Traveller through a Sorcerer's lens?

[Russell Hoyle]

Just another crackpot idea of mine, whilst driving long distances....

Humaniti is: Looking after people (broadly defined), doing what is right and just and moral.

Sorcery is: The various skills, techniques and strategies involved in attracting or finding a patron, negotiating a succesful contract and implementing transactions. Meeting the needs and desires of one's employers, irrespective of the consequences to others.

Demons are: Patrons! All sorts of patrons, from the faceless Megacorp to the local despot. Patrons have abilities to confer Travel (Passage, starship charter, starships!), Cloak (False identities, passports and other documentation) and even Special Damage or other direct help (Fancy equipment/weaponry "on loan").


What do you guys think?
Will it fly?
Is the patronage relationship too distant a one to be examined with Sorcerer's lens?

Descriptors maybe later (I am "working")...
Cheery-bye!
Rusty

[Balbinus]

I think if there is a narrative theme implicit in Traveller it is this?

How do you give meaning to your life when the thing which gave it structure is gone?

In Traveller you play retirees, it's pretty much unique in that I think.  PCs have had full careers, typically dedicated years of their lives to a particular institution and risked their lives for it as well.

Now all that is over, you've mustered out and have to survive as best you can outside of that structure and organisation. 

Mechanically this is reinforced in classic Traveller by the relative lack of advancement mechanics but the fairly prominent aging mechanics.  You probably won't get much better than how you start out, but likely you will decline.  In other words, you start already at or past your prime with a downward descent to look forward to in terms of your abilities.

So, you risked your life in service for an organisation, you gave your best years, now you're on your own.  What will you do to make your life meaningful now the thing which gave it meaning has gone?  That to me is a premise worth addressing.

I think the premise you suggest, how far will I compromise my morality to make a living, is a fair one but I'm not sure it's particularly implicit in the Traveller setting.  What stops PCs from simply not working for sleazebags, from just getting good jobs with reputable companise?  I don't quite see what is driving the PCs here, and I think that's maybe what you need to work on.

Other than that I don't see why this shouldn't work.

[greyorm]

Hrm...I'm grooving on that. I like the idea that Humanity = Meaning, whereas losing Humanity = aimlessly drifting from one job or situaion to another, with no real grip on the world, or real (lasting) emotional relationship to it. (Which means that most parties of D&D characters would have 0 humanity because they're friggin' wandering mercenaries dancing to nothing more than the GM's tune ala scenario.)

Demons in this case would be anything that took you away from or severed that connection. Retirement itself would be a demon in this case, because it takes away everything you had that made you...matter. That attached you to the wider world. Retirement is a slow, languid slip into quiet death. So you try to find ways to avoid the quiet, the lack of meaning, the lack of purpose, and yet try not to become some madman scrambling around desperately and futilely trying to find purpose in a dozen different yet all aimless directions.

[Balbinus]

Hrm...I'm grooving on that. I like the idea that Humanity = Meaning, whereas losing Humanity = aimlessly drifting from one job or situaion to another, with no real grip on the world, or real (lasting) emotional relationship to it. (Which means that most parties of D&D characters would have 0 humanity because they're friggin' wandering mercenaries dancing to nothing more than the GM's tune ala scenario.)

That is exactly what I was trying to get at, but put into Sorceror mechanics.

Traveller to me is about mortality, it's about coming to terms with one's own death, it's about finding purpose where there is none.

Which is a lot to read in given none of that is actually printed in the book, but intentionally or not I do think it is all there.

I won't post further on this today because I don't want to coopt Russel's idea with something not quite on point and I'd like to see if Russel finds any of this useful.  For me though, humanity being meaning and 0 humanity being the loss of meaning, Traveller as existentialism, that to me rocks.  What price will you pay to give your existence meaning is a hell of a premise and if you can find a way to build in the demons in the way suggested could I think make a great Sorceror game.

[Larry L.]

I've never thought of Traveller in such terms, but given how anal the texts get about anagathics being really, really, really hard to get, I guess this makes sense.

I've never seen a particular inherent moral theme in Traveller, but Marc Miller has commented that he thinks there a lot in the form of honor and duty, because they things must exist for the Imperium to hold together. And over the various incarnations, all three of the great empires of Humaniti did fall apart, so there's probably something to this.

You might also want to question how it is that prohibitions against genetic augmentation, autonomous warbots, nanotech, and cybernetics are by and large respected throughout the Imperium, even though these could give huge economic advantage to upstart empires.

[Russell Hoyle]

[edited for brevity]
-How do you give meaning to your life when the thing which gave it structure is gone?
-In Traveller you play retirees, it's pretty much unique in that I think.
-You've mustered out and have to survive as best you can outside of that structure and organisation.
-CT's lack of advancement mechanics and fairly prominent aging mechanics.
-What will you do to make your life meaningful now the thing which gave it meaning has gone?
-That to me is a premise worth addressing.

Whoah, yes... great observations. I think I agree with you actually, and the feedback Larry and greyorm provided.
I think the comments (that I have highlighted above) really do re-frame how I think about Traveller. I remember when I first played it (in High School back in the eighties)  I was much more acutely aware of the aging and retirement aspects of the game - I guess as I have been getting older, that doesnt seem like such an odd thing anymore...  ;)

I think the premise you suggest, how far will I compromise my morality to make a living, is a fair one but I'm not sure it's particularly implicit in the Traveller setting.

Thats true, and there are plenty of scenarios where there are no patrons (apart from self-interest/opportunistic exploitation) however, I don't believe all demon's need or desires necessarily have to be 'evil' per-se. They should be extreme and demanding (potentially to the exclusion of other important things in life) but not Evil. The model I use in my mind is one of addiction (I come from a medical/psychiatric perspective).

Anyway, despite that I agree with you Balbinus! Man I am glad I raised it on this forum. Problem I now have is that I am not sure thats the story I want to tell (although it is kind of neatly like the Firefly story - and my spouse loves Firefly... so I may be able to use that as leverage to get her to play).

Muchos gracias all!

And Balbinus;

I won't post further on this today because I don't want to coopt Russel's idea with something not quite on point

Dont be daft! Proceed - I am enjoying this! I just lament I haven't anything pithy to add!

For me though, humanity being meaning and 0 humanity being the loss of meaning, Traveller as existentialism, that to me rocks. What price will you pay to give your existence meaning is a hell of a premise and if you can find a way to build in the demons in the way suggested could I think make a great Sorceror game.

Do you mean the demon suggestions I made?

Rusty

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Max, you just made Traveller interesting to me again. I was planning to post to this thread saying "what's the point" and inveighing against the endless stream of "Hey, what about Sorcerer does X" posts that annoy me so much, and then you fixed it.

Russell, run with that. Don't make Max do all the work. Bear in mind that "demon" may do best in this setting as a very nearly un-constructed game element. Consider what situations would be worthy of play.

Best,
Ron

[Balbinus]

Russell,

On demons, assuming for now that humanity is meaning and that the theme is what will you give to get meaning, I think there are a number of options.

Firstly, as you rightly say, relationships.  A patron relationship could be a demon, the patron has needs that you service in order to get the patron to help you fulfil your goals, and there is a conflict right there between your needs and your patron's.

But I think Ron is right that Demons are in a sense secondary, although this has come up here in this forum I'm not sure we're necessarily talking Sorceror but rather are discussing how to construct a thematically powerful Traveller game perhaps through the use of the Sorceror rpg.  With that in mind, what kind of gameplay situations would help address this theme or make this definition of Humanity relevant to actual play?