Generating Random Worlds for FFG's Star Wars RPGs, Second Draft

on

Purpose

Firstly, I am working on this because in my own games, there are a lot of effects for characters - like removing setback dice from darkness or cold/warm environments - that don't often come into play. Having isolated a number of those factors, I'm introducing them below as elements that are bought with advantage or threat to help them come up in sessions. If you note any that are missing, please let me know so they can be incorporated.

Secondly, this is to support a campaign idea I have. The concept largely divorces itself from the Star Wars canon and goes in a direction similar to the idea (but not execution) of Mass Effect: Andromeda. The goal is that players are sent to a wholly unknown space, and tasked with setting up successful colonies there. They must decide which planets to settle and which to avoid, and I want to create a system that makes those decisions difficult - do they settle the hothouse planet with hostile wildlife but good resources, or the frigid planet with low O2 and no life to speak of? This also goes back to my first point, where a player's decision may be informed by their species ("this frigid planet is fine because my people don't suffer setback from cold like yours do").

Thirdly, I just enjoy a good random generator and am frankly surprised one does not exist for planets in Fantasy Flight's Star Wars system yet.

This continues to be a work-in-progress. Please let me know any feedback you have - I would be glad to sharpen this idea against critiques.

World Generator, Second Draft

Generic Traits

The generic traits - temperature, brightness, and gravity, do not change in this revision. See the First Draft for that information.

Resources

Resources are intentionally generic. As much as I enjoy the Anno games, for example, I deliberately want to avoid bogging this system down in details of which resource plugs into which end product. In order to keep it streamlined, all resources are split into two types: Basic and Advanced.

Basic Resources, Use

A Basic Resource can represent anything mundane, and can be turned into anything from starships to blasters to a medkit.

1 Basic Resource is equivalent to 10 Encumbrance worth of crafting for items smaller than Silhouette 1. 

At Silhouette 1 or higher, there are a few options and I'm not certain which is the best:
  1. Basic Resources are required equal to the Silhouette squared (S ^ 2). For example, a TIE Fighter (Sil 3) would require 9 resources (3 ^ 2 = 9).
  2. Basic Resources are required equal to 1/10,000 of the cost of the item. For example, a TIE Fighter (50,000 Cr) would require 5 resources (50,000 / 10,000 = 5). The advantage is that this represents the components of the vessel more accurately than the silhouette (a TIE Fighter and X-Wing are both sil 3, but have very different equipment).
  3. One of the above, plus a required Credit cost of perhaps 10% of the original cost to represent the significant costs of production - but note that I would like to avoid this direction, as it requires a more meaningful source of Credits than I anticipate the players to have during this campaign.
  4. A combination of the above - for example, maybe the greater of 1 or 2 (TIE = 9), or the sum of 1 and 2 (TIE = 14).

Basic Resources, Production

For each Core Focus level of business on that planet (using the business rules from Far Horizons p. 85), 1 Basic Resource is produced. This is in addition to the Credit production of the business.

On a planet which is marked as having Basic Resources, each Core Focus level of the business produces one plus the Basic Resource value of the planet (Core Focus level * (1 + Basic Resource value)). For example, a Planet X with 2 Basic Resources would produce 3 Basic Resources per Core Focus level.

Advanced Resources

The intent for Advanced Resources is that they are McGuffins. Do the players want to set up a lightsaber manufacturing facility? The kyber crystals are Advanced Resources. Do the players want to create huge starships? Maybe hyperdrives require components that can only be manufactured using Advanced Resources. 

Advanced Resources would be generic to start, but would become "assigned" once used. For example, if the group declares that Planet X's Advanced Resource is kyber crystals, then Planet X's advanced resource can only ever be kyber crystals. The players cannot then later use Planet X for hyperdrive components.

This will incentivize players to settle on planets with Advanced Resources, but not necessarily begin strip-mining the world of them until they identify a core need.

Rolling for Characteristics

In the second draft, major characteristics (resources, atmosphere, water & plant life, and animal life) are determined by Success and Failure while minor characteristics of other elements are determined by the other outcomes. 

For example, the first roll determines the presence of an atmosphere with success and failure, and the presence of resources with the other outcomes. Then, if there is an atmosphere, the second roll is used to determine whether or not the planet has surface water, with atmospheric conditions being set with secondary results.

This ensures that every result is valid and usable on every roll (i.e. you will never roll a failure (no atmo) with advantage where the only advantage purchase could be atmospheric qualities).

Success & Failure: Atmosphere; All Other: Resources
Advantage
Success
Triumph
Threat
Failure
Despair
Planet has a Basic Resource.
Planet has atmosphere; roll on next table. Atmosphere has too much or too little oxygen (3 S dice)
Planet has an Advanced Resource.
Planet is Rough (1 S die per threat); in an outer planet, this makes it a rocky planet as opposed to a gas giant.
Planet has no atmosphere.
Planet is radioactive, or planet has a false positive resource.

Success & Failure: Surface Water; All Other: Atmosphere
Advantage
Success
Triumph
Threat
Failure
Despair
Planet does not have high or low O2 (buy down from 3 S dice).
Planet has surface water; roll on next table. Planet is either mostly desert or covered in dense foliage (3 S dice)
Planet has a perfectly earthlike atmosphere.
Planet has an Acidic, Fiery, Icy, or Toxic atmosphere (1 S die per threat).
Planet does not have surface water.
Planet has a Caustic atmosphere which destroys suits and ships, dealing 1 damage per despair per hour (ignoring armor/soak).

Success & Failure: Animal Life; All Other: Water & Plant Life
Advantage
Success
Triumph
Threat
Failure
Despair
Planet does not have thick foliage or desert qualities (this includes a fully oceanic planet, which is a salt water desert) (buy down from 3 S dice).
Planet has animal life; roll on next table.
Planet has very arable land which will improve food  yields.
Planet is covered with a thick fog or wracked by horrible storms (1 S die per threat).
Planet is devoid of animal life.
Planetary plant life is actively hostile to players, or planet suffers horribly tectonic shifts, or planet’s water is not potable and cannot be made potable.

All: Animal Life

Advantage
Success
Triumph
Threat
Failure
Despair
Planet has algae or bacteria that can be farmed for additional food, or planet has beneficial bacteria.
Planet has domesticable, docile wildlife.
Neutral alien species inhabits planet.
Planet has bacteria that cause ill effects to inhabitants (but do not kill outright).
Planet has no domesticable wildlife; wildlife may be passive or hostile.
Hostile alien species inhabits planet, or planet has fatal bacteria.

Example Star Systems

System Alpha

The Green Belt extends from 0.4 - 2.6 AU, with five planets and no asteroid belt.
  • Planet A1 - 0.2 AU
    • Size 3 (Low Gravity 1)
    • Hot 2
    • Bright in daytime, Dark 1 at night
    • No atmosphere
    • 2 Basic Resources
  • Planet A2 - 0.8 AU
    • Size 5 (Normal Gravity)
    • Comfortable Temperature
    • Bright in daytime, Dark 2 at night (no moon)
    • No atmosphere
    • 1 Basic Resource
  • Planet A3 - 1.5 AU
    • Size 5 (Normal Gravity)
    • Comfortable Temperature
    • Bright in daytime, Dark 1 at night
    • Has atmosphere - Toxic 1, Low Oxygen 3
    • No surface water
    • Rough 2
  • Planet A4 - 2.0 AU
    • Size 5 (Normal Gravity)
    • Comfortable Temperature
    • Bright in daytime, Dark 2 at night (no moon)
    • Has atmosphere - Acidic 1, High Oxygen 3
    • No surface water
    • No other qualities
  • Planet A5 - 2.9 AU
    • Size 10 (High Gravity 4)
    • Cold 2
    • Dark 1 in daytime, Dark 3 at night (no moon)
    • Has atmosphere - Low Oxygen 3
    • No surface water
    • Gas giant

System Beta

The Green Belt extends from 1.6 - 3 AU, with six planets and no asteroid belt.
  • Planet B1 - 0.3 AU
    • Size 1 (Low Gravity 3)
    • Hot 3
    • Bright in daytime, Dark 2 at night (no moon)
    • No atmosphere
    • No other qualities
  • Planet B2 - 0.5 AU
    • Size 3 (Low Gravity 1)
    • Hot 3
    • Bright in daytime, Dark 2 at night (no moon)
    • No atmosphere
    • Rough 1
  • Planet B3 - 1.0 AU
    • Size 5 (Normal Gravity)
    • Hot 2
    • Bright in daytime, Dark 2 at night (no moon)
    • No atmosphere
    • Rough 1
  • Planet B4 - 2.0 AU
    • Size 3 (Low Gravity 1)
    • Comfortable Temperature
    • Bright in daytime, Dark 1 at night
    • Has atmosphere - Low Oxygen 2
    • Has surface water & plant life - Horrible Storms 1, Thick Foliage 3
    • Has other life - Domesticable Wildlife, Harmful Bacteria (not lethal)
    • Rough 1
  • Planet B5 - 2.1 AU
    • Size 4 (Normal Gravity)
    • Comfortable Temperature
    • Bright in daytime, Dark 1 at night
    • No atmosphere
    • 2 Basic Resources
  • Planet B6 - 2.6 AU
    • Size 1 (Low Gravity 3)
    • Comfortable Temperature
    • Bright in daytime, Dark 1 at night
    • Has atmosphere - Perfect Atmosphere
    • No surface water or plant life
    • Rough 2
Looking at these planets, I would say B4 is the obvious candidate for a colony...if the colony can survive the storms and the diseases. B6 may also be a contender, but obviously it has no surface water or life (which would ideally make it less suitable for a large colony; that system is not fully built out yet). From B4 or B6, B5 is the obvious expansion choice for a mining colony - but after B5 is fully colonized, it may be more prudent to leave the Beta system to find other resource-rich planets than to stay and settle resource-poor worlds.

In Conclusion

I'm still working away at this - I have a rough system for managing colony size in terms of the core colony and its businesses (a planet's size determines how many Core Focus upgrades can be added to the colony, per Far Horizons p. 83,  and a planet can support only ((2 * colony Core Focus level) + 1) total levels of business - this will limit construction on smaller planets like B6 and be further modified by water & plant life on the planet) but it is not fully drafted.

I'm always looking for feedback and critique so that I can further improve this system. Thank you very much for reading!

Edit: This has been continued in my Part Two post, which can be found by clicking this link.

Comments

Post a Comment