So about a year ago I started to lay the groundwork for my new tabletop campaign. I knew I wanted to wrap up my current campaign, it was a homebrew fantasy setting using 5e Dungeons and Dragons, and those kinds of campaigns need finality to the character arcs. Also, I think 5e is irredeemably broken past a certain power level and we were well past that power level. So I started to aim that campaign to an ending point. I also used this time to revisit my cyberpunk system, Burning Light, which I have written about previously. 

Originally, I had planned to build out many themes and then let DM’s include whichever themes fit their world(s). I actually backed off of that plan because of how that often works at the table. Anytime WotC released a new expansion to D&D people wanted to play those classes/races even if they did not fit the world at all. In fantasy, including an odd race is slightly jarring but is often hand waved and still works ok, but in sci-fi introducing radically different technology can derail the entire setting. Recognizing that this disconnect was incoming, I pivoted. 

So I removed all the class/theme limitations from the game entirely and retitled the system “Star Chaser”. Anyone can be anything and use anything. And that worked really well. I asked my player to “stay adjacent to your character idea” but also over multiple sessions “grow your character”. They did this without a problem. I think it has more to do with specific players learning to love specific weapons and items… which is fine. Specific characters have developed a specific feel to them and a tactical specialization that the player maneuvered around without the need to create classes. Gear as class not only worked, it is better because the exact details of that balance shift somewhat session to session. 

This approach to players of “no, you tell me what you want to play and I will match you with options” really opened up player creativity. I would not have made half the ideas and class-like roles that the player naturally came up with. This open call to create something new and weird really worked. 

In Burning Light, we had the pawn shop function which was little more than me dealing the top 6 cards from my stack of 50 or so 3×5 cards, but in StarChaser there are way, way more items. From about 50 items in Burning Light to 3,000+ in StarChaser. That said, I still leveraged that pawn shop function. I am only in the second version of it, but currently it is 3 random weapons/armors, 3 random utility times, and 3 items with a shared idea like all are relics from a specific faction or all ground vehicles or all new crew members.  

Originally I had some crafting options to act as a backup to the pawn shop. I have since removed them. Partly, this was because the pawn shop generation needed some work as it was generally providing under powered or uninteresting items. Secondly, the alternative crafting method was way too powerful. The players were leaning on the alternative method almost entirely. At the end of the day, I wanted power gain to be connected to the world, not the character, and people trying new ideas, not a strategic level up process. Players have some control over the process by where they complete missions at. Either way, this puts the players dependent on the world to power up and not a rule set.

The long term goal here is this allows the DM to control gear/classes/power-features of the game directly via the pawn shop. If the DM does not like an item, reroll the option if it comes up in the pawnshop. This level of control is still session by session and not all the start of the game. So this is not a DM saying “low magic” during a campaign’s session zero or banning specific classes or builds. Instead the DM is holding back the magic items until much later on in the campaign or simply not letting a class’s mechanics be available in play. I.e., instead of a “No Monks Rule” the party just never seems to find Monk items. This is a more organic, and entirely behind the screen, balancing mechanic for the DM to use if needed. This also allows the DM to keep their world focused on the themes they want to play around. It stops that random idea derailing your world because a designer for a completely different setting published a fun book that works for their world but not yours. If players pull their power from class/source books, that different designer is a threat. If players can only pull their power from engaging in your world, then the DM can pick and choose the ideas that fit their world from that designer. That threat is now a buffet. 

Power scaling in gear is still something I am pinning down. In Burning Light, there was generally only one level of gear. A few pieces had an upgraded version. Originally in StarChaser I had 10 levels of power. Currently I have scaled that down to 4. The “new” four are just levels 1, 4, 7, and 10 of the previous system. That said the overall power scaling may still be too much. I may later scale them to 1, 3, 5, and 7. That said, my players have not really played a ton at the higher level and those items all contain drawbacks. We will have to see how hard that drawback hits as to if we need to scale those items back. 

I think I can get the weapon options a bit more flesh out within the current constraints, but 2 more options would really help. A lot of relic choices have not been fully leveraged so that will partially fill this gap. I also think this system will open up a bit when the drawbacks start to kick in. Some of the movement driven options are also only now being fully utilized. That said, even just 2 truly new weapon types may add in a lot of extra diversity to the combat options. 

So with 6 months of game play behind us, I am happy with mechanics overall. Improvements are needed in places, but happy overall. I think the real challenge of this system has been the world building. 

So where to even start? First off, I am used to building a world made up of cities, but in this system I needed to build a galaxy made up of systems made up of worlds made up of cities. I was two exponential scales larger than I was used to so I would have to invent new solutions. 

So I started at the largest scale and worked down. I spent a bit of time seeing if there was a way to make a functional 3D map but that was a rabbit hole with no easy solutions. So I decided on a flat map with about 100 solar systems. That is an awful idea and I was committed to it. I also wanted some randomness in the locations and pathing. To do this I spent some time in excel, basically using a random number function for 1 to 4 and then removing all results for 2-4. Wanting a 100 systems, that means I needed a 20 by 20 grind. I generated a few of these and picked the result with the more interesting set of patterns. This ended up being 94 systems. 

I then set out to create a random solar system generator. I did some research of what Nasa has found in its search for exo-planets and then applied some of the ideas into a random number generator. The idea here was to create different mixes of stars and then place planets in different bands. I ended up generating the star types first because there are S and P styles of binary star orbits. P types are close together and the planets rotate around both stars. S types are far apart and do not share planets. Each S type star with all their planets rotate around a mutual point between the two stars. 

For single stars and P-types, I used multiple bands beyond the star(s) with the possibility of empty results, asteroid belts, and gas giants with their own moons. The inner system always had 1-2 habitable planets, a low possibility of a gas giant, and a high possibility of a rock world in the first band. The out ring had a moderate possibility of a gas giant with moons in the first few spots and a mix of none, asteroid belts, or small rock world in the last few spots. For S star systems, I just ran the inner system twice and removed the outer system. 

I tweaked this system a bit and ran it a few times, once again picking the option that produced the most interesting mix overall. I also then decided to hand make the “core world” as those systems are actually the systems closest to the real earth, so when good quality data is available, that overwrites the randomly generated system. 

This is actually an approach I think works really well. Use random generation to create something different and unique, then as the DM respond to it and edits it as is needed. Do not hold the random result sacred, instead let it be an inspiration point. The random result will do the bulk of the work for you, but you will tie everything together. 

From here I realized I had just created 780+ worlds. I thought about all the work I had put into just one world in D&D and then released how much work may be in front of me. So take a deep breath, divide up the content, and go at it. I started by just working on the bottom right corner of the map. Sure enough, the solar systems created were interesting enough in their own right, I was able to ask myself “how would this system work?” and was able to come up with answers inspired by the systems. Some stories were smaller, some systems were denser and messy. Some systems were rich empires and other systems were barely scraping by. 

Part of this process was going out and finding every image of a planet I could find. Movies, video games, fan art, all of it was taken and categorized. When building the solar systems I then moved through the various rocks, forest worlds, etc. as they came up in order. This was a quick and dirty solution that worked really well. 

With the galaxy, solar systems, and planets taken care of, I was only left with cities… which has actually turned out to be the hardest part. I was spoiled when running fantasy games and there are so many great village maps and even full one village generators. Neither is true for sci-fi cities. I was kind of able to use some of the village generators… some of the time but only after a lot of manual manipulation. Right now I am working on a project to grab assets and be able to build out the cities in the raw directly on d20. I am not a huge fan of that solution so stay tuned to see how well that goes.