Story Dice for Space Adventure RPGs

[Dave]

I'm starting to put this new set of story dice together for use with space opera and space adventure RPGs.

So far I've come up with 13 dice:

Event Die (same as the one from the Medieval Story Dice set)
Beastly Attributes (for creating space monsters, or non-space monsters)
NPC Dispositions (same as Medieval set)
Stellar Objects (stars, nebulae, etc.)
Planetary Types (terrestrial, gas giant, rockball, etc.)
Planetary Features (rings, lots of moons, tidally locked, etc.)
Terrestrial Conditions (weird stuff like high/low gravity, poisonous atmosphere)
Terrestrial Environments (general climate types)
Cultures (warlike, academic, primitive, etc.)
Space Travel Hazards (comet swarm, rogue planet, pirates, etc.)
Star Ship Types (freighters, warships, scouts, etc.)
Cargoes (various types)
Payouts (barely enough to cover expenses, good pay, serious money, etc.)

I can also include the hit location dice from the Medieval set, for a total of 18 dice. The Tide of Battle die might also be useful. So there's 19.

The Medieval set has 23 dice, and I'd like to offer a similar amount with this set.

What else would you like to see?

I'm considering a "system scan" die, with results like "All Clear" and "Hostiles Closing" and stuff like that.

Oh, I've got one! A Traveler Type: Diplomat, Trader, Soldier, that kind of thing. Okay, that's one.

Maybe an Alien Type -- reptilian, crustaceoid, arachnoid, pure energy.

Robot Types? Translator/protocol, maintenance/repair, labor/lifting, expert/knowledge bank, etc.

Creature Types? Pack hunter, solitary hunter, grazing/herd, etc.

What else? Why am I doing all the work here?

[Dominic]

Jan 27, 2011 3:27:48 GMT -9 Dave said:

What else? Why am I doing all the work here?

What would you pay me for my input?

Plus I wish I had your kind of spare time...

Anyway, how about a "Jury Rigged"-die? For use with haphazardly built or repaired spaceships, during longer fleights. It could simply point to a system giving grief (and another die for the amount of grief, say
[engines, shields, life support, illumination (much fun to be had there), artificial gravity, comm system]
on the first die and
[blows, fluctuates, just goes out, smells funny, makes strange noises, flashes an error message]
on the second one. You could still do the same you did with the body hit dice in the medieval set, but I'd like one for non-hostile damage .

Also, there should be a die for space stations - [sensor outpost, relais station, travell hub, merchant paradise, prison colony, pleasure done] or something like that.

Another important one - in my opinion - would be a "reception"-die, to be rolled when the group lands somewhere. It might at times be redundant with the NPC Disposition or (pending interpretation) with the culture, but... Well, I'm thinking that a person's disposition does not necessarily determine it's behaviour directly.
Let's say someone is hostile and a PC enters the room. The other person might attack her outright, pretend not to notice her to attack her when her back is turned, or just play friendly while trying to screw her over a deal or something. Just like an academic culture might have harsh customs for reasons of intellectual property, while a warlike people lets everyone in (for the challange they bring).
Am I making a valid point here?

Or do taxes and customs count as travel hazards?

And the more I think about it, something that would be fun but exceedingly strange and probably not that helpful in most cases, would be a creature maker - dice to determin parts and their numbers on any given beast... Not that good idea I'm afraid...

Looking at early Star Trek, did you add "females really really want to mate with you" to the dispositions? ;D

And... this would probably not see much use, but I always felt that it's strange to assume that other species reproduce the way humans do... as a whole line of arguments and ideas lines up in my head I realize that it probably wouldn't be a good idea to make a die to decide whether a species lays eggs or has their young artificially grown... scratch that.

To make something good of all those points I wanted to make, how about a "cultural difference"-die? A culture could be warlike but "on level " with the PCs, or peaceful but considering normal behaviour of the PCs (say, shaking hands) an act of unforgivable offense. I'm thinking of [alike, marginally different, still much to learn, rather strange, some common ground, profoundly different].

[stevelortz]

You're definitely going to have to include "Tentacles" in the hit location dice for your sci-fi- set!

Have fun!
Steve

[Dave]

Great suggestions, Satrek! I've put together dice for just about all of those ideas.

Jan 27, 2011 7:19:41 GMT -9 stevelortz said:

You're definitely going to have to include "Tentacles" in the hit location dice for your sci-fi- set!

Have fun!
Steve

I've created a "creature hit location" die that should be general enough for most aliens, however weird. "Tentacles" would either fall under the "grasping appendage" or "motive appendage" result -- or both.

I now have about 26 dice in this set, and I think I've covered just about everything that you might need.

Now I just need to create the dice graphics, but I want to think on those for a little bit. I'll work on my Abandoned Wagon in the meantime.

[Parduz]

Suggestion:
as the dice are beatiful textures and text, what about PDF layers for translations?
I may do the italian one... ;D

[Dave]

I created graphics for many of these dice today. I still have about 11 to go.

Jan 27, 2011 15:47:17 GMT -9 Parduz said:

Suggestion:
as the dice are beatiful textures and text, what about PDF layers for translations?
I may do the italian one... ;D

I'd love to do that, but I don't think it would be easy to get accurate translations for as many languages as I really would like. If I could get English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Dutch and Polish, that'd be worth the extra layers.

My compromise is to include text-free versions of the dice graphics, so you can write whatever you want on them.

[Dominic]

I can offer a german translation for a very modest fee... which reminds me, we need a modest-fee-die . Actually, I'd gladly help out.

[Tommygun]

I think I could handle the English to American translation.

[wonderboy]

How about an Airlock die? Characters approach an airlock, is it functioning, jammed, occupied, outer door open, docked, or guarded?

You might break the terrestrial conditions (useful on ships as well as in planet creation) into multiple dice:

You could have a gravity die. It could have 0, 1/6, 1/3, 1, 2, mega.

How about atmosphere? Earth normal, vacuum, CO2, Low oxygen, high oxygen, chlorine?

You could add a navigation die: on course, wrong planet, wrong system, wrong sector, enemy territory, just plain lost.

I'm sure more will come to mind.

[WaffleM]

What about ship systems like: communications, weapons, shields, navigation, engines, life support?

Or ship spaceship decks: bridge, engineering, medical bay, cargo hold, transport/hanger bay, crew quarters.

[Dave]

I've finished the graphics on this set, and now I can start setting up the PDF, instructions pages and adverts.

I got most of your ideas in there somewhere. There are 25 dice in all:

Alien Features
Alien Forms
Cargos
Cultures
Event
Hit Location (Creature)
Hit Location (Humanoid)
Hit Location (Arm)
Hit Location (Body)
Hit Location (Head)
Hit Location (Leg)
NPC Disposition
Payouts
Planetary Features
Planetary Objects
Robots
Space Hazards
Starship Glitches
Starship Systems
Starship Types
Stellar Objects
Terrestrial Environments
Terrestrial Features
Tide of Battle
Travelers

You'll also get PNG files, both with and without the text, so you print out only the dice you want and create your own. I've included a few extra color schemes with these PNGs, so you'll have lots of choices for making your own. (If you purchase this set from Paizo, you'll get JPGs instead of PNGs. They don't let me upload PNGs!)

[Tommygun]

Just wondering, could the PNG files without the text also be used as SciFi cargo Boxes?
I'm asking because I was thinking you should do a set of modern and future cargo items like you did for fantasy.

[Dave]

Jan 28, 2011 18:56:44 GMT -9 Tommygun said:

Just wondering, could the PNG files without the text also be used as SciFi cargo Boxes?
I'm asking because I was thinking you should do a set of modern and future cargo items like you did for fantasy.

Funny you should say that. No, the dice probably wouldn't look very good as cargo carriers. Maybe. I thought about it, though.

But right after I released my last set of fantasy cargo containers, I started working on a set of sci-fi containers. I think I came up with one or two shapes that I liked before I moved on to something else. I'll get back to them before too long.

[Dave]

And it's done!