Aging: Life expectancy 66 years?
- Thread starter CosmicGamer
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far-trader
SOC-14 10K
No worries
The quote feature used to be much kinder to multiple nested quotes but butchery still happened. The new multi-quote feature* can do a fair job but has it's own quirks.* the little + (or - if you click it) quote button, click it once to add (+) the post to your list of quoted posts, click it again to remove (-) it if you change your mind
Bearing in mind my answers are not MGT specific lacking the rules and there may be differences between it and CT...
Correct.
That would be a change then. CT certainly implied it was for any number of stats going to zero with each one treated separately as it's own aging crisis.
In CT the relevant bit is "This process occurs each time (and for each characteristic) a characteristic is reduced to zero."
So it can happen that two or more stats are reduced to zero in the same aging block but the aging crisis is resolved for each in turn.
I wonder could the confusion be associating the aging crisis rules and the regular wounding rules? That's the only place I know that says if all three physical stats are zero you're dead. In the aging crisis rules if even one stat is zero you're dead. Since if you fail to make the save vs dying for the stat going to zero you are dead, no matter what your other stats are.
CosmicGamer
SOC-14 1K
No confusion on my part, just my personal take on the rules (which changes daily as I take a close look at the book which I've only had for 8 days and get peoples feedback). I probably should have stated where the quote came from so that others would not get confused and think it was from the aging section.
In combat one characteristic can be 0 or even 2 but with medical care you can survive. When all 3 characteristics are 0 no amount of medical care is bringing you back. Since the aging crisis info was not specific about the number of characteristics that could be treated at once, it gave room for personal interpretation. To try and decide for myself, I used the combat rules as an example. I'm open to other peoples take on this.
Here is a question. What happens when a characteristic is reduced to below zero? For example in aging, if a physical characteristic is currently one and you are required to subtract 2 from all physical characteristics.....
Edit: I'd like to point out that the way my message was clipped in the previous post it could be easily misinterpreted
The sentence in bold refers to information that followed and is not referring to the sentence that precedes it.
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tbeard1999
SOC-14 1K
The mechanic is clearly defective in the sense that it yields absurd results.
However, I consider this to be a largely theoretical problem, since the game is about adventurers, not average people who die natural deaths. One of my Fundamental Laws of Game Design states that *every* detail is not equally important. Less important elements can (and should) be abstracted in the interest of game play. This impies that fidelity will also suffer as abstraction increases (at least I've always assumed that this is so).
From a game design standpoint, the aging rules usefully act to keep players from creating amazingly highly skilled codgers, so I have no problem with them.
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
That's cool. I've been doing the same thing for about 30 years, and every bit of new rules/edition requires some rethinking
I should probably keep my nose out of the discussions of rules I don't have (MGT and GT) but try to limit it to what scant knowledge I do have of them or as guides to interpretation where other editions may help
I have wondered the same too, briefly. It's never happened in a game though so I don't worry too much. My opinion would be ignore the negative. A 1 minus 2 for aging is a 0 roll aging crisis tests normally. But you could also say automatic critical, character is dead, no 8+ saving throw allowed. I'd find it hard to argue against that.
Ah, got it now, thanks for the clarification.
captainjack
SOC-13
Hope this isn't too late in the thread or too pedantic.
There are two different things being discussed here - life expectancy and probability of an event (in an RPG).
Life expectency is the average age of death in the population computed at a given life point. Generally, it's reported from birth when used casually. However, it can and is also a calculation that is expected to change throughout the lifespan. A person's expected lifespan lifespan actually has a tendency to increase throughout the span ....as the person passes various risky events. (example below for the actually interested).
What the initial post was noting was more like the risk factor - "what is the probability that a person will be dead by or at a certain specific age"; and, in a game setting, it is easily answered - as he did. Applying it to a population model, or even more, a real world model, and adding in all the issues of changing risk as time progresses, and variable hazard issues, doesn't work. The only real time dependent covariate in the traveller survival function is something involving Greed of player(G) and Coolness of Character (C), and Bitchingness of skills thus far acquired(B), as measured in standard arbitrary scales of 0 to 1.0.
So the lifespan (expected) need to be modified by the function: "Rolling and starting play before you die of old age"(R) (the inverse of which is: "having to take another aging test just so you can get another level of fusion weapons ") :which can be estimated as something like Rprob= G/((C*B)^1/2), which would suggest that the lifespan estimate (L) should be modified by 1/Rprob creating L'; the immediate risk at any point in a travellers career is obviously the derivative of L' at time t; proof is left to the reader.....
HERE IS THE EXAMPLE FOR THE TRULY BORED
Heart failure is a good example. Say, a person has a life expectency of 60 years at birth - that means that th average age of death in that group is 60 years old. At one year, his LE may well be up to 70 - assuming the first year of life has a high mortality. Then, at age 18, it may be up to 80 - assuming that all the various childhood risks are survived...it can also be noted as having an estimated lifespan of whatever is left - in this case 62 years (80-18), Now at thirty, his LE hasn't changed much, say 82 ; his est Lifespan is down, obviously (you live years faster than you gain them, ain't that a bummer). Now a common event (say) is a heart failure incident at about age 40 -the avearge age of heart failure in his population being say, 41. Life expectency for a person with heart failure is 1 year. So, if he has a diagnosis of Mitral Regurgitation at age 41, his estimated life span is now 1 year. His life expectancy is 42. (these numbers are all hypothetical and made up, BTW, I don't have life tables in front of me). However, at age 42, he now has a lifespan estimate of 5 years, and an expectency of 46 - a large proportion of patients will die during their first incident ("I'm coming, Martha") or very shortly thereafter. Those that survive the event, generaly survive much longer.
However, it turns out he is a Scout, so in fact at age 18 his life expectancy is Zero terms, as sure enough, during his first term, he gets blasted naked and on fire into the icy void of space as his ship collides with an alien artifact and explodes while being chased by pirates as the jumpdrive malfunctions.
There are two different things being discussed here - life expectancy and probability of an event (in an RPG).
Life expectency is the average age of death in the population computed at a given life point. Generally, it's reported from birth when used casually. However, it can and is also a calculation that is expected to change throughout the lifespan. A person's expected lifespan lifespan actually has a tendency to increase throughout the span ....as the person passes various risky events. (example below for the actually interested).
What the initial post was noting was more like the risk factor - "what is the probability that a person will be dead by or at a certain specific age"; and, in a game setting, it is easily answered - as he did. Applying it to a population model, or even more, a real world model, and adding in all the issues of changing risk as time progresses, and variable hazard issues, doesn't work. The only real time dependent covariate in the traveller survival function is something involving Greed of player(G) and Coolness of Character (C), and Bitchingness of skills thus far acquired(B), as measured in standard arbitrary scales of 0 to 1.0.
So the lifespan (expected) need to be modified by the function: "Rolling and starting play before you die of old age"(R) (the inverse of which is: "having to take another aging test just so you can get another level of fusion weapons ") :which can be estimated as something like Rprob= G/((C*B)^1/2), which would suggest that the lifespan estimate (L) should be modified by 1/Rprob creating L'; the immediate risk at any point in a travellers career is obviously the derivative of L' at time t; proof is left to the reader.....
HERE IS THE EXAMPLE FOR THE TRULY BORED
Heart failure is a good example. Say, a person has a life expectency of 60 years at birth - that means that th average age of death in that group is 60 years old. At one year, his LE may well be up to 70 - assuming the first year of life has a high mortality. Then, at age 18, it may be up to 80 - assuming that all the various childhood risks are survived...it can also be noted as having an estimated lifespan of whatever is left - in this case 62 years (80-18), Now at thirty, his LE hasn't changed much, say 82 ; his est Lifespan is down, obviously (you live years faster than you gain them, ain't that a bummer). Now a common event (say) is a heart failure incident at about age 40 -the avearge age of heart failure in his population being say, 41. Life expectency for a person with heart failure is 1 year. So, if he has a diagnosis of Mitral Regurgitation at age 41, his estimated life span is now 1 year. His life expectancy is 42. (these numbers are all hypothetical and made up, BTW, I don't have life tables in front of me). However, at age 42, he now has a lifespan estimate of 5 years, and an expectency of 46 - a large proportion of patients will die during their first incident ("I'm coming, Martha") or very shortly thereafter. Those that survive the event, generaly survive much longer.
However, it turns out he is a Scout, so in fact at age 18 his life expectancy is Zero terms, as sure enough, during his first term, he gets blasted naked and on fire into the icy void of space as his ship collides with an alien artifact and explodes while being chased by pirates as the jumpdrive malfunctions.
captainjack
SOC-13
Actually, it only yields absurd results when considered as a lifespan model for a real population.
It isn't defective as a system for limiting munchinizing -as you correctly point out.
Perhaps something like Logan's run is going on in the 3Imperium - its a good as any rationalization for the glacial pace of progress, I suppose.
The only problem I have is that last week, we (traumatically) realized that for the first time ever, all the players were older than their (very skilled) characters. OBVIOUSLY, your worries about codgers is unfounded : traveller is NEVER about codgers , but rather mature, experienced individuals, rich in wisdom, and at the peak of their skills and talents.......although, perhaps a bit....um.....underexercised.....
CosmicGamer
SOC-14 1K
Welcome to the party. Nothing wrong with being fashionably late.
I tend to agree with tbeard's post there.
Game design necessarily requires abstraction. People seem drawn toward consistency with reality. So there's always a tension.
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