alien race generation in Traveller ?

[Timerover51]

It would be interesting to see some of the aliens in Barlow's Guide to Extraterrestrials adapted to Traveller. The Dilbians might not be too hard, as you could sort of use the Animal creation sequence for them, some of the rest though might be harder.

Ixtl might be a bit tough.

 

[JimMarn]

Hello JimMarn,



First my apologies for inadvertently getting your thread off track.

Next, I'm still digging through my collection of stuff, okay my hoarded gaming material, to see if there might be other items of interest. If I do find something I'll try to remember to post here.

Finally, thank you for putting the question of alien race generation in Traveller on the forum.

Respectfully,

You're welcome.

Well... people with imaginations, like us, tend to go off topic often.

 

[Carlobrand]

...

Original D&D, for example...

It looked only a little like what most people would recognize; only three classes, funky hit point progression, no thief class, att 16+ gave a +1 on rolls, and att 5- a -1. ...​

Oh lord, I feel old now. I remember playing under those rules.

And speaking of rules:

...
Resources is just a random number. ...
Labour is pop-1, which is daft because it's saying that only 10% of the population is working. ...
Infrastructure isn't influenced by Tech Level ...
Efficiencies is a random number ....

Putting them all together, RU are a bad comparator because Labour is defined using a logarithmic scale, ...

Homogeneity isn't influenced by Government ...
Acceptance isn't influenced by Gov or Law ...
Strangeness and Symbols are just random numbers that have no meaning at all. ...

Gracious! I hadn't realized they'd put that much effort into world design! Someone's clearly trying new things. Now I am seriously, seriously tempted to spend some of my way-too-little cash to pick up some T5 to see how it handles all of that and whether - flaws or not - it might be tweaked to serve my own needs. A game doesn't have to be perfect to be useful.

Add: Ooh, I forgot - is all of that humanocentric, or do they toss in modifiers for potential non-human civilizations?

 

[SanDragon]

If Labor is Pop-1, 90% of the population in the workforce does make sense either.

 

[EDG]

If Labor is Pop-1, 90% of the population in the workforce does make sense either.

If you have a pop 8 world (say 100,000,000 people), then Labour is 7 (10,000,000 people), which means that "Labour" represents 10% of the population. I suppose if you throw in the population multiplier as another randomiser then that makes it even weirder, since you could have a 100,000,000 pop 8 world and a Labour of 90,000,000 people, which is 90% of the population.

Either way, Labour should account for tech level too. Maybe on a high tech world only 10% of the population would be working, but on worlds around our TL it should be more like 60% of adults in a stable society.

 

[EDG]

Gracious! I hadn't realized they'd put that much effort into world design! Someone's clearly trying new things. Now I am seriously, seriously tempted to spend some of my way-too-little cash to pick up some T5 to see how it handles all of that and whether - flaws or not - it might be tweaked to serve my own needs. A game doesn't have to be perfect to be useful.

Um, what "effort" are you seeing here? The whole point of what I was saying is that all of those terms are useless, meaningless, and undefined, and right now T5 doesn't handle any of those at all.

 

[SanDragon]

Yeah, I was thinking about 60% myself.

 

[Carlobrand]

Um, what "effort" are you seeing here? The whole point of what I was saying is that all of those terms are useless, meaningless, and undefined, and right now T5 doesn't handle any of those at all.

Your point is you don't like the work, or at least that part of it. I think we all got that loud and clear. I respect your opinion, I'm sure there are others who agree with you, thank you for sharing. My point, if I may be so bold as to present an alternate point, is I haven't seen someone try to apply those concepts to make more individualized worlds before, and I'm rather curious how they went about it even if it doesn't work.

Over almost four decades of gaming, I've acquired a heck of a lot of game systems and their supplements and revisions. I've read through them all, every page; I'm weird that way. Some of them I wouldn't play on a bet. Many of them don't exist anymore, and all praises to the gods for that blessing. However, some among even those have interesting features and ideas that I might port over into a game I do like - usually with much modification.

As regards Traveller, I'm a great CT fan, but I'm seeing ideas here that, whether they work or not, might possibly be whittled or remolded into a form that could make them work for me.

And, no offense, but I like to judge for myself. I don't tend to do things like normal people. For me, a game system is a starting point, not a finished product. For that reason, what may turn one person completely off may only be a minor issue to me.

 

[Carlobrand]

Yeah, I was thinking about 60% myself.

Hovers somewhere around 45% to 60% in the modern era, depending mostly on how the population skews age-wise. I have a thought that it was much higher in the past, when kids were drafted into helping on the farm as soon as they were old enough to follow instructions and when fewer people were living to old age. Heck, there was a time when your recreational hobby was very likely to be something productive - quilting, whittling toys for the children, even fishing. I also have a thought, someone mentioned tech level as a factor, that increasing tech level might lead to increasing leisure - decreased per-person hours worked even as the tech increases the per-hour productivity - because people are working shorter hours and spending some time enjoying the fruits of that tech.

And - harking back to the thread topic - still thinking about this in terms of alien races and whether that could be worked in: differing sleep cycles and caste systems, different attitudes about leisure, for example, leading to different rates of productivity.

 

[DonM]

It sounds like what you are wanting is part race creation, and part culture creation...

I'd suggest combining your favorite race creation method with DGP's World Builder's Handbook.

Or can someone else suggest a similar culture creation method?

 

[snrdg082102]

Howdy DonaldM,

It sounds like what you are wanting is part race creation, and part culture creation...

I'd suggest combining your favorite race creation method with DGP's World Builder's Handbook.

Or can someone else suggest a similar culture creation method?

Unfortunately, one of the books I don't have is DGP's World Builder's Handbook. I do have TNE's World Tamer's Handbook, which I have not gotten to looking over in depth.

How close is World Tamer's Handbook to World Builder's Handbook?

 

[aramis]

Howdy DonaldM,



Unfortunately, one of the books I don't have is DGP's World Builder's Handbook. I do have TNE's World Tamer's Handbook, which I have not gotten to looking over in depth.

How close is World Tamer's Handbook to World Builder's Handbook?

Not at all.

WTH is about building colonies.
WBH is about detailing planets and their societies.

 

[snrdg082102]

Not at all.

WTH is about building colonies.
WBH is about detailing planets and their societies.

Thanks aramis, so World Builder's Handbook is still on my wish list, which seems to be getting longer rather than shorter.

 

[aramis]

Thanks aramis, so World Builder's Handbook is still on my wish list, which seems to be getting longer rather than shorter.

Note that if you find "Grand Survey" and "Grand Census" - they're the same content (when combined) as World Builder's Handbook, save for a couple minor errata.

 

[snrdg082102]

Morning PDT aramis,

Note that if you find "Grand Survey" and "Grand Census" - they're the same content (when combined) as World Builder's Handbook, save for a couple minor errata.

More items to add to the wish list and now I have a race to see which I can get first. Thank you for providing the leads.

 

[snrdg082102]

I can now take one item off my Gaming wish list which is the World Builder's Handbook. My search for copies of The "World Builder's Guide", "Grand Survey" and "Grand Census" for sale came up with one copy of Grand Survey, two copies of both World Builder's Handbook and Grand Census.

Both copies of World Builder's Handbook had a lower purchase price than Grand Survey or the two copies of Grand Census.

Unfortunately, the purchase of World Builder's Handbook means my gaming allowance is depleted for a couple of months. On the upside my Traveller collection is one book closer to being complete.

 

[DonM]

Note that while WBH has some corrections to GS/GC, the combination has a few tables the compilation lacks.

I really should sit down and add that to the errata...

 

[mike wightman]

You can generate alien races by adapting the animal encounters table to a playable race - you just have to assign dice to characteristics based on the animal stats and then get a bit creative with body form.

 

[tvandeloo]

Xenobiology

There's a great article at http://www.xenology.info/Xeno.htm that could be used as a basis for alien species generation.