Resources
Overview
- Found In: M20 page 322, V20 page 116.
- Available To: All characters.
- In Character Generation: Purchasable as standard Background.
- After Character Generation: Raised through methods below.
- Purchasable When Becoming: No
- Limitations: A rating of 5 is the maximum.
Resources refers to your character's spending power.
| Score | Monthly Income | Starting Equipment | Vehicles | Housing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | $50 | 1 weapon, 1 piece of armor, 1 gun* | Bicycle | No housing |
| 1 | $1,500 | 2 weapons, 2 guns*, 2 pieces of armor | Motorcycle or cheap car | SRO or your vehicle |
| 2 | $5,000 | 3 weapons, 3 pieces of armor, 3 guns* | Car or motorcycle | SRO, studio apartment, or one-bedroom |
| 3 | $10,000 | 4 weapons, 4 pieces of armor, 4 guns* | A nice car, or up to 3 normal vehicles (e.g., standard car, bike and a motorcycle) | Small or medium home, or an apartment |
| 4 | $25,000 | 5 weapons, 5 pieces of armor, 5 guns* | Up to 4 vehicles, each can be fancy (sports cars, etc.) | Up to 4 houses and/or apartments |
| 5 | $125,000 | 6 weapons, 6 pieces of armor, 6 guns* | Up to 5 vehicles, each can be fancy (sports cars, etc.) | Up to 5 houses and/or apartments, including a mansion |
(*) Requires Firearms 1 or higher.
On Monthly Incomes And Equipment Costs: Your character gets a monthly allowance, which is intended to be spent on the equipment in your sheet, which costs a certain amount depending on what it is. Please note, however, these monthly costs are an abstraction as a game design aspect. They are not intended to be a realistic representation of what it actually costs to have a particular item, and so staff will not process requests to make a particular item cost less than whatever the equipment system says it costs to purchase and/or maintain.
In Character Generation
Resources is a standard Background bought with Background dots, Freebies, and Starting XP.
When you create a character and pick a Resources score, you will be asked to set a note called "resources" on your character. In this note, please disclose how your character achieves this stable income. The following salary ranges are implied with the resources scores and thus your explanation will need to be appropriate to the rating you take:
- One: Minimum wage.
- Two: Decently skilled trade or professional salary ($60K to $100K)
- Three: Professional/management level salary, or a high-paying field like tech. ($120K+)
- Four: Doctor-lawyer territory ($300K+).
- Five: Easily a millionaire. ($1.5 million+)
Note For Vampires: Vampires who hold a job are valid concepts but please make sure the reasoning behind how they manage to only work during the moonlight hours is actually believable. A security job, for example, is believable. A job at a retail store is not. Vampires who have Resources 5 and have been undead so long that their mortal alias would be dead require the Alternate Identity background.
After Character Generation
Acquiring massive amounts of money will result in staff giving you that amount of money in your equipment but it will not result in a dot of Resources on its own. Resources is interpreted as consistent income. If you have a gigantic windfall of several thousand dollars, you could use some IC financial savvy in order to invest it in such a way that you do have stable income, but if you're, say, a petty thief who scored hella dosh and don't have finances or financial connections, it remains a windfall (that you can still spend, you just can't convert it into Resources).
- Find An IC Employer: If a character wishes to employ you, you can use their employment as justification. You can try to find a player character to employ you, or you can send in a +request to staff saying "Hey, Jimmy is going to try to find work as a <whatever>" and work it out with staff. The Resources score that you can buy will be determined by the nature of the job and the pay, as above. If someone hires you as a barista, for example, this is great for a Resources 1 spend. If someone hires you as a software engineer or consultant, this would be good for a Resources 2 or 3 spend. This costs XP.
- Find Some Steady Source Of Income: A nine-to-five is not the end all be all means of income. So long as you can orchestrate a situation where you are getting paid ICly and there is no reason to doubt that this stream of income will dry up, this counts. For example, if you turned to the criminal life, you could take over a few corners of a drug operation, establish a chop shop, pick up a ghoul you bleed for cash, or take over an extortion ring. This can be performed as an Influence action or can be performed through a series of scenes on screen.
