Lifting Things in Traveller

[rust]

Scalding's question about the meaning of Strength in the
Psionics rules made me take a look at Traveller's rules for
lifting and encumbrance.

As I read them, a character can normally (without using
the Athletics skill) lift up to three times his STR + CON in
kilograms and can carry this load for up to CON rounds.
For an average person with a STR of 7 and a CON of 7 this
would mean that he can lift up to 14 x 3 = 42 kg and can
carry it for up to 7 x 6 = 42 seconds.

However, I suspect that I somehow misunderstood this ru-
le, because in real life the maximum weight a person can
lift and the time he can carry that load are usually much
higher.

For example, the "standard high load" (sacks of cement, po-
tatoes, or whatever) over here is a "Zentner", which is 50 kg,
which usually has to be carried for much more than those 42
seconds, and in my job it is perfectly normal for two persons
to lift patients with far more than 2 x 42 = 84 kg - and I am
certainly not unusually strong, and neither are most of my
female colleagues.

So, where did I misunderstand the rule ? :?

(Yes, I never looked at that rule before, we always treated
80 kg as a normal character's maximum load.)

 

[Rick]

Nope - that's the rule Rust. Page 104 in the shaded box. The STR + END x 3 is the heavily encumbered step and you're right - it does look far too low. An infantryman's load in ww2 was around 45-50 lbs (20ish kg) and the modern day load for infantry is around double that. If they were expected to carry that around for hours on end, it must be somewhere around their basic load-carrying ability - I'd be tempted to double the STR and END scores for working it out.
.

 

[Captain Jonah]

Welcome to the world of Traveller where robots do all the lifitng and those pictures of fit healthy adventurers are PR.

Everyone is overwieght and unfit in the future :lol:

I agree the numbers are off, an average human off 7STR and 7Con should be able to manage more at the top end for short periods.

To give you an idea based on previous military studies of infantry marching loads.

1988 Haisman study. British infantry clothing 7kg, 19.4kg ammo/weapon etc, 3.7kg provisions, 10kg rucksack, extra clothes, sleeping bag etc, up to 16kg ad hoc equipment such as radios, batterys, shared heavy weapon loads, personal items etc. 40kg - 56kg as a marching order load.

1986 McGraig and Goodman study. Falklands para's yomp loads up to 68kg per man for 6 to 8 hours with rest breaks.

Now these are well balanced loads and fit men but still this is vastly more than a 10Str 10Con human can manage given the times involved.

Still for ad hoc loads the limits given in Traveller prevent a person of even above average Str and Con lifting someone else in a firemans lift. Either you need rescue robots or a lot of people die in burning buildins in the OTU.

 

[phavoc]

Modern LBE's (load bearing equipment) and better designed ruck sacks really do make a difference in letting you carry more weight more easily than say a WW2 infantryman. But there's a limit to what the equipment can do in distributing the weight because at the end of the day you still gotta hump that crap everywhere.

I'd say just revise your rule upwards to be more along the lines of today's loads and go from there. It wouldn't be the first time the book rules were a bit off...

 

[BP]

This is a level of detail is blatantly disjoint with the general level in MgT. :roll:

Numbers should be relative to the mass of the character. Also, this is just dead load - bulk should have an impact as regards DMs for physical actions and fatique when 'terrain' is accounted for.

Additionally, the creators forgot Traveller is a Sci-Fi game. Its the force the character must counteract that is important - thus mass alone is not enough. Gravity (and relative lack thereof) must be accounted for in order to determine force, i.e. weight. (x 1/G where G is relative to earth norm would account for this - disregarding inertia for movement and injury purposes.)

 

[CosmicGamer]

What is CON?

The rules are more about encumbrance while carrying a load and not what the absolute maximum load is. It is about performing tasks awhile encumbered.

The book has to be general.

Nothing is said about how something is carried. A bag of concrete over the shoulder is one thing. Can you carry one in your outstretched hands away from your body for long?

Nothing is said about what is carried. Could you carry a rifle without a sling, a carton of eggs, a loaf of bread, a 4 foot fluorescent light bulb and a basketball at the same time? This might not even be lightly encumbered. Now try to do a task, like fire that rifle, at the same time!

Nothing is said about resting and then continuing.

The rules can't cover all situations but they are a good starting off point for the GM. Yes, GM, you still need to think for yourself once in a while.

 

[rust]

The rules can't cover all situations but they are a good starting off point for the GM.

Frankly, I do not consider "42 kg for 42 seconds for an
average character" a good starting off point, in my view
this is just another nonsensical rule to be altered or re-
placed. :wink:

 

[BP]

...The book has to be general. ...

Yep - and this rule is not. It is very precise and absolute.

... a good starting off point for the GM. ...

Yep - and this rule is not.

At the level of detail of the rest of the rules, 'encumbrance' can be addressed as simply a 'situational DM' recommendation applied at the Referee's judgement.

That covers players having some idea of what can be expected, and Referee's not being boxed into ignoring or changing a not well thought out RAW. This one obviously falls in this category on numerical merits alone - not to mention the other aspects I covered for why it should be a more generic Referee call. (Or one would be playing another game entirely at the level of detail required - maybe GURPS ).

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

I think people are using CON (Constitution) and END (Endurance) interchangibly here.

Traveller does not have CON, it used Endurance (END). However, the French, German and whatever editions might use a different term.

I also agree that these rules are about Encumberance, not how much you can lift.

If I had to carry 42 KG (~100 lbs), about 42 seconds is all I could stagger with it while trying to shoot a gun or dodge a Bandersnatch and I would consider myself a STR 7, END 7 guy. BUT, if it bothers you change it to MINUTES. That means you rest every hour...

While Military people may have heavier combat loads, I don't think they are expected to fight with all that crap on their backs. Don't they drop their packs when they get into a Fire Fight?

 

[rust]

Don't they drop their packs when they get into a Fire Fight?

It depends on the situation, for example whether one has
the time to drop it or whether one can expect to be able
to return to the place where one dropped it. Training (at
least over here) included climbing, running, fighting and
all that with the pack on one's back. Not so long ago es-
pecially nasty drill sergeants used to fill up the pack with
stones as a punishment for soldiers they considered too
slow.

 

[phavoc]

While Military people may have heavier combat loads, I don't think they are expected to fight with all that crap on their backs. Don't they drop their packs when they get into a Fire Fight?

When able to, yes. But it also depends on what they are carrying as far as a load. If they are infantry on a long roadmarch, they have everything in their packs. But sometimes, if say they are cavalry, their packs are much smaller and lighter and usually carry ammo, NBC gear, etc. In those cases they'll keep their packs with them as much as possible.

 

[Scalding]

Thanks Rust, for finding this. I have a terrible habit of skipping sidebars, and missed that one completely.

It seems to me that the rule is workable with minor alterations. RAW has a normal load as STR+END, light encumbrance as twice that, and heavy as three times. If the characters are juggling several items or one item that is not designed with carrying in mind, these numbers seem reasonable. I think my houserule will be that items designed to be carried or collections of items in a bulky but reasonable container will double the carry values, and items or containers explicitly designed for people to carry them for long periods will triple them.

So a solder with a pack designed to be worn while marching all day will have a normal load equal to the max load in RAW, and a max load that's 3 times that again.

I think the sidebar is totally off about sustained carriage. A soldier shouldn't have to rest 1 hour for every few minutes of marching, that makes no sense. I think I'd throw out the durations listed in the sidebar and just use the rules for fatigue on page 74: 'After performing heavy labour for a number of hours greater than his Endurance.' For exceptional cases of very heavy loads I'll reserve judgement.

As far as Telekinesis strength, maybe a rule like 'can lift 1d6 kg per psi point' makes sense. Of course, then it's linear and maybe should be more exponential: 'can lift a number of kilograms equal to the product of psi point d6s' would be more interesting. None of my players have psi, and while I expect to introduce them to Zhodani at some point, it's mostly academic for me at this point. I haven't decided where my campaign will be on the continuum between hard sci-fi and space opera, but I wouldn't be surprised if we threw reality out the window.

Edited for grammar and clarification of what I had in mind for Telekinesis Strength.

 

[rust]

A long time ago, probably during the last Ice Age,
we decided that for all of our games a character's
maximum load would be equivalent to his own bo-
dy mass, in order to enable characters to carry a
wounded or unconscious comrade at least a short
distance. Half of a character's body mass was the
standard load, which he was able to carry for seve-
ral hours without a rest.

Somewhat later, could have been early Bronze Age,
we played a game which had no data for the charac-
ter's weight. We then decided to take the 80 kg men-
tioned in the first post as the common maximum for
every character, and half of that, 40 kg, as the stan-
dard load. We have used that ever since, modified
when necessary, depending on the situation - a back-
pack is easier to carry than a cactus, obviously.

As for Telekinesis, I seem to remember (but may well
be wrong) that an earlier version of Traveller had 1 kg
per point of psi strength, but I think that 1d6 kg makes
the game more interesting than a fixed number.

 

[apoc527]

What about 70 kg plus 10xStr DM? So, weak characters would carry less, and the strongest humans can carry 100 kg loads?

 

[apoc527]

Came up with a quick fix that seems to "correct" for real life reasonably well.

Keep "unencumbered" the same, or Str+End.

For lightly encumbered, the limit becomes 3x(Str+End) rather than 2x(Str+End).

For heavily encumbered, the limit becomes 5x(Str+End) rather than 3x(Str+End) and when you make an Athletics (Strength) check, you effectively become able to lift 5xEffect more in kilograms.

I did some tests at human average (7s) and human max (15s) and it worked pretty well. Perfect? No, but good enough. Very small tweak too, which I always prefer.

 

[Captain Jonah]

Just to throw in some more points.

Basing it on pure stat ignores the person doing the lifting.

A 40KG small human female lifting 20Kg is carrying half her body weight. An 80kg large human male is carrying effectively half the load. They could both have STR7 but one is working harder to carry a proportionately heavier load. A 100kg Aslan male is carrying one fifth of his body weight and is even less encumbered.

However based on just the STR stat all three are equally encumbered.

So basing load on mass and STR

STR mod -1. Light 10%, medium 25%, heavy 50%, stagger/drag 100%
STR mod 0. Light 25%, medium 50%, heavy 75%, stagger/drag 150%
STR mod +1. Light 40%, medium 75%, heavy 100%, stagger/drag 200%
STR mod +2. Light 50%, medium 90%, heavy 125%, stagger/drag 250%
STR mod +3. Light 60%, medium 100%, heavy 150%, stagger/drag 300%

Use the average weight of your human, droyne, aslan etc. Your character can be heavier of lighter than average but you still base on average racial and STR. Being fat doesn’t help you to lift more weight :roll:

END (or CON for the European types) determines how far you can go. Time based on END stat.

END -1. Light hours, medium 0.5, heavy 10xminutes, staggering x10 seconds
END 0. Light indefinite, medium 2xhours, heavy hours, staggering x20 seconds
END +1. Light indefinite, medium 2x hours, heavy hours, staggering x30 seconds
END +2. Light indefinite, medium 3xhours, heavy hours, staggering x45 seconds
END +3. Light indefinite, medium 3xhours, heavy 2xhours, staggering x minutes

An 80kg human with STR7 and END 7 can walk for 7 hours with a load of 60kg, he can drag or fireman’s lift a wounded friend in armour of up to 120kg for 140 seconds or over 2 minutes
A character with END 15 and STR 7 can only lift a limited amount but he can do so for incredible periods of time. A character with STR 15 and END 5 can lift an impressive amount but only for a short time.

Numbers thrown together (I think there should be more of a break between END 0 and END+1)and, of course, subject to suggestions :lol:

 

[apoc527]

Interesting take on the concept. The only problem is that the game doesn't define weight.

 

[BP]

While holding:
- A cinder block
- A surf board (possibly even lighter)
- A pair of skis (maybe lighter still, but must be kept together)
Which is more likely to cause problems firing a gun: through a hatchway; while running; climbing stairs; climbing an access ladder...

Mass, bulk, carrying arrangement, and situation - no one of which can be reasonably ignored and a DM have any believable meaning.

Its really pretty easy to come up with a set of mechanics that correlate characteristic values or DMs to masses for lifting based on some statistical model... and practically useless just like those statistical models.

 

[rust]

Its really pretty easy to come up with a set of mechanics that correlate characteristic values or DMs to masses for lifting based on some statistical model... and practically useless just like those statistical models.

Yep, while I normally prefer detailed and even simulationist
rules for my campaigns, this is one of the few cases where I
think that a combination of a very simple mechanic and a re-
feree who provides modifiers based upon the specific circum-
stances is the better solution - there are just too many varia-
bles to design game mechanics which would fit the majority
of possible situations.

 

[Captain Jonah]

Oddly the game gives you weight for just about everything except the characters. Those items with a mass don't have any mention of bulk.

A simple system with a ref who has some common sense to modify it. Covering every possible variable would take pages and detract from the game. Cinder block in your arms, you are not going to be climbing a ladder. Put it in a back pack and you can.

Carrying a heavy load of lead compared to a heavy load of feathers is ref common sense, not something you need page after page of modifiers for.

At the end of the day as Rust says, put in a simple, viable mechanic and let the refs do their job which is make the game flow and be fun.