Now to continue on my whirlwind tour here. Planets and Stars need stats too.
Sorry if everything seems haphazard so far, I plan to make it all into a unified theory once I know what does what. Fate Core does most of the heavy lifting, but I still need to get my thoughts all figured out.
Planets have skills, a condition track, and resource tracks. This isn't the first time you can see planets getting stats and being made part of a exploration mechanic, Disaporia does a very similiar mechanic, much in the vein of Traveler and other classic SciFi. In Disaporia the three skills Planets get are Resources, Environment and Technology. Thats part of the core of that game, really. But since its Fate-ish, stealing at least part of them seems like good idea to me.
At the beginning of play, Civilizations start on Planets. You could figure out other sorts of arrangements, but I'm going to make a leap and assume here that the life required to start a civilization requires some sort of planet to start out with.
First off, homeworlds have two aspects: a Concept Aspect, and a Trouble Aspect. Like characters, these things make the planet different from others. One has the chance to be compelled, causing problems for you. Both can be used by your Civilization when it does things at its homeworld- but it loses access to these aspects when away from it.
Planet Skills Are: Resources, Environment, and Stability.
Resources is obvious, the higher this is, the more available tracks of Red, Green and Black resources can be found on the planet. A planet's maximum number of resource boxes is equal to its Resource rating plus 2. All planets start with a number of Red Resources equal to their Resources skill.
Environment is necessary for life at all, or else Civilizations have to work to make it possible at all. At least a Fair or Average Environment is needed to sustain a atmosphere and life at all. All planets have a number of Green Resources equal to their Environment- any resources for Black have to be taken from Green, if Black doesn't have enough left over for it. If there could be more Green than other Resources after Red has been determined, Green replaces one of the Red Resources.
Stability determines how stable the planet is, and how its stability keep it from falling apart when exposed to various disasters. Mediocre or Average Stability means the planet's surface is inherently unstable, meaning it could be a gas giant, a water world or a collection of asteroids ready to fall apart.
All planets have a potential for 2 Black Resources. After Green and Red resources have been determined, if there are no more available resource boxes for the Black, subtract one Green resource from the planet and replace it with Green. If there is more space available, after Red, Green and Black have been determined, the remaining boxes all are Black. If the Black outnumbers the Green, if the planet was created randomly, figure out aspects for it that reflect this. The planet has a inherent toxic substance as part of it, how nasty is it? How has that affected any life on the planet?
Starting civilizations first build their homeworld before defining themselves. So, you get to distribute ten points amongst these three skills.
Next, each homeworld has a single stunt of its own, something that allows you to make it have its own kick. Here are three examples of homeworld stunts.
Progenitor Ruins: A begone spacefaring civilization long ago abandoned an outpost on your homeworld. Your people have scavenged it, learning tricks to spacecraft here that others can't quite catch up to. Reduce the cost to create Starship Proxies and Icons by 1 Black or 1 Red.
Aeon Crystals: Your homeworld is seeded with massive psionic crystalline structures. Your Civilization gains a +2 on Culture and Psionics rolls made on your Homeworld.
Eucemopolis: Your homeworld is covered by a single city, the original geography and surface long ago buried in buildings and parks, making room for a lot of people. Your Civilization's Population track is increased by 2.
Newly Found Planets.
New planets are created randomly, each of their skills is rolled with a 1d6-1 roll. Then the planet gets its own aspect after that. New planets should be generated by the player to the left of the one discovering it.
New planets start with only one Aspect and they start with no stunts. Later on your Civilization can try to add Stunts or Aspects to planets by expending Fate Refresh to do so.
PLANET TEMPLATE
Description: What does this Planet look like?
PLANETARY CONCEPT ASPECT, PLANETARY TROUBLE ASPECT
RESOURCES, STABILITY, ENVIRONS
AVAILABLE RED:__; AVAILABLE GREEN:__; AVAILABLE BLACK:__;
PLANETARY STUNT
Stars, those burning balls of gas...
Stars are a bit simpler. Their skills are thus: Mass, Age, Resources. Like Planets, you can roll for a newly found stars with a 1d6-1 roll. Starting civilizations get to distribute 5 points among the star's three skills at the beginning.
Mass is how large the Star is relative to other stars. More massive stars tend to have more matter in orbit around them, including other stars. They also have a higher chance of collapsing into a black hole or exploding into a super nova when they die.
Age is how old the star is. Younger stars tend to be more violent in their activity, while older ones are more stable. Older stars are more likely to collapse as well, however.
Resources measures how much energy and other resources can be safely taken from a Star. All stars have some resources that can be mined, but it is possible to overmine them, causing them to lose stability prematurely. In this cause, Resources helps determine the Star's stress track. A star has one stress box per 2 ranks in its Resources.
Red Resources are the only resource you can mine from a Star, unless you have stunt that lets you do otherwise.
Stress Track: Whenever Resources are taken from a star, those attempting to take them have to roll against the star's mass. If successful, the star takes stress equal to the number of shifts earned. To prevent stellar collapses or premature supernovae, the star can take on a condition from the track below:
[_]Mass Coronal Ejection (+2) [_] Solar Ion Storms (+4)
These conditions affect the entire star system, and persist permanently after happening.
Aspects.
Stars also have their own aspect, which defines their entire star system to a degree.
Stellar Extras.
Stars can often be double or triple or even huge clusters. They can fall into a wide variety of looks and feels that I don't want to get too specific, for fear of preventing the ability to do more with them. So here's the rule: When a star is created, roll 4dF. For each +, that is how many extras the star can have.
For players creating stars, that means stunts or second stars or other unique things to that system. For stars found, that is how many companion stars the system has. If a star rolls and has any -, each of those minus means some sort of cosmic danger lurking in the system. If its all -, there are no planets in star system at all, again, only if this is the roll for a randomly created system.
Coordinates.
Each star also has a set of three coordinates they occupy space in. First is quadrant, which is a 1d4 roll. The galaxy has four quadrants, and each quadrant is grid made up of sectors. Each quadrant has 27 sectors (adjust for taste) and each sector is made up of groups of stars within two to ten lightyears of one another. Second roll for which sector, which is a 1d3 roll for each part of the grid. One for X, one for the Y, and one for the Z.
Star travel between stars for proxies is 1 turn per lightyear, unless you have a stunt to get around that.
Within sectors, you roll 4dF to determine how many other stars there are in that sector. And so forth.
STAR TEMPLATE
Description: What does this Star and its system look and act like?
STELLAR ASPECT
MASS, AGE, RESOURCES
STRESS: [_] [_] [_]
CONDITIONS: [_]Mass Coronal Ejection (+2) [_] Solar Ion Storms (+4)
EXTRAS?:
Okay, that a rough idea of how that part works. I'm not a 100% certain of it, but its a system I think I can playtest with my group. Next I'm going to try and get other ideas figured out, mainly stunts for civilizations. Also a framework for treaties and collaborations between civilizations sounds like a step to go.
That and combat things.
Well, whatcha think? Too complicated or understandable?
No comments:
Post a Comment