Limitless Worlds

Limitless Worlds

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Tales of the Space Princess Sector Generator

Everyone's friend, John Stater, put out a cool little space game called Tales of the Space Princess not too long ago, a game somewhat based on Swords & Wizardry that allows for pulp space dungeon crawls. While fun, it lacks the second biggest part of any adventure RPG; wilderness exploration. And what's more wild than space? Below I present a simple sector generator that is kind of an amalgam of a lot of different space games but retains a pulp-y quality. The main game takes place in a quadrant of space, which is composed of 4 sectors. I'd say 4 quadrants make up a "region", and you can extrapolate from there. A galaxy could be about 4 regions. If every sector had an average of 6 stars and 6 hazards, that means a galaxy would have 768 notable things in it on average, which is more than enough to satisfy any game group.

1. A sector is composed of 5x5 squares, each representing a portion of space. To determine the amount of stars within a quadrant, roll 1d6+4.
2. Next, grab a handful of small objects like beads, coins and so on. You should have as many of these objects as stars you rolled. Place the objects in a cup, and then spill them over the sector map. It's recommended you have some sort of barrier so the baubles don't go rolling everywhere
3. Organize the objects so one occupies each square. These are the notable star systems in the sector. Around each star will be at least one notable and interesting planet
4. Mark the squares they landed on, and then once again roll 1d6+4 to determine the amount of stellar objects are in the sector.
5. Repeat step 2 and 3. However, if any of the objects overlap a star, that star is destroyed and the hazard takes over.
6. Now roll for the qualities of each object, system and planet
7. Do this three other times to assemble your quadrant

Hazard List

1. Nebula
2. Time Distortion
3. Space Monster (giant amoeba, space whale, etc.)
4. Abandoned Spacehulk
5. Asteroid Belt
6. Deep Space Station
7. Wormhole (comes in pairs)
8. Pulsar
9. Supernova
10. Dimensional Gate
11. Meteor Storm
12. Electrical Storm

Star Type

1. Black Hole
2. Dwarf Star
3. Normal Star
4. Giant
5. Supergiant
6. Brink of Supernova
7. Binary (roll twice)
8. Trinary (roll thrice)

Star Color

1. Red
2. Yellow
3. Green
4. Blue
5. Orange
6. White
7. Purple
8. Black

Planet Type

1. Volcanic Planet
2. Tropical Planet
3. City Planet
4. Arctic Planet
5. Desert Planet
6. Jungle Planet
7. Swamp Planet
8. Pleasure Planet
9. Rural Planet
10. Water Planet
11. Tundra Planet
12. Wasteland Planet
13. Prison World
14. Dwarf Planet
15. Gas Giant
16. War World
17. Earthlike Planet
18. Artificial Planet (Ringworld, Dyson Sphere, Torus, Seed Ship)
19. Space Station (friendly or otherwise)
20. Exotic

For movement, to keep it fun and interesting, I'd say that your ship can move one square per day. Using a wormhole only takes one day to reach the other end. Worries like fuel and provisions should not be tracked like resources, but instead be dramatically appropriate. Every square you pass through should probably be subject to a random encounter as normal (1 in 6).

1 comment:

  1. Not bad, although I consider the game's sole focus on dungeon crawls a feature.

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