Script Compilation: Social Interactions in GURPS

Script Compilation: Social Interactions in GURPS

This post will have transcripts of all my videos about social interactions in GURPS.

Basics

Many of my previous videos were devoted to combat or magic, and how they compare to their D&D counterparts. I devoted barely any attention to another important aspect of the system – social interactions. Unlike the previous topics, there won’t be much to compare it to because social interaction rules in D&D are almost nonexistent. Even though every edition has a few social skills, I have never actually seen them being used as per rules-as-written. The GM just assigned an arbitrary DC that you had to beat, and you made your skill roll. What about GURPS? Is it the same, or is it more detailed? As always, the answer is “yes”, because the social interaction rules in GURPS can be adjusted to fit the game from being almost nonexistent, like in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy, to highly detailed, like in GURPS Social Engineering. This is best described in the final chapter of GURPS Social Engineering that is called “Throw Away This Book!” Every game is different, every gaming group is different, so you might just not need all the mechanics for talking and… just talk. It’s all up to you, but you should make sure that you’re on the same page with your players when it comes to social interactions in the game. For example, some groups do not roleplay shopping, but some players would love to haggle and talk with the merchant. For some groups, saying “I socialize and roll Carousing” would be enough, and some would like to roleplay the situation in more detail. In some games, the genre conventions assume that people of any status level can talk freely to one another, while in other games a high status noble will simply ignore a lowly peasant or even punish him for daring to speak to him. All these approaches are valid, you just have to make sure that everyone’s expectations are the same.

GURPS Social Engineering, if I recall correctly, won the ENnie Award. Not long ago, it even got a new cover with some questionable art that has nothing to do with Social Engineering. Seriously, why this?

But before we delve into GURPS Social Engineering, it is best to discuss all things social in the GURPS Basic Set. Most social interactions in GURPS are based on Reaction rolls and Influence roll. A “reaction roll” is a roll made by the GM to determine how his NPCs react to the player characters. This roll is always optional; the GM may predetermine reactions. But sometimes it’s more fun to let the dice control the reactions. Unlike skill rolls, the higher the Reaction roll is, the better is the result. Many traits give bonuses or penalties to Reaction rolls, and many of those rolls are situational. Reaction rolls are described on page 494 of GURPS Basic Set. It should be noted that Reaction rolls are modified not only by traits, but also by appropriate behavior of the players.

This is what I love about social interactions in GURPS. When in D&D, the so-called face character would just get a high Charisma stat and pump his skill points into Diplomacy, every social character in GURPS is different – one might get around just by being very physically attractive, another might have useful contacts, another might be a skilled negotiator, and the other might be a high-status respectable person whom people just do not want to argue with. A good approach should be worth +1 or more! A wholly inappropriate approach that antagonizes the NPCs should give the party -1 or -2 on the reaction roll. The book also emphasizes something important: Never substitute random die rolls for reason and logic. If you have a +10 reaction modifier and walk around the streets slapping people, nobody will react positively to you.

That section also suggest using predetermined reactions in some cases. For example, a hermit might react at -2 to all visitors, but his reaction cannot be better than Neutral. This is a case of a predetermined penalty and best-case reaction. Predetermined bonuses and worst-case reactions are possible too, but only for unusually friendly NPCs.

If a player gets a reaction roll result that he doesn’t like, he may change his approach and try again. Bribing, offering new information or deals, using an influence skill – all these count as new approaches. However, if the NPC feels annoyed, the GM may impose a cumulative -2 reaction penalty until the player waits for a reasonable time between attempts.

Influence roll are a bit different. An influence roll is a deliberate attempt to ensure a positive reaction from an NPC. In suitable circumstances, a player character can make an influence roll instead of a normal reaction roll. The influence skills are – Diplomacy, Fast-Talk, Intimidation, Savoir-Faire, Sex Appeal, and Streetwise. In some situations, other skills can be used as influence skills, such as Law, Propaganda, or Psychology. Typically, all your personal reaction modifiers apply here, but the skill being used or the GM may rule that some modifiers do not apply. Some NPCs might be more receptive to some influence skills, but not to others. The book suggests imposing a penalty from -1 to -10 for using an inappropriate influence skill. As you can see, many things here are up to the GM.

To influence an NPC, you roll a Quick Contest of your influence skill vs. the subject’s Will. If you win, you get a good reaction (or Very Good in case of Sex Appeal), but if you fail you get a bad reaction (or Very Bad in case of Intimidation). Diplomacy is a special case, as even if you fail, the GM makes a normal reaction roll and uses the best result. So, it is not always wise to attempt to influence the NPCs, sometimes it is better to let the normal reaction roll dictate the outcome.

Have you noticed that everything here was devoted to NPCs reacting to player characters, and player characters influencing NPCs? What about the opposite? The GM should not make Influence rolls on behalf of NPCs and tell the players how to react. Typically, players form an opinion of an NPC based on the GM’s portrayal of the character. If a player character has a trait that makes him react better to certain individuals, the player should take that into account when roleplaying the interactions.

However, NPCs still can make influence rolls against the PCs! But they work differently. When an NPC makes a successful influence roll against a PC, the GM should apply the NPC’s margin of victory as a bonus or penalty (as appropriate) to the PC’s die rolls when dealing with that NPC. For example, a Sex Appeal roll with a margin of victory of 2 might impose a -2 penalty on self-control rolls for the PC’s Lecherousness disadvantage, -2 to the Detect Lies skill, and so on.

The Reaction table itself is on page 560 of GURPS Basic Set. It has not only results for general reaction, but also for more specific uses of the reaction rolls – potential combat situations, commercial transactions, requests for aid, requests for information, and loyalty. There is also a list of appropriate ways to modify each application of the reaction roll. GURPS Social Engineering adds some new ones – confrontation with authority, gaining admission, hiring, response to information, recreation, and seduction.

Skills

Last time, I talked about the basics, including the reaction and influence rolls, but this time let’s talk about the influence skills in more detail.

There are six standard influence skills in GURPS – Diplomacy, Fast-Talk, Intimidation, Savoir-Faire, Sex Appeal, and Streetwise. The skill dictates not what you want to accomplish, but how you want to accomplish it.

Most influence skills are penalized if you are unfamiliar with the subject’s culture and if you are not fluent in the subject’s language. Cultural Familiarity will be discussed in another video. If you want to know everything about languages in GURPS, you can watch the language episode of Only the parts you need – the link is in the description. In some situations, influence rolls do not involve speech, and in that case literacy or fluency does not matter, as do voice-related traits.

Diplomacy is a Hard IQ-based skill. This is the art of negotiating and compromising, and it can be used for any influence roll in a noncombat situation. Like I said in the previous video, even if you fail your attempt, the subject does not get offended – Diplomacy never gives a worse result than if you had tried an ordinary reaction roll. Thus, Diplomacy is almost universal and relatively safe, but is a Hard skill, unlike the rest. Diplomacy gets a bonus from the Voice advantage, and penalties from Low Empathy, Oblivious, Shyness, and Stuttering. If you know Diplomacy at level 20 or better, you get a +2 bonus on all reaction rolls! Getting that 20 costs a lot though.

Fast-Talk is an Average IQ-based skill. This is the art of talking others into doing things against their better judgment. This is not the same as Acting. Acting is what actors, spies, and impersonators do – long-term acting that cannot be used to influence people, while Fast-Talk is what con men, salesmen, lawyers, or rogues do to influence people short-term. Just like Diplomacy, if you know Fast-Talk at 20 or better, you get +2 on all reaction rolls, but only if you are allowed to talk. Again, just like Diplomacy, Fast-Talk gets a bonus from Voice, and penalties from Oblivious, Shyness, and Stuttering. In addition, it is penalized for Truthfulness, and the GM may also give you a modifier if you describe your approach in more detail rather than just saying that you roll Fast-Talk. If the story is plausible, then a bonus is appropriate, and vice versa. As you can see, Fast-Talk is slightly more limited and risky than Diplomacy, but it is an Average difficulty skill.

Intimidation is an Average Will-based skill. This is the skill of hostile persuasion. The results of a successful attempt vary, depending on the kind of person you’re influencing. Also, if you roll a critical success, or if the subject critically fails his Will roll, the subject also must make a Fright Check. The skill description also has rules for group intimidation, whether it’s a single character intimidating a group of NPCs, or multiple characters intimidating an even larger group of NPCs. You can also try rolling a Quick Contest of Fast-Talk vs. the subject’s IQ before you attempt Intimidation to appear more intimidating when you can’t back it up. If you win, you get a +3 bonus, but if you tie or lose, your Intimidation attempt fails automatically and you get a Very Bad reaction instead of a Bad one.

Intimidation has a ton of modifiers. Displays of strength, Callous, negative Appearance, Size difference, Reputation – all these can give you a bonus. Oblivious, Shyness, the subject’s Fearlessness, clumsy dialog impose penalties. Requests for aid are always at -3 or worse.

As you can see, this is much more limited than Diplomacy or Fast-Talk, but not only is this an Average difficulty skill, but it is also a Will-based skill, which means that it is cheaper to improve.

Savoir-Faire is an Easy IQ-based skill. This is the knowledge of how to get along with or fit into a particular subculture that has a specific code of conduct. This skill can be used in place of any reaction roll toward a member of the appropriate subculture. You must specialize. GURPS Basic Set suggests the following specialties: Dojo, High Society, Mafia, Military, Police, Servant, but I also remember seeing Magical somewhere, probably in GURPS Fantasy. Savoir-Faire gets a bonus if you are of higher standing than those you are trying to influence, but gets a penalty if you are of lower standing. If you have important friends, or if you seem to have them, you get a bonus. Such traits, as Clueless, Low Empathy, Oblivious, and Shyness impose penalties.

As you can see, this is a very limited skill, but it is an Easy one.

Sex Appeal is an Average HT-based skill. This is the art of getting things done by making people find you alluring or suggesting sexual availability. You may substitute an Influence roll against Sex Appeal for any reaction roll made by someone who is attracted to members of your sex. Typically, only one attempt per subject is possible, but in some cases the GM might allow another attempt after a few weeks. A success produces a Very Good reaction, not just a Good one.

Sex Appeal gets a bonus from Voice and positive Appearance, a penalty from Low Empathy, Oblivious, Shyness, and Stuttering, and double penalty for negative Appearance.

Unlike other influence skills, this is an HT-based skill, so you can be good at Sex Appeal even if you do not have high IQ or Will. However, as you can see, it is quite limited.

Streetwise is an Average IQ-based skill. This is the skill of getting along in rough neighborhoods or criminal company. You may substitute an Influence roll against Streetwise for any reaction roll made in an underworld or “bad neighborhood” situation. Unlike the other influence skills, Streetwise is actually good for things other than influencing others – you can find connections in the underworld, search for certain illegal goods and activities, and so on. This is a very good skill for rogue-type characters, I would even say that it is one of the essentials.

Streetwise gets a bonus for having a tough reputation, a penalty for being a stranger in the area, having Shyness, Low Empathy, and Oblivious.

Some other skills can be used as influence skill in specific situations. Carousing can work with drinking companions. Dancing can be used in romantic pursuits. Have you read Heinlein’s Number of the Beast? The protagonist managed to persuade a woman he had never met before to marry him with just a dance on the very first pages. Games can work as an influence skill with sport referees at -3 to skill. Leadership can secure loyalty of a squad or other small team. Merchant can be used to sell something the buyer doesn’t really want to buy. Pandhandling can be used at -3 to ask for money or favors. Public Speaking works when telling stories or preaching. Writing can be used to request aid or information.

Certain skills can complement influence skills. Carousing works in some situations, Connoisseur can complement Savoir-Faire (High Society), Fast-Draw can complement Intimidation, and so on. Influence skills can complement other skills too. For example, Sex Appeal can complement Singing or Performance.

If you come from the D&D background, you might be unused to Charisma not being an attribute. In GURPS, most social skills are based on IQ, and some are based on Will and HT. This sometimes can produce results that might seem inappropriate. Why would a genius mathematician with IQ 17 be very competent at all social skills? It actually goes against the stereotype. In such situations, consider giving your genius a lower IQ score, but give him Talent that increases scientific knowledge, or give him disadvantages that penalize social skills, such as Shyness or Clueless. However, that still might seem wrong. If this is the case, consider giving GURPS Power-Ups 9: Alternate Attributes a read. It is an excellent book about reworking the attribute system, and it has guidelines for introducing Charisma as an attribute. I’ve actually always wanted to try it out, but my players are against this idea. But beware – this book is definitely not for new players. To utilize it properly, you must be intimately familiar with GURPS.

There are some other nuances about influencing others, but they are outside the scope of this video. If you’d like to know more, give GURPS Social Engineering a read.

Traits

Last time, I talked about the influence skills, but today let’s talk various advantages and disadvantages that affect social skills and other social aspects of your character. However, I will not talk about such things as Appearance, Rank, Status, and Wealth, because they deserve their own video.

The first social advantage is Allies. This is a very flexible advantage that gives you a loyal ally. You can adjust the frequency of appearance or availability, the power level, and loyalty of the ally. If you apply Summonable or Conjured, this becomes a supernatural advantage. An Ally can also be a Dependent. This is a powerful advantage that can get out of hand in some situations. In any case, remember that the Ally is an NPC. The Ally is created and controlled by the GM, not by the player.

The next advantage is Alternate Identity. This is a mundane advantage that can represent an alternate legal or illegal identity. I think it is mostly appropriate for high-tech games where documents, passports, and credit cards are more relevant, but I still can see it being used in a D&D-like game. I think it would be great to introduce a supernatural variant of this advantage for the purpose of spells and abilities that divine information about you.

Animal Empathy allows you to use influence skill on animals. Without it, you have to use Animal Handling.

Blessed and Very Blessed give you a reaction bonus from followers of your deity.

Chameleon with Always On is irritating – strangers react at -1.

Charisma is a very important advantage for social characters. It gives a bonus on all reaction rolls made be sapient beings with whom you actively interact, a bonus to Influence rolls, and a bonus to Fortune-Telling, Leadership, Panhandling, and Public Speaking skills. The GM may rules that it does not affect extremely alien races. As I mentioned in the previous video, GURPS Power-Ups 9: Alternate Attributes has guidelines for transforming Charisma into a separate attribute that affects social interactions. I do not think it’s a bad idea, but be very careful.

Claim to Hospitality makes you belong to a social group that encourages its members to assist one another. You can always rely on them to provide food, shelter, or basic aid. The point cost depends on the extent and wealth of the group. This advantage comes with a downside – you have to assist others with the same Claim to Hospitality!

Clerical Investment makes you an ordained priest of a recognized religion. Co-religionists react to you at +1. This is a social trait that allows you to perform certain services and lets you enjoy certain privileges, but does not grant you any divine powers. It also gives you Religious Rank 0 for free, but I will talk about that again in a video about Rank. In the context of D&D-style games, most clerics should have this advantage. Clerical Investment might also be appropriate for some shamans, but on the other hand, it might be inappropriate to other divine spellcasters, such as favored souls, who may not have ties to an organized religion.

Contacts and Contact Groups are two very flexible advantages that can provide you with information or small favors. You can adjust the skill level, skill breadth, reliability, and availability. In the context of D&D-style games, this is also very flexible. A rogue character might have underworld contacts or a fence, a cleric might have his church as a Contact Group, a wizard might have his former mentor as a Contact or his mage guild as a Contact Group, a druid can have his druidic circle as a Contact Group. This is also an excellent reward to give players for their in-game accomplishments. If you are not satisfied with what GURPS Basic Set gives you here, consider buying GURPS Social Engineering: Keeping in Contact. It is an entire book devoted to this advantage, and it’s pretty good.

Cultural Adaptability is a cinematic advantage that lets you ignore cultural familiarity penalties. I will talk about culture in the next video in the series.

Empathy and Sensitive, its lesser variant, are very good advantages for social characters, as they improve some of your social skills and make it easier to choose an appropriate way to approach the interaction.

Favor is a single-use Ally, Contact, Contact Group, or Patron. Again, a very nice in-game reward for the player characters.

Illuminated is a very specific advantage that lets you sense other Illuminated beings and conspiracies. Such beings react to you at +3. It is possible to adapt this advantage to not be about the actual Illuminati. I have done that in a sci-fi game, but not in a fantasy game.

Indomitable makes you immune to most influence rolls. You still can be influenced by a character with an appropriate Empathy advantage. Often accompanies Unfazeable.

Legal Enforcement Powers for police is what Clerical Investment is for church. You get privileges, such as right to conceal carry, license to kill, and so on, and free Police Rank 0. In the context of D&D-style games, this could mean a license to wield a weapon that is forbidden for the commoners, a license to use mind-reading and mind-control magic for the purpose of law enforcement, when its use it illegal for everyone else, and similar benefits.

Legal Immunity is another advantage that can create interesting situations that are rarely explored in D&D-style games. It is appropriate for priests in certain nations, diplomats, ambassadors, and bards.

Patron is another very flexible advantage that is social by default, but can also be made supernatural. For example, GURPS Powers: Divine Favor is based around this advantage. A Patron is an NPC or an organization that serves as an advisor, employer, mentor, or protector. You can adjust the Patron’s power, frequency of appearance, and apply various modifiers. A Patron can provide you with gear and information, bail you out of jail, give you a job, and help you in other ways. However, having a Patron often means that you have such disadvantages as Duty, a code of conduct, or even Enemies.

Plant Empathy lets you use influence skills on sentient plants.

Security Clearance is exactly what its name entails – it gives you a security clearance to information that would otherwise be off limits to someone of your Rank or Status.

Social Chameleon is a cinematic advantage that makes you exempt from reaction penalties due to differences in Rank or Status.

Social Regard gives you a reaction bonus in your society. You can be feared, respected, or venerated, with slightly different effects. This advantage can add a lot of flavor to your game world if utilized properly.

Spirit Empathy lets you use influence skills on spirits that otherwise are immune to them.

Many Talents give you bonuses to social skills, and almost all of them provide a reaction bonus when interacting with a specific class of people. If you’d like to know more about talents or if you do not like reaction bonuses and want alternative benefits, check out GURPS Power-Ups 3: Talents.

Tenure gives you a job from which you cannot normally be fired. Nice!

Unfazeable makes you immune to Intimidation.

Voice is a trait that improves your Diplomacy, Fast-Talk, Mimicry, Performance, Politics, Public Speaking, Sex Appeal, and Singing, and also gives you a reaction bonus from those who can hear you.

Zeroed makes it so you do not officially exist. In a fantasy setting, you are a mysterious wanderer – supernatural divination cannot discover any details about your past or true identity.

That’s all the advantages related to social interactions. If you come from a D&D background, it might be difficult to adapt to having social traits like these be abilities that you have to buy. Sure, even in D&D 3.5, you could get the Leadership feat (and probably get punched by the DM) or play the noble class from Dragonlance Campaign Setting to exploit favors, but even with all the feat support in mind, it pales in comparison to what GURPS offers here. Disadvantages, in my opinion, are even more important for the social aspects of the game than advantages, because they make you roleplay your character in a certain way. Many disadvantages provide situational reaction penalties, but some actually provide bonuses! I will not go over every single one of them, because that would take too long and would be more or less pointless – just open the book and read them! But I will point out some of them.

For example, Bully gives you a -2 penalty on all reaction rolls. Nobody likes a bully. Chummy and Gregarious make you react at a bonus to others most of the time and make you miserable alone. Clueless makes others react at -2 to you, but also makes you resistant to Sex Appeal. Cowardice might make soldiers react to you negatively. Delusions, when uncovered, make people react negatively to you. And the list goes on and on. Not only are there explicit bonuses and penalties, but the GM should also assign situational modifiers. For example, you might get a reaction bonus by giving something delicious to a character with Gluttony.

But where the reaction bonuses and penalties shine, in my opinion, is the quirks and perks. They are perfect for very situational social modifiers. For example, if you do not want a harsh disadvantage, such as Intolerance (Women), you can take Dislikes blond women for a smaller, more situational bonus that will give your character more character. A character with Likes cats will react at +1 to other characters that like cats, characters that wear skullcats, and so on. The possibilities here are endless. I strongly suggest you to get GURPS Power-Ups 6: Quirks, as it has many examples of such quirks.

Personally, it was difficult for me to adapt when coming to GURPS from D&D, because I was unused to have social traits at all! Now, however, I can see just how much they help to give your character more flavor and make him feel like a part of the world, not just a statblock.

Reference Society

Last time, I talked about some of the social traits, but today let’s talk about something that affects many social skills, not only influence skills – cultural familiarity and the concept of reference society that is very important to many social traits.

What is a reference society? A reference society is one society of the campaign world, in relation to which social (and some other) traits are taken. Most traits in GURPS are stable as they reflect an aspect of the character itself, but some traits reflect the position the character has in relation to the society around him. Thus, such traits vary from moment to moment, or location to location. This is why the reference society is necessary. This concept was always implied in GURPS, but it was described in more detail in GURPS Social Engineering and GURPS Fantasy: Portal Realms.

A campaign should have only one reference society for all the PCs. That way, the same entries mean the same thing on all the character sheets. For example, in your typical D&D-style game, the kingdom or other nation where most of the action takes place is your reference society. If your character is a barbarian from a tribe that lives on the outskirts, he might have Social Stigma (Minority Group). If this is a TL3 kingdom and the barbarian tribe is TL1, then your character will have Low TL 2. However, if other characters from the kingdom visit this tribe during their adventures, they won’t suddenly gain High TL 2, because all characters were made with the TL3 kingdom as the reference society. If a noble character with Status 3 that also has Rank 3 in an international merchant guild travels to another nation, he does not enjoy the benefits of Status there, but he might still enjoy the benefits of Rank, if his guild operates in that nation too. A character who has committed crimes in a nation that is not the reference society of the game will not have the Social Stigma (Criminal Record) disadvantage. But he still might have Enemies from his homeland that are looking for him.

The same applies even to some physical traits, such as Appearance. Appearance can be a racial trait, as well as a personal one. If a level of Appearance is taken at the standard point cost, its reaction modifiers can apply either to your own race and races that closely resemble it, or to the dominant race in your world and races that closely resemble it. If they apply to both, treat this as the Universal enhancement to Appearance level (+25%). For example, orcs might be Unattractive to humans and other human-like races, such as elves, but not to other orcs.

When societies don’t interact, it’s simplest to treat social traits defined in the nonreference society as 0-point features. For example, if your character is a king that came from an alternate timeline, he won’t have to pay for that, because it will not affect the game in any way. Sometimes even languages that will never be useful in the game can be treated like that.

If the societies interact and you want to incorporate more detail and complexity, such traits can be treated as parallel social traits. These are traits defined in relation to a society that is not the reference society. In the reference society, few people recognize them. But they come into effect in the other society, or among other people from it. Such traits may be acquired at one-fifth cost, like alternative abilities.

GURPS Fantasy: Portal Realms has a list of traits that usually are defined only for the reference society – Claim to Hospitality, Clerical Investment, Contacts, Enemies, Patrons, Cultural Adaptability, Cultural Familiarity, Debt, Independent Income, Duty, Fashion Sense, Favor, Intolerance, Legal Enforcement Powers, Legal Immunity, Low or High TL, Rank, Reputation, Secret, Security Clearance, Social Regard, Social Stigma, Status, Tenure, Wealth, Zeroed. As always, in some situations these traits can apply to all societies, not only to the reference society.

With that out of the way, let’s also talk about culture. Being unfamiliar with the cultural peculiarities of a person you’re talking to imposes a -3 penalty on pretty much every social skill. That’s quite harsh! By default, you gain Cultural Familiarity with your native culture for free, but if you are familiar with cultures other than your own, you have to buy this advantage. It costs only 1 point, or 2 points for alien cultures. If you’re playing in a cinematic campaign, you can also buy Cultural Adaptability (p. B46) for 10 points to be familiar with all cultures of your race or Xeno-Adaptability for 20 points to be familiar with all cultures of the game world.

How many cultural groups and how broad they are depends not only on the setting, but also on the game. In a game where with few social interactions and where culture is not important, the GM may either ignore there rules or make culture groups very broad. For example, in the real world the groups would be something like Western, Eastern, and African. In a sci-fi game, cultural groups can span entire star systems. In a fantasy game, they might be continent-wide. If the GM would like some more detail, he could give every nation or race its own cultural group. That way, you could have Cultural Familiarity (Kingdom X, Kingdom Y, Kingdom Z) or Cultural Familiarity (Humans, Elves, Orcs). As everything in GURPS, it all depends on the GM and the game in question. Personally, I assign a cultural group to every nation, and in case of sapient creatures that do not belong to any nation, I assign them their own cultural group. Thus, for example, I have Cultural Familiarity (Sadolian Empire) and Cultural Familiarity (Dragons).

Wealth, Status, Rank, and Reputation

The way Wealth, Status, and Rank work in GURPS confuses both new and veteran players. On the first glance, it seems that Wealth merely affects the starting money, but it is much more than just that. However, just like everything in GURPS, the way Wealth works also depends on the kind of game you want to run. In this video, I will try to explain everything about Wealth. I will also talk about Status and Rank, because they are intertwined with Wealth, and I really cannot leave them out.

Wealth is described on page 25 of GURPS Basic Set. The default Wealth level is Average – it costs no points. Negative Wealth is a disadvantage, the levels are Struggling, Poor, and Dead Broke. Positive Wealth is an advantage – the levels are Comfortable, Wealthy, Very Wealthy, Filthy Rich, and Multimillionaire that can be improved further with no cap.

The amount of starting money depends not only on your personal Wealth level, but also on the TL of the reference society. So, all characters have the same default starting wealth regardless of their personal TL. In the context of D&D-style games, this is usually $1,000, if you are playing in a TL3 setting, or $2,000 if you are playing in a TL4 setting.

After that, another deviation from D&D comes into view. You don’t have to be a homeless adventurer with no property. If you are playing a character that is always on the move and carries everything with him, you can spend all your starting money on gear. This is, for example, how GURPS Dungeon Fantasy works, and it can work in many other cases, especially if you are Poor or Dead Broke. However, if you are playing a normal character with a settled lifestyle, you only have 20% of your starting money for “adventuring” gear. The remaining 80% of your starting wealth are your home, clothing, etc.

Aside from gear, what do you need your Wealth for? You need it to pay the monthly cost of living. This concept is explained on page 265 of GURPS Basic Set. This covers all your typical expenses – food, housing, clothing, entertainment, etc. The amount of money that you have to pay per month does not depend on your Wealth level or Technological Level, but depends on your Status. GURPS Basic Set has a generic table that shows you what Status level corresponds to what cost of living. However, for D&D-style games, I suggest using the table from page 187 of GURPS Banestorm that has a much more detailed description of what cost of living covers for each Status level. For example, at the default Status 0, your typical character will have a rural cottage, or several rented or small rooms in town; possibly a servant or two, or at least family members to help him out; a couple of changes of clothes, one set adequately smart; a mule or ox in the country; in town, enough credit to hire or borrow a mount if he needs to travel short distances. If you have enough money, you can live above your Status, but usually that would elicit some reaction penalties. Or, if you do not have enough money, you can live below your Status, but that too will cause certain groups to react to you negatively. Also, if you are away from home, you have a daily cost of living that equals to 20% of your usual monthly cost of living. Adventuring is expensive! However, in games where the GM doesn’t want to track all this, he can just ignore the cost of living – it’s an absolutely valid option.

As you can see, by default there’s no direct correlation between Wealth and Status, but if you are not wealthy enough, you won’t be able to support high Status for long. So, these two advantages are closely related. Rank also comes into play here, because in some situations you can get free Status from Rank. In that case, cost of living is paid for your Status before it is adjusted for high Rank.

So, what is Status? In GURPS, Wealth is the character’s economical standing, and Status is the character’s social standing. In most game worlds, Status levels range from -2 (serf or street person) to 8 (powerful emperor or godking), with the average man being Status 0 (freeman or ordinary citizen). Status is either an advantage that costs 5/level or a disadvantage that costs -5 points/level. It’s not the same as your personal or ethnic popularity – Status is your social power. As I said before, you have to pay a lot to maintain high Status. In some game worlds, Status is closely tied to Wealth. If you are Wealthy or better, you get +1 Status for free. This bonus increases to +2 at Multimillionaire 1 and to +3 at Multimillionaire 2. Generally speaking, the difference in Status works as a Reaction bonus or penalty. If you have Status 3, then those with Status 1 will react to you at +2. As always, there are exceptions to every rule, because some people might resent the social class differences and react to you at a penalty instead! If you are dealing with a higher-Status NPC who is friendly, your own Status does not matter, as long as it is positive. Otherwise, every king would be automatically hostile to all his knights. But a neutral or angry NPC might turn this difference into a penalty!

For all these modifiers to be applicable, your Status has to be recognized. In low-tech games, not everyone would be able to recognize a noble by his face, but noble house crests, insignias and garb would to the trick. This is why Heraldry is an important skill in low-tech games. This also makes Status one of the traits that only apply in the reference society of your game, but you still are able to buy Status for non-reference societies as an alternative ability to your normal Status.

Does it all make sense to you? I can see how this can be confusing. Sean Punch has provided some good clarifications on the SJGames forums, and this advice was later reprinted in How to be a GURPS GM:

In GURPS, Status = social standing and Wealth = economic standing, and your complete socioeconomic profile – what we would call “social class” in the real world – comes from the two taken together. Since you can’t retain Status that you can’t pay for, low Wealth tends to drag you down. Someone with low Wealth has few everyday possessions, which is where 80% of his starting money goes (p. B26), and cannot afford a high cost of living and all that comes with it (pp. B265-266). “All that comes with it” is what the reserved 80% buys, incidentally.

These considerations are meant to have social implications in the game world: A TL8 person who chooses to be Poor [-15] starts with $4,000 and not $20,000, and has $3,200 and not $16,000 in assets, which are kept up with a cost of living consistent with that for Status -2 (p. B517), meaning “a room in a flophouse or shelter . . . or a patch of sidewalk” (p. B266). In short, he’s a homeless itinerant or a drifter, and here’s the important part: By getting 15 points for Poor, he’s accepting and locking in his legal status as “homeless itinerant.” It isn’t just money that’s affected, but others’ perceptions of him. If a cop catches him flashing gift goods from rich party members, sees him entering a residence provided by said allies, etc., the cop will intervene. Such incidents should provide approximately -15 points of inconvenience.

There’s also the bit about how much gear you start with, but that’s actually a secondary effect of Wealth. The primary effects concern your credit rating, social network, relationship with bankers and taxmen, and so on, and the follow-on effects on your social freedoms and mobility. Wealth represents these things first of all. If the GM has no intention of enforcing the ramifications, then low Wealth isn’t a valid disadvantage, any more than low Appearance would be valid in a campaign where all the PCs teleoperate giant battlemechs via FTL radio and never appear in the flesh.

Letting rich PCs bankroll poorer ones has little long-term impact on the campaign. It won’t help the poorer PCs score better jobs in their downtime, get them into the right social situations for social engineering, or grant them free Status. It won’t insulate poorer PCs with Greed from their demons. And it won’t let poorer PCs justify any better return on Independent Income. It just means better gear – and gear that doesn’t cost points has no plot immunity at all. No points means no obligation on the GM’s part not to break, confiscate, or steal the gear – or not to have it prove cursed, faulty, radioactive, stolen, etc.

Wealth in actual play breaks down like this in my campaigns:

• Players whose PCs have Wealth are welcome to buy gear for less-fortunate PCs.

• Heroes with Wealth below that associated with the minimum Status level for plot-relevant social events don’t receive invitations and get turned away at the door if they show up anyway, unless they can make some tough skill rolls.

• Heroes receive rewards and honors commensurate with their Wealth. The wealthy hero gets gifts befitting a millionaire. The poor one gets a free lunch.

Players who dislike this can do three things:

• Buy enough Status that they can’t be ignored. While cheaper than Wealth, level for level, it’s a bad investment long-term if you lack the Wealth to go with, as you’ll eventually miss cost-of-living payments and lose Status.

• Save up money and points, and when they have enough of both, convince me that they’ve bought their way into the wealthy elite and spend points for Wealth and/or Status.

• Take high levels of Acting, Fast-Talk, Savoir-Faire (High Society), etc., and fake it. Always fun – but a failed skill roll can render the approach more-or-less a nonstarter thereafter, without a significant change in venue.

It goes without saying, I think, that this assumes the campaign has a significant social element – at least as important as, say, fighting or investigation. If it doesn’t, then I’d recommend against using Status and Wealth at all, for any PC.

I find the last paragraph the most important here. If your game does not have any significant social elements, do not even bother with Wealth and Status!

I mentioned Rank before, so let’s give it an overview. Rank represents your position in an influential organization. You cannot have a negative Rank, so Rank is always an advantage. In some cases, Rank can give you Status for free, in some cases in replaces Status. Unlike Status, Rank does not require maintenance, but usually requires prerequisites. All this is described in much more detail in GURPS Social Engineering.

If you read the Rank section in the GURPS Basic Set, you probably still won’t understand what Rank does. The mechanical benefits aren’t really described there, unfortunately; you just have to estimate the amount of influence. However, there’s an excellent book that fixes this – GURPS Social Engineering: Pulling Rank. I highly recommend getting that book if your game revolves around organizations of any kind. With this book, you can use Rank as something of a Patron – you can ask the organization for assistance. I think that this book deserves much more recognition than it has now.

With Status and Rank out of the way, I would like to return to Wealth. Remember the starting money? You can also trade points for extra money. Each point yields 10% of the campaign’s average starting wealth. There is also the Signature Gear advantage – for each point you get equipment worth up to 50% of the campaign’s average starting wealth, and this equipment has plot armor. I really dislike this advantage due to my personal distaste for plot protection. Also, why trade points for money when Signature Gear effectively gives you five times as much money and provides plot protection? GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 1: Adventurers suggests improving the exchange rate to 50% per point, just like for Signature Gear. The same book suggests using Wealth not only to determine your starting money, but also to determine the percentage of an item’s price that the adventurer can get when selling: 0% if Dead Broke, 10% if Poor, 20% if Struggling, 40% if Average, 60% if Comfortable, 80% if Wealthy, or 100% if Very Wealthy. This, and Kromm’s clarifications on Wealth and Status, set in stone that Wealth is not just money, but also a representation of the character having connections.

There is even a forum post that suggests how to separate the two. I will link it in the description.

Jason Levine, also known as PK, has proposed his own houserules about Wealth, money, and Signature Gear. I really like these rules, and I will link it in the description. Basically, this allows for a better way to convert points into extra starting money. Honestly, if I am going to run a game that does not have many social elements, I will just remove Wealth and use this system to determine the starting wealth – I think that would be perfect.

Pyramid #3/44 also has another Wealth variant – Abstract Wealth. When using this variant system, Wealth becomes an attribute. This is very similar to how money works in d20 Modern, but I think that it works much better in high-tech and ultra-tech games.

I would also like to talk about another social component of a character – Reputation. It is possible to be well-known, which can be an advantage or a disadvantage. Reputation is one of the cheaper traits, and it can be a nice way to give your character more flavor. Reputation also is a very good in-game reward or punishment.

Why does it work well to personalize your character? First of all, Reputation cannot be generic – you must provide specifics. What are you known for? You have to decide. It also ties your character to a specific group of people, integrating your character into the world.

Reaction is a leveled trait that provides a Reaction bonus or penalty, but the maximum level is 4. You can have multiple Reputations, both positive and negative, but the total Reaction modifier cannot be higher than +4 or lower than -4.

Reputation usually does not apply to everyone and every time. You have to specify a group of people that can recognize you and the frequency of recognition.

Reputation can also provide other penalties! GURPS Martial Arts suggests giving characters who have a signature move or tend to target the same hit location often in every fight a negative Reputation. This will make the character predictable – others will defend at a bonus against this signature move equal to the Reputation level.

Kromm’s post on Wealth and Status - http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.php?p=1086688&postcount=9

PK’s Money and Signature Gear - https://www.mygurps.com/index.php?n=Main.GURPSMoney

Wealth as Money + Connections - https://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.php?p=2134636&postcount=11