RPG Philosophy--Traveller and Capitalism
As a game, Traveller is best known for its character creation system. Most games, modelling themselves off of D&D , build out the character as it is at the time play begins. In other words, character creation determines how strong the character is right now , what abilities he or she has right now . Traveller , instead, pioneered the "life path" system. After rolling up some basic stats, the player moves the character through a series of "terms"--four year chunks of time starting at age 18 in which the character takes on a particular job and develops new skills and abilities. At the end of each term, the player making the character rolls to see if the character is promoted within that career, and rolls to see whether the character is allowed to continue in that career into the next term. If the character is kicked out of the career, or wants to go pursue something else, they have to roll to see if they qualify for the new career--otherwise, they h...