Make standing cost money to keep, in both settings

Each pack declares a lifestyle tier, bought on the second rung and charged for
every cycle after: Corporate Ladder's car and address, the Frontier's bay and
the room over the Ellis place. Falling behind what the job expects costs
standing, in steps that steepen as standing rises. A Dispatch coordinator
keeping up fully nets -21 a week and earns the difference out of the days. No
engine change; the only interface change is a tier display format.

Sized by measurement, not feel (DECISIONS #36): a -2/week penalty is invisible
against Dispatch's standing gains, and a player who chases standing every turn
beats any flat penalty — 99 standing while buying nothing, and $2,245 richer
than one who kept up. Hence the top step.

Two defects fixed on the way. The conformance suite excluded debt from the
economic baseline by matching /debt|owed|loan/i on path names, which would have
counted every lifestyle tier into it; packs now declare tuning.baselineExcludes.
And 'the promotion leaves a player better off' pooled end balances across
archetypes that do not spend alike, so it measured the mix — it is now derived
from the upkeep arithmetic.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01RxdJFbLq1rBKsUeticGV1g

content/corporateladder/events/dispatch.js

@@ -485,6 +485,65 @@ export const dispatch = [
       },
     ],
   },
+
+  {
+    // The cost of standing, offered rather than imposed. Buying nothing is
+    // always playable and always cheaper; it is Dispatch's weekly "looking the
+    // part" charge that makes it a real decision instead of a shop.
+    id: 'the_car_lot',
+    stage: 'dispatch',
+    weight: 45,
+    cooldown: 6,
+    requires: [{ path: 'lifestyle', op: '<', value: 2 }],
+    description:
+      'Marlene mentions, not quite to you, that the coordinator before last ' +
+      'drove something with a roof rack, and that people noticed when he ' +
+      'stopped. There is a lot on Ninth with a sign about payments.',
+    options: [
+      {
+        id: 'buy_the_car',
+        label: 'Put money down on the car.',
+        requires: [
+          { path: 'lifestyle', op: '==', value: 0 },
+          { path: 'money', op: '>=', value: 450 },
+        ],
+        result:
+          'It is four years old and the radio only gets one station, and on ' +
+          'Monday two people who have never spoken to you ask about it.',
+        effects: [
+          { path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -450 },
+          { path: 'lifestyle', op: 'set', value: 1 },
+          { path: 'reputation', op: 'add', value: 3 },
+          { path: 'notable', op: 'push', value: 'Bought a car with a roof rack.' },
+        ],
+      },
+      {
+        id: 'trade_up',
+        label: 'Trade up, and take the lease on the better side of the park.',
+        requires: [
+          { path: 'lifestyle', op: '==', value: 1 },
+          { path: 'money', op: '>=', value: 900 },
+        ],
+        result:
+          'The address is two stops closer and four hundred a month dearer. ' +
+          'Nobody says anything about it, which is the entire point of it.',
+        effects: [
+          { path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -900 },
+          { path: 'lifestyle', op: 'set', value: 2 },
+          { path: 'reputation', op: 'add', value: 5 },
+          { path: 'notable', op: 'push', value: 'Moved to the better side of the park.' },
+        ],
+      },
+      {
+        id: 'keep_the_bus_pass',
+        label: 'Keep the bus pass. The bus is fine.',
+        result:
+          'The bus is fine. You read two chapters a day on it, which is two ' +
+          'more than anybody on Ninth manages.',
+        effects: [{ path: 'skills.logistics', op: 'add', value: 1 }],
+      },
+    ],
+  },
 ];
 
 export default dispatch;

content/corporateladder/index.js

@@ -45,6 +45,10 @@ export const corporateLadder = {
     'reputation': { initial: 50, min: 0, max: 100 },
     'skills.negotiation': { initial: 5, min: 0, max: 100 },
     'skills.logistics': { initial: 5, min: 0, max: 100 },
+    // What standing costs to keep. Nothing forces a player to climb this, but
+    // Dispatch charges standing for staying at the bottom of it — see the
+    // "Looking the part" entries in upkeep, and DECISIONS #36.
+    'lifestyle': { initial: 0, min: 0, max: 2 },
     'flags.took_loan': { initial: false },
     'flags.holds_the_envelope': { initial: false },
     'flags.covered_for_trevor': { initial: false },
@@ -96,6 +100,76 @@ export const corporateLadder = {
       effects: [{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: 1260 }],
     },
     { label: 'Rent', every: 7, offset: 7, effects: [{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -455 }] },
+    // What the job expects of you, and what meeting that expectation costs.
+    // Dispatch nets +49 a week; a coordinator with the car is +19, and one
+    // with the car and the address is -21 and has to earn the difference out
+    // of the days themselves. That is the answer to "money stops mattering
+    // late": it stops mattering only if standing is free to keep.
+    {
+      label: 'Car payment and parking',
+      every: 7,
+      offset: 7,
+      requires: [{ path: 'lifestyle', op: '>=', value: 1 }],
+      effects: [{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -30 }],
+    },
+    {
+      label: 'The better address',
+      every: 7,
+      offset: 7,
+      requires: [{ path: 'lifestyle', op: '>=', value: 2 }],
+      effects: [{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -40 }],
+    },
+    // The pressure that makes the spending a choice rather than a vanity. Both
+    // are gated on Dispatch: the mailroom pays too little for this to be
+    // anything but a trap, and "later in a career" is the point.
+    {
+      label: 'Looking the part',
+      every: 7,
+      offset: 7,
+      requires: [
+        { path: 'stage', op: '==', value: 'dispatch' },
+        { path: 'lifestyle', op: '<', value: 1 },
+      ],
+      effects: [{ path: 'reputation', op: 'add', value: -4 }],
+    },
+    {
+      // Standing above sixty-five is a thing you are seen to be, and being seen
+      // to be it runs on a better address than a coordinator's first one.
+      //
+      // Sized by measurement, not by feel. At -2 a week this was invisible:
+      // Dispatch hands out standing several points at a time, so a coordinator
+      // who bought nothing still finished pinned at 100 and the charge may as
+      // well not have existed. At -6, with the entry above, a non-buyer settles
+      // in the low seventies while somebody keeping up finishes at 100 — the
+      // ceiling is real and money is what lifts it.
+      label: 'Looking the part',
+      every: 7,
+      offset: 7,
+      requires: [
+        { path: 'stage', op: '==', value: 'dispatch' },
+        { path: 'reputation', op: '>=', value: 65 },
+        { path: 'lifestyle', op: '<', value: 2 },
+      ],
+      effects: [{ path: 'reputation', op: 'add', value: -6 }],
+    },
+    {
+      // The top step, and the one that makes the whole thing a choice rather
+      // than a tax on carelessness. Without it, a player who spends every turn
+      // chasing standing simply out-earns the charge: measured, they held 99
+      // while never buying anything, and finished $2,245 richer than a player
+      // who kept up — so the lifestyle was a pure loss to anybody paying
+      // attention. With it they plateau in the low eighties. What money buys
+      // up here is the last fifteen points, which cannot be worked for.
+      label: 'Looking the part',
+      every: 7,
+      offset: 7,
+      requires: [
+        { path: 'stage', op: '==', value: 'dispatch' },
+        { path: 'reputation', op: '>=', value: 80 },
+        { path: 'lifestyle', op: '<', value: 2 },
+      ],
+      effects: [{ path: 'reputation', op: 'add', value: -14 }],
+    },
     // The service charge steps up with the size of the debt, so the spiral
     // tightens instead of flattening out. A step function in data costs the
     // engine nothing; a percentage would have needed a multiply operation.
@@ -132,6 +206,9 @@ export const corporateLadder = {
       mailroom: [-45, 5],
       dispatch: [5, 125],
     },
+    // Upkeep gated on these is excluded from that baseline: both are states a
+    // player opts into, and the baseline is the floor underneath everybody.
+    baselineExcludes: ['debt', 'lifestyle'],
   },
 
   // How the interface names and formats this pack's state. The UI reads only
@@ -142,6 +219,12 @@ export const corporateLadder = {
     'reputation': { label: 'Standing', format: 'meter', order: 3 },
     'skills.negotiation': { label: 'Negotiation', format: 'meter', order: 4 },
     'skills.logistics': { label: 'Logistics', format: 'meter', order: 5 },
+    // Hidden until it is bought: a mailroom associate has no lifestyle to
+    // speak of, and a row reading "The bus" from day one is noise.
+    'lifestyle': {
+      label: 'Lifestyle', format: 'tier', order: 6, hideWhenZero: true,
+      labels: ['The bus', 'A car', 'The address'],
+    },
     // Kept out of the header, and out of the ledger too: `notable` is the
     // retrospective's own list, and "Notable — changed" tells nobody anything.
     'notable': { hidden: true, inLedger: false },

content/frontier/events/deputy.js

@@ -579,6 +579,66 @@ export const deputy = [
       },
     ],
   },
+
+  {
+    // Corporate Ladder's car lot, in Cold Fork's terms and at its scale. Same
+    // structure deliberately: an offer, never an obligation, with the weekly
+    // charge for falling short of it sitting in upkeep instead.
+    id: 'the_sale_barn',
+    stage: 'deputy',
+    weight: 45,
+    cooldown: 6,
+    requires: [{ path: 'lifestyle', op: '<', value: 2 }],
+    description:
+      'The sale barn has a bay with four good years in him and a price on ' +
+      'him. Ward says nothing about it, except that the county pays mileage ' +
+      'on a horse a man owns and nothing at all on a hired one.',
+    options: [
+      {
+        id: 'buy_the_bay',
+        label: 'Buy the bay.',
+        requires: [
+          { path: 'lifestyle', op: '==', value: 0 },
+          { path: 'money', op: '>=', value: 70 },
+        ],
+        result:
+          'He is a better animal than the livery has ever put under you, and ' +
+          'the whole street watches you ride him down it once.',
+        effects: [
+          { path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -70 },
+          { path: 'lifestyle', op: 'set', value: 1 },
+          { path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: 3 },
+          { path: 'notable', op: 'push', value: 'Bought the bay out of the sale barn.' },
+        ],
+      },
+      {
+        id: 'take_the_room',
+        label: 'Take the room over the Ellis place, with the stove.',
+        requires: [
+          { path: 'lifestyle', op: '==', value: 1 },
+          { path: 'money', op: '>=', value: 150 },
+        ],
+        result:
+          'A door that locks, a stove, and a window over the street. The ' +
+          'Cordwood does not hold it against you; the Cordwood holds nothing ' +
+          'against anybody who pays up.',
+        effects: [
+          { path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -150 },
+          { path: 'lifestyle', op: 'set', value: 2 },
+          { path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: 5 },
+          { path: 'notable', op: 'push', value: 'Took the room with the stove over the Ellis place.' },
+        ],
+      },
+      {
+        id: 'ride_the_livery',
+        label: 'Ride what the livery gives you.',
+        result:
+          'A different animal every week, and you learn something about each ' +
+          'one of them in the first mile.',
+        effects: [{ path: 'skills.trade', op: 'add', value: 1 }],
+      },
+    ],
+  },
 ];
 
 export default deputy;

content/frontier/index.js

@@ -54,6 +54,10 @@ export const frontier = {
     'standing': { initial: 50, min: 0, max: 100 },
     'skills.nerve': { initial: 5, min: 0, max: 100 },
     'skills.trade': { initial: 5, min: 0, max: 100 },
+    // The same shape as Corporate Ladder's lifestyle, in this setting's own
+    // terms and at this setting's own scale: what the office expects a man to
+    // turn up on, and what keeping that up costs. See DECISIONS #36.
+    'lifestyle': { initial: 0, min: 0, max: 2 },
     'flags.carries_iron': { initial: false },
     'flags.owes_the_store': { initial: false },
     'flags.covered_for_dutch': { initial: false },
@@ -112,6 +116,66 @@ export const frontier = {
       requires: [{ path: 'stage', op: '==', value: 'deputy' }],
       effects: [{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: 38 }],
     },
+    // What the star is expected to arrive on, and what that expectation costs
+    // to meet. The office nets +18 a run; a deputy on his own horse is +11,
+    // and one with the horse and the room is +4 and makes the rest on the
+    // days. Money is meant to keep mattering after the promotion — but the
+    // first pass charged 9 for the room and left a keeper's median balance at
+    // $8 after 200 turns, which is not pressure, it is the debt trap this pack
+    // was tuned twice to avoid.
+    {
+      label: 'Feed and shoeing',
+      every: 4,
+      offset: 4,
+      requires: [{ path: 'lifestyle', op: '>=', value: 1 }],
+      effects: [{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -7 }],
+    },
+    {
+      label: 'The room over the Ellis place',
+      every: 4,
+      offset: 4,
+      requires: [{ path: 'lifestyle', op: '>=', value: 2 }],
+      effects: [{ path: 'money', op: 'add', value: -7 }],
+    },
+    // Gated on the office for the same reason Corporate Ladder gates its
+    // equivalent on Dispatch: a hand cannot afford any of this, and being
+    // charged standing for that would be a trap rather than a choice.
+    {
+      label: 'What the star is expected to be',
+      every: 4,
+      offset: 4,
+      requires: [
+        { path: 'stage', op: '==', value: 'deputy' },
+        { path: 'lifestyle', op: '<', value: 1 },
+      ],
+      effects: [{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: -2 }],
+    },
+    {
+      label: 'What the star is expected to be',
+      every: 4,
+      offset: 4,
+      requires: [
+        { path: 'stage', op: '==', value: 'deputy' },
+        { path: 'standing', op: '>=', value: 65 },
+        { path: 'lifestyle', op: '<', value: 2 },
+      ],
+      effects: [{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: -2 }],
+    },
+    {
+      // The top step, for the reason Corporate Ladder's has one: without it a
+      // man who plays for standing every single day holds a hundred of it on a
+      // livery horse, and the bay is money thrown away. With it he settles in
+      // the low eighties and the last stretch has to be bought.
+      label: 'What the star is expected to be',
+      every: 4,
+      offset: 4,
+      requires: [
+        { path: 'stage', op: '==', value: 'deputy' },
+        { path: 'standing', op: '>=', value: 80 },
+        { path: 'lifestyle', op: '<', value: 2 },
+      ],
+      effects: [{ path: 'standing', op: 'add', value: -14 }],
+    },
     // Store credit costs more the deeper in you are, the same step function
     // Corporate Ladder uses for its loan — a shape, not a setting.
     {
@@ -149,6 +213,9 @@ export const frontier = {
       hand: [0, 12],
       deputy: [10, 30],
     },
+    // States a player opts into, excluded from the baseline above: the floor
+    // is what a man faces owing nothing and keeping nothing.
+    baselineExcludes: ['owed', 'lifestyle'],
   },
 
   display: {
@@ -157,6 +224,10 @@ export const frontier = {
     'standing': { label: 'Standing', format: 'meter', order: 3 },
     'skills.nerve': { label: 'Nerve', format: 'meter', order: 4 },
     'skills.trade': { label: 'Trade', format: 'meter', order: 5 },
+    'lifestyle': {
+      label: 'What you keep', format: 'tier', order: 6, hideWhenZero: true,
+      labels: ['The livery horse', 'Your own horse', 'Horse and a room'],
+    },
     'notable': { hidden: true, inLedger: false },
     'flags.carries_iron': {
       label: 'The scattergun', hidden: true,