The "Day of the Dead" Problem

 Ever notice how, when characters in a TV show or movie go to Mexico, it always just happens to be Dia de los Muertos? Everyone's dressed like a skeleton in a parade? 

James Bond in Mexico*

 Well, yesterday I spent a good part of the day writing up information for designing exoplanets for Bughunts & Bedlam, the alien-fighting supplement for Missions & Mayhem. And while most of it is at least scientifically plausible, I realized that a lot of it isn't necessarily gameable. A planet with a weird orbit, or unusual axial tilt will affect what sort of life (if any) would develop on a planet, but other than helping a GM world build, there's not much difference in how an adventure plays out. 

Well, some things, like planetary size affecting gravity, have game effects. Day/night cycles or electromagnetic interference from the magnetosphere can come into play. But a planet with a transverse orbit (like Pluto, which crosses Neptune's orbit) don't really have much game effect. It's just color....

 Unless, the Heroes just happen to arrive during a crossover period AND the two planets are close to each other in their orbital cycles. Then gravity will cause all kinds of fun situations. 

 But like with the Day of the Dead in movies, will it will start to feel artificial if EVERY time the players get to a new planet with some orbital eccentricity, they just happen to be there at the most dangerous/interesting moment? 

Maybe not. We seem to be pretty OK with people in skeleton costumes dancing because it looks cool, even if a story already established itself as happening some other time of year than early November. We play these games to experience, vicariously, cool things happening around or to our characters. I could be over-thinking these things. 

But I noticed that Stars Without Number, for example, doesn't bother with orbital mechanics and the like. Their planet generator is geared towards what sort of environment and what sort of civilization is there. 

Of course, B&B assumes a barely colonized galaxy, at least by humans. It's not space opera. Most planets, if they have human (or intelligent alien) occupants, will be colony worlds, without a lot of developed society. The whole idea is to go out and explore the worlds, find alien "bugs", and kill them. So maybe I'm on the right track after all. As a resource, my system for creating unusual planets could always be combined with something like SWN or Terminal Space or Traveller or what have you. 

So I'm not getting rid of my work so far. But I am bracing myself for the game playing out in the rather artificial way in which any planet with unusual characteristics gets visited at the peak of its unusual activity.  

 

*I searched for more images, but Google just wants to serve up images from either Disney's Coco or Romero's Day of the Dead so I gave up. I know there are more examples, though. I've seen them.