World Builder's Handbook: complaint

[Madmax]

Many, many, years ago I purchased the World Builder's Handbook by DGP. I do not regret buying it, it is an excellent source of information for all things Scouty and for building worlds to an amazing degree of detail. I consider it to have been money well spent.
Except for one thing.
The main reason I wanted to buy it was to get a set of consistent rules for determining the demographics of a planet. Does the planet have a native sophont population? What percentage of the population (if any) is native, what percent is alien? How many different alien species are present? What percentage of the population do they make up?
To me, as a referee, these questions are FAR more important than details of the local government and culture (though it is certainly a good thing to have tables for those as well).
I understand that these things might be hard to set down as hard and fast rules, or come up with tables for, but I was at least expecting some general guidance on the topic.
WBH gives nothing, not a single word. In fact it does not even explicitly state that the tables given are for human only worlds, though that does seem to be implied.

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone knows of any canon, or even well done non-canon, rules that cover a planet's demographics?

[mike wightman]

GURPS Space 4e and T5 would be my recommendations.

[coliver988]

And honestly for me, if you were creating your own TU, those questions could not be answered in a book as it would be different for every TU and heavily dependent on how you are setting up your universe.

* Do you have a lot of aliens (homebrew of the Classic)? Or are you more of an Asimov style universe?
* How are your political borders - porous and narrow or wide & difficult to cross?
* how cosmopolitan is the world?
* are there crossroads in space where multiple species intermingle?
* can the alien species cohabit the same environment as standard human? Would they want to?
* what sort of conflict (past & present) are happening?

Having said that - you could have sliding scale percentages, based on distance from home worlds and all that. But it becomes increasingly more complicated the more systems you have.

There is an exposition in the Journal that shows a way of including native sophonts but it is a world by world expansion based on the UWP then expanding on that (and one of my favorite articles).

In the end, I think each IMTU would have a different set of values to apply if you wanted to go that route. Some people prefer the more austere Classic Traveller where the few aliens tend to be mostly near their home worlds, some prefer the wild west imagery of Star Wars with dozens of aliens on every planet and in every bar.

[BackworldTraveller]

I concur, the Human/Alien interactions aren't clear at all - it's all "Make it up as you see fit"

Just bear in mind that not only aliens migrate but their flora and fauna do too (also not really mentioned). Humans have a few hundred native foodstuffs. Vilani many less. Any planet might have something. All these will migrate with people. As will farm animals, pets and pests/diseases. Terraforming may be deliberate, but may be accidental...rabbits on a planet with only a flora will terraform it. Mice can devastate ground living creatures if they don't recognise mice as a threat (they have done huge damage). Cats can drive (and have driven) whole species extinct.

[Madmax]

Originally Posted by coliver988

And honestly for me, if you were creating your own TU, those questions could not be answered in a book as it would be different for every TU and heavily dependent on how you are setting up your universe.

* Do you have a lot of aliens (homebrew of the Classic)? Or are you more of an Asimov style universe?
* How are your political borders - porous and narrow or wide & difficult to cross?
* how cosmopolitan is the world?
* are there crossroads in space where multiple species intermingle?
* can the alien species cohabit the same environment as standard human? Would they want to?
* what sort of conflict (past & present) are happening?

Having said that - you could have sliding scale percentages, based on distance from home worlds and all that. But it becomes increasingly more complicated the more systems you have.

There is an exposition in the Journal that shows a way of including native sophonts but it is a world by world expansion based on the UWP then expanding on that (and one of my favorite articles).

In the end, I think each IMTU would have a different set of values to apply if you wanted to go that route. Some people prefer the more austere Classic Traveller where the few aliens tend to be mostly near their home worlds, some prefer the wild west imagery of Star Wars with dozens of aliens on every planet and in every bar.

What you say certainly makes sense, but I run a Spinward Marches campaign, and I wanted to be have some consistent canon means of figuring out how many Vargrs, Aslan, or whatever, there are on a given planet, since the existing Spinward Marches materials provide little, if any, information on what species occupy a planet.
At a bare minimum I would have expected there to be a method for determining, based on the UWP, if there is a native sophont species on the planet. You say a Journal article does this. Which issue of the Journal (JTAS?) are you referring to? I would like to take a look at it.

[Nathan Brazil]

Originally Posted by Madmax

I wanted to be have some consistent canon means of figuring out how many Vargrs, Aslan, or whatever, there are on a given planet, since the existing Spinward Marches materials provide little, if any, information on what species occupy a planet.
At a bare minimum I would have expected there to be a method for determining, based on the UWP, if there is a native sophont species on the planet. You say a Journal article does this. Which issue of the Journal (JTAS?) are you referring to? I would like to take a look at it.

The canon portion of your answer in part can be found at TravellerMap. Download a copy of The Spinward Marches data https://travellermap.com/api/sec?sec...y&milieu=M1105
Major % of non-human populations on worlds are listed in the comments section with a designation of Xxxxn where Xxxx is a 4 character contraction of the non-human species, n(or the letter W) is a value representing 10s of percent of the population is that non-human similar to the Hydrographics %. Soo...

1910 Regina A788899-C Ri Pa Ph An Cp (Amindii)2 Varg0 Asla0 Sa { 4 } (D7E+5) [9C6D] BcCeF NS - 703 8 ImDd F7 V BD M3 V

means of the 700,000,000 inhabitants
(Amindii)2 means there is an species known as Amindi (parenthesis means homeworld) are about 20% (15%-24%) approx. 140,000,000
Varg0 means about 2.5% (1%-4%) are Vargr approx 17,500,000
Asla0 means about 2.5% (1%-4%) are Aslan approx 17,500,000

If any other species besides tthe default is there as a permanent population they represent less than 1% of the planet's population in this case less than 7,000,000. In Imperial Space, the default is "standard human". In Vargr space, the default Vargr and so on...
The UWP are presented in Traveller 5 format. You will have to go to the help page for the list of sophonts, the key to read the UWP and such.

[Madmax]

Originally Posted by Nathan Brazil

The canon portion of your answer in part can be found at TravellerMap. Download a copy of The Spinward Marches data https://travellermap.com/api/sec?sec...y&milieu=M1105
...

Thanks very much Nathan, that is exactly the sort of thing I have been wanting.

[BackworldTraveller]

Originally Posted by Nathan Brazil

The canon portion of your answer in part can be found at TravellerMap. Download a copy of The Spinward Marches data https://travellermap.com/api/sec?sec...y&milieu=M1105
Major % of non-human populations on worlds are listed in the comments section with a designation of Xxxxn where Xxxx is a 4 character contraction of the non-human species, n(or the letter W) is a value representing 10s of percent of the population is that non-human similar to the Hydrographics %. Soo...

1910 Regina A788899-C Ri Pa Ph An Cp (Amindii)2 Varg0 Asla0 Sa { 4 } (D7E+5) [9C6D] BcCeF NS - 703 8 ImDd F7 V BD M3 V

means of the 700,000,000 inhabitants
(Amindii)2 means there is an species known as Amindi (parenthesis means homeworld) are about 20% (15%-24%) approx. 140,000,000
Varg0 means about 2.5% (1%-4%) are Vargr approx 17,500,000
Asla0 means about 2.5% (1%-4%) are Aslan approx 17,500,000

If any other species besides tthe default is there as a permanent population they represent less than 1% of the planet's population in this case less than 7,000,000. In Imperial Space, the default is "standard human". In Vargr space, the default Vargr and so on...
The UWP are presented in Traveller 5 format. You will have to go to the help page for the list of sophonts, the key to read the UWP and such.

I'd advise taking the numbers as a guideline more than an actual rule. If you look at the Canon histories, either there have been multiple genocides that make Germany's efforts look positively ineffective, or the numbers understate the non-Imperials significantly. It also gives no breakdown of humans by racial background.

[kilemall]

RTT Worldgen works from the planet's UWP physical characteristics to generate a biosphere setting and indigenous populations if you get that sophisticated a biosphere. Otherwise population is partially a function of habitability and partially how long the area has been colonized. Might be worth a look for your purposes.