UWP Tech Level?

[phavoc]

Then why not remove them from the game? Problem solved. It seems to me that if you are a building a setting based on trade, then some thought should have gone into what that means. As an example, don't make it so that I can use the rules and build a 100% self-sustaining colony for 100 people for about a billion credits. This colony will expand and never drop in TL, because it can make anything that it needs, from mining and building robotic workers up through finished production. If you want a setting based on trade, like Charted Space, then including things that allow this, is a mistake. I personally love them, but it does break the setting.

Edit - How much does a colony of 100 people cost? 1 billion credit.

How much does a colony of 25,000 people cost? 1 billion credits and 10 years. lol

I think this is just another one of those instances where the full thought process of what this can do to the game setting isn't fully thought out. If you can build a factory ship that can go to any asteroid field and use it as raw material to produce any and every component for a warship (including the fissionables to arm the weapons), then once a system has this capability, its trade will mostly end - except perhaps for luxury goods and some newer tech they can't make at home.

One has to be careful about designing such industrial system as it can radically affect your game setting in more ways that are often predicted.

 

[MasterGwydion]

I think this is just another one of those instances where the full thought process of what this can do to the game setting isn't fully thought out. If you can build a factory ship that can go to any asteroid field and use it as raw material to produce any and every component for a warship (including the fissionables to arm the weapons), then once a system has this capability, its trade will mostly end - except perhaps for luxury goods and some newer tech they can't make at home.

One has to be careful about designing such industrial system as it can radically affect your game setting in more ways that are often predicted.

It is hard to use the excuse that people didn't think it through when it's been a problem for 40 years and has never been repaired or addressed.

 

[phavoc]

It is hard to use the excuse that people didn't think it through when it's been a problem for 40 years and has never been repaired or addressed.

You realize you are talking about Traveller, right?

 

[Sigtrygg]

If the Third Imperium were to be written today:

start with the technology of the TL11 Ziru Sirka - what does their empire really look like.

the early Third Imperium is TL12, what does that look like.

in the hundreds of years it takes to get to TL13 how does that change things and so on up to the TL15 achieved over a century ago.

 

[MasterGwydion]

If the Third Imperium were to be written today:

start with the technology of the TL11 Ziru Sirka - what does their empire really look like.

the early Third Imperium is TL12, what does that look like.

in the hundreds of years it takes to get to TL13 how does that change things and so on up to the TL15 achieved over a century ago.

These are the things I think of when I write a campaign. It has always boggled my mind that people writing a setting don't think their own setting through and they are supposed to be the professionals.

 

[Sigtrygg]

It's tricky. When the Imperium became the backdrop to GDWs supplements and adventures there wasn't a great deal to go on. The early double adventures and adventures could be adapted easily by referees to their homebrew settings.

You had planets with randomly generated stats next to each other - solution, it is a frontier and the big empire is off board...
but then things changed.

We got an Emperor's list, greater Imperial authority, the frontier region changed to a region settled for over a thousand years... and that was the point of departure for me. The Spinward Marches as a frontier with little Imperial authority is a great setting ripe with shennanigans.
A 1000 year settled Spinward Marches with Imperial nobles linked to every world, a navy that could have a squadron of escorts in every system, they are just not the same setting.

Then as technology evolved over the years in the real world, and authors wanted to reflect those changes plus new themes in sci fi the setting paradigm changed again. The 57th century with makers (sigh, fabricators), clones, wafers, robots, intelligent machines, cyborgs, genetic enhancement and a whole lot more is a very different place to the 57th century of the Kinunir adventure... or is it?

 

[MasterGwydion]

It's tricky. When the Imperium became the backdrop to GDWs supplements and adventures there wasn't a great deal to go on. The early double adventures and adventures could be adapted easily by referees to their homebrew settings.

You had planets with randomly generated stats next to each other - solution, it is a frontier and the big empire is off board...
but then things changed.

We got an Emperor's list, greater Imperial authority, the frontier region changed to a region settled for over a thousand years... and that was the point of departure for me. The Spinward Marches as a frontier with little Imperial authority is a great setting ripe with shennanigans.
A 1000 year settled Spinward Marches with Imperial nobles linked to every world, a navy that could have a squadron of escorts in every system, they are just not the same setting.

This is one reason why I love Milieu 0 as a setting. Everywhere is frontier with a few islands of interstellar polities.

 

[Sigtrygg]

My longest running setting is a long night sort of affair; forty+ years ago the original player characters mustered out and headed off to the frontier and then continued on into the unknown. Usually it is a different planet every week or so, but we have had months long adventures in certain systems or pocket empires.

 

[phavoc]

It's tricky. When the Imperium became the backdrop to GDWs supplements and adventures there wasn't a great deal to go on. The early double adventures and adventures could be adapted easily by referees to their homebrew settings.

You had planets with randomly generated stats next to each other - solution, it is a frontier and the big empire is off board...
but then things changed.

We got an Emperor's list, greater Imperial authority, the frontier region changed to a region settled for over a thousand years... and that was the point of departure for me. The Spinward Marches as a frontier with little Imperial authority is a great setting ripe with shennanigans.
A 1000 year settled Spinward Marches with Imperial nobles linked to every world, a navy that could have a squadron of escorts in every system, they are just not the same setting.

Then as technology evolved over the years in the real world, and authors wanted to reflect those changes plus new themes in sci fi the setting paradigm changed again. The 57th century with makers (sigh, fabricators), clones, wafers, robots, intelligent machines, cyborgs, genetic enhancement and a whole lot more is a very different place to the 57th century of the Kinunir adventure... or is it?

I started way back with the original LBB's. At the same time I was playing basic D&D (and the monthly wargames from Strategy and Tactics). It was the wild-west of gaming at the time. One could see that GDW was literally building their background with every release that provided more details and more background. Then I got my AD&D books and the level of publishing quality was night and day. In the Traveller line that's GURPS setting the gold standard.

Traveller has had many opportunities to fix things, many editions, many different publishers. It's not as "tricky" as you think - however it does require effort, desire and a willingness to follow through. I can only speculate as to why it hasn't happened. Traveller has, historically, been very hit and miss.

It's still a fun game though, and the setting is very fixable. Which, I think, one can see a lot of people do for their own games rather than run exclusively the publishers' printed materials. TML and the many boards that exist (or have existed) are prime examples of this.

 

[rinku]

To their credit, GDW tried to get things back to basics with TNE (as well as hardening up the science a bit). But a lot of people got precious about that.

Social ratings possible aside, emergent generation of mainworlds is probably as good a method today as it was in 1977. We STILL only have one example of a star system which has developed a biosphere, desite now having a much better idea about mostly large and close planets orbiting random stars.

On the social front (population, government, law level, tech level), those things might vary for a large number of emergent reasons, so I am likewise comfortable with letting a few dice results set up unexpected combinations, especially when the game's ground rules allow for periods of isolation. The Long Nights are a little overused as an excuse perhaps, but you can have planets locally cut off from the mainstream for all kinds of other reasons.

 

[MasterGwydion]

To their credit, GDW tried to get things back to basics with TNE (as well as hardening up the science a bit). But a lot of people got precious about that.

Social ratings possible aside, emergent generation of mainworlds is probably as good a method today as it was in 1977. We STILL only have one example of a star system which has developed a biosphere, desite now having a much better idea about mostly large and close planets orbiting random stars.

On the social front (population, government, law level, tech level), those things might vary for a large number of emergent reasons, so I am likewise comfortable with letting a few dice results set up unexpected combinations, especially when the game's ground rules allow for periods of isolation. The Long Nights are a little overused as an excuse perhaps, but you can have planets locally cut off from the mainstream for all kinds of other reasons.

You can have exceptions, yes, but when you have to do it for almost every planet, then the UWPs are meaningless.

 

[rinku]

The stated purpose of a UWP is to act as a seed for the Referee. A starting point.

Every world is an exception, every world is unique.

I use or discard ideas from Travellermap and the wiki as best suits me. But I understand you can't work that way. And I'm sorry that UWPs don't work for you.

 

[MasterGwydion]

The stated purpose of a UWP is to act as a seed for the Referee. A starting point.

Every world is an exception, every world is unique.

I use or discard ideas from Travellermap and the wiki as best suits me. But I understand you can't work that way. And I'm sorry that UWPs don't work for you.

If they were just used as you use, them, I would agree with you that they are good for that. My problem is that they are used as mechanics for determining other things as well. This is where just treating them as a seed doesn't work well. If they entirely disconnected them from the mechanics and made them just a seed for Referees, that would be great!

 

[phavoc]

The stated purpose of a UWP is to act as a seed for the Referee. A starting point.

Every world is an exception, every world is unique.

I use or discard ideas from Travellermap and the wiki as best suits me. But I understand you can't work that way. And I'm sorry that UWPs don't work for you.

My thing is that they rando-rolled sectors and sectors and sectors. There was at least some planning to bits of the history, but they went the easy route. TSR got smart and did the fantastic job on World of Greyhawk - it was both detailed and open world at the same time. Referees could use it as their toolbox to generate as many adventures as they wanted, but also the published modules fit into the rest of the realm.

We had that with the Marches. Sadly it didn't get extended beyond that to the rest of the races and areas. There are multiple game universes published before and after this period that did fantastic jobs at details. GDW just didn't.

 

[MonsterX]

My thing is that they rando-rolled sectors and sectors and sectors. There was at least some planning to bits of the history, but they went the easy route. TSR got smart and did the fantastic job on World of Greyhawk - it was both detailed and open world at the same time. Referees could use it as their toolbox to generate as many adventures as they wanted, but also the published modules fit into the rest of the realm.

We had that with the Marches. Sadly it didn't get extended beyond that to the rest of the races and areas. There are multiple game universes published before and after this period that did fantastic jobs at details. GDW just didn't.

World of Greyhawk is *one* world. Charted Space has tens of thousands of star systems. It is only natural that the attention given to each planet will be limited at best, and often there are only random numbers or nothing at all.

 

[MonsterX]

Refereeing the Deepnight campaign, my players have gone through big chunks of Charted Space where the UWPs get pretty unworkable as is. However, you just make it into what you want it to be. Take a sci fi story you thought was cool, give the players are reason to go to where it will be set, and you're good to go for a session or two. Use the UWPs as inspiration, or not - because they don't need to go to that world with the annoying UWP unless you force them to, or tempt them to. And you will only force them or tempt them if you've figured out a way to make it interesting for them. Even in the same star system, the adventure can be elsewhere. Sprinkle in a few interstellar actors/groups/factions with broader reach so you have a few villains, victims, patrons, and allies to the PCs, so there can be some ongoing plots running through the sessions, and it gives you (another) tool to move the PCs to where you want them. UWP numbers are just a vague guide to start worldbuilding from, and in practice as referee you have to both be more fine-grained to make it come to life, as well as to look at the bigger interstellar picture - but because the PCs are only encountering 00.00001% of what's out there you just need a bare skeleton of that to make it work. This is the case both for areas which have been developed and make more sense (because, even at best, there is a lot of stuff that is on kind of shaky foundations), as well as for those that are mostly random still. For the places where adventurers go, you make it make sense in terms of everything they encounter and don't worry about the fact that five sectors away somewhere (or even in the next subsector or parsec, or even in the same system) there is a UWP that doesn't make sense.

 

[rinku]

I'd also suggest that within the context of a Traveller sector, each mainworld is equivalent to a settlement. Some are mighty cities, others are unimportant villages.

The Spinward Marches (1979) contains 439 worlds over 16 subsectors.

World of Greyhawk (1980) contains 50 regions, most of which get a paragraph and the name of the capital, which may or may not be shown on the big map. Furyondy gets a close in map with lesser settlements shown.

The scope is different in many ways, but honestly, I'd say they're pretty close in functionality. Similar in page count as well.

 

[Condottiere]

Then why not remove them from the game? Problem solved. It seems to me that if you are a building a setting based on trade, then some thought should have gone into what that means. As an example, don't make it so that I can use the rules and build a 100% self-sustaining colony for 100 people for about a billion credits. This colony will expand and never drop in TL, because it can make anything that it needs, from mining and building robotic workers up through finished production. If you want a setting based on trade, like Charted Space, then including things that allow this, is a mistake. I personally love them, but it does break the setting.

Edit - How much does a colony of 100 people cost? 1 billion credit.

How much does a colony of 25,000 people cost? 1 billion credits and 10 years. lol

Plus, dinner and a movie.

 

[Condottiere]

In terms of industrial policy, you generally have to subsidize it, whether in the form of tax rebates, or direct investment.

Or create demand, whether through infrastructure construction, military build up, or consumer demand.

Off planet investors, will want something that they can't get somewhere else, especially if they already have money their invested, as sunk cost.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Refereeing the Deepnight campaign, my players have gone through big chunks of Charted Space where the UWPs get pretty unworkable as is. However, you just make it into what you want it to be.

If you have to make it into what you want it to be due to poor quality control, then why buy the product? Also, why keep printing the same crap for 40+ years instead of actually fixing it? Not only do the IP-owners keep not fixing the previous mistakes. They care so little for quality control that there writers now are still not required to follow any sort of rules for Charted Space.

Take a sci fi story you thought was cool, give the players are reason to go to where it will be set, and you're good to go for a session or two. Use the UWPs as inspiration, or not - because they don't need to go to that world with the annoying UWP unless you force them to, or tempt them to. And you will only force them or tempt them if you've figured out a way to make it interesting for them. Even in the same star system, the adventure can be elsewhere. Sprinkle in a few interstellar actors/groups/factions with broader reach so you have a few villains, victims, patrons, and allies to the PCs, so there can be some ongoing plots running through the sessions, and it gives you (another) tool to move the PCs to where you want them. UWP numbers are just a vague guide to start worldbuilding from, and in practice as referee you have to both be more fine-grained to make it come to life, as well as to look at the bigger interstellar picture - but because the PCs are only encountering 00.00001% of what's out there you just need a bare skeleton of that to make it work. This is the case both for areas which have been developed and make more sense (because, even at best, there is a lot of stuff that is on kind of shaky foundations), as well as for those that are mostly random still. For the places where adventurers go, you make it make sense in terms of everything they encounter and don't worry about the fact that five sectors away somewhere (or even in the next subsector or parsec, or even in the same system) there is a UWP that doesn't make sense.

Maybe this works for players who like using adventure modules or like being lead around by the nose, but it doesn't work if you run sandbox campaigns.