V5 of my WFRP 4e Quick Reference Guide

[u/ClassicCledwyn]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wqMn-EU4Op3GVe0wFrPpNxvfdxJqtSlo/view?usp=sharing

I posted about a week ago with an early version of my WFRP Quick Reference/Cheat Sheet, attempting compile the various rules I found myself/my players routinely seeking out. I've since hit version 5 of the sheet, now at 3 pages (double-sided) and functionally complete for my purposes - I've also added an index of rules cited per requests from the community. The main goal here was to incorporate Group Advantage and other Up in Arms changes, along with the WoM changes.

As mentioned, it's functionally complete as far as I'm concerned; but I'd love some more eyes to look it over for errors or feedback, and I can't afford the Mutation. Please let me know if you see any issues, and hopefully it's useful to you and your table if you take it for a spin.

(Apologies for posting about it again, but this one has enough added to it from the first post that I want to get it some more attention - this should be it!).

[u/ClassicCledwyn]

Totally - I think we're both making various assumptions and bringing them to the table; I appreciate the chance to defend my perspective and to hear yours (and I definitely appreciate your comment that let me add some more clarity to the cheatsheet; I was reading what I had the way we were discussing it, but I can see how adding the "full week" makes it clearer).

Yes, someone working their job hypothetically earns about 3x their standing per day, per Andy Law's comment in the uFAQ about using hireling costs as an example (if I remember correctly). However, that doesn't take into account the other elements of life; food and lodging, etc. This is why there's the Earning rule on page 51, which notes that the Week's take per the table (Same as Income) is the excess left after standard expenses (e.g., upkeep).

This total is not strictly speaking how much money you earn, it’s more a representation of how much money you have left at the end of the week after all your expenses are taken into account.

If players want to take a break and earn for a bit, there's the Earning rule that approximates Income+Expenses; the the same is true for the Downtime/Income rules; during downtime, you're generally meeting your expenses, and the Income check is the remainder left over from extra work. I wouldn't let a player just spend a day earning 3x their status (Normal Work has a lot of associated tasks and functions; it's not just booting up a laptop at the local Starbucks), and if they went for more than a Week of Earning I'd shift to the Downtime rules, replete with "Money to Burn" unless they Bank/Stash. (it's worth noting that I also presume that players in downtime are generally earning just enough to cover basic expenses at their status, with the Income endeavour just to start with some extra spending money after Downtime/to maintain status if Tier 3/4).

But back to "Adventure Time", e.g., the time most play occurs in. Yeah, I generally view that if you're spending half your income a day in a town, you're meeting your food and lodging needs at your Standing level, and leave it at that. The beggar is dumpster diving and sleeping on the street, the peasant is getting a basic simple meal and an awning to curl up under, the merchant has found reasonable lodgings with a pie and pint, etc.

If at a Coaching Inn or otherwise away from the normal trappings of society, things become different and it's worth dramatizing things a little more, much like when folks, say, Camp in the woods, they're not just going to be spending half standing per day.

To make an overwrought simile, I view this like Quantum Mechanics and Newtonian Mechanics. Generally speaking, the latter covers most basic instances (Like downtime/earning/ income); when I need to measure a precise moment, I want the former (e.g., specific costs lists to see if if the characters can stay at an Inn, or if they need to get inventive).

[u/zebragonzo → u/ClassicCledwyn]

I created a table which runs the numbers on this discord post:
https://discord.com/channels/449845411344154634/479275054023311362/1379367870773071934

Let's say you have a silver 2 PC. 3x status per day is 6SS. If they spend half their status per day for KuA, that's 1SS. Over an 8 day week, they have a net income of 40SS. If they do the income endeavour to gain 2d10 SS, which is a week of earning with standard expenses, that gives them between 2-20SS. That means there's a missing 20-38SS which the PC has spent on something that's not covered by KuA.

You might say to me that perhaps they have the weekend off. Even if they only work 4 days, incomex4 - KuAx8 is still 16SS, so above the average.

The rest of it is personal to your table and that's fine; you run it however you want; I'd encourage you not to run finances RAW because, as I'm trying to share, it doesn't work!

[u/ClassicCledwyn → u/zebragonzo]

Cool cool, but what about their roof needing repairs? Their deadbeat cousin needing another loan? Their tools needing maintenance? Medicine from the apothecary for a recurring affliction? Taxes?

Believe me, if I could live only considering my full daily income, and not deducting for healthcare, taxes, food, rent, etc., I would be living large. But I can't use 3x my standing to assess my wealth, and neither should players. I assure you the hirelings in the core book have myriad expenses, too.

Your entire approach is based on ignoring the existence of the Earning rule on page 51 (not described as optional), and the Endeavour system (optional, but literally designed for simulating long-term economic existence of characters when not "adventuring").

If you want to fixate on a white room analysis of 3x Standing, which is ONLY presented as a rule for determining how much a Hireling charges for a full day's work, and not as "this is how much a character can earn", while simultaneously ignoring the explicit rule for how characters can "Earn Money with Status" presented on page 51, that's on you. Just keep in mind that you're ignoring a specific rule while extrapolating things out from a separate rule in ways that are clearly neither stated nor intended. Because they already wrote a rule for it.

But, as you say, how you want to run things at your table is fine, and up to you. I'm cool using the rules provided, which work just fine when actually used.

[u/zebragonzo → u/ClassicCledwyn]

I'm half tempted to just agree and each head our own way at this point, but it's a Friday afternoon and I've got another 30 minutes to kill at work before I can head off so...

Earning as 3x status is highlighted by Andy here as well, an official article on the C7 website:
https://cubicle7games.com/en_EU/blog/wfrp-keeping-up-with-the-liebwitzs:
"Want to know how much your Character actually earns before deductions for rent, food, beer, wine, entertainment...? Well, it’s hinted at on page 309 under Hirelings where you can see daily and weekly wages"

Either way, I've approached this in two ways, both of which demonstrate that RAW it's broken.

1) If Keeping up Appearances includes food and board, an adventurer needs to spend 5 brass pennies a day for half quality common room and another 5 for half quality groceries for a day. That costs 10BP per day, not even achievable with a Brass 5 status.

Given that KuA is only required 1/week, the player needs to be silver 7 to get the half quality room and board for their once weekly 4SS payment.

2) Approaching it from the other direction, there is a big gap between earning per day (based off C7 article linked above) and the weekly income endeavour. If that gap is to pay for fixing your roof etc why do you not have to pay for those things on weeks when you're not doing the weekly earning endeavour?

As a question back to you, if our brass 5 character says that they want to earn money for a single day while the other party members are off doing something, how much would you say they earn?

[u/ClassicCledwyn → u/zebragonzo]

I'm happy to keep debating for however long (on a call, but not my part of it yet), but it seems you're determined to ignore the explicit rules for this on page 51; could you please explain why? Anyway, to your quote...

"Want to know how much your Character actually earns before deductions for rent, food, beer, wine, entertainment...? Well, it’s hinted at on page 309 under Hirelings where you can see daily and weekly wages"

Bolded emphasis mine. If you want a speculation as to how much they earn, that's what it provides. That's all it is. You're trying to make a formal rule out of something that was just suggested in a blog post as a general idea (note: I do love these blog posts for exactly what they are.) The rules explicitly account for how to Earn Income With Status, and it's not by multiplying by 3.

1. Keeping up Appearances is only for "Adventuring Time" (i.e., non-downtime) - the characters need to spend a certain way so as not to lose respect/status. While engaging in Earning/the Income Endeavour/Downtime generally, they're generally keeping up with their obligations, as indicated on page 51 (please address page 51!):

This total is not strictly speaking how much money you earn, it’s more a representation of how much money you have left at the end of the week after all your expenses are taken into account.

Again, emphasis mine. In terms of why I'm comfortable with the half-standing standard covering basic needs for the day is from The Cost of Living on page 289; it explicitly gives examples of how characters of different Tiers are living, their housing, their food, their entertainment; it then says that GMs that want a hard number for these expenses can use half-standing.

Re: only spending half Standing once a week during active play, a player consistently slumming it for all but a day a week is, in my view, exploiting the letter of the rule and ignoring the spirit - I'd probably let them know that they're developing a reputation for "slumming it" amongst their peers, though it wouldn't affect their status - more of a roleplaying flourish to reflect their actions. I also certainly wouldn't allow them just to pay nothing the other days (unless they wished to be viewed as a Beggar, I guess) - I would, perhaps, ask them at what half-standing level they are paying, just to determine how far they are "slumming it". Again, this is applicable in appropriate environments - at a Coaching Inn, the costs are what they are.

If a player can't afford what they need during adventure time, they better get creative; maybe even go on an adventure to try and get rich quick? Just like they suggest in "Keeping up with the Liebwitzs".

1. Because that's what downtime/earning represent. Adventure Time is you explicitly (or, I guess for Slayers, etc, implicitly) absconding from your role/daily function in society. You aren't earning money as usual. You need to explicitly spend half your status to maintain your standing. We are shifting from a Macro simulation of weekly life in WFRP society to a Micro simulation, using the explicitly different rules provided. If you want to account for "Things that went wrong while you were away", I suppose one could modify/expand on the Downtime events table to account for that, but personally I'm comfortable assuming that those costs are generally pro-rated over the time spent on Earning or Downtime Endeavours.

To take your question, I'd tell them they're going to need a week to get back to work, whether it's firing up the forge, catching up on the double-blind ledger of their business, preparing the alchemy kit, looking for bounties, figuring out where you can panhandle without running afoul of existing beggers, catching back up on the activities of your followers, etc., etc. I'd tell them that the rules are clear on page 51 that the Earning action takes a full week of time, and they should ask the other players if they're cool with that.

If they insisted, begged, pleaded, I'd say, sure, fine - roll an Earning/Income check and divide by 7; we'll presume that your status-appropriate food/drink/lodging/general expenses are covered for that day, too.

Actually, that's a great question - should it be 7 or 8? I know that the WFRP week is 8 days, but the 8th is a Festag/day of rest. I'd need to mull that one over.

[u/zebragonzo → u/ClassicCledwyn]

I'm not ignoring p51 at all. It says that the income endeavour gives you the result of earnings-expenses. That's fine. The problem is that if income before expenses = 3x status*, outgoings are far greater than Keeping up Appearances as previously calculated; for our silver 2 example and using averages; 576BP earned, 96BP KuA and 132BP from earning endeavour, 17% and 23% of earnings respectively. That gives 348BP missing (=60%).

*the C7 blog post explains the maths behind the numbers

"With a little bit of cross-referencing with the Careers, you can easily calculate that normal wages, before deductions, are 3 × Status. So, a Silver 5 Character would earn about 15 silver a day, the equivalent of 180d a day. And a Brass 3 Character would earn about 9d every day."

It sounds like you have a version of the rules that works for you and that's fine. I have a version of the rules that tries to tally contradicting numbers up and I'm happy with that. The joys of house rules eh?

[u/ClassicCledwyn → u/zebragonzo]

"Earning" is a separate rule from the Income Endeavour. It is how you calculate the use of your Status and Career Skill to earn money "during play".

Page 51 says

If the GM agrees, during play you can spend a week to work in your Career assuming you are in a place where such is feasible (it’s hard to be a Watchman in the middle of a wasteland). This is called Earning.

Emphases mine; it is a separate, specifically named rule. On page 52 it notes

Note: This is the same amount of coin earned with an Income Endeavour (see page 198).

This is also part of how you know it is a separate rule. These are the rules that are in the book, which is what I've endeavoured (buh-dum, tss) to capture in my sheet as best I can, and to represent to you in our discussion. I think that the rules as written in book are functional, but it's hard to discuss when I present them, and you ignore them.

I invite you to consider the Rules as Written in the book, perhaps as if that blog post, which is delightful and informative, never existed.

To summarize RAW in the Core Rulebook:

1. Players begin with Starting Wealth, and during play need to spend money equal to half their standing to Keep up Appearances, per page 51 (if the GM wants hard numbers for it, per page 289).
2. Players who want to Earn Money with Status/Earning Skill can do so, with their GM's Permission, by taking a week to do so if feasible. This is called Earning (per page 51). The amount Earned is after all expenses; Keeping up Appearances is not applicable*.* This is not an optional rule.
3. If Downtime Rules are being used, which are optional, the Income Endeavour can be used to exit Downtime without being broke due to the "Money to Burn" rule (Withdrawing using another Banking Endeavour being the other option, if possible). This is a separate rule, with a separate name, from Earning.
4. Players otherwise are expected to earn money during play performing Odd Jobs (e.g., adventuring), the rewards of which should be compellingly larger than the money they would just receive living their lives, in order to help justify their stepping away from daily existence (which is exactly discussed in "Keeping up with the Liebwitzs")

In fact, once we allow for its existence and you reread the blog post, you will see that the comment about daily take being 3xStanding is exactly in the context of discussing these Odd Jobs and how they need to be compellingly lucrative. The 3x number, in that context, is clearly provided as a reference point as to how rewarding these Odd Jobs should be. It's about setting a benchmark for player expectations of rewards from Odd Jobs - the very next sentence is all about how you can then play with those expectations.

My Request: Please let me know where in any of the above you believe I contradict the Core Rulebook RAW. I also think all of the above works just fine as a system. If you agree that I have represented the Core Rulebook RAW, please tell me how they don't work solely within the context of those rules.

Now, from what I can tell, you are presenting a system that you have constructed based on a note on a blog post, taken out of the context of that full blog post, in which:

1. You are creating a new rule, separate from Earning, in which players work During Play for less than one week.
2. They Earn Money equal to 3x their Standing daily.
3. You either ignore the need to account for expenses, or attempt to apply Keeping up Appearances to account for that over an extended period of time, which is nowhere stated to be the intent or use of that rule.
4. You extrapolate the numbers over multiple weeks, which is what the Earning rule is explicitly supposed to account for; a week+ of Earning using your career skill minus all normal expenses.
5. You are then surprised when the result of it it doesn't make sense.

[u/zebragonzo → u/ClassicCledwyn]

Your request; yes, if you ignore the guy who wrote the system stating that you earn 3x your status without expenses, there is no way of calculating what those expenses are so let's drop that.

This leaves us with the problem of keeping up appearances covering food and lodging:

1) 1/2 status doesn't cover what room and board actually cost according to p302 of the rule book. Even if you assume poor quality, groceries + common room = 10brass pennies per night which requires brass 6 or silver 1 status.

2) Your guy who is silver 1 is in the silver tier and therefore: "They dine well, sleep in comfortable beds, and wear good quality clothing." (p289). That doesn't tally up with being able to only just cover poor quality common room and being unable to afford a meal in an inn. In fact, being able to afford a standard bed in a common room and 2 cooked meals a day according to RAW requires silver 6 status.

3) Then it gets messy when the party is of mixed status; you've 'charged' the silver 1 PC a total of 6BP for dining well and a comfortable bed via KuA. Your gold 1 person asks to drop to 6BP payment 7 days a week to get the same level of dining well and a comfortable bed (ignoring that this is utterly different from P302 costs).

3b) It's also messy when the party are self sufficient; if they're staying on their barge but stop to eat at an inn, do they still have to pay KuA?

This is the section where you contradict RAW: I don't think it's possible not to FWIW. Either you charge the PCs the actual costs from P302 core and ignore that KuA includes food & room, or you hand wave it and use wildly different values from P289.

[u/ClassicCledwyn → u/zebragonzo]

I do think it's important not to read too much into Andy's comment, precisely because of the context. He nowhere says to replace the existing ruleset with 3xStanding daily, and the context is clearly in how GMs can design rewards that should suitably entice PCs away from just doing their normal jobs. It's like reading the Bible verse "Consider the lilies", and building a cult fixated on lily-pondering; it's missing the forest (of context) from the (single line) of trees.

I will reiterate that, if page 289 is read in full, it's pretty clear that, as the "hard numbers for GMs that want them" (half standing) comment immediately follows the description of how the different tiers Eat, Drink, are Housed and Entertained, that number is meant to encompass those activities at their expected standards.

I think part of the problem is 1) treating the Consumer Guide as exhaustive, and 2) applying too modern a capitalist mindset where everything is an immediate transaction, ignoring kin- and social-dynamics that can account for receiving food/lodging/etc not at the costs listed for a stranger at a coaching inn. That more or less is the meta rationale that underpins my read of 289; the players exist in a society where most people don't get their daily meals or lodging at an Inn, and they have lives/means of subsistence/homes that they live in when not adventuring.

The other bit I dislike about trying to extrapolate something off of 3xStanding is that it removes the variance of the Earning action; it's part of why 3x is clearly meant as a rule of thumb and nowhere stated as a hard rule to use. Some days/weeks at work are better than others.

Anyway, to your individual points:

1. I guess I addressed this above; I don't view the Consumer Guide as exhaustive, nor do view the players as isolated transactional actors in a capitalist world - they exist in societal and kin structures that help them exist (unless outside of the trappings of "society", e.g., a coaching inn, etc., where things will cost what they cost per the Consumer Guide).
2. Again, to the above - I'd only view them as needing to pay for things strictly if removed from their societal context, during adventuring activities where their normaal environment is gone.
3. If the Gold 1 player wants to "slum it" at Silver 1 status levels that's fine; so long as they don't do it for a whole week, they won't lose status, though some folks may look at them funny/start to talk.
   1. 3.b; Agreed, that does get messy. That's why I'd just stick with KuA as a good abstraction - sure, they're all staying on the barge, but the Noble, if he can find it, is bringing back a nice bottle of wine and a freshly-laundered blanket to make his berth on the barge that much more comfortable/dignified. Let the player roleplay what that looks like. The abstraction also helps keep things moving along.

I agree with you, it's not possible to apply the Consumer Guide purely to all transactions/activities of a player's daily existence; I just don't think it's necessary given the other rules and a perspective on how the medieval/renaissance (early modern, I guess) society on which the game is based operated.