IMTU: Aging in Traveller

 

Traveller is copyright 1977-2025 by Mongoose Publising.
This is a fan work, and used without permission under fair use.
In My Traveller Universe is a series of ideas I have had over the last twenty years for "updating" the Traveller RPG.

In 1700AD average human lifespan was about 33 years. Human lifespan has, on average, increased to 80 years. So that means in the last 325 years human lifespan has increased by 57 years. Simple math shows that as 0.17 years for every year but this is deceiving. More than half that increase has taken place since 1900. Which means on the last 125 years the increase has averaged of almost double that rate or 0.33 years per year. Even at a much slower rate, with increases in medical technology, average human lifespan could easily be twice that number even if progression shrunk to almost nothing. As I write this the oldest documented living person is 116 years of age, or almost half again as old as the average. So in my Traveller universe average human lifespan is approximately 160 years, with the oldest human being approximately 240 years of age.

Sociologically I would posit that as human lifespan became longer what society might think of anyone in a certain age range would also change. So IMTU, people are not really considered adults until 30 years of age. Careers are generally 50-80 years. Retirement is between 90-110.

How does this effect character generation? Each term a player survives they receive two skills, if they roll a mishap they still get one skill. The player also receives one skill for each promotion and one bonus skill roll if they make an education check 8+. So for each term the player has the opportunity to earn 4 skills, but averages 3.6, so even after ten terms their skills will definitely be close to max skills all things being equal.

As an alternate rule: if a new skill is rolled and their skills are maxed they can choose to abandon a level of any skill over 2 in exchange for a new skill. This would simulate the different skills used in the progression of a character's career.