Coda starship rules-now and then

I must say I'm of two minds on the issue since I do appreciate some degree of complexity, but I love the CODA system. I've actually found that some of the simplifications have smoothed a few of the idiosyncracies of the Icon system (which I hold dear, don't get me wrong, but the players had their comm system destroyed every other episode! :) ) The maneuver system is quite excellent at simplifying things for the players as well as myself -- I essentially ask them, "What do you want to do this turn?" and then I decide which maneuvers best fit what they're attempting. At first, I did miss power allocation, but then again I did a root canal on it when I ran my Icon games. The only minor complaint I have is with the system damage tracks... on first impression they seem to penalize larger ships, because longer reliability tracks give over to more damage effects (although that might be balanced by the fact that smaller ships have less original capacity to reduce anyway). But, in the spirit of this most excellent and well-designed system, I just tweaked them a bit to my own tastes.

Conclusion? It rocks! ;)

Engineering maneuvers? :)

Could you tell us a bit more, Don? What were they about? Upgrading systems, doing repairs and all? Things that finally happen simulatenously to the main combat, I gather? :)

Engineering maneuvers actually sound like a good idea to me.

What were the Engineering maneuvers? I suppose stuff like getting damage control to fix a key system in the middle of battle and the like. I always had a little trouble figuring out what to do to give my engineering PC something to do, should he be in engineering or on the bridge? A few things like the reinforcing shields help, but I suppose the engineering guy could fix some of that battle damage, re-route a blown panel, whatever. But I do like the ship combat rules, I feel abstract rules work best with big ships in small engagements. Playing D20 Star Wars in fighters with an abstract system didn't feel right. Maybe it's just taking me longer to make the transition. But CODA works for me....:D

The original starship combat rules were the typical "top down" view of the battle, with your ship represented with...a ship.

This really bugged me. I said so. My Masters said "How would you like to see it work?" I responded "Like it does on the show."

They said "How would that work?" I was really, really surprised by the block everyone had with this. The idea of simulating what you see on the show simply never occured to anyone. Everyone I talk to instantly presumes starship combat = top-down tactical view. A la SFB, Silent Death, etc...

However, on the show, that's not what you see. On the show, you see the bridge. The captain gives orders, the crew all do shit. Some of that shit is "pilot the ship/fire" which are maneuvers, some are "reroute the power!" which are skill tests. That's what I thought starship combat should be.

There was no reason, I felt, to leave the POV of your characters behind, and have everyone go from picturing what their characters saw, to picturing two ships fighting. In no other sense do you do this. No matter what you're doing in any RPG, you're always dealing with what your character perceives. I wanted to stick with that. So, even though every else took it for granted, I rejected the idea.

I still feel like a better, more direct example of the rules is possible. I also feel like Range as it stands is A: very simple, B: functional, and C: not explained (actually, not illustrated) well. That's too bad.

As a writer, when I recognize that everyone is expecting something (top down POV) and I'm not going down that route, I want to address that. I fear people will get confused if they're expecting one thing, and you deliver another, because if they're really presuming it's going to be one way, and you never say "it's not that way, here's how it is" they can get confused because they're reading Way B and presuming it's Way A and not understanding what the hell we're talking about.

However, I got the chance to reinterpret these rules for CODA's Mass Combat system. Interestingly, the new CODAMCS has rules for armies that work basically like starshiup rules do, but with an optional spatial element. You'll have to see it to understand it, and it probably wouldn't work with normal space fights, but if you're talking about starships fighting to hold a system, it would work, I think, well.

well the D20 incarnation of the SW RPG faced the same problem. And a lot of people were put off quite frankly by the hexless, "all in your head" system. I admit that, as a wargamer, my first (knee-jerk) reaction was "haaaaaaaa it sucks" but now I completely understand the 'whys and wherefore' of such systems. And come to think of it the D6 SW RPG also had similar system. I don't think the ST or SW rpgs would work well with traditional wargame-based rules for an RPG. I think that the points you raise about the PC's perspectives are very eloquent. It is the best perspective I think to define such a system.

CODA MCS? And where/when will we see this? Or is the the mass combat stuff from LOTR

I too would like to see a mass combat system, both for ground and for space. Would make those Dominion War battles a little more feasible......

I started work on a MCS for "Starships" but ran out of space and had to delete it. If given the opportunity in another book I'd still like to provide one. Perhaps even Matt's material for LotR might be ported over at some point for starship use.

Actually I wanted to port Matt's system - but never had the time to...