MyTraveller World Generator - Trade and Big Picture
This post is part of the series where I dismantle various versions of Traveller in order for me to translate it and serve my players in shorter and more digestible way. Previous posts are Starport and Physical and Social and Tech.
Trade
I would like to ramble about various iterations of trade rules from various Traveller books but I have only two short point. First is that spooky.blot.im (which at the point of writing this post totally spun into a vampire RPG website) had the simplest observation that works the best for me. The codes directly interact with each other in simplest way. These are:
Agricultural - mid range atmo, hydro and pop - supply of food
Non-agricultural - low atmo, hydro and large pop - demand for food
Industrial - tainted atmo, high pop - supply of industrial goods
Non-industrial - low pop - demand for industrial goods
You see the gist? I will tinker with the requirements - you don't need to be overcrowded and polluted forge world to be industrial - but the stuff is there. Shortcut to the rest:
Rich - supply of material; Poor - demand for material
High Population - supply of cultural goods; Low Population - demand for cultural goods
Low Law Level - supply of contraband; High Law Level - demand for contraband
High Technology - supply of tech; Low Technology - demand for tech
Quick and simple, just assign the bonus.
Second point in trade are Common Goods. You can buy and sell them in every Starport. I call bullshit. I'd like my Traveller to be more harsh and raw and so I doubt in a world with demand for food you could buy food to transfer it elsewhere. Nope. No shit. It feels as if the big empire covers most of the worlds' basic needs. Not in my games. There are worlds starving for tech, goods or culture. They won't sell you some things at all. Which should emphasize the vibe of cold, harsh, oppressive space capitalism. As it is just like regular capitalism but in space. I want it unfair and oppressive so the players grow to hate and buckle against it.
Big Picture Stuff
By this I mean the overall civilization background stuff. Like the Third Imperium and all those shenanigans.
I thought about it a long time ago and I still think it has a merit. Three large human interstellar civilizations. Why three? Well, first it gives me space for three different sci fi flavours. Second it gives me three large factions and when there are three you know political situation is unstable. Third something else probably too, I just needed to complete the three. Each of them would have slightly different government types, I believe. I called them: Empire, Hegemony and Federation. Each with its own twist.
Empire is the baseline capitalist nightmare. Central government is basically a bunch of organisations with their own monopolies. There is Bureaucracy - givers of permits, regulations, something you'd actually call a government. Then there is Military. Military is formally below the Bureaucracy but as we know from experience it is largely independent, has its own lobbyists and never provides full receipts about what it did with the money. And "third branch" of Central are Corporations. Not all corporations. Only the biggest, baddest, ruthlessest. Travel monopolies, tech monopolies, trade "guilds".
Imperial life is not easy. Although each planet is technically independent in practice most can be described as semi-colonies. Corporations control all the interstellar grade tech. Spaceship? Given by corp. Cryochambers? Same. High tech medbays, advanced medicines (anagathics), weapons, energy tech. All "given" by Big Corp. Even if you have to run an errant through Bureaucracy - most people employed within it come from Corporations or move to them after governmental job. Planetary governments are largely independent and only sometimes have to appeal to Bureaucracy or Military, but very often to Corporations. Every major player has their agents and spies and you know the drill. Question is why with all this corruption didn't the system collapse already? Well different corporations keep themselves in check. Local bureaucratic and military officials have their own agendas. Sometimes planetary governors grow their spines and actually work for betterment of their people. With slow jump tech in big cosmos it can last only until someone finds a way to unite more power in hands of the few. And many factions work relentlessly to find such edge.
Empire provides default play experience because capitalism is cold, indifferent and cruel just like deep space.
Hegemony is my feudal place. It is somewhat like Third Imperium but even more pronounced. Thanks to anagathics technology true aristocrats are essentially timeless. In the center there is Hegemon, a few centuries old person whose children are aristocratic caste of their space organisation. So all aristocrats are more or less related with each other and can trace their lineages to the Hegemon. Position is based on merit (actually not on merit but by intrigue and politics) and various families and lineages compete with each other. Their spouses don't have to be aristocratic so the family's blood can stay fresh but the children have to compete for courtly positions and feudal grants. Not getting one means you'll age and wither while your parents, siblings and sometimes children live their ageless lives.
You can map feudal parts of Third Imperium here. Individual planets are managed by central figures - Knights. Planet clusters are managed by a Baron. A few baronies answer to a Count. You know the drill. Each aristocrat manages their own court, so one might be a noble without a holding - by virtue of providing specific service to actual aristocrat, usually in form of diplomacy, management, military and oversight of something else that titled noble don't want to attend. Anagathics are officially accessible only for active duty nobles but a lot of them cheats the system and keeps their less fortunate kin alive. This system also promotes aggression and conquest. Corruption and intrigue run deep in Hegemony and so the Hegemon messes up with Princes and their holdings, arranges checks and balances to keep the order in place.
I think it is kind of similar to Dune with all the politics and shit? Another thing that comes to mind are Dragonblooded from Exalted.
Federation is a very old organisation that is less centralised than other galactic powers. Planetary governments are independent but have to agree to a set of rules in terms of military or freedom of movement and knowledge pf citizens. There are no central powers but each region is directed and supervised by a group of councils made up by officials and experts, diplomats, envoys, scientists, sociologists and others. These councils advise and oversee various elements of interstellar life but are often dependent on particular planets, resources and governments, the enlightened ideas clash with practical needs and political realities.
Due to independent nature of planetary governments Federation struggles with constant localized rebellions and diplomatic crisis, sometimes leading to a loss of whole clusters of worlds. There is also some divide between citizens in space and citizens on planets, corruption, nepotism and constant psyop, espionage and conflict with other interstellar bodies who both - Empire and Hegemony - find fresh introduced Federated worlds as easy conquest. Despite these problems it still finds new worlds willing to join.
I think similar setup I encountered in Ursula le Guin novels.
Cthulhu died for our Sins
Okay, the title is a joke but the idea is not. Although planetary communities usually have their own beliefs - especially High Population ones - there are religions popular in space and between worlds.
God-Planets - rather popular religion or more like philosophy. Believers claim that each planet is in itself a god, sometimes quiet and sometimes it is seen as a local religion. Although it is inclusive towards local religions it is sometimes rejected by them, it's very heterogeneous in the relations with other faiths. One thing is constant - Planetarans believe prolonged stay outside of a protective atmospheres of God-Planets is detrimental to ones spirit and so they tend to avoid long travels or positions that would entail staying in space for a long time. They also object living in space stations or asteroids.
Psychosphere - most common in high tech and high population worlds it is a belief that all humans are connected by shared psychosphere of conscious and unconscious energy that spans whole galaxy. Many proponents argue that just the fact there were no other intelligent species found in known space means humans are special. There are many theories about minds and spirits and psychic energies flowing through the cosmos and humans and a lot of frauds and scammers uses the general awareness of this religion to make money so the faith is often diregarded as a scam.
Great Old Ones - some say the ideas for this religion came from a bunch of short novels, some that there really was a book of cosmic revelations and others claim it is an effort of generations of space travellers struck by cosmic mystery. The main point is that besides humans there are other things settling the galaxy. Shadowy, unknowable and secretive creatures, some hiding among people, some enormous and powerful as monstrous gods the size of a planet. Many sailors that looked too long into the darkness of space claims there is something lurking out there. Within the faith there are various iterations - some people worship one or all cosmic beings, others seek signs of their presence in deep space or among human populations.