Don’t do it Mike. But, the thing is: I love rolling up a subsector. I filled out an entire hex map and it populated with about 60% planets. There is so much to work with here, but am I falling into a familiar trap? Am I going to create planets details, land density, population, governments, and space stations for all of these and then the players only see a fraction?? Yes probably.
But this time, I’m going to fill it in AS WE GO! The new PCs were going to start in a different solar system, so I put it to the players: you can play on a planet ruled by Space Communists, you can go to the Baronies of Moonshine (was really hoping for this one), or you can visit a metropolis ruled by a corporation. They went with the megacorp, but I’m going to force the Barons on them eventually. If there is a will there is a way.
They took a job to recover some organisms from a ship called the Metamorphosis, but they said they wanted to loot any derelict ships on the way. Awesome! This is a chance to flex my creative muscles and utilize the procedural ship generation rules in Dead Planet. Mothership has so many tools. I love it.
I rolled up an executive transport. Picked the Granny monster from the monster book, and they started exploring. If the result: science lab with weird contained alien gets rolled up, then I’ll use the Granny, and you wouldn’t believe it! It was the first result.
I freaked them out with my creepy hag voice, had her jumping into shadow holes harassing them as they went. It was amazing. Remember to set spooky music. It adds so much to the scene.
They eventually found some wine in some shipping containers, but Granny locked them in and set it on fire. Fire and space don’t go well together…TPK? No! They were quite clever and eventually combat shotgunned their way back to their ship!
Take-aways:
The random generation from Dead Planet works, but there is a bit of inconsistency. Two cockpits on the same floor, eh, I’ll roll again.
Players loved the monster. I need to study the monster book more thoroughly. I have barely touched it and there is a lot to utilize.
Moonshine. That’s it. Just Moonshine..
When generating a 'duplicate' result that otherwise should be unique, step up one until the next unused item is selected. Repeat this until there are no higher entries remaining on the table, then step down. If a table is completely exhausted in this manner, do a little dance, and then place an 'unexpected portal to an unexpected scenario,' i.e. the monster crawled out of the TV screen.
I'm dying to know what the Granny is.