2020 May 13 Review of Old Traveller Notes

Digging up my old Traveller notes is a pain. Classic Traveller ship spreadsheets, Mongoose Traveller, Interestellar Wars, and now MgT2. 

The more detailed I go the more assumptions I find. These assumptions are a rule of thumb how things really work - Assumption log is an output in a Charter - and a Charter is part of a Biz Plan. 

There are ways to make the Assumptions easier for the GM - like building Taxes into Everything, no cost change, assume the modifiers to cost includes the Taxes and Regulations. 

PMP specialized in Charters would have a lot of useful notes on this.

 

Like that Self Sufficiency Video - its really the list of Trade-offs - part of the Assumptions Log the Decision Makers are going to accept. 

Already the Ships Morgage vs Maintenance vs Operations Cost ratios is changing. Mortgage is the largest, next is maintenance, and last is Ops. Now given more detail - it depends what is part of the mortgage  - is it like construction? Is it like Bare shell - Warm Shell - Fully Furnished/Fitout - Plug and Play. 

As I check the ships costs I'm tempted to look at the US budget on military presence for "regional Stability" which is pretty much getting the Trade Value the US has to the regions it is present vs the Military Budget. I know I can pull values out of thin air, but I'd like to have an informed opinion. 

There are Cost Ratios in Manufacturing and Construction, which hopefully gets better as we have more Predictive and high-agency AI. Its simple to apply it to the game, and then create a system that Violates these Assumptions per area. Capitalist-Feudalistic States vs AI-Driven Socialist Systems*


*The Answer to the Problem - What if the Pursuit of Power dehumanizes and normalize the harm we inflict on a larger and larger group of people?  That the Risk Aversion we gain as we age - creates apathy and the Risk Aversion Fuels Uncertainty which Fuels the desire for Power to deal with uncertainty. 

What if Idea of Sociopathy becomes a cultural Fear - the Fear of a person who will not FEEL in harming others - the fear of a non-conscientious person is a danger to Society and the human way to deal with them is to - give them generous reserves to pursue their sociopathic accumulation of power somewhere else or in a Walled Garden. 

How many TRPGers dabble with Game Theory and try to apply it. That Power is Zero-Sum and Welfare is Win-Win (Coordination Game). That monsters are normalized harm - the fear of a being that looks at other humans as prey or an asset to exploit. 

What if Cows and Pigs become sentient and wall off Humans from harming them. I should make an Alien Race of herbivores like the K'kree with the Biological Trade-offs of being a low energy herbivore.