I may search out a ds9 book if it has sufficient useful stuff in it.
What do you fellows and ladies think?
I may search out a ds9 book if it has sufficient useful stuff in it.
What do you fellows and ladies think?
The DS9 book has more species templates - Klingon, Bajoran, Ferengi, et cetera... Where the TNG book concentrated on ship-based adventures, the DS9 book naturally covers station-based games and has civilian career overlays - the species and Starfleet overlays from the TNG book are included in an appendix. There are minor refinements to the core ICON rules, additional skills and traits, advice on running a non-starship based game, and an adventure set on a Starbase, complete with character stats. Stats are given for the major characters from DS9. Treatments are given for Founders, Jem'Hadar, Vorta and other DS9 races. Stats are given for a number of stations and ships, many of which are not in the TNG book.
If you're running anything to do with the Dominion War or DS9, it's a must-have, othgerwise it's merely a really-useful-to-have...
LOL! And to make sure my hind quarters were sufficiently covered, I had bought both of those Core books . :D
I have to give props to Decipher for covering almost all the eras in one core book...but I have yet to find another Decipher core book....ARGGHHH!!
Respectfully,
General Chang
P.S. The Three books I have from LUG I think sufficiently cover most of what I need to run an LUG game....TNG Core/DS9 Core/ and The Price of Freedom. Downloaded the Spacedock and Recognition Manuals.....as you can see, my primary aspect of Star Trek is STARSHIP COMBAT! MUA HA HA! HA HAA HAA ! HARGGHHHH!----hack----cough!
Ahem.
The DS9 core book is some kind of an updated version of the tng book. The biggest difference is the setting. If you only want to run a Starfleet campaign and do not alredy have one of the corebooks the tng book might be the better choice.
The DS9 book concentrates on the life at the border worlds of the federation. It's very useful if you want to play merchants or adventurers.
I decided to buy both books and for me it was worth every cent. As Owen stated above it's definetly useful.
The TNG book focused on Starfleet adventures - the Overlays were mostly drawn from Starship positions. Like the series, the TNG RPG was geared to playing a shipboard campaign and so Templates, Overlays, equipment, etc were chosen for that purpose.
DS9 focused on non-Starfleet operations (though there were rules for Starfleet characters in the back). The templates were mostly professions like Merchants, Soldiers, Rogues, etc. Also, these non-Starfleet characters were built on fewer points to reflect the idea that the SFC characters were the best of the best.
This is what i remember from the books. Haven't picked up ICON books for awhile.
In my humble opinion, the DS9 core book is, in effect, the "final draft" of the Icon rules. The expanded overlays and traits lists are some of the most outstanding aspects, including such must-haves as brak'lul (the Klingon organ-redundancy trait), and Romantic Attachment (-1 to -3). This last allows us to simulate the always-heartrending It'll-be-a-cold-day-in-hell-before-I-let-(fill in name of missing babe/hunk here)-be-tormented-in-the-clutches-of-those-filthy-(fill in the name of non-humanoid feelingless alien ratbags here)-for-one-second-longer-" scenes that I so desperately - I mean, the games so desperately need. This is, of course, followed by the Captain (or other appropriate senior officer) telling the love-addled sot that he/she is putting his/her career on the line, and summed up with the steely-eyed "I don't care if I get sent to a penal colony for this: I'm going after him/her; now you can either help me, Captain, or get the hell out my way," after which, of course, there's a pregnant pause where the senior officer and PC eye each other down, and the Captain (or whomever) nods soberly, picks up a phaser rifle and says, "You'll need a shuttle pilot for this...got one picked out yet?" Ah, it brings tears to me eyes...
Also, LUG got it right this time and included the cast stats, which provide an excellent yardstick by which the characters' own progress/development can be measured. Good stuff.