My Traveller campaign is well underway at this point, and I thought I'd post about the methods and tools I've been using to populate my setting with worlds.
I previously posted about the new Traveller campaign I’ve started up. I thought I’d talk a little bit about the process of creating the campaign setting, specifically the hex-based sector maps Traveller uses.
I’m running it in the Foreven sector, which is the sector specifically set aside for GMs to make their own worlds. No official adventures are set there (with a few exceptions). On the Traveller Map site (the semi-official online map of the official Traveller setting), there are world locations marked in the hexes of Foreven, but the details of the worlds are not defined. These are the locations I get to fill in. So far, it’s been a little more challenging than I thought, but I’m enjoying the process.
There are about 350 worlds in the Foreven sector. In Traveller, each world can be described with a alphanumeric code called a Universal World Profile (UWP). Most versions of Traveller have methods of randomly creating worlds and UWPs with die rolls. This would be a little time-consuming to do 350 times, so I used the following methods to come up with worlds:
For a few specific worlds, I took the UWP from other Traveller or Cepheus books. For example, planet Aurelia from Zozer Games’ Godstar.
If I had a specific type of world in mind, I generated the stats by hand.
For the vast majority of the worlds, I used online random world generators.
The fun part about random world generation is taking that little UWP code and trying to imagine what sort of world it describes. It’s a surprisingly fun little creative exercise that Traveller GMs have practiced for decades.
Making the Map
One of the best features of Traveller Map is the Booklet Maker. Given some text files, the Booklet Maker generates a PDF booklet listing the data for each world and a corresponding hex map of each subsector. I’ve already handed out these maps to my players for use in-game.
https://polyhedralnonsense.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/travpost02.png?w=1024Sample subsector from my version of the Foreven Sector. I used the classic color on white background style of old-school TravellerThere are two files needed to create the map. The first is the sector data – the list of worlds, along with the UWP for each. Traveller world and sector data has been automated since PCs became common in the 1980s, so there are various formats for world data. The Booklet Maker will read most of them. All of the formats are listed here.
I decided to use Traveller 5 Column Delimited Format, the newest format, and the one with extra fields for describing a world. I entered the worlds I created above into a text file, filling in any extra details.
Once you set these files up, you enter them into the Booklet Maker, and it’ll generate a series of sector and subsector maps for you, in a variety of graphic styles.
Making a Solar System
In a basic Traveller list of worlds, each UWP represents the main inhabited planet in a solar system. It generally ignores the rest of solar system, only mentioning gas giants used for refueling.
However, Traveller 5 has incredibly detailed rules for creating a whole solar system, with multiple planets, each with their own UWP. It’s pretty time consuming, but like most Traveller world creation rules, it can be automated.
I used a site called Traveller Worlds. It’s a random world generator using Traveller 5 rules, but has a lot of other features. One of them lets you create a new star system. You enter a UWP for the system’s main world, and it’ll spit out a full solar system. It’ll even create a randomly generated map of the main world.
The amount of detail it spits out for each world is a little overwhelming, and a lot of it probably won’t be useful for most games.
How I’m using all this
I’m obviously not creating this much detail for every world. That’d take forever, even with the automated tools.
To start off with, I just create details for the first world the players will begin play, and some of the adjacent systems. I also have some details of major worlds elsewhere in the sector.
Everything else is just a UWP for now. As the players state their intentions to move in a certain direction, I’ll create details as I go, similar to the way some video games only generate the scenery when a player enters a new location.
To actually use all this at the game table, I’ll need it in a written form (I run a strictly-analog table).
In Libreoffice, I made a template that I use for details about each system. It has a condensed version of the world data generated. I also add any game notes, points of interest, plot hooks, and adventure seeds.
Though I’m running the newer Mongoose 2E version of Traveller, I love the old clean page design of Classic Traveller, so I decided to make my documents in the same style.
As I wrote all of this up, it occurred to me that some GMs, especially ones not used to Traveller, might find all of this a bit much. Is all of this detail and prep necessary? Couldn’t you just have a few quick notes about each world and wing the rest?
Hell yes, you could!. I’ve run a lot of games like that, and it’s great. However, I’ve found that following these old Traveller methods (I’m tempted to use the word disciplines), does help spark a sort of creativity. When you’re forced to account for more details, you’re forced to come up with new ideas. Since you’re doing it before play, you’re not as rushed, and have the time to think things through. When I actually do get to the table, I’ve got plot hooks, settings, and NPCs ready to go.
If you wanted to give world generation a try, you can pick up the old Classic Traveller books for free at DriveThru, flip over to Book 3, grab some six-siders and start making some worlds. The old rules are cruder, but still fun, and will give you a taste of the process.
What’s Next?
As the campaign goes on, I’ll probably post more subsectors and worlds. Eventually, when I’ve filled out most of the sector, I’ll post the whole thing.
I may be weird, but I usually don’t worry variations from different ship design systems. As long as it’s legal in the system it was designed with, it’s good enough for me. I just chalk it up to deviations from different shipyards.
So I’ll use anything from Classic Traveller to T5 to Cepheus. In the end the only real difference is a few MCr here or there.
@deinol I’m totally cool with that! It just so happens that I like tinkering with that stuff for fun, but I don’t think it’s a requirement at all. I think most players won’t notice?
As with the original version, the sheets are all fillable, will auto-calculate the UPP, and will allow you to import a character image in the upper right corner. Both A4 and US Letter versions are provided.
@deinol Blatantly ripped off from "The Legacy of Heorot": you kill the one big predator that's been menacing you, suddenly you've opened up its territory to dozens of rivals.
@deinol The rare plants are going extinct due to adventurers collecting them and killing the xeno-gators which the plants depend on for part of their life cycle. Local civic leaders and scientists from the University ask your party to help defend the last known refuge from being destroyed. Should they succeed they get moral satisfaction and the acclaim of the locals but no plants.
#Traveller is the original hard sci-fi #TTRPG and, IMHO, T4 is its most true to the vision version. The vibe, the art, the whole deal. And this is a dirt cheap way to get it!
@LeviKornelsen My first #TTRPG was Classic #Traveller but my gateway drug into fantasy RPGs was The Warlock of Firetop Mountain. After that, Moldvay D&D, Advanced D&D, White Dwarf magazine (in the days when Games Workshop sold RPGs). Eventually got into various #OSR games and #retroclones. These days I am mostly playing #DCC.
I do occasionally publish... best known for The Secret of Ronan Skerry but that was 15 years ago! Currently working on a new #urban#fantasy#horror mini-campaign for DCC.
@deinol Twilight’s Peak, higher. Leviathan, excellent. No Secret of the Ancients? Some day I want to string the Chirper-Droyne-Ancients together into a loose campaign. Toss in Annic Nova as a red herring.
Made a starship encounter chart for while my group is participating in The Great Hunt in Vargr territory. It’s allied with the nearby Zhodani Consolate, so I wanted ships from there to be more common than other humans.
I went looking for an index of starships for Traveller. I did not find one.
However, I did find that Freelance Traveller has BITS 101 Starships available as a free download. They are for GURPS Traveller, so some conversions required. Particularly remembering that GTL 10 is Traveller TL 12, etc.