Longevity

[Epicenter]

One of the big problems in Traveller (or really any RPG) in my opinion is that loss of skill / proficiency / edge is never really modeled well. This leads to odd situations where a 70-year old man, even with aging penalties which slow him down nevertheless is a skill juggernaut; it's the root of all the jokes about Traveller being a game about "men and women going through this midlife crises" and the "geriatric safari association" and so on.

While some posters on here might disagree with me, in my own life experience, this just isn't borne out. Humans might continually learn new skills, but we also constantly forget them. Unused skills dull, knowledge becomes outdated, and so on - with less used skills we achieve the position of "we know just enough to be dangerous but not enough to be useful."

In my own games, I have a number of players who use anagathics extensively during chargen; I allow it since it makes it very easy to motivate them to do work because of the costs associated with anagathics.

After discussing it with my players, we're currently experimenting with a system, where during chargen at least, each term, any skill that the player did not actively use (improve) drops by a level to a minimum of 0. For the sake of being merciful, a further two skills may be "tagged" where even if they're not used they will also no drop. While this may seem a bit harsh, each term is four years. If the character isn't really studying/practicing a skill for four years, the character is going to lose knowledge in it.

The bigger problem is the staggering rate that players learn skills once play begins. Right now we're doing a "cap" of 3 x INT but we agree it's a pretty bad limit, so I'm trying to come up with a more 'natural' feeling one than the typical thing you see where the brain is like a jar or a bucket that just fills up (since that's the system we're trying to avoid during chargen).

 

[Anonymous]

I don't recall which but one version of Traveller has a skill cap of INT + EDU which I loosely enforce to keep some measure of believability.

With regard to skills not practiced being lost, I completely agree.

The current campaign I'm running doesn't have enough in game time yet to amount to any significant level of skills being learnt, as the PCs don't (yet) have a ship to while away time in jump improving skills it's not yet an issue. One character used anagathics in chargen and is approaching his INT + EDU limit, the other has a way to go (he didn't do anagathics) but it still takes him 18 weeks to get level 0 in a new skill and I've been kind, I'm not insisting on instruction and facilities, that's mostly cos it will take him so long to learn stuff.

I like the idea of long lived characters, I like that gene treatment, organ cloning/replacement and other such high tech wizardry will increase the life span for most people. It's not heavily modeled in Traveller (hence this thread) and while the geriatric safari is frankly, too close to the truth (and rather funny) I think what's needed is an explanation of why older people would uproot themselves from their safe european homes and go off adventuring in the first place. I find that much more palatable than 18 year old he men with pencil necks accruing skills at a rate of knots by hacking and slaying their way thru life and randomly picking skills as they go along.

 

[Condottiere]

Presumably they have drugs against such afflictions as dementia and Alzheimer's.

The real problem is the body no longer cooperating with your intentions.

 

[alex_greene]

Presumably they have drugs against such afflictions as dementia and Alzheimer's.

The real problem is the body no longer cooperating with your intentions.

Stem cell genomes can be scanned. Artificial mitochondria with full-length telomeres can replace one's natural mitochondria, presumably through some sort of nanotechnology maybe.

Organs can be cultivated with virtually immortal mitochondria from the stem cell on up. Viable clones of stem cells can be generated from the stored genomes and swapped for failing organs in autodocs. It'd simply be a matter of synthesising the organs from code and transplantation; the organs themselves would be perfectly compatible - no chance of tissue rejection.

Add to that regular treatments to wash away beta amyloids before they can build up into plaques, dopamine factories to supplement the dopamine loss caused by Parkinson's and similar treatments to restore even nerve damage, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if TL 11+ technologies could extend the effective working lifespan to 150+ years, even before anagathics come onto the market.

 

[-Daniel-]

The physical limit on the brain being reached, isn't that why some SciFi stories where extended life/clones etc work, have a limit to their use as well? Fourth clone and you begin to have genetic issues etc.

Also if I remember right, in the anime "Ghost in the Shell" they used "cyber brains" to help maintain their knowledge based information. They also had full cyber brains in the full body replacements and added a mysterious thing called a "Ghost" that made you something more than a robot/android.

Both interesting angles to the longevity story.

 

[dragoner]

Yes, you have it exactly, it is starting over, but isn't that what we would really want from the process? Losing the burden of memory, or at least it's bite, so that memories were like a film you saw long ago, does not sound bad either.

That's conscious memories yes but what about your subconscious?

We learn many things sub vocally, we learn habits good and bad and repeat them in our daily behaviours. If you're essentially haunted by the conscious and sub conscious memories of a previous life I can see mental issues cropping up far more frequently than I can see a benefit for being reborn with the fragments of your old self.

Now this of course predisposes that we haven't found ways to address our little faux pas but if we introduce notions of Gattaca into the setting it gets a scary kind of place...

The subconscious is reset the same as the conscious, could there be leftovers? Sure, but I'd leave that to the player to flesh out. Part of my thinking, and just to make some sort of general sense of the idea, is that hits the memory is the physical rejuvenation of the brain, it disrupts the memory.

Gattaca, yes in the way that people are stronger, healthier and such because of genetic engineering, but not the dystopian elements of the story as much.

 

[Condottiere]

One issue is what makes us us.

If consciousness can be transferred more or less in tact fo either organic or mechanical vessels.

In fantasy games it's easy, because they work with the assumption that spirits or souls are singular, unique, and really hard to destroy, and probably transferable.

 

[-Daniel-]

One issue is what makes us us.

If consciousness can be transferred more or less in tact fo either organic or mechanical vessels.

In fantasy games it's easy, because they work with the assumption that spirits or souls are singular, unique, and really hard to destroy, and probably transferable.

I think that is the position Ghost in the shell takes. The "Ghost" is detectable and they can transfer it along into the cyber brain. But I agree, this issue does create a lot of questions about what it means to be a person.

 

[dragoner]

One issue is what makes us us.

If consciousness can be transferred more or less in tact fo either organic or mechanical vessels.

In fantasy games it's easy, because they work with the assumption that spirits or souls are singular, unique, and really hard to destroy, and probably transferable.

I'm not saying that consciousness can be transferred, pretty much the opposite, but at higher tech when someone could be recorded down to the atom with every electron in it's orbit? Sure, maybe. This is just more like the TL11+ that Alex mentioned.

 

[Gypsy Knights Games]

While some posters on here might disagree with me, in my own life experience, this just isn't borne out. Humans might continually learn new skills, but we also constantly forget them. Unused skills dull, knowledge becomes outdated, and so on - with less used skills we achieve the position of "we know just enough to be dangerous but not enough to be useful."

I agree completely with this. When I was in the early years of my college experience, I could speak French passably well. At 45, having only used it to communicate with a few friends who were also taking similar courses, I can't do it now. I can, if you give it to me in written form and give me a few minutes to go over it, figure it out slowly. So maybe I have Language-0 now?

I've certainly replaced it with other skills at this point. That's just twenty-five years. In a situation like our Clement Sector setting where people are living to be in their 200s, I can easily imagine having had lots of skills and then letting them slide back to level 0 with lack of use.

I don't recall which but one version of Traveller has a skill cap of INT + EDU which I loosely enforce to keep some measure of believability.

I'm pretty sure that was Megatraveller. We brought it back in Clement Sector to reflect the loss of skills over time and the ability to gain new ones. It also keeps the game balanced.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

I don't recall which but one version of Traveller has a skill cap of INT + EDU which I loosely enforce to keep some measure of believability.

I'm pretty sure that was Megatraveller. We brought it back in Clement Sector to reflect the loss of skills over time and the ability to gain new ones. It also keeps the game balanced.

The Traveller Book, 1982, used that rule. It was just a cap though. No revolving door.

 

[Gypsy Knights Games]

The Traveller Book, 1982, used that rule. It was just a cap though. No revolving door.

Yes, that's quite right. Just saw that. Thanks for pointing to that.

Agreed. However, in Clement Sector, one is able to drop skills from higher levels to lower ones in able to gain newer skills. I believe this reflects real life in which people let certain skills go by the wayside in favor of learning new things.

 

[Gypsy Knights Games]

In what respect do you consider nerfing "balancing?"

As referee, I could have your characters face down a battalion of FGMP-mounted Marines in Battle Dress, and all your guys would have is your snub guns and brown trousers. There is no such thing as game balance.

Alex, I have to say that I have no idea what "nerfing" means.

By "balanced" I mean to say that, in our Clement Sector setting, when we changed the Traveller rules to allow for people to stay young for *FAR* longer, that disrupted the original game mechanic of age checks which get you out of careers faster and keep you from getting *WAY* too many skills.

We balanced that change by bringing in the INT+EDU to counteract what we had changed by making aging rolls a rare event.

 

[alex_greene]

You don't have to do that. You only have to establish a mandatory retirement age of, oh I dunno, 66 years, after which you are forced to either retire out to obscurity and spend what might be a good long few decades earning a trade as some sort of professional whatever, staying at home with the husband or wife and kids, or become a Traveller.

At 66, there is absolutely no going back for anyone.

 

[Gypsy Knights Games]

You don't have to do that. You only have to establish a mandatory retirement age of, oh I dunno, 66 years, after which you are forced to either retire out to obscurity and spend what might be a good long few decades earning a trade as some sort of professional whatever, staying at home with the husband or wife and kids, or become a Traveller.

At 66, there is absolutely no going back for anyone.

I see what you mean and that would likely work in the OTU unless people were using anagathics (which comes with its own built-in problems). At a normal age of 66, there would, as you say, be no going back.

However, in Clement Sector (and I suspect in the setting which dragoner is building), people usually live well into their 200s and keep the health and appearance of the average 25 year old until their 100s. So, a 66 year old person in Clement Sector isn't even middle aged yet. So plenty of time left for more careers.

 

[Condottiere]

The obvious route will be the Honorverse, where anyone on an advanced enough world gets the treatment; Beowulf was obviously colonized primarily from Japan.

It's a game mechanic, so you could assume that getting hold of and using anagathics can be expensive and risky, socially, politically, and maybe physically.

 

[alex_greene]

When Traveller first came out in 1977, DNA's role was just becoming understood, very slowly. But nowadays, science has not only unlocked the human genome - they've discovered many things about DNA and how it functions, along with other features which have been discovered since Watson and Crick - such as telomeres, mitochondrial DNA and so on.

So much is known about it nowadays - it is possible that future scientific developments may well include such concepts as inoculants, delivered while a person is still a newborn, which will serve to protect against old age, and booster shots to be administered during puberty, as well as at various stages throughout a person's life.

 

[Epicenter]

At 66, there is absolutely no going back for anyone.

A society with long-lasting youth would have social and I suspect biological ramifications we're just seeing glimmers of right now.

I'd argue it's more likely that with people looking at career periods of over a century of productive youthfulness, mandatory retirement would probably become a thing of a past. A society that is basically kicking functionally 30 year olds out of jobs is something that was pretty interesting in Logan's Run, but I doubt anyone could make a society like that - the older people are the ones who have enough money and enough life that buying 30-year bonds at 1.25% interest is not fiscally silly but a smart, secure investment. They'll be the ones that control most of that society's wealth and are going to be ones in power, and are unlikely to write (or approve of) laws that'd endanger their comfortable positions.

It's more likely that people would continue to put off having kids (like industrialized nations are coming to grips to even today; while in places like the US we like to look at Japan and shake our heads, the same problem exists here). In other words, society couldn't really afford to cast off people due to some idea of age because the population is barely holding steady or perhaps even shrinking. A society would be more likely to be desperate to even have 200 year olds or 300 year olds (or whatever the non-anagathic lifespan limits are around) to continue working. (Assuming that is, that humans are relevant in any way in the technological society we have created at that point which is certainly not guaranteed.)

The most likely reason that people become Travellers in such a society is that you're 100 years old. You still have a good 50-75 years ahead of you. You're sitting on piles of money (those 1.25% interest bonds are cashing out) and frankly don't have to work for another day for the rest of your life (and "rest of your life" is longer than most of us live today). You're growing restless. You've had three or four different careers in your lifetime up to now. You're fed up with the employment rat race so you need something else to give meaning to your life.

 

[Anonymous]

Or society has gotten wise and moved post scarcity.

I know it's a hand wave and in our foreseeable future unlikely to happen and I know it will get the heckles up for all the hard working capitalists on the board but maybe there is a different way to structure a society?

With Dragoner's other threads that this one is linked to, centred around his TL23 setting, I can't see savings accounts as being pivotal in it.

I might regret posting this

 

[alex_greene]

Or society has gotten wise and moved post scarcity.

I know it's a hand wave and in our foreseeable future unlikely to happen and I know it will get the heckles up for all the hard working capitalists on the board but maybe there is a different way to structure a society?
I might regret posting this