Home world generation & gravity
- Thread starter F33D
- Start date
far-trader
Mongoose
I generally don't for a couple reasons.
Most PCs and important NPCs will be Travellers, not locals. You might have been born on some backwater low tech super world or tiny rockball but you've spent more of your life aboard ships with standard artificial gravity.
Which is the second reason, technology trumps local conditions for the most part. Nobody living on that super world or tiny rockball is going to be a slave to local gravity, they'll live in habitats with artificial gravity unless the TL is too low. For the most part. Some may have to work outside of course, and some might not have the tech available.
I would no more expect characters to be adapted to local gravity than I would expect them to...
...be able to breath vacuum if they come from an airless world.
...not know how to use advanced tech if they come from a low tech world.
...have skin that can withstand corrosive atmospeheres if they come from some hellish world.
...etc. etc.
Of course, background can (should) be used to create colour and perhaps influence choices and effects...
...coming from an airless world might mean having Vacc-Suit-0
...coming from a low tech world might mean having a DM-1 for new high tech usage.
...coming from a hellish world might also mean Vacc-Suit-0.
...etc. etc. again
Most PCs and important NPCs will be Travellers, not locals. You might have been born on some backwater low tech super world or tiny rockball but you've spent more of your life aboard ships with standard artificial gravity.
Which is the second reason, technology trumps local conditions for the most part. Nobody living on that super world or tiny rockball is going to be a slave to local gravity, they'll live in habitats with artificial gravity unless the TL is too low. For the most part. Some may have to work outside of course, and some might not have the tech available.
I would no more expect characters to be adapted to local gravity than I would expect them to...
...be able to breath vacuum if they come from an airless world.
...not know how to use advanced tech if they come from a low tech world.
...have skin that can withstand corrosive atmospeheres if they come from some hellish world.
...etc. etc.
Of course, background can (should) be used to create colour and perhaps influence choices and effects...
...coming from an airless world might mean having Vacc-Suit-0
...coming from a low tech world might mean having a DM-1 for new high tech usage.
...coming from a hellish world might also mean Vacc-Suit-0.
...etc. etc. again
CosmicGamer
Mongoose
Think that people have to "work harder" to fight high gravity and thereby be stronger? Reality check - someone can still be lazy and do nothing and not improve their physical stats, in fact, wouldn't it be more likely since everything you do is harder?
The strength stat itself is quite variable. From 2 to 12.
Balance it out: Grav is heavier and people are stronger. People that lift big weights do less reps. Perhaps endurance needs to be lower.
Personally, I wouldn't worry about chargen modifiers.
Interacting with environment, including gravity, can be role played.
I have briefly thought about some kind of task DM based on the difference between the gravity one is used to and the current gravity.
As far-trader was getting at, with technology, travellers wouldn't typically have to deal with this. In most games I've been in, local seasons, day/night and local time isn't even a factor since space faring worlds use imperial standard time and calendar.
If this isn't so IYTU, then the travellers would be used to going places and dealing with the differences and it shouldn't be much of an issue.
The strength stat itself is quite variable. From 2 to 12.
Balance it out: Grav is heavier and people are stronger. People that lift big weights do less reps. Perhaps endurance needs to be lower.
Personally, I wouldn't worry about chargen modifiers.
Interacting with environment, including gravity, can be role played.
I have briefly thought about some kind of task DM based on the difference between the gravity one is used to and the current gravity.
As far-trader was getting at, with technology, travellers wouldn't typically have to deal with this. In most games I've been in, local seasons, day/night and local time isn't even a factor since space faring worlds use imperial standard time and calendar.
If this isn't so IYTU, then the travellers would be used to going places and dealing with the differences and it shouldn't be much of an issue.
far-trader
Mongoose
F33D said:
It was meant to be. I was aiming for hyperbole. To drive home the point of how little that gravity difference means since Traveller has the technology to make him faster, stronger, ... oops, wrong trope
Traveller has the technology to negate any environmental influences. Period. It's fine if you want to use the background as some colour, but the reason it isn't (and shouldn't be) a standard rule is because it rarely applies, if ever, for characters.The better way to look at it is that you randomly (or otherwise) generated the character stats the same as you randomly generated the homeworld right. So why not say that the stats should adjust the homeworld?
"Hmm, I rolled a 3 for Str and a 12 for Dex, maybe he grew up in an asteroid belt adapted to zero-g and while his coordination is phenomenal he never needed to be particularly strong so he has little muscle mass."
Note, I still wouldn't make, nor am I suggesting, a rule for such. Let random rolls drive the imagination, not limit it
F33D said:
You mean like, say, a starting PC who's just completed a few 4-year terms of service which weren't necessarily on their homeworld?
I tend to agree with Far Trader's solution: If you want your stats and homeworld to be in accord with each other, keep your desired homeworld in mind when assigning your stats instead of putting your 12 in Str if you want to be from a 0.1G world. (Remember that MgT RAW says "To determine your character’s characteristics, roll 2d6 six times and allocate them to the six basic characteristics in any order." You don't get a high Str unless you choose to put the high roll there instead of on another stat.)
Wouldn't that be more likely to effect endurance rather than strength since your example indicated they had to get used to a higher gravity or grew up within one and then cope with being in a lighter gravity...
T2300 has something on this which effected Strength and Dexterity always wondered if you grew up in such an environments wouldn't that just mean you're hardier rather than stronger?
Sorry just wondered about that since someone suggested a drop in endurance to counter the strength increase when it could be stated there's a restriction on what their str and end must be if they come from a high gravity environment.
T2300 has something on this which effected Strength and Dexterity always wondered if you grew up in such an environments wouldn't that just mean you're hardier rather than stronger?
Sorry just wondered about that since someone suggested a drop in endurance to counter the strength increase when it could be stated there's a restriction on what their str and end must be if they come from a high gravity environment.
Bardicheart
Mongoose
I handle it one of two ways.
If they grew up on a high G or low G world but are still ordinary human colonists, and the tech level of the world is Tech 8 or lower they suffer gravity effects. For a high G world that's a simple +1 Str and End; for low G that's a -1 Str and End. Why Tech 8? Because gravity manipulation and artificial gravity doesn't become possible til Tech 9. Even at Tech 9 if they are low social class, say Soc 5 or less, they might still get the gravity effect. At Tech 10+ artificial gravity of 1 G is assumed to be standard for everyone.
However, if their homeworld is a high G or low G world, tainted atmosphere (if still mostly breathable) then I might allow them to start as a minor race or genetically adapted colonists in which case I pull out Flynns Alien's and make up a minor race and then continue with character generation afterwards.
Not a solution for everyone, but I like a little more diversity in my Traveller games. I find it interesting to include more cultural and racial differences and make the game slightly less humanocentric. I do keep the stat bonuses and penalties to +/-1... and in a few cases maybe +/-2; the point is to add variety but not make them the central issue.
If they grew up on a high G or low G world but are still ordinary human colonists, and the tech level of the world is Tech 8 or lower they suffer gravity effects. For a high G world that's a simple +1 Str and End; for low G that's a -1 Str and End. Why Tech 8? Because gravity manipulation and artificial gravity doesn't become possible til Tech 9. Even at Tech 9 if they are low social class, say Soc 5 or less, they might still get the gravity effect. At Tech 10+ artificial gravity of 1 G is assumed to be standard for everyone.
However, if their homeworld is a high G or low G world, tainted atmosphere (if still mostly breathable) then I might allow them to start as a minor race or genetically adapted colonists in which case I pull out Flynns Alien's and make up a minor race and then continue with character generation afterwards.
Not a solution for everyone, but I like a little more diversity in my Traveller games. I find it interesting to include more cultural and racial differences and make the game slightly less humanocentric. I do keep the stat bonuses and penalties to +/-1... and in a few cases maybe +/-2; the point is to add variety but not make them the central issue.
F33D said:
Nope.
Now you can certainly role-play that as part of your game, say your PC came from a non-standard environment, they might wear an exo-suit to offset their weak skeletal structure being raised on a .5 world, or maybe they wear a re-breather in regular oxy environments because they come from a tainted world that they are adapted too.
But overall I do not. But you certainly CAN if you want. Just like you can play as a hiver, or a droyne, an aslan, vargr, zhodani, or even a dolphin or some other minor sub-species.
Not under normal circumstances, but for example when charactersF33D said:
visit a low tech planet with a surface gravity which is very much dif-
ferent from their homeworld gravity and/or the standard gravity of
1 G. The scout from the low gravity planet who has the bad luck to
become stranded in the wilderness of a low tech high gravity planet
certainly has some problems with the local surface gravity.
