Hey all!

As a heads-up - this will be a long post. The TL;DR is "I'm working on a system to randomly generate mechanically interesting planets for an exploration- and colonization-based EotE campaign and would love feedback."

I'm working on a system for an exploration-based campaign - my plan is to have the players sent to an unexplored portion of space with the task of setting up thriving colonies to provide support for future colonization ships that will be sent after the players (the means by which they get there - and the reason the sector is unexplored - are both things I intend to hand-wave away, as they're not really important to the campaign). The goal of the campaign is to push players to deal with resource shortages and make difficult decisions about where and how to settle - and how to interact with local aliens as the players discover them.

In short, the intent of this campaign is basically to play a Star Wars game based around the concepts in Mass Effect: Andromeda , using Edge of the Empire and sticking to Star Wars aliens and ships instead of converting Mass Effect over to the system. The goal isn't to make an RPG campaign out of Mass Effect: Andromeda - I'm not taking Mass Effect conversions or taking any specific elements from the game's plot - but to take the core ideas divorced from the final product and build a campaign around them.

To that end, I've been working on a system for generating random planets using (mostly) Fantasy Flight's narrative dice. Some of the traditional d20 system dice are used initially to determine things like the size of the star system and location of planets, but I'm considering ways to change those rolls to use the narrative dice as well.

I'm currently working on a second draft of this system, and I'm always looking for feedback to help improve it.

The System

My goals in the system are as follows:

1. As much as possible, use narrative dice to roll and generate outcomes.
2. Use this system to generate planets that use existing EotE mechanics - like high and low gravity - to allow players to take advantage of their species and equipment decisions; I want the random planets to be crunchy mechanically, and not just fluff, and to use some mechanics that don't always come up in my normal sessions. (...but note that I also make up some mechanics, like "high and low oxygen" or "covered in thick foliage" which I haven't fully fleshed out yet)
3. Create planets where there isn't necessarily a "perfect" choice when players are considering where to colonize.

Due to the size of the system, I'm only including a portion below - please find the entirety at https://harmagames.blogspot.com/ (with my apologies for the self-promotion).

Major characteristics of a planet (resources, atmosphere, water & plant life, and animal life) are determined by Success and Failure while minor characteristics of other elements are determined by the other outcomes. For example, the first roll determines the presence of an atmosphere with success and failure, and the presence of resources with the other outcomes. Then, if there is an atmosphere, the second roll is used to determine whether or not the planet has surface water, with atmospheric conditions being set with secondary results.

This ensures that every result is valid and usable on every roll (e.g. you will never roll a failure that causes your planet to have no atmosphere with advantage where the only advantage purchase could be atmospheric qualities).

Note that I use "S dice" (Setback dice) to denote the severity of things, but they won't necessarily add actual setback dice to play depending on how the mechanic actually works out (for example, the fiery/icy atmosphere mentions "S dice," but may actually rely on the rating system for fires and acids instead).

Roll 1: Success & Failure: Atmosphere; All Other: Resources

• Advantage - Planet has a Basic Resource (1 per advantage)
• Success - Planet has atmosphere; roll on next table. By default, the atmosphere has too much or too little oxygen (3 S dice)
• Triumph - Planet has an Advanced Resource.
• Threat - Planet is Rough (1 S die per threat); in an outer planet, this makes it a rocky planet as opposed to a gas giant.
• Failure - Planet has no atmosphere; do not roll on any later tables.
• Despair - Planet is radioactive, or planet has a false positive resource.

Roll 2: Success & Failure: Surface Water; All Other: Atmosphere

• Advantage - Planet does not have high or low oxygen (buy down from 3 S dice).
• Success - Planet has surface water; roll on next table. By default, the planet is either mostly desert (including "full ocean coverage" since salt water is not ideal for colonization) or covered in dense foliage (3 S dice)
• Triumph - Planet has a perfectly earthlike atmosphere.
• Threat - Planet has an Acidic, Fiery, Icy, or Toxic atmosphere (1 S die per threat).
• Failure - Planet does not have surface water; do not roll on any later tables.
• Despair - Planet has a Caustic atmosphere which destroys suits and ships, dealing 1 damage per despair per hour (ignoring armor/soak).

Roll 3: Success & Failure: Animal Life; All Other: Water & Plant Life

• Advantage - Planet does not have thick foliage or desert qualities (buy down from 3 S dice).
• Success - Planet has animal life; roll on next table.
• Triumph - Planet has very arable land which will improve food yields (NB: this allows the players to put larger colonies on the planet).
• Threat - Planet is covered with a thick fog or wracked by horrible storms (1 S die per threat).
• Failure - Planet is devoid of animal life; do not roll on any later tables.
• Despair - Planetary plant life is actively hostile to players, or planet suffers horribly tectonic shifts, or planet’s water is not potable and cannot be made potable.

Roll 4: All: Animal Life

• Advantage - Planet has algae or bacteria that can be farmed for additional food, or planet has beneficial bacteria (NB: this allows the players to put larger colonies on the planet).
• Success - Planet has domesticable, docile wildlife (NB: this allows the players to put larger colonies on the planet).
• Triumph - A neutral alien species inhabits planet.
• Threat - Planet has bacteria that cause ill effects to inhabitants (but do not kill outright).
• Failure - Planet has no domesticable wildlife; wildlife may be passive or hostile.
• Despair - Hostile alien species inhabits planet, or planet has fatal bacteria.

In Conclusion

As I said, this is very much a work-in-progress, which is why I'm hoping to get some feedback on it. In particular, there are some rather boring rolls that I'm not so fond of (rolls that only "buy down" less desirable things, or rolls with only one major option), and there are some made-up elements (like "high oxygen") that I have rough ideas for (take X strain when you roll a despair with any weapon that could ignite pockets of concentrated oxygen, in addition to the effects of the despair), but I'd love to hear any thoughts on those mechanics as well.

Like I said earlier, the full system-in-progress can be found at https://harmagames.blogspot.com/ (and as I said earlier, sorry for the self-promotion - I put it in a blog because I figured it was just too much of a "wall-of-text" for forums or Reddit, but I feel like that's still generally frowned upon).

Thank you all very much for your time and for any feedback you have!

And of course, because people expect it at the end:

TL;DR I'm working on a system to randomly generate mechanically interesting planets for an exploration- and colonization-based EotE campaign and would love feedback.

I have yet to fully ingest your work, but it occurs to me that you might find this useful if you don't already know about it: http://donjon.bin.sh/scifi/world/

I've used donjon for other things, but not for random systems/planets. That's useful...though I'd want to have a framework to overlay on it to put in-game effects, for example "a planet with this maximum temperature is hot enough to impose two setback dice during the day from heat" - basically a way to consistently tie the raw output to mechanical outcomes.

Well, I like the above algorithm much more than donjon's generator, because it generates so much more. Thanks for posting

How many of each die-type do you roll?

On 1/1/2018 at 5:39 PM, Harma said:

I've used donjon for other things, but not for random systems/planets. That's useful...though I'd want to have a framework to overlay on it to put in-game effects, for example "a planet with this maximum temperature is hot enough to impose two setback dice during the day from heat" - basically a way to consistently tie the raw output to mechanical outcomes.

Yeah, I thought it might add some nice fluff to what you're doing and maybe throw up a picture while it was at it.

16 hours ago, MasterZelgadis said:

Well, I like the above algorithm much more than donjon's generator, because it generates so much more. Thanks for posting

How many of each die-type do you roll?

I've been rolling two dice for each roll - either a Boost & Setback, Ability & Difficulty, or Proficiency & Challenge - most planets roll Boost & Setback for rolls after the first, since they're not likely to have water or life - but green belt planets roll Proficiency & Challenge for the opportunity to hit despairs or triumphs. In general, I'd say pick dice based on whether or not you want to hit despair or triumph, since those are the only exclusive results.

There's not a ton of variation in "roll 2 dice," though - I'd love to have something like, "this is a well-located system, so it gets one extra good die" for example. I might try to address this in rolling for systems using the narrative dice...maybe use advantages as an option to make planets roll with more "good" dice? Or I could incorporate it into the current rolls, by allowing you to buy Boost dice for the next roll with advantages (which is consistent with existing systems) - so a planet with an advantageous atmosphere is more likely to have good surface water, for example.

Re: donjon, it generates a lot of good but very technical information. I do love the random planet terrain and map, though (and the planet art for their random system generator as well, it's nice to randomly roll a system and see those planets instead of just having text for them - but I say that as a very visual person).