Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 10-30-2021, 11:14 AM   #1
whswhs
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
Default test driving GURPS Realm Management

I'm in the process of starting up a new GURPS campaign, set in the city of Pavonis Portal from GURPS City Stats, and this seems like a good time to try out GURPS Realm Management. So I'm going to post questions here as I work through the rules.

I'm assuming a starting time a few decades after the construction of the orbital elevator. I'm not going to start by assigning resource points and see what I can build; I already know what PP is like, but I'm going to try to describe this in RM terms and work backward to resource points.

So: The single crucial economic basis for PP's existence is the Mars orbital elevator, extending from Pavonis Mons to Deimos. Does that have a representation in terms of resource points? It's clearly not agriculture (most food is produced locally, but there's not a significant surplus); or military; or workforce. Could it count as a sort of natural resource? Or is good trade location something else entirely?
__________________
Bill Stoddard

I don't think we're in Oz any more.
whswhs is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 10-30-2021, 11:28 AM   #2
whswhs
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
Default Re: test driving GURPS Realm Management

Pavonis Portal has 50,000 inhabitants, and is TL10, which grants a maximum sustainable carrying capacity of 600 inhabitants/square mile. That implies an area of at least 83.33 square miles, which will fit into a radius of 5.15 miles. Since Pavonis Portal has six sectors developed (out of 10 potential), it actually needs 138.89 square miles and a radius of 6.65 miles.

On one hand, in terms of area, it's about 1.7x a standard city-state's area, which falls under the 2x for +1; so its realm size value seems to be +7. On the other, its diameter is also about 1.7x a standard city-state's diameter, which is more than 1.5x but less than 2x, so it seems that its size in linear dimensions is +8—it's slightly stretched, perhaps.
__________________
Bill Stoddard

I don't think we're in Oz any more.
whswhs is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 11-01-2021, 09:34 AM   #3
ericthered
Hero of Democracy
 
ericthered's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: far from the ocean
Default Re: test driving GURPS Realm Management

Quote:
Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
So: The single crucial economic basis for PP's existence is the Mars orbital elevator, extending from Pavonis Mons to Deimos. Does that have a representation in terms of resource points? It's clearly not agriculture (most food is produced locally, but there's not a significant surplus); or military; or workforce. Could it count as a sort of natural resource? Or is good trade location something else entirely?
I don't think your primary economic engine needs to be represented in Resource Points. The city is full of workers who pack and unpack goods for shipping elsewhere, and probably has a major hospitality industry as well. This is workforce really, though it might be of a specialized type. It also might not be good at doing anything beyond break and bulk packing.

Realistically, it probably has some industry, because industries pop up around break and bulk points.

The city doesn't actually have to control its surrounding farmland, though it might. if you can't feed your population via realm management, that means you'll need to continually be importing food, I think.
__________________
Be helpful, not pedantic

Worlds Beyond Earth -- my blog

Check out the PbP forum! If you don't see a game you'd like, ask me about making one!
ericthered is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 11-01-2021, 02:07 PM   #4
whswhs
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
Default Re: test driving GURPS Realm Management

Quote:
Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
I don't think your primary economic engine needs to be represented in Resource Points. The city is full of workers who pack and unpack goods for shipping elsewhere, and probably has a major hospitality industry as well. This is workforce really, though it might be of a specialized type. It also might not be good at doing anything beyond break and bulk packing.
But it seems that the orbital elevator itself is a resource of some kind. Do you just ignore it?

Quote:
Realistically, it probably has some industry, because industries pop up around break and bulk points.

The city doesn't actually have to control its surrounding farmland, though it might. if you can't feed your population via realm management, that means you'll need to continually be importing food, I think.
My vision is that Martian cities grow their food inside the city walls and pressure; it wouldn't survive the cold and the low pressure on the surface.
__________________
Bill Stoddard

I don't think we're in Oz any more.
whswhs is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 11-01-2021, 04:01 PM   #5
benz72
 
benz72's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Chagrin Falls
Default Re: test driving GURPS Realm Management

My assumption for Martian agriculture would have been tunnels and hydroponics, which implies the area can be below ‘normal’ surfaces like living domes &c. (Assuming those too are not in tunnels). How does RM handle stacking like that?
__________________
Benundefined
Life has a funny way of making sure you decide to leave the party just a few minutes too late to avoid trouble.
benz72 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-01-2021, 04:05 PM   #6
whswhs
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
Default Re: test driving GURPS Realm Management

Quote:
Originally Posted by benz72 View Post
My assumption for Martian agriculture would have been tunnels and hydroponics, which implies the area can be below ‘normal’ surfaces like living domes &c. (Assuming those too are not in tunnels). How does RM handle stacking like that?
That's a good question. I haven't been able to locate an answer yet.
__________________
Bill Stoddard

I don't think we're in Oz any more.
whswhs is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 11-01-2021, 04:46 PM   #7
Anaraxes
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Default Re: test driving GURPS Realm Management

Wouldn't you just use the effective usable area, regardless of how many levels that might be? It's not footprint on a planetary surface that matters, but useful square miles of space where you can do stuff. If you've got two levels under your dome which happens to have 0.5 mi^2 of area, you've got a 1.0 mi^2 realm. RM isn't really concerned with exactly how that working surface is arranged.

See the first full paragraph on RM p6.

Quote:
Originally Posted by RM 6
Some realms occupy complex or ill-defined spaces rather than simple blocks of territory. For instance, a tunnel complex may sprawl under thousands of square miles of land – some of which is accessible for occasional exploitation – but have a regularly inhabited area equal to that of the tunnel floors.
That section also suggests simply working backwards -- if you know the population and its productivity for its TL, then you can run the process in reverse to find out the realm's effective area.
Anaraxes is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 11-02-2021, 04:19 AM   #8
whswhs
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
Default Re: test driving GURPS Realm Management

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anaraxes View Post
That section also suggests simply working backwards -- if you know the population and its productivity for its TL, then you can run the process in reverse to find out the realm's effective area.
On one hand, that might work. In fact I've already done the calculation: 50,000 inhabitants divided by 600 inhabitants per square mile gives 83.3 square miles or about 53,000 acres. I'm assuming that the inhabited areas are all underground, for protection against background radiation, and they could be stacked to take up less horizontal area. But on the other, I've been assuming that that 600 inhabitants per square mile could already assume some stacking, at least in the urban centers. I suppose maybe "a small percentage of the land has multistory buildings on it" isn't the same thing as "the entire inhabited area is multilevel" . . .

Checking GURPS Future History, I find that the population density of a European city ranges between 6400 and 32,000 per square mile, so a city of 50,000 would occupy between 1.56 and 7.8 square miles. Assuming it's fairly flat (tunneling laterally is no more expensive than tunneling vertically), just under 10% of the inhabited area would be "urban," while the rest would be "farmland." But is that assuming terrestrial ideas of what farmland or crops are like? On Mars, plants grow in (expensively) manufactured soil or in hydroponics; could the required area be significantly reduced?
__________________
Bill Stoddard

I don't think we're in Oz any more.

Last edited by whswhs; 11-02-2021 at 06:39 AM.
whswhs is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 11-02-2021, 08:21 AM   #9
Christopher R. Rice
 
Christopher R. Rice's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Portsmouth, VA, USA
Default Re: test driving GURPS Realm Management

Quote:
Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
But is that assuming terrestrial ideas of what farmland or crops are like? On Mars, plants grow in (expensively) manufactured soil or in hydroponics; could the required area be significantly reduced?
This is either the "Fertile Territory" or "Habitable Land" enhancements on p. 25 of GURPS Realm Management.
__________________
My Twitter
My w23 Stuff
My Blog

Latest GURPS Book: Dungeon Fantasy Denizens: Thieves
Latest TFT Book: The Sunken Library

Become a Patron!
Christopher R. Rice is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-02-2021, 08:57 AM   #10
ericthered
Hero of Democracy
 
ericthered's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: far from the ocean
Default Re: test driving GURPS Realm Management

Quote:
Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
But it seems that the orbital elevator itself is a resource of some kind. Do you just ignore it?

Its not a finite expendable resource though. Resource points are consumable and don't automatically regenerate. The orbital elevator is a static resource that generates wealth depending on the outer economy.
__________________
Be helpful, not pedantic

Worlds Beyond Earth -- my blog

Check out the PbP forum! If you don't see a game you'd like, ask me about making one!
ericthered is online now   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 11:54 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.