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Thoughts regarding mapping the Universe

PostPosted: Tue Sep 07, 2010 7:06 am
by viziel
Ya, a potentially HUGE pain in the arse... This is one of the things that makes running a sci-fi opera setting ( like ICAR) very difficult.

To date, it seems to me this has been tip toed around by talking about systems, clusters and worlds and detailing some basic star mappings (shells)... This dosn't however, cover the distances, travel times and locations of said celestial bodies.

Sure we have clusters, do they have stations...what services are available? What hazards exist and what celestial events can occur?

I struggled with this a great deal on my own project. The idea of an astronomicon was exciting and through XML and software I felt I could generate a universe using special RPG software that saves as XML. Feed it into an XSLT/XSL-FO engine and produce a PDF, repleat with SVG graphics.

Thats all well and good, but it still remains a very difficult subject.

So, my question is in reading the ICAR v4 manual, you cover several clusters but there is no sense of distance and though location is covered once, you still don't get a sense of the vast spaces between stars and what they offer the players.

Are there thoughts on:
- Identifying clusters in more technical terms. For example, what facilities are available, what flag they fall under (symbolically since I can't read), perhaps planet information (rotation around host star, planetary conditions that may require special equipment for the players.) etc.,
- A map of some kind (perhaps a system map when talking about a cluster)
- Moons, stardocks, asteroid belts, nebulae, etc.,
- Death stars, star destroyers and sith

The mappings of ICAR could easily be its own book (and if you want to seperate the core rules from the game setting this would be a good idea), but its even more work...

Back to my errata

Re: Thoughts regarding mapping the Universe

PostPosted: Wed Sep 15, 2010 6:03 am
by Rob Lang
Have you got to the Space Travel bits yet? The cluster descriptions are only a social point of view because early on we talk about general makeup of the human race. Space travel comes later.

I want space travel to be relatively easy and safe. Sure there are dangers but they are mapped, understood and can be avoided but if you make space travel dangerous to the point that people are scared to do it then its difficult to justify a massive space culture!

I don't like classifying systems in simple terms using icons because I worry that it heads towards other games. I much prefer a descriptive passage that both informs and provides the GM with some wiggle room. Also, it requires another load of symbols to memorise and that just makes it more complex. And you have to do it twice as there will be elements you don't want the players to know straight off. Have a look at the system descriptions in the Scavenger Setting - there is one for the players and one for the GM.

For an example cluster map, see the Anadar cluster map in the index. There is no need to have System level maps, you only really need a list of planets and what's there, again that's fine on a system level. Time travel between planets is dealt with assuming all planets are in a straight line and you count them like stops on a metro map - one hour per stop.

The standard problem with Sci Fi is the temptation is to pile mechanics on top of mechanics until you end up with a giant mess. Or something that should really be a computer game. The players (and GM) don't really want to play the mechanics, they want to play the game. The game is not the mechanics.