Handling money

[Tom Carman]

I'm running a heroic-level game, where equipment costs money, not points. Most of the characters theoretically have incomes and their "bank accounts" are supposed to be incremented monthly. However, I usually run in a sort of timeless mode: time passes during a game and duration between runs is variable - I only declare a "new month, more money" when someone reminds me. And, of course, I have to keep track of how much money each character is supposed to have.

This has become a bookkeeping chore. I have thought up an alternative and would like some opinions on it.

1. Define annual income (ignore tax issues).
2. Define "annual disposable income". This is what is left after paying for life's necessities: food, clothing, shelter, etc. I assume that some portion of this is going into savings, now and in previous years. Annual disposable income is 30% or 1/3 (whichever is a more convenient number) of total annual income.
3. Define ordinary spending limit. This is 25% of annual disposable income (ADI): a character can freely make any expenditures of this size on the assumption that he is spending no faster than money is coming in. In fact, as long as the player doesn't abuse it, any character can spend up to 50% of ADI.
4. Beyond this level, wealth is on an Activation-Jammed roll. A character gets one free expenditure, and must roll for Activation after that "to see if they're a little short this month".
51 - 75% ADI: 15-
76 - 100% ADI: 14-
101 - 150% ADI: 13-
151 - 200% ADI: 12-
201 - 300% ADI: 11-
301%+ ADI: 8-
If a player does a lot of big spending, the 15- Activation would start at 26% ADI

[SuperBlue]

Do it like this: 1 Character Point = $1000, then make players spend XP/Reward money

[Old Man]

The amount of income doesn't matter all that much in a modern campaign. Unless the players have paid to be unsually rich or poor then for the most part, they have clothes to wear, food to eat, and a place to sleep and store their junk. Every so often they can buy a cool toy.

I don't know of any player that took poor as a Disad so I can't say. Rich characters have higher maintenance costs if they live in a large house with multiple cars and such. So not much change there except that they can house and feed the group and maybe still afford a cool toy every so often.

[Tom Carman]

Some more detail is probably warrented here. The game has characters created under another game system then translated to HERO for skill and combat resolution; I plan to shift fully over to HERO, giving the players a chance to modify their characters in the process. Currently the characters are collections of stats, skills and perks, with no Disads beyond what the players care to role-play. The setting is Victorian science-fantasy (Space: 1889) and social level is an important issue. My translation of the characters assigned the usual HERO Disads/Perks for wealth to reflect class origins, but I still tracked their "bank accounts" when the characters bought things. I would like to drop that sort of bookkeeping and use their wealth Perks to determine whether a purchase can be made.

[pinecone]

Maybe go for a "wealth roll" ie:9+pts of wealth -Mods +other mods (like extra time to show saving up)????? So..."Lear jet huh? minus 5 on the wealth roll....."

[Fur Face]

Good Morning Tom,

Shelly Macintire is writing a Victorian Hero supplement (last time I heard). She may have already thought of these issues.