Quote from: Dominus NoxWell, the interesting part comes when you realize the other guys have all that tech too.

Absolutely no argument. The point is, though, that it is 100% effective technology. In a setting populated by truly bloodthirsty Klingons and Romulans how the hell would the Federation stand a chance? Even if you say the players are all restricted to the Fed and bound by codes of decency, the enemies aren't. How long before the PCs are on an away mission and find a 40 ton rock materialize above them or have their hearts beamed out of them?

Like I said, I love the series but just do not see it as a viable RPG. Heck, I think Star Wars is more viable...just less sci-fi.

Bill

They had to break the transporter for almost every episode, just to create a dangerous situation for the crew. :hehe:

Quote from: KoltarHATE "Beaming" or "transporter/teleporter" technology in Sci-Fi roleplaying games.  Its an easy story out for the players and a pain in the Ass for a GM.
 I've had to deal with them in STAR TREK the RPG ...and they  always bothered me.

- E.W.C.

Quote from: HinterWeltAbsolutely no argument. The point is, though, that it is 100% effective technology. In a setting populated by truly bloodthirsty Klingons and Romulans how the hell would the Federation stand a chance? Even if you say the players are all restricted to the Fed and bound by codes of decency, the enemies aren't. How long before the PCs are on an away mission and find a 40 ton rock materialize above them or have their hearts beamed out of them?

Like I said, I love the series but just do not see it as a viable RPG. Heck, I think Star Wars is more viable...just less sci-fi.

Bill

America beat the soviets by having a better, stronger economy that could outproduce them, and a freer culture that encouraged advancement.

Look at how many soviets defected to america vs. the numbers of americans defecting to the sov side.

Also, the klingons may have had a lot of technology, but it wasn't as advanced as te feds, like the soviet tech was always behind the west's.

Quote from: Dominus NoxAmerica beat the soviets by having a better, stronger economy that could outproduce them, and a freer culture that encouraged advancement.

Look at how many soviets defected to america vs. the numbers of americans defecting to the sov side.

Also, the klingons may have had a lot of technology, but it wasn't as advanced as te feds, like the soviet tech was always behind the west's.

Which is all fine on the macro-economic front but the Klingons still have transporters and hand held weapons of doom. The Feds may win in the end but your character is going to take it up the pooper.

Bill

Quote from: HinterWeltWhich is all fine on the macro-economic front but the Klingons still have transporters and hand held weapons of doom. The Feds may win in the end but your character is going to take it up the pooper.

Bill

Klingon disruptors were inferior to federation phasers, and klingon ships were, one on one, inferior to federation ships. The feds had better tech and a bigger economy to support starfleet, plus the klingons had to spend a lot of their time and resources spying on each other.

Barring an advantage, like a sabotaged fed ship or a sneak attack, the klingons really couldn't win an engagement with the feds.

Plus klingons were just total losers all around, just look at the kind of imitators they attract.

Quote from: HinterWeltWhich is all fine on the macro-economic front but the Klingons still have transporters and hand held weapons of doom. The Feds may win in the end but your character is going to take it up the pooper.

Bill

 What a colorful phrase you chose!!

 When I used to run the FASA version STAR TREK RPG I was very sparing with when Klingons would show up. Had one group that actually started to have a recurring Klingon Adversary show up in their patrol area.
 Loved how in the books - the Klingons actually invented the transporter device before the Federation did.

 But yeah ...  started to hate "TREK-Tech"  in my  RPGs.   I much prefer the TRAVELLER universe kind of technology, where its mostly believable stuff and the FTL travel has a slow side to it.

- E.W.C.

Quote from: Dominus NoxKlingon disruptors were inferior to federation phasers, and klingon ships were, one on one, inferior to federation ships. The feds had better tech and a bigger economy to support starfleet, plus the klingons had to spend a lot of their time and resources spying on each other.

Barring an advantage, like a sabotaged fed ship or a sneak attack, the klingons really couldn't win an engagement with the feds.

Plus klingons were just total losers all around, just look at the kind of imitators they attract.

hmm, not sure if we are talking about the same thing. I am mostly going from LUG Trek and Decipher Trek. In those books, disruptors were about 1/2 power of the phasers...which meant they could only create half as big a crater where your characters were standing. They still had replicators and transporters. Now, bring Romulans into the argument and things get interesting since they have a good deal of the same tech as the Feds.

Besides, I think the point is getting lost here. Just looking at what the players have to solve challenges, they only need to resort to diplomacy rarely. Mind you, most gamers rip the setting apart because they are approaching it with a problem solving mentality and not a "I will advance the Plot" mentality (most of the time). Whenever I have heard of a "successful" Trek game it has usually been from a "We will create an artificial consensus to do as the story dictates" instead of "I played the game, in setting, and did what I thought was smart" approach. I may not be clear here but I am trying to say that if everyone agrees that the transporter will not be used to make copies of our strongest character who will then be sent to fight the hordes, then yes, it can work. The problem is, players are smart and like to game the system/setting. They, generally, do not wish to not use something to death that has worked in the past. With "science" it should work every time and that makes a problem. If I focus the lateral sensor arrays through the main deflector to detect the cloaked Romulan then it better work the next time I try or I will be pissed.

However, as I said, I love the series, just not the RPGs.

Bill
Bill

Quote from: KoltarBut yeah ...  started to hate "TREK-Tech"  in my  RPGs.   I much prefer the TRAVELLER universe kind of technology, where its mostly believable stuff and the FTL travel has a slow side to it.

- E.W.C.

Thing is, though, Traveller tech isn't all that realistic, either, but from another angle. The setting is how many thousands of years in the future, and the tech isn't all that much beyond what we have now? Take medical technology as an example. Not a whole helluva lot seems to have been done in the areas of genetic engineering or increasing human longevity. Even placing Traveller into the context of when it was written, the mid to late 1970s, there are examples of scifi that dealt with the implications of both. In that respect, I don't see Traveller as all that realistic. Same goes for Trek - given the medical miracles we see done in every iteration of Trek, somehow the human lifespan is still essentially the same.

I'm inclined to view technology in scifi games as being backward in many cases, especially considering how far into the future we're talking. Yeah, so, transporters and the like are game-balance-killers. I'd rather try to deal with the implications of that and figure out an in-game solution that fits the setting than to assume that tech progress stagnates in certain areas just because I don't like the implication for the game.

Writing by game designers who haven't done their research in science or technology. First, this is science fiction, there has to be a middle ground between total realism and complete fantasy - go one way and Earthlike planets become nearly impossible while if you go the other way you get things like this quote from d20 Future.

QuoteBLACKLASER (PL 9)
Using the fluorescent gaseous form of dark matter, a blacklaser fires a beam of coherent light. To human eyes, it appears to be a beam of purplish light bordering on ultraviolet, but it is composed of radiation much more energetic and dangerous than ordinary photons.

My brain hurts every time I read that because whoever wrote it doesn't have a clue what dark matter is theorized to be or even how the word "flourescent" wouldn't apply to it.

I don't generally like magic in my sci fi, but I don't mind psionics, the force, or Spacemaster's handling of the Rolemaster planet. I guess I'm pretty inconsistent with my dislikes.