Worldbuilding as Character Generation

[robject]

In another thread, I thought that character generation is a richer experience than world building. I didn't defend my statement, and I may be wrong.

It seems that chargen has a complexity in its steps that is missing from world-building, which feels more like curve-fitting algebra than anything else. Character generation, on the other hand, has completely random feature generation, followed by a few, key decision steps to be made.

Chargen is designed to be run by a human; that's why it is the way it is. World-building is designed to be run through a spreadsheet or other computer process. That's why it is the way it is.

What about representational power? World-building is king of data, using astronomical data -- always obsolete as soon as published, but it's consistent with a physics model. And yet, for Traveller gaming, most of that data is boiled down to rather basic characteristics. These characteristics have to fit together, but in the end they are just parameters into the game's mechanics.

 

[Marchand]

I find both worldgen and chargen under various Trav rules offer me satisfying scope for exercising some rusty creative faculties.

Best of both worlds - Mongoose's Tools for Frontier Living lets you generate a colony over 10-year phases using a chargen-style system.

 

[mike wightman]

Now there's an interesting thought - have service skills tables for planets. This is an idea in embryonic form only...

By that I mean you could generate the world and then let it serve terms - make each of them 100years long. During each term you could roll for colonisation (commission), economic development (promotion) and special duty (special event take perhaps).

That grants you one to four rolls on "service skills' tables.

One table could be for physical characteristic changes (atmosphere and water), political characteristic changes (law level and government type), technological progression (starport and TL), one could be for trade classification.

Hmm...

 

[McPerth]

Now there's an interesting thought - have service skills tables for planets. This is an idea in embryonic form only...

The idea has merit, and as I understood from Marchand's post that this is what MgT Tools for Frontier Living does (I have not read it)...

In any case, trade classifications depend on the UWP, so I guess they could not be rolled on a table (but any UWP change due to those tables, either representing terraforming, population increase, gov changes, etc... could change them...)

 

[mike wightman]

Sorry for the silly idea then, I won't try and develop it any further.

 

[Timerover51]

I find that World Generation gets my imagination and creative juices flowing a lot more than character generation. I do not use a spread sheet or program to generate worlds, just break out the dice and have at it, or look at what I have so far in the sub sector, and determine if I need to deliberately build a planet or system without die rolls.

It is hard to get odd or extreme characters with character generation, as I use floors for the basic characteristics. If someone does use straight die rolls for a character, then you can get some pretty weird results, which might work if you are doing NPC, but I am not going to tell one of my players that his character has a strength of C, endurance of 2, and a dexterity of 4, to go with intelligence 5, education C, and social status A.

 

[robject]

Mike, I don't think your idea is silly. Just because trade codes and UWPs are related doesn't mean they have to be generated in the traditional order.

Anyhow, I wasn't referring to world generation, so much as that rarefied, maths-intensive world building process we've seen in World Builder's Handbook.

 

[McPerth]

Sorry for the silly idea then, I won't try and develop it any further.

Never said it's a silly idea. In fact I find it quite interesting.

I only said that trade codes are too tied to UWP to be so given, as they are automatic accoring to UWP. Any such giving could end with a world having the HiPop travel code without having pop 9+, or vice-versa, to put an example.

 

[Marchand]

The idea has merit, and as I understood from Marchand's post that this is what MgT Tools for Frontier Living does (I have not read it)...

TFFL is one of my favourite Trav books from any publisher for any version. It's much more than just a gear list for MGT2300 (although it's that too).

The world gen tables run to biodiversity, biocomplexity and biocompatibility, as well as atmos, hydro and climate, which all feed into a habitability score. Then you have natural resources. Interface habitability with wealth and power of colonising nation to find starting stats - starport type, transport and comm grid quality, population level and so on.

The colony gen system then runs through 10-year "planning development" terms. You can roll for improvements like more population or a better power grid and so forth, or investment to develop resource endowment. Each term, you roll to avoid disaster and for special events. The colony might have a revolution and rebel against the colonising power, and there's a table for resolving it.

Tangent I just thought of - the rebellion could be your scenario or campaign - and you would have the whole history of the colony's development to draw on for background.

 

[OjnoTheRed]

I've not seen the Mongoose product - but that idea of a structured way of building world history while building the world sounds GREAT!

There's a related idea I've seen. I like Stars Without Number, and it has a "faction" system built in, where month-to-month each faction makes moves to attack other factions with its assets, or move asset strategically and so on. SWN is an Old-School-Renaissance game with some Traveller elements thrown in (in particular the subsector map). This way of having major players in the sector use their assets provides movement in the background for the benefit of the campaign.

A similar idea could be used in Traveller to create history between worlds as well as the major players in a sector (the Imperium, various Megacorporations, planetary governments that are more powerful, perhaps corsair bands or Aslan clans etc.) make their moves over a period of years.

There have been elements of this in the past - e.g. the rules in MegaTraveller for degrading UWPs in the rebellion, but a more systematically laid out version to generate worlds, subsectors and sectors with a history would be great.

 

[Marchand]

There have been elements of this in the past - e.g. the rules in MegaTraveller for degrading UWPs in the rebellion, but a more systematically laid out version to generate worlds, subsectors and sectors with a history would be great.

Mongoose's Dynasty book has rules for running a faction, as does T4's Pocket Empires. But SWN's faction rules done in Traveller would be nifty.

Just to throw in something else, Gurps: First In has a couple of tables for generating a world's history and one or two "notable events".

 

[Timerover51]

Depending on how detailed you want to get in world-building, you might want to check out the following subject area on archive.org for information. The USDA Yearbooks on Trees and Grasses are quite useful at setting up ecologies and for descriptive information for your players. Grass-1948 is extremely useful for figuring carrying capacity of rangeland and grassland.

https://archive.org/search.php?quer...okofagriculture)+AND+mediatype:(texts)&page=2

There is a lot of data on crops, obviously, but also foods, food processing, and rural living. Living on a few acres from 1978 is terrific for anyone with a colony planet that can support agriculture.