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Old 01-30-2023, 01:51 PM   #1
Solomon Draak
 
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Default GURPS Longevity and anagathic treatment in ancient times ( low TL )

Let's imagine a character ( or a group of characters ) with the ambition of eternal - or at least indefinitely prolonged - life in a almost realistic ( non cinematic ) campaign.

Could anti-aging therapies be simulated through "ancient", non esoteric skills like herbal medicine, meditation, self hypnosis, physical training and physiotheraphy? Mabye also breath control, within certain limits.

There is a section about inventions, but with the quite strict limit of the inventor being able - at best - to create something a single TL level above his current technology level.
Any idea about going around this limit ( while still staying into the realistic - non cinematic) ? The only one I tought about is advancing the local TL ( or mabye, just ONE FIELD of the local TL ) through several related inventions.

Reaching anagathic treatment could be relatively easy starting at TL 8 ( it would be no harder than to make a one-level-above invention ), but how could that goal be reached starting with a party of Ice Age TL 0 characters? ( and not even humans: a party of australopitheci ) ?
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Old 01-30-2023, 02:09 PM   #2
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Default Re: GURPS Longevity and anagathic treatment in ancient times ( low TL )

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Originally Posted by Solomon Draak View Post
Could anti-aging therapies be simulated through "ancient", non esoteric skills like herbal medicine, meditation, self hypnosis, physical training and physiotheraphy? Mabye also breath control, within certain limits.
Short answer: not beyond the normal effects of maintaining a healthy lifestyle.
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Old 01-30-2023, 02:18 PM   #3
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Default Re: GURPS Longevity and anagathic treatment in ancient times ( low TL )

Quote:
Originally Posted by Solomon Draak View Post
Let's imagine a character ( or a group of characters ) with the ambition of eternal - or at least indefinitely prolonged - life in a almost realistic ( non cinematic ) campaign.

Could anti-aging therapies be simulated through "ancient", non esoteric skills like herbal medicine, meditation, self hypnosis, physical training and physiotheraphy? Mabye also breath control, within certain limits.

There is a section about inventions, but with the quite strict limit of the inventor being able - at best - to create something a single TL level above his current technology level.
Any idea about going around this limit ( while still staying into the realistic - non cinematic) ? The only one I tought about is advancing the local TL ( or mabye, just ONE FIELD of the local TL ) through several related inventions.

Reaching anagathic treatment could be relatively easy starting at TL 8 ( it would be no harder than to make a one-level-above invention ), but how could that goal be reached starting with a party of Ice Age TL 0 characters? ( and not even humans: a party of australopitheci ) ?
If they are interested in it as a general goal they might try human stock breeding like Heinlein's Howard Families in "Methuselah's Children" et al. Build a subculture where people only marry people who have living healthy grandparents, and eventually extend that to great grand-parents, etc.
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Old 01-30-2023, 02:18 PM   #4
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Default Re: GURPS Longevity and anagathic treatment in ancient times ( low TL )

In theory, you could just apply the penalties inherent in being 1 TL above current multiple times, until you reach the TL at which the treatment you're looking for would exist; this means a -45 from TL differences alone to produce a TL 9 invention at TL 0.

Honestly, if you want there to be anagathics available at TL 0, you need to have a plant or similar that has a component that naturally produces such an effect (the online web serial Deathworlders took this approach). So the human-precursors can't just snort it (or use it to season their food, or whatever), perhaps make the plant also contain some type of poison - you need to consume it alongside other ingredients that counteract the poison, otherwise you become dangerously sick, involuntarily vomit it up, or similar. With such being already available, TL 0 Pharmacy (Herbal) should be able to make the necessary mix to get the anagathic effect without harm from the poison, although it may call for an invention.

As to why anybody would bother figuring out a way to make the poisonous plant consumable, there are plenty of options. Maybe there's an animal species with a natural immunity to the toxins that is notably robust, with the observers guessing their consumption of the otherwise-toxic plant is part of why they are so robust. Maybe a chieftain has a fever dream that the plant holds the key to immortality and demands his shaman figures out how to make it edible. Maybe it just tastes really good when used as a spice ("Why would you keep eating something that made you crap blood?" "Dude, have you ever eaten [REDACTED], it's really good."). Whatever works.
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Old 01-30-2023, 02:23 PM   #5
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Default Re: GURPS Longevity and anagathic treatment in ancient times ( low TL )

TL9+ anagathics, assuming they emerge, are likely to be based on principles totally inaccessible to realistic TL0.

If you want to decide that there are ahistorical TL0/TL0+1 alternate technologies that could be effective, that's certainly your prerogative as a setting builder, but people may find it odd to portray that as 'almost realistic'.
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Old 01-30-2023, 03:17 PM   #6
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Default Re: GURPS Longevity and anagathic treatment in ancient times ( low TL )

I would note that groups of people with an ambition of eternal life are totally possible at any TL; searching for eternal life has been a popular pastime as far back as we can track. It's just that all of them have failed.
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Old 01-30-2023, 08:59 PM   #7
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Default Re: GURPS Longevity and anagathic treatment in ancient times ( low TL )

Quote:
Originally Posted by Solomon Draak View Post

Could anti-aging therapies be simulated through "ancient", non esoteric skills like herbal medicine, meditation, self hypnosis, physical training and physiotheraphy? Mabye also breath control, within certain limits.
We have no idea because we have no real anti-aging therapies. At best we have a TL modifier to aging rolls (+5 rather than TL0's -3) but that's tied to general lifestyle and medicine rather than anything specific.

The Rejuvenation Gene Therapy available at TL9 in Bio-tech is the result of semi-informed speculation at best but is the only thing that might provide indefinitely prolonged life.

The Aging rules at TL0 are so harsh that only persons with the Longevity Advantage will make it past 60 anyway. I'm not sure how TL0 people would even get started on the concept.
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Old 01-31-2023, 12:15 AM   #8
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Default Re: GURPS Longevity and anagathic treatment in ancient times ( low TL )

I'm not sure I understand what you're asking. It sounds like you're asking "Is it plausible for there to be a way of doing this at TL0", which seems more of a real-world question than a GURPS question, and, since we're not sure how to do that now, it seems like the answer would be "we don't know".


Would, say, a plant like Varyon mentions be plausible? Well, if we're not sure how such a thing would be done now, it seems possible that there could be such a thing. But there seems to be no hard evidence that any ancient civilisations did have anything like this (plenty of second-hand legends written down generations later, but nothing more solid than that, and plenty of carbon-dated skeletons indicating that most people in most ancient civilisations had pretty short lifespans). So that seems like a "no, it wouldn't be plausible" - at least, in a campaign that follows modern mainstream science logic.

Does yours? You mention that the game is "almost realistic ( non cinematic )" so possibly it does, but "not cinematic" in GURPS terms doesn't necessarily equate to "no magic/mythology/sci-fi/conspiracy theories", it seems to be more a measure of how much slack the GM is prepared to cut the characters.


As Fred Brackin pointed out, in GURPS you get a bonus to ageing rolls based on your world's medical tech level. You also get bonuses for Fit or Very Fit (and penalties for Unfit or Very Unfit). So one line of research that might, according to the rules as written and without magic or fictional science, give your inventors longer lifespans than is usual where they come from is just to research medicine in general to increase the TL of the medical care they're giving themselves. (And/or to gain Very Fit, if they don't already have it from living at a TL where most people do a lot of hard manual work). That might also drastically reduce their chances of dying of something else before ageing rolls ever become an issue.

That seems unlikely to get them to actual Longevity, though. Longevity means you succeed on ageing rolls on anything up to a 16 (98.15%). TL3 characters with HT 10 who've had regular access to medicine two TLs ahead of their time and are also Very Fit would succeed on ageing rolls on anything up to a 14 (90.74%). (TL3 characters with TL3 medicine and Very Fit would succeed on ageing rolls on anything up to a 12, 74.07%).
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Old 01-31-2023, 03:29 AM   #9
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Default Re: GURPS Longevity and anagathic treatment in ancient times ( low TL )

The traditional view of medieval life was that it was "nasty, brutish, and short". If we assume that relates to an average lifespan of 40 years for those who survive infancy, the lord in his manor, who through healthy living practices, could reasonably expect to live to 70.

Nigh-doubling your life expectancy, from a certain point of view, would certainly seem like science-fiction style anagathics.
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Old 01-31-2023, 05:39 AM   #10
Solomon Draak
 
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Default Re: GURPS Longevity and anagathic treatment in ancient times ( low TL )

Quote:
In theory, you could just apply the penalties inherent in being 1 TL above current multiple times, until you reach the TL at which the treatment you're looking for would exist; this means a -45 from TL differences alone to produce a TL 9 invention at TL 0.

Honestly, if you want there to be anagathics available at TL 0, you need to have a plant or similar that has a component that naturally produces such an effect (the online web serial Deathworlders took this approach). So the human-precursors can't just snort it (or use it to season their food, or whatever), perhaps make the plant also contain some type of poison - you need to consume it alongside other ingredients that counteract the poison, otherwise you become dangerously sick, involuntarily vomit it up, or similar. With such being already available, TL 0 Pharmacy (Herbal) should be able to make the necessary mix to get the anagathic effect without harm from the poison, although it may call for an invention.

As to why anybody would bother figuring out a way to make the poisonous plant consumable, there are plenty of options. Maybe there's an animal species with a natural immunity to the toxins that is notably robust, with the observers guessing their consumption of the otherwise-toxic plant is part of why they are so robust. Maybe a chieftain has a fever dream that the plant holds the key to immortality and demands his shaman figures out how to make it edible. Maybe it just tastes really good when used as a spice ("Why would you keep eating something that made you crap blood?" "Dude, have you ever eaten [REDACTED], it's really good."). Whatever works.


I like that answer! It's quite inspiring. Shamanic herbalistic research based on intuition...

To achieve a TL9 discovery, it would takes an Herbal Medicine skill at ( 45 for TL, 23 for Amazing complexity, 5 for totally new tech ) 73+, probably at least 80.

Now, an exceptionally bright australopitechus may develope an IQ of ( 20-4 ) 16, so to reach 80 in a Hard mental skill, we need more or less 260 character points. Not impossible to achieve with many years of study, altough it would be all self taught. Problem is, australopithecine mature at 10 and get old at 20, so time is at premium here.

Well, let's say our young australopitechus is either a respected shaman or has friends who share his dream, so he can dedicate himself to his research. A base of 12 hours of self-taught learning multiplied for 350 days / year ( two weeks a year wasted in necessary resting and unforeseen problems ) -> 4200 hours / year ( divided by 2 because self-taught ) -> 10 skill points / year. This way, it would takes 26 years or more to reach the necessary skill level, too much for our short lived primate.

Mabye there are ways to speed up the process.

Last edited by Solomon Draak; 01-31-2023 at 05:51 AM.
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