Guess I was being overly subtle (or just old). I was referencing this:SOC-1 would make the Career Path lower than Drifter, so that would defeat the purpose of my original question .
Lack of affinity for players when creating a Farmer Traveller?
- Thread starter Limpin Legin
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Limpin Legin
Cosmic Mongoose
I remember learning about English Rotten Boroughs during school history and then, suddenly, the very same theme turns up on the best successor to MP in Brit comedy - namely, Black Adder: Best Comedy Scene: "A Rotten Candidate for a Rotten Borough", where the candidate pledges to get a "great big Turnip for the country ..."
An alternate name for a Rotten Borough is a Pocket Borough. Now hang on a minute, ... what was that about T4 Pocket Empires? This is going to mean a new look at that publication, in the light of this conversation ... cheers
.Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Gerrymandering wasn't invented yesterday.
The Roman version was ingenious.
The Roman version was ingenious.
Limpin Legin
Cosmic Mongoose
Not sure. Gerrymandering is an exploitation of an elected Democracy, however Roman Civilisation (Ancient Romans) was an Autocratic Dictatorship. Word created circa 1800s, although the practice could have occurred well before a word for it was coined.
Example Traveller Government Types:
4 - Representative Democracy (vulnerable to gerrymandering).
A - Charismatic Dictator.
B - Non-charismatic leader.
Other various forms of corruption certainly existed in the Ancient Roman governments, especially bribery, 'clientism' (quid-pro-quo), cronyism and embezzlement.Source: What was the political corruption in ancient Rome
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Sigtrygg
Emperor Mongoose
The Roman Republic, with senators and elections and everything, lasted nearly five hundred years before it became the Roman Empire with its autocratic Emperor.
Roman Republic - Wikipedia
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MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
SOC is a reflection of how your society in general reacts to you. A guy that works at a water treatment plant and smells like crap 24/7 is gonna have a negative SOC modifier, I don't care how much his boss loves him, his neighbors and the people who are sitting next to him at the restaurant will hate him....lol... Same goes for those who do leather tanning and several other professions.
In a casted society like in India or Japan, you have a whole class of citizen who deals with this.
Limpin Legin
Cosmic Mongoose
Sure, but for purposes of discussion, lets say SOC usually precedes societies reaction . Then SOC becomes a currency to get the Career Path you want, and supersedes EDU or INT, etc (and skips negative Career Event rolls because of 'privilege').
Sure, ... uh-hu .. nope: not so sure about 24/7. Even if smell because of environment hazards, it is never a permanent thing. Traveller Companion (page 12) says some circumstances can reduce SOC temporarily. This would be a more appropriate ruling. You could instigate a smell DM dependent on Career Path:
| Agent | SOC - 3/+1/-2 | Law enforcers 'stink' when they got their noses in an investigation, etc. |
| Army, Navy, Marine | SOC +2/+2/+2 | Because of honour |
| Citizen, Drifter, Prisoner, Psion | SOC - 0/0/0 | Because they are too much 'duplicates' of each other |
| Entertainer | SOC +3/+2/+5 | When release new digital art, etc. |
| Merchant, Scholar | SOC -1/-2/-3 | Because stink of 'mansplaining'-related stress. |
| Noble | SOC +2/+5/+2-1d3 | Because gen. pop. are sycophants to privilege. |
| Rogue | SOC -1d3/-1d3/-1d3 | Shifty and look like trouble. Or well disguised. |
| Scout | SOC -2/0/+1 | Dull routine vs novelty of exotic places. |
Actual numbers are just guesses for purposes of discussion ... but you see there could be reason to overhaul entire Character Creation based upon a temporary smell, interpreting your advices to their fullest conclusion.
Same quote (revisited): Well, if you going to do that for career paths, then what about folk who visited a corrosive or tainted atmosphere world? Are you gonna reduce their SOC for their stink they gain from visiting these planets?
Limpin Legin
Cosmic Mongoose
Caste / Varna system in India depends on what you are born into. So you'd need to start from age 0, and roll SOC before EDU because some SOCs in range of 0 - 2 would mean zero education for life.
Besides, you would also need to modify Career Paths for each Government Type, to reflect regional polity/societal differences - something Traveller does not attempt.
Bushido in Japan is not the same as caste. It is 'virtue' more like a meritocracy. AND Bushido is an entirely different RPG
.At the end of the day, someone has to do the dirty jobs, but a sensible company would hide those "behind the scenes" employees, and position a well-kept customer services operative on the front desk, etc. Not difficult, if you put your mind to it.
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
I would guess that once they leave that career, they would lose the "smell" or whatever it was that created the negative modifier in the first place. In a Casted Society, they never lose it, since they never leave the career, but in a Non-casted Society, I would say that it would only stay as long as the sophont stayed in that career.
Limpin Legin
Cosmic Mongoose
Couldn't resist this (from childhood), as you can never tell where the next superhero is going to come from:
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
I have My players roll all of their attributes and then allocate them where they wish. So this would be more of a thing for NPCs who are still in their careers/castes, or for players who choose their PCs to be this way.
Most Careers in Traveller do deal in SOC both before you enter the career as well as having it change while in the career, through various rolls in character creation.Besides, you would also need to modify Career Paths for each Government Type, to reflect regional polity/societal differences - something Traveller does not attempt.
Bushido in Japan is not the same as caste. It is 'virtue' more like a meritocracy. AND Bushido is an entirely different RPG
At the end of the day, someone has to do the dirty jobs, but a sensible company would hide those "behind the scenes" employees, and position a well-kept customer services operative on the front desk, etc. Not difficult, if you put your mind to it.
Limpin Legin
Cosmic Mongoose
Well, technically that is still determining things "democratically", aged 18. Not the way caste works. Caste precedes democracy.
Yes, but as an identifiable permanent change over four years. Not a temporary change within 24 hours for things like environmental oils and gasses as well as cortisol and epinephrine "stinks."
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Caste is when you freeze solid social mobility.
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
It is not democratically. It is out-of-game putting numbers to stats.
The change exists as long as they are in the career. If they leave the career, the negative would go away. I said this already. "Smell" was an example I used. Do not narrow your thinking to believe that odor is the only example. If you are part of a Caste, it never goes away because you never leave your Caste (Career). This has nothing to do with actual odor or actual sense of smell. I grew up near a really nasty water treatment facility. You know the only people who lived near there? Poor people, or in Traveller-speak, low-SOC people. Smell is what I used to describe that situation, but there are many other examples. Take a look at your modern demographic maps and overlay them with Landfills, chemical production facilities, etc. You will find no high-SOC neighborhoods anywhere near them.
Limpin Legin
Cosmic Mongoose
Well it is in the sense of the rulebook giving the player the choice of what to do with those stats, rather than mandating a sequence of allocations based on some other criteria beyond free will. (Hint: I did put **democratically** between double quotes. That was me allowing there could be better words somewhere in the language.) In Traveller, character creation is considered a mini-game. But whether it is a mini-game or an out-of-game number crunch, what you are providing players, is a rule on empowering them with individual choice. Whether that choice is about "stats blocks" or "sets of truths" is another matter.
I cannot see the point you are attempting to make here. Both "smell" and "caste" were examples you made TOGETHER (in separate paragraphs) in post #67. I commented on both examples in separate posts (post #68 and post #69.) I never blurred the two examples together as if to say they were somehow synonymous or analogous. So, if you don't mind, I'd retract that last sentence as something correct but spurious in terms of making any difference in opinion, counter-argument or view point.
Well, did your school teacher reduce your SOC because you smelt for four years? I lived on top of a railway line. The railway service was hourly so was small in noise, but I could not help notice the social divide either side of the railway line. I used to live on one side of the line, in with the poor people. Then my family moved to the other side of the railway line, where more upwardly mobile people lived. Yes, there were consequences about availability of decent schooling, etc. So, yes, people do identify SOC with location. My father lived on top of a busy dual carriageway that was built after his family lived there. And my grandparents lived underneath a Heathrow Airport flight path ... the possibilities go on.
I'm really tired now as it is 3:30am and I haven't had a wink of sleep. I think location is irrelevant to character creation. You can just chose where your character comes from after they have mustered out and ready to start adventuring. I think the less "narrow thinking" view would be to consider stigma and prejudice as a **thing** within roleplay character creation. But are those stigmas and prejudices really permanent and unvarying (over 4 years+) or do they "officially" go up and down with contact with handling different oils and gases?
IMO, SOC is an area of prejudice and that can result in greater division and stigma which, in turn, can affect things like career prospects. But I'm not sure "stinking" will affect characters outside occupations because of soap and a change of clothes. If it was important, then you got to consider that otehr occupations "stink" in different ways - which was the point of the table in post #68. Moral (MRL, TC2024) may be affected. Especially when confronted with how "other people live." But if you want make a decent formula that relates dependencies between SOC, MRL, EDU, etc then go ahead.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
If it's a game mechanic, then it depends on how the group wants to deal with it.
Anakin started out as a slave, though highly talented; his son Luke had a highly influential politician as a mother, but grew up in a moisture farm, that considering the other planetary inhabitants, probably was on the right side of the tracks.
Anakin started out as a slave, though highly talented; his son Luke had a highly influential politician as a mother, but grew up in a moisture farm, that considering the other planetary inhabitants, probably was on the right side of the tracks.
Limpin Legin
Cosmic Mongoose
Well. The players just want to win. They would prefer a permanent skills check of 2+ on 2d6, infinite credits, weapons and ammo.
I think the game designers and play testers should take credit for devising some mechanic(s) that is fun as well as plausible and challenging.
The players should learn and adopt those mechanics to influence the outcome of the game in a favourable way. Local rules may be used to supersede the "official" rules, but that should only be after group discussion and agreement. These things take time away from the adventure, so it would be nice if the developers/testers could get it right, so we have a good set of mechanics just when we need it.
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
None of My players want to "win". They want to have fun. They want their characters to be flawed, because flaws create drama and drama is fun. No one wants to read a book or see a movie where the good guys are invincible gods who never make mistakes and always win. Characters, like people have goals that they try to achieve, but actually achieving them is what ends the game, unless new goals exist. The game is the journey toward your character's goals, with all of the hardships and mistakes along the way that that entails.
In almost every character I play, when I get the rare opportunity to actually play instead of running the games, most of the characters I play make stupid choices that accurately reflects the character's flaws and biases. For example, the most effective way to "win" is to grind. In a dungeon crawl in 3.5 D&D, grinding would mean "Taking 20" on a Search Check every 5' to make sure you discover everything. This is the most effective way to use the rules to "win", but that is no fun at all. It means I can play a whole game and never have to talk to any other characters. I just roll dice. That is not role-playing. That is roll-playing. "Winning" is what people want to do who do not want to roleplay. Some of the best characters that I have ever had met horrible ends due to stupid choices made that I knew were stupid beforehand, but fit with the character.
Any players who want to "win" can find a different gaming table, because they obviously do not know the difference between roll-play and role-play. The only way to "win" in role-play is to collectively tell a story that everyone at the table enjoys. It's not like playing craps at the dice tables. That would be roll-play, which Traveller and other RPGs are not.
That's not any players I've ever played with.
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