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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nyeshet" data-source="post: 2959649" data-attributes="member: 18363">I'm not too comfortable with your Social Standing setup. Where would you place Merchant Princes? At times in history there have been some who would be considered mere merchants (upper middle class), but whose wealth and influence rivaled Princes and Dukes - and sometimes even Kings. Technically, by your setup, they would have to be placed as 7 (upper middle class), yet though they lack the rank, their influence, wealth, etc would actually be equal to or superior to the 9 or even 10 ranked individuals in their country. This was not necessarily an isolated event. In Europe Merchant Princes often had more wealth and influence than many (albeit not all) of the higher ranking nobility. A similar situation could be found in Japan, albeit during a different century, when high ranking samurai (ie: knights) and daimyo (ie: lords/nobles) would have to seek out loans from the wealthier non-samurai merchants. Similar situations can be found in the history of China, and while no specific instance springs to mind, I do not doubt that similar could be found in India. India may actually be a rather good example for this discussion. Its caste system means that artisans and merchants are technically lower than the farmers, let alone the warriors or priests. Yet they are often the ones (at least in 1900s and current decade) who hold most of the wealth. Perhaps if your system had a virtual rank as well as a real rank - the former based on wealth and the contacts and influence it brings, while the latter is based upon the specifics of one's birth (family name, birth order, gender, family contacts / allies / etc). In such an instance a Merchant Prince may be 6f 9w - of moderate origins but currently very powerful and influencial. The true degree of influence, perhaps, could be based on the average of the two. If the two do not exactly average (as in the above case), then round up or down based on how traditional the society happens to be. A very traditional one - that views the wealthy merchant as still lower class despite his wealth, and that perhaps views him as 'new wealth' - might result in the 'equivalent' social standing as rounded down to 7. A less traditional one would not care as much about the family status - looking more to the wealth the character has for spending - and may result in rounding up to 8. So, the final denotation may be something like 8e (6f 9w) or 7e (6f 9w).</blockquote>

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