Give me your Coda Q's and Feedback (Good and Bad)

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I'd like some help in addressing any pending questions/issues on the Coda system, problems, errata, or complaints that people may have.

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This isn't strictly in any of the categories above, but it might be useful to you (or your marketing guys) to know why I, as a fan of Star Trek and of RPGs in general, have decided not to buy the PG or NG. I'm only going from what I've read in these boards and (to a lesser extent) elsewhere on the Net, but this may give you an idea of what negative impressions to counter in your promotion of the game.

At any rate, the dice mechancic and combat rules seem, from what I've been able to glean, perfectly reasonable and they haven't put me off at all. :)

I don't like the experience system as its been described on these boards. Waiting to have enough XPs to collect five picks in one go, rather than one at a time as you progress seems clunky and counter-intuitive. And counting XPs in hundreds and thousands seems too much like bean-counting - I don't know what sort of action would earn you one XP, but it sounds like the kind of thing that should be too minor to have to bother ennumerating at all. (Note that I'm not saying I couldn't easily fix either of these problems, but see below). :(

The range of character types and campaign types looks great - this is exactly the way it should be done. Similarly, no problems with your choice of races to put in the PG (even if I am keen on tellarites). :)

The rules for professions, as described on these boards, are simply not the way I like to do things - give me an open-ended character generation, where all skills cost the same, regardless of what profession I happen to nominally be. I don't mind templates listing suggested skills for a given character type, but I object to them in any way restricting my future character advancement, or imposing strict limits / providing unique abilities (actually, I'm not clear from what I've read on the boatds whether or not DecTrek does provide unique abilities to some professions, so that last one may not be fair - but its the impression I'm getting, so I guess you'll want to counter it, if it isn't). :mad:

The rules for mixed-species characters just look badly written, IMO. :(

I'm sorry, but your character sheet is badly designed. Hardly a terminal problem for the game, but it's good to get your image right. :(

Now, these are not insurmountable problems. If I didn't already have LUGTrek, I'd probably buy your version and fix the problems with extensive house rules. But I do, so what really does it provide me that I don't already have? I've got the basic background info - don't need that. So all I'd be buying is a set of rules, which, while an improvement in some respects, are, on balance, inferior to the older ones, and need a lot of conversion to work. Not worth the money, I'm afraid.

But I'll buy your supplements - they should have background info that will be useful, regardless of system. :D

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Originally posted by Trotsky
[B]I don't like the experience system as its been described on these boards. Waiting to have enough XPs to collect five picks in one go, rather than one at a time as you progress seems clunky and counter-intuitive. And counting XPs in hundreds and thousands seems too much like bean-counting - I don't know what sort of action would earn you one XP, but it sounds like the kind of thing that should be too minor to have to bother ennumerating at all. (Note that I'm not saying I couldn't easily fix either of these problems, but see below). :(

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I for one don't like either and will bypass the advancement system by awarding directly a number of picks at the end of each adventures.

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The rules for professions, as described on these boards, are simply not the way I like to do things - give me an open-ended character generation, where all skills cost the same, regardless of what profession I happen to nominally be. I don't mind templates listing suggested skills for a given character type, but I object to them in any way restricting my future character advancement, or imposing strict limits / providing unique abilities (actually, I'm not clear from what I've read on the boatds whether or not DecTrek does provide unique abilities to some professions, so that last one may not be fair - but its the impression I'm getting, so I guess you'll want to counter it, if it isn't). :mad:

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Professions only selects:
One of you attribute that will progress quicker than the others (2 attributes are this way favored, the other you choose freely).
about 10 skills that are "skill profession" and cost less to devellop
a set of profession abilities that can be bought by other professions character with a higher price (you have ot buy an edge to gain access to it).

In my opinion, if you don't like it that way, you can allways consider that these professions are more like guidelines. You can let your player devellop all their skills the same price (or select themselves wich 10 skills they can have cheaper), and let them buy any profession ability the same price restricting access to an ability only by roleplaying.

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I'd probably buy your version and fix the problems with extensive house rules.

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The problems you spoke about don't need "extensive" house rules imo, minor corrections are all that's needed, with maybe the exceptions of the mixed race if you want extensive rules (personnaly I only had to change it a bit to fit my idea).

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Professions only selects:
One of you attribute that will progress quicker than the others (2 attributes are this way favored, the other you choose freely).
about 10 skills that are "skill profession" and cost less to devellop
a set of profession abilities that can be bought by other professions character with a higher price (you have to buy an edge to gain access to it).

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So it's bad (from my POV) but not as bad as some had made it sound. Fair enough.

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I'd probably buy your version and fix the problems with extensive house rules.




The problems you spoke about don't need "extensive" house rules IMO, minor corrections are all that's needed, with maybe the exceptions of the mixed race if you want extensive rules (personnaly I only had to change it a bit to fit my idea).

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OK, fair point, it wouldn't be 'extensive' as in 'ten pages of A4', I admit :) Just too much work to be worth bothering with when I've already got something that works well enough. Why change to an inferior product, even if its only a little bit inferior? And many people will like this system, and I wish them all the best of luck with it.

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Originally posted by Trotsky
Waiting to have enough XPs to collect five picks in one go, rather than one at a time as you progress seems clunky and counter-intuitive.

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But there's a reason it was done this way -- there's a limit on how much a PC can raise skills and attributes with every advancement. If you take away the block of 5 picks, then you "have" to introduce other niggling little rules to maintain the balance of advancement, like "you can't raise a non-professional skill two times in a row" or something like that. Now that's clunky. Of course nobody has to do that if they don't want to.

-- Daniel

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But there's a reason it was done this way -- there's a limit on how much a PC can raise skills and attributes with every advancement. If you take away the block of 5 picks, then you "have" to introduce other niggling little rules to maintain the balance of advancement, like "you can't raise a non-professional skill two times in a row" or something like that.

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Of course, given that I don't like the idea of there being any difference between professional and non-professional skills, either, that's not really going to worry me ;)

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Originally posted by Trotsky


Of course, given that I don't like the idea of there being any difference between professional and non-professional skills, either, that's not really going to worry me ;)

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having all skills cost the same is an invitation to unrestrained munckinism.

It also makes some sense that you will develop the skills you use in your profession faster than those that you don't because you use them more often. All in all however, it's just a game mechanic, designed to provide some balance to the system and make it harder for people to abuse it.

Allen

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Originally posted by Trotsky

Why change to an inferior product, even if its only a little bit inferior?

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You might want to consider in the future a more diplomatic phrase such as "why change to a product that doesn't do what I want it to do?" the unqualified use of 'inferior' could be somewhat insulting to people who worked hard on this game. Not to mention which, since your opinion seems to be in the minority around here (and you are entitled to it), there are many of us who do not think the system is inferior, and your blanket statement is a bit jarring.

Allen

How exactly does Trait Upgrade work? Maybe I just don't understand the exact way it works because english is not my native language. What the PG says on page 138 is:

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You can upgrade one edge that cannot normally be upgraded,... (emphasis added by me)

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Now is that can as in "by taking the edge Trait Upgrade the bonus from an edge you have is doubled" or is that can as in "by taking Trait Upgrade you are allowed to upgrade another edge by buying said edge again", i.e. it only qualifies you for the upgrade but doesn't provide the upgrade itself?

AllenS wrote:
"having all skills cost the same is an invitation to unrestrained munckinism. "

Hmm, I acutally don't see this. In both of the previous Trek games I am familiar with (LUG, FASA) there were no restrictions on who could pick up what skills and this never led to extreme munchkins in my games. Then again, this may have just been because of my players.

The more I look at the professions, the less happy I am with them.

This probably means that in the end my game will be some sort of riff off all three systems I have at hand ;)

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Originally posted by Lancer
How exactly does Trait Upgrade work? Maybe I just don't understand the exact way it works because english is not my native language. What the PG says on page 138 is:

Now is that can as in "by taking the edge Trait Upgrade the bonus from an edge you have is doubled" or is that can as in "by taking Trait Upgrade you are allowed to upgrade another edge by buying said edge again", i.e. it only qualifies you for the upgrade but doesn't provide the upgrade itself?

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I'm fairly certain that Trait Upgrade itself IS the upgrade. That's what I intepreted it as. You buy it and it doubles the effect of a trait..once. You cannot buy it multiple times for the same trait.

Allen

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Originally posted by Ramage
AllenS wrote:
"having all skills cost the same is an invitation to unrestrained munckinism. "

Hmm, I acutally don't see this. In both of the previous Trek games I am familiar with (LUG, FASA) there were no restrictions on who could pick up what skills and this never led to extreme munchkins in my games. Then again, this may have just been because of my players.

The more I look at the professions, the less happy I am with them.

This probably means that in the end my game will be some sort of riff off all three systems I have at hand ;)

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FASA had a somewhat Travelleresque character creation system involving rolling to see what happened on your tours of duty that tended to funnel you into certain skills depending on what your profession on ship was. You could take other skills at certain points, but the random nature of how many points you had for those skills tended to be the limiting factor needed to avoid rampant abuse.

LUG used a similar idea with their templates and tours of duty, although of course it was not as random. Only if you used the "advanced" character creation rules were you basically into free and unrestrained point spending. And even then, as GM, I had to make sure the characters were suitable for their roles on ship, so I set the point total low enough that they pretty much HAD to spend their points on the skills they needed and not add a lot of off-character fluff for game effect only.

Coda is somewhat more freeform than any of the above, and the professions help keep characters focused on what they will be doing aboard ship or in the campaign rather than letting them evolve into "jacks of all trades and masters of none". and depending on how many advancements you start with, the cost difference between professional and non-professional skills can become fairly insignificant.

Allen

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Originally posted by Ramage
Hmm, I acutally don't see this. In both of the previous Trek games I am familiar with (LUG, FASA) there were no restrictions on who could pick up what skills and this never led to extreme munchkins in my games. Then again, this may have just been because of my players.

The more I look at the professions, the less happy I am with them.

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Well, as about everything in life this depends on how you look at it. Professions give the character a focus, a certain direction of development, which IMHO is quite realistic. While I have an easy time picking up some skills at work once I am back home I often find I lack the time or energy to learn new things in my spare time. Why shouldn't it be the same in the 24th century?

And there are more ways to increase skills outside your profession than just spending 2 advancements for 1 skill level. Just take a Skill Focus for example. As an edge it costs the same picks as raising a non-professional skil once and gives you a better bonus to your "effective" skill level. Sure, it's not the same as raising the skill itself, but the result is the same. Especially if you just want to give your character a hobby this could be the best way to go.

What I am more concerned about when it comes to munchkins are certain combinations of professional abilities and edges that can make your skill levels pale in comparison. I'll reserve a final judgment in this matter until after reading the Narrator's Guide. Until we see more on how experience (and thereby advancements) are to be handed out for an adventure it's difficult to say how "powerfull" a character will become compared to an ICON character with the same number of missions under his belt.

I tend to agree with Lancer here.

I like the professions because, as I see it, they provide a bonus to learn specific skills that you use often "at work": I think it more realistic to consider the non-professional skills upgrade cost as the standard progression rate. Thus, professions are not there to keep you from developing other skills, on the contrary they ease depeloping the few specific ones that you exert often.

However, I too am worried about possible "combos" that could appear with judicious combinations of professional abilities and traits. Anybody experienced such a thing already?

Lancer: Allen is exactly right. Taking Trait Upgrade gives you an upgrade on a normally non-upgradable trait. For example, when converting the characters for my current game from Icon to Coda, we were uncertain how to handle the Sixth Sense Advantage for the LUG PG until the player remembered the Trait Upgrade edge. The character now has Alert 2 (Alert + Trait Upgrade). :)

Doug, thanks for answering that. :)

Makes me wonder why the upgrade possibilities were not included with the edges in the first place. First ssaying that a trait can't be upgraded and then providing a very convenient way to do it nevertheless strikes me as a little... odd.
Oh well, maybe it was a late addition to the game and no one wanted to rewrite all the trait descriptions to retrofit them with upgrade possibilities. ;)

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You might want to consider in the future a more diplomatic phrase such as "why change to a product that doesn't do what I want it to do?"

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I thought I'd been very careful to say that I was referring only to what I wanted out of a game, not its absolute quality. E.g. 'Many people will like this system', 'from my POV...' etc. But in case it hasn't been clear, I will restate it:

This is not, so far as I can tell, a bad system. There are bits of it I see nothing wrong with at all, and the bits I don't like are relatively minor. It just isn't as good (for me) as existing alternatives.

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having all skills cost the same is an invitation to unrestrained munckinism.

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I've never had this problem. Which isn't to say (once again) that you haven't, but I'm not commenting on whether or not the game is good for other people, and Don did specifically ask for negative comments as well as positive ones...

So far my biggest complaints are with the character sheet which is not very user friendly and with the non-intuitive layout of the book. For character creation, I like a very step-by-step layout of the chapters.

What I like - just about everything else. For a Players' Guide, I think there was the right amount and depth of both game mechanics and background. I have heard some complaints that there were no game mechanics for starships in the PG, but I have often found if too much extraneous info is given too players too early, they tend to make characters to enhance the hardware instead of concentrating on character concept and execution.

Ok picked up my copy of the PG today. I have been able to give it only the briefest scan. Immediate impressions;

1) As I have said art is part of the package, and DecTrek doesn't fall far from the mark...Only thing that brings it down, the archtypes artwork, too 'toonish.

2) Char Gen. The little I have read does make me want to try and convert a couple of characters.

3) Not sure why the little bleeps about ships was included when no stats were in the book.

4) I agree, a new character sheet is a must.

I shall get back later when I have had time to digest the volume.

Oh, I have one! :cool:
Decipher should pay Don for his character sheet, so that it becomes the new official character sheet (replacing that ugly black thing). They could offer it as a download, or include it in the GM screen ... the point is, this'd give him a good reason for finishing his sheet! :D
(disclaimer again: I still haven't managed to unstick my tongue ;) )

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Originally posted by Calcoran

(disclaimer again: I still haven't managed to unstick my tongue ;) )

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If I were you, I'd get that seen to :)

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(disclaimer again: I still haven't managed to unstick my tongue )

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If I were you, I'd get that seen to

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Depends on what it is stuck to and if its enjoyable..

This is a bit of a nit pick, but I noticed under the Cardassian description the Medical Problem (poisoned by Cobalt Diselenide) is no longer included. Why? It was some what of a major point in a few of the episodes of DS9.

Yes I do have too much time to play with.:D

On page 172 the range modifiers are said to apply to the Target Number at +2/0/-2/-4.
The following example sometimes refers to the modifiers applying to "to hit" and "skill tests" and then again to the TN.

As a lower TN at longer range would actualy lower the difficulty I assume the modifier applies to the skill test and not the TN.

Maybe a clarification could be added to the Errata.

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Originally posted by Phantom
This is a bit of a nit pick, but I noticed under the Cardassian description the Medical Problem (poisoned by Cobalt Diselenide) is no longer included. Why? It was some what of a major point in a few of the episodes of DS9.

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But if you stop and think about it, it shouldn't really be worth anything. All races have something that they find lethal. They don't get points for it! Think of it as a minor racial detail. Yes, it was significant in the episodes, but that's colour.

I mean, does a human get points for Medical Problem (poisoned by Cyanide)?

I've seen in the errata thread that flaws can be 'bought off' during advancement at the same cost as purchasing an edge. Is there a way to gain a flaw during advancement, or can flaws only be gained at character creation?

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Originally posted by Imagus


But if you stop and think about it, it shouldn't really be worth anything. All races have something that they find lethal. They don't get points for it! Think of it as a minor racial detail. Yes, it was significant in the episodes, but that's colour.

I mean, does a human get points for Medical Problem (poisoned by Cyanide)?

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It is a good bet that most life forms will find cyanide lethal, but onlyCardies find CD lethal. I wasn't suggesting that it be a flaw that you get points from. I just thought it should be listed under the description as it is something the Cardies find lethal, but no other race does.

Well, I must say that what I have been able to read of DecTrek is quite good. I think that my Romulan game will stay ICON, but if my other online game takes flight I think I will CODA.

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Originally posted by Lancer
On page 172 the range modifiers are said to apply to the Target Number at +2/0/-2/-4.
The following example sometimes refers to the modifiers applying to "to hit" and "skill tests" and then again to the TN.

As a lower TN at longer range would actualy lower the difficulty I assume the modifier applies to the skill test and not the TN.

Maybe a clarification could be added to the Errata.

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Actually, the modifiers are reversed. Perhaps they were originally written so as to be applied to the roll, but then the wording was changed, but not the modifiers. Table A.13 Ranged Combat Modifiers (pg. 250) shows the correct modifiers of -2/0/+2/+4.

I know this has probably been covered somewhere, but how do you figure a characters favoured attribute and reaction? What does the favoured status do for either of the above? I can't find any info in the book about it. I'm probably just missing it somewhere.

You have 2 favourite attributes as I far as I can tell.
One you can choose as you wish and the other one comes with your profession.
Favourite reaction can be chosen as well.

I believe so far it only enables you to improve those attriubtes / reaction at a lower cost.

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Originally posted by Phantom
I know this has probably been covered somewhere, but how do you figure a characters favoured attribute and reaction? What does the favoured status do for either of the above? I can't find any info in the book about it. I'm probably just missing it somewhere.

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It is listed in the base profession descriptions. It will say "Game Information." It is right after that, before the Professional Abilities.

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Originally posted by Joe Dizzy
Favourite reaction can be chosen as well.

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AFAICT you have only one favored reaction, defined by your profession (Player's Guide, page 51).

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Originally posted by Lancer

AFAICT you have only one favored reaction, defined by your profession (Player's Guide, page 51).

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Nope, you get two; one defined by your profession, and one you choose yourself. I don't remember the exact page reference but it is in the front of the Professions section.

Allen

That information is also on page 51, right side.

Thanks for the pick up on this, guys. You have two Favored Attributes and one Favored Reaction. The Reaction and one of the Favored Attributes are assigned by your basic profession, and the second is the player's choice, although the professions give suggestions for the second Favored Attribute. (This is explained, as Kronok pointed out, on page 51 of the PG.)

The advantage? Favored Attributes and Reactions cost fewer Advancement Picks to increase than non-Favored ones. For example, a Security Officer with QUickness as his Favored Reaction will only have use two picks to raise his Quickness, but would have to use three picks to increase his Willpower or Savvy.

Thanks for the quick replies guys, but I found the info about 5 min after I asked the question. Had to go to work so I was unable to post the I had found it.

This is from a thread on switching professions (http://forum.trek-rpg.net/showthread...&threadid=4272):

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Originally posted by Calcoran
If I might add a bit of confusion here:

Players Guide p155
Sechok chooses to become an envoy ... he decides to forego advancement as an explorer ... next time Sechok advances, he could chose to re-enter the explorer elite profession by spending another 5 picks. After returning to the profession, he could resume development of explorer skills and abilities ...

So changing back to a former profession is still not free ... does this mean that when you chose in which professions you want to advance, you have to keep your base profession? This doesn't seem right, as in the above example, Sechok has chosen Envoy and Science Officer. Obviously he had already given up the Starship Officer base profession.
So ... how much would the switching back to the base profession cost?

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To which Don replied:

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Good catch, Calcoran, and I'll check with Ross. Perhaps I simply misunderstood his earlier statement when he and I spoke on this topic.

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Don: Have you receive an answer from Ross by now?

I haven't seen this one mentioned yet --

On table A.1 Movement Actions (p.243), I believe the "Costs" for Jog, Run and Sprint should be 2, F/R, and F/R respectively. This is per the pace descriptions on p.245.

-- Daniel

Here's another question related to a post from an older thread (http://forum.lotrrpg.net/showthread....&threadid=4294)

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Original posted by Doug Burke
Since the only tests that are labeled as "Physical", "Academic", or "Social" are skill tests, it would be safe to assume that the Fit, Friendly, and Thinker Edges (as well as the Dim-Witted, Proud, and Reckless Flaws) only apply to skill tests.

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Does that mean that edges like Eidetic Memory, Thinker, Fit, etc. (and the above mentioned Flaws) only apply a modifier to skill tests?
The table on page 100 lists attribute tests and reaction tests in each category of Academic, Physical and Social, as well as skills.

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Originally posted by Sho-sa Kurita
On table A.1 Movement Actions (p.243), I believe the "Costs" for Jog, Run and Sprint should be 2, F/R, and F/R respectively. This is per the pace descriptions on p.245.

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I would say you're correct, Daniel. :) The Cost should be 2, F/R, F/R respectively.