mainworld generation (more replies)

[email removed] (Leonard Erickson) writes:
> There's something known as the "Roche Limit". Anything closer
> than that that will be subject to tidal forces stronger than
> its own gravity. Which means that satellites *cannot* form
> inside the Roche Limit of the parent body. And if a body is
> somehow moved to an orbit inside the Roche limit, it has to
> have enough structural strength to resist the tidal force.

Sigh... another humanities major (me) bites the dust. As I
said last night, I'm flip-flopping on my reply to Arthur
Green. While there may not be rail-road tracks in space, the
orbit #'s introduced in Book 6 now make more sense to me.
Thanks.

[email removed] (Chuck McKnight) writes:
>Actually, I haven't ignored your argument about the UWP system being broken.
>I approach the UWP generation system (hell, I approach most random generation
>systems) as guidelines that I'm free to modify if it suits me.  I don't view
>the UWP as a sacred cow that must not be fiddled with, but more of a starting
>point.  If I get a result that doesn't match what I'm looking for, I change
>it.  I will also mention that I don't mass generate sectors, preferring to
>hand generate each system so I can be sure that I don't get anomalies.  But
>that's my personal preference and I won't undertake to speak for anyone else.
>I'm not denigrating your UWP mods, they're nift, they make sense, etc.  That's
>your style of GMing and I support your efforts.  :-)

Yeah, well... I will admit to mass-generating sectors, but I should also
add that I agree with you about it being really necessary not only to
tweak the data but also to expand (greatly) on that data (and I think
most people would agree with this). One of the things I always hated
about the sector books was that they didn't go into detail on the worlds
they overviewed (this, of course, is the GM's job). Still, I always
preferred books like the Pilot's Guide to the Drexilthar Subsector,
which attached a few paragraphs to each mainworld. So although I do
rely on computer generated UWPs, I also take them as just the starting
point. And I think this is the intention of the rules.

One of the things I hope to do after this discussion is concluded (if
it is ever concluded) is to go over the sector data for my Traveller
campaign (tweaking and re-generating as seems appropriate) and then
write down the world descriptions, put them together with a subsector
viewer, and finally make the whole package available over the net.
Writing up the world descriptions will probably be the longest phase,
but when it's done, I think it'll be worth it (especially for all the
"Harrison" readers who want to investigate the story's backdrop for
themselves).

>Personally, I suspect that if it isn't published in a GDW/TSG publication most
>people don't use it at all.  :-)  Like I think I mentioned, the generation
>system is merely a beginning if I'm stuck for an idea.  Personally, I think a
>game's 'reality' is the one imposed and painted by the referee, but I'm into
>escapism in my gaming. :-)

Yeah, well, I think we can all testify to that. I, personally, can only
handle so much reality intruding upon my fantasy :-)

But seriously, when I refer to "reality" in a gaming or even a writing
context, what I'm really referring to is "suspension of disbelief."
In other words, if the game is pretending to conform to something
approaching the reasonable or "reality-analogous" (i.e., starports
being analogous to airports or shipping ports, worlds being analogous
to countries, etc), then it should be careful not to diverge in a
way which would cause people to "disbelieve" or otherwise "fall out
of character." As an example, I don't know of any "world-class" shipyards
which are run by a handful of people (as could occur under traveller
rules).

>Difference of approach, I think.  If I've got to flesh out a world that my
>players will be playing on, I'll customize it to suit myself generation system
>or no.  However, you're entitled to your opinion and I agree that there are
>things that need changing if you're mass generating sectors to make results
>more uniform.  Of course, I've never approached Traveller as a hard
>science/reality based game.  ;-)

Yeah... that's part of the beauty of all these RPGs. You can really
define your own approach. While I think many people would call Traveller
a hard-SF RPG (certainly harder-SF than many of its competitors), the
individual GM can shift the flavor of the campaign to whatever she or
he wants. As an example, I've been told by one TMLer that the "Harrison
Chapters" depict a "dark empire" while Traveller depicts a benevolent
one. I agree with him. My campaign (indeed, my entire setting) had been
customized to fit my peculiar prejudices, and I imagine this sort of
thing is fairly commonplace (at least, I hope it is). My fear (with
respect to the modified system I introduced) is that by making all
those changes in the UWP generation system, I may be catering too much
to my own preconceptions and that I may end up with very "uniform" looking
world descriptions. After all, you need a little variety to make things
interesting. What I want to do is make things more "realistic" without
chopping out the "interesting."


           _   /|       Jim Vassilakos
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