Organic Towns: A Settlement Turn (month 1, before the players show up)

It has almost been 2 months since I started the Organic Towns and Taverns life for Windemere Crossing and The Nimble Priest Inn. First, let's see what we are doing in Windemere Crossing since we really did not do much there.

I don't think I ever established the basic population of Windemere Crossing, other than there are a fair number of empty buildings. Settlement points are based on the population, and as this is trade town on a fairly popular trade route, let's just start with an even 300 people. I've established a lot of NPCs, and there are a few more for the potential adventures from a few books and things. We have 30 settlement points. And there is a worksheet for settlements (I may eventually have to figure out how to combine the Spectacular Settlements and Organic Town worksheets into something a bit more comprehensive!). Somewhere back in the blog I did go over the settlements worksheets, and I have a copy handy. Basically, though, I seemed to have misplaced the priority of Windemere Crossing: it was supposed to be focused on the military, being a military town. Think I repurposed that: it was back when Tuvano was a thriving capital of the Respeth Kingdom, but with its fall (and yes, I will run that TFT game sometime!) the Dwarves basically took over centuries ago, and the capital is now Thuluhm, weeks away instead of just a week. The Crossing stood almost empty until the Ocean Trade Route was established and has grown as a trade town since then. I also know 30% of the population live outside the gated walls.

Anyway, back to our worksheet for growth. I know I did this somewhere, but cannot find it. So I've created a new one, and there are a lot of factors to consider. Various things either cost of give settlement points, and give advantages. I've got the Windemere Crossing worksheet posted below. While we do start with 30 SP, we actually have another 51 for various things. The big points come from the stable and inn: Lurboc the Orc family and the Sea Elf Pirates have the biggest impact on the little trade town.

With 81 SP (Settlement Points), we can build more things or expand what we've got. For me, the question is: these points are an abstraction similar to the Traveller Resource Units (which I never really played with). OSR games give a rate of 25GP per SP. This give Windemere Crossing basically 2000+ gold a month for various projects. Part of that will be building new houses - our population increase is about 4% a month. I can see things public sector things - the road, walls, town hall sorts of things - getting improved. But the points also go to the various shops and private facilities. We'll just gloss over that part of things unless it comes up in a game. And since this is all behind the scenes, it won't come up!

And the worksheet is missing some important bits: I'm going to have to break it down to building per line so I can have the costs and benefits listed a bit more easily. Looking at the government types, thinking an oligarchy is the closest: though technically a feudal outpost, the Elves have pretty much taken over the town a few years back. This also adjusts the crime and trade scores. And as the leader is also a kleptocrat, this has some severe consequences: gives us a bandit hideout (the Silver Pirate) and a really high crime score! Though this is a bit more organized, and if King Axechest finds out, there may be some troops moving in to take back this former military outpost.

Each building has events we can roll for. Having a few dozen buildings means that we also have a lot of rolls. 

Let's see what happens in Windemere Crossing the month before the players show up (I figure I'll be running the game before I do the next post). 

First, our general crime: someone has been scratching jokes into public buildings that require obscure knowledge of both Dwarven linguistics and the mating habits of Otyughs to understand. And oddly, my Spectacular Settlements work sheets show that the town is 50% human (~150), 25% Dwarven (~75), 15% Elf (~45, almost all the Sea Elves), and the remaining 10% various races (we do know Lurboc the Orc lives outside of town at his stables).  I need to make a note of the scratching, though none of the players are Dwarves.

Ahh, and there are only 3 rolls per settlement turn (monthly). Crime (above), morale and then a table for which building. Our morale roll indicates the residents are fearful of a threat to Windemere Crossing but are confident in the leadership. We have had an occasional Orc attack, so now I know we may want to start training a militia unit.

Which funnily enough leads us to our building roll - it was barracks. Someone was caught sneaking into the barracks: an assassin! Perhaps a hanging from our sheriff. 

Now we have our 81 settlement points to spend. As we are gaining 4%, or 12 people, this month. As this is on a trade route, it does not mean 12 babies this month, though rolling 1d4 there will be 4 new babies this month, which means 12 adults have moved in from somewhere. We're going to be building 3 houses to take into account next month's growth as well. Costs are in lumber and a total of 9 SP. The houses will be available at the start of the next settlement phase in a month. Though there are also other settlement actions we can do - as this is spring and food is plentiful, not going to worry about food storage. But in the fall months with the harvests come in, we'll be spending points for that. 

We're going to be improving the barracks from I to II and will cost is 50 SP and take 2 months. As metal is not as readily available, there is a 33% surcharge hauling it down from the mountains, so we'll just call it even for our point usage. We'll start training our militia next month. We know Rennor will want to be a part of it, though her father may not want her to. What's an Orc to do...

Worksheet (which I know I did already but cannot find it! So, I've saved it off in my Windmere directory and printed off a copy for the physical folder. And will still somehow lose it again!)

And I've run out of time for the tavern rolls this month! I'll get to it in the next post of so. 

But I do have a few things going on in the town now, which I'm adding to my cheatsheet. The wall scratchings, the assassin, and the town is a bit worried about another Orc attack. 

OSE Game Prep: Part 4, a smattering of rumors and adventure hooks

I've been slowly progressing on getting some more stuff ready. Part of this is I am giving each of the 3 players (maybe a 4th, not sure yet) a secret. What they do with this is up to them. They all fit into this little corner of the fantasy world, and possibly lead to some adventures. 

While I don't expect them to stick around Windemere Crossing for too many adventures, I am hoping that we can have them do at least a couple of things and level up. For that, we need some low-level adventures. Looking through the stuff I have, there are at least 3 that can by run as well as whatever I come up with. And in hindsight I should have given the monk/fighter character something else to help link it to one of the adventures. And all three, as long as I keep them vague, can be used elsewhere if they don't pursue them here. 

The plan is they show up in Windemere Crossing, do a little bit of exploring. There will be some NPC interaction, and we'll see what strikes their fancy. If all else, I may have Ira Sprigbasher, the sheriff, see about hiring them, or the mine representatives may want someone. As pointed out in today's skirmish game, these ARE low-level characters without a lot of hit points. Perhaps there is some armor in one of the shops that is magically enchanted as well. I do know they will meet up with our resident young Orc Rennar Lurbok as she is always interested in new people in town.

I've also been reading through the various settlement/city books I have for RPGs, and they have sparked a few ideas. I realized that I never figured children into Windemere Crossing! I'll have to add children, and if children, then possibly a school or some apprenticeships perhaps. Though in re-reading my ever-changing city description, I did find this:

For the few children in town, it makes for a wonderful playground. For others, there are numerous places to hide what they don’t want others to see. There are various wells scattered throughout the town, though no centralized sewer system.

So I did anticipate children. Just not a lot - figure there are maybe 300-500 people in Windemere, and perhaps 10% are children of various ages. If I want Windemere Crossing to be a growing town on the edge of the Respeth Kingdom, where trade caravans pass almost daily. Which also means there are a lot more inns and taverns than just those I've listed out. May have to keep the 2-minute tavern info handy in case they decide to go off the beaten path!

I have been working on my cheat sheet so I have this sort of info handy. I'll print it out before the 1st night. May even print out the larger city book - I ended up getting an inexpensive laser printer so I can print a bit more cheaply! It really helps me to have it in paper form: despite working with computers for decades, and having multiple screens, paper is just easier for me to find things.

And the Dungeons & Lasers terrain came! I've put together 2 trees and painted them, and I like how they came out. I've also a Dwarven arch which came out pretty nice. And now that we're playing skirmish games once or twice a month, I'm actually using my toys now!

Traveller: External Cargo

There has been a fairly energetic discussion on external cargo for starships over on COTI. While the rules do not specifically say one way or the other, and as ship drives are volume and not mass-based, you would assume that it was possible. However, I am of the "not in my TU" camp. Even though the jump drive was originally a jump bubble, I also assumed it took into account the ship. Later versions of Traveller of course have at least 3 jump technologies: the original bubble (which really implies that the jump drive should be in the center of the ship), jump plates which cover the ship but extend the field a bit beyond the hull, and a jump grid, built into the ship hull itself. Obvious to me at least, the second two options do not allow for an external cargo. 

Where the interesting part lies is in the jump bubble. If you allow an external cargo pod of sorts, you are shifting the volume of the ship from 100% internal to a combination of internal and external. Obviously, we need multiple stats for this ship: no external cargo, then cargo by volume. Still easy. 

However, for me it just does not feel right. Except for that odd jump net in Supplement 9, you never see interstellar ships with external cargo. Additionally, jump space is deadly. 

On the pro-external cargo, there is nothing really that I recall in the rules saying you can't do this. It frees up space by essentially giving you a lot more cargo space so that your ship can be mostly engines and fuel. There is a certain flexibility in that approach.

However - for me, space is dangerous. Those cargo containers are now outside the ship, subject to all the inherent dangers: vacuum, radiation, micro-meteorites, the random space whale...

And it is not free. Internal cargo space is free - it is left-over space after everything else is added in. For an external cargo bay, or set of bays, you will need appropriate clamps, the correct cargo container that is space-worthy, and accept the inability to check on the cargo in jump. 

For me, this would really only work for ships and external cargo pods that are designed to work together. I would assume a standardized set of pods, and also assume this is only going to work for transit between systems that have the infrastructure to remove and add the pods back on. For example, one of the 0-Hr kickstarters had a huge cargo ship, which I really want to use. For this, each of the pods are pretty big - 6 decks. It also has a crew of 100, and without some very, very heavy machinery, the NERO class cargo ship is not mounting or unmounting those cargo pods. This ship is about 62,000 dTons. 

For intents, they are really part of the hull as they have hull-armor for the bays. But in theory, they can come off. And used for a basic colony if nothing else!

Another example of this is the Element Class Cruisers: they have various pods that can be fitted on. At a Naval station as these things are huge. But they are external pods such as a missile or ECM pod. It gives some flexibility to the missions. 

In the end, I would not allow external cargo for ships that were not designed specifically for that, and I would also have the cargo pods be pretty expensive as they need a lot more requirements than a TEU standard cargo box you can slide into an environmentally friendly cargo bay. I'd also possibly give negative DMs for piloting and even navigation unless they took extra time. As each load could differ. Though as Traveller is volume-based, it can easily be argued that would not make a difference. And I'd also make sure you have a computer large enough to handle the largest load, though technically, I think an unloaded ship, having longer jump legs, would actually require the more powerful computer! But I think I'd have to make additional software to handle the variable ship parameters.

I just don't want someone to strap a big crate on top of their Scout ship and call it a day!

World Building: Traveller vs Fantasy Games

Traveller literally has world building as part of the game. Worlds, solar, systems, sub-sectors, sectors and pretty much everything. Fantasy world-building, on the other hand, just has, for the most part, a single world (of course we have various planes and things). Of course, it is often a world per rule set you are using.

As readers of this blog know, I really like world building. And while I was originally thinking that Traveller's was a lot larger and broader, I also came to the conclusion that that Traveller world-building is often just as in-depth as any fantasy world I create (and for me, actually, all my fantasy games are in the same world regardless of actual RPG being played). At least the way I do Traveller and fantasy world-building!

And of course, I do this world-building mostly for myself, but the purported end-goal is of course to have a place for the players' characters to interact with. Which, via my normal rambling approach, brings me to: just how much do the players really interact with what I create?

And what sparked this question this time? As I do bring it up a bit. The game my grumpy Goblin is in takes place in my friend's world. He creates worlds for each fantasy game basically: the settings are not the same. Of course, our various fantasy games that he runs are thematically different and I realize mine are mostly the same sort of generic western European classical fantasy. But as we're playing, I find myself struggling to pull in the details of the world my character inhabits: there are multiple duchies and groups, and he has renamed a lot of the various "monsters" so I also have to remember to call the Goblins Gren, and Orcs are Grendle. We've been playing for a few months, and it still is hard for me to keep it all straight (though it does not help that work the last several months has been quite horrible as I'm working pretty much every day, even over the putative vacation we were supposed to have over Christmas). It does help that our characters have lost a lot of their memories, but there is this huge world we've been tossed on. Additionally, we're all powerful in our own right: my Goblin is the last of the Goblin nobility, so is King of the Goblins. The Dwarf and half-Elf also are highly placed individuals. And so, me being me and taking the whole "with great power comes great responsibility" seriously, I have to free my Goblins from the Orc, or Grendle, that have taken over my lands. Which means I need to bring in some bigger guns than the motley group that we are. Which means I need to get used to the bigger world.

On the one hand - there are some grand quests (though we went off-script the 2nd session). On the other hand, I am not used to doing grand quests in games. I like to start small and build up. And I am pretty sure I am also in the minority here: a lot of players want to play powerful characters. Probably another reason I like Traveller so much: you usually play your everyday character against the universe. 

Back to my original idea for the post though: world building in Traveller versus other games. In an abstract way, I see Traveller systems (main world and any other points of interest) being the equivalent of a town, village or city in fantasy games. Most Traveller games (okay, most that I played in back in college, and even those that I've run the last few years) tend to only briefly visit a system. They go, get fuel and cargo, have a patron encounter or two, and move on. The world is simply a relatively static backdrop to the adventure, not a particularly interactive one. Seems to me the same applies to a lot of fantasy RPGs: the town is simple where an adventure will start from and does not get any more detail than the bare necessity. You may have NPCs and things, but the majority of the time they are simply there to give you leads for an adventure.

This is neither a good nor bad thing. It all depends on the group and how they want to play. I'd like to think that, if I played the same character long enough, I may want to set down roots in a system if playing Traveller, or a town if some fantasy RPG. And some people do play that way, especially if they've played the same character and managed to accumulate enough credits or levels and gold. It is even baked into the older fantasy game rules: establishing a fort or whatever based on your class as soon as you reach a certain level. 

I also realize, playing in my friend's rich world he is building, that seeing it from the player side is a lot different than seeing it from the GM's side. All the details he has that sometimes overwhelm me I realize are much more fleshed out in his mind than I can see. Though I do generate documents to help, I seriously doubt most of my players read them. And sadly, he has yet to share a larger scale map so I know how things fit together. And on my side, while I do take notes in-game, I am not taking the time later to re-read and extract out all the names and places. So that part is on me.

And this harkens back to something else that comes up a lot for me: making this world-building, while fun for me as its own thing, actually be useful to the players. Just how do they interact with a world, with a village? And as with the game I am in, the town was small enough that the Baron was holding grievances in the town square, and one of the players just walked up to him.

And I've rambled on long enough. If I had to bring in a conclusion or something, it would be that the Traveller world generation is a lot like a fantasy game city generation: you build up the big picture and throw the characters in, and let the small stuff generate itself based on the players interactions. Sounds good in theory, but I've a feeling it really depends on the group.

And, needing some sort of picture, as pictures are nice, I generated one of the caravan guards. She will be needed as I am also going to try something a bit different in this game: each player will have a secret I pass on to them before the game begins. What they do with that secret, and whether they tell anyone one, is part of the game now. And one of the characters will have some interaction with Tera Serk, another of the Guild of Feathered Guards. She is also dual-statted as that is always fun. Though I've not worked up a real character sheet for her, just the stats and the basic stuff we need. She is a 6th level fighter.

As for who she is, she is a tall and strong blond, the two-handed sword swinging on her back looks well-used. She often works the trade route as a caravan guard, usually to the west but she has also gone east, out to Fort Covenant. While about average in intelligence, she seems to have a good understanding of people. She has remarkable agility and gets up early each day and does a lot of calisthenics. And a great number of push-ups. She enjoys the tavern, but mostly to watch others, and often gets into feats of strength: she loves to arm-wrestle and oddly darts. She is good at following orders and has hired out as a private sellsword more than once. She lives in the guild barracks when in Windermere Crossing and is a trainer there as well. She is reticent about her past and has no attachments anyone is aware of. She gets along well with Rennor and has started to help train her with some swordplay.

Windemere Crossing - Business Districts and neighboring kingdoms

Reading through the Cities and Towns builder book, I realize that I can have districts. While Windmere Crossing is pretty small, even a small town of a few hundred people may have districts. And I also got to thinking about how the history of this being originally a garrison outpost means its architecture will be basically strong and military-based. But it will also, as that has been literally centuries ago, have additional housing and structures added over the years.

We've already encountered the Goblin district, the Goblin Drecks or the Drecks to the southwest side of the town. The market district is small but surrounds what was once the training grounds for the soldiers stationed here. This is in the central part of the town.

But other than that - there are no real districts in Windemere Crossing. Things are a bit jumbled together: the inns and taverns are scattered, reusing older buildings or new ones built. The sheriff's office is the old brig basically. And I just realized we have no town leader. While the Elves of the Silver Pirate actually run the town, and we do have a sheriff, we don't have a council, mayor, royalty or anything in charge. And I think I actually have the kingdom we're in from one of the write-ups.

Windemere Crossing is in the Respeth Kingdom. To the east is the Principality of Gerek, the south is the Duchy of Aberthith, and the west is the Kingdom of Ismekonia. I suppose the Principality or the Duchy could both be part of the Respeth Kingdom. I am not great at political stuff, but we'll go with some tensions between Respeth and Ismekonia - after all, why is the sheriff keeping in contact with his former kingdom?

What kind of kingdom is Respeth? How large is it, and how does it fair with its neighbors? Oddly enough I did not immediately find any sort of random kingdom type generator, though this one and this one are actually pretty interesting for the base population and a few things like that. What I was hoping for is one that gives me the "feel" for the kingdom. As I'll always default to the same stereotypes. Guess I could make up something for dice.

Using the classic Traveller 2d6 reaction roll, we'll go with 2 = a cruel and despotic kingdom and 12 = a pastoral Eden where people all have well-defined rights and few go hungry. A 5: there will be some evil despots, and some of the cities and towns can be quite cruel. I think I need to see about a table now after all, sort of like the TL table. Though it may be hard for me to fill in the ranges. The top and bottom are easy, as is the middle. It is the more nuanced rolls I'll have a hard time filling in. That 5 indicates that there could be some slavery and the general feel of the kingdom is not all sunshine and roses. Guess we could even add in a column for chances of thieves' and assassins' guilds and stuff, but not really sure all that is really necessary or will get used honestly. Of course, our Elves taking over and ruling the town does fit into this roll pretty well honestly. They are not nice people (and I need to dig into them a bit more).

Roll	General Feel	Primary Alignment	Miscellaneous Info
2	A hell on earth. People live in fear and evil rules everywhere	100% Chaotic	Slavery is normal. Torture is common. Starvation for the masses is normal
3
4
5	The seedy part of town is most of the kingdom, though there are some good spots here and there.	40% Chaotic, 40% Neutral, 20% Lawful	Slavery is generally outlawed, indentured servants common.
6
7	Average society. Some good, some bad, some neutral.	33% Chaotic 34% Neutral 33% Lawful	Slavery is outlawed but indentured servants are a thing. There are a wide range of wealth
8
9
10
11
12	Paradise on earth. People are honest and caring.	100% Lawful	Fair rules, and either elected rulers or charismatic and good. No one starves.

 Our town leadership is going to be a very small council lead by a Bürgermeisterin (a female Bürgermeister) and a council of 2 others, the sheriff Sprigbasher and the owner of the largest general store in town, Zesp Zrag. As I've not generated a character other than the gender, I'll do that in my next post or so. Although I am also due to have a monthly tavern update, I think.

In this post I've generated some basic information about Windemere Crossing's few districts and its neighbors, at least the names. And expanded a little on the Kingdom of Respeth where it is situated. And I poked around looking for fantasy game female mayors and eventually found this image, which I really like and will use as the to-be-determined Bürgermeisterin of Windemere Crossing.