Universal World Profiles
- Thread starter atpollard
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word.
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
Well this one is proposed quite neutrally and unbiasedly by one who obviously isn't, with love or hate choices, and so far love is winning. So if anything this is a "I love..." thread
So far 
Word of warning though, you tread dangerous ground. Keep it civil. Shoot the system, not the adherents or detractors. And expect your opinions to be contradicted no matter what side you line up on.
And all you people in the middle...
...DUCK!
:rofl:
steventirey1985
SOC-12
The UWP numbers do their job well - condensing world description down to fit easily on a LBB page, with the map itself on the facing page. No need to flip pages between the map and the descriptions.
I do, however, prefer actual words. Words give you more flexibility in describing the world.
I voted for words since that is what I prefer, but I can see both being useful.
I do, however, prefer actual words. Words give you more flexibility in describing the world.
I voted for words since that is what I prefer, but I can see both being useful.
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
Interesting, I find the opposite. Most described worlds I come across have already had certain inflections and bias imposed by the words, the author's slant on how the UWP works together, and I find I rarely agree 100%. While if I have a simple UWP put in front of me I feel more freedom to interpret it the way I want to
I've long felt this issue breaks down to love/hate between two camps. Those who long ago memorized the UWP coding and those who for whatever reason haven't. Not having it memorized means it is a chore of looking up each notation in a table, possibly even mixing up the transposition. Having it memorized means looking at the UWP is like reading the specified text notation. It's like shorthand. Quick and simple for those who learned it, painful gobbledegook for those who haven't.
Yep, I'm one who long ago memorized it, all except for the Gov codes, but they make so little sense half the time anyway I tend to ignore it entirely. And for most groups of players there are really only two significant codes in the whole UWP...
Law and Tech = What cool toys can I buy here, and how dangerous are they?
whitedalek
SOC-9
Grand Survey = How current is your world data, anyway ?
"No, no, it's a 5 - you're reading from an old data file, Skipper..."
"No, no, it's a 5 - you're reading from an old data file, Skipper..."
Icosahedron
SOC-14 1K
I'm afraid I fluctuate between the two camps. If I'm in a world-building phase, I have the UWPs memorised and I can read them, but if it's been a few months or years since I last got involved, I have to look them up, which can be a pain.
Nevertheless, it remains a useful shorthand, something you can put on a map or image, store on a database, etc. It's much easier to write and store a load of numbers and a single translation than it is to write out and store hundreds or thousands of individual descriptions.
Having said that, most planets my players have visited, or are about to visit, have detailed descriptions anyway...
See what I mean about fluctuations?
Nevertheless, it remains a useful shorthand, something you can put on a map or image, store on a database, etc. It's much easier to write and store a load of numbers and a single translation than it is to write out and store hundreds or thousands of individual descriptions.
Having said that, most planets my players have visited, or are about to visit, have detailed descriptions anyway...
See what I mean about fluctuations?
Interesting, I find the opposite. Most described worlds I come across have already had certain inflections and bias imposed by the words, the author's slant on how the UWP works together, and I find I rarely agree 100%. While if I have a simple UWP put in front of me I feel more freedom to interpret it the way I want to
I've long felt this issue breaks down to love/hate between two camps. Those who long ago memorized the UWP coding and those who for whatever reason haven't. Not having it memorized means it is a chore of looking up each notation in a table, possibly even mixing up the transposition. Having it memorized means looking at the UWP is like reading the specified text notation. It's like shorthand. Quick and simple for those who learned it, painful gobbledegook for those who haven't.
Yep, I'm one who long ago memorized it, all except for the Gov codes, but they make so little sense half the time anyway I tend to ignore it entirely. And for most groups of players there are really only two significant codes in the whole UWP...
Law and Tech = What cool toys can I buy here, and how dangerous are they?
The biggest problem with the UWP is that I transpose random numbers when the number string is over 5 or 6 characters long. Also, I cant remember what all of the numbers mean, I usually remember what part of the UWP means, but I can't remember what all of the numbers mean. Which leads me to have to look the bugger up in the books, many of which assume that I can remember what the stinking string of numbers mean. Which leads me to pulling out LBB3 from OT after cursing up a storm at all of the other stinky editions that don't put the info that I am looking for where I can find it.
And don't even get me started on trying to find where in gods name the Stellar Info is hiding. It's like the freaking authors assumed that everyone has a college degree in Astronomy. Could it hurt to have the info somewhere that is easy to find and explains it in an easy to understand way.
Stupid stuff like this has hurt each edition of the rules since OT. Stuff that appears in Tables need to be explained. Tables need to be somewhat self explanatory or they need to help explain something that is in the rules. The rules need to be complete enough that the average player who has never picked up the rules can both find the rule they are looking for and have the rule explained in such a way that they don't need to post question on a fan forum.
/rant off
Oh and just before everyone jumps on the thread to help me find out about stellar color and brighness, I ended up finding a beginning Astronomy website that explained how stars were categorized. Damn if that shouldn't have been in the rules somewhere. Oh and I own pretty much everything published since OT including much of the Digest group stuff.
PS can you tell I have been frustrated by the Rules? Goddess about the only ruleset that is in anyway fairly clear was OT. The rest of the rulesets have been rubbish in so many ways.
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RainOfSteel
SOC-14 1K
It depends on what you mean.
If you want...
1) To review an entire subsector quickly
2) If you want to give a tidbit or two about a main world for the short time the players are going to be there
3) If you are doing data analysis on large numbers of worlds
...a UWP listing is excellent.
If you need detailed physical and social detail for a world right this second, then the UWP will not help.
For MegaTraveller, they actually made an extended UWP that included all sorts of additional information. It's regrettable it was never generated for all worlds. I would say it's regrettable that all UWPs for each solar system's bodies weren't generated, but based on what we have learned about solar system evolution and content since then, the old CT and MT systems for generating solar system information are pretty much obsolete, leaving us the opportunity to do a better job now.
RainOfSteel
SOC-14 1K
A slightly different format on the display of the UWPs, like adding a hyphen between the physical and social stats, would have helped.
That information is in Book 6: Scouts on page 42 under Spectral Type and Stellar Luminosity.
Should we expunge 'love' as well for balance?We could neuter all emotions to 'tend to slightly favor' or 'tend to not favor so much'.
On a serious note:
I tried to keep my thumb off the scale when wording the question since I really wanted to know how many other people really don't like using those strings of numbers.
In a conversation, someone suggested that basically everyone loved hexadecimal strings - and as some have suggested, the longer the better - and I was 'handicapped' by an inability to read them. In my defense, I actually can read most of the string (I tend not to remember the government codes and need to look them up each time) but I really do not favor the efficiency of Hexadecimal strings over easy to read paragraphs.
A perfect example, in my opinion, is the CT:High Guard USP string of numbers vs. the CT:The Traveller Book starship paragraph. The small extra effort to plug words into a fill-in-the-blank paragraph results in a 4-6 line description of a ship that is easy to read, compared to a 3-4 line string of numbers that needs to be decoded.
So why can't worlds be presented in a 'starship paragraph' format?
As noted, I am in the minority on this issue (which I can accept) and yet, I am also not alone in my opinion.
Gray Lensman
SOC-13
QUACK!!
I find them convienent for quick info but use write ups to give players the feel of the place, usually in the format of a encyclopedia entry combined with a short tourists brochure. And I do the entire star system as well, not just the mainworld.
And since my ruleset is a mishmash of every thing from CT to TNE I have no problem changing the parts that make no sense.
And yes, I memorized them long ago, including the government codes (although for the life of me I can't remember why since that is probably the thing I end up changing the most :rofl
.I really don't think anyone would reasonably say that the UPP is meant to stand on its own, forever amen. When you had an adventure happening somewhere, you had a fuller world description available (in the printed adventures) and in terms of your own GMing, well, you do your own.
I have always assumed that the GM was meant to flesh out those UPPs with detailed descriptions of their own when necessary - but to give every world that treatment on the off chance that someone would go there? That's just plumb silly (especially if you're tied to what, an A4 format with 48 pages or so?)
Also - although I'm not a huge OTU fan - I always appreciated the flexibility the UPP offered in interpretation. Even with all the worlds statted out, the Marches and the Rim offered a lot of room for creativity.
And for a lot of adventures - ship-based ones, for instance - the worlds are next best thing to irrelevant, so all that detail would be wasted.
Certainly a personal preference thing.
In the UWP, just like in the UPP (Soc), a symbol (number of letter) represents a word or phrase - or a relative value (i.e. high tech, mostly water, strong, intelligent, etc.). Not always the best for people, but then a good portion of the world actually uses just such a system everyday for their writing.
UWPs are both useful for conciseness - one page versus 20? - and for direct comparisons. Pretty natural - 5 is greater than 1; E is greater then D; letters are greater than 9 (a lot like face cards in card games). Also, its a flavor thing - along the lines of techno-babble.
I, for one, don't have the codes memorized and even would have to look up the order (size, pop, etc.). However, I've used a computer to provide the descriptions based on UWPs for ~30 years. Definitely prefer UWPs to big globs of text saying the exact same thing spread out over massive books to plow through (with the computer providing virtually the same thing, but with little effort).
I do most math in my head, but most folks prefer a calculator. UWPs are like that for me - I prefer a computer to 'spell out' the results. But that doesn't mean I dislike UWPs any more than folks 'strongly dislike' addition signs (just math in their head).
Manually, one simply needs a reference sheet as with many things in an RPG. (Cut out a UWP sided hole and line things to tables - or make a fancy round tool with smaller rounds showing descriptions when rotated to the given codes.)
UPPS and UWPs are handy - though, it is good that Traveller creators didn't decide to use hexadecimal for skills!
BTW: UWP is not hexadecimal. In fact, TL is probably the only part that has a direct letter = number correlation like hexadecimal - but, like many of the 'digits', can exceed F. In hexadecimal, AF equates to 175 decimal or 10101111 binary - in Traveller it just represents two different values, words or phrases simply encoded with the independent A and F symbols. So its really not a computer or math thing at all - just symbolic shorthand.
In the UWP, just like in the UPP (Soc), a symbol (number of letter) represents a word or phrase - or a relative value (i.e. high tech, mostly water, strong, intelligent, etc.). Not always the best for people, but then a good portion of the world actually uses just such a system everyday for their writing.
UWPs are both useful for conciseness - one page versus 20? - and for direct comparisons. Pretty natural - 5 is greater than 1; E is greater then D; letters are greater than 9 (a lot like face cards in card games). Also, its a flavor thing - along the lines of techno-babble.
I, for one, don't have the codes memorized and even would have to look up the order (size, pop, etc.). However, I've used a computer to provide the descriptions based on UWPs for ~30 years. Definitely prefer UWPs to big globs of text saying the exact same thing spread out over massive books to plow through (with the computer providing virtually the same thing, but with little effort).
I do most math in my head, but most folks prefer a calculator. UWPs are like that for me - I prefer a computer to 'spell out' the results. But that doesn't mean I dislike UWPs any more than folks 'strongly dislike' addition signs (just math in their head).
Manually, one simply needs a reference sheet as with many things in an RPG. (Cut out a UWP sided hole and line things to tables - or make a fancy round tool with smaller rounds showing descriptions when rotated to the given codes.)
UPPS and UWPs are handy - though, it is good that Traveller creators didn't decide to use hexadecimal for skills!
BTW: UWP is not hexadecimal. In fact, TL is probably the only part that has a direct letter = number correlation like hexadecimal - but, like many of the 'digits', can exceed F. In hexadecimal, AF equates to 175 decimal or 10101111 binary - in Traveller it just represents two different values, words or phrases simply encoded with the independent A and F symbols. So its really not a computer or math thing at all - just symbolic shorthand.
ACtually, it pretty much is hex... because size can only hit 10, Atmo can only ht 15, hydro is capped at 10, pop can only hit 10, government 15, and TL was capped at 15... only law wasn't. ANd it can only hit 20 (10+5+5); the methodology was explicitly stated to have been inspired by Hexidecimal.
Tho it's properly some other base... what's the greek for 34?
I know the various U_P sequences started as hexadecimal, but at the end of the day, they became "base 34" numbers - digits 0-9a-z, minus I and O. Which, since you don't do math with them, is largely irrelevant except to math geeks like me.
I personally find UPP + Trade Codes to be almost descriptive enough, though I can never remember the Atmo and Gov definitions. If the players know that their next jump is to a "Low Tech Garden World with a class C starport", that's a pretty decent capsule description. They can get the more detailed version if they are interested.
I'd like to see a few extra codes to complete the "sketch" though, like "Unbreathable Atmosphere", "High/Low Gravity", etc. But though those would all be referenced to Human needs, so might not be useful.
I personally find UPP + Trade Codes to be almost descriptive enough, though I can never remember the Atmo and Gov definitions. If the players know that their next jump is to a "Low Tech Garden World with a class C starport", that's a pretty decent capsule description. They can get the more detailed version if they are interested.
I'd like to see a few extra codes to complete the "sketch" though, like "Unbreathable Atmosphere", "High/Low Gravity", etc. But though those would all be referenced to Human needs, so might not be useful.
