> > The technology (warp v hyperdrive, etc etc) is just story telling flavour. > > Exactly. Well, except that it has great bearing on the maps, and how the various societies interrelate. > > *Scope > > Hmm.. change the numbers by a factor - Don't know what yet. But > > remember we are playing societies, not necessarily races. What if someone > > wants to play a "jedi knight" like group? They would be a very politically > > powerful group, but have a very small size... (in the 100,000's?) > > We can keep the population det. but change the land area to planets, > systems etc. controlled, giving a rough boundary to the society if it has > one. This would obviously be different for an organization crossing > societal boundaries, such as religions, mercenaries etc. Population determinant should go up, but not by the same factor for everything. Think exponential. We can stick with the nation/organization split. How about, um, er... Society: Organization: -4 2,000 200 -3 200,000 50,000 -2 5 million 500,000 -1 500 million 1 million 0 5 billion 10 million +1 10 billion 100 million +2 50 billion 500 million +3 100 billion 1 billion +4 500 billion 2.5 billion There's a bias in this against over-high populations; I'm of the opinion that sane races would be much less crowded than Earth-born humanity is today. Still, I could be wrong, and the +3/+4 could be changed to have societal populations of 500 billion and 5 trillion accordingly. Or something less dramatic. For land area... societies only... how about: -4 Tiny part of one planet (less than a continent), single asteriod, rag-tag fleet of ships... (woah, battlestar galactica flashback) -3 Small part of one planet (small continent), entire small moon, less rag-tag fleet, several asteriods -2 One big continent (Asia), sizeable subset of planet (oceans, subterranean areas), large moon, asteroid belt, respectable space station and associated fleet -1 One planet (groundhogs) 0 One solar system, including colonies (at least mining colonies) on associated planets or belts. +1 2-10 inhabited solar systems, one major colony +2 11-50 inhabited solar systems, 3 major colonies +3 51-200 inhabited solar systems, many major worlds +4 201+ inhabited solar systems Kinda gets vague near the high end, I admit. Scale breaks down when trying to differentiate between (say) the Federation and the Trantorian Empire, but what can you do? > > *Subsistence > > No real change. > > > Could have aero-, hydroponics, space-based production, all yielding higher > output, increasing population and decreasing space needed for growing > food. I'd actually favor a bit of a more radical change; changing subsistence to be a -4/+4. You could then figure out the carrying capacity of a species by calculcating (subsistence efficiency + tech + land area) /2 -3 could be "only feed on free-ranging large predators", or something similar. +2 could mean highly efficient ocean farming, or space-based hydroponics, or whatnot. But the means of subsistence would become a special effect. Overshooting your carrying capacity is allowed, but will be punished by the laws of nature. (Let's see... -1 technology race, -1 land area, call it 0 subsistence... Earth is -1 carrying capacity, which means 500 million people at our current tech level... sounds about right. > > > *Economical system > > no real changes, although nearly everyone would be "credit" based. What about societies when they interact with each other? "Sorry, we don't accept credit from your kind any more... got any nickel asteroids?" > > *Military organisation > > No real change - Military Force and Military Size are all thats needed. > > Descriptions add flavor and could be taken into account for battles as per > case and GM. Really good descriptions could give bonuses (or penalties ;). > Have tech scale, magic scale, psionic scale, all as per society. What do > you mean use tech scale as humanity level? > > > ##Actions > > keep the same - 4 per turn, > > Boost the actions up to five, with sub actions in each if needed, since we > are using five-year turns. Governments can get more done in a five yr > span than one yr, and so should be allowed to have more opportunities to > act. What I would do is to keep with 4 actions w/no penalty, but to figure the IH scale that strategic actions which would take "five years" could instead be done in one turn, and so on. So-called "Tactical" actions would get a bonus (one year going to 5), or could be made "strategic" with no penalty, or whatnot. -- Sam Gorton sgorton@sandstorm.net Sandstorm Enterprises, Inc. http://www.sandstorm.net voice: 617-426-5056 fax: 508-696-8989 ---------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, send mail to celandra-off@phoenyx.net.
On Mon, 1 Nov 1999 sgorton@apache.vineyard.net wrote: > > > *Scope > > > Hmm.. change the numbers by a factor - Don't know what yet. But > > > remember we are playing societies, not necessarily races. What if someone > > > wants to play a "jedi knight" like group? They would be a very politically > > > powerful group, but have a very small size... (in the 100,000's?) > > > > We can keep the population det. but change the land area to planets, > > systems etc. controlled, giving a rough boundary to the society if it has > > one. This would obviously be different for an organization crossing > > societal boundaries, such as religions, mercenaries etc. > > Population determinant should go up, but not by the same factor > for everything. Think exponential. > > We can stick with the nation/organization split. > > How about, um, er... > > Society: Organization: > -4 2,000 200 > -3 200,000 50,000 > -2 5 million 500,000 > -1 500 million 1 million > 0 5 billion 10 million > +1 10 billion 100 million > +2 50 billion 500 million > +3 100 billion 1 billion > +4 500 billion 2.5 billion > > There's a bias in this against over-high populations; > I'm of the opinion that sane races would be much less > crowded than Earth-born humanity is today. This would mean a fair society to have less than the equivalent Earth pop. while also having greater technology. This doesn't make sense to have less population with better agricultural practices. I suggest increasing scopes by a factor of ten, yielding much larger, more advanced societies. Your sane races would be more war-torn than present Earth to have such low populations or just less fertile. > > Still, I could be wrong, and the +3/+4 could be changed > to have societal populations of 500 billion and 5 trillion > accordingly. Yes. And so land area would need to be changed accordingly. Basically shift the scale down one point. > > For land area... societies only... how about: > > -4 Tiny part of one planet (less than a continent), > single asteriod, rag-tag fleet of ships... > (woah, battlestar galactica flashback) > -3 Small part of one planet (small continent), > entire small moon, less rag-tag fleet, several asteriods > -2 One big continent (Asia), sizeable subset of > planet (oceans, subterranean areas), large moon, > asteroid belt, respectable space station and > associated fleet > -1 One planet (groundhogs) > 0 One solar system, including colonies (at least mining > colonies) on associated planets or belts. > +1 2-10 inhabited solar systems, one major colony > +2 11-50 inhabited solar systems, 3 major colonies > +3 51-200 inhabited solar systems, many major worlds > +4 201+ inhabited solar systems > > Kinda gets vague near the high end, I admit. Scale breaks > down when trying to differentiate between (say) the Federation > and the Trantorian Empire, but what can you do? > > > > *Subsistence > > > No real change. > > > > > Could have aero-, hydroponics, space-based production, all yielding higher > > output, increasing population and decreasing space needed for growing > > food. > > I'd actually favor a bit of a more radical change; changing > subsistence to be a -4/+4. You could then figure out > the carrying capacity of a species by calculcating > (subsistence efficiency + tech + land area) /2 > I agree, though the carrying capacity would need to be fleshed out more. Why divide by 2? > -3 could be "only feed on free-ranging large predators", > or something similar. +2 could mean highly efficient > ocean farming, or space-based hydroponics, or whatnot. > But the means of subsistence would become a special > effect. > > Overshooting your carrying capacity is allowed, but will > be punished by the laws of nature. (Let's see... -1 > technology race, -1 land area, call it 0 subsistence... > Earth is -1 carrying capacity, which means 500 million > people at our current tech level... sounds about right. > > > > > > *Economical system > > > no real changes, although nearly everyone would be "credit" based. > > What about societies when they interact with each other? > "Sorry, we don't accept credit from your kind any more... got > any nickel asteroids?" > > > > *Military organisation > > > No real change - Military Force and Military Size are all thats needed. > > > > Descriptions add flavor and could be taken into account for battles as per > > case and GM. > > Really good descriptions could give bonuses (or penalties ;). > > > Have tech scale, magic scale, psionic scale, all as per society. What do > > you mean use tech scale as humanity level? > > > > > ##Actions > > > keep the same - 4 per turn, > > > > Boost the actions up to five, with sub actions in each if needed, since we > > are using five-year turns. Governments can get more done in a five yr > > span than one yr, and so should be allowed to have more opportunities to > > act. > > What I would do is to keep with 4 actions w/no penalty, but to > figure the IH scale that strategic actions which would take "five > years" could instead be done in one turn, and so on. > > So-called "Tactical" actions would get a bonus (one year going > to 5), or could be made "strategic" with no penalty, or whatnot. > I think that could be workable, though I still cling to the idea of crisis situation actions and turns. N Stevens > > -- > Sam Gorton sgorton@sandstorm.net > Sandstorm Enterprises, Inc. http://www.sandstorm.net > voice: 617-426-5056 fax: 508-696-8989 ---------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, send mail to celandra-off@phoenyx.net.
N Stevens wrote: > We can keep the population det. but change the land area to planets, > systems etc. controlled, giving a rough boundary to the society if it has > one. This would obviously be different for an organization crossing > societal boundaries, such as religions, mercenaries etc. See.. thats what you should want to avoid! In Celandra, it used the same determinants for societies and organisations. (Althought there were few "organisations", the Merchant Guild in Tyrea, the Order of Helix in Blackburg are a couple) An organisation would use the same determinsnts (scope, area etc) but these would necessarily be small - so the player would be relying more on political things than brute force of militaries.. > > *Subsistence > > No real change. > Could have aero-, hydroponics, space-based production, all yielding higher > output, increasing population and decreasing space needed for growing > food. Whatever - this is just better usage of available space... o rather, higher technoogy giving a better yield. Already in the rules, but medieval was talking about slash-burn, hunter-gatherer, irrigation, crop-rotation, and the like. we just take it to another level... > > *Military organisation > > No real change - Military Force and Military Size are all thats > > needed. > Descriptions add flavor and could be taken into account for battles as per > case and GM. As we did in Elyria. > Have tech scale, magic scale, psionic scale, all as per society. What do > you mean use tech scale as humanity level? well, in Use technological basis as a description, and in the "humanities" section of the form, have technology sophistication as the +4/-4 scale. (but we also have diversity - which tells us how many technologies are at that level, tolerance - what people think of technology, and prevalence - how wide spread the technology is) This lends itself to some interesting areas. Say Sophistication +3 Diversity -2 Tolerance -4 Prevalence -4 This would give us a society which _hates_ the manifestations of technology, and it doesn't appear (except in very unique occassions) but is bloody brilliant at a few things... This lends itself to a "medieval" society, where a small group (priests?) controls and actively uses technology, but hides it from the public or couches it in non-technological terms... (say as gods, magic, etc - but they may have anti-grav devises, or laser weapons, etc, but everything looks to the public as divine power - "machines, may be outlawed..) > > ##Military Organisation > Planetary, system and galatic militaries, broken up into different > military branches of, say, marines, navies, space/air force, infantry, > stealth and so on. Organisations are "desription" and sub-determinants... >-- Kenneth Crowe ICL Data Oy Puh +358 9 567 5116 Matkapuh +358 50 364 4507 kenneth.crowe@icl.fi ---------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, send mail to celandra-off@phoenyx.net.
> > > *Subsistence > > > No real change. > > Could have aero-, hydroponics, space-based production, all yielding higher > > output, increasing population and decreasing space needed for growing > > food. > > Whatever - this is just better usage of available space... o > rather, higher technoogy giving a better yield. Already in the rules, but > medieval was talking about slash-burn, hunter-gatherer, irrigation, > crop-rotation, and the like. we just take it to another level... > I think Aria wanted to aid people richly describing their societies. Unless otherwise stated (isn't famine fun to role-play) societies can feed their population with room to spare. Ideally they'll describe their method of food production -- algea vats, space farms, waste recycling -- and consider their carrying capacity. Rylen ---------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, send mail to celandra-off@phoenyx.net.
