Post by Magic Rob on Dec 12, 2011 20:03:47 GMT -8
There has been some misunderstandings recently with having hard cash vs having Resources, so I would like to take a moment to clarify these two very distinct thinks.
Resources represents your ability to survive within the financial institution that is the modern world.
Money is what's in your pocket.
These might look the same, but are very different.
For instance: If you have an item card for a million dollars, that's all well and good. If you have Resources 5, you have a similar amount in the BANK (effectively). One is legitimate, one is not.
You cannot really buy a house without Resources. Sure, you can have the money, but there's IRS red tape. There's taxes. There's lending laws. There's a lot of paperwork on the process. While you might have the value of the house in your pocket, it's very hard to actually HAVE the necessary clout to buy a house without a bank account and credit score.
Further: Metis and Lupus are NOT of the human world. They rarely understand the minutiae attached to these differences. A Lupus born probably doesn't have a social security number or drivers license or bank account. A Metis might never have left the Bawn before his first change. Birth certificates were never issued. Taxes were never paid. Etc, etc, etc...
While this doesn't prove a problem to most of these characters in most of their life, it does make some things really frustrating or difficult. Such as, interacting with the modern world. Try buying stuff on the internet without a credit card or paypal account. It's tricky. Try buying anything over a grand, pulling out a wad of cash is sure to attract attention.
However, if your character has Resources, it's assumed that someone covered some of these things at some point in the past for them. You can't really have a credit card without a credit score. You can't really have a credit score without a bank account, You can't have a bank account without a social security number. You can't have a social security number without a birth certificate. It's assumed that one of your guardians established this for you sometime in the past and you can still reasonably expect them to be holding up.
Homid born, unless they have a weird 'I lived my whole life in Garou society' have most of this stuff as a given, one of the few actual perks to playing that breed.
How can you survive in the modern world without this shit? Well... social backgrounds, certainly. Streewise helps a great deal. Skills associated with theft or robbery are mighty handy. Contacts in the underworld or criminal syndicates are peachy for this.
Or... KINFOLK with these associated skills.
The real world is your enemy, and it's an oppressive and omnipresent one at that.
