My personal impressions of the PG
Okay, so I've finally had a chance to go through a few things in the PG and form some initial opinions. I still can't tell you how the game plays because, IMHO, there's not nearly enough GM info in the Appendix to run the game effectively (more on this in a moment). However, I have run a few people through chargen, and have therefore seen much of the interior of the book.
PROS
1. Physically, from an aesthetic and a layout POV, I think the book is just gorgeous. The art team has a right to pat themselves on the back for putting the book together. It's just a lovely package, with easy-to-read text and a whole lot of photographs from all the eras of Star Trek scattered throughout, giving you a great tapestry of the whole of the Trek universe.
2. The timeline at the back of the book is a well-done broad overview of the universe, and is fairly helpful in getting an idea of where things came from and where they went. It's sparse, but that's to be expected when you try to cram thirty-five years of things into a very small number of pages.
3. Edges, Flaws, and Skills: All of these sections seem fairly well-done to me. The Edges and Flaws aren't over-powering, and the Skills seem fairly well-defined. The way skill specialties are handled is also good.
CONS
1. Character Generation. God, what an unholy mess. If there was ever a book that needed a good, simple chargen summary, this is the one (and the "How to Generate a Character" diagram on pp21-22 doesn't help much, either). If you're unfamiliar with the way it was done in Last Unicorn's games (as I was), you're going to be in for a headache. A simple summary would have done wonders for me, or for anyone who just likes to dive in and create a character without having to read the entire book first (and I know I'm not the only one who does this).
2. This is a subset of 1, really: Advanced characters. There aren't clear guidelines for generating someone who's been out of the Academy for a few years. The suggestions offered aren't, in my opinion, particularly realistic (am I to believe that Captain Kirk only earned 1000 xp a year, for instance?). Better guidance and more feel for how much experience is typical for an adventure would have been greatly appreciated.
3. Layout issues. In general, I loved the way the book looked. I do have some nits, though, mostly involving section and sub-section headers within the chapters. In general, I think I'd have preferred them to be a little bolder and a little more distinct, so that (for example) it would be easier to tell where the descriptions of one Starship Officer Elite Profession ended and the next began. Like I said, this is a nit (and to be honest, with the exception of chargen being horrendously unorganized and hard to figure out the first time or two, almost all of my complaints are nits).
4. Lumping the films in with the TOS era. My preferred era of play is during the films, but there's just not much info there, and no film-era ships are mentioned in the (sparse) GM info included in the PG. This leads me to....
5. This is a Player's Guide, I know, but if you're not going to release the Narrator's Guide for at least a month, you need to include a bit more GM info in the PG. There's no way to determine how much experience should be awarded during an adventure, for instance, so there's no way to determine what a reasonable number of advancements in a year would be (see item 2 above).
That's basically it for right now, though I reserve the right to revisit this later, when the NG comes out, and give a more complete picture of what I think.
Re: My personal impressions of the PG
Quote:
Originally posted by PGoodman13
Okay, so I've finally had a chance to go through a few things in the PG and form some initial opinions. I still can't tell you how the game plays because, IMHO, there's not nearly enough GM info in the Appendix to run the game effectively (more on this in a moment). However, I have run a few people through chargen, and have therefore seen much of the interior of the book.
I have run two sessions of DecTrek with just the info in the PG and both sessions went quite well. I think as long as you are doing planetside stuff and are willing to fudge the XP thing, you could run at least a few adventures this way...but with the NG coming out soon, maybe waiting is good..anyway I just wanted to say that it can be done, because I have done it.
Allen
Re: Re: My personal impressions of the PG
Quote:
Originally posted by AllenS
I have run two sessions of DecTrek with just the info in the PG and both sessions went quite well. I think as long as you are doing planetside stuff and are willing to fudge the XP thing, you could run at least a few adventures this way...but with the NG coming out soon, maybe waiting is good..anyway I just wanted to say that it can be done, because I have done it.
Like I said, Allen, it's a personal mileage thing. I'll put it like this: I couldn't run it effectively, because the holes would nag at me too much. It doesn't help that I don't have much of the campaign mapped out yet, either. :)
Re: My personal impressions of the PG
Quote:
Originally posted by PGoodman13
Okay, so I've finally had a chance to go through a few things in the PG and form some initial opinions. I still can't tell you how the game plays because, IMHO, there's not nearly enough GM info in the Appendix to run the game effectively (more on this in a moment). However, I have run a few people through chargen, and have therefore seen much of the interior of the book.
PROS
1. Physically, from an aesthetic and a layout POV, I think the book is just gorgeous. The art team has a right to pat themselves on the back for putting the book together. It's just a lovely package, with easy-to-read text and a whole lot of photographs from all the eras of Star Trek scattered throughout, giving you a great tapestry of the whole of the Trek universe.
2. The timeline at the back of the book is a well-done broad overview of the universe, and is fairly helpful in getting an idea of where things came from and where they went. It's sparse, but that's to be expected when you try to cram thirty-five years of things into a very small number of pages.
3. Edges, Flaws, and Skills: All of these sections seem fairly well-done to me. The Edges and Flaws aren't over-powering, and the Skills seem fairly well-defined. The way skill specialties are handled is also good.
CONS
1. Character Generation. God, what an unholy mess. If there was ever a book that needed a good, simple chargen summary, this is the one (and the "How to Generate a Character" diagram on pp21-22 doesn't help much, either). If you're unfamiliar with the way it was done in Last Unicorn's games (as I was), you're going to be in for a headache. A simple summary would have done wonders for me, or for anyone who just likes to dive in and create a character without having to read the entire book first (and I know I'm not the only one who does this).
2. This is a subset of 1, really: Advanced characters. There aren't clear guidelines for generating someone who's been out of the Academy for a few years. The suggestions offered aren't, in my opinion, particularly realistic (am I to believe that Captain Kirk only earned 1000 xp a year, for instance?). Better guidance and more feel for how much experience is typical for an adventure would have been greatly appreciated.
3. Layout issues. In general, I loved the way the book looked. I do have some nits, though, mostly involving section and sub-section headers within the chapters. In general, I think I'd have preferred them to be a little bolder and a little more distinct, so that (for example) it would be easier to tell where the descriptions of one Starship Officer Elite Profession ended and the next began. Like I said, this is a nit (and to be honest, with the exception of chargen being horrendously unorganized and hard to figure out the first time or two, almost all of my complaints are nits).
4. Lumping the films in with the TOS era. My preferred era of play is during the films, but there's just not much info there, and no film-era ships are mentioned in the (sparse) GM info included in the PG. This leads me to....
5. This is a Player's Guide, I know, but if you're not going to release the Narrator's Guide for at least a month, you need to include a bit more GM info in the PG. There's no way to determine how much experience should be awarded during an adventure, for instance, so there's no way to determine what a reasonable number of advancements in a year would be (see item 2 above).
.
I think this about says it all. Good system, VERY poor layout and design. I would also put in for a less "busy" character sheet. While the LCARS look is cute, it is a bear to photocopy and takes up too much colour ink if you print it. Due to all the colours and shadings grey-scale photocopies look very muddy.
