06 Empire flavour
I caught myself becoming enthralled by a blog post last week. I tend to just browse and read all sorts of things about tabletop design, philosophy of play, houserules and the like. This excellent post, "Start small" by Tales to Astound is what I'm referring to as it covers something very interesting: The Setting and The Setting of Play.
The Setting and The Setting of Play are things I've been racking my brain about for some time, but not really knowing what to call it. In short it talks about The Setting being the fluff in the background and The Setting of Play is the fluff that the players interact with. A great analogy that was used was using the story of Lord of the Rings. The Fellowship encountered The Setting of Play, but the amount of detail that exists in Middle Earth (The Setting) and the politics behind the scene is mind-boggling. Could you imagine how much longer the books and films would be if they covered everything?
Bringing it back to the point at hand - I want to embrace this concept in my design. Yes, I want to have a flavourful setting, but deep down I don't want to cover the minutae of which noble likes or dislikes which merchant. All because of some obscure reason on a moon the players will hardly encounter.
In my last post I discussed overarching Empire themes that I thought would be interesting to have, that work alongside or oppressively control the local planet goverment.
So what extra information do we need for the worlds? Apart from the UWP it is important we don't become lazy. Let's look at the Empires and figure out what sort of flavour we need to consider:
Let's make the Blue Empire Capital the TL-9 world on the left. Notice it has a government number of 0. Let's use this! By the book (CT '77), Government Level 0 is "No government structure, in many cases family bonds will predominate."
How about...
The Purple Empire Capital will be the TL-9 world at the bottom. At the moment you can see the Government Level is 1, but we're going to use some creative license and change that to something that promotes a more technical and favour-based society. A Feudal Technocracy (Level 5) caught my eye: "Ruling functions are performed by specific individuals for persons who agree to be ruled by them. Relationships are based on the performance of technical activities which are mutually beneficial." So rulers are put in power because they are liked or do a great job (maybe both!). Technical skills are something I really want to develop for this group. Engineers, doctors, scientists, mechanics, soldiers... everyone has a skill that can be of benefit to someone else which can lead to some excellent bartering and I.O.U's. For better or for worse. How this clashes with the other planet's governments within its borders will be fun to play through. Will qualifications, work history and trade hold more value than Credits?
The Gold Empire Capital will be the TL-11 world at the top. They are currently Level 4, which is a Representative Democracy. "Ruling functions are performed by elected representatives." This is going to be a Star Trek Federation-like arrangement. Equality and common goals abound to ensure peace and prosperity between species. If that requires a military presence then so be it. Because this empire is in the top right of the map and quite secluded, I may make their ships to be larger exploratory vessels that can explore far beyond their borders with a large crew of surveyors and scientists. The face of this will be covered in procedure, forms, protocol and bureaucracy.
And that's it! The points I've mentioned are the Setting of Play, the bit the players see.
What do you think? Please leave a comment below. Next post will talk about trade in the sector (and a bit of smuggling too).
The Setting and The Setting of Play are things I've been racking my brain about for some time, but not really knowing what to call it. In short it talks about The Setting being the fluff in the background and The Setting of Play is the fluff that the players interact with. A great analogy that was used was using the story of Lord of the Rings. The Fellowship encountered The Setting of Play, but the amount of detail that exists in Middle Earth (The Setting) and the politics behind the scene is mind-boggling. Could you imagine how much longer the books and films would be if they covered everything?
Bringing it back to the point at hand - I want to embrace this concept in my design. Yes, I want to have a flavourful setting, but deep down I don't want to cover the minutae of which noble likes or dislikes which merchant. All because of some obscure reason on a moon the players will hardly encounter.
In my last post I discussed overarching Empire themes that I thought would be interesting to have, that work alongside or oppressively control the local planet goverment.
So what extra information do we need for the worlds? Apart from the UWP it is important we don't become lazy. Let's look at the Empires and figure out what sort of flavour we need to consider:
How about...
There's been a coup affecting the highest offices of the Empire. The government has collapsed, leading to small political parties, criminal organizations and gangs taking over. The Empire's hold on the starport is fine, which means that the passage of information out and the "face" of the planet is controlled and appears stable. If you break past that illusion, it's quite the opposite.
And that's it! The points I've mentioned are the Setting of Play, the bit the players see.
What do you think? Please leave a comment below. Next post will talk about trade in the sector (and a bit of smuggling too).
I was always wary of the Govt. 5 Technocracy, it seems hard to explain, and implement, so I do not use it. I like these notes and watching this develop.
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