• Welcome to the new COTI server. We've moved the Citizens to a new server. Please let us know in the COTI Website issue forum if you find any problems.
  • We, the systems administration staff, apologize for this unexpected outage of the boards. We have resolved the root cause of the problem and there should be no further disruptions.

Nepotism: Regarding Nobles

though the wording is confusing: 1 sentence says the children get the SOC at -1, but the last sentence says one child inherits their parent's social standing.

edit: like a lot of T5, there are some...ambiguous...readings possible.
I would read that as the children are Soc -1 while the parent is alive and holds the title and inherits the title (and full Soc) upon the parent's death.
 
There is, but it will take time to track down. It has been around for quite a while.
If you run across a reference you can point me toward, I'd appreciate it, but don't go out of your way - nobility IMTU is canon only in the broadest strokes, so I have my own take but I'm curious to understand more of how MWM approached this.
 
Regardless of your opinion of the article, the Sources list is probably useful: https://wiki.travellerrpg.com/Imperial_Nobility

The T5 approach is described in mechanical terms in the rulebooks, and expanded in the Nobles issues of Imperiallines. As of now, those are on DriveThru. Those specific articles are not edition specific other than helping to define what the T5 compliant codes on Traveller Map mean, and were written with Marc looking over my shoulder.

T5 modified the GT Nobles approach as far as assignment of High or Landed Nobility (the nobles OF a particular world), putting a Knight on every world that wasn't barren or interdicted instead of a Baron. Much of the GT approach is otherwise still present. While the GT universality of Barons has been replaced, there are still a LOT of Landed Barons in the Imperium.

The GT and T5 approaches were informed by a defining MegaTraveller article in one of the DGP magazine issues. Given that the DGP crew were still writing to the "Classic Plus" mindset that Mega started with and were writing for the pre-Rebellion Imperium 90% of the time, theirs is likely the oldest source with any cache of Canon other than the original (and brief) Library Data entries. There were Classic era articles on the Nobility, but all in various non-GDW magazines that are now hard to find even existential evidence of, never mind specific articles.
 
Last edited:
nobility IMTU is canon only in the broadest strokes
That's not an uncommon approach, as the structures, powers, responsibilities, etc of the nobility were pretty vague through Classic and only incidentally detailed in MegaTraveller despite that edition's narrative being powered by the Nobility.

Marc lays out some of his modern vision in his novel, Agent of the Imperium. One full chapter and an incidental followup a bit later.
 
I'm not necessarily a fan of this rule, there are a couple of reasons. "Landed Noble" titles are comparatively rare in Traveller. Most Nobles are merit or service titles that don't have a fief. I do not believe there are more than a million landed gentry in the Imperium of less than 12,000 worlds.

IMTU if a character begins with a SOC or 10+ they roll 2D6-EDU bonus. So If I have a SOC 11 but an EDU of 5 that's 2D6-1. On a 12 the character is part of a landed family. That means the Noble can still be an idiot, but lots of idiots are "educated". If they are part of a landed family and roll a 12 again they are the heir. So about 1 in 700 "Nobles" are landed Nobles IMTU.
 
Back
Top