On our podcast, SAFCOcast, and on this blog I have no doubt mentioned the Traveller: Out of the Box series from the Tales to Astound blog. My attention was brought back to that series last night and I did some re-reading.

This article really hit home… Traveller : Out of the Box – You Are Not Your Numbers.

To me this really gets to the heart of roleplaying. Read it.

A number of things have happened in our Classic Traveller campaign that, upon re-reading this post, really stood out in my mind. A lot of things, really, but I’ll just mention a couple.

• Barney, the crew’s engineer and a former Scout, over the course of the entire campaingn has expressed concern for the Pachyderm’s of Uetonah. It has been subtle. William hasn’t overdone it, but playing the character that way over time imparts a moral consistency to Barney. He’s also developed a phobia toward gross bugs and insects, thanks to numerous disgusting encounters.
• Lucky, one of the other former Scouts, in our last session expressed remorse for the team putting Silvonius Janx, owner of the ship they are traveling on, in harms way and risking the ship. He advocated for treating Janx fairly afterward and regaining his trust. It is fascinating as the referee to observe a player character exhibiting genuine compassion for an NPC.

All our our players have done things like that. Things that are nowhere on the character sheet. Traits of the characters that developed over course of many sessions and many years in real time. I think it would be hard to do that in so-called short-form play. We are going into session 48. It is really cool to see all of them developing beyond their numbers.

Some systems provide mechanics for this kind of thing. GURPS, one of my favorite systems, provides mechanics that encourage and reinforce this kind of thing, but in that case of course the stuff is in the numbers. Nothing wrong with that at all. I love it. I think my point is that, in agreement with Tales to Astound, really really good roleplayers can develop this level of play without the numbers, given time, awareness, and desire to do so.