Older Characters

[CosmicGamer]

From a discussion on another thread.

What happens if one wants a game where people live much longer.

adapting the philosophy above would require more changes to the core rules than I thought the OP was intending.

CG, could you expand on this please?

Ah, you caught my first draft before I went back and edited it.

First. To me, the OP in the other thread only indicated

How do you improve characteristics

and not wanting to change any other portion of the rules.

Second.

There are science fiction settings where people don't grow old and die naturally.

Off the top of my head, this philosophy would require changing and/or at least analyzing the impact and implications with

The aging rules.

The task system. Since older age and more terms in chargen can easily result in people with very high skill levels and high characteristics making even a formidable task relatively easy to succeed.

LOTS of things in chargen if one want's older characters. Again, off the top of my head:
- How long one can stay in a career

If your result is equal to or less than the number of terms you have spent in this career, then you cannot continue in this career

- Increased benefits from longer chargen:
--- still going to limit a 15 term 78yr older to 3 rolls on the cash table?
--- a high number of other benefits could have varying unbalancing effects such as Army grunts (with Int and Edu benefits available) having a better chance of being smarter better educated than Nobility (with no Int and Edu). Issues with the huge number of ship shares one could accumulate. Repeated weapon, armor, and other benefits driving up certain skills.
- Ranks. Imbalance in the number of high ranking people chargen might produce and what does one do once they maxed out and still have another 100 years to live? Does one need to increase the number of ranks or decrease the chance of advancing?

There is more, but just this should be example enough of the changes a live long and continuing to improve philosophy might require.

 

[Anonymous]

I'm told (I no longer have access to the LBB) that CT had a maximum number of skills a character could have. I've looked long and hard in MgT but not found it. I like this idea and am considering a house rule to incorporate it. I'm debating how to implement this but the bones of it are that a characters edu and int stats will form the basis of the limit. I'm not sure if I want to limit the max number of skills, skill levels or maximum level of any one skill. I'm leaning towards all three!

Coming back to the CT rule I don't know the details of (so forgive me if I am talking nonsense). It seems reasonable to me that a character will forget things learnt decades ago. Skills need to be practiced to maintain a proficiency so while I can see players being somewhat aggrieved by limiting skills I as a GM am also aggrieved at the number of times a player will roll a character and flirt with the danger of failing ageing rolls to maximise the character's skill set. The two things compliment each other in my mind, a cap on what a character can learn and a time over which unused skills will be forgotten. As a character ages and certain skills fall from use they are replaced by skills the character is learning and using now.

This also sets a balance on the game so characters have a chance of failure. Skill 5 and an attribute bonus of 2 makes for a very unbalanced game for me.

I'm planning a 2300 game at the moment, the Longevity trait will affect this and I'm also planning on making the longevity trait available as a DNAM. I can see how the age people live to will increase and decrease in cycles, for this game I'm interested in allowing it to increase.

 

[CosmicGamer]

I'm told (I no longer have access to the LBB) that CT had a maximum number of skills a character could have.

Quote from another thread:

In the olden days the max skill levels were the total of Int+Edu.

That's a MegaTraveller rule, and therefore likely to be a Bad Idea.

Proper Classic Traveller (1st or 2nd edition) had no such rule, and thankfully neither does Mongoose.

It seems reasonable to me that a character will forget things learnt decades ago. Skills need to be practiced to maintain a proficiency so while I can see players being somewhat aggrieved by limiting skills I as a GM am also aggrieved at the number of times a player will roll a character and flirt with the danger of failing ageing rolls to maximise the character's skill set. The two things compliment each other in my mind, a cap on what a character can learn and a time over which unused skills will be forgotten. As a character ages and certain skills fall from use they are replaced by skills the character is learning and using now.

Similiar to the concept I've mentioned in other threads:

to improve one thing could very well make something else drop.

 

[Anonymous]

There's another side to this argument too...

Why would a player character be the only 150 year old with the body of a 20 something?

If everyone is 100+ years old and has a wealth of skills it kinda evens the playing field. Granted it skews the idea of Traveller but to each their own.

It means the GM has to come up with new challenges for the PCs. Maybe pick tasks that require skills they lack or take it away from the realm of skills and into role playing. If that tickles your fancy then why not?

Another argument, if all your players want to do is make characters that on paper are unstoppable, find new players...

Did you come up with mechanics to put into play the idea that a player character forgets skills learnt in the past and not practiced within a reasonable time frame?

 

[Anonymous]

There might also be downsides to being a 150 year old.

How do you enforce boredom upon a PC?

"You've done this a thousand times before, you're bored. You can't bring yourself to give a hoot. Roll 2d6 against a formidable task to engage the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation door in a conversation as to why it should not let you pass"

 

[Condottiere]

I remember first coming across the concept of older characters having more developments points, or whatever, in one of the post apocalyptic RPGs. This works if there is a downside in regards to potential lifespan and physical handicaps.

In a really advanced tech society, this would be compensated for.

This sort of goes to the heart of character conception, where it's entirely random, it's directed, or it's customized.

 

[CosmicGamer]

Did you come up with mechanics to put into play the idea that a player character forgets skills learnt in the past and not practiced within a reasonable time frame?

No.

In real life the folks that shout the loudest for creating an improvement system typically quiet right down when I say any mechanic I create for improving will also include mechanics for decreasing because time spent on one thing is time not spent maintaining something else.

Personally I rather play by the rules as much as possible so that everyone is on the same page. I also don't want the additional record keeping of tracking the improvement and deterioration of everything. I feel that a fun adventure keeps the characters and players active enough that they don't give such things a second thought once the game gets going. As the GM I can address any special cases of improvement or deterioration as needed based on role playing.

That said, I'm open minded enough to realize that people are different and some prefer to game differently. I can still help others with their own systems and house rules.

That said, anyone that has followed my posting will know if the discussion varies from a "I have a concept and need help with some house rules" to "I'm going to change this, what do you think" and especially if it is "The rules are broke, let's fix them" I'll likely discuss how I see things differently and make it work within the rules.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

I did run a game where lifespans were several centuries using the CT rules. I did use the EDU+INT limit.

Under the MGT rules, I think it would even work better. Here is what I would do:

Roll up your character normally, with whatever number of terms desired. Keep track of all skills and all levels earned. Muster out (You might limit the number of Benefit rolls like the Money rolls are limited, but up to you).

Now, using the characters FINAL EDU and INT, reduce skill levels to the limit of EDU+INT. NOTE: Level-0 skills do not count towards this limit.

What do you have:

A character with a few high level skills and LOTS of Level-0 skills. From a gaming perspective, that seems fairly balanced and workable.

 

[Lord High Munchkin]

That actually pretty close to how I run things.

 

[Captain Jonah]

Terra sol had longevity to be standard and there were a great many people over 100 and numbers over 200. The treatment hadn't been around long enough for anyone older.

The way it worked was that you received a regular treatment that suspended aging while you took it but it had some side effects. One of them was that it affected longer term memories, you would only remember the more recent skills and special care had to be taken to retain very long term memories. So it was possible to have characters that were over 100 but they would retain at most the last ten terms or less ( it was a 10 - X max term system). So you could have a character background that said you were 150 and that you had been the hottest pilot in the quadrant 100 years ago but since you had not been keeping your piloting skill current the longevity treatment had wiped out the skill and reflex's that went with it(IE pilot was not a skill from your last 10 - X terms).

Actual character age was a role play thing, no matter how young or old your character was you were still limited by the max terms so those young hotshots in their 50s had the same skills as those grizzled 200 year olds.

 

[Condottiere]

Which is why we'll be wearing Google Glass.

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

From a discussion on another thread.

What happens if one wants a game where people live much longer.

adapting the philosophy above would require more changes to the core rules than I thought the OP was intending.

CG, could you expand on this please?

Ah, you caught my first draft before I went back and edited it.

First. To me, the OP in the other thread only indicated

How do you improve characteristics

and not wanting to change any other portion of the rules.

Second.

There are science fiction settings where people don't grow old and die naturally.

Off the top of my head, this philosophy would require changing and/or at least analyzing the impact and implications with

The aging rules.

The task system. Since older age and more terms in chargen can easily result in people with very high skill levels and high characteristics making even a formidable task relatively easy to succeed.

LOTS of things in chargen if one want's older characters. Again, off the top of my head:
- How long one can stay in a career

If your result is equal to or less than the number of terms you have spent in this career, then you cannot continue in this career

- Increased benefits from longer chargen:
--- still going to limit a 15 term 78yr older to 3 rolls on the cash table?
--- a high number of other benefits could have varying unbalancing effects such as Army grunts (with Int and Edu benefits available) having a better chance of being smarter better educated than Nobility (with no Int and Edu). Issues with the huge number of ship shares one could accumulate. Repeated weapon, armor, and other benefits driving up certain skills.
- Ranks. Imbalance in the number of high ranking people chargen might produce and what does one do once they maxed out and still have another 100 years to live? Does one need to increase the number of ranks or decrease the chance of advancing?

There is more, but just this should be example enough of the changes a live long and continuing to improve philosophy might require.

There is no reason whatsoever for a Noble to necessarily be smarter than an Army Grunt, for instance do you really think Prince Harry is smarter than the other "Army Grunts" he served with in Afghanistan? What would Prince Harry's Social Status be if her were a Traveller character? I think there were plenty of people who went to the same schools he did that weren't Nobles. What do you think?

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

There's another side to this argument too...

Why would a player character be the only 150 year old with the body of a 20 something?

If everyone is 100+ years old and has a wealth of skills it kinda evens the playing field. Granted it skews the idea of Traveller but to each their own.

It means the GM has to come up with new challenges for the PCs. Maybe pick tasks that require skills they lack or take it away from the realm of skills and into role playing. If that tickles your fancy then why not?

Another argument, if all your players want to do is make characters that on paper are unstoppable, find new players...

Did you come up with mechanics to put into play the idea that a player character forgets skills learnt in the past and not practiced within a reasonable time frame?

If you don't have natural old age, then adventuring would tend over the long run to shorten one's life. Those people who are over 100 years old and with bodies of 20 years old, would tend to be risk adverse, those people that weren't by this time having mostly died in fatal encounters in their adventures. I think a 200 year old man would have a personality much like that of Bilbo Baggins, it live quietly in his comfortable old home and not go out on adventures, he'd be afraid to do anything dangerous such as drive a car, he'd prefer to stay at home in a safe part of the world, where he deems it likely that adventure is not going to find him. Without natural decline with old age, the best way to live a long time is to avoid accidents, wars, and adventures as much as possible, as they do tend to shorten one's life. If one gets into combat situations often enough and natural causes of death are eliminated, then the lost likely cause of death would be death by laser bolt, bullet, bomb, or grenade.

 

[Condottiere]

Good news!

Researchers have transferred blood from young mice (5% per week, I believe) to old mice, and it seems their mental faculties improved, perhaps dramatically.

 

[sideranautae]

Good news!

Researchers have transferred blood from young mice (5% per week, I believe) to old mice, and it seems their mental faculties improved, perhaps dramatically.

How many baby mice are required to do this to an older human?

 

[Condottiere]

Swift did bring up the issue of how babies in Ireland might be utilized.

 

[sideranautae]

Swift did bring up the issue of how babies in Ireland might be utilized.

Like a story from Dickens... :shock:

 

[dragoner]

Swift did bring up the issue of how babies in Ireland might be utilized.

It was a modest proposal. :wink:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal

 

[sideranautae]

Swift did bring up the issue of how babies in Ireland might be utilized.

It was a modest proposal. :wink:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal

Forgot about that work.

 

[dragoner]

It is a good illustration of sarcasm.