There's a game jam going on for Ironsworn: Starforged. I've been meaning to try a game jam one of these days for like... the last 5 years at least... so I dusted off a custom Oracle that I used in a session or two of Starforged, spent a night brainstorming another 20 entries or so, and trying to getting it formatted roughly along the lines of the official books, etc. I just put it up as a pdf on itch.io, and submitted it to the jam.
When I play Ironsworn: Starforged, I tend to be laser-focused on the
plot and story. It's not uncommon for me to get 10 or 20 sessions into play
before I get around to adding a single planet that wasn't part of my
initial Sector Set-Up. By default, I find I pretty much only add those
other worlds if the narrative brings my character directly to them. That
sort of misses the point of sci-fi, though. Even if I'm spending most
of my time on just a few worlds, I want the grand sense that there's a
whole galaxy of adventure out there, and plots in motion beyond what my
little ship is doing! So I created this Oracle, which incorporates
ideas from various map-making games, to breathe a little life and
activity into the background.
Here's how it works: A little less than once per
session, you roll on this Oracle and add a world, settlement, faction,
ship or NPC as directed by the prompt you rolled on the chart. The blank
void of the map gets slowly filled in, fleets cruise between the stars,
and political situations simmer behind the scenes. Your world-building
gets kicked up a notch as a result, and your story fits into a larger
context.
The Oracle is triggered by situations where your character is in a position to hear rumors and news reports about what's happening in the sector, so it feels organic and is easy to fit in to your ongoing story. Step into the starport cantina, to catch the latest gossip from the old spacers sitting at the bar... have they got stories to tell you!
If you've ever played Starforged, please go check out my little creation: Starport Scuttlebutt. It's available as Pay-What-You-Want, and $0 is just fine by me.
The link: https://rbbergstrom.itch.io/starport-scuttlebutt-oracle-for-starforged
