Lifestyle

Tier

Income

Description

Effect

Impoverished

-2 to 0

The character’s circumstances are fairly difficult, involving cramped, often makeshift living arrangements and scavenging for even necessities like food and clean water. 

Spending on anything else is pretty much out of the question, although some people at this level find ways to acquire drugs or alcohol to numb their situation.

If a character spends more than a month in this lifestyle, the GM may impose an ongoing fatigued Condition — and the inability to recover from it—to reflect the rigors of it.

Basic

1 to 2

This is the subsistence level of much of Earth’s population, consisting of a small apartment or the equivalent for housing, essential nutrition provided by bulk foodstuffs that don’t vary much in quality or flavor, and access to online entertainment and information channels and a steady, if not lavish, supply of legal recreational drugs.

Clothing is pre-fabricated and as utilitarian as everything else.

Getting around is limited to public transportation and personal possessions are few and far between.

Middle

3 to 5

A modest lift out of the doldrums of Basic to an Income level where some personalization of one’s lifestyle is possible.

This includes slightly better or larger living quarters, maybe in a better area of the character’s choice, a greater variety of food with the possibility of occasionally patronizing restaurants, and some personal possessions of significance.

Owning a vehicle outside of one required for work is still relatively rare.

Affluent

6 to 8

A noticeable amount of creature comforts, what people at the Impoverished or Basic levels think of as luxury, including possibly owning a house or some land or the equivalent in a dome or station off-Earth, a varied diet including a number of fresh foods, and little, if any, concern over small day-to-day purchases.

The character can afford to enjoy regular entertainment, from nights-out to catered nights-in; albeit not every night, but easily a few times a month, maybe with the occasional trip or vacation in here.

Wealthy

9 to 10

Most of the expenses that concern Middle Class and lower people don’t worry the Wealthy at all.

They have sufficient Income or expense accounts to largely live where they want, to eat what they want when they want it, and to enjoy most of what the world as o offer.

At this level, a personal vehicle of some kind is common, and Wealthy characters may even have multiple homes, or one fairly lavish one.

Rich

11 to 13

The truly Rich concern themselves with very little, except the opinions and goodwill of their peers (if that).

This Income ensures personal quarters that would accommodate multiple families on Basic, and luxuries they could not afford with more than a year’s Income.

The Rich have all of the benefits of the Wealthy and then some, including perhaps some significant quasi-legal ones.

Very Rich

14+

It’s difficult for lower-Income characters to entirely conceive of this lifestyle, which often throws away and recycles more than the lower level lifestyles have.

Characters living the Very Rich lifestyle live in mansions or even palaces (or their equivalent), usually with a staff of personnel to attend to their needs.

They move freely using personal vehicles, including their own orbital lifters and spacecraft.