What is proper rich/wealthy roleplay?

[Giles]

Dare I suggest the idea that role playing wealthy doesn't necessarily need script money? Some people seem to be placing weight on how much is earned weekly versus how they are portraying their character. I don't need to make 80,000 or 120,000 a week to role play rich. I don't need a fancy car to role play rich. Sure, as I mentioned before, some people love to show off and brag about their riches. I would honestly prefer to role play a character where you'd never know they were rich, but were in fact loaded. I have an IRL friend who is a multi-millionaire and you'd never know, especially since she likes to buy her shoes from a Pay-less discount shoe store.

 

There are plenty of people on this server who have hundreds of thousands of dollars, but still role play their characters poor because that's what they've established as their backstories. The script money is just that... script money. You can choose whatever you want on how you portray your character, regardless of how much or how little script money you have. Just put some time and effort into crafting an awesome and detailed backstory and progress your character realistically according to how you've established their background. Portray your character's attitude with finesse & class or with tons of arrogance and showboating. Maybe a little of both? There are so many avenues, but just put some effort into it.

 

"I worked hard as a mechanic and now I drive a Cheetah" --- is not a good example, for the record.

Edited March 3, 2020 by Giles

[pateuvasiliu]

8 hours ago, Alexandra_Forge said:

it's kind of powergame to say "Well you have the money, but we aren't going to allow you to RP that, or purchase any substantial assets via PM"...

This is one of my biggest gripes with the server. Being told " Uh actually the money you have isn't real, you gotta RP being far more poor than your wallet shows".

Well okay, then why in the world would any player take a job? If you're not allowed to roleplay your thousands of dollars you might as well just collect 800$ unemployment checks and never bother to grind money.

If money isn't real money why do we even have car prices? Why do we even have a 5000$ limit on theft? If my character is actually supposed to be real life middle class he's not going to have 5000$ in his wallet. By the logic that money isn't real why don't we give everyone 1 million $ to buy all the stuff they need, since it's apparently not IC anyway? Why have a scam limit of 70,000 $? Might as well make that 1 billion since the money isn't real.

Edited March 3, 2020 by pateuvasiliu

[Meco]

Properly Roleplaying rich for me is basically amplifying your character's personality. As in if he's loud, he becomes louder because he's more financially comfortable. If he's a mean fuck, he'll become the meanest motherfucker around with deep pockets. If he's a nice guy, he'll turn into one of the nicest most giving rich person around. So on and so on.. keep in mind a couple million dollars doesn't make you a wealthy person. Heck some would argue a couple million doesn't make you be considered a rich person. I dought that in an economy with a GDP of around 4 billion (half of which is stored in scripted management controlled banks for various purposes such as taxes entry fee bonuses etc..) a person can truly become "wealthy". Portrayal of which varies alot depending on backstories. If you come from a wealthy family you will hold posh values,aka knowing the difference between forks on a dinner table. If you come from a middle class family you'll be fine eating a burger from your local burger shop. Old values remain throughout somebody's lifetime and just because you got more commas in your bank statements it doesn't fundamentally change you, it just amplifies your personality. Flashiness is just as much of a trait frugalness. Now the thing about "legacy" wealth is they tend to want to want to preserve more of their family's history in the businesses the family got wealthy out of. They also are more reserved, prefer privacy and isolation from the "peasants" (this might sounf 19th century-ish but believe me these people exist ALOT in the wealthy community). On the other hand we got Les Nouveaux Riches, or the new rich; these are those middle-class to upper-class movers who made their fortune in so little time and if they grew up liking to spend more money on their clothes and cosmetics and all they will probably maintain that behaviour but instead of those fancy Air Force 1s they'll go for the $10,000 Jordans and $30,000 Rolexes. While others grew up in a very penny-pinching home and these in real-life are the ones qualified to become billionaires because they often only spend money on the right things, even resorting to not buying a place to live and sleep in their office during the grinding phase of a business.

Wealth is not all about cosmetics. In fact, that's only a product of wealth. Demonstration of social class is through body language, personality, tonality, behaviour and MOST IMPORTANTLY, your friend group. You don't see or hear about billionaires hanging out with their broke childhood best friends, and that's for a reason. If you see a businessman raking in 100-300k a week in game and his friend group is some low-life biker, a bartender at the local divebar and some druggie with questionable ties to illegal organizations (assuming you aren't aswell), you should consider that person a failure at portraying a high social class status or being a wealthy person.

Edited March 3, 2020 by Radhwan

[zaXer.]

To RP wealth properly you have to have wealth, a proper wealthy person roleplay and so on - I'll give a few examples

You are NOT rping wealth properly, if-

1. Your car costs more than your house

2. You go robbing people for small amounts for the fun of it

and many more examples

 

I believe that the Busch "issue" by the admin team is their company rather than the characters themselves. I agree that the players who work at Busch are the total examples of how to roleplay a trucker in the worst way possible. If you drive into the Busch parking lot you'll see a lot of cars costing well over 500k each, but the owners carry dirty vests and go trucking. And those people are on high ranks within the company. 

That's the issue in my opinion. Busch' themselves do not have any such issue and they own much cheaper cars than their employees do, I've RPed with them a lot and their quality is on spot, but their employees are far away from that. 

 

Then the last issue is that some administrators do their best to cut off your roleplay for one reason or another, instead of stimulating you to progress further. Their own opinion gets pushed on you and nobody listens to your explanations, even if they are wrong. The new rule changes instead of fighting that, it fully supports such admin behavior by adding the new rule 0 which allows admins to punish people for whatever they want.

Edited March 3, 2020 by zaXer.

[Engelbert]

I think people rping being part of company should take a look at PD or FD, you can earn money from trucking, but that doesn't mean a trucker should drive Massacro at 150 mph everyday to work. Yes having lot of money just cause your income is high, is tempting, but ask yourself a question, are you an owner of a multibillion company? If yes, then by all means buy a damn Windsor, but if you drive a truck and your character revolves around driving a truck, should you buy an expensive sportscar? Answer is no, cause realistically your income shouldn't allow it. So the correct answer to roleplay wealth and how to do so, is to take a look at economy first and surround yourself with people that roleplay their characters according to their concepts. Because in the end, a corporation is only as good as it's employees.

[Subeh]

Being fairly new to the server myself this is something that confused me a lot too and I went to a few people asking how 'rich' works, because I wanted to find the sweet medium for my character.

Where my character works (a mechanic shop) I could make hundreds of thousands in a week just by opening the shop for a few hours every day, but that isn't how I portray the character at all.

How I've personally gone about it is that my character essentially funnels every single dollar she makes into her cars. Whilst she has a few cars and each of them are built up (one was RP'd for the better part of a month being completely rebuilt); that's all her money goes to. She saved up for a nice apartment, but otherwise almost every dollar she earns from the shop is funnelled into her cars. They aren't inherently expensive, it's the extent of modifications that's expensive. Despite the extent of money she makes being a supervisor at the garage, she probably only spends a maximum of 70-80 bucks a week on food and her clothes wouldn't cost any more than 100 an outfit, and that's talking about her better looking clothes. Beyond that, it all goes into her builds.

Just thought I'd throw my personal two cents in. My character certainly isn't rich by any means, but she makes a lot all things considered.

[Busch]

But the whole thing is not about admins telling me what to do because they’ve been actually very helpful. This comes from people indicating there isn’t a single well portrayal of being wealthy. It’s other players indicating that you can’t do this because of that... pfff the times we’ve been told by other people conglomerates do not have a place in LOS Santos. And about mining. I’m not denying the Busch did mine but it was sort of a process that helped us start something up. Harvey and I have both mined for at most 5 times including refining. But our main idea was to have a company that could sustain by itself. The trucking company did not have 61 employees from one day to the other it was a process. We were dedicated investigated logistics companies like XPO, FedEx, UPS. And as more people join it and go up the ladder more things get modified. Bylaws, Human Resources, Internal Auditors, legal counsel, managers, and us the directors. And yes some of our high ranked individuals do buy high end vehicles like Reblas, CaraCaras, or Ubermachts. But put into consideration that those characters are not married or neither do they have a child.

So now imagine you are an HR of a company that’s doing good. You have no kids or a wife... What are you using that money for? Perhaps buy a car, house, or start a small business.

 

Theres many outcomes and possibilities.

 

EDIT: But I do agree some of my drivers have had an issue with how they portrayed themselves and I’ve tried to explain to them what choices they could’ve done better. Some understood but others are completely blind and it’s unbelievable. But we surely work on that. About my company drivers not role playing wi businesses and the owner, I think business owners shouldn’t request crates before they go to sleep because over night of course they’ll get delivered.

 

And lastly no I have never requested to own a mansion. I may have trolled around on discord but that’s about it. Would I want to own one? Well perhaps yes but would be owned by the entire Busch family meaning every Busch would live there. That, if there was the slightest chance to have them implemented in the server.

Edited March 3, 2020 by Chuck Lee

[Engelbert]

People are right mostly. Maybe because, it's rare to see a well played corporation or even a wealthy character, because all they seen were just people with expensive sportscars speeding through night city or a highway with no roleplay at all, or if there was any, it was just clubbing and showing off their cars in hi speed chases, because when cops holler at ya, you evade them yeah, pretty common everywhere irl (joking). Now mind you people I am talking about actually had their cars bought by "mining" money back in the day, one of reasons why it was removed completely. Now I know from personal experience, that wealthy people differ from person to person. I know one who collects modded cars and yeah it's a thing irl among younger millionaires. Then I also seen one driving standard BMW cause he isn't interested in cars at all. The taste varies and thus so does roleplay. It all boils down to how your character spends his/her time and what they do with the money. Also one important detail. Los Santos is technically a parody on Los Angeles, but still Los Angeles, which means that in the city are plenty of rich people living, whether they own a corporation or not, it doesn't matter.

Edited March 3, 2020 by Engelbert

[Conway]

I've always roleplayed my wealthy character as a relatively down to earth person who will muck in when she needs to, but with this said she still keeps some luxuries in her lifestyle for her own benefit, since afterall, she's a millionaire. However she generally steers clear of south central LS, usually opting to not even drive through it, as she sees it as LS's cesspit of crime and poverty. At the end of the day there's a number of different ways to roleplay being wealthy however as long as you're not being blatantly ignorant about it I don't see how it's an issue. A solid IC background behind the income your character has usually suffices, and more often than not a present source of income such as a business or a criminal empire can also be a huge help to justify it.

 

TLDR: There's no right or wrong way to roleplay a rich character, so long as you stick true to what your characters personality is, and put some thought behind what money they have and how they've managed to acquire that money.

Edited March 3, 2020 by Conway

[eTaylor]

Wouldn't it just be easier to roleplay coming from a wealthy family? You don't need ridiculous income, and with the right background have a likely excuse. Besides, Los Santos is arguably the most ideal cesspit for characters like that and fully facilitates the vanity of it all. Roleplaying a spoiled rich brat over some executive CEO probably gives you more expressive freedom anyway.