How Often Do You Use Extended System Generation?
- Thread starter Vargas
- Start date
Depends upon the game. When I ran my Elestrial Concordat, vital. It gave me 100+ bodies in 8 systems.
How much travel/adventure was involved with those 100+ worlds?
Frankymole
SOC-12
I usually did it with a few clicks using 'Heaven and Earth' - sadly that doesn't work on my new computer's OS.
It only took a few minutes to create entire systems.
Is there a similarly computerised version of Book 6 and World Builder's Handbook anywhere? Or was H&E the only one?
It only took a few minutes to create entire systems.
Is there a similarly computerised version of Book 6 and World Builder's Handbook anywhere? Or was H&E the only one?
In most of the games that I have been a player, I haven't even needed the entire profile for the planet, let alone the whole system ... Starport class, atmosphere and trade codes are all most games need (with an atmosphere other than Thin/Standard/Dense meaning you stay in the Starport indoor urban adventure.)
As a personal revolt against past experiences, I am looking for something closer to Aramis' 8 detailed system universe.
Supplement Four
SOC-14 5K
Real important when I'm setting up a sandbox. I'll detail an entire subsector and those worlds outside the subsector but within jump range. Creating the details tells me what's there, gives me ideas, and helps me create the environment for the players.
I guess hydrosphere and GG presence are also important, should you want to perform wilderness refuelling. Tis aside, I agree with you for most times I've played Traveller.
But sometimes you want to conduct an intrasystem adventure, and, if so, it comes to be important to have the system fully develpoed.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
Depends on the adventure. My first concern is habitability and is there a gas giant.
If it is an asteroid belt, then generate several of the larger asteroids, using the 2D6 die roll for hundred of kilometers, not thousand of miles, and determine where they are in relation to each other. Generally for that, I use a d4 and figure out which quadrant each asteroid is in. Within the quadrant a d30 to figure distance in millions of miles, if more than one large asteroid in quadrant. With an asteroid belt, I go with a gas giant always being present and in the orbit further out.
I keep thinking about having a sort of sub-system with the gas giant and its possible satellites, assuming that the gas giant atmosphere is being mined for chemicals, with processing on one of the satellites.
If it is an asteroid belt, then generate several of the larger asteroids, using the 2D6 die roll for hundred of kilometers, not thousand of miles, and determine where they are in relation to each other. Generally for that, I use a d4 and figure out which quadrant each asteroid is in. Within the quadrant a d30 to figure distance in millions of miles, if more than one large asteroid in quadrant. With an asteroid belt, I go with a gas giant always being present and in the orbit further out.
I keep thinking about having a sort of sub-system with the gas giant and its possible satellites, assuming that the gas giant atmosphere is being mined for chemicals, with processing on one of the satellites.
In one case, the two subsystems were 6 G-Weeks apart, but jump was usually used between them. I've never worked out the trade flows, but that system has 3 habitable bodies, and several inhabited bodies due to various conditions. Plus NIL on one.
salochin999
SOC-13
I like to have an adventure idea for each system in advance and if nothing in the system stats gives me an idea for an adventure hook for that system then i'll play around with extended system gen until I get something.
Enoki
SOC-14 1K
Virtually all the time. It is what makes a system worth staying in and doing stuff in many times. In fact, one current game I am doing has the players deciding whether to risk going to the class A starport at Dorsey or trying to refuel off a secondary planet. The extendeded generation system is what makes this possible.
So far...
Never, but always do extended system gen of the details and sometimes I even work out the orbits and such. Then again, I dig Pocket Empires so that extended system info has a lot value to me.
salochin999
SOC-13
c. 50%
There's no reason you can't set adventures on "Coruscant" type worlds but I generally prefer it if the Coruscants are the source of the jobs but the job itself takes place somewhere more Tattoine-like (as the patrons will generally have more suitable NPCs available for Coruscant type jobs imo) so if the job is to take place in one of the Coruscant-like systems then I will usually set the job itself on a space station, moon, research lab etc in the system but not on the main world.
Although I don't necessarily use extended system generation for this it is good sometimes to generate ideas.
So another way to put that would be I often use extended system generation on the Coruscant-like systems but less often on the Tattoine-like systems.
Frankymole
SOC-12
A method of generating not only the current distance between bodies/facilities in a system, but the amount and type of traffic between them, would be useful.
Zephyrinus
SOC-6
Whenever I have time.
My prep time is limited to what I can squeeze in around my other obligations. If I have time to do extended system generation I do. For systems my players frequent, I inevitably have extended systems; and we use them all the time. I have campaigns that spend years of game time (sometimes real time too!) in just one system.
When players unexpectedly jump to a nearby system (or not so nearby now that some of them have high jump capability!) I'll just rely on the mainworld UWP and gas giants/belts numbers. ... but that is purely out of necessity.
My prep time is limited to what I can squeeze in around my other obligations. If I have time to do extended system generation I do. For systems my players frequent, I inevitably have extended systems; and we use them all the time. I have campaigns that spend years of game time (sometimes real time too!) in just one system.
When players unexpectedly jump to a nearby system (or not so nearby now that some of them have high jump capability!) I'll just rely on the mainworld UWP and gas giants/belts numbers. ... but that is purely out of necessity.
Speaking from memory (and only about MT):
In HT there is at least one adventure based on exploration of one not main planet in a system.
Assignment Vigilante begins with another such adventure, and some of the explanations given are from non main planet bodies in the system.
saundby
SOC-14 1K
For my ATU, I always do it. Most of my adventures have interplanetary aspects to them. Moving to a new system is often a matter of 'getting out of Dodge.'
For characters without ships, or with a non-jump capable ship, there are many more adventures. Plus tech levels matter more.
For characters without ships, or with a non-jump capable ship, there are many more adventures. Plus tech levels matter more.
A complete system has never been of importance, yet. The star(s), yes. A secondary world, gas giant, or belt, yes quite often. The whole thing? Never (yet).
Often enough that it's worth having a non-mainworld handy, and knowing where the belts and GGs are.
My two groups' most recent games both involved secondary worlds: one with a farming world in the Rhinom system, and one was the Chamax Plague.
Frankymole
SOC-12
JTAS #18 has an article on "Travelling Without Jumping" by J. Andrew Keith, well worth a read. It says that players who only go for parsec-spanning adventures are missing the "great range of space", because of the amount and variety of non-mainworld stuff there can be. "All the worlds discussed above contain the seeds of an adventure. The referee should consider interplanetary travel and adventure as a good alternative to jumping over to the next star. This isn't to say that every system should be treated in enormous depth. Nor should players be forced to stick around long after they've grown thoroughly sick of wherever they've been stranded. But, used with restraint and moderation, the extra attention to detail involved in creating more than one planet for each system is a valuable addition for any campaign."
