Arkathan
Emperor Mongoose
"Medications," like Slow, give new meaning taking a while to heal. I've always wondered how much heck that stuff plays with your expected natural lifespan.
What's your goto tech?
- Thread starter Sheelba
- Start date
dragon3r
Banded Mongoose
Other than anagathics, Traveller has skimmed over that tech, which most likely seeing how much is invested now, would be a major consideration. Time dilation could also have an effect on aging. Not that it is bad, I understand the reasoning behind things being a game, and it has to flow.
AndrewW
Emperor Mongoose
The spice must flow.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Time and space.
If you don't mind the bookkeeping, by default, you have to account for accelerated growth, slowed metabolism, and out of sync jumps.
If you don't mind the bookkeeping, by default, you have to account for accelerated growth, slowed metabolism, and out of sync jumps.
Mongoose Aging has eased that a little. In any case, who says even OT has 1970's lifespans? Those last few decades hovering around stats of 1 or 2 passes the pub test. Just keep making your aging crisis checks!Maybe that's why Traveller characters have 1970s lifespans? All that slow drug every time they stub their toe has consequences.
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
What I want to know is why do aging rolls not change based on TL? Why does lifespan not increase by TL?
Lifespan is the same at TL-0 as it is at TL-20
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
For us, it's more pushing off the effects of aging rolls.
Or, negating (losing) previous rolls.
Or, negating (losing) previous rolls.
Aside from access to anargathics. Higher techs get that, plus things like brain transplants.
But as far as TL goes... how do you regulate that for player characters who might be on a TL15 paradise for a month and then stranded on a TL5 hell hole for a year? But are more likely going from world to world every fortnight? Does my life expectancy change because I visit Japan?
My take is that it's part of the assumed background average TL. Even lower tech planets that are part of the interstellar community benefit from medical knowledge and available treatments. So we're all getting TL10-12 drugs unless otherwise indicated, and it all averages out. UNLESS you lock down that long term high tech treatment (such as with anargathics), or if the long term situation (frozen in cryoberth for 50 years, stuck on a stone age planet at age 60 with a sudden cut off of your usual meds, retiring to Darrian as a billionaire etc) means the referee should make a call.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Incestuous plasma transfer.
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
Travellers are an exceptional case. What about the people that live their whole lives on those planets, such as your local brokers? Also, perhaps the Traveller lives his whole life until mustering out on just one planet, possibly barbarian? What is considered middle age? In a TL-0 society, this could be 17 or 18. On a TL-15 world, this should be closer to 65 or so. This would also include childhood vaccinations for Travellers depending on the TL of their Homeworld. Childhood vaccinations can vastly alter life expectancy and mostly do not require boosters. That is just one example. I am sure that with thought, we could come up with way more examples as well.
Also... strictly speaking on the MGT2e22 ageing table, all you need to keep yourself alive indefinitely is pay 1D x Cr10,000 for each time a characteristic gets reduced to 0 from ageing. Which would tend to happen around 66, but could be a bit sooner or a bit later.
So... there's your high tech life expectancies, at least for rich people.
So... there's your high tech life expectancies, at least for rich people.
Travellers are indeed exceptional cases. But they are also the only ones rolling on that table. Everyone else has stats and ages according to Referee fiat. Even if the Referee's choice is to use the PC ageing table.
High tech is mostly covered by Anargathics. If a player wants to have ageing table penalties because of the homeworld and background they chose, I would not stand in their way.
Otherwise, stuff like this can be used to explain emergent dice results, such as why Captain Techno keeps rolling high for ageing, or why Jane the Scout can't seem to do so, probably due that rare dose of Vargr Fever that they caught in term 2.
And... as a point about vaccinations and childhood disease... barring new epidemics, there's a floor to the effect of those on ageing, which the West has pretty much already reached at "almost entirely eliminated". Higher techs can't do much to improve on that - they've moved on to the realm of battling the problems of old age. Otherwise it's more social territory - the areas in the world with the highest child mortality and lowest life expectancy are those in famine or war.
As a 58 year old Australian, I am and I feel middle aged, and have done so since my early 40's. I'm not so sure that's changed for anyone who's avoided major injury or disease in centuries, if not millennia. I know that modern medicine means it's likely I'll have an extended old age, but that's about it. And someone will have to pay for that, either publicly or privately.
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Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
1. Alive.
2. Enjoying life.
2. Enjoying life.
ottarrus
Emperor Mongoose
One of the things that makes Traveller 'not a d20 game' is that there is no instant heal. There are no stimpaks, there are no potions of cure light wounds, or handy-dandy clerics to make your tactical mistakes hurt less.
There are several game systems, Traveller among them, where a responsible referee tells their players "this system is deadly, it is not DnD, and there is no such thing as a 'warm up fight'. Combat takes planning and tactics." I play Legend of the 5 Rings and I tell all the chanbara and anime monkeys that if that katana comes out somebody WILL die. That somebody might be your character. You might want to register a last will and testament before you go flailing that thing around.
The same situation is true in Traveller. Most PC ships have somebody with, at most, Medical 1 and they don't take the time to stock surgical supplies. The ship's 'first aid kit' is just that... some antiseptic gel and a band-aid with a Hiver cartoon on it. Traveller medicine is very much like modern EMTs... stabilize the patient until we can get them to a higher standard of care. All they can do for your sucking chest wound is stabilize you enough to drag your bleeding arse back to the low berth and hope for the best.
There are several game systems, Traveller among them, where a responsible referee tells their players "this system is deadly, it is not DnD, and there is no such thing as a 'warm up fight'. Combat takes planning and tactics." I play Legend of the 5 Rings and I tell all the chanbara and anime monkeys that if that katana comes out somebody WILL die. That somebody might be your character. You might want to register a last will and testament before you go flailing that thing around.
The same situation is true in Traveller. Most PC ships have somebody with, at most, Medical 1 and they don't take the time to stock surgical supplies. The ship's 'first aid kit' is just that... some antiseptic gel and a band-aid with a Hiver cartoon on it. Traveller medicine is very much like modern EMTs... stabilize the patient until we can get them to a higher standard of care. All they can do for your sucking chest wound is stabilize you enough to drag your bleeding arse back to the low berth and hope for the best.
ottarrus
Emperor Mongoose
The rich /powerful have always benefited from a higher standard of care. It's been that way since the first Sumerian herb woman looked a sick person and said 'Drink this!' 5000 years ago.
As we have mentioned in other discussions, the OTU has never been portrayed as an egalitarian paradise. There has always been the 'haves' and the 'don't get any'.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Mortgages can be opportunities.
Or traps.
But they tend to age you.
Though, it's your choice what you want to mortgage.
Or traps.
But they tend to age you.
Though, it's your choice what you want to mortgage.
actionman
Emperor Mongoose
Hmm, reminds me of Countess Elizabeth Bathory. I wonder if she thought she could absorb something from her victims' blood through her skin.
