The FtA! Random Chart Design Contest Commentary Thread

[flyingmice]

Wow, can you tell that estar's a pro or what? His entry has me blown away.

The awesome oozes like sweet honey from the comb!

-clash

[estar]

Wow, can you tell that estar's a pro or what? His entry has me blown away.

Thanks for the compliment

Likely needs to be tweaked. I need to code this up in Visual Basic and run a couple of hundred results and see if the modifiers work the way I want.

Note the 1d6-1d6 mechanics is done to make this system different enough from Traveller's.

One important difference than that population is dependent on what is previously generated in the region. The idea is that six villages feed into a market village, six market villages feed into a town, six towns feed into a city.  The results should be a map dotted with more villages than market villages, more market villages than towns, more towns than cities.

Again I need to build a program a generator on a map so I can tweak this to make it work like I want.

Note that individual races should get there own modified tables aka Classic Traveller's Alien Module. That why this is a random HUMAN village generation table. Obviously what going to vary is the spread of population, government, law level, and Technology.

[Settembrini]

For all things holy, PLEASE drop the mile.
Kilometers, it´s for South America after all, no?

EDIT: But the awesome in estar´s subsystem is certainly not diminished by that.

[estar]

For all things holy, PLEASE drop the mile.
Kilometers, it´s for South America after all, no?

Short answer NO!

I added a metric note, thanks for pointing that out. I choose 10km because while 8km would be more exact 10 km per hex is close enough and a lot better as a round number than 8.

EDIT: But the awesome in estar´s subsystem is certainly not diminished by that.

Thanks

[Skyrock]

I'm sorry if this already answered somewhere, but as I can't find it in any of the both sticky threads and don't even know where to start too look for all those other threads and blog entries where it is mentioned: What is the deathline for that contest?

I have some nebulous ideas, but haven't yet got around to flesh them out and am currently pretty much stressed. It would be useful for me to know if I should hurry for that contest or settle some other things first and then tackle it with a clearer head.

[jrients]

Contest ends 9/30.

Everyone is making judging really tough!  There's a lot of great material so far!

[RPGPundit]

Estar, your generator isn't bad at all, but I already had something in mind for a random region/settlement generator with its own Universal Code, a tad simpler than yours (remember, "simple" is part of the design principle of FtA!).

Also, I don't much like the whole "1d6-1d6+whatever" thing.  Rolling one die and then subtracting another die of equal size from it always seemed so futile to me.

RPGPundit

Note: However, all that said I may end up borrowing some ideas from your system for mine, in which case I'll give you credit.

[estar]

Also, I don't much like the whole "1d6-1d6+whatever" thing.  Rolling one die and then subtracting another die of equal size from it always seemed so futile to me.

It is to make it different than traveller's 2d-7 yet generate the same curve. The result is the same -5 to +5 on a bell curve.

Note: However, all that said I may end up borrowing some ideas from your system for mine, in which case I'll give you credit.

Thanks, glad to be of service.

I plan on coding this up and do some analysis of the modifiers. I will let you know what I find out.

[sithson]

See, that's why I can't wait for the awesomisitity of friday so I can get paid and d/l this sucker, then then I will blow your motherf*73king socks off. You win this round estar, this round. Prepair for me to tear off the walls when I get this becuase then, then i'll know the rules... and then totaly cheat.

[RPGPundit]

See, that's why I can't wait for the awesomisitity of friday so I can get paid and d/l this sucker, then then I will blow your motherf*73king socks off. You win this round estar, this round. Prepair for me to tear off the walls when I get this becuase then, then i'll know the rules... and then totaly cheat.

I have to say, sithson, with your creativity I'm looking forward to see what kind of neat stuff you might come up with once you do actually know the rules.

RPGPundit

[sithson]

Yep. My plan is to make the next chart look almost exsactly like a FtA! Page chart, whatever one looks like that is. Also, reading the book will give me a heads up on charts that need to be done with a emphasis on flair.

To prove my mad skillz, heres some previous Basic WEG Starwars sheets
that I spiced up to have the feel of pre-saga d20 Starwars pages.

(For force users)
http://home.roadrunner.com/~keyofsolomon/FUQRS.pdf
(Front of character sheeet d6 style)
http://home.roadrunner.com/~keyofsolomon/SWBCS1.pdf
(Back)
http://home.roadrunner.com/~keyofsolomon/SWBCS2.pdf
(Ship)
http://home.roadrunner.com/~keyofsolomon/SWSSB.pdf
(Planet sheet)
http://home.roadrunner.com/~keyofsolomon/SWBPS.pdf
(Blank sheets, great for starwarzy print outs, glaxtic news nets the rest)
http://home.roadrunner.com/~keyofsolomon/GNN.pdf
http://home.roadrunner.com/~keyofsolomon/BLANK.pdf
(d20 Starship sheet front)
http://home.roadrunner.com/~keyofsolomon/SWBSSD20f.pdf
(back)
http://home.roadrunner.com/~keyofsolomon/SWBSSD20.pdf
Little things for maps (W.I.P.)

http://home.roadrunner.com/~keyofsolomon/GROUNDUNITS.bmp
http://home.roadrunner.com/~keyofsolomon/SHIPUNITS.bmp

Ive got other stuff in the works too, buzy bee I am. Thouse these are not FtA! stuff, I always apprecate comments on them, and offer them as samples of what I can do. I Have color ones too, but most of them Are W.I.P.'s.

I Can't wait to spice some charts up to look like a FtA! Page!

BTW, I am a pro at illustrator, in which I made all thouse pages, about 1-2 years ago. (Ive only gotten better!) and since I work with computers all day I have access to professional editing software (Read All of CS2), which if the Authors of FtA! ask nicely, ill offer my services as humble as they are, pro bono if they wanted them.

[RPGPundit]

You'd have to talk that over with Clash, he's the one who's entirely in charge of the editing/layout part of FtA!; only taking some very general advice and yeas/nays from me.

RPGPundit

[flyingmice]

The charts in FtA! are... functional. My highest aspirations for any layout are to be clean and functional. I haven't the layout talent in my brain that Bill or Brett have in their little finger, so prettyness or beauty ain't in the picture, but I'm getting better. Each time through I learn something. Here's a table from FtA!, to give you an idea of what they look like:


-clash

[Nicephorus]

I like the most recent ones by James.  Realistically, I'm only going to roll on a given table of that nature 2-3 times in a campaign.  So simple and quick without taking tons of book space are what I'd want.

[sithson]

Yes for sure, things are getting notched up a mark now, and the real competiton seems to be beggining. Now im just waiting for work to end so I can get home and order and d/l this sucker.