Income comes in many forms, and most of them aren't the folding green variety that arrives under
armed guard with the Police Chiefs blessing. Each of the following variations reduces your income by a
cumulative 40% (so a legit, hardened income dough 1 character would have a monthly income of $50)
1: Legit. Your income comes from entirely legal sources.
2: Hardened. Your income source is protected and hard to remove.
3: Independant. Your income does not require your fill time attention.
Savings
Your character starts with (income points) months wages in savings and (income points) years wages in
accumulated assets of the non-liquid variety. Assets must be of the kind that cannot be turned into easy
money; your whole wardrobe may have cost you $2000, but you'd get less than $100 for it when it came to sell
it, even if you could find anyone buying.
Debts
Debts can be bought, and are worth 1 dough point (income) each. Funnily enough, the monthly
repayments are about the same as the income; the bigger the money coming in, the bigger the debt. This
gives a character the opportunity to do something with their Dough between it coming in and going out again
that may pay off the debt, but it also gives them the opportunity to miss a repayment and have the boys come
around collecting.
Examples
Factory worker (Dough 1; Legit, Hardened) $50. per month, $600 in assorted clothes and posessions. The
depression has destroyed your job and your income, and it was all the union could do to keep you employed at
all. Nobody is going to fire you now, for one thing they couldn't pay your pension if they tried.
Factory floor manager (Dough 1; Legit) $150 per month, $1800 in posessions, including cheap suits and
your own furniture. You are payed as a full time employee, but you don't get union membership and could
loose your job. These days that is fairly likely, no matter how good a job you do.
Mook (Dough 1) $250 per month, $3000 in posessions, including respectably fitting suits, your own guns
and maybe a car. You make good money, and most days you don't get shot. The way the gangs change these
days, you could be out of a job tomorrow. Your time is not your own, and the police would arrest you in a
second if your boss skipped a payment.
Speakeasy owner (Dough 2; Independent) $300 per month, $7200 in non-liquid assets, mostly the building
at $6000. Not a lot of money in the grand scheme, but you're still doing better than most these days. There
are a couple of guys who check the door and you don't have to serve drinks yourself.
Speakeasy owner/barman (Dough 2; no protection) $500 per month, $12000 in non-liquid assets, including
the building at $6000. You don't waste money on doormen, and work there yourself, but make a lot more money
out of it.
High class madam(Dough 2; Independent) $300 per month, much as speakeasy owner above. The place has a select clientelle of very discreet customers, and the madam of course takes a cut. Now if the character were
to work there themselves, that could jump the earned income to $500 or more...
The above should provide a simple template for characters in the lower income brackets; they should be
applicable to most forms of simple career or illegal activity. Higher Dough stat characters will usually
have multiple sources of income, and will have to be dealt with on a case by case basis. An average illegal
business will return $150 if illegal, $50 if legal per point invested. Note that savings and assets is
calculated after summing up all the characters income sources.
Expenditure
Life is not cheap. Death might be, but not life. Every character needs to spend money to buy food,
clothes, accomodation and kickbacks.
Bum. No expenses. also no food, no shelter and the like. Vulnerable to illness and crime, both of
which are rife in the city.
Slums. You live in delapidated housing, almost certainly rented, there is at least protection from the
elements, but thats about it. Expenses ~$15 per month, although these can fluctuate at the whims of the
landlord, local protection rackets and the like.
Standard. A good house, either rented or on mortgage, conditions are comfortable squallor. Expenses
running at around $30 per month.
Comfortable: You live in an above average house, in an above average area, your car is probably new
and you don't want for anything. You won't appear on lifestyles of the rich and famous but you don't mind.
$50-100 per month.
Luxury. What you want, you probably have, you will have the best of healthcare, are unlikely to have
deranged hooligans kicking in your door at midnight and are generally considered to enjoy the good life.
Expenses ranging in the hundreds per month.
Special Cases
If your income stream is particularly sporadic or dangerous, you may well persuade the GM to allow you
income in excess of that discussed here for your Dough level. A professional freelance assassin only gets a
job once every couple of months, and has to watch his back at all times, but when the money comes in, it
really comes in. In such a profession, you will expect to be paid when the GM's tell you, and as a result
of your actions. Your Dough level indicates what the market thinks you're worth, and how much you've
previously saved up. Assume 40% bonuses for each of sporadic and dangerous, so a Dough 2 assassin could
hope to get $1000 for a hit, based upon his reputation for completing the job. A more competant Dough 1
assassin would get $500 for the same job, because he's either an unknown, is not trusted, or just hasn't
built up his contacts to hear about the bigshot contracts.
