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For a long time, I’ve been working on a Lifestyle / Wealth system for my superhero game system, which is loosely based on the Hero System (4th ed).

The rules needed to be simpler than the official rules, less able to offer benefits to PCs and NPCs beyond the value that would normally be associated with the cost of purchasing a given lifestyle, and both more abstract and simpler to translate into practical benefits and impacts on the game. On top of that, it needed to be able to cope with individuals from everything from Low Fantasy to High Space Opera – from Conan or Middle-earth to the ruler of an interstellar, interdimensional Empire.

That’s a pretty tall order, which is why it has taken me many years to find a satisfactory solution. But the delay has been worth it, as I have finally come up with a system that is truly universal in scope, and both practical in application and intuitive.

Socio-Economic Level (SEL)

This is a concept from old-school Traveler, where it was often called Social Level or Tech Level or Cultural level, but the definition has been streamlined quite a bit.

An increase in SEL is defined as occurring when the general personal resources previously reserved for a broad social class become available to a lower broad social class.

The implementation of that definition will be demonstrated later in the article, for now a simple example will suffice.

At the base SEL, having personal transport is defined as Lifestyle 6 (and what that actually means is also something to be covered later). That, in turn, is an upper middle class or lower upper class lifestyle. What we are talking about here is not just a horse, but horses and a carriage or something similar – an actual vehicle.

SEL base+1 therefore occurs when members of the middle-class can afford and obtain a personal vehicle and generally do so. That’s Victorian-era, in my book, though some might argue the early 20th century and rise of the automobile.

I think that the automobile brought the motor vehicle into reach of the lower class over a twenty or thirty-year per period. So that would define SEL base+2 as 1910-1940.

The next stage of socioeconomic development is for it to become common to have more than one personal vehicle – two-plus car families – and for the possession of at least one personal vehicle to be almost ubiquitous. That’s 1970s or 80s until now. But that’s a big step, possibly even +2 SEL (allowing an intervening transition period). SEL base+3 would thus be 1941-1975, and SEL base +4 would be 1976-2022 (and beyond).

Personal Vehicle ownership is not the only yardstick; this is just one example that I can offer with limited explanation without getting too far ahead of myself.

Suggested SELs

Most fantasy campaigns will only need 1 or two SELs but High Fantasy might need a third.

Modern-campaigns:

• SEL 1 = Medieval
• SEL 2 = Victorian
• SEL 3 = 1910-1940 (The Pulp Era)
• SEL 4 = 1941-1975 (The Atomic Age / Age Of Spaceflight)
• SEL 5 = 1976-X (The Digital Age)

Sci-Fi campaigns need to extend this list further:

• SEL 6 = Commercialization Of Space Travel
• SEL 7 = Industrialization Of Space / Interplanetary Colonization
• SEL 8 = Interstellar Travel / Colonization
• SEL 9 = Fast Interstellar Travel / Galactic Civilization
• SEL 10 = Superfast Interstellar Travel, Intergalactic / Interdimensional Societies

SELs work as a concept by abstracting just what resources the ordinary citizen can possess and correlating that with an unstated multitude of social, economic, and technical factors. By defining an increase in the SEL as the achievement of a certain level of increase in the lifestyle of the Middle Class, such that they can now obtain the more-modern equivalents of lifestyle perqs that were previously only available to the Rich, i.e. using a relative value, it greatly simplifies the definition of subsequent SELs.

We aren’t quite at the level of Space Hotels yet – commercial visits to Low Earth Orbit have only just become possible – so we are at the cusp of SEL 6 but aren’t quite there yet, on the scale above. GMs are free to tweak or refine these suggestions as they deem appropriate for their campaign settings.

Some might want to define intermediate points within a specific SEL to provide greater nuance and precision. SEL 5.8 is probably where we are now; SEL 5.9 will be achieved when true space flight is a commercial reality, indicating that the transition to SEL 6 is underway.

Other GMs might feel that the Industrialization of space – Asteroid mining and colonies on the planets – are a fairly short leap from what’s been defined as SEL 6, and “fold” what was SEL 7 into SEL 6 as a result. This, of course, bumps the higher SELs – 8, 9, 10 – down by one.

Space is a lot bigger than this geometric expansion suggests; there could be several stages inserted in between SEL 8 and SEL 9, increasing the latter. But it’s very hard to define such without getting into the politics of an interstellar civilization, which has too many permutations to be easily classified in general terms. So this is something that can only be done at an individual, campaign-by-campaign, level.

Lifestyle (L)

Each SEL contains 13 levels of Lifestyle.

These are defined, within that SEL, as:

0. Destitute
1. Shelter
2. Personal Possessions
3. Furniture
4. Tiny / Poor Dwelling
5. Personal Infrastructure
6. Personal Transport
7. Moderate Dwelling
8. Personal Services
9. Large Dwelling / Small Estate
10. Commercial Transport
11. Epic Dwelling / Large Estate
12. Mega-rich

It will be noted that each of these is a fairly generic label that means little without the context of the SEL.

• If you are “at” a given Lifestyle within an SEL, that means that you can afford one of whatever the defining trait of that Lifestyle is.
• It means that you can purchase something from Lifestyle +1 with some sort of Multi-year commitment.
• It means that you can make one purchase per year from the next Lifestyle level down, possibly with a short-term (1-5 years) financial commitment.
• It means that you can make up to five purchases per year from two lifestyle levels down from disposable income / personal wealth.
• It means that you have effectively unlimited ability to purchase from the category three lifestyle levels down, subject to GM approval and NOT sufficient for commercial trade.
• It means that you can operate a personal business manufacturing or trading in objects from four lifestyle levels down without external economic support.

I’ll get into “external economic support” under organizations, a little later. Right now, this is all focused at the personal level.

Documenting SEL-L combinations

There are two ways of documenting SEL-L combinations. The first is “SEL – L”, in which the Base SEL of the game system is defined as “1”. So “3 – 6” is “Lifestyle 6” in “Base SEL +2”.

The second is to write L# (SEL) – again with a base SEL of 1 or 0 (GM’s choice, but make sure everyone knows it). The advantage to this is that you can use a non-mathematical description of SEL instead, and the meaning becomes immediately clear. “L 6 (1940-1970)” means “Lifestyle 6 within the SEL defined as 1940-1970.”

Knowing what “Lifestyle 6” means within that SEL, according to the descriptions given above, this defines in one short line exactly what resources the character has, what they can purchase, and what their economic discretion is.

“Lifestyle 5”, for example, means that you can:

• Buy a personal vehicle with a multi-year financial commitment.
• Buy one piece of personal infrastructure per year – a major appliance, for example.
• Buy five tiny / poor dwellings per year, or their equivalent (matching furniture, for example, or structural repairs to a dwelling). Most likely, you would own one and be able to afford 4 acts of enhancement / maintenance, annually. “Enhancement” would include one piece of high-quality furniture.
• Buy as much low-quality furniture as you want, for personal use.

Base Lifestyle (L=2)

Unless characters alter their lifestyle, they are assumed to have a Lifestyle level of 2 as default. That’s a homeless person with a shopping trolley, a handful of personal possessions and a tent, sleeping bag, or cardboard box. If they are lucky, they may be able to obtain a piece of new furniture every few years, or find secure but low-quality accommodations that they can rent.

Obviously, expectations and interpretations will need to vary with location. What may be unaffordable in a state capital can be readily affordable in a small rural community.

About 15 years ago, for example, I calculated what it would cost to buy a 3-bedroom dwelling in my home town with a 20-year mortgage (assuming that I had the deposit), and found that I could not only afford such a purchase, but that I would have enough left over to fly to- and from- Sydney each week to run RPGs, while otherwise maintaining my existing lifestyle. I would need to stay with friends while here of course, and I didn’t have the deposit – but it was theoretically possible with even a relatively modest lottery win. A substantial lottery win, of course, would fund the purchase of a similar dwelling here in the state Capital.

The GM is therefore required to make allowances for context in his interpretations of what the lifestyle permits or doesn’t permit.

Cost of Base Lifestyle

Like the Hero System, the Zenith-3 rules framework is a point-based system.

• Standard Hero System: 4+SEL points buys Lifestyle 2 within the SEL.
• Zenith-3 Rules: (2+SEL) x 2 points buys Lifestyle 2 within the SEL.
• GMs should ensure that the SEL is appropriate to the society that the character will have access to, in-game. It doesn’t matter if the character is the prince of an intergalactic empire unless they can access those resources reliably and regularly – if they can’t, their SEL is whatever is appropriate to the culture they are living (and adventuring) in.
• If appropriate in-game, the GM can temporarily restrict access to normal Lifestyle. Adventures in which this is a factor (not just a feature) should be rewarded with an extra experience point.

A little later, I have an adaption of the system to suit non-points systems like D&D / Pathfinder.

Improving Lifestyle

This is also done by spending character points and should reflect a character’s changing circumstances in-game. If those circumstances are intended to be only temporary, no adjustment is necessary but the character will get extra XP for adventures / game sessions in which this constitutes a handicap or benefit, as described above.

The following tables describe how much it will cost to go from the default (L=2) to a different Lifestyle level:

For an SEL of 4, going from an L of 2 to 4 (a difference of +2) will cost 8 points within the standard Hero System and 15 points in the Zenith-3 rules. If the character later wants to increase this to 6, and the GM agrees that this is reasonable, he should subtract the amount spent so far (getting to 4) and apply that to a δL of +4 to determine how much extra he needs to pay. Standard Hero System: 16-8=8, so an additional 8 character points. Zenith-3 system: 32-15=17, so an additional 17 character points.

Beyond 12

What lies beyond Lifestyle 12? Well, there are two answers to that, depending on who’s asking and why.

A GM is free to expand the Lifestyle list beyond 12 entries, though this should not be necessary. Any such expansion is most likely to occur at the upper end of the scale, pushing the Mega-rich higher up the scale.

In order for a character to advance his lifestyle beyond 12, the GM needs to give serious thought as to what that means, in terms of game impact. Except in unusual cases (anything’s possible), though, it should be impossible. Instead, the character needs to bring about the social, economic and technical infrastructure necessary to advance the SEL of the world around them. This, in turn, reduces their lifestyle to a lower value within the new SEL, enabling them to once again begin climbing the ladder to the “new 12”. This will become clearer in subsequent sections.

Depreciating Lifestyle and SEL

If a life of vagabondage is appropriate for a character, they can depreciate or reduce their lifestyle. This returns character construction points to the character. The more advanced the SEL, the more the character is giving up, so the payment received in compensation also rises. Lifestyle cannot be reduced below the minimum level save by relocating to a different environment in which their former destitute state corresponds to a higher lifestyle score in a lower SEL.

In theory, more primitive societies than “medieval” can be assigned SEL scores below base. This may be appropriate for some campaigns or even specific societies within a campaign.

The Wealth Table

The heart of the system is detailed in the table below, which covers SELs from 1 to 6.

SEL:	1	2	3	4	5	6
L:	0	0	0	0	0	0
	1	1	1	1	1	1
	2
	3	2
	4
	5	3	2
	6
	7	4
	8
	9	5	3	2
	10
	11
	12	6
		7	4
		8
		9	5	3	2
		10
		11
		12	6
			7	4
			8
			9	5	3	2
			10
			11
			12	6
				7	4
				8
				9	5	3
				10
				11
				12	6
					7	4
					8
					9	5
					10
					11
					12	6
						7
						8
						9
						10
						11
						12

The table can be summed up rather more briefly. When the SEL rises,

• Lifestyle 1 or 2 becomes Lifestyle 1 at the new SEL
• Lifestyle 3 or 4 becomes Lifestyle 2 at the new SEL
• Lifestyle 5 or 6 becomes Lifestyle 3 at the new SEL
• Lifestyle 7 or 8 becomes Lifestyle 4 at the new SEL
• Lifestyle 9, 10 or 11 becomes Lifestyle 5 at the new SEL
• Lifestyle 12 becomes Lifestyle 6 at the new SEL.

These reflect the basic definition of an SEL, in which what was expensive and rare becomes one step more commonplace and available.

The Generic Wealth Table

The table above becomes inordinately lengthy and hard to read with increasing SEL, and there isn’t a lot of point to it; it’s so rare to need to compare a lifestyle within one SEL with one that is more than one SEL removed that the whole thing is far better represented with a more general form.

SEL:	N	+1
L:	0
	1	1
	2
	3	2
	4
	5	3
	6
	7	4
	8
	9	5
	10
	11
	12	6

In fact, the only thing the larger table is good for (aside from comparing very different combinations of Lifestyle and SEL are explaining the whole thing – which is the virtue that made it worth presenting here.

Income & Expenses

A key benefit of the abstraction used by this system is that it completely junks questions of income and expenses and instead couches the whole question in terms of what the character can do in-game. Every previous attempt at creating workable Lifestyle rules has foundered on this problem, one way or another, so this is a Big Deal in my book.

Just remember that every Lifestyle comes with the assumptions, income, expenses, benefits, and responsibilities, that are implied by having the spending ability defined for that Lifestyle. What that actually means to the character is up to the owner, with guidance from the GM; there could be many combinations of income, obligations, debts, and expenses that boil down to the same bottom line.

Tracking Income & Expenses

The restrictions on what a character can do with a given lifestyle focus on major purchases; as soon as the purchases reach the relatively trivial, the system blatantly ignores any restrictions beyond “No commercial quantities”.

What does “no commercial quantities” mean, anyway?

In practical terms, it means that you can’t buy as many of an item as it would take to use them as the stock for a successful retail business.

That doesn’t prohibit a business from doing so, as I describe in Organizations, below. This is all about what an individual can do.

Back to the question of tracking those significant purchases. In general, unless the character abuses the requirements, the GM should simply hand-wave such purchases, or better yet (because of their significance) make them a plot point or even a whole subplot for the character.

If that sounds boring, (and some would find it so), use the resulting subplot as a plot vehicle to deliver something more interesting. “You’re out looking at French Cabinets, when you happen to spot Count Despicable across the street…”

If it becomes necessary to track acquisitions, treat it the way most people do in real life when something like this happens. “You find that you can’t afford a replacement X. You have three choices: try to fix the old one well enough that it will limp along for a while longer, find a way to do without one for a while, or borrow against next year’s money – remembering that interest means that this will ultimately cost you more than the value of the X.”

This puts the hard decision back onto the character’s owner, injects a little realism into the situation, and warns the character that they are at the limits of their purchasing power for the time being.

It’s important to realize that these are not calendar schedules, no matter how much it might seem so from what has been described earlier; “5 purchases in a year” doesn’t mean that those five can’t all happen in a short period of time, or that on some calendar date the capacity magically resets. It doesn’t mean that if you don’t use all five in a year, that you can make more than five purchases the following year, either. Such limits are guidelines for when the purchasing limits should become story-relevant, as described.

Practical Tracking

Let’s say that the limits are 5 Item-X’s in a year. The practical way to track this is to break the term ‘year’ down into smaller units – you want something that is larger than “5”. There are three choices, and they all mean roughly the same thing:

• 12 months = 1 year. So 12/5 = 1 item every 2½ months, roughly.
• 52 weeks = approx 1 year. So 52/5 = 1 item every 10 weeks or so.
• 365 days = approx 1 year (most of the time). So 365/5 = 1 item every 73 days.

I don’t like the third choice – it’s too precise. either of the first two are fine.

When the character decides to purchase an item-X, that’s a 2½-month or 10 week commitment. That’s when the item will be paid for. Depending on the social and economic infrastructure around them, and their Lifestyle level, the character may have some means whereby they get to use the item immediately, or they may have to wait.

If, a week later, they decide they need a second item-X, no problem; that simply extends their commitment out another 2½ months to 5 months (technically, less one week, but that’s inconvenient, so ignore it).

The character can continue to shop until they reach their limit (5 items), or a commitment of a year – then comes the conversation above. If they can hold off making another purchase for about 2½ months, their capacity expands by one, so they can buy another item-X, no problem at all.

It’s a rolling limit – “No more than 5 in any one-year period without financial impact” would be a more accurate statement.

Because these are considered to be significant purchases, the GM should make a plot point of them, inserting reference to the purchase into his adventure, either on the day, or within the next game session. And that’s all the tracking that he should need.

From time to time, a stroke of fortune may permit a purchase that doesn’t count against these limits. This automatically makes that stroke of fortune a plot point.

Organizations

Organizations come in two varieties: businesses and non-businesses. Both are handled in the same way by this system.

Organizations are created by characters investing character points into them. This permits the organization to purchase a given lifestyle, which reflects what the organization can purchase. Because multiple characters combine investments in an organization, that lifestyle can and will be, in many cases, larger than the lifestyles of the donors. Some wealthy characters may have fingers in many different pies.

The relationship of an individual to an organization is used to justify that character’s purchase of a personal lifestyle. The organization doesn’t contribute to that lifestyle. So, why should a character invest in an organization?

First, “Membership in X” or “Stockholder in X” or “Owner of X” or any variation, can justify the purchase of certain perqs that come with the relationship between the character and the organization.

“Employee of X” is often a 0-point or -1-point purchase – the latter indicating that the obligations and inconveniences outweigh the benefits.

The size of the organization matters – every power of ten is a “free” +1 to the business’ lifestyle.

• 1-9 employees/members: +0
• 10-99 employees/members: +1
• 100-999 employees/members: +2
• 1,000-9,999 employees/members: +3
• 10,000-99,999 employees/members: +4
• 100,000-999,999 employees/members: +5
• 1,000,000-9,999,999 employees/members: +6
• 10,000,000-99,999,999 employees/members: +7

This doesn’t permit an organization to exceed the L=12 limit. But it can make it cheaper to get there – a LOT cheaper.

But such organizations don’t spring into life from thin air – there has to be a justifiable growth pattern, and one that the GM considers reasonable.

A character starts a business – and invests enough points in it that they will have 10,000 employees. Since that’s a “+4” rating above, that means that the initial lifestyle of the organization has to be L=4. And that, in turn, qualifies for up to +4 to the Lifestyle of the organization. The more of this bonus that the organization uses for increasing it’s power and prosperity, the less is left for growing the business. This follows a 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 pattern, cumulative from year to year.

Diverting +1 of the potential +4 into growth means that the organization will grow one step in the next year, another step 2 years after that, a third step 3 years later again, and so on.

Diverting +2 of the potential +4 into growth means that the organization will grow one step in the next year (after the 1-point is subtracted from the 2 allocated, there isn’t enough for the next step in growth). In their second year, they grow a second step, and in their third year, they grow a third. Three years later, they can grow to a fourth step up in size. And so on.

Diverting +3 of the potential +4 into growth means that the organization will grow two steps in their first year (1 point and 2 points), one step in their second (3 points), but will have to wait until their fourth year to grow again (with one point left over toward the next stage of growth).

In practice, these diversions are varied from year to year; investors will only be patient for so long before demanding a return on their investment.

Infrastructure and setup needs either have to be accommodated within the purchases available from the corporate lifestyle or have to be achieved with a temporary reduction in corporate lifestyle – so if you grow too fast, the organization becomes vulnerable.

In addition, each year, the GM should roll 4-d6 and add the result to get the “effective” lifestyle of the organization – and use the net result as a plot point, too. A business that is destitute is going to close its doors. A business reduced to a lifestyle of “1” will be vulnerable to hostile takeover. A business with a lifestyle of “2” is stagnating, and will shrink by one point of lifestyle in the following year (on top of the annual adjustment).

Ultimately, though, none of this matters – what you are buying with the organization is a something to occupy a role within your story, and the GM should treat it that way.

D&D / Pathfinder

Adapting these rules to suit a non-points-buy system like D&D is not particularly difficult. It’s a problem that comes in two parts: Initial Personal Lifestyle and Progressive Lifestyle Improvement (i.e. you accumulate spending power as the game continues).

There are five sources of “character points” to be spent on a lifestyle.

1. Initial Lifestyle Allocation

All characters start with Lifestyle 2 within the appropriate SEL for free. The character can choose to increase or reduce this, but increases have to be paid for in ‘build points’ obtained as below. Decreases can be redeemed for substitute benefits. Purchases should be made using the Standard Hero System scale.

2. Reduced Stats

For every reduction of 1 in a primary stat for the character class, an individual gets 2 additional build points.

For every reduction of 1 in another stat, an individual gets 1 additional build point. This includes taking a permanent reduction in initial hit points.

This suggests that characters used to an opulent lifestyle will be weaker or spoiled – not as hardened as those who have had to scramble for a living, which seems appropriate to me.

3. Foregone Attack Bonus / Reduced saving throws

Taking -1 on your attack bonus is worth 2 build points. Reducing one of your saving throws by 1 is worth 1 build point.

In terms of a character’s starting Lifestyle, that’s it. A generous GM may permit some other reduction for specific characters, but these should not be automatically assumed; they need to be justified by the character that the owner intends to run..

In particular, taking on some form of obligation should be rewarded with lifestyle points – the more onerous the obligations, the more points it should be worth. However, the value of obligations should be reduced for every benefit that the character receives – so a Prince might have 10 points in obligations but 4 points in benefits. The exact scale of these values depends too substantially on game setting, so beyond the general principle, no real guidance can be given.

The remaining sources of Build Points are for use in-game to reflect the purchasing power that successful characters will acquire from successful adventuring.

4. In-Game Rewards

From time to time, when the GM feels it is warranted for some reason other than earned wealth, the GM may gift a character with a bonus to lifestyle. These may be temporary or more-or-less permanent, and will often come with ‘strings’ attached (usually obligations accepted by the character).

5. Earned Wealth

But, most of the time, the lifestyle value should simply be adjusted to reflect the earned wealth of the character.

This implies that a major outlay of some kind will reduce a character’s Lifestyle.

Lifestyle that comes from earned wealth also usually has strings attached, in the form of Social Expectations. These are restrictions on the behavior that is considered socially acceptable; failure to satisfy these expectations will often result in penalties or sanctions of some kind, which can effectively lower lifestyle.

Major outlays may reduce lifestyle, as stated, but this does NOT reduce the social expectations; depending on the circumstances, it can increase them.

Make the lifestyle an indication of the character’s in-game circumstances, and reflect it in the story-lines of the campaign. NPCs will react and respond differently to characters with an increasing Lifestyle.

GMs may also choose to permit a different ‘apparent lifestyle’ to that genuinely appropriate for the character’s circumstances. NPCs will react to the former and not the latter – but if the gap is significant, there can be complications from actually claiming the privileges of a higher or lower true lifestyle. If someone who looks lower middle-class suddenly flashes a large bankroll for a purchase that should be beyond such an individual, there is sure to be gossip and possibly suspicion. “Where’d you get that money, Johnny? Who’d you steal it from?”

Other Game Systems

Almost every game system will map onto one of the two options provided – either with some translation mechanism to exchange character points for ‘character points’ as used for the Lifestyle system, or some equivalent of the D&D system.

There may even be times when the GM considers the latter more appropriate than the former, even if the game is built on a points-buy system. So think about the mode of implementation.

In-game expectations should also be taken into account – for Traveler, or Star Wars, a higher SEL (free) might be appropriate.

Above all – this system is not intended to bind GMs or Campaigns or Characters; it’s intended to help define them. Use it as a tool to that end.