The animal encounter tables for Traveller are hard to translate into random tables for Hex Describe, but not impossible. It’s not yet 100% there, but I feel we’re close.
=> Hex Describe
I can use it to generate the following, for example:
There’s joint called Green Heron. If you recently arrived with a ship, travel clerk Amarachi Konkwo is looking for help: “I’ve been contacted by Law Ju bent on visiting ｢nearby backwater system｣. They have the necessary credits, but I don’t have a ship and crew to spare. Would you be willing to take them off me?” The rich tourist is Law Ju, eager to get going, 635897, Streetwise-1. The mission mainly consists of getting there and back, and keeping Law Ju safe. At one point, there’s an animal encounter: typical crater chaser, 12 kg, H: 5/6, jack armour, W: 7, as pike, A: if more, F: 9, S: 3, “Ji Dog”.
And you can create entire encounter tables, too. Here’s one such use:
The Indigo Hyena is on a xenobiology survey mission, here. Ship captain Gerald Clift would appreciate any help in finding, capturing and describing any of the following local fauna.
Desert animal encounter table.
grazers (9), 12 kg, H: 12/10, no armour, W: 5, hooves and teeth, A: 5, F: 2, S: 2, “Desert Sheep”siren, 6 kg, H: 3/6, battle armour, W: 11, as broadsword, A: if surprise, F: 7, S: 0, “Kevadim Siren”grazers (7), 200 kg, H: 14/7, no armour, W: 17, horns, A: 6, F: 2, S: 4, “Thugatahew Deer”gatherer, 1 kg, H: 5/0, jack armour, W: 1, thrasher, A: 9, F: 8, S: 1, “Wuxiyin Hamster”grazers (18), 50 kg, H: 16/6, jack armour, W: 5, hooves, A: 7, F: 4, S: 2, “Spotted Antelope”grazers (3), 1 kg, H: 1/0, no armour, W: 1, horns and teeth, A: 6, F: 1, S: 2, “Wruf Moose”
Let’s talk about the things that still don’t work quite as I want them.
In terms of tables, the system of random tables does not take planetary size into account. The planetary size ought to affect animal size. I have a pretty good idea of how this needs to be implemented, but I still need to do it.
The animal names are not always cool. As an example, in the list above, there is a small grazer, a mere 1 kg of weight, that is given the name “moose”. That’s weird because the moose suggests a big animal. Right now, the Earth-equivalent names ignore animal size.
I am also missing Earth-equivalent names (or other cool base names) for many of the types. These are the types I have tables for. It’s not easy, unfortunately.
There’s also the problem of generating cool adjectives or prefixes. I think I’m doing some part of it (“desert” sheep, “spotted” antelope, or fantasy names using the same Elite-like name generator I’m using for system names), but there’s more that could be done, I think.
I also don’t pick appropriate tables given a system, so I’m not yet ready to generate an encounter table. For example, right now the tables would happily generate an animal encounter table for a vacuum world. I guess that means those animals live inside the structures? Perhaps… Or you could get “hill” or “forest” animals on a water world.
Ah, and that brings me to the last part: the tables I use don’t generate fliers, or swimmers, and therefore all the water biomes are currently not served. These are the terrains I know how to handle:
It’s a start, but it’s not finished, yet. I just need to focus on some actual adventure writing before spending any more time on this.
Anyway, check it out: a few animal encounter tables.
=> a few animal encounter tables
#RPG #Traveller #Hex Describe
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While your tinkering has a way to go, as you say, I still find it helpful when my brain refuses to come up with ideas and I have a game to run in 2 days or 2 hrs time. It gives me something to hack, which I think for many is much easier than starting from scratch. The world building tools in Traveller are pretty good, but sometimes I don’t have the time to roll the dice: or I do, but using one of your example outputs does the trick and gets me so much further. Thanks.
– Alistair 2021-03-24 03:21 UTC
Thanks for the encouraging words!
– Alex 2021-03-24 07:39 UTC
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