To kick things off, I'm starting small: Social Standing. Social Standing (or SOC) is one of the six "basic characteristics" all characters possess, along with Strength, Dexterity, Endurance, Intelligence, and Education. While the first four have clear analogs in OD&D, as does their being six in number, SOC has no such antecedent. Indeed, I'm not sure of any other significant roleplaying games published by 1977 that includes something similar, but, as always, I'm happy to be corrected.
According to Book 1, SOC "notes the social class and level of society from which a character (and his family) come." A little later, in the section on naming a character, there's a subsection devoted to titles, which reads (italics mine):
A character with a Social Standing of 11 or greater may assume his family's hereditary title. The full range of titles is given in Book 3. For initial naming, a Social Standing of 11 allows the use of Sir, denoting hereditary knighthood; a Social Standing of 12 allows use of Baron, or prefixing von to the character's surname.
What's notable here is that Traveller associates Social Standing with nobility and hereditary nobility at that. The referenced section from Book 3 – which, intriguingly, is found in the chapter about encounters – elaborates on this a bit.
Persons with social standing of 11 or greater are considered to be nobility, even in situations where nobility do not take an active part in local government. Nobility have hereditary titles and high standing in their home communities.
The emphasis on "home communities" is interesting, as is the mention of "local government." This is, I think, evidence that, in 1977 Traveller at least, there's little to no notion of an immense, sector-spanning government like the Third Imperium. Instead, there are just scattered worlds or perhaps small multi-world groupings. The ranks of nobility are, as follows:
- 11 knight/dame
- 12 baron/baroness
- 13 marquis/marchioness
- 14 count/countess
- 15 duke/duchess
At the discretion of the referee, noble persons (especially of social standing 13 or higher) may have ancestral lands or fiefs, or they may have actual ruling power.
This section is noteworthy, because a common knock against Traveller in my youth was that there was little to no explicit benefit to having a high SOC (and the title that went with it) after character generation. This was even true after the release of Citizens of the Imperium, which introduced an entire Noble career. In any case, what's obvious is that Traveller as written assumes a universe in which monarchy and aristocracy are still commonplace and effective – an egalitarian Star Trek future this is not!
Ranking above duke/duchess are two levels not reflected in social standing: prince/princess or king/queen are titles used by actual rulers of worlds. The title emperor/empress is used by the ruler of an empire of several worlds.
Note "several worlds," not the thousands of the Third Imperium and other interstellar states of the later official GDW setting. Note, too, that the text states that a prince or king is an "actual ruler" of a world, again implying that space is full of governing monarchies of one sort or another.
The only other place where Social Standing plays an important role in Traveller is in resolving a character's prior service. Characters with SOC 9+ have an improved chance of gaining a commission in the Navy, while those with SOC 8+ have an improved chance of gaining a promotion in the Marines. This makes sense if the default assumption is that many, if not most, worlds have a hereditary aristocracy, since careers in the Navy and its subordinate service, the Marines, have been historically viewed as prestigious in similar historical societies on Earth. Likewise, Navy and Marines – along with the Army – can acquire improved SOC as part of mustering out, reflective no doubt of the esteem in which such services are held in such aristocratic societies.
What I find most noteworthy about social standing and the rules governing it in Traveller is how little there is of it. Consider that SOC is one of only six characteristics possessed by all characters, suggesting that Marc Miller considered it as foundational to a character as Strength or Intelligence. Despite this, there's not much present in the text of 1977 Traveller (or, for that matter, 1981) to guide the player or referee in understanding how it's meant to be used or what it means for the implied universe of the game. Instead, we get only hints here and there. The later Third Imperium setting is more explicit, in that there's an emperor and archdukes and so forth, but, even then, how this works for titled player characters is left somewhat vague.
For me, though, SOC is a distinctive element of Traveller, something we don't see in any contemporary RPG, science fiction or otherwise. It's a big part of why I don't consider the base game truly "generic" without modification. Putting social standing (and the possibility of hereditary titles) on par with other characteristics has strong implications for the kinds of settings for which it was designed. I'll return to this thought in my upcoming post about jump drive, since there are a number of connections between these topics, as I'll explain.
I don't think SOC makes Traveller any less generic than CHA makes D&D not generic. Making CHA a characteristic implies that force of your personality is usually what matters when meeting others, rather than your understood place in society. That's arguably true in anarchic frontier lands and maybe modern liberal democracies (though I'd dispute that), but it's a nonsense applied to most societies, especially feudal ones.
ReplyDeleteThere's an interesting wrinkle to the social standing adjustment for securing a commission in the navy: it doesn't really reflect the service that inspired Traveller: the Royal Navy in Napoleonic times.
ReplyDeleteRN officers overwhelmingly had a middle class background, with the younger sons of the aristocracy preferring the army.
Officers from an aristocratic background did have a higher chance of achieving high rank, however.
Given that FASA was an early publisher of Traveller materials, I wonder how much of Traveller’s feudal assumptions influenced the Inner Sphere of the BattleTech universe. In the earlier materials it was heavily emphasized that nobility and social standing was tied to the possession of a mech. But that element diminishes quickly as they develop the backdrop political story.
ReplyDeleteI think it quite likely that Traveller had some influence on the development of Battletech's setting, but I don't know enough about the latter myself to say with any certainty.
DeleteBattleTech is pretty much feudal warfare in space, so I imagine that in the very least, they were on the same wavelength.
DeleteChivalry & Sorcery also released in 1977 and featured social standing pretty prominently, arguably more so than Traveller initially did. Admittedly, doing a pseudo-historical feudal-era game pretty much requires at least some discussion of social class so it's not surprising to see it, whereas it's a distinctive and surprising feature in a scifi game.
ReplyDeleteAlso, didn't EPT itself feature rolls to determine your clan's social standing, which in turn helps define your own status? It's been quite a while, and there wasn't anything like a core social stats as such, but I seem to recall that being in from word one.
In C&S, was social standing an ability score/stat or just something you rolled from a table?
DeleteEPT is so old in the development of Tékumel that it barely mentions clans at all. The closest to social standing would the rolls for starting skills, which are divided into plebeian, skilled, and noble, with the implication that a character who starts with any noble skills might be from a higher social status. Of course, the wrinkle in that is that, by the book, all characters are foreign barbarians to start, so how that plays out in practice is unclear.
Not sure about the 1977 edition, but C&S 2e had social status as a die roll - and that wasn't just your personal status, it was your family's, where Traveller was less clear about whether your relatives (assuming any existed) shared a similar SOC score.
DeleteIt's a notoriously fiddly system with a lot of randomization and some very odd stats. "Bardic Voice" is a core one, for ex, and there are lots of derived stats to bot.
Is there a caste system, too, in Classic Traveller, James?
ReplyDeleteIf hereditary titles are included, I'm wondering if other systems that determine, at least in part, A PC's life events/choices is/are present?
Traveller's character generation system is, more or less, a life path system, where a new character starts at age 18 and chooses a service to join, like the Navy, Scouts, or Merchants. Based on how well (or poorly) he does in that service, the character ages, gains skills, promotions, etc., so that, at the end, the player has some idea of his past up till the start of the campaign.
DeleteThe ranks sound very "Space Viking" to me, from what I remember listening to it years ago. I'm not familiar with all the books that directly influenced Traveller - do others have a strong monarchy type elements?
ReplyDeleteI haven’t read too much of Pournelle’s CoDominium universe, but “The Mote in God’s Eye” (written with Larry Niven) at least strongly includes this. Interstellar communication therein is limited by the speed of ships, which must travel via naturally occurring jump points. An empire is maintained via personal loyalties in a feudal arrangement, and high military ranks are associated with nobility. And vice-versa: one character gets knighted at the end for his crucial contribution.
DeleteI haven’t read much of Pournelle’s CoDominium series, but “The Mote in God’s Eye” at least strongly features this. Interstellar communication therein is limited by the speed of ships, which must traverse naturally occurring jump points. A galactic empire depends on personal loyalty in a feudal arrangement that associates high military rank to nobility. One officer gets knighted at the end for a crucial contribution.
DeleteAt some point I was directed to the novel, "Space Viking" by H. Beam Piper in addition to the "Dumarest" stories by E.C. Tubb as significant influences to the Traveller universe and its rules. The former seams a very likely source for the inclusion of SOC.
ReplyDeleteSee also "What I would do differently as a new Classic Traveller Referee" over at the Mythic Mountain Musings blog:
Deletehttps://mythicmountainsrpg.substack.com/p/what-i-would-do-differently-as-a
He supports your novel recommendations, too. I believe this guy is trying to create a CT retroclone of his own. Nevertheless, its a great post and worth the read.
Dune stands out as the classic in which hereditary status is important. Although I vaguely remember some sort of minor noblemen during the decline of the Empire in Foundation.
ReplyDeleteThe first few Family D'Alembert books from Stephen Goldin (expanding posthumously on EE "Doc" Smith) had come out in 1976, and featured noble and Imperial ranks quite prominently.
DeleteOne possibility is that SOC in Traveller was inspired by GDW's own En Garde! role playing game, published in 1975, which included a stat for Social Level. Certainly it's an historical antecedent, and in an earlier game from the same publisher. Unlike Traveller, though, En Garde! included a lot more rules related to social standing.
ReplyDeleteI think there is some universe-building implicit in SOC, which maybe gets washed away in later conceptions of the game.
ReplyDeleteDumarest doesn't have a social standing that moves with him, unless we consider his SOC to be 2. When he arrives on a new world nobody knows him. D&D murderhobos don't have SOC either. In early D&D there is barely a society in which to have a standing.
For Traveller PCs to have a meaningful SOC, as they travel, then there are a few possibilities:
1) People know them, either personally or by reputation. This suggests adventures confined to only a small number of worlds. The Traveller Adventure maybe. Certainly not Arrival Vengeance.
2) We have an age-of-sail concept of letters-of-introduction. When the party arrives on a new world, initially nobody knows them and their effective SOC is low. They then go to the local noble, guild, bank, etc, and present their credentials which establishes their effective SOC. This drives the soirees that they are invited to, and the credit that they can draw.
3) SOC can be determined from haircut, clothing, accent, knowing which fork to use. I struggle with this. Most characters have fairly constant SOC, which suggests that social climbing is difficult. It can't be as easy as a makeover and deportment lessons to permanently elevate SOC.
I think that SOC implies a small setting.
Speaking of social standing, titles, and ranks, why aren't enlisted ranks covered for the various services in CT?
ReplyDeleteI can think of plenty of senior enlisted (E-8s and E-9s) that can hold their own against many officers.
Furthermore, why aren't warrant officers mentioned either?
I think these oversights are a real travesty in CT and shows the perceived bias of the original creator(s).
Does CT have an addendum that covers enlisted and warrant officers and their social statuses? If not, someone with more knowledge of this system should create some.
Mercenary and High Guards both have rules for enlisted personnel. The lack of them elsewhere is a very common complaint against Traveller and I remember several articles that proposed various ways to address this problem back in the day.
DeleteLol I've played CT with many active and retired military folks and never once have they complained they couldn't be a chief warrent officer
DeleteThank you, James, for your reply. I'll check out your redirect. As someone new to Traveller in general, I have much to learn about this system and setting.
ReplyDeleteIn some instances, I would use SOC like the Charisma stat, the rationale being that the higher social status brings with it an elevated notion of how best to deal with people in any social context interaction, even if only to grant some natural air of authority to the noble.
ReplyDeleteIn my Riphaeus Sector campaign, I had a house rule that used high SOC as a positive DM to avoid harassment by local law enforcement.
DeleteRobe and Blaster, White Dwarf #22
ReplyDeleteSocial standing is definitely under-described in the original rules, but interesting in that it forces the referee and players to wing it and figure out the ramifications themselves. In my current campaign I've been using high SS as a positive modifier in reaction rolls... but this implies that the characters are actively advertising they are nobles of some sort. Depending on the political situation of the planet they are currently on, this could possibly have an adverse reaction as well.
ReplyDeleteWhoops, did not intend to comment anonymously... that's me above.
Delete"how there is of it" ?
ReplyDeleteBah, I dropped a word. Thanks for pointing that out.
DeleteThe Alexei Panshin Villiers books are probably an influence too. Villiers even gets a write-up in Supplement 1 as the 'Remittance man' which suggests a way of playing a high-ranking noble character as a disgraced noble paid by his family to stay away
ReplyDelete"an egalitarian Star Trek future this is not!"
ReplyDeleteEven there some are more equal than others.