Setting implications of the Prior Service Table

[The Oz]

Keep in mind, not everyone with Soc11+ is automatically a Noble (has a title, fief, all that stuff); they may just be very well-known and very well-connected.

Even being "born" with Soc 11+ doesn't have to mean that that the character is automatically of a Noble family; they may be the child of a megacorporation executive.

 

[Agemegos]

Imperial nobles, remember? Not just piddling planetary upper class types like the Queen of England or the President of the US. Try working it out from the top down:

High Nobles:

1 Emperor
6 Archdukes
~300 dukes
~1000 counts
~2000 marquesses
~4000 barons

Honor nobles and achievement nobles: What, the same again? Twice as many? Say a total of 15,000. Surely that's a tidy number, although I won't argue about a factor two more or less.

I think you could make it a lot more than that. By English standards only the holders of hereditary peerage and their spouses are nobles, the rest are all legally commoners. But socially speaking their heirs-apparent, non-inheriting children, grandchildren etc. are of the same class (and so are certain un-titled families). But by Continental standards every child of two nobles is legally a noble, and if the Imperium followed that standard the number of nobles could be much greater. Around 1800 the English aristocracy (a wider group than the nobility) was famously "The Upper Ten Thousand", whereas I understand the French nobility was several percent of the population.

Then there are knights.

And finally: I'm sorry I didn't make this more explicit, but I was meaning to discuss "proto-Traveller", ie. the implicit setting of books 1 to 7, rather than the OTU in its full development.

 

[Agemegos]

Keep in mind, not everyone with Soc11+ is automatically a Noble (has a title, fief, all that stuff); they may just be very well-known and very well-connected.

Book 1, page 9 says otherwise. Ancestral lands and fiefs are at the discretion of the GM, but "Social Standing C entitles the individual to the title Baron or Baroness" or to the use of "von" or "haut" or "hault" "denoting the baronial nobility".

 

[whartung]

Book 1, page 9 says otherwise. Ancestral lands and fiefs are at the discretion of the GM, but "Social Standing C entitles the individual to the title Baron or Baroness" or to the use of "von" or "haut" or "hault" "denoting the baronial nobility".

Then what are the honors and privileges of a Noble? And what of an "un-landed" Noble? Do they get special treatment? Get out of jail free card? Cheap drinks?

Are they implicitly well connected?

I'm just assuming that there is some difference between a "practicing" Noble, and one that simply has title. Sounds like you'd have problem throwing a rock and not hitting a Noble in the modern Imperium, and who know what kind of trouble that can get you in.

 

[far-trader]

No, to be a noble you have to roll 11 or 12 (knight or baron; OK, arguably it's 'only' one in 36) with 2D. I'm not even counting the ones added by the Nobles career and +Soc results.


Imperial nobles, remember? Not just piddling planetary upper class types like the Queen of England or the President of the US.

Are you sure CT nobles doesn't include local nobility? Is it stated anywhere? Not in the core books I think.

Prior to Supplement 4 I figured that hereditary nobles were the ones who rolled that 11 or 12 at the start and they were locals. And those who got their nobility through service starting from Soc 10 or less were Imperial Nobility. Hereditary nobles who entered a service and had their Soc increase were raised to Imperial Nobles of note and retained the original local hereditary title as well.

Once S4 came out with Noble as a career path that was where I took my Imperial Nobles to come from, the hereditary nobles were still the ones who rolled it at the start and they were local (but could become Imperial Nobles through service and still retain the hereditary local title), while the common (Soc 10 or less) characters who got nobility through service became honor nobles. Imperial Nobles were hereditary while honor nobles were not. Both Imperial and local nobles got estates while honor nobles didn't. But that's all just the way I worked it out for my TU.

How many Nobles are there? Of each type? Enough. They are uncommon to rare. They are a plot device. I see no need to figure a specific number. And I see absolutely no rational way to reason how many from the Player Character prior history generation method.

 

[aramis]

Keep in mind, not everyone with Soc11+ is automatically a Noble (has a title, fief, all that stuff); they may just be very well-known and very well-connected.

Even being "born" with Soc 11+ doesn't have to mean that that the character is automatically of a Noble family; they may be the child of a megacorporation executive.

Actually, Soc 11+ DOES mean they have a Patent of Nobility, which is the defining trait.

The ones who have feifs, they are rare. 11000 worlds, roughly 11000 feifs... out of some 300,000,000,000+ persons... 11000 of roughly (very roughly) 15,000,000,000 nobles rolled. I think TNE mad a decent enough correction by using 2d6-1 for soc.

I do agree that the character generation is not reflective of the body of the population; I do not agree that it is divorced from the realities of the setting entirely. I'd say that Soc should be generated differently, or nobility should be handled differently.

Given a typical dark ages construct, nobles and gentry combined account for about 10-15 persons per 300-500, or somewhat between 2% and 5% of the population... (1 knight and his family on a manor supported by 300-500 peasants in several villages.)

I would expect lower end numbers for a tech society. The UK has what, a few thousand of many millions?

I'd agree that the input to CG is broken (That is, the 18yo characters themselves are not reflective of the imperial population's 18yo's), but that the rest of the mechanic is correct as far as it goes. That is, the skills and abilities gains are reasonable, and that surviving a term unscathed is represented well enough by the tables...

Certain elements are decent enough for resolving applicants (commission, promotion), but neither is required and thus the intangible "do I want to apply" renders pure statistical analysis impossible.

I find it to model "Citizens of the Imperium", that is, persons who have been in imperial service and/or off-world work, probably quite well... but is unlikely to represent the real "norms" of locals.

But it also is an excellent mine for implying setting issues.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Goodness sakes, man.... do a search or two through the threads. I think this one has been beaten - thoroughly. :nonono:

 

[atpollard]

Goodness sakes, man.... do a search or two through the threads. I think this one has been beaten - thoroughly. :nonono:

If we allowed the fact that something has been discused before to stop us, then virtually all conversation would stop (except erata on Mongoose Traveller which is covered in more detail in the Mongoose site, Updates on T5, which are discussed in more detail on the secret T5 portion of this board, and speculation on T20 products and 'Where is hunter?').

So just let those who wish to discuss this, do so. Some things need to be learned first hand - it is just someone elses turn.

 

[Agemegos]

Then what are the honors and privileges of a Noble?

They are more likely to be commissioned if they are in the Navy, and at the GM's discretion they may have "fiefs". Apart from that, I don't think proto-Traveller (Books 1 to 3) says. Though I would be pleased to know what it says and where if I am wrong.

 

[Agemegos]

Goodness sakes, man.... do a search or two through the threads. I think this one has been beaten - thoroughly. :nonono:

My Search-fu is evidently weak. I can't find another discussion of what the Prior Service Table table implies about the setting of a proto-Traveller game.

Lead me, Herdmaster.

 

[rancke]

I think you could make it a lot more than that. By English standards only the holders of hereditary peerage and their spouses are nobles, the rest are all legally commoners. But socially speaking their heirs-apparent, non-inheriting children, grandchildren etc. are of the same class (and so are certain un-titled families). But by Continental standards every child of two nobles is legally a noble, and if the Imperium followed that standard the number of nobles could be much greater. Around 1800 the English aristocracy (a wider group than the nobility) was famously "The Upper Ten Thousand", whereas I understand the French nobility was several percent of the population.

Oh, if you want to include families, I guess we can up the number by an order of magnitude. Still nowhere near the "1 in 36". If the English aristocracy constitute the upper ten thousand of England's population, they're still less than one tenth of one percent of the population, right? As for the French nobility, the Continental system created so many aristocrats because all the male children of a nobleman were also noblemen with the same title. The same thing happened in Germany, creating large numbers of impoverished noblemen and various social problems. But the Imperial system would seem to be closer to the English, with only one heir inheriting the title.

Then there are knights.

No, I'm fine with leaving the knights out of it. I admit that I started it myself by saying that it was one Imperial noble in ever 12, but later I changed that to 1 in 36.

And finally: I'm sorry I didn't make this more explicit, but I was meaning to discuss "proto-Traveller", ie. the implicit setting of books 1 to 7, rather than the OTU in its full development.

Oh, you mean from before the Library Data essay about nobles? In that case, they definitely are 'mere' planetary nobles. After all, Book 1 clearly states that there are two more ranks above duke, prince and king (that would be SL G and H, right?), and that they both denote actual rulers of worlds. There's also a title called Emperor that is used for "rulers of several worlds".

OK, OK, maybe that had already been implicitly changed as early as Book 4, but be that as it may, the implicit setting of Book 4 to 7 suffers from such a dearth of available information that it is, IMO, just too vague and undefined to be worth while discussing.


Hans

 

[rancke]

No, to be a noble you have to roll 11 or 12 (knight or baron; OK, arguably it's 'only' one in 36) with 2D. I'm not even counting the ones added by the Nobles career and +Soc results.


Imperial nobles, remember? Not just piddling planetary upper class types like the Queen of England or the President of the US.

Are you sure CT nobles doesn't include local nobility? Is it stated anywhere? Not in the core books I think.

On the contrary, in Book 1 it is explicitly stated that they are local nobility (see above). But in Library Data (N-Z) there came an essay about nobles that explicitly stated that SL C = Imperial noble. And a great deal of discrepancy has resulted from that, because this suddenly squeezed the entire planetary upper class into SL 11. 10 is gentry. Country squires and the like. 12 is Imperial nobility. Oh, you might convey a few baronies on planetary emperors. If you wish to argue that Queen Elizabeth and half a dozen others might make it into SL 12, I won't argue. But that still leaves 99% of planetary nobles squeezed into SL 11 (assuming for purposes of argument that you feel an English baron would be the social equal of the recipient of an Imperial knighthood, of course. If you feel that, say, half of all planetary nobles really rate a cut below Imperial knights, that half really don't have a social level to call their own).

How many Nobles are there? Of each type? Enough. They are uncommon to rare. They are a plot device. I see no need to figure a specific number.

"You've just arrived at New York harbor and are sitting in a bar. A man in a black suit and sunglasses asks you to come along and talk to his boss. He takes you to a hotel room and introduce you to President Bush. The President has a problem that he wants you to help him with..."

"Someone shows up at the gangplank of your tramp steamer. He introduces himself as Prince Joachim, a younger son of the Queen of Denmark. He's down on his luck and wants to work his passage to the next destination. He has been in the army and knows how to shoot a rifle."

And I see absolutely no rational way to reason how many from the Player Character prior history generation method.

That's exactly why it is a bad idea to generate NPCs by using the character generation system uncritically.


Hans

 

[aramis]

Actually, all one needs to do to rationalize the CG mechanics is presume that it's not the general population but the spacefaring population that it generates, and thus skews high. A switch to 5d3-3 gives 1/243 are barons, 5/243 are knights.

 

[rancke]

Actually, all one needs to do to rationalize the CG mechanics is presume that it's not the general population but the spacefaring population that it generates, and thus skews high.

Actually, this is not true, as I demonstrated by estimating the number of Imperial nobles in the Imperial Navy alone if going by the CG (The Imperial Navy being a subset of the spacefaring population).

A switch to 5d3-3 gives 1/243 are barons, 5/243 are knights.

A switch to 5D-3 is a change of the canonical rules. If you're prepared to change canon, there are far better fixes. (Like the one I've suggested before[*] ).


Hans


[*] Introduce some more social levels and push the Imperial nobles up into the twenties).