Not just Vilani; Trokh is one I'd like to see more done on. I'm curious about whether anyone's attempted to put something together for either one.
COLOR TEXT: Sophont Resources Handbook
- Thread starter robject
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Not just Vilani; Trokh is one I'd like to see more done on. I'm curious about whether anyone's attempted to put something together for either one.
Thank you for your encouraging words. That only motivates me further. Thank you again.
Thank you for confirming that. I agree with you.
I've been eyeing the MgT2.0 layout (Maks suggested I take another look at it). I like its predictability and layout -- if they can make two pages of tables work, then so can Traveller5.
Hey, I posted a very short grammatical sketch of Trokh (and others) somewhere on this board... probably in the Contact! section. I'll go look for it.
OK, I stickied them. I note that Vilani is there too... it's quite developed compared with the others.
UPDATE
Format is 9x6.
Intro is about 3 pages. Probably will grow.
Chargen description, not including careers, is 14 pages.
Set down the Navy and Scout Service careers over the past two nights. Slightly streamlined over T5 Core Rules.
Starship catalog is 25 pages, half of which are full-page illustrations.
Sophont catalog is 10 pages.
Tasks and combat is 9 pages so far.
Equipment is 9 pages at the end of the document.
88 pages total so far.
TO DO
1. Seven more careers to go.
2. Education isn't in there yet.
3. I have to transfer in a page of starship operations rules, and write some color text to illustrate it.
4. I have to cook up some task-related color text.
5. I have personal combat text in place, but it's all going to change (pending errata etc).
6. I have to cook up some travel ("world and adventures") text. Actually I have some of that already. I'll rifle through it for a sample.
7. I have to transfer in rules for adventuring, hazards, etc.
Format is 9x6.
Intro is about 3 pages. Probably will grow.
Chargen description, not including careers, is 14 pages.
Set down the Navy and Scout Service careers over the past two nights. Slightly streamlined over T5 Core Rules.
Starship catalog is 25 pages, half of which are full-page illustrations.
Sophont catalog is 10 pages.
Tasks and combat is 9 pages so far.
Equipment is 9 pages at the end of the document.
88 pages total so far.
TO DO
1. Seven more careers to go.
2. Education isn't in there yet.
3. I have to transfer in a page of starship operations rules, and write some color text to illustrate it.
4. I have to cook up some task-related color text.
5. I have personal combat text in place, but it's all going to change (pending errata etc).
6. I have to cook up some travel ("world and adventures") text. Actually I have some of that already. I'll rifle through it for a sample.
7. I have to transfer in rules for adventuring, hazards, etc.
Are you sure that you want the smaller format?
In that direction can be found serpents...
Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.
Several companies have done surveys and gotten that digest size is more desired. It's not a huge difference, but it's a difference.
I also have noticed that book stores tend to relegate anything over 7.5x10" to non-standard shelving, often to magazine step-racks, while trade paperback games may spend the first week or two on magazine rack carousels in the walkways, and go on standard shelves right near the trade paperback comics...
Easier to shelve, easier to highlight, and thus easier to sell.
Rifts, blight that it is, survives on bottom shelves in back areas.... it's the cockroach of gaming - nothing kills it, and no one sane admits to liking them.
With an example? <beseechingly>
Yeah. But the rules I've put there are going to change, so the example is as moot as the rules.
For each career (such as Marines), is it better to have the tables grouped together, separate from the instruction text? I originally wove them in with the text so that they flow, but I'm now thinking that the tables for one career should be pulled together, away from the text. In other words:
MARINES (or whatever)
Explanatory and Process Text.
Table
Table
Table
Table
MARINES (or whatever)
Explanatory and Process Text.
Table
Table
Table
Table
That would be my preference as I like most tables in games to be close together to make finding them easier. Particularly as each career may have different flows for the text, and then the tables would be scattered in different places. If they are all at a consistent place it makes looking things up easier.
khadaji2002
SOC-12
I agree that having the tables in a consistent location for every career makes it far easier to find a given table for a given career. If the flavor text is written in the same format for every career so that the tables are in the same location on each page, I'd be good with that. If that's not practical then I would prefer to see the tables pulled apart and put in a separate location.
I was thinking about this just now, and wondering to myself: what about Library Data?
Here's the thing: the Galaxiad itself has a lot of adventures slated for the Golden Era, i.e. 1105 plus-and-minus-ten-years.
Fine and well, but the setting is still 1900 years after the founding of the Third Imperium. Library Data would tell you about that period. Traveller News Service bulletins would tell you about that period. 1105 has no new news. New adventures, yes of course. Even relevance to 1900 Regina, sure that's doable. But we know more than enough about 1105 to get by.
Mike has clearly underscored the point: Y'all know almost nothing about 1900. Who's in charge? Why are there nobles? Does everyone have a black globe on their ship (why or why not)? Are the same old corporations still there? And so on.
I mean, let's pretend.
Me Pretending to write in my diary said:
Newpenton (2721 Deneb) 203-1899
Her excavations were done. It's not here.
As Jana sat in the ancient mass grave, she felt rather than heard the ship set down. Yowling barks. The Uekhaz dialect. Might as well fly a pirate flag.
Her ship, the Cengashu, was maybe 50 meters away, dwarfed by Kurukhash ruins nearly ten times its height. 50 meters across open ground. She paused, compact laser pistol unholstered, peering out of the pit. She ran.
Wavy reflections of starlight, twinkling in broken blocks of 75,000 year old crystalliron. Across the field - there. Next to the crocodilian Face of Soqieqe, carved into the hillside. A small starship, complete with deployable "fang" sensors. And a lone Vargr. He's close enough. She slowed to a walk. Pointed her pistol.
Four shots. The Vargr fell.
More strident yowling. Two furred pirates emerged, laser pistols drawn. They spotted her quickly.
Not quick enough. Two more shots, and one of them fell. A beam sizzled by her left ear. A panicky shot. She dove for light underbrush, knocking her breath out. The next beam was where her torso would have been a few seconds ago. She aimed. Another beam was shy by a meter.
Two more shots. The Vargr, distracted by pain, shot wild. Four more shots and he was down too. Careful now. She slowly edged closer.
Soon, three Vargr bodies lay cooling in the ruins.
Jana Humbolt finished the distance to the Cengashu, which was already powering up its engines. As it lifted, she input distant coordinates directly into the strange-looking jump drive. 100 diameters later, her ship was gone.
***
Kuran saw the bodies first. Vargr, pocked with laser burns. A fatal but cauterized attack. Bloodless, in a way. Lis looked ill; Rej blanched. "Dead three weeks, maybe", Kuran remarked. "Pirates."
Rej looked at Kuran quizzically. "How can you tell?"
Kuran shrugged. "They always are."
Lis glared at him, muttering something in Gvegh.
"They speak mostly Aekhu here," said Kuran blandly.
By now, Rej had recovered his composure, already examining the looters' trenches in the ruins. "Someone was looking for something," he said, "and left a lot of perfectly good artifacts here."
"And killed people," Lis added. Kuran snorted.
Her excavations were done. It's not here.
As Jana sat in the ancient mass grave, she felt rather than heard the ship set down. Yowling barks. The Uekhaz dialect. Might as well fly a pirate flag.
Her ship, the Cengashu, was maybe 50 meters away, dwarfed by Kurukhash ruins nearly ten times its height. 50 meters across open ground. She paused, compact laser pistol unholstered, peering out of the pit. She ran.
Wavy reflections of starlight, twinkling in broken blocks of 75,000 year old crystalliron. Across the field - there. Next to the crocodilian Face of Soqieqe, carved into the hillside. A small starship, complete with deployable "fang" sensors. And a lone Vargr. He's close enough. She slowed to a walk. Pointed her pistol.
Four shots. The Vargr fell.
More strident yowling. Two furred pirates emerged, laser pistols drawn. They spotted her quickly.
Not quick enough. Two more shots, and one of them fell. A beam sizzled by her left ear. A panicky shot. She dove for light underbrush, knocking her breath out. The next beam was where her torso would have been a few seconds ago. She aimed. Another beam was shy by a meter.
Two more shots. The Vargr, distracted by pain, shot wild. Four more shots and he was down too. Careful now. She slowly edged closer.
Soon, three Vargr bodies lay cooling in the ruins.
Jana Humbolt finished the distance to the Cengashu, which was already powering up its engines. As it lifted, she input distant coordinates directly into the strange-looking jump drive. 100 diameters later, her ship was gone.
***
Kuran saw the bodies first. Vargr, pocked with laser burns. A fatal but cauterized attack. Bloodless, in a way. Lis looked ill; Rej blanched. "Dead three weeks, maybe", Kuran remarked. "Pirates."
Rej looked at Kuran quizzically. "How can you tell?"
Kuran shrugged. "They always are."
Lis glared at him, muttering something in Gvegh.
"They speak mostly Aekhu here," said Kuran blandly.
By now, Rej had recovered his composure, already examining the looters' trenches in the ruins. "Someone was looking for something," he said, "and left a lot of perfectly good artifacts here."
"And killed people," Lis added. Kuran snorted.
Code:
Ult Disp Laser Pistol-17, 0.83 kg, R=4, B=-3, Burn-5 Pen-2 , Cr 210"Fang sensor, sir."
"Battery four, please, ensign."
"Battery four fire."
"Battery four." A gunner, sitting at battery four, directed lasers at a man-sized target several thousand kilometers away. "Firing."
A bit later: "Fang sensor neutralized, sir."
"Thank you, ensign Idamku."
Captain Urgash thought a moment. "Enter orbit."
The corvette eased into a safe orbit around the moonless gas giant. Fang sensors meant their quarry was hiding out here. How to draw them out?
Apparently, there was no need.
"Signal on the horizon, sir. Rising from the upper cloudbanks, equatorial sunward."
So it was refueling, perhaps.
"Missile battery online, please, ensign. Nuclear authorized."
"Missile battery online, nuclear authorization given."
Four men, sitting at the main battery, switched out the conventional magazine for one with nuclear warheads. They carefully trained the ship's most useful weapon at the sensor blip 250,000 kilometers away. "Missile battery online, nuclear magazine selected."
"Missile battery online, nuclear selected, sir."
"Very good, ensign. Track and report."
"Aye, sir."
But the signal didn't get closer.
The reason became obvious.
"New signal beta, sir, equatorial horizon nightside." Then: "New signal gamma, south polar horizon."
Interesting. "Break orbit, please, ensign."
"Maneuver break orbit," then: "voice comm request from signal alpha, sir."
Also interesting. "On."
"Battery four, please, ensign."
"Battery four fire."
"Battery four." A gunner, sitting at battery four, directed lasers at a man-sized target several thousand kilometers away. "Firing."
A bit later: "Fang sensor neutralized, sir."
"Thank you, ensign Idamku."
Captain Urgash thought a moment. "Enter orbit."
The corvette eased into a safe orbit around the moonless gas giant. Fang sensors meant their quarry was hiding out here. How to draw them out?
Apparently, there was no need.
"Signal on the horizon, sir. Rising from the upper cloudbanks, equatorial sunward."
So it was refueling, perhaps.
"Missile battery online, please, ensign. Nuclear authorized."
"Missile battery online, nuclear authorization given."
Four men, sitting at the main battery, switched out the conventional magazine for one with nuclear warheads. They carefully trained the ship's most useful weapon at the sensor blip 250,000 kilometers away. "Missile battery online, nuclear magazine selected."
"Missile battery online, nuclear selected, sir."
"Very good, ensign. Track and report."
"Aye, sir."
But the signal didn't get closer.
The reason became obvious.
"New signal beta, sir, equatorial horizon nightside." Then: "New signal gamma, south polar horizon."
Interesting. "Break orbit, please, ensign."
"Maneuver break orbit," then: "voice comm request from signal alpha, sir."
Also interesting. "On."
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I'm nearly completely unaware of how command staff should send orders and receive responses, though. What are the roles of command staff on a combat-ready ship, and what does that look like? That may need fixes.
I'm also not sure how a Vargr captain would address a foe, without sounding like he has an inferiority complex. Lots of growling? Have to surf wikipedia for canid psychology.
Very interesting.
I'm also not sure how a Vargr captain would address a foe, without sounding like he has an inferiority complex. Lots of growling? Have to surf wikipedia for canid psychology.
http://www.wolfcountry.net/information/WolfPack.html said:
Very interesting.
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"This is captain Urgash. With whom am I speaking?"
"Urhh, I am captain Khoufak."
At least he speaks Anglic. "Well. Shall we discuss the terms of your surrender?"
Soft Vargr laughter. "Where is the rest of your patrol, captain?"
"Perhaps on the other side of this planet."
"No, I think there's only us on the other side of this planet. And there are no moons. I conclude that you are alone."
So. "I'm looking for a fellow who goes by the name of Bloodmane. I don't suppose you know of him?"
More laughter. "Yes. Yes, I know of him. I think you will know him too, soon enough."
"I suppose so. Does this mean you are not ready to surrender?"
"No, I believe that is premature. Perhaps instead we can discuss your options."
"I really think my path is clear."
"Then you are wrong, captain Urgash. You may turn around and leave -- your ship is probably faster than ours. Or you may surrender -- and we will not harm you or your crew. Other -- choices -- have no certain outcome."
"Urhh, I am captain Khoufak."
At least he speaks Anglic. "Well. Shall we discuss the terms of your surrender?"
Soft Vargr laughter. "Where is the rest of your patrol, captain?"
"Perhaps on the other side of this planet."
"No, I think there's only us on the other side of this planet. And there are no moons. I conclude that you are alone."
So. "I'm looking for a fellow who goes by the name of Bloodmane. I don't suppose you know of him?"
More laughter. "Yes. Yes, I know of him. I think you will know him too, soon enough."
"I suppose so. Does this mean you are not ready to surrender?"
"No, I believe that is premature. Perhaps instead we can discuss your options."
"I really think my path is clear."
"Then you are wrong, captain Urgash. You may turn around and leave -- your ship is probably faster than ours. Or you may surrender -- and we will not harm you or your crew. Other -- choices -- have no certain outcome."
Needs to be tightened up.
* * *
"This is captain Urgash. With whom am I speaking?"
"Urhh, I am captain Khoufak."
At least he speaks Anglic. "Well. Shall we discuss the terms of your surrender?"
Soft Vargr laughter. "Where is the rest of your patrol, captain?"
I'll ignore that one. "I'm looking for a fellow who goes by the name of Bloodmane. I don't suppose you know of him?"
More laughter. "Yes. Yes, I know of him." There was a pause, and then: "Leave, captain Urgash. Your ship can outrun ours. Or surrender, and we will not harm you or your crew. Other choices have no certain outcome."
"Captain, all three ships are de-orbiting at 2Gs."
We still have the high guard position, thought Urgash.
* * *
"This is captain Urgash. With whom am I speaking?"
"Urhh, I am captain Khoufak."
At least he speaks Anglic. "Well. Shall we discuss the terms of your surrender?"
Soft Vargr laughter. "Where is the rest of your patrol, captain?"
I'll ignore that one. "I'm looking for a fellow who goes by the name of Bloodmane. I don't suppose you know of him?"
More laughter. "Yes. Yes, I know of him." There was a pause, and then: "Leave, captain Urgash. Your ship can outrun ours. Or surrender, and we will not harm you or your crew. Other choices have no certain outcome."
"Captain, all three ships are de-orbiting at 2Gs."
We still have the high guard position, thought Urgash.
