Information Overload!

[CrosshairCollie]

While working on my Star Hero homebrew universe (well, a small portion thereof), I'm starting to get a little overwhelmed by how much STUFF there is to create. A 20ly by 20ly sector is a beast ... stars, star color, planets, planetary zones, planetary densities, number of moons, astronomical anomalies ... then there's creating races, technology, cultures ...

How much of this information is actually necessary, do you think? Past a certain point, detail becomes excessive fluff that players will never remember and it won't matter if they do or don't. But if there's not enough detail, I'll either have to make it up, resulting in possible inconsistency, or everything will seem fake (which it is, but that's beside the point!).

Right now, I'm setting up a chart with: Each star system, number of planets, name of star (planets are named Star Number, like Sirius 3), planetary zones, number of moons per planet (important as I'm creating a lunar-powered race), and any anomalies (which I'm just kind of throwing in at random rather than using charts). I'm not using the planetary density formula, but I'm going to pick a few gas giants more or less randomly as well. Then, which planets have sentient life. What else do I need?

For races/species, I'm making a list of the following for each:
Species Name and Template (like caninoid, botanoid)
Species Homeworld
Typical Appearance
Noteworthy Accomplishments (which race discovered FTL drives, etc)
Planetary Government (monarchy, republic, etc, and any unusual laws)
Planetary Culture (what a 'typical' member of the race is like, like most Vulcans are logical and dispassionate, Klingons are warriors, etc, as well as any unusual customs)
What else do I need here?

Thank you in advance for all the help!

[Battlestaff]

I think you've got it well in hand. With the sector laid out, you don't have to worry about making any inconsistent or unusual mistakes. And you can make things up on the fly if your players decide to head in a direction you hadn't anticipated. Now you just need to detail the races and planets your players are going to meet the first 3-5 game sessions. With that, you can guage what they like and don't like for later development.

[Nolgroth]

I really sympathize. I have been working on a Star HERO campaign now for about a month. I cheated and used much of the Star Frontiers setting as I found that fits, so I cut off some of the basic stuff you are doing.

For starmapping (which I recommend It's Full of Stars - a PC 3D starmapping program - for), I basically cheated by using the Star Frontiers map from Zebulon's Guide. I designated a center square and counted outwards from there. Still took me the better part of a day to place the stars and I haven't even entered all the information in.

I understand your questions about the fluff. Consider this; give characters a starship and they will travel. I would think two steps are very necessary.

Step 1: Create a dozen hotspots that the characters are likely to travel to soon. Some very basic information is all. I like the Star Frontiers method. Star name, who controls it, and the habitable planets in the system. Maybe a note or two on what the planet is like.

Step 2: Control the speed at which characters can traverse to the different hotspots, so it takes them a while to reach any point outside the radius of detailed space. Stick them neatly at centerpoint and you should have time to create more in the direction they are going.

Also, consider creating an edited for players version of the content and giving them a printout/file of the common knowledge stuff.

For the aliens/races I would add a bit about how other races perceive them.

[ghost-angel]

I'm attempting to create a SH setting, though very very slowly, really slowly. Almost stalled kind of slowly now that I think about it.

The point being .. speed. How fast can each culture get any given distance. I started with the 20ly by 20ly Sector and asked myself, how fast does the average merchant, cruise and other common vessels go from point to point?

Then I made engines. Once that was decided I picked a Sector as a Middle Point and made it completely. And once I figured out how fast one can go from sector to sector on average that gave me a rough idea of how far out to go in mapping sectors in detail, then I just simply named sectors beyond that point with rough outlines up to twice the distance away (If I'm going 10 sectors out in detail, I go another 10 in vague detail), beyond that the game would decide which areas get further time/detail.

How far out you go can be defined by how far out the players can get in a reasonable time. And if they insist on just travelling outwards stop them every half sector Star Trek style and force them to deal with a problem, should give you a few sessions to map something out.

[cyst13]

One way of dealing with the "have starship, will travel" problem is to not give the PCs a starship. I mean just think about how incredibly expensive an interplanetary starship has got to be. I can't see any reason why you should have to hand one over to a green PC group. Instead, keep them on their home planet long enough to get used to each other and their surroundings. Once they get the itch to travel, let them purchase passage on somebody else's ship. That way, you know where they are headed and you only have to deal with creating that one destination. If this option seems overly restrictive to you, keep in mind that the starting planet does not have to be isolated from the rest of the sector. You can have millions of aliens passing through on a regular basis. Which would give the players an opportunity to play alien PCs without the necessity of owning their own ship.

[Nolgroth]

cyst13

Good idea. I've often wanted to use that one myself. However, invariably one of my players wants to be a starship pilot or a ship's engineer and I honestly don't like confining myself to one system. But, in theory, the controlled access to a starship would work. I think that it would work better in a Babylon-5 setting than anywhere else, but that is purely psychological.

The one drawback to your idea is that a similar volume of material will likely need to be created. If you restrict a group to a single place, then the locales they visit will need to be just as detailed as throwing out a bunch of star systems.

Hmmmn. Makes me think that a database of places, similar to Sprawl Sites from Shadowrun, might be useful. Then the prospective GM need only select an appropriate type of place and integrate it into his campaign world. Bah! Something else to add to my "maybe someday" list.

[TheMighty]

If you do not mind randomizing the coords of your stars I would recommend the sector generator on this site in the free stuff section. Here is the link. http://www.herogames.com/FreeStuff/O...ware/index.htm

If you do not want it to be random use it and then just place the sectors where you want them. It also generates which worlds are inhabited, which are colonized, etc. It then outputs it all to HTML files and creates an index page. I highly recommend at least taking a look at it.

[Battlestaff]

Originally posted by cyst13
One way of dealing with the "have starship, will travel" problem is to not give the PCs a starship. I mean just think about how incredibly expensive an interplanetary starship has got to be. I can't see any reason why you should have to hand one over to a green PC group.

Or you could set up a situation where the players can't always freely choose where the starship goes. I'm working up a campaign right now where the characters start out as members of the TES. They have a ship and are subject to orders as to where they go. However, they will have a certain amount of leeway to follow up interesting new finds, research new information, etc.

[CrosshairCollie]

Originally posted by TheMighty
If you do not mind randomizing the coords of your stars I would recommend the sector generator on this site in the free stuff section.

Man ... wish I'd known about that a month ago! I was doing all the randomizing with dice. I'm getting wrist cramps. Many thanks!

[cyst13]

Nolgroth,

One solution I can think of for the "I want to be a ship's captain/engineer" syndrome is to let them have their way. But instead of giving them a spaceship, give them an airship or watership and let them move around on the planet. After all, the vast majority of terrestrial captains and engineers never leave the atmosphere. Also, I wonder how much your players really want those occupations. Are they simply conforming to genre expectations the way that fantasy players "want" to be a thief or cleric because they haven't really considered the range of options?

As for the level of detail necessary in developing one world as opposed to many, you're right. I mainly run historical games and the amount of information available detailing imperial China far outweighs that of the Trek or Star Wars milieu. However, it's also true that building even a single city can be more laborious than an entire galaxy, depending upon the level of detail you lavish upon it. For the most part, though, restricting the game (at least to start) to a single planet clears you of a lot of headaches. You don't have to reimagine the physics of different gravity masses, atmospheric compositions, star types, and all the other bazillion details that go in to creating a unique planetary environment. Once you set the intial parameters for your home world, you can relax. You've got the frame set up. All you have to do at that point is write-up 6-12 billion character sheets with balanced point totals and you're rarin' to go.

[Nolgroth]

Originally posted by cyst13
Nolgroth,

One solution I can think of for the "I want to be a ship's captain/engineer" syndrome is to let them have their way. But instead of giving them a spaceship, give them an airship or watership and let them move around on the planet. After all, the vast majority of terrestrial captains and engineers never leave the atmosphere. Also, I wonder how much your players really want those occupations. Are they simply conforming to genre expectations the way that fantasy players "want" to be a thief or cleric because they haven't really considered the range of options?

Actually, I think it's a fifty-fifty split at this point. One player actually wants to be a John Woo action hero meets Jedi Knight. The other player wants to be the ships engineer and has paid a lot of points to do so. I had them create mutually inclusive backgrounds, so I wouldn't have to go through the trouble of introducing them during our very limited gametime. They came up with the freighter idea and the action hero guy decided a few levels in Combat Piloting and Transport Familiarity might not be a bad thing to have anyway.

In terms of the arena by which the ship moves, I've considered an underwater game quite a few times. I've been playing Aquanox 2, and the setting intrigues me a little. I just wanted to avoid a game that could be more cyberpunkish in origins. The setting I'm running has a very gritty feel to it.

.....Once you set the intial parameters for your home world, you can relax. You've got the frame set up. All you have to do at that point is write-up 6-12 billion character sheets with balanced point totals and you're rarin' to go.

And don't forget to start on the other worlds too. Even if you have a few core worlds, those character sheets can add up quick. I wonder how many Hero Designer characters I could fit on my 160 gig hard drive.......

[TheMighty]

Maybe I am nieve but in some games that I have played in the GM de-emphisized the ship by not refering to it too much rather than a major plot point it bacame a horse. We did have a few encounters while in space, but in less it was a story where we were pirating as an example we for the most part ignored it. Granted this was Gurps rather than Hero, I am a hero newbie so I cannot speak for this system. By the way Collie you seem to like Sector Generator hope it works out for you.

[McCoy]

Originally posted by TheMighty
I am a hero newbie so I cannot speak for this system.

Way off topic.

Just wanted to say Hi and welcome and ask if your nic came from the 1998 Sharon Stone/Elden Ratliff/Kieran Culkin film? I enjoyed it, but I seem to have been the only one.

[TheMighty]

Originally posted by McCoy
Way off topic.

Just wanted to say Hi and welcome and ask if your nic came from the 1998 Sharon Stone/Elden Ratliff/Kieran Culkin film? I enjoyed it, but I seem to have been the only one.

Actually never even heard of it but I am dashing off to check IMDb right now to check it out.

[Nolgroth]

Don't know how, but I got a double post in there. Hurm. Hate when that happens.