ghashsnaga
SOC-10
Doh, Thanks for the heads up. I'll take a look at here after supper.
ara
ara
Traveller Fantasy RPG
- Thread starter tbeard1999
- Start date
ghashsnaga
SOC-10
Starting Age
I just changed the starting age to 14. Thanks for the suggestion!
ara
I just changed the starting age to 14. Thanks for the suggestion!
ara
Have you thought about importing concepts from Mercator?
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=21327
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=21327
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ghashsnaga
SOC-10
Mercator
robject - I just saw that before I left for the field. I am going to read through it hopefully today. The ships and trade section really caught my eye.
ara
robject - I just saw that before I left for the field. I am going to read through it hopefully today. The ships and trade section really caught my eye.
ara
Yeah, he did a pretty good job.
Hi,
I hope no-one thinks my Mercator is competing with this project! Or that I could have contributed over the year. I tried a fantasy conversion of Traveller when I was 16 (it was the only system we had) and the sessions were so bad it gives me shudders to think of it even today! And from that day on ... vowed never to mix the two.
But if there are parts of Mercator that you can use...
I hope no-one thinks my Mercator is competing with this project! Or that I could have contributed over the year. I tried a fantasy conversion of Traveller when I was 16 (it was the only system we had) and the sessions were so bad it gives me shudders to think of it even today! And from that day on ... vowed never to mix the two.
But if there are parts of Mercator that you can use...
Perhaps when all the documents are ready, we should either resurrect Rob's FTRP (that's Fantasy Traveller Role Play), or try a new one.
Oh, Gash; perhaps you should mention the early start as an option instead of a hard-and-fast rule, but mention that it's due to people in low-tech areas generally being viewed as adults earlier.
I don't see why we shouldn't have both! As far as I know, yours is the one with sailing and ships in it.
Oh, Gash; perhaps you should mention the early start as an option instead of a hard-and-fast rule, but mention that it's due to people in low-tech areas generally being viewed as adults earlier.
I don't see why we shouldn't have both! As far as I know, yours is the one with sailing and ships in it.
Jame,
I'd like to strongly suggest that an early start option be included.
I recently read a book which discussed, among several other things, the "invention" of our modern notions of childhood in the 1800s. Prior to that period, nearly all societies, and many current societies still, applied labels like "adult" and "child" depending on the societal role the individual in question filled. In many cases, societal roles could be assumed or granted regardless of age or even reproductive status.
Regards,
Bill
And less evenly than a book might lead us to believe... where there's no strong bureaucracy and communication is as fast as a horse or pigeon may travel, there's certainly a lot less standardization, and a heavier reliance on local resources, regardless of age... I recall a B&W picture of a fellow working in the mines. He looked competent and -- I don't know the word, professional I suppose -- with his gear and his jaunty stance. Oh yes, and he was 14.
So, an experienced specialized laborer by age 14. I reckon this is typical. In Traveller terms, I suppose his first term began at age 10.
I presume that the requirement for literacy education postpones entry into the workforce. There doesn't seem to be anything else stopping people, in general.
Corollary to this is: the faster you can make students literate, the better you can (potentially) educate them.
Another corollary: the needs of the market and formal requirements for literacy are often in a tension. Ideally they support each other.
Editorial
One of the windmills I tilt for is spelling reform. As impossible a task as that may be for my primary language, there are small, reasonable improvements which could yield dividends. Doesn't mean it's going to happen. I'm just saying.
And now back to Traveller
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the flip side is that literacy-focused education is slow, since no matter how hard one pushes, grasping new vocabulary is time intensive; 20-30 words per week, decreasing with age and extant vocabulary.
And Robject, I assure you, spelling reform is desired by a great many teachers. My preferences would be adoption of unifon or anglo-cyrilic.
And Robject, I assure you, spelling reform is desired by a great many teachers. My preferences would be adoption of unifon or anglo-cyrilic.
Thanks for the numbers on vocab lerning!
Oooh, Anglo-Cyrillic is a new one for me. It sounds cool. Cyrillic has some sounds Latin lacks. We could impórt Cyrillic charactrs as needed (vowels!) to créate an alphabet with standrd sound rules. There's that backwards-curvy-e charactr, and a secnd "I" vowel. I like. I was looking at Devanagari to see if there were any vowels I could stéal... (I note that I do somthing similr by úsing a few IPA charactrs when I write). (Altho, it seems that just putting a grave or acute óver our current vowels would go a long way...)
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Actually, Rob, we've got
3x a (ā, ä, ă)
3x o (ō, ŏ, ə)
3x e (ē, ĕ, ə)
3x u (ū, ŭ, ə)
2x i (ĭ, äē)
1x vowel y (äē)
for about 12 sounds one of which is a diphthong (ī = äē), but only 6 written vowels. And note that one is pretty much an elision effect (ə), not a true linguistic artifact.
whereas cyrilic has
а (ä)
е (yĕ)
и (ē)
2x о (ō, ŏ)
у (ū)
ы (throat-ū)
я (yä)
э (ĕ)
й (yĭ, ĭ)
і (ǐ)
ё (yō)
ю (yū)
Ѡ (ō)
Anglo-cyrilic does not repurpose the overlap; it reduces o to short o, uses Ѡ for long o, i for short i, adds a long ā construct (often ä), ignores the ä ă difference, and uses the other letters pretty much as used in slavonic.
Unifon can be seen at omniglot.com
link
3x a (ā, ä, ă)
3x o (ō, ŏ, ə)
3x e (ē, ĕ, ə)
3x u (ū, ŭ, ə)
2x i (ĭ, äē)
1x vowel y (äē)
for about 12 sounds one of which is a diphthong (ī = äē), but only 6 written vowels. And note that one is pretty much an elision effect (ə), not a true linguistic artifact.
whereas cyrilic has
а (ä)
е (yĕ)
и (ē)
2x о (ō, ŏ)
у (ū)
ы (throat-ū)
я (yä)
э (ĕ)
й (yĭ, ĭ)
і (ǐ)
ё (yō)
ю (yū)
Ѡ (ō)
Anglo-cyrilic does not repurpose the overlap; it reduces o to short o, uses Ѡ for long o, i for short i, adds a long ā construct (often ä), ignores the ä ă difference, and uses the other letters pretty much as used in slavonic.
Unifon can be seen at omniglot.com
link
Yes, I've seen Unifon, and it's an excellent, òrthogonal set -- thotfully desìgned, makes me wish the Middle English adopted it back when -- but it seems that it would be easier to use a combinàtion of keeping the most common English rules, the most common exceptions, and then adapting the rèmaining exceptions via orthography [as much as rèsonable] and borròwing when that fails -- Cyrillic and IPA seem excellent rèsòurces for that. I think Valerie Yule is onto something by doing the lèast harm to existing orthography. But again, I see ùtility in adding new vowels, and ð for the voiced TH... maybe.
I really like Ѡ, and also IPA's ɔ.
And "short" oo? (Unless that's ŭ... which I thot was bàsicly a schwa ə).
And once you've grandfatherd in the mòst comn 32 (or so!) irregular words, mòst of the rest (except for oo) have a "majòrity rule" by which their value can be guessd. So we can cut back on the work to be done to somhow tagging the exceptions.
I really like Ѡ, and also IPA's ɔ.
Aramis said:
And "short" oo? (Unless that's ŭ... which I thot was bàsicly a schwa ə).
And once you've grandfatherd in the mòst comn 32 (or so!) irregular words, mòst of the rest (except for oo) have a "majòrity rule" by which their value can be guessd. So we can cut back on the work to be done to somhow tagging the exceptions.
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Heh heh heh... yeah edh and thorn. Those were the days, eh?
And, I don't claim to understand much of IPA, but there are bits which are, frankly, nice. The concept of reversing a Latin character, originally to re-use type, is clever and makes "new" letters not look so fish-out-of-water, if you know what I mean.
in my first undergrad major, I had to learn to read ipa fluidly. Its NOT good for anyone, really... It's like ASCII or MSDOS Code-page system... it's the standard solely because it was implemented first, not because it's good.
Sort of like our Latin alphabet. Sort of like a lot of things... Anyway, I could never read IPA, nor do I wish to. I've got no problem plundering it for good ideas tho. If I can declare òpen season on Devanagari and Cyrillic, so too IPA.
Bill, if you read my post, you'll see that I advocate its inclusion as an option. I'm being wishy-washy on whether or not to have it as the standard default!
Jame,
Poor prose on my part.
I should have written "I'd like to strongly suggest that an early start option be included too" because it was my intent to "ditto" your post.
Regards,
Bill
