World Writeups

[robject]

Like some of you, I've always had trouble writing up worlds. How much detail is enough? How much is too much? How to moderate oneself, and yet provide enough of a sketch to make the description generally useful? Etc etc.

To get some answers to my questions, I examined the world writeups in the classic adventures. They're generally two to three pages long, and include a map. I broke the content down into categories and got these general guidelines -- which may have changed substantially in the intervening 30 years, but it's a start:

World Writeup Framework

1. Introduction

1a. Vital statistics - a text expansion of the UWP

<world name/location> is the <optional descriptor like "busy/infrequently visited/bustling"> (main)world in the # system, situated <general disposition of its subsector location> in the # subsector in the # (sector). <comment about its standing in the domain, sector, or subsector if significant>. Library data indicate the UWP for the world is

<name> <hex> <UWP> <codes etc>

<world name> is a (small/medium/large)-sized <water?/desert?> world with (no/a thin/a standard/a dense) atmosphere. Having a diameter of # kilometers and a circumference of # kilometers, it has an atmosphere with a (standard/exotic/etc) gas mixture <comment about noxious elements, corrosives, etc, if need be>. Seas of <water/whatever> cover #% of the world's surface. The planet (is uninhabited/has a # population of #) and has <government type, law level, tech level>. <comments about colony adaptations to inhospitable facets of the world, such as gravity or atmosphere or not enough living space (tiny asteroid or water world)>.

The planet has a # hour day and is # million kilometers from its central star. The local year is # standard days/years. It has # satellites, <general size or type of each; i.e. both small rocks, etc>. <significant or interesting information regarding the satellites, if any>


1b. Starport descriptive text

(10 to 90 words)

(<mainworld> (boasts/has/supports/etc)) OR (<starport name> is) a class # starport, <comment on location and/or history if significant> <comment on the reason for the quality if interesting>. <comment on current use and plans for the starport in the future>.

1c. System information

(10 to 140 words)

The system consists of a <brightness or class, etc> central star, a total of # planets, and # satellites. (Only) # is in the system's life zone, <disposition of life in the remainder of the system>. (In addition,) the system has <no/number> gas giant(s) <comment if significant>.

2. Maps

(Starport map and/or world map)

3. Physical Description

3a. Terrain

(100 to 360 words)

<standard map is shown on page #>

(If desert/water world) Most of <world> is (desert/ocean) / <world> is a <water/desert> world. <comment>

(If wet world) The equator passes through # out of # continents.

<general characteristics of hemispheres and/or important continents (minerals, settlements, urbanization, etc), or perhaps lack of knowledge about some areas>.
(The Sea/Seas/The Ocean): <general sizes or size ranges, how deep/shallow the seas are, dropoffs, trenches, whatever, if significant>. <are there dry "salt seas" in desert locations now? etc> <comment about polar icecaps. both poles? are they fragile? thick? accessible?>

<any significant geologic activity in the recent geological past?>

<Wetlands notes, if significant>
<Savannah notes, if significant>
<Desert notes, if significant>
<Foothills notes, if significant>
<Mountain range notes, if significant>

3b. Climate and weather

(80 to 360 words)

<world> is a (inferno/warm/temperate/pleasant/cold/freezing) world, with an average temperature of # C and (wide/normal/little) variation through the course of the year. Temperature decreases closer to the poles (# degrees per hex) and as altitude increases (# degrees per 1000m altitude).
<Occasional/Periodic/Common/etc>, (predictable/unpredictable), disturbances in the atmosphere produce <periods of storm and wet weather/whatever> <how bad do they get?>.
<rules governing weather based on proximity to oceans or seas or desert, etc>
<significant weather events, such as flash floods & heat prostration>


3c. Flora and Fauna

(30 to 100 words)

The animal and plant life of <world> is <unremarkable/short generalized description> (and corresponds to standard animal encounter tables) (with the following exceptions: <list terrain-related encounter tables>).

---OR---

The major effects on the evolution of local life formas have been the world's [list of <atmosphere/gravity/oceans/deserts/satellites/whatever>]. <is most life still in the seas, or has land life proliferated?> <how has land life adapted to the world's characteristics?>

4. City map (optional)

5. Social description

5a. Settlements and Government

(300 words)

<Capital city name, location, etc> <how is the world run?>

5b. History

(240 to 480 words)

<Most important date and its circumstances regarding this world: 1 paragraph>
<First known contact or settlement date and circumstances: 1 paragraph>
<1 or 2 Highlight(s) from then to now: 3 paragraphs>

 

[Plankowner]

That seems like a reasonable starting point for a world that you expect the players to visit. If you have a map generator of some kind, it can be pretty quick.

I tend to be short on descriptions ahead of time and then have to make things up on the fly, which can be fun, but tends to make a lot of worlds similar.

For my upcoming campaign, I am NOT going to use the published data for the Marches, other than the UWPs. I want to try and work them out myself. I have about half-a-dozen completed so far (mostly 1 page descriptions).

I think I will go back and use the standard format that you have above.

THANX!

 

[Agemegos]

I start with a brief like this, for players to skim ahead of a casual visit. And for a world where the PCs are going to spend any considerable time, I produce a Handbook entry like this. When required, I produce a system table like this and a page of system affairs and history, then attach a one-page brief on each inhabited planet, to produce a system brief.

Subscribers to Pyramid might like to check out a full world description I had published there. When I feel a bit more comfortable about the OTU I might consider something similar for JTAS.

 

[robject]

I start with a brief like this, for players to skim ahead of a casual visit. And for a world where the PCs are going to spend any considerable time, I produce a Handbook entry like this. When required, I produce a system table like this and a page of system affairs and history, then attach a one-page brief on each inhabited planet, to produce a system brief.

Yowza, now that's comprehensive!

 

[Icosahedron]

I start with a brief like this, for players to skim ahead of a casual visit. And for a world where the PCs are going to spend any considerable time, I produce a Handbook entry like this.

Hmm. I think I give my players too much freedom. There's no way I'd go to all that trouble and then find that the players decide to go somewhere else. I might have those details in a nebulous format in my head, but I just couldn't be bothered writing it all down (and tying myself to it) unless it was essential.

This is typical of the data entry they get from me, all else is handed out in dribs and drabs via role-play:

Name: Damaan.
Location: NT-3-1409
UPP: B-765351-2 NI NB GG

Starport: The starport is essentially designed for military use, with civilians tolerated for the trade advantages they bring. Facilities for civilian use are severely limited.

Surface conditions: Damaan is an average size world with a standard atmosphere, temperate climate and 50% standing water.

Demographics: There are some 2000 to 5000 inhabitants, depending on military and seasonal fluctuations. All inhabitants are employed in support of military operations and are under martial law. The only population centre of note is Damaan Town, where the starport and naval base are located, though there are a few outlying rural settlements providing for the planets agricultural needs. The enclave is located on a single offshore island, and the remainder of the planet is a RED ZONE under military jurisdiction.

Laws: The starport is LL8, but the town and enclave is LL1. Although there are few restrictions in the rural community, its low tech level imposes restrictions of its own.

Technology: The starport maintains adequate levels of technology for its needs, but Damaan Town and its nearby settlements are TL2, using domesticated livestock, wooden carts and hand implements. [medieval]

Trade: Damaan is non-industrial, but wishes to uplift its technology. It prefers to do this by means of importing materials and technology rather than finished goods, though there are exceptions, particularly leisure items and products necessary for the upkeep of the starport.

Military Operations: As a naval base, the planet has a strong military presence. In particular, travel abroad from the island enclave is strictly prohibited.

 

[Agemegos]

Hmm. I think I give my players too much freedom. There's no way I'd go to all that trouble and then find that the players decide to go somewhere else.

I only go as far as a full handbook entry for a planet where I am sure for whatever reason that the PCs are going to stay for some time. Sometimes I am sure of that because they are Imperial Servants, and will go where their duty calls them (e.g. "Well done, guys. You get a congratulatory letter in your personnel file, and a transfer to more important work. You have travel vouchers, and six weeks to get to Paradise IX. There is no extra pay." or "Well, there is one contract that will keep the Regiment together: seems there is a civil war on Woodhouse.") Other times I am sure because the players of their own free wills saw themselves off a big job.

Over the years (it will be twenty this August) I have accumulated full handbook entries for only eight systems: Tau Ceti, BD+56°2996 ("Woodhouse"), Delta Pavonis ("Navabharata"), Zeta Tucanae ("Paradise I"), Lambda Aurigae, 39 Tauri ("Cockaigne"), CD -23°11940 ("Nahal"), and Gamma Coronae ("Loess"), which shows how much more often systems need only a brief, or even just half a page of notes.

There is one special thing about full handbook entries. Having invested the effort in making one, you can reuse and reuse it. Make a few judicious decisions about what systems to generate in such detail, and how to represent them, and they can become major features of your campaign: places that players know about and take into account in making plans etc. When players in my later campaigns were choosing planets from which their characters came, they showed a noted tendency to come from worlds with full descriptions rather than ones with only brief descriptions, and to come from those more often than they took up my offer to generate their characters' homeworlds themselves. And I recall only two case of a PC being generated as having come from a planet that I had mentioned by never circulated a description of.

One of the clean little secrets of manipulative GMing is that PCs are attracted to information.

 

[Mithras]

Agemegos - toomuch info!!

I produce a write-up,maybe 100 words. My aim is two-fold, 1) to give an idea of what it is like to walk on the surface through typical terrains,and b) what conflicts exist in the society.

With those 2 bits of info, I can set adventures there easily. Everything else for me,is just fluff.

I certainly try to make every world different. No two worlds should be alike, yes, an Earthlike world may look like another - Regina/Earth,but I don't play that way. I try to give every world a hook, gepgraphic, geologic,astronomic,that colours the entire world.

eg. I have Phlume,C887624,an agro world with decent population and direct democracy.Farming utopia? I don't like blue skies and waving wheat fields if I can helpit: so my write up sketches out a description of the landscape giving the players an instant 'lock on' of Phlume. It circles a red giant, the sun dominates the sky.The sky is deep purple,the land is red, red, red and its a fierce desert.Like the Nile, a single river curls through the desert from the vast Shield Mountains. Rain falls high on thiese towering uninhabitable peaks and the farmers live on the banks of this fertile river.

As long as I have a hook for social tension and for the landscape,I'm ready to run.

EDITLUS,the more details you create,the more I think I will be constrained.Leave things open and I can drop adventure ideas in wherever I like.

 

[BeRKA]

Now what we need is a perl-program that will generate this information automatically. The input should be the UWP, and then the program would randomly select from a number of choices that would fit the UWP.

Edible poets anyone?

 

[robject]

Now what we need is a perl-program that will generate this information automatically. The input should be the UWP, and then the program would randomly select from a number of choices that would fit the UWP.

Edible poets anyone?

We can do that.

 

[Mithras]

Is that eligible... or very tasty

Now what we need is a perl-program that will generate this information automatically. The input should be the UWP, and then the program would randomly select from a number of choices that would fit the UWP.

Edible poets anyone?

 

[BeRKA]

It's "Edible poets" like in;
"Learorce, TL: 5, Large Rodents, Multi-Government, Learorce is reasonably notable for its great dense forests but scourged by deadly edible poets."

 

[Icosahedron]

Obviously related to Quator's edible arts graduates...

 

[BeRKA]

Auto generating world writeups!
Has anyone given this any thought lately?

 

[robject]

Auto generating world writeups!
Has anyone given this any thought lately?

In fact, very recently. I wrote a short Perl script that auto-generates the more solid, straightforwardly computable data, and leaves the more human-oriented parts to me, because I have 20+ worlds to synopsize and don't want to do it all by hand.

There are bits I still want to add, such as surface gravity, atmospheric pressure, and main atmospheric constituents.

 

[Commander Truestar]

heh,

Given what you folks do, I am on board with some while I would likely scare others. My write ups start with the base facts about the system and its "galactic geography" as well as running it through Stuart's H&E for maps and such. Once I have placed that, I then try to build out a pocket history of the world since settlement and a storyline of the way the world ended up as it is, adding in inter-relations with neighbors which helps me define the trade going on in that cluster/region/etc...
Then I write up another pocket description covering the social and soft facets of the system and do base write ups I can enhance for specific locations.

I have these saved in a huge file that has lived on my last 5-10 computers as I have upgreaded through the ages. As my players hit a system in the Marches(which is where I run) I add specific sites and places as well as personalities, social issues etc...

recently my team was in the port city of "New Port Dunslade" in the representitive democracy of the "Republic of Inthe" helping deal with gang issues growing from second generation "refugees" who had fled the impact of a comet on the mainworld of the neighboring Paya System(See OTU GDW JTAS data about the event). The players were caught in the midst of gangs grown up fom the families of refugees turned second class citizens and the differing and conflicting local government departments and agencies and the meddling national government!

It was a bowl of "ouch" soup in which every step could lead you into the path of an on-coming trcuk or bullet with your name on it [My players are less pissed given what I have done to them in the Risek System...muhahahhah]

Marc

 

[BeRKA]

Marc, that sounds great!

Would you consider sharing a part of your file with robject and me so that we can see if the formats fits for producing something auto-generated?

 

[Commander Truestar]

Marc, that sounds great!

Would you consider sharing a part of your file with robject and me so that we can see if the formats fits for producing something auto-generated?

I have no problems sharing but it may take a bit. I still ahve the various files in my campaign folder(ni varying states of completeness) but tomorrow I am starting on a Trebuchet and I have a char I am polishing for a PBeM as well as needing to do the After Action Report for my most recent F2F game last Sunday(sneaky plug: the one I am looking for a replacement player for,....heheh...anyone near NJ?)

Marc

 

[Commander Truestar]

Here is an example of how I start.
Mind you, this is ALL non-Canon because the book talks about jungles and lots of flora and fuan and I am thinking... with an Atmo of "2"??? Trace/Tainted? Really?
I am thinking real cold and the Hydro oof 40% is more likely frozen(or gases we are used in gas-form being fluid here)

[ Homeworld: Ivendo / Lanth(B324659-A 412 A9 V) ]
[ A9 V(White), B Class Port, 3,000 km, Very Thin, Tainted ]
[ Atmosphere, 40% Hydrographic, Population: 4,000,000 ]
[ Feudal Technocracy, All Weapons Illegal outside residence ]
[ TL A, NI: Non-Industrial 1 Asteroid Belt, 2 Gas Giants ]

The Ivendo system history stems from early exploration of the Spinward Main from both the Pretoria and Star Lane subsectors(Deneb Sector). A small world with a minimal atmosphere, the rock grants the sentient population two benefits. First, forty percent of the world is covered in frozen oceans of fluid which can be broken down to water and fuel. Second is the ability to filter the thin and tainted atmo increasing the times sophants can work outside sealed habitats in vacc suits. A local industry has built up providing hip connected filter units that feed breathable air to PLSS units.

Responding to settlement of increasingly important worlds like Regina, corporations recognized the Ivendo system as a jump destination and established early fuel depots there. The birth of legitimate commerce in the system in the period between 100 and 200(third Imperium) was followed up by a diverse population of ship services, belter and retail types with early mobile habitations leading to permanent surface and underground sealed habitats.

The modern system is the result of those early roots as transient merchants and residents scavenged for parts and materials to solve short term problems allowing themselves to remain in-system until their personal desires were met or they found reasons to settle more permanently. Such scavenging let to the rise of the technologically “well supplied” who would “help out” those still in need for favors. It did not take long for this system to convert from “haves” helping “have nots” to a power exchange system that has gown into the system government of Modern Ivendo. On the interstellar Scale, the Ivendo System is overshadowed by the Icetina System one jump away. The result is that Ivendo’s Marquis is sept to the County Court of Icetina.

So that is what I do with the UWP and then the local interstellar neighborhood. the rest is as detailed as I need for where the players are likely to be(IE: Base Descriptions of the citys, "wonders" and important placs or rumored legends, more details on the social situation)

Marc

 

[robject]

Here is an example of how I start.
Mind you, this is ALL non-Canon because the book talks about jungles and lots of flora and fuan and I am thinking... with an Atmo of "2"??? Trace/Tainted? Really?
I am thinking real cold and the Hydro oof 40% is more likely frozen(or gases we are used in gas-form being fluid here)

Traditionally I believe the number is interpreted as liquid, as opposed to solid. So 40% probably means 40% surface liquids... so I agree that it's something we're used to as a gas being in liquid form here, and not water.

However, I also find it hard to believe a Very Thin atmosphere has much life. On the other hand, 567-908 is atmo 3 Very Thin (non-tainted) and has life... perhaps in the lowlands only. So maybe Ivendo has monstrous, slow-growing lichenous things that need plenty of sunlight, a particular type of soil, and that magical liquid stuff on the surface, but is adapted to very cold, nearly airless environments.

The UWP is a guideline, and therefore has very relaxed boundaries. Poetic license is granted by default.

 

[Commander Truestar]

Traditionally I believe the number is interpreted as liquid, as opposed to solid. So 40% probably means 40% surface liquids... so I agree that it's something we're used to as a gas being in liquid form here, and not water.

However, I also find it hard to believe a Very Thin atmosphere has much life. On the other hand, 567-908 is atmo 3 Very Thin (non-tainted) and has life... perhaps in the lowlands only. So maybe Ivendo has monstrous, slow-growing lichenous things that need plenty of sunlight, a particular type of soil, and that magical liquid stuff on the surface, but is adapted to very cold, nearly airless environments.

The UWP is a guideline, and therefore has very relaxed boundaries. Poetic license is granted by default.

Admittedly we can go outside the "water bottle" and just presume that the ambient temperatures keep gases in their liquid form. As a result, you have a potentially mixed bag of dense elements and ice as a solid(or cold) core initially. Then, as rotation increases compaction, the core temperatures rise allowing the ice to melt into gasses which make their way to the surface..cooling as they go. Eventually they seeped from the "crust" in fluid state.
Given that, the "seas" and lakes could be Hydrogen, Oxygen or any other gasses you want to throw in the bag not to mention mixtures and or compounds of said gasses >

So it an be written differently.

I was just putting my stamp on things. But that brings up the most important answer of all... Traveller allows you to run YOUR Traveller universe. Take advice, not dictation

Marc