Traveller 5: System Generation. Iomaria, Part 2

The End Result

Iomaria A99889A-8 {0} (B7K-1) [7F08]

Trade codes: PH, PA, PI.

The Process

Where T5 starts to really differ is the in the extensions, native intelligent life (NIL), nobility and all that. Chunks of this are really Traveller 3rd Imperium specific, though abstract enough that you could use or ignore as necessary for other SF game universes. 

There are three extensions: Importance (relative to some region, so I suppose this can be scaled up or down depending on the size of your universe you are playing in). Looking at the mods, we get +1 for the port, -1 for our TL 8, and that appears to be that, giving us an importance of 0, or unimportant. Based on the expected ship traffic, that gives is maybe 2 ships a week, maybe up to one per day. Despite having a type A port! Being in brackets this looks like {0}

The Economic extension is the strength of the world's economy. It is a bit more involved than the importance extension. For resources, 2D and I roll a 9. Then because we squeak by with TL8, we can add the belts & gas giant count. No belts but 2 gas giants, so Iomaria's resource value is 11. Our labor is population -1, or 7. The infrastructure is 2D + lx, which I am having to assume is the labor value. 12 + 7 = 19, which really seems to me to be a really high infrastructure value! However, efficiency is via flux, and -1: apparently, we take advantage of the amazing infrastructure and make it up in volume. Efficiency takes into account legal procedures, tariffs, customs and the like. I think the impersonal bureaucracy, along with the very high law level, has a LOT of red tape! Using these numbers, we can also calculate the resource units, and in Iomaria's case will be negative. R (11) * L (7) * I (19) * E (-1) = -1463. Probably due to having to import all those jump drives as Iomaria cannot support much by itself. In the end, assuming that we use the pseudo-hex, this looks like (B7K-1).

The final extension is the cultural extension. There are 4 parts to this. Heterogeneity is social diversity. Population + flux, so 8 - 1 or 7. A high value indicates a spectrum of differences. With the rolls, looks like it is close to a 2d6 curve, so 7 is right in the middle. This is another of those cases where there are some assumptions for the rules but no explanations, such as what is a high value? I am only assuming that a 2d roll + a flux roll will basically give us something similar to a 2d roll by itself. But hey - I can do math! Assuming a population of 1, the lowest you can get is 1 - 5, or -4. The highest you can get, is a population of 15 (quadrillions of people!), so 15 + 5 or 20. Ergo, the range is -4 to 20. 7 is actually on the lower side, so moderately diverse but not too crazy. Acceptance is population + labor, 8 + 7 = 15. This range is 1 (pop 1 + 0 = labor) to 29 (15 + 14). 15 puts us about in the middle. People accept off-worlders, no big deal one way or the other. Finally, strangeness is the degree of difference from the "norms" of interstellar society. This again assumes a norm for interstellar society. Flux + 5, so 0. With a range of 0 to 10, Iomaria is stock standard whatever the interstellar norms are. Nothing surprising here other than the sheer amount of red tape. Finally, we have symbos used by the culture. Flux + TL, or 0 + 8 = 8. With a range of -5 to 20+, 8 puts us on the low end, more concrete than abstract. The cultural extensions are square brackets, so [7F08]

So, what does all this additional information give us? We now know that Iomaria is not too important in the local region, and with such a high negative RU, is probably importing a lot and is a possible financial drain in the stellar community. Despite that or perhaps because of that, Iomaria has an immense infrastructure in place, but one that is fairly inefficient. Between tariffs, customs and red tape, it takes forever to get things done. Probably a lot of union jobs that are clearly delineated and rules that must be followed. With its class A starport, it is also importing a lot of high-tech stuff for ship repairs (one of those interesting discussions about ship repairs, starport levels and tech levels). Iomaria indifferent to visitors. It is a socially diverse culture that is plain vanilla in terms of its culture. Which probably does not help with visitors as basically it is like Wal-Mart - the same wherever you go. Visit far off Iomaria, just like home. Exactly like home. In fact, I get an almost state-run society that just does not innovate much. 

This information is similar to classic character generation: you can read a lot into these numbers to help give the world a bit more character. In this case, Iomaria needs all the help it can get!

This could play into how the players interact with Iomaria: off-worlders are not big deal, but buying and selling cargo is going to take a bit longer. Heck - even after you buy or sell, getting it loaded or off-loaded is going to be an arduous task. While you would think that bribery might help, I seem to recall there is some correlation between success and law level (i.e., a higher law level is even easier to bribe). And huh - T5 no longer has the bribery skill! But looking back at Classic Book 1, I was right:

Note that the roll for accepting a bribe varies inversely with the law level of a world; the more stringent the laws, the greater the corruption.

Iomaria is ripe for greasing palms to get things done! This also implies that Iomaria potentially is very corrupt. With the government not directly associated with with people it governs, and married to that inefficiency, I see a lot of black-market deals and off-the-books deals. And probably a lot of things fall off the backs of those trucks...

Added a globe at least, though thinking I may want to make a few from different angles.

And a gif in case you want to see it spinning around!

Part 1 here

Part 2 here

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Traveller 5: System Generation. Iomaria, Part 1

The End Result

Iomaria A99889A-8 Trade codes: PH, PA, PI.

A satellite of a larger planet in orbit 2 of a dwarf orange sun, Iomaria has a tainted dense atmosphere requiring filter masks for outdoor activity. Almost 80% of this temperate world is covered by ocean. It's class A port sits on the edge of the one of the many oceans giving it easy access to water for both raw and refined fuel.

The process

I've had these books for how long and have yet never tried the system generation there. Figured I'd give it a shot as I'll be running a Traveller game probably early next year. Or another SF game, but as Traveller is not just an RPG but a toolbox of Makers that really transcend any specific game rule set. 

As always when reading the T5 rules, it takes me a few times to figure out what they are actually trying to do. A lot of text before the main process starts and things seem oddly placed sometimes. Reminds me of Microsoft documentation on their site: technically correct but you have to find it, and it is not always what you really need to get the job done.

We start with the World Gen Checklist and section A. There are up to 10 steps in this process, each taking a page or more of tables and text. The very first step is to pick the sector name, hex location and main world name. As I am not sure where I am going to stick this, there is no sector name nor hex location. If I recall correctly, originally you grabbed a sub-sector map, and started rolling for a planet per hex. And that was based on how dense the system was. A hex crawl of stellar proportions! Skipping the location and name, we should have a name. As usual for name, I turn to a random name generator and found this site which is cool and one I've not visited before. We'll pick Iomaria as our planet's name.

Starport type is next. This seems me to be really in the wrong place: the starport type really should be determined after we have a population and tech level. This is why we get type A ports on empty planets in Classic. Though we'll see - hoping that they port type creates DMs for the population and tech level. Rolling a 4, I get a starport type A - the biggest and best. Rolling on the space ports table, we have at least a type F, a good quality space port.

Using the flux roll for the home star, I get a 2, giving me a K class star. I think I roll again for the size on the same table as there is a column for the stellar types, so we end up with a KV star. Looking into what that means: it is an orange dwarf star. This is in-between a red dwarf and a star like our own. 

And where does Iomaria orbit our orange dwarf sun? A flux roll of -2 gives this the habitable zone, so Iomaria is a temperate world. And is our garden world (well, so far!) a planet of a satellite? A -4 roll gives the interesting far satellite. And oddly, we're a satellite around another world, in the Vee orbit. Which at the moment I have no idea what that means.

Next, we have the PBG rolls for population digit, planetoid belts and gas giants. The population digit lets us know within the population code what it is. A random 1-9, but no indication of how to roll a random number between 1 and 9. Grabbing one off the internet, we get a 4. 0 planetoid belt. Rolling for gas giants, we have 2 gas giants in our system. Our PBG is 402.

Now on to our actual planet! Size is 2D-2, which really gives us small planets. Yet I roll an 11, for a size 9 planet. A tad larger than Earth. And yet it orbits yet another planet! Atmosphere is flux + size, and having a 0 flux, we have a type 9 atmosphere, dense and tainted. So much for my garden world.  There is a P1 note in the environmental effects. I looked around and could not find a table or other reference nearby in the book so at the moment I am clueless (this is the main issue with T5: things are not well formatted and linked to find what you need easily. A simple page reference would have helped!)

Hydrosphere is Flux + atmosphere + mods. At least the mods are listed in the table, and we have no mods. A -1 plus our 9 gives us 80% water, so again, a tad more than Earth. Of course, this is really 75-84% water the way I use it generally, so about the same as Earth.

Population is 2D-2, rolling a 10 gives us 8, for hundreds of millions. With our previously rolled PBG of 402, the 4 gives us 400 million inhabitants. Our population is a modifier for government. Another flux roll of 0, and we have a type 9 government: an impersonal bureaucracy. Impersonal agencies isolated from the population. Having done early voting today, I sometimes feel like that is what we have at times! Finally, government is the modifier for law level. 1 + 9 gives us law level A - extreme law. 

The final part of our planet is the technological level. 1D plus 6 (for starport A) and...that is all the mods. 1 + 6 is 7, circa 1970's really. Wait - missed my space port F, another +1 for TL 8. Which originally was early grav technology, but I think got bumped to TL-9 later.

Our planet is A98989A-8. 

Checking for trade classes, which is a bit more extended than Classic, we have no planetary trade classes, we are a pre-high population (PH), pre-agricultural (PA), pre-industrial (PI) world. 

Checking the inner system reference, with our KV star and being in the habitable zone, we are in orbit 2.

I'll do the rest of this in a follow-up post. This is basically where Classic Book 3 ended, and there are really only minor changes to the system generation. 

But fun with planetary image generation!

Via the fractal generation program, this one looks interesting. 

Via PlanetGen, these two could work:

And finally, I also have Fractal Terrains. Let me see if I can set the parameters to have an 84% water world. And while the others are 1600x1200, this one is, err, larger.

The advantage of the fractal planet generator is that it can generate all sorts of projections. PlanetGen is a bit more limited, and Fractal Terrain has a lot more options I've yet to experiment with. It also has all the projections and then some, such as this Equal Earth projection, and showing the climate map:

I may go with the Fractal Terrain this time, as much as I like old-school command-line driven software. It allows me to dig much further in for details and close-ups.

Part 2 here

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

A Sunday Post - Killed Off A PC

We were playing the 1 on 1 OSE game, and the player was having a good time. I actually had some NPC personalities going (which is hard for me to do more than 1 at a time and there were 2). We had a brief tavern encounter where they added Pinsmiss Jappet, a Gnome thief. to help break into Pen Caravann's house. He was a tad grumpy, though not as bad as my current Goblin character. Being an older Gnome, his beard was white and his cheerful face hid a larcenous soul.

Pinsmiss Jappet, 3rd Level Gnome Thief

And it is a bit difficult to find a thief Gnome. Regardless, I figured as Gnome in OSE tend to be tinkerers and good with their hands, Pinsmiss took his dexterous talents in a different direction.

They managed to break into the house - I was rolling pretty well for Pinsmiss to pick the lock. They did manage to sneak most of the way up to the 4th floor when they encountered their first guard. Dynin, the player's assassin, missed his roll to assassinate the guard, but actually survived that fight, killing the guard with a single stroke of his dagger (he rolled a 4, and that guard only had 4 hit points). The crew continued up the stairs, and then actually managed to make the hear noise roll (well, one did and that was enough!). There was a guard upstairs outside Penn's door. While waiting, a rat made some noise down in the kitchen. Seeing the light flicker in the stairwell, Dynin tried to hide in the shadows to make another assassin's strike. Sadly, a 1st level assassin only has a 10% chance or so. He failed, and the guard also made a higher initiative. He did manage to kill this guard as well.

Continuing to the 4th floor, Pinsmiss failed the trap check but fortunately, the lock was not trapped. He also barely made the pick lock roll (he is a 3rd level thief so not entirely incompetent). Dynin failed the move silent roll (see - I am not the only one who has bad rolls!) but I gave him an advantage of +2 as the guy was wrapped up in sheets and blankets. A brief fight ensued, and our fledgling assassin managed to terminate his target. 

While Pinsmiss was working on the lock to the upstairs vault where the big treasures were near and dear to the now dead merchant's heart, another guard, hearing the noises, was coming to investigate. Dyunin, flush with his recent victories, tried to hide to strike and kill the guard. Pinsmiss and Jafari held back as this was Dynin's job. He failed to hide, and the guard rolled a better initiative.

The fight was brutal and fast - while Dynin actually hit the guard, the armor deflected the blow (he actually missed and missing someone standing right in front of you - well, anyway, the mechanics of most RPG fights are an abstraction anyway). The 2nd round, the guard killed Dynin with his short sword. Jafari, the other assassin, and Pinsmiss both attacked the guard, and the Gnome made the final strike to kill the guard.

Sadly, out game for that character was all of 2 sessions. And it was a bit difficult for me running as I've not run OSE before. I do like the old-school mechanics, and the fact that it is a pretty lethal game for low-level characters who have no hit point cushion! The player took it in stride though. Our next game will probably be Death Test as we're both familiar with the Fantasy Trip, and that solo game, which I've run by myself a few times, is good for playing without a GM. 

I actually started another post, one for fleshing out the Traveller animal encounters. As normal with me, it kinda went all over the place. Think I'll try and rework that into something a bit less stream of consciousness. 

And hey - I have 20 followers! Thanks for those who follow me (and more thanks for those who comment. I do read the comments, and in fact, that disorganized post is a direct result of some comments (who, when I checked, is either not following or uses a different name). Regardless - thanks. I know I tend to be all over the place for what started as a Traveller blog for my trade software I started (and restarted, and restarted yet again!) decades ago. Figure most gamers tend to play a wide swath of games, so feel that's okay. Though I do notice that the Traveller-centric posts get the most reads. Probably because where others have linked my blog are mostly other Traveller blogs. And I will be doing some Traveller world building even if the next SF game is not Traveller: Traveller is such a great toolbox, and its various tools can be used for any game really.

Jafari, 3rd Level Assassin

End Credit Scene

And post-game, Jafari & Pinsmiss did raid that vault and make a daring escape with several hundred GP. Jafari admitted to the Assassin's Guild leader that Dynin, while making his target, failed in getting out. However, a signal was given to the Cult of Perfection that their days may be numbered. So, the wheels are still in motion as politics are literally cut-throat in my fantasy game!

Treasure! Which only had to be split 2 ways instead of 3!

Goblin Cult

Playing a game of Delve, and I've a Goblin. The way the referee plays this game is a fun variation on the regular introduction to this system: we have no idea who we are, and only roll up our stats when we do something that would use that stat. Same with the starting skills and all that. And, similar to Traveller, it is entirely random so we play something we may not normally do. In fact, I don't think I've ever played a goblin before.

Turns out he also has 2 snake tattoos on the backs of his little green hands. And three cats (the referee knows I am a cat person who actually does happen to have 3 cats). My Goblin, like the last time I played this game with this referee, did not do well on his learning roll (the L in Delve). Took him 2 sessions to finally remember who he was (first time we played it took 3 sessions I want to say. I do have bad rolls!)

Fugh Srebnalk is a magic-wielding Goblin apparently: he can take 30-60 foot jumps and can talk with his 3 cats. Digging into various books and zines, I came up with this cult. Books used were Gobsmack!, the Ultimate Bestiary: Revenge of the Horde, Remarkable Cults and Their Followers, Fairyland, Rackham Vale and probably a few others. At least I am using the things I get!

Forest Goblins are a type of Goblin, and I decided that I liked the idea of a forest Goblin. A bit more fey than your typical D&D monster-Goblin, with ties going back to the Goblin King and Fey. But having turned their backs on the Goblin King, tired of being cannon fodder, the Forest Goblins, at least this bunch, want to get back to the land of the Fairy. From that arises the following cult, mostly rolled up though with some discretion added.

Druidic Circle:

  Druidic circles are usually composed of those who revere and draw their power from nature.

  Circles exist outside the laws of civilization

  Wilder, more brutal code: may harvest blood of trespassers to fertilize groves

  Bloodshed and cruelty are part of nature

 Size and Wealth:

   Goblin cult - various factions of Goblin shamans. No wealth, no buildings

 Resources:

   depends of the band. 

 Origin:

   Founded by banished exiles

 Founded:

  seeks to discover or obtain some lost form of magic: an artifact, relic, or a specific collection of spells

Power Source:

  drawn from a portal to another plane of existence (land of the Fey)

Focus: 

  cult kills people in power and replaces them. Not really sure how that works out as Goblins without a glamor would have a difficult time replacing someone. Going with some of the more powerful shamans can either cast a glamor or manage to give a Goblin the power of a glamor. 

Weakness:

  dependent on exotic resource. And I've yet to figure what that resource is, but it is probably why he was in that war band: while the rest may have been fighting for something, Fugh (and his now dead female companion) were actually closer to spies. They were using the warband as a cover to recover whatever artifact or relic. I'll be talking with the GM and we'll flesh this out. 

Symbols:

   winding snakes (this was the one I picked rather than rolled based on the original random roll for my character's brand)

Name: Keepers of the Powerful Creed

Revering Maeve, Queen of the Unseelie, the Keepers have portals to the land of Fairie. 

These portals require the blood of strangers to keep functioning. They also look for

crystals of power: these are used with blood in dark rituals performed by the shamans.

Most Goblins that are part of this cult help trap & kill strangers in their forests.

They think Elves' blood is an even more powerful agent in the rituals. The shaman has

not said one way or the other.

As they move up in the cult, they get tattooed:

• Novice: no tattoo, but a leather thong necklace with a crudely carved snake.  Generally just attend the ceremonies, hoping for some magic or something
• Hunter: single snake tattoo. Part of the crew that catches strangers in their area. They get closer to the portals but are not allowed to cross.
• Hunt Master: two snale tattoos. Lead the huning groups, and on particularly good catches (Elves) and are allowed to cross back to the land of Fairy for a period of time
• Shaman: leads the rituals, and has several tattoos

Traveller Bestiary

While doing some mini painting, I was thinking about how various creatures or monsters are common throughout multiple fantasy game systems. Take for instance, the fire elemental.

(and yes, I am actually pretty happy with how this one turned out!). I have a few fantasy RPGs, and at least for OSE & the Fantasy Trip, there are some consistencies with this one. Cannot be hurt by non-magical weapons, cold magic affects it, and so on.

Traveller, on the other hand, has thousands of worlds, thousands of biomes, and a near infinite number of creatures. What you encounter on one world is not going to show up on another. There are some exceptions, creatures that have been transported around and on many worlds. The JTAS had a bestiary section in most issues, and most of the creatures were native to a specific world. Some, such as the tree kraken, seemed to get on to other low gravity worlds (which in Traveller, most worlds tend to be low gravity worlds I'd really make that curve more likely to yield normal gravity worlds...well, that is a post for another day!) Some, like the beaked monkey, are more or less pets, and so available everywhere.

Each planet, using book 3, can generate a plethora of creatures rapidly (see my post on random encounters, which is what sparked this post of rambling thoughts). The same idea for creatures as for random encounters struck me, but in a different way. 

Traveller breaks down creatures into a set of reactions: Flee, Attack or pretty much ignore. Those rolls are dependent on the type of creature, and the entire animal creation rules in Traveller are pretty well thought out.

What they lack though, at least for me, is the chrome, the flash. While that is the purview of the referee really, we just don't have a bestiary in Traveller simply because it deals with many worlds. Not just a few planes of existence as per several fantasy games, but literally millions of potential worlds. Each world would have its own bestiary, and it is extremely unlikely that you would encounter a creature from Regina on Glisten. One being a garden world, the other being an asteroid belt.

I've backed two bestiaries recently, both really for OSE. And I do have the Fantasy Trip's Old School Monsters. And while Mongoose is republishing a lot of old JTAS with a bit of the new (and FINALLY going back to top-down deck plans versus the entirely useless isometric ones) and have a bestiary section as well. But in Traveller, you have to adapt those to fit your universe. 

And in the end, unless you are playing a low-tech adventure in Traveller, creatures have an entirely different purpose in my opinion for Traveller. They add chrome to the world, but unless you go out of your way, you are not going to interact with native fauna. And for those well-armed adventurers, few creatures pose any sort of a threat.

While I really like using Heaven And Earth to help me flesh out my worlds, and it generates the multitude of animal encounter tables, unless you are running a game like Across the Bright Face, how often do those tables get used?

I did manage to use those in a Traveller game I ran a few years ago at the gaming club. But it was forced: the system was a post-apocalyptic world that at one time had a TL-17 level of computers: the AI took over basically. Fortunately, space-wise they never got above a jump 1. Anyway - technically the world was under a red zone from the Imperium as it still had a thriving nanobot culture what would wipe out any Imperial tech in 2-12 hours. The Pax Stellar game forced the animal encounter tables as I removed the ability to have them use grav vehicles by referee fiat. I took away player agency in one sense, though there were "real" reasons to do so. 

But other than forcing things like that (your shuttle crashes in the jungle) I can't see really using those animal encounter tables all too much. Exceptions do apply: playing a science/exploration game, a hunting scenario, and I am sure there are a few other cases. And perhaps I've just not managed to get the right group for that. Traveller is a very broad SF RPG, and while it does have a defined setting you can use, it is a really, really BIG setting that few people (other than my 19 readers, well, 18 as my wife subscribes but she is not into gaming, just fishing - and musky fishing at the moment) really get into. Heck - I've played Traveller off & on for over 40 years and I am not that much into the setting. Why I mostly lurk about on COTI as there are people who seem to live and know every corner of the OTU.

But you can see where those tables came from: an extension of the random encounter tables but for animals. and both have their DNA firmly based in fantasy games that came before. GDW just extended those basic ideas into the Traveller universe, using the 2d6 process and limits.

To try and wrap up this rambling post: I don't think Traveller lends itself to having a universal bestiary. You have to develop one per world. Fortunately, there are tools to automate that. I have Heaven And Earth, and there are probably on-line tools (I thought the TravellerMap's Generate World Map did that, but I can't find encounters there. But wow - that is a great resource! There have been a lot of updates since I last looked at that. Though I like making my own maps, for those who don't want to, this does it all for you Traveller style)

A Universal Bestiary in Traveller, if not an electronic system, would be like the old Encyclopedia Britannica - a huge set of large volumes, 1 book per world. Fortunately for Traveller, and players and referees, computers have caught up and so we can have those tables automatically generated for us (and now wondering if I could try & do that as well. As I've never gone back to my old trade program. Maybe when I retire, I'll return to my hobby software development. Currently I do way too much of that for work and don't much feel like doing it even more in what little free time I have!)

World Building - Cities, Settlements, and all that

 We've seen how I've been using the Spectacular Settlements book to create a town (Windemere and Fort Covenant). While I love building these things, they are a lot like using High Guard to build starships in Traveller: how much of what is built is actually used?

While I've heard the quote that ships are just "boxes to get from one planet to another", I grew up with Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica - those ships were more than just boxes. They were effectively characters in their own right. Which is something I've also heard about ships in SF games.

Same for various settlements that are going to be more than just a one-night layover. I've built up these places, with maps, characters and even rumors and things. Yet I never really seem to use them in the way I want to use them. At least that is how it feels to me. 

So what do I do: buy more books on city building! Good thing it really is something I enjoy doing and is my entertainment. Similar to building worlds and ships for Traveller, building settlements for fantasy games is equally enjoyable.

I've got the final PDF for the Organic Towns, which I am hoping will help me to make the towns live. They do become characters with a changing character sheet and changes. I've yet to read much of it - I really prefer actual books for my initial read, then I use the PDF when I am at the computer alongside the book. And then I also realized I backed another town book, Campaign Towns (and at the limited-edition pledge just to see what a very expensive book will look like). The core of Organic Towns seems to be a point system, similar to Traveller's resource units per planet which in some versions of Traveller allow you to build up a planet. I never got into that level of playing as we played a lot more feet on the ground. Which is my preference for gaming in general: I don't want to be in charge of anything in real life or the gaming world! Because with power comes responsibility, and I also do not deal well with stress.

Anyway - back to world building for fantasy worlds. To quote from the PDF:

Settlement Points (SPs) are the foundation of Organic Towns. Settlement points are a representation of laborers, raw materials, and gold. To determine a settlement’s baseline monthly Settlement Point allowance, divide the population by 10 and round up to the nearest whole number. For instance, a small village with 257 residents would get 26 SPs each month. Settlement Points reset each month, and unspent Settlement Points do not carry over to next month.Settlement Points can be spent to construct buildings or take Settlement Actions.

Basically, I get to play mayor or ruler of that city. Each month I do things. Going back to Windemere, the town I've developed the most (and the players quit playing before they got there! Not sure what that says about me, but young teenagers don't always want to play with old people! At least their dad is still playing with me). Wait, I've digressed. Back to Windemere: it has a population of, well, I never said. And in re-reading older posts, turns out it is actually named Windemere Crossing. My players do make fun of me as I rarely get the names right. Part of that is that we are playing on Skype so I am missing a lot of visual cues: we do voice only as no-one wants to do video. Which I think is a mistake, but it is what it is. With 70+ buildings, and several outlying locations and smaller sub-settlements, going with a permanent population of 350 or so. There is a transient population as well from being on the caravan route. Which yes, I did add random tables to as well, I think. I really need to re-read the actual document I was generating back when I thought we'd be using this. I think I just like making documents. One of these days I may do something with them!

Organic Towns brings in a few more attributes to our settlements: moral (how the town's general mood is), affects a few things. Random rolls, specific buildings, and a few other things can affect the town mood. Hopefully Windemere Crossing won't spiral into despair! 

We also have resources, which is a bit more abstracted in Settlements, which can also affect moral. Windemere Crossing, while near a desert, is also at the foothills of mountains, so while it does not get the rain from the south, there are rivers and wells readily available. Windemere Crossing is not lacking in local resources, and being on a major trade route, has access to remote resources as well. 

With our local population of 350, we have 35 settlement points. With which we can build things and all that. Or upgrade existing buildings. In looking at the book, it is almost a Catan-like (or an 4X board game) experience but bundled into role-playing. There is even a SP (Settlement Points) conversion to gold pieces for a few games. Shades of Traveller: converting between an abstract resource concept to actual credits or gold: never a good idea in my opinion (some things are just too abstract to convert. Then you have the whole debacle of Star Wars introducing midochlorians...just leave some things to the imagination so we can fill them how we want!)

There are upgrade paths. For instance, from a trail to a dirt road to a cobblestone road requires SP, resources and all that. And of course, these also require SP to maintain, but can bring about trade bonuses and other benefits. 

Sorry, distracted again. I'll try and do a better overview of the book when it shows up. I may take the Settlements work sheets, and add aspects of Organic Towns (and then add more elements from the other City Building book). What would be interesting is seeing about tracking the towns as the players stay there. Building improvements will have construction going on, work crews, possibly artisans depending on the building. Reminds me of the Blue Ridge Parkway, near where I live. The bridges were made by Italian stone masons, and all are very pretty. Things like that ("Yes, we hired the master Dwarf mason Thunderrock to build the bridge into town") has potential impact to how the players perceive the town. 

And again - all this goes on in my head and rarely seems to see the light of game play. Think I need to write things down ahead of time: the couple times I did that in the Cowboy game I did manage to cover at least some of the things I wanted to cover.