Random Homeworld Selection vs Generation

[sudnadja]

I commented on another thread that when generating a homeworld, that generation is very heavily biased toward lower population worlds compared to random sampling across the entire imperial population. Mostly another comment, but a question as well:

If you randomly sampled the population, most characters of a random crew would be from higher population worlds. For example, here is a selection of 15 character homeworlds, selected from TravellerMap with weighting according to population:

[
	{"Sector": "Core", "Name": "Alekvadin", "UWP": "B675AAB-E", "Population": 80000000000, "Tech": 14},
	{"Sector": "Core", "Name": "Capital", "UWP": "A586A98-F", "Population": 60000000000, "Tech": 15},
	{"Sector": "Daib", "Name": "Zhemi", "UWP": "C89AA8C-E", "Population": 90000000000, "Tech": 14},
	{"Sector": "Delp", "Name": "Ziraa", "UWP": "C5559EJ-6", "Population": 9000000000, "Tech": 6},
	{"Sector": "Ilel", "Name": "Ansha", "UWP": "E552ADD-8", "Population": 80000000000, "Tech": 8},
	{"Sector": "Ilel", "Name": "Dilipuu", "UWP": "B672A68-E", "Population": 50000000000, "Tech": 14},
	{"Sector": "Ilel", "Name": "Sashlunsdham", "UWP": "CA8AA96-B", "Population": 70000000000, "Tech": 11},
	{"Sector": "Olde", "Name": "Serpila", "UWP": "A674A98-F", "Population": 50000000000, "Tech": 15},
	{"Sector": "Olde", "Name": "Villan", "UWP": "A4319CF-F", "Population": 8000000000, "Tech": 15},
	{"Sector": "Olde", "Name": "Vleeman", "UWP": "A000A67-E", "Population": 90000000000, "Tech": 14},
	{"Sector": "Reav", "Name": "Khakhan", "UWP": "A988AA8-E", "Population": 90000000000, "Tech": 14},
	{"Sector": "Solo", "Name": "Ganesh", "UWP": "A766A57-E", "Population": 70000000000, "Tech": 14},
	{"Sector": "Solo", "Name": "Lagash", "UWP": "A667A8B-F", "Population": 50000000000, "Tech": 15},
	{"Sector": "Verg", "Name": "Iedde", "UWP": "E62AA88-D", "Population": 90000000000, "Tech": 13},
	{"Sector": "Vlan", "Name": "Aanshi", "UWP": "BA8AA97-C", "Population": 40000000000, "Tech": 12}
]

Selecting randomly for a crew of 50 and you'll have several characters from the same homeworld.

The question: when generating characters do you typically randomly generate a homeworld which does not exist in canon and then that world is incorporated to the local universe, or do you tend to randomly select a world, or do you take an approach similar to what I did here and weight for population (or some other factor)?

 

[Timerover51]

I look at the area of operations of the ship and then decide which world or possibly worlds the crew and ship comes from. In my Out Rim Sector, New Texas has a fair number of ships, mainly crewed by personnel from New Texas. Space Viking crews generally come from the Sword Subsector Weapon Worlds, with some additions. You can always assume a certain number of people looking for what they view as a more exciting and interesting life. Crew of Free Traders may have a bit wider range of home worlds, depending on how widely they travel.

 

[Ulsyus]

I used to do it randomly, but now do it with a view to creating a team of characters that have something that holds them together as a team. So nowdays it's by mutual agreement with the player with me often suggesting a home location.

 

[Keklas Rekobah]

Players that start together as a group on the day of separation from their respective services usually come form the same world - Regina or Terra, for example.

Players that come in later to the group, or those players who need a new character, are given the option of being from the next major port-of-call, letting me select their homeworld, or selecting a world at random. Roll D66...

11 Alell
12 Beck's World
13 Boughene
14 Boughene
15 Dentus
16 Efate
21 Efate
22 Enope
23 Feri
24 Feri
25 Forboldn
26 Hefry
31 Heya
32 Inthe
33 Jenghe
34 Kinorb
35 Knorbes
36 Menorb
41 Moughas
42 Pixie
43 Pixie
44 Regina
45 Regina
46 Rethe
51 Rethe
52 Roup
53 Ruie
54 Uakye
55 Uakye
56 Whanga
61 Wochiers
62 Yorbund
63 Yori
64 Yori
65 Yres
66 Yurst

 

[robject]

Homeworld may be determined in whatever manner seems reasonable, but if we want/need to change it at any point in the game, we will.

The Referee Has Spoken.

 

[Garnfellow]

IMTU Travellers are disproportionately drawn from lower pop worlds -- if you are on a "typical" pop A world, you're more likely to find a suitable career/adventure/excitement right there planetside. Why would you ever leave?

 

[Keklas Rekobah]

IMTU Travellers are disproportionately drawn from lower pop worlds -- if you are on a "typical" pop A world, you're more likely to find a suitable career/adventure/excitement right there planetside. Why would you ever leave?

Too danged many people, consarnit!

 

[Timerover51]

IMTU Travellers are disproportionately drawn from lower pop worlds -- if you are on a "typical" pop A world, you're more likely to find a suitable career/adventure/excitement right there planetside. Why would you ever leave?

I would argue the other way. High Population worlds will have a higher percentage of people that would like to get out of them for places where there is more room. Especially if those High Population worlds are far away in planetary characteristics from an Earth-type planet. I personally would rather live in Alaska than the Far North Suburbs of Chicago, and I have lived in Alaska, but my personal circumstances are such that I cannot. You are always going to have people whose view is "if they can see the smoke of their neighbor's fireplace, it is getting too crowded."

 

[Nathan Brazil]

From a player and GM standpoint, they can do as they like.

Campaigns may vary, but if one talks about the OTU and the 3I:
The T5 rules do not favor people coming high population worlds via random generation. Besides the smaller chance of rolling billions of people, once you do...
1.Red Zones are supposed to be blockaded by the Imperial Navy. No one goes in, no one gets out.
2.Red Zones are generated by Gov+LL of 22+, Amber on a 20 or 21 . High population acts as positive DM to Government Roll which in turn acts as an indirect boost to Law Level.

Even if you are allowed to come from zoned worlds, many zoned worlds provide little benefit added benefot. The trade codes
Fo(Forbidden) trade code adds no background skill
Pz(Puzzled) trade code adds no background skill
Da(Dangerous) trade code adds Fighter
You might get Streetwise for High Population

 

[welsh]

... yet rural areas are empty and cities are crowded.

My father, who taught at a university, always used to ask his first year classes for a show of hands: how many of you come from little farm towns or little towns up north? And how many of you are going back? No hands stay up for that second question.

To me, no one is joining the army or the navy or the marines or (worst of all) the scout service if they have options. Most of the services are drawn from worlds people want to get away from -- oppressive governments, toxic atmospheres, whatever. Relatively few recruits come from the places everyone wants to live.

 

[Condottiere]

What you're looking for is company and conveniences.

Provide for both at an economic rate, and you might resuburbanize, when cars are fast and self automated, and each home creates it's own electricity.

 

[Ulsyus]

To me, no one is joining the army or the navy or the marines or (worst of all) the scout service if they have options. Most of the services are drawn from worlds people want to get away from -- oppressive governments, toxic atmospheres, whatever. Relatively few recruits come from the places everyone wants to live.

That's an interesting set of assumptions, could you expand on them?

 

[welsh]

Not sure why you would call these "assumptions."

Joining any of the services exposes you to danger, takes you far away from your family, etc., etc. The only upside is skills -- skills that in most careers only qualify you for further danger, etc. The enlisted ranks have long been viewed as a destination for people without other options.

My assumption is the Imperium is not a benevolent entity: it doesn't have a safety net for its former Marines, it doesn't offer free advanced prosthetics for sailors who have lost limbs in its service, it doesn't have VA hospitsls. The services are indifferent to your fate.

Why would the average Joe sign up? The average Joe is not a fearless adventurer; he (or she) wants a home and a partner and 1.4 kids and an air/raft in the garage. A career at the pointy end with the Imperial Marines does not offer these things.

Thus, pointy-end careers are more likely to draw their recruits from places that don't offer much opportunity.

 

[Timerover51]

Not sure why you would call these "assumptions."

Joining any of the services exposes you to danger, takes you far away from your family, etc., etc. The only upside is skills -- skills that in most careers only qualify you for further danger, etc. The enlisted ranks have long been viewed as a destination for people without other options.

My assumption is the Imperium is not a benevolent entity: it doesn't have a safety net for its former Marines, it doesn't offer free advanced prosthetics for sailors who have lost limbs in its service, it doesn't have VA hospitsls. The services are indifferent to your fate.

Why would the average Joe sign up? The average Joe is not a fearless adventurer; he (or she) wants a home and a partner and 1.4 kids and an air/raft in the garage. A career at the pointy end with the Imperial Marines does not offer these things.

Thus, pointy-end careers are more likely to draw their recruits from places that don't offer much opportunity.

Then why are large cities in the US leaking people on a steady basis? For that matter, how is the US filling its recruit quotes for your more than somewhat disparaging "pointy -end careers"? I actually signed up for and took ROTC during this thing called the Vietnam War, while a lot of other guys my age were running to Canada. I grew up in a suburb of Chicago, where Chicago was the northern border. Anything more to say would be extremely political.

 

[whartung]

My father, who taught at a university, always used to ask his first year classes for a show of hands: how many of you come from little farm towns or little towns up north? And how many of you are going back? No hands stay up for that second question.

Yet I wonder how many go back anyway.

Simple anecdote, I live in Orange County, in California which hits all of the bullet points of what "Southern California" means to a lot of folks. "Home of Disneyland", etc.

We had a couple move down from Fargo, ND to work with us.

A year later, they went home. They left our bustling metropolis. Left our "perfect weather", back to small town ND (I've been to Fargo, it's not a one stoplight town -- but it's not a bustling metropolis either), back to ND winters, etc.

Lots of folks try to get out of "small towns" either through the military, through school, etc. But end up going back. Family is a powerful draw. Lots of the "plans to stay", but as we all know, life gets in the way of "plans" all the time.

 

[welsh]

Then why are large cities in the US leaking people on a steady basis? For that matter, how is the US filling its recruit quotes for your more than somewhat disparaging "pointy -end careers"? I actually signed up for and took ROTC during this thing called the Vietnam War, while a lot of other guys my age were running to Canada. I grew up in a suburb of Chicago, where Chicago was the northern border. Anything more to say would be extremely political.

I'm not talking about the US, and I quite explicitly explained my assumptions re how the Imperium differs. Neither am I talking about wartime recruiting, which has a different dynamic entirely.

Another point here is that going ROTC isn't the same as going in as an infantry private. Certain Imperial military careers are attractive. Navy officers can advance their social standing. Scout bureaucrats earn good salaries without facing much danger. And so on.

The key point I'm making is this: the population digit doesn't drive the probability a given world is a character's homeworld.

 

[welsh]

Yet I wonder how many go back anyway.

Some do. But let's not waste time debating well documented population trends.

We're talking about recruiting: what young people choose to do when they leave home. Where they go later doesn't matter.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

Yet I wonder how many go back anyway.

Simple anecdote, I live in Orange County, in California which hits all of the bullet points of what "Southern California" means to a lot of folks. "Home of Disneyland", etc.

We had a couple move down from Fargo, ND to work with us.

A year later, they went home. They left our bustling metropolis. Left our "perfect weather", back to small town ND (I've been to Fargo, it's not a one stoplight town -- but it's not a bustling metropolis either), back to ND winters, etc.

Lots of folks try to get out of "small towns" either through the military, through school, etc. But end up going back. Family is a powerful draw. Lots of the "plans to stay", but as we all know, life gets in the way of "plans" all the time.

Fallon, Nevada.

For some, it is plenty. No reason to leave.

 

[Timerover51]

Yet I wonder how many go back anyway.

Simple anecdote, I live in Orange County, in California which hits all of the bullet points of what "Southern California" means to a lot of folks. "Home of Disneyland", etc.

We had a couple move down from Fargo, ND to work with us.

A year later, they went home. They left our bustling metropolis. Left our "perfect weather", back to small town ND (I've been to Fargo, it's not a one stoplight town -- but it's not a bustling metropolis either), back to ND winters, etc.

Lots of folks try to get out of "small towns" either through the military, through school, etc. But end up going back. Family is a powerful draw. Lots of the "plans to stay", but as we all know, life gets in the way of "plans" all the time.

My son lives in Silicon Valley, and my oldest brother lives in Orange County. When I visit them I feel like I am suffocating on too many people and too much traffic in an area. My brother is moving, when he can sell, to rural North Carolina. The problem is selling. There are a lot of people out there who really do not like large cities, and a lot more that really hate the Southern California life style.

 

[Carlobrand]

Gary Indiana Gary Indiana Gary Ind...

Ahem, sorry. Tune's stuck in my head now.

I find it interesting we're talking about homeworlds and comparing them to cities and small towns. Maybe the low pop places are like small towns - or more likely, rural counties - but I don't think comparing the high pop worlds to cities captures the right flavor. The real question isn't whether you'd leave New York or San Francisco for Mayberry, or Mayberry for New York. The question is whether you'd leave Earth and all its diversity and opportunities for a life as a gypsie wandering from world to world, locked up in a little ship with the same several folk for a week at a time, you and those several then dealing with complete strangers in a new place with different gravity and different air and different laws and different and sometimes bizarre culture for the next week or longer. It's more a question of which worlds are more likely to produce folk interested in living a pretty much rootless existence with no long term friends or family other than those within the confines of your ship.