On Tue, Aug 25, 2020 at 10:21:08PM -0700, Kelly St. Clair wrote:
> On 8/25/2020 8:03 AM, Alex Goodwin wrote:
>
> > > The UWPs cover a *lot* of ground (literally) in just a few
> > > letters/numbers and I think they do a great job of this. I'm not sure
> > > I'd want a High Guard style string of dozens of digits that's only
[ ...snip... ]
> I've been thinking for a while now that the UWP (like the UPP, etc) is very
> much a product of its age, and the technical limitations of same, in both
> generation and presentation. Back in 1980, something was needed that could
> be:
>
> * Quickly produced by a few 2D rolls, with no more than one or two DMs per
> roll (simple enough for humans to keep track of and write rules for);
> * Encoded as a short string of hexidecimal characters; and
> * Presented - along with world name and any codes for trade classifications,
> facilities present, TAS warnings, and other brief notes - in a few columns
> on a digest-size sheet of paper.
For what it is, the UWP does a great job. I was introduced to
Traveller between 1979 and 1982. The first thing that I did was create
a mainworld generator using the rules from Book 3. Kelly St. Clair is
right when he lays out the goals of that ruleset and the UWP which is
its output...
>
> Today, forty years later, improvements in technology allow us to:
>
> * Generate entire star systems in /considerably/ more detail at the click of
> a single button, either completely at random or within certain pre-set
> parameters, and to modify that data as desired or needed;
> * Store /all/ of that data, trivially and at very little cost; and
> * Just as easily access/view that data, to whatever level of detail is
> desired, in plain text requiring no interpretation (only understanding of
> what is being described) and potentially other formats, including still or
> animated images.
>
... Out of nostalgia, I've built a Book 6 extended generator
program. I think that Thomas Low-Jones has one also. His coding is
better than mine. I've found that the book 6 rules need to be
seriously tweaked if you want to get interesting systems or I haven't
read them correctly. Specifically, there are large negative DMs that
apply to world size and orbit count for spectral class M stars and
spectral class M will be the majority of stars that you see. The
result is if you used the Book 6 extended ruleset to generate the
Imperium, most citizens would live in domed cities or man made caves
on vacuum and near vacuum worlds.
> tl;dr: we are no longer bound by paper and dice.
>
Whatever ruleset your generator uses, the most important features from
the overall system are:
* The ability to efficiently store and retrieve generated systems in
whole or in pieces at an arbitrary level of detail
* The ability to search all of the systems for worlds that match an
arbitrary criteria
* As stated in either this post or another, the ability to modify
aspects of a system and then re-calculate the effects of your
change
* The ability to attach detailed notes to a system at two
levels, as a minimum: player and referee
The overall purpose of any such system should be to focus and
*enhance* the communal imagination of the players and the
referees. Enough computer power exists today that we no longer have to
be bound by paper and dice. But if the presence of large amounts of
stored detail detracts from gameplay by limiting the communal imagination
pool, then it's better to play by paper and dice without detailed
storage systems for the setting.
--
Chris
__o "All I was trying to do was get home from work."
_`\<,_ -Rosa Parks
___(*)/_(*)_____________________________________________________________
Christopher Sean Hilton [chris/at/vindaloo/dot/com]