Limpin Legin
Cosmic Mongoose
A while ago I was in a situation where I was creating a Traveller character for a new guy whom I've known from a local D&D group. In real life I know he is from a rural farming family, and his roleplaying tends to follow that outlook. In D&D this guy tends to pick the Ranger type of character and, in Tales from the Loop, he would pick the Hick.
When it came down to creating a Traveller character, all he wanted to be was the Drifter, which initially took me back, because the Drifter is such a dropout type of character. So every term up to the age of thirty, he would choose the Drifter, as he couldn't identify affinity with the other careers on offer. And the Drifter is such a second rate "up to no good"/"failure" type of character, IMO, and not a useful contributor towards society. He could have chosen to be the Citizen, but that had connotations of being a Corporate which, I could easily see, had no relevance to his real-life rural background that is so cut-off from mainstream society.
So I was left wandering if useful agriculturists and farmers fall through the gap, in terms of character creation? One would assume that agriculturists would just be low tech guys with just survival and animal skills, and then should be automatically bamboozled by the latest tech. But modern farmers can drive and will use drones and other robots for crops, use electronics and communications to link themselves with the rest of the world, trade in bulk supplies. And in a sci-fi setting, they would also understand planetary formation and terraforming. Similarly, in a Traveller sci-fi setting, because they are so remotely cut-off, they may also be the hideout of underground psionic institutes (perhaps).
These are useful characters, not just drop outs or societal rejects - so, is there any possibility of creating "decent" farmers? I mean, didn't the now famous Luke Skywalker start out as a farmerboy, before joining the Jedi?
When it came down to creating a Traveller character, all he wanted to be was the Drifter, which initially took me back, because the Drifter is such a dropout type of character. So every term up to the age of thirty, he would choose the Drifter, as he couldn't identify affinity with the other careers on offer. And the Drifter is such a second rate "up to no good"/"failure" type of character, IMO, and not a useful contributor towards society. He could have chosen to be the Citizen, but that had connotations of being a Corporate which, I could easily see, had no relevance to his real-life rural background that is so cut-off from mainstream society.
So I was left wandering if useful agriculturists and farmers fall through the gap, in terms of character creation? One would assume that agriculturists would just be low tech guys with just survival and animal skills, and then should be automatically bamboozled by the latest tech. But modern farmers can drive and will use drones and other robots for crops, use electronics and communications to link themselves with the rest of the world, trade in bulk supplies. And in a sci-fi setting, they would also understand planetary formation and terraforming. Similarly, in a Traveller sci-fi setting, because they are so remotely cut-off, they may also be the hideout of underground psionic institutes (perhaps).
These are useful characters, not just drop outs or societal rejects - so, is there any possibility of creating "decent" farmers? I mean, didn't the now famous Luke Skywalker start out as a farmerboy, before joining the Jedi?
