Cowboys and Dinosaurs - Game Prepping Mark II. And Star Trek game

Not knowing how long the Star Trek game will continue (oh, hey, we're playing a Star Trek game!) I've been doing some prep work for the game. We're using the Apex rule set, and as per this previous post I'm working on the gamer "bible". While I won't get into the discussion of too much prep (there are so many opinions out there! But this is fun stuff for me, so regardless if it gets used or not, I enjoy doing it.)

One of the things I struggle with when running games is keeping track of the NPCs. To help with that, I'm adding the NPC stat block to the documentation. An example page is below. 

The theory is I'll have this actually printed out when we play, so I have basically index-card sized info for the NPCs. I still need to add some characterizations and stuff to help me remember how to play them. I have a hard time keeping too much in my head (other than an astonishingly large amount of useless, if interesting, things, such as a baby giraffe can grow up to 6" per day! And they are really cute. But I digress, sidetracked yet again by useless information). 

I don't know if I'll print out the entire PDF before we start the game, but will probably print at least parts of it. I just do better with analog things.

And as I realized after I started this post I had already started a post for this game prep, we will switch to the game in progress.

We're playing a D20 Star Trek game, taking place in TOS timeline. As I really seem to like cats (well, half the internet is cat memes for a reason!) I decided to play a Caitian. I used the on-line character generator and was actually pretty happy with the first one. I took the random rolls rather than picking just to see what would happen. 

And yes, of course I created Cait, the home world, and did a bit of research on them. The only real memory I have of Caitian is from the Animated series, which I've not watched in decades despite having it on DVD. He is chief of security and at 40-something, is a Commander and now 2nd in command of the USS Sherezade, a Miranda class vessel (the game master really likes the Miranda class). 

ship character sheet, not really completed.

He has served in security on a variety of vessels: a Loknar class vessel, a Hermes class (I have the Franz Joseph tech manual, and I really like those. I've had that book since early high school, 40+ years now), the traditional Constitution class for 10 years. Hurt on a diplomatic mission, he stayed at Starbase 11 for a bit, training and rehab, then was on a Soyuz class ship which is a sister class to the Miranda class. Yeah, I do like Star Trek, though I never did get any of the RPGs. For me, while I like the TV shows and movies (though the more recent stuff is...hmmm...not what I'd call Star Trek. More like Marvel's What If series if you ask me. Not that you did of course). Playing in the Star Trek universe has a lot of possibilities (even more canon and fan stuff than Traveller. And yes, I have a lot of Star Trek things). However - it is also pretty limiting I think: what works on TV does not work for an RPG as well. In theory we are pretty restricted to what we can do within Star Fleet protocols. And there is a LOT of dice rolling in this game. While I like to roll dice, it should not control everything. However - my bad dice rolling actually works in the D20 system: you want to roll low! Come to think of it, my low rolling should work for the Fantasy Trip as well. I miss playing that game...

Our first night I managed to safely crash the shuttle, the Johnston. And digging through my toys, I found my old Micromachines: I have most of the Star Trek ones, or did at least when I stopped getting them back in the 90s. The overstock toy store I was getting them went out of business. Not my fault - I was there most weekends buying some toy or another! We rescued the scientists, did not manage to find the plants that would be a cure for some disease of the week (we were slowly being radiated and wanted off Xerxes as soon as possible). Despite the GM's attempts to get us to follow the TV script and save the scientists AND retrieve the plants. Having a logical Vulcan as the captain means living another day is more important than possibly retrieving this plant but dying in the process. Star Fleet spent a lot of time and money to train us. Though the money issue does come up in our game.

And I have all the shirts from when the 1st Star Trek reboot came out. I ate a lot of cereal and got all of them for free....dug out the red shirt so I will be in character when we play! 

And Cait, as I like making up planets...

Llovelly Llamma A367537-9

I did some very preliminary work on Llamma in this post. Time to expand a bit out on that world, and also see about adding some atmospheric effects to my worlds.

D'Arlee Quadrant 0806 A367537-9

• Class A Starport, so a good resource with full repair and shipbuilding facilities.
• Size 3, just over 3,000km in diameter, giving us about 0.37standard G
• Atmosphere 6, standard pressure oxygen/nitrogen
• Hydrographics 7, or about 73% liquid oceans.
• Population 5, with about 200,000 people living on Llamma.
• Type 3 government, representative authority, a self-perpetuating Oligarchy, with several Councils
• Law Level 7, so open carry is not allowed, and personal weapons stop at the shot gun.
• Tech level 9, so early interplanetary is supported locally. 
• Agricultural world, one of the breadbasket worlds of the League

So, first, some early attempts add adding an atmospheric haze. I did add the clouds to the Mercator projection, mapped that to the sphere after flattening the image (condense all the layers; previously I was just capturing the planet layer, and not the clouds). The set a new layer on our globe, and "feather" the edges with a color close to what it should look like. Not too bad for a 1st attempt (technically, 2nd. My 1st attempt cropped off the atmosphere at the edges as I did not leave any space for anything to extend beyone the "edge" of the planet).

Perhaps a bit too stark, but practice, practice, practice (just not sure when I can do said practice). I need to play more with a few of those options to make it fuzzier, so to speak. 

Anyway, what do I have currently for Lllamma:

LLamma belongs with the League of Independent Planets, a small political grouping entirely surrounded by Imperial space. The League is an autonomous political grouping that works with the Imperium yet is distinct. LLamma is an agricultural planet in a binary star system. It orbits the primary star, an M1 V star named Acorn, in the first orbit. Boasting a class A starport and a population of approximately 200,000 primarily human inhabitants, LLamma is mostly undeveloped despite having garden world attributes. A standard atmosphere and 65% hydrographics coverage gives great swaths of farmlands. A small planet, there is only about one third of a standard G. The native population has adjusted to this gravity, but many homes and locations have started using grav-plates to strengthen those who may wish to visit the rest of the galaxy without wearing supporting armatures. There is a single gas giant, Llowel, and no planetoid belts. The secondary star, Bova is an M3 V star and actually boasts more planets. Llamma’s 26 hour day is in contrast to a short year of just over 52 standard days. LLamma is 0.2 AU from its primary which is barely above red dwarf in size and solar output. With little axial tilt, seasons vary very little. The equator is much warmer than is comfortable by humans, but as one travels to the poles the temperature become milder and more tolerable. The government of LLamma is classified as a representative authority, with several councils that control various aspects of the government. At TL 9, LLamma has basic grav vehicles but generally prefers wheeled or hovercraft. The light gravity also lends itself to easy flight via winged vehicles. The native flying wildlife boast impressive wingspans. From an Imperial viewpoint, LLamma has two distinct customs that may appear unusual. Highly ranked military figures are required to have clones. While these clones will not have the memories or abilities of the original person, they are raised to maximize their potential for military prowess. The second somewhat unusual custom is used for scientists: they often wear heavy fidget rings. An entire industry has grown up developing specific styles depending on area of expertise.

Llamma is part of a binary star system, so let's have fun with making a system map:

Not sure how well that will show up on screen, and for sure would not print that out unless I want to use up a lot of ink :) For printing I'd remove the space background and just have the orbits.

I did make up some special cargos for Hendar, so lets see what Heaven & Earth say about trade goods here on the garden world of Llamma.

FREIGHT & CARGO

Major Cargo: 5 lots:

Lot 1   Records (Data)	15 tons	Cr 2,900/ton    Cr 43,500/Lot
Lot 2   Plants (Lumber)	15 tons	Cr 2,900/ton    Cr 43,500/Lot	Cor 12+  Fla 6+   Exp 12+  Per 9+
Lot 3   Raw Data (Data)	15 tons	Cr 2,900/ton    Cr 43,500/Lot
Lot 4   Silver	14 tons	Cr 2,900/ton    Cr 40,600/Lot
Lot 5   Nonmetal Ore	16 tons	Cr 2,900/ton    Cr 46,400/Lot	Cor 10+  Exp 12+
Minor Cargo: 5 lots
Lot 1   Weapons	9 tons	Cr 2,900/ton    Cr 26,100/Lot	Fla 9+
Lot 2   Weapons	11 tons	Cr 2,900/ton    Cr 31,900/Lot	Fla 9+
Lot 3   Consumable Milks	10 tons	Cr 2,900/ton    Cr 29,000/Lot	Fla 10+  Rad 8+
Lot 4   Protective Gear	10 tons	Cr 2,900/ton    Cr 29,000/Lot	Fla 9+
Lot 5   Writings (Paper)	11 tons	Cr 2,900/ton    Cr 31,900/Lot

Not really sure what that last column is for. Probably should look that up. And Blogger does not have a table entry process; easiest is making a table in Word and copy/paste that. It does NOT take an Excel copy/paste, but you can paste that into Word (or probably Google's own Documents) and then copy and paste from there. 

And interestingly, a 37% taxation rate based on whatever math Heaven & Earth uses (mostly MegaTraveller I think, I've never really wondered much). These are the basic cargos available. 

Passengers we don't have to worry about, as we are carrying the Vargr diplomat. But just in case (and one of these days, I keep promising myself, I'll have some sort of standard world info sheet so I have all critical data: UWP, travel times to 10/100 diameters based on maneuver drive, available cargos and passengers, maybe even system traffic profiles and random encounters. Of course, I've been promising that to myself for literally decades so it does not appear to be happening anytime soon).

High Passengers: 5; Middle Passengers: 2; Low Passengers: 6

And this being a world that exports agricultural products, one of the "breadbasket worlds" of the League, the reason for that class A port is not really ship construction or repair (and the whole question of how does a TL 9 system repair a TL C drive?). It is for the large cargo carriers that transport the foods across the League. Interestingly, I just got a new ship from 0-Hr which is a huge cargo transport. So yes, there will be some Nero Class Cargo Vessels at the port!

Cargo bays full of grains! Each of those boxy cargo pods are 6 decks high, really 3 decks of 6 meter decks. The mini is pretty big as well, so it does sort of dwarf his other minis. Now I really need to play face to face to land that sucker next to the character's ship!

Solo Traveller: Hendar

The main port building was fairly small: some radio masts and what really looked like someone camping on the roof. There were some small warehouses next door, and Ewo and I sorted out our ship manifest and bounced over to the building.

Nicely enough, there were grav plates inside, so I was no longer concerned with hitting my head on the ceiling just trying to walk. After talking to the port warden (who was the same person who we contacted by comms a few hours back), we were directed to another building across what he called the quad. Apparently the grav plating covered a larger area than just the building. When I asked, Stin, the warden, told me that there was about a 200 meter area where the buildings were at, including some dorm type rooms for the locals to sleep in once in a while. Bone density and other health issues were helped by the residents sleeping in the port area every few days. Apparently there were sleepover parties and it was one of the times when the mostly disparate people gathered, shared any news, and generally caught up with each other.  The warehouses, fuel depot and other facilities were "off-grid" to help with moving things around. 

Finding someone to buy the medical supplies turned out to be a lot more difficult than expected: there was no local government, just a few groups of the "Hippies of Hendar", a name they proudly call themselves I found out. Our first few inquiries did not go well, and Ewo was starting to get a bit angry and perturbed by the lack of any sort of governing body. We had medical supplies they probably needed as they could not produce these themselves. Yet no one seemed to care or had the credits necessary. I felt there was some sort of irony in this, as I could see one of the buildings on the quad was where they actually printed currency. There were literally piles of half-printed money, but none to purchase our goods. There was a lot of low-tech security there, including what looked to be a small patrol on foot carrying shotguns.

We did unload the 230 tons of bulk freight we did have. It was made easier as we turned off the grav plates in the cargo hold. Though inertia is still a thing, it does make it easier for the alcohol-based port tractors they have to move the shipping crates. 

We also started to search for cargo: Ewo and rented a buggy and started out searching the hills, so to speak. Having only 300-odd residents, there were only a few communes to look around for. Given a paper map and no GPS proved to be a bit frustrating, but there were paths so we did not get lost. On the second day of our sojourn, we encountered a native creature (world encounter: interesting or potentially dangerous encounter with some local wildlife; it's reaction roll had it run away). We slowed down and stopped at hopefully a safe distance, not knowing exactly what a safe distance would be. It stared at is a few minutes, then trotted off in a long, loping run that had it taking 20 meter strides before it was out of sight.

Deviantart link to original

We finally found a farmer that had some interesting herbs for sale, technically a ton, but fortunately it was fairly light despite the bulk, and would fit on the trailer we had (see this post for the details) Apparently, sales were not great, as we managed to purchase the herbs for just half of what this would normally go for (I actually used the Mongoose sales table, and with 3d6 actually rolled 18, which is 55%, then there is a bonus from the Solo rules as we are away from the port so better deals are found, bringing us to 50% of the cost) We set up the contract to pay the Cr30,000, and we loaded the crates. The light gravity helped. We finally headed back to the ship. I for one was ready to sleep back in full grav - while initially it seems easier to sleep, simply turning in bed could bounce you out of the bed sometimes! 

While we heard about the knifesmith, Nathan Hillback. Sadly, he did not have anything really for sale at a bulk level, and while the knives were beautiful, at a few thousand cred each, they were outside of my price range. Though Ewo did get two. "These knives are perfectly balanced and will last forever. And you can never under-estimate a well-made knife," she told me as she bargained with the burly smith.

We bounced over the terrain, crates on the trailer behind the buggy, and arrived back at the port late in the evening. Loading the cargo, we slept in our own beds that night, finally back in full gravity.

The next day, Captain Laux introduces us to Lady Khu Knueguegzo, a Vargr noblewoman who was dropped off here from her last ship, and required transport throughout the League. She would be paying high passage rates for her and her body guard. We were to provide possible additional assistance if required. While I am not a body guard type, I've been around high profile people in my reporting career (yes, he was a journalist in his previous career from way, way back when I started to set up this solo game!) Egg seemed almost cowed by her - I'm always curious about the Vargr relationships and how everything is a sort of pack hierarchy. Then those thoughts always end back to humans are pretty much the same, just with different names and reasons for those relationships. I think the Vargr are just more honest about it.

There was no freight available: this sparsely populated planet was not in the cross-roads of any trade routes apparently. We'd have to accept that we have a pair of passengers and a ton of herbs. And after reading through the cargo manifest, I noticed that the 2326793-02167515-[915 984 8Y]-(2) codes indicated that this deadly for Ewo and the Aslan, so I handled the cargo and then did a fast sterilization of the bay and loading ports. I let Ewo know to be careful and stay out of the cargo bay just in case. 

Okay, we had our time with the Hippies of Hendar and picked up some weed. The knife smith is actually based on a friend of mine that does actually make knives - he's still in the journeyman status but it is really cool to see what he does. He is the one that made me that battle axe. We've also got a sort of patron: the section for contacts and actually starport encounters both had me roll a patron. So, I pulled out 76 Patrons, figured we had 1-5 characters, rolled the dice and had the following patron:

From 76 Patrons:  The players' group is approached by a representative of the Imperial Minister of State, who is searching for a small party to act as an escort for a visiting Vargr noble. She will remain in the subsector for about six months before departing for home. Anti-Vargr sentiment is high for the moment, due to a  number of unfortunate incidents  involving Vargr warships, and the League is anxious about the noble's visit. The group will receive Cr2000 each at the successful conclusion of the assignment, and will undoubtedly get first consideration for future jobs. 

Cr2000 per character is really not a whole lot, though reading between the lines, this would have included ship fare and living expenses so quite a bit more than the Cr2000 says. As we do have a ship, we'll make her pay the full high passage rates for her and her bodyguard. We already have 1 Vargr on board, now there are three. It will make for some possibly interesting interactions. And, just why was Lady Khu even on Hendar? Honestly, I am going to work this into the back-plot that the Captain and "Egg" have been hatching (see what I did there?). It is still pretty vague in my head, but there are wheels within wheels here. I just need to figure out where I want to go with that.

And I can see how I may have handled this had this been a game with players: there were a few role-playing scenes here that would have been fun. My dialog, when I do it by myself, is somewhat stilted and dry. And while I can't think too fast on my feet, so to speak, it is more fun to talk and role play against live people versus just my imagination. Hopefully I'll get back to some face to face gaming at some point.

Finally, in looking at the map, there is really only 1 planet to go to from here unless they want to backtrack. Llamma, a planet I have detailed before. I'll have to poke the archives to see if I made a post about it. Apparently, I used it in one of my games as I have a directory full of maps and things, including a complete visitors guide! Next post - details on Llamma!

Llamma

Planet Tutorial 2: From Flat To Globe

There are always a lot of world maps one can find out there. As well as generating your own. But what if you have a flat world map, hopefully in the Mercator projection, and want to make a globe from that? GIMP has mapping tools, so that we can map a 2D surface to a 3D surface. GIMP is free and available on most platforms, so this should work on Macs, Linux & Windows systems.

First obviously we start with a flat map; this one was generated from Fractal Terrain but could be from anything. 

Next, open GIMP and open this file

GIMP has a lot of options. I've added additional tools and filters over the years, and the Q'MIC has a LOT of filters, but so far I've only used the cloud filters. Play with that a bit until you get something to what you want:

When you apply that, you now have clouds. I'd really like to add clouds on the edge of the globe for a more atmospheric effect, but I've not messed with this enough to see if that is possible.

Now we get to the actual mapping this 2D map to our 3D globe. Use Filters->Map->Map Object.

There are several options, but choose sphere:

I check the live preview; depending on the speed of your computer, you may want to just preview when you make your changes.

Off the bat there are 4 tabs on this dialog:

• Options are the base options. I will set the background to transparent, and create a new image. This will leave my 2D map as is.
• The light tab gives you access to the type and color of the, as well as where it comes from. This allows you to change the light to a redder star for instance. Play with the colors, and point versus directional lights.
• the material tab gives you control on how that light is reflected. This, with the light tab, can let you set where the sun is shining from.
• the Orientation tab is where you can rotate your planet to show it's best side. If you need to, you can go back to the original map to create multiple globes so you can view the planet from wherever you like

Once you are happy, hit OK and you will now have an oblong world!

Mapping the 2D to the 3D left the aspect ratio in there. To correct this, use the Image->Scale image. Unlock the aspect ratio (this keeps the height/width proportional), then make both height and width the same. 

Click scale and now you have a globe. However - there is still all that transparent background. Which is okay if you want to leave that, but you can actually create trim the image so that there is no background at all. Useful for dropping into other drawing programs.

There is a selection tool. Choosing the ellipse will allow you to box in the globe with the selection:

it may be a bit hard to see in the screenshot, but I've boxed in the planet.

Using edit->copy visible, I now have the selected area (my globe) in memory. File->create from clipboard will create a new image from that selected space.

Finally, make sure you do save your files! GIMP saves them in their native format so that you can edit them, but you can also export as PNGs or other image files. 

Exported file - our planet! There are, as expected, a lot of options. I just take the default and I am good to go.

The nice part about this - you can add text, the grids and anything else you want to the flat map. Map that to a sphere gives you that additional detail as well. I'll do another tutorial on that if you want, but below you can see I've added a hex grid to the planet and mapped that out. And also realized I had forgotten to "flatten" the previous image, so my cloud layer never showed up.

Planet Tutorial 1: Command line tool from Torben Mogensen

The fractal programs I use are Windows specific. There are probably similar applications for Macs, and there are a few on-line world generators as well.

This lesson will use an older, command-line driven utility I use that has a LOT of options. The source code can be found here. There is a link to the web interface that has most of the options available, but it is also more limited in the output size. And I like to have local copies of things like that as you never know when the web version or links will go away (why yes, I do also by DVDs...)

When you have this all installed, it also comes with several files that allow you to pick different color schemes. The instructions are fairly clear, so you can create your own color maps. I've done this for some worlds that are not carbon/nitrogen based. 

The command is pretty complicated as there are a lot of options. It is also straightforward, and the included notes are very good. 

I always create a directory for a specific planet and put the output there. I also include the command line once I am happy with a world.

Let's say we want a world that is about 50% water. My first step is to create a folder for my new planet, and run the command line. Something like:

D:\Software\FractalPlanet>planet -w 1600 -h 1200 -s .11122 -o planets/tutorial/tutorialPeters.bmp -pp -i -.0265 -S -C lefebvre2.col

water percentage: 95

Using the Peters projection also gives me the water percentage, aka our hydrosphere. 

Here is how that command breaks down:

• D:\Software\FractalPlanet>planet I am in the software/fractalplanet directory, and the command to run is planet
• -w 1600 says make this 1600 pixels wide
• -h 1200 makes a 1200 pixel height.
• -s .11122 is the random seed - I just put in numbers :)
• -o planets/tutorial/tutorialPeters.bmp is the output, putting the resulting bmp (image) file in the tutorial directory under planets (where I am running the program). I usually name the file the planet name and projection to help me keep things straight when I look at that directory later
• -pp says use the Peters projection (I'll cover the projections further down this post
• -i -.0265 says to set the initial altitude (the default is -0.02, and this was a copy from an existing planet so I've adjusted the value a bit. This controls the water percentage, though not directly, but is the only way I know to adjust things once I have a map I like)
• -S says to make more "wrinkly" maps. I think I usually have that on as it seems to make more interesting planets
• -C lefebvre2.col is what color palette to use. There are several included

Next step, even though the water percentage is way too high, I take a look at the image to see if what land does show looks like something I want:

Let's say this is something I want. I need to adjust the water level to get to 50%. I adjust the -i value a few times until we get to our 50/50.

D:\Software\FractalPlanet>planet -w 1600 -h 1200 -s .11122 -o planets/tutorial/tutorialPeters.bmp -pp -i .03 -S -C lefebvre2.col

water percentage: 53

Close enough, and in looking at the image, let's make sure are still happy. If not, we can change the seed and start all over. 

We have a huge land mass and several smaller ones. All sorts of interesting places. The I start making maps in other projections:

 Specifies projection: 

• m = Mercator (default)
• p = Peters
• q = Square
• s = Stereographic
• o = Orthographic
• g = Gnomonic
• a = Area preserving azimuthal
• c = Conical (conformal)
• M = Mollweide
• S = Sinusoidal
• h = Heightfield (obsolete. Use -H option instead)
• i = Icosahedral

D:\Software\FractalPlanet>planet -w 1600 -h 1200 -s .11122 -o planets/tutorial/tutorialMercator.bmp -pm -i .03 -S -C lefebvre2.col

D:\Software\FractalPlanet>planet -w 1600 -h 1200 -s .11122 -o planets/tutorial/tutorialIcosahedral.bmp -pi -i .03 -S -C lefebvre2.col

Iso is the "Scout" style map. 

There are options for grids, though I don't usually do those. I may also pick different color schemes:

D:\Software\FractalPlanet>planet -w 1600 -h 1200 -s .11122 -o planets/tutorial/tutorialMercatorBurrows.bmp -pm -i .03 -S -C burrows.col

Many options to choose from, and you can create your own. Some are...interesting.

The orthographic option can also produce globes, and there are options to rotate the maps.

D:\Software\FractalPlanet>planet -w 1600 -h 1200 -s .11122 -o planets/tutorial/tutorialOrthographic.bmp -po -i .03 -S -C lefebvre2.col

The only real issue with that option is that it is still a square drawing with the globe, so does not always look good when dropped into images. Usually I'll use GIMP and use that to cut out just the globe part.

Grids can make it look good as well. G/g for horizontal/vertical grid size:

D:\Software\FractalPlanet>planet -w 1600 -h 1200 -s .11122 -o planets/tutorial/tutorialOrthographicGrid.bmp -po -i .03 -S -C lefebvre2.col -G 10 -g 10

And then we can rotate our view a bit:

D:\Software\FractalPlanet>planet -w 1600 -h 1200 -s .11122 -o planets/tutorial/tutorialOrthographicGrid3030.bmp -po -i .03 -S -C lefebvre2.col -G 10 -g 10 -L 30 -l 30

And there is how I make planets using the command line tool linked at the top of this post. And I also always save the initial Peters command line in a text file in that directory. If I need to create new views, it is handy having the seed and other data there. I may need a view from the north pole that I did not create initially.

Solo Traveller: Hendar

For a planet that literally makes money, there seems to be no real security at Hendar. We called in to the port, a small class C that was situated next to a lake and, from what our passengers said, near the printing presses that they were there to inspect.

"The is the No Refunds arriving at Hendar, requesting clearance for landing." It seemed to take several minutes before a laconic voice finally responded. "'ello No Refunds. You are cleared for landing pad 2. Do you have any goods to declare, or passenger?"  

I started the standard transmission of our passenger and cargo manifest and was interrupted a few moments later. "I'm sorry, No Refunds. We currently do not support that mode of transmission. Please state for our logs your manifest." Fortunately for us, we only carried the two inspectors, the medical supplies and some freight cargo we had picked up for delivery. After going through that short list, the same voice responded, "Thank you. We'll be a-seeing you shortly then." 

It was almost three hours as we came into Hendar's immediate vicinity, and I was amazed that such a tiny world had an actual breathable atmosphere (probably not by the current rules, but original world gen allowed this. Or I messed up 40 some years ago!) The atmosphere was barely an impediment as Captain Laux expertly landed the ship, landing on pad 2. Having only 5 landing pads, it was not difficult to make out the large "2" painted on the pad. There seemed to be a lot of extra details around that "2": I zoomed in an exterior camera and saw that there were scenes of the mountains I could see over the very short horizon painted on the pad. I've never seen a decorated landing pad before.

As the No Refunds settled on her landing gear, a small van came out of what I assumed was the admin building, bouncing almost comically in the low gravity as it approached. As the captain passed Ewo and myself, he told me to use the airlocks for our passengers. Though the exterior atmosphere was breathable, it was also thin, and we preferred regular air pressure. 

I went to the passenger cabins and assisted with what little luggage they had. We fit into the starboard lock, and the air became thinner as we pressurized to Hendar's native atmosphere. It was also chiller than expected out there as I walked Ms. Tachac and Mr. Simril down the ramp and into the waiting passenger van. It smelled a bit odd, then I realized it was some sort of diesel engine running some cooking oil or something that gave it a unique, food-flavored aroma as it turned around and headed back to the low concrete building. I had a spring in my step from the low gravity - I felt I could probably jump up to the air lock, but, having transitioned enough times between gravity fields, I loped back up the ramp, repressurized the lock, and went back inside the ship.

Well, I at least finally landed on Hendar. As previously mentioned, this is a small world, size 1, that somehow manages a thin atmosphere. Classic and Mongoose v1, 2d6-7 + size means this is a valid atmosphere. T5.09 is flux + size, so again legal. Just seems really unlikely that a world only about 900 miles in diameter, with a gravity of 0.15G, could maintain an atmosphere. Now, I also realize that the universe is big, and we've only scratched a tiny bit out in terms of understanding things. 

So, to figure this out we need the escape velocity, and this handy chart I found:

An alternative expression for the escape velocity particularly useful at the surface on the body is:

With Hendar being a size 1 world, we have a diameter of about 1600km, so escape velocity - and then my math did not compute. But: it is smaller than Pluto. So, it would have to be a LOT colder to maintain an atmosphere if I am reading all this correctly. But hey, it is a game, not a simulation of real planets (if it was, there would probably be a lot fewer habitable planets than Traveller assumes. Apparently, we are really lucky by having Jupiter in an orbit out there as it "sweeps" a lot of the solar debris and helps keep our little solar system a bit safer. 

We'll just twang our suspenders of disbelief, and I'll try & continue the story soon. Inside the port there will be grav plating, and probably a cheap hostel or something so that those living on the planet can sleep periodically in a heavier gravity for health reasons. I think we'll have some sort of custom or quirk for that. 

World Building - Quirks and Customs

 I just got The Fantasy Trip's Hexagram #8, and the article is about local color. Looking through that, I and also realized it was very similar to the Traveller Grand Census, which I have a copy of. And Spectacular Settlements. And half a dozen other world build magazines and PDFs I've collected over the years. And, what with the Organic Towns Kickstarter, probably even more. And of course, I start to wonder why I keep getting these. And hoping I'll start embracing JOMO (the Joy Of Missing Out) versus the FOMO that Kickstarter really promotes. And then I also realized, I did manage to NOT back the Reaper Bones VI KS despite thinking: hey, that fey expansion would work really well with all the fey books I've been getting. But of course, Dungeons & Lasers will be having an outdoor Kickstarter and that looks really interesting as well. 

But back to the world building and local color and quirks. How often has that actually been used? I think I had one Traveller world where the older you got, the more you dyed your hair various interesting colors. But honestly, I don't think I've managed to convey locations as being distinct and unique versus just another village, just another world, just another place. Another blog pointed out E.M. Forster's view of the future (which I also posted in COTI, and now wish I remembered which blog I read that I first saw this):

“Few travelled in these days, for, thanks to the advance of science, the earth was exactly alike all over. Rapid intercourse, from which the previous civilization had hoped so much, had ended by defeating itself. What was the good of going to Peking when it was just like Shrewsbury? Why return to Shrewsbury when it would all be like Peking? Men seldom moved their bodies; all unrest was concentrated in the soul.”
― E.M. Forster, The Machine Stops

If everything is the same, it is boring. And to quote one of my favorite movies, The Incredibles (which is probably a quote from someplace else): if everyone is special, then no one is. 

Anyway, while I've tried to make all my locations at least partially distinct (and they really are in my head), I always wonder just how much of that is recognized or seen at the table? Or, as we play now, over our voice channels? 

Regardless, I'll still expand out my little towns and locations, and while I have local copies of the documents, it is always easy to share via this blog. As I have even more books I should use (a variety of rumor books that have some neat ideas, a few cult books such as Remarkable Cults to flesh out the more nefarious people, and so many random tables that I really need a random table for the random tables!)

So, a quick Saturday post to go over the fantasy locations I've done. I'll probably have to poke through to find Traveller planet descriptions as I don't think I tagged them as well.

Ceawla, city of tents. A desert oasis town with an excellent wine selection. I did this one mostly without any rule books or guides. I had an idea, and I needed an oasis partway through the desert. 

Edge City, one of my college-created locations that was nothing more than a name. Finding the Ankh-Morpork Guide (with a wonderfully huge map!), Edge City is basically Terry Pratchert's city. The book I got was $5 new at Barnes & Noble: you never know what ends up on the discount table! 

Fort Covenant, a larger city east of Windemere on the Ocean Trade Route. Developing that for the OSE game. Not much really done other than that 1 write up and the work sheets. It is a more urban landscape as the Sunday group wanted to do more thieving and things. I did run a solo version of the heist I was going to have them run here, in some spot of the city as yet defined.

The Kalor Desert that stretches south of Edge City and north of Windmere, with it's Trail of Lost Hopes trade path.

Sunshi Troph, also known as the Elemental City of Athukthad. I did not do anything much with this city as we sort of bypassed that part of things. But I do like the name.

Tebou is really Corsair's default setting that we created partially as a group. I can see opening a portal there though from other games. I have more Corsairs books that help expand out the role-playing more. Maybe we'll get back to that some day.

Windmere, a trade town on the edge of the Kalor Desert. This was the first town I used the Spectacular Settlements as a guide to creating the town. I think. 

And of course, my last post on the Cowboy and Dinosaur game. I've gotten a couple things from some players so it is getting a bit fleshed out. And in talking with one, who is both an excellent GM & player, I realize I also need to take all those ideas I posted, and start to make a timeline. Sort of like the old Traveller Journal entries: there are things that are going on regardless of what the players are doing. I want to have the weekly paper show up with things that are going on. Things that the players may want to follow up on, or not. Just so that there is a "real" world outside their immediate game. While I am still in the nascent phase of figuring out the 1st adventure, the rest is a giant sandbox. I'll probably ask the players, as we get closer to the game, what sort of adventures do they want. 

Part of that came from the Old School Essentials time log, part of that from the Costumes game we just ran where we caught the news periodically. OSE has a very handy time tracking sheet. It has a bunch of free downloads here, including that tracker. I'm going to do something similar but for weekly intervals I think. I just need to get all that set up before we start. At a guess I have at least 3-4 weeks, perhaps longer. We've just started the Star Trek game. Perhaps I need to share my character next post!

Cowboys and Dinosaurs - Game Prep

 Working on the game preparation so that one of the players can finally get to play a dinosaur-riding cowboy. I've got a few weeks, but as you all know by now, I tend to over-prepare. Just because it is fun.

So, some basic ideas. We are using the Apex game rules as they have dinosaurs, and that was the original intent when I bought that book - Cowboys and Dinosaurs. The first game was straight out of its world milieu and did not make everyone happy, Next, taking place in Nebraska around 1885. Why Nebraska? One of the players wants to play an old Pawnee Indian, and they are in Nebraska in this time period. We are somewhere far north of the Platt River, maybe Hooker County or something like that. I've not positioned it in any specific spot for a number of reasons. First, we have dinosaurs still roaming the land, so history is already out the window. Next, Nebraska is a big state, and some plot points may dictate other locations, so I am leaving that wide open for the moment. And finally - I can get lost looking at maps and spend way too much time not actually accomplishing anything.

Dinosaurs have been around since, well, since dinosaurs roamed the earth. And yes, grabbing them from a variety of eras, so no dinosaur is considered to be off the table. We have dinosaurs for the pony express (in fact, one player is doing a pterodactyl flyer who was part of an attempt to get air mail in place way before planes take that job).

For me, not particularly familiar with the old west other than some vague memories of watching Bonanza and Little House on The Prairie, I need to get at least a bit familiar with the time period. So of course, I copy/paste a huge chunk of data from Wikipedia into my game bible (WIP embedded PDF somewhere below hopefully) 

I did get some buy-in from the players about creating NPCs and locations to get them XP, so that they can start at level 2 or perhaps even level 3 if I get enough world-building from them. We have a few NPCs and ideas, and in fact at least one of the NPCs will (perhaps!) become a part of the play directly. My initial game plan is based loosely on a Bonanza episode. Realizing that is really just 2-4 sessions, I need to plan a larger world where other things are happening, and I can bring that stuff in as needed. 

Of course, I created a map and plopped in some towns and features. We'll be starting in Aurora, a large town at the end of the railway and telegraph to the rest of the union. The pony express carries mail from here both north and west. We have a few Indian tribes, mostly Pawnee, about in various places. North there is a mining town in the Copper Peaks, mostly copper mines. Further north, nestled in some rough mountains next to a small lake is Harmony. Thinking possible religious commune or something, hence the name. To the west is Bliss Springs, another large town reached by the Express.

The basic idea is that Aurora is the end of easy civilization: trains, telegraphs, that sort of thing. Beyond that, communication is more limited (shades of Traveller!). Makes communication move at the speed of plot.

The first adventure is based on the pony express: a missing courier. That should introduce the region and some NPCs such as the sheriff. But I will need things around there for them to adventure to. I try for a sandbox style of play - the players mostly drive the story given some hints from me as to some of the possibilities. 

In that mindset, we have a number of old west tropes I can bring out to use:

• outlaws, both gangs and individuals. I was listening to the radio and so now have a Bad Company gang, led by Six Gun Sal. I always find it fun to take song lyrics and find an adventure in them. Inspiration can come from anywhere!
• the train company is working to continue the line to the west. All sorts of problems can come up with that:
• laborers are striking for some reason
• laborers are getting killed for another reason 
• missing trains or people who are supposed to be working
• guarding the train company employees as not everyone is on board with trains
• Indians. there are bound to be other tribes out there. 
• Raiding
• taking people hostage
• being abused by settlers/gangs
• Timmy falls down the well - various rescues and searches out in the west
• cattle! those cows are not going to herd themselves. And missing cattle - dinosaurs, poachers, Indians?
• stampeding dinosaur herds! though not sure what anyone can do other than get out of the way.

I do need to think more dinosaur type of ideas. Hoping that starting to put things down in various places will help. I'll also have to find some fun wanted posters and things for the sheriff's office. 

PDF in early draft form: