[TML] ABPR: Designing Campaign Starmaps

[Derek Wildstar]

Advice for Beginning Players and Referees: Designing Campaign Starmaps

So, for whatever reason, you want to run a Traveller campaign using  
your own starmap.  Here is some advice from a Traveller referee, and  
something that I assume will cause much discussion on the list.  The  
caveat that applies to all of this is - this is what works for me and  
the folks I've played with.


2D or Not 2D
The standard Traveller starmap is flat and uses hex-based movement.   
Interstellar space is actually three dimensional, and there aren't any  
rows of hexes inscribed across the galaxy.  I think it's reasonable to  
at least consider Traveller with a 3D starmap, or even a "real"  
starmap.  Before you go that route, there are a few things to consider:
1) The number of possible destinations and routes grows as the cube of  
the distance, rather than the square, significantly increasing the  
number of worlds within a few jumps and making navigation harder.  For  
example, there are no stars within J-1 of Terra.  There are 4 within  
J-2, 11 within J-3, 32 within J-4, 67 within J-5, and 103 within J-6.   
A 2D J-6 map has 126 hexes and typically contains around 40 stars.
2) Large polities are proportionally larger than in canonical  
Traveller materials.  For example, a 3D empire with roughly the same  
transit time as the Imperium would, if centered on Terra, contains  
well over 30,000 stars, as opposed to somewhat under 10,000 for the  
Imperium.
3) There is no easy way to represent the 3D map on paper for ready  
navigation. There are ways to solve this problem (such as pre-computed  
distance tables or node maps for each jump range), but in general the  
results  look more like a computer program flowchart than a "starmap".
4) You will probably need computer assistance for mapping and  
navigation, so be prepared for some number crunching and considerable  
work.  You may need to have (or know someone who has) computer  
programming skills.
5) The players may not be able to visualize the starmap or do  
effective navitation on their own.  The referee should expect to  
(impartially) help with this, and should consider placing an NPC  
captain or navigator on the crew as a means of providing the players  
with accurate information and a way to select from a more limited set  
of choices.

My recommendation is to use standard Traveller 2D maps, particularly  
if you are planning to create a "large" empire.  Although 2D maps are  
unrealistic, they are easy for players and referees to use.  However,  
I know of campaigns that have successfully used 3D maps, particularly  
campaigns that stick to small areas of space.


The Big Picture
Before you start rolling the dice to generate worlds, it's a good idea  
to step back and draw a large scale mape that shows an overall picture  
of the campaign setting.  This picture should include the main  
political entities in the game, and any other significant astrographic  
features such as homeworlds, trade routes, star clusters, rifts, etc.   
The region where the campaign is set should be identified on "the big  
map".  It is also helpful to draw an intermediate-scale map that shows  
the campaign area and it's immediate surroundings.

The large-scale and intermediate-scale maps can get away with some  
inaccuracy; I recommend against providing exact coordinates for  
features on the map.  If or when you make the detailed sector and  
subsector maps of these areas, you can adjust the exact coordinates a  
few parsecs one way or the other without having to fudge or re-draw  
your large-scale maps.  The important parts of this phase is to plan  
out how all of the pieces will fit together.  Once we get down into  
the nitty-gritty of world generation, it's easy to loose sight of the  
forest while you are busy putting the leaves on the trees.


Use of Automation
It's quite feasible to use computer software to generate dozens of  
sectors using almost any edition of the Traveller world generation  
rules.  However, in my humble opinion, the campaign will be better  
served with a smaller campaign map that has been personally supervised  
by the referee, as opposed to a large map that is purely the result of  
a computer run.  There are a few reasons for this:
1) If the referee has hand-generated or at least reviewed each world  
in detail, he or she is more likely to be familiar with the details of  
the map, making it easier to place adventures and worlds in proper  
context.
2) The referee can tweak the map (typically by modifying die rolls) to  
produce worlds tailored to specific campaign needs, making the map  
better fit planned activities.
3) The referee can place non-random worlds (that is, worlds  
constructed to support a specific adventure, alien race, etc.) on the  
map in a sensible place, and ensure that the surrounding worlds make  
sense.
4) Traveller world generation uses lots of die rolls, and the random  
number generation functions in most older programming languages are  
weak[1].  This will produce unexpected and odd-looking results if not  
reviewed and corrected by a human.  For a Traveller example, look for  
"stripe" patterns in the non-canoical DGP sector files (I believe in  
Ealiyasiyw and Iwafuah sectors).

I also don't suggest placing every star system manually and generating  
every world by picking values.  Firstly, it's a lot of work; secondly,  
the resulting map is likely to look like an artifact with recognizable  
patterns rather than the naturally-random distribution expected in a  
real map.  For an example, look at (now non-canonical) The Beyond  
sector from Paranoia Press.

However, if you have a computer and Traveller mapping software  
available, certainly use it to store world data and generate maps as  
needed.  It is extremely useful to be able to lay down a subsector or  
sector map, as well as a J-6 map for the current location, and overlay  
trade routes, calculate volumes of trade (as per GT: Far Trader), and  
generally sort and search the world data.


How Big
So now that you've planned out the stage on which two 10,000-world  
empires will fight their epic conflict, the idea of generating (and  
personally reviewing and tweaking) 50 sectors containing 22,000-odd  
stars seems a little daunting ... as well it should.  If you could do  
a star system every minute, and worked for 16 hours a week on the  
project, that empire would take 6 months to generate.  That's a lot of  
prep-work for an 8-hour RPG session.  So how much do you have to do  
before you get started?

My recommendation is that at an absolute minimum, you need to generate  
a J-6 starmap centered on your starting world, a 12-parsec circle.   
That's 127 hexes, and probably contains about 40 worlds, give or take  
a dozen.  At 5 minutes per world, this will take less than 4 hours,  
and give you a nicely detailed chunk of space as a setting for your  
first few sessions.  You will probably want to spend a few more hours  
detailing some key worlds in that area of space.  You can use your big  
picture maps to decide what is off of the edges in general terms.  I  
recommend noting where trade and X-boat routes go off the edge, and  
what major destination lies at the end of the off-map link.  You will  
have to make sure that the players don't go too far from the starting  
world in the session, but most ships are J-1 or J-2, so it shouldn't  
be a problem.  As players move from world to world, you will have to  
generate new systems in between sessions.  Always keep the "edge of  
the map" at least 6 parsecs from the PC's current location at the  
start of a session.

A better plan is to generate 9 subsectors: the starting subsector and  
the box of 8 subsectors surrounding it.  This gives you a 24x30 parsec  
chunk of space to operate in (a bit more than half a sector); it will  
contain about 240 stars and will probably take a good bit of time:  
each subsector will probably take 2 or 3 hours to generate if you  
review each world, designate sensible trade routes, and generally  
build a quality map.  Again, plan to spend a few hours detailing  
important worlds in your campaign area.  However, you don't have to  
generate new maps until the players leave the starting subsector.   
Once they do, generate new subsectors to keep at least 8 parsecs  
between the players and the edge of the map.

If you have a lot of time (or if you are fast and have good software),  
generating an entire sector, plus the  20 subsectors bordering it,  
gives an extensive campaign map.  I have only had one campaign that  
crossed more space than this - and that only because one of the plot  
points was getting the expedition through a sector of semi-hostile  
territory.  This is about 1000 stars, and will take a significant time  
investment - but will probably serve as the underling map for many  
game sessions and perhaps even multiple campaigns.

---Derek

Notes:
[1] "Weak" random number generators exhibit short periodicity (the  
results repeat after only tens of thousands of iterations), poor  
distribution (some numbers or patterns of numbers occur more often  
than they should), or correlation (the next number generated is  
related to the last number).  The random number generator functions  
supplied with many older programming languages are particularly poor;  
"cryptographic" random-number generators in modern languages like Java  
are better.