to give a game-mechanical benefit, even a "merely" social one, then it should be treated as an advantage which is paid for in character points. Both of the above pregens now have Status 2 (landless knight or lady) in my game, at the cost of 10 points each, paid for out of earned character points (XP).
In addition to the mechanical bonus from Status (+1 per level to Influence and Reaction Rolls), having a high(er) social "class" can have other subtler benefits in town and other social situations. Furthermore, I include Status among those advantages that raise the number of NPC allies that a PC can have. However it also has a not-so-hidden cost: I have reintroduced the Cost of Living scale from GURPS 4E as well.
Being of Status 1 (means that the base Cost of Living is raised to 300 coppers or 15 shillings ($300) per week. Status 2 raises that CoL to ($750) almost 2 gold crowns per week. I do allow PCs to ignore this and "slum it", however they do not get the social benefits of Status for the duration, and may suffer additional penalties as a result.
Wealth in DFRPG governs both your starting cash and the base trade-in value for loot, depending on the level of the trait. I have changed the default resale value of goods for Wealthy to 70% and for Very Wealthy to 80%, because I still want charm and bartering to count for something. Comfortable has been kept as is, because that has already been used in play. On the other hand, I allow high wealth to partially offset the higher Cost of Living incurred by higher Status; minimum cannot go below $150 however.
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