Democratic Worldbuilding / Planning New Game

Forum Games
1

I have an idea or two for forum games I’d like to run, all ideas involve a preexisting civilization of some sort and the issue is twofold:

  • Humans are exceedingly boring
  • I hate making decisions, especially around worldbuilding, settling on something is annoying.

Additionally I happen to have a fondness for democracy.

The solution was evident.

We will be making a species and world to put them in here, democratically. The first real elections will be for

  • Solar system type
    • Single, Binary, or Weird stuff
  • Planet Type
    • Super-Earth, Terrestrial, or Moon of Gas Giant

However, I feel that my voting system isn’t finished. The first two polls will be to decide how that works.

Should voting be anonymous?

  • Yes, I fear my worldbuilding opinions too controversial
  • No, I think anyone with something to hide is evil
0 voters

This poll is anonymous solely because I gave the options judgemental subtitles.

Should multiple votes happen at once?

  • Yes, having more than one poll going on works fine with me
  • No, that’s a bad idea because answers are dependant on one another
0 voters

Like what happening here, we have two polls at once. I don’t think I’ll do more than three normal polls.

If you guys are interested feel free to ask questions, or don’t. We are going to be creating a civilization, likely for some interstellar or vaguely medieval civilization controlling game. I’ll likely do more meta polls deciding stuff about the game and it’s sequel where you all control some of the critter’s we’ll be designing. I have no set an automatic expiration date on the polls because I don’t know how many vote’s we’ll get per unit of time.

I will be deciding who participates in the final forum game at such a time as I have a clue what it’s going to be like, I just have ideas right now. Anyone can participate in this game, just vote. Note that me being the only person who has to post for this game to work might lead to a lot of double posting. Apologies, I’m sure you understand in this case. I think I might make a disclaimer about double posting somewhere if newer forum uses seem to be voting lot.

After this is basically my personal Wiki Post (I can’t make Wiki Posts anyways), I’ll try to catalog what we’ve decided on so far.

Solar System Name (someone should pitch me some ideas)
Star 1

This star is an F type, largish, bright, a good star. Not the longest lived but we have time to evolve life.

Star 2

This star is a K type, long lived, rather well behaved, and a deep orange. Not too bright.

The two proceeding stars are in a close binary orbit. They share the following planets:

Main planets
Planet a

Planet A is a sun-blasted, atmosphere-less, dead rock. Much like Mercury, though larger. It has many craters, some of which hold useful isotopes of hydrogen and helium, from solar wind.

Planet b

Planet B is a smaller world, it has a thin wisp of an atmosphere, and it resembles Mars in geography, with ravines and volcanoes as evidence of past water systems and much more active plate tectonics. It is far too hot to live on, but is also ice cold at night. The poles contain a small amount of frozen water, and when it melts or sublimates it condenses back to ice at night.

Planet c (the cool one)

Planet C is a Saturn sized gas giant, with 6 gravitationaly rounded moons, and decent rings. It has an extreme orbit that is yet to be defined. Moons:

the cool one

This is a large moon with 0.9 g of gravity and an atmosphere. It has life. Much more detail about it will be added via polls.

Planet d

Planet D is close to being habitable. It has active plate tectonics, a moderate atmosphere, and a good amount of comet ice. It all stayed frozen though. Good terraforming candidate. Likely overlaps in orbit with planet C, which doesn’t sound too safe.

Planet e

Planet E is a small rock. Smaller than more than one moon in the system, it is uninteresting. It likely is cold, and has minimal gravity. Would be better as a dwarf planet, but it did keep it’s orbit under control.

Planet f

Planet F is an ice giant. It’s quite a good one, probably a deep blue. Maybe even some rings and good moons, unsure.

Planet g

Planet G is the largest of them all, or else very close to planet C. Hydrogen it is very cold, but is more of a gas giant than an ice one with lots of hydrogen and helium.

Planet h

Planet H is a smaller world, covered in frozen volatiles. Large amounts of water ice, and possibly ammonia. May have an iron core.

Planet i

Planet I is a smaller world, covered in frozen volatiles. It has water ice, ammonia, and possibly carbon volatiles or debris from the red dwarf system. May have an iron core.

Star 3

This star is a dim M type dwarf, far from the others. It has a few closely orbiting planets it assaults with solar wind.

Following planets:

Far planets
Planet 3a

Planet 3a is a massive, sunblasted world. It has a huge hydrogen atmosphere, and lots of helium, plenty of isotopes from solar wind. Any moons are sun-burnt husks.

Planet 3b

Planet 3b is small atmosphere-less carbon world. Tempreture unknown, but might not be offensive. Likely has Mercury-like solar wind deposits, and lots of weird carbon things, like graphite layers and carbide lava.

Planet 3c

Planet 3c is a colder, icy duo of worlds. The mass ratio is unknown, but neither has the center of mass inside itself. if one lacks too many surface volatiles, and it may due to less water in this system, the weirdness of it’s carbon-rich center might be reviled. No atmosphere most likely.

6 Likes
2

Will there be magic?

2 Likes
3

you had my curiosity now you have my attention

2 Likes
4

No magic, I leave that to others, making a magic system hard enough that it’s enjoyable to play with isn’t easy, worldbuilding an explanation isn’t easy, and any way to democratically and formulatically make one is gonna be too cookie cutter. I’m happy people seem interested though, I’ll probably be closing the polls this afternoon since we got a bunch of votes.

2 Likes
5

I’m also interested here, especially since I attemted doing a similar thing a while back, albeit now I can say that it failed.

1 Like
6

Oh yeah that was sorta a worrying precedent, but I’m hopefully gonna have the advantage because I’m just creating stuff for a game instead of an entire game.

1 Like
7

did my best to tie both votes
yw guys

1 Like
8

What about P S Y O N I C S ?

9

PSYCHIC POWAH!!!
Please start up, like, five more polls.

1 Like
10

I cannot start more polls, it’s perfectly tied. I’m very impressed. Psionics if it makes sense, like if they evolve nerves that transmit radio waves or something, a radio organ could read minds of a few species.

11
  • Allow the GM to make several polls
  • Limit the GM to one poll at a time
0 voters
  • Let the GM choose whether to make a poll public or private
  • Have all polls be private
  • Have all polls be public
0 voters

Let’s see if running the polls again will fix the deadlock.

12

That’s likely not going to work. If your poll number one is conclusive and/or mine gets a tiebreaking vote we’ll know for certain, but until then we’ll do one poll at a time.

The other poll has been locked, votes shall be anonymous.

we can start now, yay

The solar system type is not complete, in any case it will require knowing what sort of star(s) are involved, and in the case of binary systems we need to know which star the planet orbits (or if it’s around both)

But to start:

  • Single star
  • Binary star system
  • Something Else
0 voters

If you selected Something Else, or think it might work, throw out an idea. Examples include rouge planet, orbiting a black hole, trinary star system, or living in an artificial habitat (that last one would supersede the planet type vote and is a bit iffy).

2 Likes
13

Rouge planet sounds interesting, might vote “something else”.

3 Likes
14

Something from me is making it a trinary (I like trinaries)

3 Likes
15

You ever seen three body problem? If the stars aren’t in something like an alpha Centauri situation…

Edit: or read it, I never did. Also I love trinary systems too, and rouge planets I e always wondered about.

2 Likes
16

They live in a megastructure that is orbiting a blackhole (I voted something else)

1 Like
17

How far can we go with the “something else” category? Could there be a planet orbiting a white-hole?

2 Likes
18

I am keenly aware death, stars orbit in pairs of two and excess has to orbit the main star in pairs of two themselves around them, it’s a very fascinating thing hence why I like for it to be the case

19

If something else wins I’ll collect the best suggestions and we’ll do a poll. If you would like to seriously suggest that, I may pester you about it, but it will be on a potential poll and it could win. I’d be open to it, but I don’t know too much about white holes so I may pester you how it will work.

20

I think we already can see which option is going to win…