Quote from: jhkim;386040I think clearly you need stats for starships, which are elements in the show as much as characters.  

One thing I'd agree with, though, is that I don't agree about having standard packages for races.  Since the original series, Star Trek aliens have been one-offs and/or unique individuals like Data, half-breeds like Spock or Troi, etc.  New alien races are introduced every other episode. So rather than having specific rules for each race, and only being allowed to make a character from one of the designated races, I think the game should just have rules for designing your own alien character.  

Games like this include Star Wars D6, Nexus, and the Angel RPG as well as generic sets like GURPS or the HERO System.

I don't agree with that interpretation at all, in fact I think it's patently false.  There are plenty of established races in the ST universe, with many examples of each, and it makes sense to provide stats for players who wish to play them accurately.  

"Create your own alien" rules in chargen however, I can get behind, just as a supplement to the established races, much in the way Star Trek Online does it.  You can be one of these, or you can roll your own.  The idea that it should only be the latter is as ridiculous as limiting it to only written races (something I wouldn't do as a GM anyway).

Quote from: J Arcane;386047I don't agree with that interpretation at all, in fact I think it's patently false.  There are plenty of established races in the ST universe, with many examples of each, and it makes sense to provide stats for players who wish to play them accurately.  

"Create your own alien" rules in chargen however, I can get behind, just as a supplement to the established races, much in the way Star Trek Online does it.  You can be one of these, or you can roll your own.  The idea that it should only be the latter is as ridiculous as limiting it to only written races (something I wouldn't do as a GM anyway).

But these aren't exclusive.  I didn't mean that the rule book shouldn't have any material about Vulcans or Klingons.  I am saying that Vulcan and Klingon characters should be written up as examples of the rules for alien characters rather than as special-case rules.

Quote from: jhkim;386089But these aren't exclusive.  I didn't mean that the rule book shouldn't have any material about Vulcans or Klingons.  I am saying that Vulcan and Klingon characters should be written up as examples of the rules for alien characters rather than as special-case rules.

I don't see how giving stats for species that appear dozens of times in the source material is a "special-case rule" anymore than having stats for Elves in D&D or LOTR is.

That's a ridiculous argument on it's face, and seems to come more from this idiotic forum geek notion I have so often seen that Star Trek is somehow "special" in the way it needs to be handled as an RPG, something I've never seen evidence of in actual play.

Quote from: J Arcane;386099I don't see how giving stats for species that appear dozens of times in the source material is a "special-case rule" anymore than having stats for Elves in D&D or LOTR is.

That's a ridiculous argument on it's face, and seems to come more from this idiotic forum geek notion I have so often seen that Star Trek is somehow "special" in the way it needs to be handled as an RPG, something I've never seen evidence of in actual play.

There is a significant difference here.  Middle Earth has only four real races that work as PCs: Men, Elves, Dwarves, Hobbits - and only a handful of others in its background.  Star Trek has hundreds of different aliens in its background, including over a dozen used as canonical major characters.  Every new series cast introduces new races - usually several of them.  

I'm not saying that Star Trek is unique.  There are many backgrounds where there are dozens or hundreds of races.  In those backgrounds, I think it makes a lot more sense to have general rules for races rather than specific races rules like in D&D.  It is possible to play a game of Star Trek where you pick races from a list - as I did when I played FASA Star Trek.  However, I think that approach misses something significant in emulating the series.

JH,

 You're just wrong.

Andorians, Tellarites, and especially Vulcans are mentioned with such frequency over the course of FOUR different incarnations of STAR TREK that it makes sense they should have specific stats in any core RPG book meant for STAR TREK. The same goes for Romulans and Klingons.

Here is a good example for you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xkyghl9Elg&playnext_from=TL&videos=3-UCGgQKMds

That features a bridge crew of Starfleet officers an an Andorian is the chief Communications officer.

Those characters could be the PCs in a TREK game set during the time period of the classic show.


- Ed C.

I don't think it misses a single thing that can't be made up for by supplemental roll-your-own-alien rules.  

Again, this was one of the only good ideas that STO had.  Star Trek has both established races, and monster of the week ones.  It's important to support both.

Quote from: J Arcane;386105I don't think it misses a single thing that can't be made up for by supplemental roll-your-own-alien rules.  

Again, this was one of the only good ideas that STO had.  Star Trek has both established races, and monster of the week ones.  It's important to support both.

WTF?  You're still acting as if I'm saying that there shouldn't be anything to support Vulcan characters - when I clearly said otherwise.  Let me put this another way.  We're both saying that established races and new races should be supported.  The subtle difference is between:

1) There are general rules for creating alien characters of any race.  Commonly appearing and referenced races like Vulcans, Klingons, Bajorans, and Cardassians are written up including stats and background.  They don't present any problem for the alien creation rules, but are supported on their own because of their importance for the background, and provide an example of those rules in use.  

2) There are general rules for creating alien characters of any race.  However, these rules are incapable of creating Vulcans, Klingons, or other established races.  Therefore there are special case rules for each of these races that don't fit with the general alien rules.  

What you seem to be endorsing is #2 - that there should be rules for make-your-own alien, but for some reason they should be incapable of creating the core races.  I don't see any need for that.

Quote from: Koltar;386104Andorians, Tellarites, and especially Vulcans are mentioned with such frequency over the course of FOUR different incarnations of STAR TREK that it makes sense they should have specific stats in any core RPG book meant for STAR TREK. The same goes for Romulans and Klingons.

Every Star Trek series featured spoons. We surely need stats for spoons. "That's what I meant. Oh, there are stats for races in D&D and there are aliens in Star Trek. Surely these need stats."

Stats provide a modell. They make sure that certain things happen with a certain probability. So sure, you could have stats for races in Star Trek. But it's quite irrelevant whether Vulcans are stronger than humans. Measly humans will brawl Vulcans and Klingons all the time. There is only one episode were the physical superiority of Vulcans is a hindrance the crew can't overcome. And that episode is about a baseball match and how winning is not relevant. (Take me out to the Holosuite, DS9 7x04.)

In Star Trek, even though certain abilities are attributed to certain species, they do not necessarily show. So they are no material for becoming a reliable mechanism.

I was, on the whole, dissatisfied with Decipher Star Trek. The rules for players looked like some actual set of rules that had been run through the eggbeater to determine the new page ordering. Parts of the game are rather cumbersome, combat took way too long (not that it really matters in most adventures, but the time we tried it - ugh). But most specifically, it really didn't feel like Star Trek to me.

Star Trek is all about encountering new worlds and seek out new life and civilizations. To boldly go where no one has gone before. Not, for example, to revisit the Allasomorphs or Ullians. In short, the game should be centered around the new forehead alien table, with the big seven (Humans, Klingons, Vulcans, Cardassians, Ferengi, Bajorans, and Betazoid) used as samples. The game rules should in short be all about how to make a new race, with walk throughs on how to use those rules to end up with Ferengi.

The only time the books really lived up to their potential was the random radiation table. That was very welcome, but they needed that kind of thing for ever part of the future, from structural components to tricorder readings. And especially for stellar anomalies and forehead aliens.

The descriptions of Breen and citations to TV episodes are welcome - but they aren't really necessary because I still have Memory Alpha for any time I need to use something old. The game should have been about creating something new, and it basically wasn't. So I set my disappointment alert to Yellow.

-Frank

Quote from: J Arcane;385738So who else thinks this is basically the most awesome Star Trek RPG ever made?

I do. As others have pointed out, the organization of the book could be improved, but I think that the feel of the series is well caught. Same that happened with LotR, lousy combat rules aside.

Quote from: chaosvoyager;386006

• Why have stats for different species?

They're different, so you may find useful to have mechanics that support the background fact that this species is stronger in average than this other and all that.

Quote

• Why have stats for starships?

Because they're different, and you may find useful to se how they're different.

Quote

• Why have a list of subspace phenomena separate from their function as a plot device?

As a place to mine ideas from for your games.

Quote from: 1of3;386122Every Star Trek series featured spoons. We surely need stats for spoons. "That's what I meant. Oh, there are stats for races in D&D and there are aliens in Star Trek. Surely these need stats."

Don't be silly.

Spoons are not important in Star Trek. The differences between races are, and many episodes feature them as a central thing. Specially in series like DS9, which is all about different races trying to not get to shoot each other.

QuoteIn Star Trek, even though certain abilities are attributed to certain species, they do not necessarily show. So they are no material for becoming a reliable mechanism.

But they will probably show in your own games. Of course, if you're trying to recreate episodes from the series you need fuck all stats. You need only one: Kirk / Not Kirk. If you're Kirk, you win. There, I have solved everything in game design. Send me the fat checks.

Point of order, regarding the alien stats point: the narrator's book contains a chapter all about creating new aliens, as one might expect in a game about Star Trek. It just doesn't fill those pages with mini-GURPS, preferring instead to grant the GM more discretion, an approach I would expect to be well received by so many self-declared old school fans.

Quote from: J Arcane;386252Point of order, regarding the alien stats point: the narrator's book contains a chapter all about creating new aliens, as one might expect in a game about Star Trek. It just doesn't fill those pages with min-GURPS, preferring instead to grant the GM more discretion, an approach. I would expect to be well received by so many selfdeclared old school fans.

Meh. That piece exists, but it's not very useful. It's pretty much "move some stats around." The thing is: moving stats around is precisely the thing I don't want out of a Star Trek race. Stat bonuses and penalties make races be the right or wrong choice to play an engineer, a scientist, or a diplomat. And that's bad.

Races should all have zero attribute modifiers and attribute guidelines for highest to lowest stats. What makes a race different from another is their unique abilities, not the fact that your Science Officer is genetically superior if he is a Vulcan and inferior if he is a Klingon. If I want to be good at science, I want to select a Science related career. If I want to play a Cardassian, it is because I want to be able to withstand very high temperatures without discomfort.

The Decipher Rules did exactly what I didn't want them to do: punish people for playing against type. And they didn't do the thing I wanted them to do - have a frank discussion about what kinds of abilities you could give a race and how you might represent various abilities in game mechanics.

-Frank

Trollman is right.  That's the real problem I've had with every incarnation of Star Trek.  What one would want from Star Trek is something akin to Traveller; where the focus of the game was centered on material and random tables for creating not just new aliens, but new planets/star systems and new cultures and new conflicts for the crew to resolve.  Shitloads of random tables would always help in that.

Instead, every Star Trek game I saw was basically less like Traveller and more like a Forgotten Realms manual, trying to cover all the niggling little details you see in Star Trek Episode 109-DS9 and Star Trek Novel #245987 and Star Trek Miscellaneous Canonical Merchandise #34598.
So you get a ton of carefully researched information meant to allow nerds to nod their heads and give their seal of approval that the game is Following Canon, while losing the entire spirit of what Star Trek is supposed to be about.

That's why from what I've seen, the best game to run Star Trek would be something like Starblazer Adventures.

RPGPundit

Quote from: J Arcane;386105Again, this was one of the only good ideas that STO had.  Star Trek has both established races, and monster of the week ones.  It's important to support both.

When I was working on STO (the Perpetual version prior to the Cryptic one), on the design team we called all of the random aliens "Bumpos," after their bumpy foreheads.

Quote from: RPGPundit;386457That's why from what I've seen, the best game to run Star Trek would be something like Starblazer Adventures.

My choice would be the still-unpublished rules for Normal, TX. They were available as a quickstart and as a downloadable .pdf (I got both), but have somehow never seen the light of day, despite something like three different publishers.

It is incredibly system-light, but has a nifty mechanic for letting different players take different roles in each session... protagonist, sidekick, romantic interest, comic relief, exposition, etc.

It's got far more system to it than something like Primetime Adventures, roughly equivalent to a streamlined version of Over the Edge.