Making SOC Count

[Condottiere]

If this were the Confederation, you could whip out your Solomani Party membership card.

The Consulate, the proletariat and the supervisors would be culturally conditioned to kowtow, and the prime requisite for being in the elite is measurable and probably verifiable with a brain or mind scan.

With the Vargr, it may be the angle of their tail in relation to their spine.

Perhaps nobility in the Imperium have facial tattoos, or embedded chips.

Social standing is a game mechanism that's just hard to verify, if verification requires weeks and months to confirm.

 

[welsh]

I actually don't know what we're discussing anymore.

The sticking point appears to be personal identity, and an objection to the idea that high social standing can get you credit (financially speaking) for the asking.

This is an odd objection, to my mind, because I hadn't actually suggested that would be possible. What I suggested is that SOC ought to have game effects in interactions with NPCs, effects that rules for (e.g.) legal encounters and reaction rolls ignore.

As far as getting credit for the asking, obviously simply having high SOC won't get you there. But your apparent SOC may get you in to see the bank manager and get that process rolling. That's the kind of effect I'm talking about.

Perhaps nobility in the Imperium have facial tattoos, or embedded chips.

This isn't about noble status. It's about SOC. These are separate, if related, concepts.

 

[flykiller]

Social standing is a game mechanism that's just hard to verify, if verification requires weeks and months to confirm.

in practice perhaps such verification would be infrequent. if an admiral on his bridge says he's a baron, most people would up and believe him. if the official in the noble wing of the starport tower says he's the baron in charge of the port, most people would up and believe him. if a ceo shows up on a high-status passenger liner and is dressed well and has a support staff of ten administrators and says he wants to speak with another ceo regarding an ongoing business deal, and he matches existing information on that ceo, most people would up and believe him.

 

[Condottiere]

In their institutional settings.

Turning up with an entourage makes the story plausible.

That's one reason in sting stories you see the victims going back to the offices or expensive apartments it took place, only to discover them empty.

 

[flykiller]

In their institutional settings.

yeah, that's the phrase I was looking for. that is where most nobles would be encountered anyway, at least imtu.

for 2-12, it's not as cut and dried.

 

[atpollard]

I think all of the focus on Nobles and CEOs is counterproductive. If that is really the only use for SOC, then we can drop it as an ability and add it to the muster table like a TAS Membership.

If SOC 4 is no different than SOC 9, then there is no real point in wasting an ability on SOC. So the question is not Is the Baron in the Planetary Register so everyone can verify his papers, the question is what difference does SOC 7 and SOC A make to the game? What happens when the SOC A Pilot enters a blue collar bar in the industrial district? What happens when the SOC 7 Engineer shows up at the Country Club to try to talk with a potential patron?

 

[flykiller]

I think all of the focus on Nobles and CEOs is counterproductive.

ever heard the story of the guy looking under the streetlight illumination for the money he dropped elsewhere? "why are you looking here?" "because the light is over here." there is discussion of the nobility and "ceo"'s because that is where the issue of social standing is most clear. yeah, you're right that the game does not do much with it from 2-12, and that's where people are trying to get a handle on it.

the question is what difference does SOC 7 and SOC A make to the game?

well I posted some suggestions in the other thread.

What happens when the SOC A Pilot enters a blue collar bar in the industrial district? What happens when the SOC 7 Engineer shows up at the Country Club to try to talk with a potential patron?

probably nothing of note with regard to ss. ss is how the imperium sees the character - it's not how individuals see each other.

 

[Condottiere]

GURPS is more precise.

Your reputation could be limited to within your field, or known to the general public.

If you invest maybe a point, you could become the Norm of your local pub.

 

[flykiller]

Your reputation could be limited to within your field, or known to the general public.

social standing isn't reputation.

 

[Condottiere]

Social standing is an artificial construct, that has tangible game effects.

It's a melange of differing aspects of social interaction, that other gaming systems address separately.

 

[aramis]

Social standing is an artificial construct, that has tangible game effects.

It's a melange of differing aspects of social interaction, that other gaming systems address separately.

Oh, it's a pretty direct comparison to GURPS' Status. Just scaled differently.

 

[Iracundus]

I think all of the focus on Nobles and CEOs is counterproductive. If that is really the only use for SOC, then we can drop it as an ability and add it to the muster table like a TAS Membership.

If SOC 4 is no different than SOC 9, then there is no real point in wasting an ability on SOC. So the question is not Is the Baron in the Planetary Register so everyone can verify his papers, the question is what difference does SOC 7 and SOC A make to the game? What happens when the SOC A Pilot enters a blue collar bar in the industrial district? What happens when the SOC 7 Engineer shows up at the Country Club to try to talk with a potential patron?

SOC I see as influencing how people in wider society will react to the character based on their "real" social class (as opposed to someone trying to fake it), and not accounting for personal reputation. I.E. it is how people who are not familiar with the character might react (based on their own personal prejudices towards people of that SOC level). Personal reputation may override the SOC reaction.

The engineer in the above example might be snubbed in the noble's country club if he were just an unknown walking in, but if he had helped the club or its members out in the past, they might make allowances for him. The staff might still be courteous to a noble who is known to be nasty since he is still a noble (i.e. high SOC), but they might do only the bare minimum or be passive aggressive due to his bad reputation.

 

[whulorigan]

I think all of the focus on Nobles and CEOs is counterproductive. If that is really the only use for SOC, then we can drop it as an ability and add it to the muster table like a TAS Membership.

If SOC 4 is no different than SOC 9, then there is no real point in wasting an ability on SOC. So the question is not Is the Baron in the Planetary Register so everyone can verify his papers, the question is what difference does SOC 7 and SOC A make to the game? What happens when the SOC A Pilot enters a blue collar bar in the industrial district? What happens when the SOC 7 Engineer shows up at the Country Club to try to talk with a potential patron?

SOC I see as influencing how people in wider society will react to the character based on their "real" social class (as opposed to someone trying to fake it), and not accounting for personal reputation. I.E. it is how people who are not familiar with the character might react (based on their own personal prejudices towards people of that SOC level). Personal reputation may override the SOC reaction.

The engineer in the above example might be snubbed in the noble's country club if he were just an unknown walking in, but if he had helped the club or its members out in the past, they might make allowances for him. The staff might still be courteous to a noble who is known to be nasty since he is still a noble (i.e. high SOC), but they might do only the bare minimum or be passive aggressive due to his bad reputation.

I agree with ATPollard and Iracundus above.

The thing to keep in mind is that SOC is (as has already been alluded to) one of the 6 core stats, and is thus a quality that is at least somewhat inherent to the character, just as STR, DEX, END, INT, and EDU are - i.e it serves to define the character as a whole at a fundamental level. A character has a base SOC at the start at age 18 before CharGen begins (from his personal background/ancestry). And as a core stat, it should generally be a benefit to the character for higher values, and a disadvantage to the character for lower values, just as the other 5 stats are.

Another thing to keep in mind as we discuss the topic (and as Hans used to point out and Aramis has alluded to in the past), the 2D6 generation of SOC in CharGen necessarily represents Travellers and/or important NPCs, not general population demographics. This is because 2D6 approximates a Normal (Gaussian) distribution, meaning that SOC=2 is as likely (or unlikely) as SOC=12, with an average SOC=7. In a real population demographic, by far the most common SOC values would be lower values (e.g, SOC = 3-5), with fewer members of a given SOC category as SOC increases. Hans used to refer to this artifact of the CharGen process as the "Social Diamond" (as an allusion to the more realistic "Social Pyramid" of authentic Social Standing in a real society).

 

[welsh]

if an admiral on his bridge says he's a baron, most people would up and believe him.

As far as the nobles go, it's a non-issue. There are few of them. A few dozen nobles in a subsector, and not all of them hereditary nobles. Few families to keep track of. They all know each other and are known. And nobody "verifies their papers."

Identifying nobles is only an issue, as Condottiere suggested, when they're far from home. But if you're a noble far from home, the first thing you do is present yourself to the local nobles, with a letter of introduction. You get yourself known.

Social standing is ... a melange of differing aspects of social interaction....

In my view, social standing is class: a single, widely understood concept.

The Imperium, being run by hereditary noble class, has an overarching class-based culture. This is why, for Imperial characters, SOC (Class) is recorded as one of the six basic attributes that form a universal personality profile.

... the question is not Is the Baron in the Planetary Register so everyone can verify his papers, the question is what difference does SOC 7 and SOC A make to the game?

We're on the same channel here. In a class-based society, you may find certain doors difficult to open, or even closed to you entirely, based on the external markers of class.

ss is how the imperium sees the character - it's not how individuals see each other.

In a class-based society, individuals do see each other through the lens of class. People are acutely conscious of it. Your accent, the way you dress, your physical mannerisms, your manners: they are noted.

The degree to which SOC matters -- i.e., class-consciousness -- is going to vary from one world to the next, and even within a single world, depending on the context. But it's relevant all the same.

In a real population demographic, by far the most common SOC values would be lower values (e.g, SOC = 3-5).

Good point.

 

[creativehum]

ever heard the story of the guy looking under the streetlight illumination for the money he dropped elsewhere? "why are you looking here?" "because the light is over here." there is discussion of the nobility and "ceo"'s because that is where the issue of social standing is most clear. yeah, you're right that the game does not do much with it from 2-12, and that's where people are trying to get a handle on it.

A good point.

***

For me SOC between 2-10 has more to do with characterization for the Player and his PC than any concrete rules or regular social interactions that will come up in play.

Part of the appeal for character generation (at least for me, and I know many other people) is dreaming out "Who this guy is" as the skills and characteristics get added to the the PC during his initial service. "Why did he end up with Blade-4. What happened?" "Why the focus on pistols?" "Why the focus on Medical?" "Oh, he bumped up his education while serving... interesting..."

All of this is grist for the mill for determining who the character is.

Now, a lot of modern RPGs are all about nailing that stuff down really specifically, with a rule or mechanic for each of it. If you can't use it mechanically or make a dice roll for it, what is it for?

But the original Traveller lifepath system assumed that the Players would sort that stuff out for themselves. (See Jamison's dice rolls unfolded into a narrative in Book 1.) In this, the game is in the spirt of Dave Weslely's Braunstein game, pre-1980s Referee-driven war games, and original Dungeons & Dragons, in which adjudication of the rules was often based on circumstances of the characters or troops without always needing to make a roll. This, I believe, is the stew that Traveller came from.

At it's core I believe that SOC is there for the Player to determine the a point of view for his character in a class based society. (Going back to the first post of mine in this thread, a lot of the SF fiction that inspired Traveller contained class structured and conscious societies.) If the PC is SOC-4, then he's seen the worlds a certain way. He sees other people at different social classes a different way. It's up to the Player to determined what those ways are. But it is one more hook -- the same as qualities like INT and EDU to build a character who interacts with the world one way and not another way.

In this respect, while I see the value of working out how people in the world might interact with each other, or how efforts to manipulate other folks at the lower SOC values, I think the key point for SOC is first and foremost grounded in the point-of-view of the Player and his or her character. What I find most interesting then is how the Player Character reacts to the class issues around him and how he see himself or herself within different environments.

All this makes sense to me in the core drive of the original game: Men and women who leave behind the worlds they knew, the social networks they knew, and heading off -- for whatever reason -- to become travellers. A particularly dangerous way of living and rewarding only to a certain types of people. They live outside of society -- and there might be interesting, character driven reasons for that. I assume SOC is part of that reasoning, part of what makes them characters.

I assume the previous paragraph from the rules and text of Books 1-3. (In particular the last page of Book 3 of the 1981 rules.) I understand that the game has shifted over the years, providing more context for a living, breathing society as a whole (often more cosmopolitan, often less driven by SF adventure fiction.) But what interests me about Traveller is the implied setting and story details found in Books 1-3.

Which is all to say everything I've written above will make no sense and/or be use to anyone who wants to figure out a system for all situations and circumstances across all worlds. That is not my focus.

Thus, if a character changes his clothes, adopts new habits, and behaves "above his station" his SOC doesn't change, because at his core his SOC is the same. It is how he grew up and how he knows himself to be. This may or not be "realistic" and there are any number of reasonable interpretations that suggest his SOC would change. But for the reading of SOC I'm offering it would not, if only because if he behaves one way but knows he's something else, that is terrific grist for the mill for roleplaying and understanding the character.

On the other hand, if a SOC-4 character ends up on a world where no one cares about how he speaks, or his habits he has yet to give up, how does that make him feel? What his life like now? Does he learn to have a special affection for this world? And so on? If he is on a world with an Imperial presence, how does he interact with that presence? Does he turn to it for help if he needs help? Has he decided that he wants no interaction with the society that kicked him out of a service and inspired him to become a traveller? How will the NPC imperial react? They will most likely recognize his SOC (or at least within a point or two of it). The NPC official or noble will reveal something about himself, about the Imperial culture, and so on, based on how he reacts to a traveller he meets far from the more cosmopolitan worlds of the Imperium. All of this is grist for roleplaying moments and opens doors to new situations, opportunities, and obstacles for new adventures.

Again, what I'm speaking of here is a Player Character-driven play, where we keep "the camera" on the PCs and their adventures. I'm not trying to make sense of entire thousand world setting and all the rules attendant to that. I have just enough of that setting for context, and the rest of the details that matter are created between the Players and Referee as needed and desired. Much of the world is built out in play.

We are playing weekly and we will have, no matter what, a finite number of sessions. We are in absolute control of what details we focus on and those detail need only interest us and not strangers who might be interested in something else. Given these constraints, can we keep growing out the setting, focused on the choices and adventures of the PCs without everything flying off the rails because the Referee doesn't have a full setting of situations and social rules for countless worlds in his head? It has been my experience that it works.

But that's my take: The key element for SOC is to help characterize the character, to help him have a past, a point of view as he interacts with the world, and a drive for the future that makes him take actions that most people would never consider.

 

[flykiller]

Your accent, the way you dress, your physical mannerisms, your manners: they are noted.

sure. but that's not social standing.

It's a melange of differing aspects of social interaction

no, it's not. ss may mandate and drive certain types of social interaction, but it's not based on social interaction in the slightest.

in one of my games the naval base baron was a dwarf, a full-on comical dwarf that spoke with a high voice, and who was engaging in practices which most of the naval officers disapproved. but he was the baron and was in charge - he had standing - so what he said was what happened.

in my assault on the ics jefferson davis thread I portrayed antoine prise as sophisticated (as I know how) and well-mannered and above-it-all - but his social standing was 1.

But if you're a noble far from home, the first thing you do is present yourself to the local nobles, with a letter of introduction. You get yourself known.

yep. and not just because the noble wants to be known, but also because the noble in charge of the area wants to know who is in his nest.

but this is a margin issue. the real issue is what about 2-12.

 

[welsh]

sure. but that's not social standing.

No, it isn't -- but these are some of the many external markers that indicate SOC.

 

[Enoki]

No, it isn't -- but these are some of the many external markers that indicate SOC.

I agree. The way someone presents themselves will definitely have a bearing on indicating their SOC. Language, demeanor, dress, body language all play a roll there.

In addition, the surroundings and trappings that one has with them will be another indicator. For example, you're a high rolling businessman. You might have an executive assistant and bodyguard with you. Someone with a low SOC might be covered in what might be called "prison" tattoos and carrying a pack with their personal possessions.

An important noble isn't going to be arriving in some system on a run-of-the-mill transport ship or liner. It's going to be top shelf or a private vessel. He or she will have an entourage with them. They don't have that sort of thing, then there's something going on, probably negative, as a reason why.

 

[atpollard]

sure. but that's not social standing.

'My Fair Lady' and the rules linking cost of living to SOC in many versions suggest that it is. On the other hand, 'Oliver Twist' by Charles Dickens suggests that SOC is more innate and with SOC standing comes an innate standard of behavior ... the clothes may be disguised, but the SOC will seek its level. Some naturally rising to the top and others naturally being pulled down by their innate base nature.

 

[flykiller]

Some naturally rising to the top and others naturally being pulled down by their innate base nature.

nope. not how it works.

probably be best to ditch social standing and nobility and just go with charisma and corporate rank.