Well I am bored an really want to NES some more, but am currently waiting on a couple players to get their orders in (for one of my NES') and pretty much all of my players to get their orders in (for my other NES), so I figured I would spend my allotted procrastination time brainstorming Epoch II of StarNES.
Epoch II Design
Now, as mentioned above, Epoch II is the stage in my community world-building exercise where we begin to introduce actual creatures to the game. A couple players have requested it, and I wholeheartedly agree, that this would also be a cool time to introduce various 'precursor' artifacts, such as ominous black monoliths, strange ruined temples, etc. etc.. But first let me go over how I think I would handle creating creatures:
Spacefaring Races
Not every planet can hold sentient creatures. In fact I initially considered restricting sentient creatures to 'Gaian' level planets (Gaian levels being Earth-like planets in terms of climate, atmosphere, and general level of habitability). Now, yes, this would certainly have put a damper on player-made species, not to mention make it impossible for stranger species to arise, such as a race of rock-eating molemen who make their home on a barely habitable rock, or cunning planet-eating space-monsters that glide through the galaxy's nebulae (yes, space-monsters will exist). Therefore I have devised the 'March of Progress' system, a gradual approach to making a player-made species into intelligent spacefaring races that will feature in the future epochs.
Sentient Species Overview
Now let me say this right off the bat: I am throwing science out the door in favor of a more 'galactic supreme creator' approach. If the ability for players to form stars at whim, conjure up gas giants with a click of a mouse, and condense terrestrial planets into being with a few key strokes has not clued you into my, quite frankly, lazy approach to scifi then this stage probably will. I am a long-time lurker of Lord Iggy's
GalaxyNES, so maybe that will clue you in on how I envision alien races:
Again, initially I had planned for something limiting and quite frankly un-fun: a system of traits organized into various categories (physiology, society, morality). This quickly became unwieldy and more work than I would want from a NES-lite (besides, if I were looking to go into such mind-boggling detail I would whip up some excel spreadsheets ala Disenfranchised's
SysNES2 (which looks like it will be amazing, but oh so daunting)). Instead, players will just describe what their species are like and are only forced to fill out three sections:
Species: A brief description of your creation's physiological make-up, this includes any strange space-magicy stuff that you happen to purchase with GC¤ (telepathy, psychokinesis, astral ties, etc.)
Values: A brief description of just what makes your creation different from dumb animals, i.e. an unerring desire to eat or a never-ending quest for perfection or the debilitating love of all things shiny
Dominance: A brief description of how your creation has managed to become the 'top-dog' of its society: are they naturally armored? really good at breeding so just outnumber everything? particularly cunning?
Now, before a player can do any of this they have to invest the initial amount of GC¤ required to create a sentient species. Exactly how much this is I am not entirely sure of just yet, though it will be fairly high so as to make sentient species rarer. However, players get to make one free sentient race.
March of Progress
Creating a sentient race is easy enough, it is guiding the creation to the point of development where they can begin to traverse space that is the hard part. Players will have to spend GC¤ each turn on advancing the development of a sentient species. Each stage along the march will cost some GC¤, whether or not this cost increases incrementally I have yet to decide. However, each stage is harder to achieve (chances of failure increase), and other players have tools to attempt to bring other species down. There are ten stages in total, though the first species that players create begin at stage 2 (tribal). In this way we will kind of simultaneously write multiple histories of the various sentient species all across the galaxy. Once a species hits stage 10 then it is considered to be Pre-Spacefaring and can attain no more levels. The first species to hit Pre-Spacefaring probably will get some sort of minor bonus in Epoch III (the epoch in which players get to control the expansion of various space-races).
Multiple sentient species can exist on the same planet (which will most likely result in some interesting updates) so long as there development slots. Uninhabitable Planets have 0 development slots; Somewhat habitable planets have 1 development slot; Habitable planets have 2 development slots; Gaian planets have 3 development slots.
Notable Flora & Fauna
Not only will players begin to craft their bizarre sentient species, but they will be able to litter the galaxy with various notable plants and animals that will more so come into play in Epoch IV (when the "NES" begins). These creations can be anything, ranging from fruits that double as cures to cancer to three-ton bison-bears that shoot out fire. The amount of notable flora & fauna that can be placed on a planet is tied directly to the planet's habitable-level: somewhat habitable planets have 1 slot; habitable planets have 2 slots; and gaian planets have 3 slots. GC¤ comes into play here as players can purchase extra 'traits' for the notable flora/fauna (i.e. that three-ton bison-bear would require two slots: one for being a three-ton bison bear, another for being able to shoot fire).
More information later.
Just noting: I would say a 15% chance for a blue star and a 15% chance for a red star.
