Stars Without Number is a retro science fiction role playing game similar to Traveller in scope and obviously inspired by the D&D role-playing game editions written by Frank Mentzer and Tom Moldvay. You can find a very good review on Grognardia.
As a thought experiment, and because I'm bored, I'm about to create a world from scratch using the cool random tables and world generation tools in the book.
I will use a bullet format fore each roll on the tables and interpret them in prose afterwards. Numbers in square brackets are my dice rolls results.
- Atmosphere [6] A breathable mix.
- Temperature [4] A cold world
- Biosphere [5] No native biosphere
- Population [11] Billions of inhabitants*
- Tech level [6] 20th century technology
World Tags: Pretech Cultists & Freak Weather
Local language: Zhe-sa Tibetan with loan words from Old Norse
Government: Oligarchic Theocracy.
Spaceport facilities: None on the planet but an imperial, "Itaca" class spaceship in GSO above a minor
capital serves as a temporary spaceport under the watchful eye of the government.
To be continued in a future post
What this makes me think of is a world in a long-term eccentric orbit that carries it through the far edge of the star's habitable zone. First settled before the Scream in its "summer" phase when it was a garden paradise, it's now in "winter" and the colonists are having second thoughts... With no natural biosphere, the atmosphere has been made breathable through the use of pretech atmosphere conditioners, and now a hereditary caste of priest-kings tends the machines with rituals, not knowing the science but believing (truthfully) that this is vital to their survival.
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