[new alien race] Dralasites for Classic Traveller

[ShapeShifter]

Dralasites for Classic Traveller

After my first attempt at making an alien race for CT ("Stick-Men") was a calamitous failure, I thought I'd go once more into the breach and try again. Here is my take on Star Frontiers' blobby, amoeboid race DRALASITE.

I did a search and found a post or two wherein someone tried their hand at a conversion to T20, but it was from 2003, IIRC, and the links were dead.

Homeworld: Dralas-4 (I just made that up. If anyone is aware of the canon homeworld let me know.)

STR 2D+1
DEX 2D-1
END 2D
INT 2D+1
EDU 2D+1
ELA 2D (see below for ELAsticity)

• smell, very important sense. Can 'smell-see' in dark; ID beings (or objects) by smell alone.
• sensitive to vibrations (tremor-sense?).
• colour-blind.
• value ideas, philosophy, knowledge very highly.
• enjoy steam-baths.
• have unusual sense of humour.
• 1.3 m tall; 1 m wide.
• 65 kg.
• 250 year life-span.
• repro: hermaphroditic, budding. Gender phases at different time of life: early (male, age 0-83); middle (female, age 84-166); late (neutral, age 167-250).
• body temp: 30 degrees C.
• default morphology: 3 "legs"; 2 "arms."
• a limb can be up to 1m long, and can be extended even further by 50cm for each ELA score over 7.

[u][b]ELA........Additional Extension[/b][/u]
8..........+50cm
9..........+100cm
10 (A).....+150cm
11 (B).....+200cm
12 (C).....+250cm

• ELAsticity (NEW STAT) also determines the number of extra limbs which can be formed.

• no. of extra limbs = ELA/3, rounded down

[u][b]ELA....extra limb(s)[/b][/u]
2......0
3......1
4......1
5......1
6......2
7......2
8......2
9......3
10.....3
11.....3
12.....4

• The ELAsticity score diminishes by -1 with each gender-phase of life. E.g.: A PC Dralasite is 52 years old and male and his ELA score is 9. Thus he can grow 3 extra limbs and these limbs can extend an extra +100cm. In his next (female) phase her ELA score drops to 8. She is now only capable of forming 2 extra limbs and all limbs can only extend +50 cm. In the Dralasite's last (neuter) phase the ELAsticity score drops again to 7. It can still form 2 extra limbs but is no longer entitled to an additional extension.
• growing/absorbing a limb or increasing/decreasing the length of a limb is near instantaneous. (In the official SF rules it states that it takes a whole 5 minutes[!], but for greater playability I whittled it down to virtually nil.)
• a Dralasite can compress his entire body flat down to a width of 15.2cm, spreading out to a 4m^2 area "puddle", or elongated "tube" 15.24cm in diameter and 4 meters long.
• can only fire 2 weapons at once.
• can hold objects in all limbs designated "arms."
• The physical stats suffer a -1 decrease with each further gender phase.
• INT and EDU increase by +1 with each further gender phase.
• have ability to detect lies: 1 in 21 chance (a roll of 4 on 4D). Ability can be improved over time.

[b][u]AGE	chance (in 4D)	Percentage equivalent[/u][/b]
0-25	1 in 21		5%
26-50	2 in 21		10%
51-75	3 in 21		14%
76-100	4 in 21		19%
101-125	5 in 21		24%
126-150	6 in 21		29%
151-175	7 in 21		33%
176-200	8 in 21		38%
201-225	9 in 21		43%
226-250	10 in 21	48%

This time, I hope the build it not harshly deemed to be a dreaded "Mary Sue".

If anyone knows of more SF crunchy details on this race that can be converted feel free to chime in.

 

[FreeTrav]

Dralasites for Classic Traveller

STR 2D+1
DEX 2D-1
END 2D
INT 2D+1
EDU 2D+1
ELA 2D (see below for ELAsticity)

No SOC?

• repro: hermaphroditic, budding. Gender phases at different time of life: early (male, age 0-83); middle (female, age 84-166); late (neutral, age 167-250).

I'm not sure that 'hermaphroditic' and 'budding' are mutually consistent for reproduction. 'Hermaphroditic' implies sexual reproduction; budding implies asexual reproduction. If these are to be reconciled, you'll need to explain. Also, 'budding' suggests a unicellular creature; the existence of gender in the species suggests a multicellular creature.

• ELAsticity (NEW STAT) also determines the number of extra limbs which can be formed.

• no. of extra limbs = ELA/3, rounded down

I think this is overly complicated. Why not just make ELA a 1D roll, ELA= # of additional pseudopodia possible, 100 + (50 * (ELA-1)) the maximum length of any pseudopod?

Since they seem to rely on scent fairly heavily, instead of just declaring that they have a thus-in-so-many chance of detecting lies, and that they can identify based on scent, make the ability essentially universal within the species among adults, and create some appropriate scent-centric skills for them to use for various purposes when among aliens. Also, you should create career tables for them; the standard unmodified career tables can't really be used.

Once you've cleaned them up, I'll be willing to look at them again with an eye to posting them to Freelance Traveller.

 

[ShapeShifter]

Okay, round two. I tried to post yesterday, but the computer wigged out and lost it.

1) No SOC. I've heard and read that alien races can have other kinds of attributes. Not everybody's going to be in the social hierarchy of the Imperium, right?

2) I listed "hermaphroditic" and "budding" because that was given in the Expanded Core Rules for SF. I'm just going with what is presented in the original TSR publication, bizarre as it is.

3) Again the SF rules mention that they have a 5% chance of detecting lies. How? I have no clue, but I adapted it to 1 in 21 (4 on 4D) since that's pretty close to 5% (0.047619048). Perhaps the mendacious emit a peculiar odour while in the act. LOL.

4) And "100+(50*(ELA-1))" is not complicated? Odd, that.

 

[FreeTrav]

Okay, round two. I tried to post yesterday, but the computer wigged out and lost it.

1) No SOC. I've heard and read that alien races can have other kinds of attributes. Not everybody's going to be in the social hierarchy of the Imperium, right?

This is true - but there is often some sort of attribute that serves the same or similar purpose for other social hierarchies - for example, the Classic Traveller Vargr used CHA (Charisma) instead. Whatever the particular attribute is, it's generally used to determine the relative social positions of the sophont, within a specified cultural context. How do you indicate that THIS being is the local equivalent of Baron and should be addressed most obsequiously if you enjoy being alive, and THAT one right over there isn't worth talking to because he's the local equivalent of a homeless druggie?

2) I listed "hermaphroditic" and "budding" because that was given in the Expanded Core Rules for SF. I'm just going with what is presented in the original TSR publication, bizarre as it is.

It's odd, and suggests that the TSR folks were looking for "weird" rather than "consistent", but a referee who wanted to could probably come up with some justification for it. I've never been a fan of weird for weird's sake, but that's me. The Latin for it, I believe, is De gustibus non disputandum est. Or something close to that; I may have some verb endings wrong.

3) Again the SF rules mention that they have a 5% chance of detecting lies. How? I have no clue, but I adapted it to 1 in 21 (4 on 4D) since that's pretty close to 5% (0.047619048). Perhaps the mendacious emit a peculiar odour while in the act. LOL.

Ummm... no, I think your math is wrong - with 4D, there are 1296 possible rolls, and only one of them adds up to 4, so that's closer to 1 in 1000 than to 5%. If you say "roll exactly 2 or exactly 12 on 2D", you get two rolls in 36, or 1 in 18, which is slightly more than 5% (which would be 1 in 20).

4) And "100+(50*(ELA-1))" is not complicated? Odd, that.

I've always been of the opinion that a four-function math formula universally applied is less complex than a lookup table that only applies for certain rolls... I'd have made the formula even simpler, but I wanted to make sure I accommodated the documented minimum extension that seems to be possible. It does switch the process from a bell curve to a linear curve, though, which may be considered important.



Just on general principles, when converting anything - characters, aliens, beasts, machinery, whatever - from one system to another, my tendency is to make the conversion roughly comparable in "power" in the target game as the original is in the source game, and preserve as much of the flavor (abilities, documented behaviors, et cetera) as reasonably possible - but don't try to do an exact conversion, if for no other reason than the source and target systems may have completely different core philosophies, both in terms of what they "model" and how they do it.

That in itself is a philosophical decision, and you may not agree - but my experience has been that the results are better.