Post/Author/DateTime	Post
bakomusha 01-24-06, 04:14 AM	i was totaly blank on how to creat a new world for my campain(first dm game thursday) when it hit me"why not roll to find out?" so i present to you "bakomusha's own how to roll a new world" all you need is the standerd dnd dice, and a little science and you can get started. 1. the worlds star system. a. how many planets:1d20 b.how many rocky: dice worth half of the planets rolled(like if you rolled a 12, roll a 1d6) c.gas: same as rocky d.populated planets: dice eqaul to the number of rocky planets rounded down e.suns:you should go with one,but if you have too, 1d4(technecly planets cant be made in a system with more the one sun) 2.planet:moon(s) a.number of moons:1d4(the more moons, the harsher the climent) b.moons populated:1d2(even yes odd no) a. number of populated moons:1d2 b.coloneys on moon(s): 1d20 3.world a.contenets:1d10 b.oceans:1d4 c.seas:1d10 d.land masses: 1d10(lower then rolled contenets) e.countrys:1d20 f.sentaint population percent:1d100, or 1d10 g.gates to other planes:1d2(even yes odd no) a.number of gates:1d10 and there you go, please r&r, you may use it if you whant, but all credit should go to me.
ThunderMare 01-24-06, 04:49 AM	You've came up with a good idea here, i'll keep this in mind for my new campaign.
akiio 01-24-06, 07:41 AM	That's a pretty sweet idea.
revnk 01-24-06, 12:09 PM	Traveller had a highly-detailed world generation system that is featured in free software like Heaven And Earth if you can find a copy. A few (hopefully helpful) comments: (1) As far as I know, no one has discounted the possibility of planets around binary stars. Stable orbits could occur around either one star or both stars, and for many stars those orbits would include "habitable zone" worlds. (Of course the presence of stable orbits does not mean that planets could or would form there. On the other hand, in a fantasy game there's no reason the powers that be couldn't create such worlds.) (2) Gas giant or brown dwarf worlds appear to be the most common worlds out there, although that may be due to the limits of contemporary astronomy (as methods improve, increasingly smaller worlds are being detected). Your planetary generation system might increase the percentage of jovians. (3) 1d20 worlds may be high. I'd suggest fewer worlds and using a bell curve to distribute more worlds in the midrange--e.g. rolling 2d8-1 would generate 1-15 planets with most systems having (nicely enough!) 9 worlds. (4) Earth appears to have an unusual moon. It is possible that most rocky worlds have no moons or tiny partners like Mars' Phobos and Deimos. You might want to consider fewer small moons or a system that favors one large, planet-like moon (like ours). Smaller moons will be uninhabitable without magic or technology; a larger moon might be habitable if it's large enough to retain atmosphere--in which case you really are talking about a double planet. (5) The number of seas/oceans and the number of landmasses is fairly arbitrary, especially since the label of "sea" or "ocean" is one that is fairly subjective to whoever lives near the body of water in question. Might I suggest a landmass percentage instead? 2d6-2 x 10% land, for instance, would result in 0-100% landmass, with average worlds having about 50% water coverage and 50% land coverage (quite a bit less ocean than earth, but reasonable); worlds with 0% landmass could be assumed to have a few islands and archaepelagos here and there (or might be ice-worlds) while worlds with 100% landmass would either be uninhabitable Mars-like or barely-habitable Arrakis-like (if you're a Dune fan) with nearly all available moisture trapped underground or in polar caps. (6) I would say sentient population should depend on what races your game uses. If you need a global population figure, however, I would suggest rolling some number of dice and multiplying by 1,000 or a million. If you want to get really complicated, you might do something like: global population = 1d6 x 10^(2d4+1), which would give you a population between 1,000 and 6,000,000,000 (with an average, I think, of 3,000,000-4,000,000). If those figures seem low or high, you could tweak the formula. (7) Number of countries, again, is probably something that should be fairly specific and not merely rolled. You might have hundred of small countries, none at all, or one for each race in a campaign (Elfland, Dwarfland, Gnomeland, etc.). Or you might have only one government. Hope that was constructive and helpful. If not, hey, I'm just some random dude on the internet! What do I know? Good luck!
Oompa 01-24-06, 12:14 PM	This is a great thing to roll up :) but well... im using my giant sized greyhawk world poster as a game world :) But this sounds good :)
Radagast 01-24-06, 12:47 PM	I wrote up something like this a while back for a space exploration game, but it is a multi-page Word file and thus too large to be easily posted here. Here are the steps based upon my system: 1) Rolled for the number of stars in the system and general arrangement based on estimated astronomical percentage: Possible choices were: single star, binary star (varying distance between the stars), triple star system (assumes two stars close to each other and one farther away) or a "double double" - two far apart pairs of binaries, in which each star is close to each other. I figured that these arrangements were reasonably common and most stable in the long run to give believable planetary systems. The more stars and the closer they are to each other, the less space one has for planets, thus a penalty was applied to the roll for number of planets. Oh, and yes - at least one planetary system has been discovered around a multi-star system (I think it is only 1 or 2 planets, but they orbit a triple star system if I recall correctly). 2) Spectral class of each star: Again, using real-world percentages, these range from spectral type O and B blue-white monster stars down to the very, very common red dwarves. The drawback to this system is that it creates a ton of red dwarves, which is realistic (especially for a space-exploration game, which was the original intent of the star system generator), but rather boring. One may chose to substitute in whatever stars one wishes, of course, but be realistic when possible. The truth is that the universe is full of low-mass M-class dwarf stars. 3) Number of major planets (ignoring Kuiper Belt objects, comets, etc): This was a roll of a 1d10 with modifers assigned based upon the star system (multiple star systems had a penalty, I may have given a bonus to single star systems, giant and supergiant stars have a penalty because it can be safely assumed that they destroyed several planets upon expanding to their huge size.) 4) Each world type: This was roughly divided into the following varieties: Rock (Mercury or similar planet), sub-terrestrial (something like Mars that may have once had simple life and could, in theory, still have simple life, but which is generally not very habitable), terrestrial (Earth), "hot-house" worlds with a run-away greenhouse effect (Venus), gas-giants (Jupiter and Saturn), cold gas-giants (Uranus and Neptune), and ice worlds (imagine Pluto, but larger). I think those were the main catagories. The system also had a way to divide things up so they made sense in their position around the star (hot worlds fading to a possible habitable zone, fading out to cold worlds.) 5) World specifics: There was a chance for a terrestrial or sub-terrestrial planet in each star system based upon the star's spectral type. Very hot stars had no chance of this - they die before a planet can estable life. Once a terrestrial planet was rolled-up and thus existed in a star system, percentile dice were rolled to determine the percentage of land vs. water. Not enough water and the planet was downgraded to sub-terrestrial. Too much, and you get a "water-world" which I *guess* could work and harbor lots of life, but since we haven't found such a world yet it is hard to say. 6) Finishing touches: There were percentile chances for various odd-ball world attributes - inclined orbits, retrograde rotation, significantly elliptical orbit (can't apply to terrestrial worlds, but could make a terrestrial planet into a sub-terrestrial one), and so on. The end result appeared be quite realistic, at least based upon our current knowledge, though there may have been somewhat of a bias to encouraging terrestrial and sub-terrestrial worlds. Since we don't know how common such worlds are, it is hard to say how accurate such numbers would be. The rest of the results did match up with reality - a universe composed mostly of cooler stars and lots of gas, ice, and rock out there with a few havens here and there for life to exist.
bakomusha 01-24-06, 12:49 PM	wow i thought i was just alone in thinking its a neat idea. thanks for r&r espacaly revnk. i wasnt going for an all inclusive way, i just was posting, what i had done out of boredom and writers block. i also left out some rolls, that where elabarated on some ideas i had for the campian, like how many caytacombs where on the moon(s) (my idea was that the moon was a retrat, for mages,and clerics, admist vast graveyards,cause the people on the planet, didnt whant to have the possibality of an undead (or zombie) apacolepse. and the countrys, is more along the lines of settlements from refugeys,pilgrems,and others from diffrent realms the mon btw is the size and likeness of our moon, but with a magic "atmoshere")i also left out how i divided the countrys in what catagory of goverment, and population spread of each kingdom. and for the number of suns, it was to much of a brainwork, to figrue out how would a planet in a binary system work. as for the moons, i did mean lunar sized objects like ours, cause in fantasy and sci-fi movies, you see all the time, 2-4[one time i saw 7 moons and six suns!] moons, and i saw on sci-fi channel someone saying that moons of that size would reek haveck on the planet below, i gussed that at four moons, you could servive, but the world would be a harsh place, the seas would be unnavitable, and the weather would be outrages. and in the outher way, with many small moons, you dont whont to many, or itll form a belt/or ring that would pelt the surface constenly, making it untolrable. if i where to try and make a big thing about it, revnk, i would defenatly ask your help, as you seem to be well versed in the subject of what the dune cannon calls planetoligy. and radagast,that sounds pretty in depth, but unneeded for a fantasy setting, if i was to make a big fuss, and like submet it to redgars forums, i would work with you two to have a more genarel system, infact, i might do that once i get done with the story basics of the world iam going to start playing(new players new world) i kinda have writers block(i swear i have it chornic) and i need it done by thrusday, but after that i might(80%) conact you guys,radagast, and revnk.
revnk 01-24-06, 03:17 PM	I've been noodling around with an idea for a D&D campaign set on a world in a binary system. (The idea for using a binary came originally from being a huge fan of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, although I'm looking at creating a colder and wetter world.) Anyway, the point is that Wikipedia's lay entry on Alpha Centauri (the binary system) includes this section which may be informative for some: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_centauri#Possibility_of_planet_for mation As always, Wikipedia entries should be taken with a grain of salt and checked against other sources--this article appears consistent with other things I've read here and there and looks alright to my layman eyes. The article notes that a habitable zone planet around Centauri A would be a bit farther out than Earth is from Sol, while a habitable world around Centauri B would be a little closer to the smaller star than Venus is to Sol. I believe--although this may be incorrect--that a habitable zone can be found in an orbit around both stars, although that may be an unlikely place for planetary formation under current theories. From either world, the second sun would have little effect on climate, but would generate much more light than is reflected by a full moon on earth: for half the year, nights would be a perpetual late dusk. Note that at the distance of several AUs, the secondary would appear to be an extraordinarily bright star: in other words, the classic twin-sunset scene in Star Wars (Episode IV) isn't what one would actually see from the surface of a world with two suns. It is, however, a bit of a headache trying to figure out where the second sun might be at any time in the year: if I ever use this hypothetical world I'm messing with, I might simply fake it. Traveller made such things easy to the extent that PCs were liable to leave a binary or trinary system long before the players were likely to start wondering what time second sunset might occur in autumn. Radagast great post (also, you're named after my favorite Istari btw). I was trying to remember if I'd heard about planetary candidates around a binary, and I think you answered me. Did you ever play Traveller? The full planetary generation system included spectral values and the rest--it was very solid, although I think recent astronomy has made a few premises of the original system out-of-date (how much we've learned in 20 years!). If you haven't played it, it sounds like a game you might enjoy.
bakomusha 01-24-06, 11:02 PM	well how about 6, when i was th the 6th garde, we thought there was only 9 planets, and that some astronemers still thought the moon was a traped faild planet.
revnk 01-25-06, 12:33 PM	The origin of Earth's moon is still debated, although the large impact theory appears most likely to be correct and probably has the most adherents. As for the number of planets around Sol: there may only be eight, depending on who you ask. Pluto appears to be only one of many very large trans-Neptunian objects, the rest of which usually aren't referred to as planets. Indeed, Pluto isn't even the largest TNO. Personally, I grew up memorizing the names of nine planets and have fond memories of reading a bio of Clyde Tombaugh when I was smaller than a gnome: I can't really wrap my head around "demoting" Pluto despite the increasingly clear fact that Pluto has more in common with things we don't call planets than it does with either gas giants or rocky bodies like Earth or Mars. But "planet" is just a label. It's a very common fallacy to assume that labels define reality and not the other way around. But I suppose we're now getting rather far from D&D. :)
bakomusha 01-25-06, 04:19 PM	its ok it happens alot in topics like this.