(Ah, the eternal progress of space-western setting...)

The lowdown: human-centric Space-Western & Space-Noir. PCs hopping around from planet to planet each episode. (Planet-of-the-week, Bounty-of-the-Week, slightly arc-y threads throughout, etc.)

I've been trying to figure out how to help GMs and PCs create new and rich worlds on the fly. One concept I had with the setting is not providing excessively rich Tomes Of Planets (intimidating!) but instead some basic ideas for creating new worlds on the fly, pulling them out of thin air - I'm mean, it's a big enough 'verse, EVERYTHING should be out there. (One idea I like is having the players, OOC, collaboratively suggest an interesting "planet-of-the-week"; the GM will bring it into play in some fashion (probably with some surprises). I like this idea.)

The problem is that a lack of a framework has made on-the-fly Planet creation hard. I'm also having trouble figuring out how much detail - and moreover, WHICH detail - matters in the end. So here are my train of thoughts so far:

* What matters for the theme: places provide some consistency or history for a groups' adventures, but really places are just means of challenging th e players (a means for Exploration of Character, perhaps?). Some details are necessary for flavor, but fundamental to a place is the challenge in represents. (i.e. a city may have the flavor of Boston, but the purpose of that city is really to challenge to claustrophobic inclinations of the bounty hunter).

* Retroactive Consistency: keep a journal of places you've been, and be consistent in mentioning them in the future!

* It's okay to mix-and-match existing themes from Earth to quickly evoke flavor in players' minds.

* Specific Planets/Geography/Asteroids/Sun-types for the most part WON'T matter; what matters are specific places, their stylings, and their inherent challenges. (For consistency track *which* planet in the system has this place, but this is mainly just assigning a number; you can land on Sigma IV while ignoring Sigma I - III.)

* Define places in one of three types: COLONIES, of about 100-2000 folks (evoking remote towns of the Old West); DEVELOPMENTS of more like 10k - 100k people (evoking mining colonies and the projects, etc.); and CITIES of up to a million (urban development). [For the purposes of the Frontier, this is as large as we'll see, but more important as thematically clear as necessary.]

* Assume a single government type (or lack-of-government) is in control of the system at large, except in special cases (and this is not made for those special cases). Define this authority and it's political leanings; assume it's effects are strongest in the City, and weaker in the Developments and Colonies.

From this, I can imagine creating blank sheets with open slots, reducing most world-creation choices to checking a box or filling out a single prompt:

SYSTEM
Government: (e.g. Limited Republic with Corporate Autonomy)
Socioeconomic: (e.g. Mixed Martian refugees in a moderately successful system)
Connections (e.g. alliances, trading partners)
Competition:
Threats: (e.g. Pirates, Confederates, etc.)

PLACES
Planet #
Type (Colony/Development/City)
Key Industry
Key Environmental
Hazards (i.e. zero gravity)
Style: (i.e. Thailand-esqe)
Twist: (i.e. vertical city!)

Most of these are summed up in descriptions, but could any of these benefit from reduction to types (i.e. establishing specific government choices), or reduction to numbers (i.e. an economic axis instead of description).

Let me know what you think, or especially if I should refine anything I've said.

Sounds like an awesome idea, I'll hafta try it out sometime. This is an issue I've found myself facing a few times, and it CAN be daunting Nice job, and keep it up!

I realize I didn't ask any specific questions. My mistake.

SYSTEM
Government: (e.g. Limited Republic with Corporate Autonomy)
Socioeconomic: (e.g. Mixed Martian refugees in a moderately successful system)
Connections (e.g. alliances, trading partners)
Competition:
Threats: (e.g. Pirates, Confederates, etc.)

PLACES
Planet #
Type (Colony/Development/City)
Key Industry
Key Environmental
Hazards (i.e. zero gravity)
Style: (i.e. Thailand-esqe)
Twist: (i.e. vertical city!)

Chances are, you're feeling lost. Why? What is missing, and in what ways can I make the framework more helpful for my players, especially more timid or passive ones? (Or other GMs, for that matter.)

Were I given that sheet, I'd like at least a few of the blanks already filled so I know what the GM has in mind. This would also still leaving me some options for the nature of the world. Given the few filled-in blanks as a sort of prompt, I may actually be able to create a more interesting world.

It might also be cool to have players call dibs on certain world traits, but I suspect that's just my own preferences creeping in there.

While the Explorer in me thinks that detial like this is interesting, other sides of me are flashing warning signs. I've played a lot of Traveller. And one thing that I find is that, despite all the information on worlds, etc, it never gets put into effect in play unless it directly affects the PCs. That is, unless the "adventure" involves going outside into a wilderness area, the characters aren't going to need to know about the local Flora and Fauna. They don't need to know the govemental type unless they're going to run afoul of it. Etc.

Worse than this, even when you do work out the details, they're never enough to be realistic. Can any short description of an entire planet's government ever do it justice? My favorite is when a world gets listed as a Desert World or a Water World, etc. Other than the vaguest of ideas, these things mean very little overall in describing the action the players will encounter.

What I'd suggest is a system that produces detail in the context of the play. For example, when coming to a new world, unless a player asks some question about it, the answer should be left indeterminate. When the player asks, the GM then comes up with something, either via some random method, from notes, or by other Director Stance method. For example, I like the idea of PCs rolling some skill (computer lookup or something), and on success having to choose a detail themselves. The cool thing about this is that it makes creation a group effort. Meaning that, unlike in Traveller in which players would often ask questions that I had no way to answer, and expected an answer, they'll understand that there's a creative task going on at that point, and the effort behind it. Meaning they won't ask unless it's important, and they want to know.

Then I'd also have a way for the color to inject itself at intervals all by itself, without player request. For example, when doing a resolution of some sort, there can be cues to produce such information. Maybe every conflict should produce at least one piece of color information, and more with particular dice results, etc. As these aren't voluntary, they'd probably be the GM's responsibility.

This should alleviate some of Dev's problems. OTOH, that sort of a cop out in that a good game ought to give players a better ability to create, not just leave them awash. The way to do this, IMO, is via Genre Expectations. That is, this sort of feel for what might exist needs to be strongly established to start. If this were a Star Wars game, for instance, you'd start out with a lot of advantage in terms of shared understanding. Not having that to stand on, you'll have to rely instead on establishing it more with cliches. Have a dozen points or so that players should understand thouroughly about the universe of play. You'd be amazed how far that little information can go in creating consistent creativity.

The point is that you can't have all the detail you need, it just can't be done. I have databases full of Traveller information, but it only scratches the surface of the much deeper world that we have to imagine exists beneath it. The important thing is to remain internally consistent, and that means adhering to the Genre Expectations. As long as that's well understood, this sort of detail can be created as needed.

Further, once created, it would be cool to have some sort of system to incentivize revisiting ideas already inserted. That is, if a player failed at a repair task once because of lack of availablility of Chemiosmotic Neural Filtering Quadrex, then it should become an ongoing problem. So, not only recording these things for future continuity is important, but finding a way to actively get them back into play is a good idea as well.

Does that all make sense?

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: That is, unless the "adventure" involves going outside into a wilderness area, the characters aren't going to need to know about the local Flora and Fauna. They don't need to know the govemental type unless they're going to run afoul of it. Etc.

Can any short description of an entire planet's government ever do it justice? My favorite is when a world gets listed as a Desert World or a Water World, etc. Other than the vaguest of ideas, these things mean very little overall in describing the action the players will encounter.

What I'd suggest is a system that produces detail in the context of the play. For example, when coming to a new world, unless a player asks some question about it, the answer should be left indeterminate. When the player asks, the GM then comes up with something, either via some random method, from notes, or by other Director Stance method. For example, I like the idea of PCs rolling some skill (computer lookup or something), and on success having to choose a detail themselves.
...
This should alleviate some of Dev's problems. OTOH, that sort of a cop out in that a good game ought to give players a better ability to create, not just leave them awash. The way to do this, IMO, is via Genre Expectations. That is, this sort of feel for what might exist needs to be strongly established to start. If this were a Star Wars game, for instance, you'd start out with a lot of advantage in terms of shared understanding. Not having that to stand on, you'll have to rely instead on establishing it more with cliches. Have a dozen points or so that players should understand thouroughly about the universe of play. You'd be amazed how far that little information can go in creating consistent creativity.

Further, once created, it would be cool to have some sort of system to incentivize revisiting ideas already inserted. That is, if a player failed at a repair task once because of lack of availablility of Chemiosmotic Neural Filtering Quadrex, then it should become an ongoing problem. So, not only recording these things for future continuity is important, but finding a way to actively get them back into play is a good idea as well.

Yep, without seeing the rest of your system, the metagame resource is the only thing that comes to my mind. If you wanted to work that out better, we'd need more info.

I do think I can sum up the Universe Premise in about 5-10 points, so I good feature of these Planet-Generation sheets could be a quick checklist on the side to encourage staying within the consistencies of the setting.

Those "points" about the universe should be guides to answers, not to questions. So, if one of the points is that everyone has cybernetics in this universe to some extent, the answer to the "What do they have to trade?" question can be something like, "They do the galaxy's best cybernetic eyes."

Mike Holmes wrote:

...quick checklist...

That's what I'm against. What the checklist does, like in Traveller, is limit the input to certain areas. Thus we know that it's a water world, but not anything about the water. Thus, every water world that I've seen in Traveller to date implies a world-wide salt sea with life in it. The point is that by only allowing set answers to set questions, you get consistent pat answers.
What I'm advocating is forgetting about the checklist, and allow the questions to be more freeform.

Even if the checklist is only about how the world meets the genre exectations, then in answering each question, you make up more information than you'll likely need in play.

Me: So you're going to Bananaplanet I.
Reb: What's the goverrnment?
Me: It's friendly to Mars...
Reb: Bugger that! Why the heck would I go near them???

GM: So the closest planet to jump to is <randomname> Viggerly.
Reb: Viggerly, eh. So what's up there that we can score some cash on? (get 1 Resource for asking a good question)
Erin: (pay 1 Resource) I heard the Symptotic Gears are real cheap this week! We should have an easy time of it.
Doc: What about the Cops? Gears are usually "hot", by which I mean stolen. (get 1)
Reb: I know the Viggerians, the cops are useless. (get 1) It's the Mob we have to worry about.
Erin: Not to mention to toxic atmosphere and extreme temperatures. (pay 1)
Reb: That's only on Viggerly I. Viggerly II is a gas giant, lots of nice floater-colonies. (pay 1)

I think we're mostly on the same page.

I do think that a few items of the "checklist" need to be established for the GM's sake, if he is expected to describe the place in question with meaningful detail. If the players simply don't suggest any environmental conditions or the colony type (urban/rural), there is no default, and the GM can't go about describing the place without deciding these himself. So in effect, I feel that there have to be some "checklist" items, at least in practice.

What if the players only go to the starport, and don't hit the planet below?