Friday, December 16, 2011

"That's no moon..."

Marc Miller's Traveller (1977) introduced a system for randomly generating space maps that has been widely imitated. One thing that is sometimes overlooked in these systems is the possibility of exotic interstellar phenomena. That's what makes David Cook's planet generation system for TSR's Star Frontiers (1982) so interesting. It appeared in Ares Magazine Special Edition #2 (1983) and when rolling up a system there was a 1% chance you'd roll on a "Special Feature Table" that covered unusual deep space objects.

Special Feature Table

Die Roll...Feature
01-03.....Alien artifact
04..........Alien lifeform
05-06....Artificial world
07.........Black hole
08-20...Dead star
21-22...Derelict spaceship
23-50...Dust cloud
51........Neutron star
52-71...Protostar
72-80...Rogue planet
81-99...Supernova remnant
00........White hole

Most of those features should be self-explanatory. Dust clouds cover 1D10 cubic light-years and may interfere with communications, as might neutron stars, supernova remnants, et al. Artificial worlds can be anything from a hollow asteroid to a ringworld or Dyson sphere. You get the idea. So the nest time you're rolling up a space map throw in a few special features to spice things up.

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