I thought about Social Standing in MTU because of exactly what you say Jeff.

Now MTU is only human from an intelligent sophant point of view, because
well I don't do aliens very well. I might introduce intelligent alien life
at some point, but possibly not.

Anyway, I had a think about social standing and wanted it to be included in
the roll playing experience. So I did.

Now I'm British, so I probably have quite a good take on social standing
from a cultural point of view. The class system in the UK is still in
existence, nouveau riche abound, and I've experienced living in urban
sprawl, and small rural market towns. All of which have slightly different
takes on social standing while sill generally confirming to the social
status norms.

One of the things that can happen in the UK is that you can be a Lord, but
have no money. So your social status can be high, but you might not have two
pennies to rub together. And the opposite is true as well, you can be from
the streets and have a fortune but not be accepted in polite society.

IMTU if you had a social standing of 3 they wouldn't seat you in a
restaurant that served predominantly the middle class if you turned up on
spec even if the place was empty.
If you had a social standing of A they would bump a reservation to seat you
if the place was full.

It's also difficult (although not impossible) to change your social status.
Your families' social status changes through generation. So if you make a
fortune, your kids can increase their social status by going to the right
school, and being seen in the right bits of society etc. but that doesn't
mean the parents are going to be invited.

The classes in MTU are fluid within themselves to an extent. Lower Working
class is SOC 2,3,4 Upper Working class is SOC 4,5,6 Lower Middle Class is
SOC 6,7,8 Upper Middle class is SOC 8,9,A Lower Upper Class A,B Upper Upper
Class is C,D,E

Also my aristocracy is limited to 9 people and their partners. I have one
Count, one Marquise and seven Barons all in one county (Home County). There
is no Duke (at present)

Most people in MTU will assume that the person with the highest social
standing is the leader of the group, and there are reaction adjustments if
you are interacting with someone of significantly different class unless you
know them already.

While people are promoted on merit, if you have patronage and merit you'll
get the position over someone who just has merit.

My PCs are all above average in every department, young, talented, strong
and highly skilled. Who get mustered out of their what would have been
blossoming careers if only they had patronage, and get put together as a
"Contact Team" by the Ministry of Agriculture. To basically do odd jobs that
either fall between the cracks, or where the County needs deniability and/or
expendability.

Home county is an isolated (by geography and choice) "Safe" in what would
otherwise be a hard times "Wilds" 137 years after the war between the Empire
and the Kingdom that they fought to a standstill. Max TL10.

--
For the fallen in the cause of the free:
 "When I go home I will tell of them and say,
 For our tomorrow, They gave their today."

 My spelling is entirerly due to dyslexia, typos, and poetic license

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxxx@simplelists.com <xxxxxx@simplelists.com>
Sent: 03 April 2022 00:49
To: The Traveller Mailing List <xxxxxx@simplelists.com>
Subject: [TML] The Sixth Characteristic

The sixth characteristic - what Traveller5 calls C6 - varies in its
interpretation, but in all cases seems to be pretty fuzzy in its definition,
unclear as to what it represents "in-universe", and not generally used in
play:

In the Clement Sector setting, it's called Social Status, and is nominally
used as a proxy for lifestyle spending, which is ostensibly tied to wealth.

In the standard Third Imperium setting, it varies by race:

For humans and Aslan, it's called Social Status, and seems to be a proxy for
one's nominal rank in the aristocracy - even if a character is not
considered to be part of the aristocracy. There's some use of it to detemine
how NPCs - often random encounters who have little impact other than being
an obstruction to getting some small amount of information - will react to
the player-character, but it's never really important enough to derail - or
force - an adventure or scene.

For Vargr, it's called Charisma, and ostensibly represents how well the
character can influence others to achieve his/her own aims. It's used very
much like Social Status is for human characters, including its lack of
importance.

For Hivers, it's called Curiosity, and can directly influence the
probability of a Hiver 'having adventures' - basically, a Hiver's Curiosity
can be enough to occasionally override his innate racial good sense about
avoiding personal danger - but Hivers are probably both the most alien and
nearly least-played of the major races (the K'kree might be less-played).

For Droyne, it represents Caste, and is a limitation on what careers may be
entered, and therefore what skills might be accumulated. Droyne aren't much
played, but I don't see how Caste might be a factor in play.

For K'kree, it's called Caste as well, but functions more like Social Status
among Humans but only within the K'kree's specific social class (Noble,
Well-born, Bodyguard, Servant, Female) - between social classes, it's
meaningless; only the relative ranking of the social classes (as
given) matters - a low-caste Bodyguard outranks a high-caste Servant. I'm
not aware of any actual use of K'kree player-characters, so I have no
information of how it actually functions in play. (I suspect that the
general position on K'kree - apart from black humor about barbeque - is that
they're in practice unplayable due to complexity.)

In any case, it doesn't tend to be considered important, and in
character-generation systems that allow some level of customizing the basic
characteristics, C6 seems to almost invariably get classed as the 'dump
stat'.

What I'd like to see developing from this post is some ideas:

1. How can C6 be better-used and more important in play?
2. What *should it mean in-univere?
3. Should it be tossed out, and replaced by something else (and what)?

RTraveller is a registered trademark of
Far Future Enterprises, 1977-2022. Use of the trademark in this notice and
in the referenced materials is not intended to infringe or devalue the
trademark.

--
Jeff Zeitlin, Editor
Freelance Traveller
    The Electronic Fan-Supported TravellerR Resource
xxxxxx@freelancetraveller.com http://www.freelancetraveller.com

Freelance Traveller extends its thanks to the following enterprises for
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