Wargaming in the Third Imperium: Sophonts
In my Traveller library, I have dead tree copies of CT, MT and T5. I have pdf copies of pretty much all other versions. Originally there was no official way to randomly determine the existence of native intelligent life. I believe a few articles in some of the magazines and/or fanzines may have attempted to remedy this. The first time I saw something official was in Grand Survey and Grand Census. Grand Survey (page 30) provided a 2D roll for 10+ with DMs, for a world to have native life.
If Grand Survey had determined that native life existed on a world and the world had a population greater than 0, then Grand Census (page 28) provided a 3D roll for 17+ with DMs, for a world to have a native minor race present, and if this roll was successful, a further 3D roll for 15+ was made to see if that minor race was a minor human race.
I don't know the odds, but the chance for a native minor race to be present is small.
The odds for native life do improve when the world in question has the right conditions, such as an atmosphere of 4-9, hydrographics of 2-8 and/or a G or K type star. They improve considerably if all three these conditions are met.
If there is life, and the world has a population digit higher than 0 then there is a chance that the population is a native minor race, roll 17+ on 3D. If the population digit was 6+ then the chance dropped to 14+ on 3D.
Even under the best conditions, Atmos 4-9 Hydro 3-8, Star G or K, we get DMs of +4, +1 and +1 respectively giving us a total DM of +6 on 2D for 10+ it is still possible to fail the roll by rolling a 2 or 3.
Basically under the right conditions the chances of native life are good, but not guaranteed. The chance of that life being intelligent is not high, but neither is it vanishingly small.
Now compare this with T5's (page 436 (or 412 of v.509)) world creation system which includes simple rules for determining the status of any population. Basically if the population is 7+ and Atmosphere is 2+ then that population is native, (atmosphere A+ means the native population is exotic).
I ran a search with these parameters "uwp:??[2-F]?[7-F]??-? in:spin" on the Traveller Map and came up with a list of 128 worlds in the Spinward Marches, that should have native life according to T5. To that list I added all worlds with documented native intelligent life and all worlds with documented non-native intelligent life (excluding Imperial, Zhodani and Sword Worlds humans), which expanded the list to 170+ worlds.
The Traveller Wiki lists 33 sophont species as being Native to the Spinward Marches, not all of which are included in Traveller Canon. Some those 33 worlds do not fit into T5's parameters for Native Intelligent Life (NIL) presence. Some of the canon sophonts fit T5 parameters, some don't, and some of those have been explained narratively. For those that haven't been explained there are a couple of options. The most complex of which is to use the Species Life Span rules (T5 page 512 or T5.09 page 510) to create a background for a narrative explanation. I my use this but not often I will however be using the Bloom Effect (as outlined in Tomorrow's War page 10-11) to explain high population worlds without NIL, and a bit of creative story telling for other deviations from T5 parameters.
Both T5 and Grand Survey/Census systems work well for creating star systems. When dealing with already created systems however, T5 is probably the better choice, as you do not have to make any die rolls. You simply check the world's UWP against the parameters provided and you'll find out the type of population present. On the other hand Grand Survey/Census requires at least one and perhaps up to three dies rolls per world.
Of course, I don't plan on adding 128 new intelligent species to the Spinward Marches, but it's nice to know that there are plenty of suitable worlds for me to place some on, if needed.
Whew..... ok that's a rather long winded way of saying I'm going to add new aliens to the Traveller universe.
I'll devote individual posts to each Sophont species, starting with the more common species within the Marches.
If Grand Survey had determined that native life existed on a world and the world had a population greater than 0, then Grand Census (page 28) provided a 3D roll for 17+ with DMs, for a world to have a native minor race present, and if this roll was successful, a further 3D roll for 15+ was made to see if that minor race was a minor human race.
I don't know the odds, but the chance for a native minor race to be present is small.
The odds for native life do improve when the world in question has the right conditions, such as an atmosphere of 4-9, hydrographics of 2-8 and/or a G or K type star. They improve considerably if all three these conditions are met.
If there is life, and the world has a population digit higher than 0 then there is a chance that the population is a native minor race, roll 17+ on 3D. If the population digit was 6+ then the chance dropped to 14+ on 3D.
Even under the best conditions, Atmos 4-9 Hydro 3-8, Star G or K, we get DMs of +4, +1 and +1 respectively giving us a total DM of +6 on 2D for 10+ it is still possible to fail the roll by rolling a 2 or 3.
Basically under the right conditions the chances of native life are good, but not guaranteed. The chance of that life being intelligent is not high, but neither is it vanishingly small.
Now compare this with T5's (page 436 (or 412 of v.509)) world creation system which includes simple rules for determining the status of any population. Basically if the population is 7+ and Atmosphere is 2+ then that population is native, (atmosphere A+ means the native population is exotic).
I ran a search with these parameters "uwp:??[2-F]?[7-F]??-? in:spin" on the Traveller Map and came up with a list of 128 worlds in the Spinward Marches, that should have native life according to T5. To that list I added all worlds with documented native intelligent life and all worlds with documented non-native intelligent life (excluding Imperial, Zhodani and Sword Worlds humans), which expanded the list to 170+ worlds.
The Traveller Wiki lists 33 sophont species as being Native to the Spinward Marches, not all of which are included in Traveller Canon. Some those 33 worlds do not fit into T5's parameters for Native Intelligent Life (NIL) presence. Some of the canon sophonts fit T5 parameters, some don't, and some of those have been explained narratively. For those that haven't been explained there are a couple of options. The most complex of which is to use the Species Life Span rules (T5 page 512 or T5.09 page 510) to create a background for a narrative explanation. I my use this but not often I will however be using the Bloom Effect (as outlined in Tomorrow's War page 10-11) to explain high population worlds without NIL, and a bit of creative story telling for other deviations from T5 parameters.
Both T5 and Grand Survey/Census systems work well for creating star systems. When dealing with already created systems however, T5 is probably the better choice, as you do not have to make any die rolls. You simply check the world's UWP against the parameters provided and you'll find out the type of population present. On the other hand Grand Survey/Census requires at least one and perhaps up to three dies rolls per world.
Of course, I don't plan on adding 128 new intelligent species to the Spinward Marches, but it's nice to know that there are plenty of suitable worlds for me to place some on, if needed.
Whew..... ok that's a rather long winded way of saying I'm going to add new aliens to the Traveller universe.
I'll devote individual posts to each Sophont species, starting with the more common species within the Marches.
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