world Creation

[sinmaan]

Hello all,

I am using the pocket rulebook and as I am playing around creating world, I notice that when determining a world's population (p.172), I only need to roll 2d6-2.

This is not influenced by the world size, the atmosphere and hydrographics?

Also, the population table on p.172 goes all the way to 12...but I am wondering how can such result be achieved considering the roll of 2d6-2.

Thanks for the help...

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

No the population (using rules as written) are completely independent of everything (just like the starport).

This is one of the rules that people have a problems with.

As a Referee, feel free to adjust the population any way you wish for your game.

The independent population was in the original version of Traveller and the creator (Marc Miller) wanted it that way to create "interesting" worlds.

 

[Jeraa]

The tables are only for randomly generating a world. There is nothing stopping someone from skipping random generation and creating a world with a pop code of 12.

Its also possible that at one time during development, there were additional modifiers to the pop code, but those were removed. You still can get a pop code of 11 if using on of the variant world creation methods - the Hard Science option gives with an atmosphere of 5, 6, or 8 a +1 modifier on population.

 

[Reynard]

Looking at my Core Rulebook on page 180 there is a variant for Hard Science World Creation. Size and atmosphere affect the population with atmosphere 5,6 amd 8 allowing for a max pop of 11 for hundreds of billions of people! You want to add trillions on one world?

Also there is a last variant that uses population to affect the starport quality.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

Hello all,

I am using the pocket rulebook and as I am playing around creating world, I notice that when determining a world's population (p.172), I only need to roll 2d6-2.

When I wrote my world generation program, I noticed that. I figured it was for future use. 10 is the highest my program uses. I'm thinking of changing the 2D6-2 to 4D4-4 now. It should shoot my TL higher. We'll see.

 

[Ishmael]

wouldn't that give an average pop-10 and a max pop-20?
it would be better to use dm's based on atm and hyd% instead

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

wouldn't that give an average pop-10 and a max pop-20?
it would be better to use dm's based on atm and hyd% instead

A 4D6-4 probably will do that.

 

[Ishmael]

doh!
that's what I get for not reading closely enough
But if this is in a computer program, why limit yourself to using commonly available types of real dice?
...I still have to disagree with not using atm and hydro as modifiers for pop

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

doh!
that's what I get for not reading closely enough
But if this is in a computer program, why limit yourself to using commonly available types of real dice?

Because I want the computer program to simulate a player using dice to generate their homeworld and character. I suppose I could re-write the program to generate "realistic" worlds. But they wouldn't have that Traveller-ish feel to them.

All my programs use the rules from the games I play (Mongoose and Classic Traveller, Universe, FTL:2448, The Morrow Project (using BRP in 3rd edition), Serenity, AD&D 1st edition, . So when I show characters and planets to other players, it matches everything else that was rolled up with dice at the game table.

 

[Reynard]

A while back, when they were discovering 'earth like worlds' left and right, someone wrote that the vast majority of possiible worlds out there will be uninhabitable. Traveller in our universe would be dull and the game mechanics would have to be skewed towards the worst planetary conditions. I'd rather dream we can colonize the galaxy.

 

[nats]

A while back, when they were discovering 'earth like worlds' left and right, someone wrote that the vast majority of possiible worlds out there will be uninhabitable. Traveller in our universe would be dull and the game mechanics would have to be skewed towards the worst planetary conditions. I'd rather dream we can colonize the galaxy.

In our solar system the vast majority of worlds are uninhabitable but that didnt prevent us from being here. When you think that every solar system in the universe has a reasonably large habitable zone around its star I like to think that most solar systems will harbour the possibility of life. We just have to find the first one, after that we wont be able to move for habitable systems.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

I put the 2D6-2 back in my program because it's less of a bell curve and because trillions of people on one world is kind of in a galaxy far far away stuff.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

Or on a ringworld or Dyson sphere, but seeing as we can't roll them up...