Format for system information

[Agemegos]

I must say that I haven't often found fully-generated star systems to be terribly useful, since nearly all the action in my adventures takes place only on the inhabited planets. So until I had a way of generating them automatically I usually didn't bother to generate them at all. But I have to say that I do like having a standard system sheet and planet sheet to hand to players as a prop, representing information that they have discovered in the library data. And I don't mind slipping a few subtle warnings into the 'Information for Travellers' and 'Imperial Service System Brief'.

How useful does anyone else find a prop like this web page? Or a PDF version? Or a planet data sheet like this (The example is incomplete, as I haven't filled in the human-generated bits, but you get the idea.)

 

[Merxiless]

As a ref, purely for data, those are okay. I go to about that level of detail when designing a system.

But, that being said, in actual game play, the players much more prefer a graphical...

This is a pic of the sun, by color, with orbits of the worlds, to scale, and notes like "Class A port", "Mining Colony" "Abandoned Ruins" etc. (The Star Wars-y version.)

All of that data, none of them would ever use it, or care.

Stuff at a glance, they use, and then dig for more when they get there, but that kind of presentation, i end up explaining it more than running the game, while people are yawning for me to get back to the story.

To me, things like that are background setting, useful..for me as Ref only.

 

[Gruffty]

I like the idea of a system being fully detailed like that but, as Merxiless said, they're only really useful for Refs/GMs. System detail sheets are useful for those of us that are into that level of system detail - they can be useful resources that aid actual game play - "Hey, ref, I'm gonna throw a rock at the Minawi rat sitting 6 m away from me"; "OK, local g is 1.1, so you need to throw X+ / X- on xdx to hit it...." - that sort of thing, but not every Ref/GMs needs or wants that level of detail.

Many Refs/GMs are happy to wing it/bluff/it/blag it with just the basics of the UWP and some (in my experience, anyway) don't even bother with UWPs and just use visual descriptions of the world.

But, as usual with all things Traveller, it's horses for courses - if it rings ya bell game-wise, use it

 

[BlackBat242]

For the rock-throwing, if the player failed to state he was adjusting his throw for the higher gravity (and NO, I wouldn't remind him), then I would apply a modifier to the hit roll (secret of course).

If he threw a couple of times, and just missed each time, then I would tell him his throws are landing just short, and if he still didn't get it, maybe have him roll an Int roll to realize why... or maybe just let him suffer.:smirk: