Tellarites!

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05-02-2002, 09:22 AM
tonyg

Tellarites!

Rather than wait for the NG, I decided to write up Tellartites for CODA (I'm working on the other races too).

TELLARITES

SPECIES ADJUSTMENTS: +1 Strength, +1 Vitality, +1, -2 Presence. Tellarites are strong and resistant to injury, but their argumentative nature makes them somewhat difficult to get along with.

• ARGUMENTATIVE: Tellarites love to argue and debate. Whenever a Tellarite character is given the opportunity to engage in a debate or argument they will do so unless the character spends a courage point. Note that the degree of argument and opportunity to do so are somewhat subjective to outside circumstances (no Tellarite would stop to engage in a debate during combat or other dangerous situation).
• BONUS EDGE: NIGHT VISION: All Tellarites receive the Night Vision Edge (see page 136).
• BONUS SKILL: PERSUADE (ARGUE): All Tellarites learn how to argue. They gain the Persuade skill level 1, with the specialty of Argue. Tellarite characters can treat this skill as a professional skill for purposes of skill acquisition (see page 98) and advancement (see page 153).
• QUICK REACTIONS: Tellarites respond quickly to danger. All Tellarates receive a +2 bonus to Quickness reaction tests.
05-02-2002, 09:35 AM
Dan Stack

Looks good. One suggestion I would make would be to drop the Argumentative characteristic. You'll notice, for example, that no rules prohibits a player from making a happy-go-lucky Vulcan. I believe it is better to leave such details to roleplaying. Your mileage may vary. :D
05-02-2002, 10:22 AM
METH

How about changing the
PERSUADE (ARGUE) to
PERSUADE (DEBATE).
It would have a similar effect, but not as much negative connotation. As for being difficult to get along with, we could use a FLAW (Arrogant) to make up for that. :eek:
05-02-2002, 10:33 AM
tonyg

I know what you mean with the Arrogant bit, but I also need to balance the species off in CODA terms. Klingons got Ferocity.
Maybe some other trait would be nice (Arrogant doesn't quite work, since I don't like the idea of Tellarites not being able to use courage in social tests, maybe Proud? ).

As for Persuade (Debate), that seems fine to me. In fact, I had difficulty choosing PErsuade rather than Influence or Negotiate.

Tellarites are a difficult race to write up, with only 3 appearance in the series, with teh only one with a speaking role being the ambassor in Journey to Babel. The whole "Argumentatruve" bit seems to be focused on that one appearance.

Maybe "gruff" or "direct" might be better.
05-02-2002, 12:42 PM
Doug Burke

Re: Tellarites!

Quote:

Originally posted by tonyg
Rather than wait for the NG, I decided to write up Tellartites for CODA

You know, this is very similar to the version I worked up for the lone Tellarite in my Trek game. Here's my version for consideration. I just ask that you forgive the obnoxious ability names. They attacked me and demanded to be included... :D

TELLARITES

SPECIES ADJUSTMENTS: +1 Agility, +1 Vitality, -1 Presence. Tellarites are resistant to injury and skilled at fine manipulation, but their argumentative nature makes them somewhat difficult to get along with.

• TUNNEL VISION: Tellarites have infrared vision, so they receive Night Vision as a Bonus Edge.
• DEBATE SOCIETY: Tellarites have raised arguing and debate to an art form. As a result, they receive Persuasion (Debate) 2 at no cost and can treat the skill as a professional skill for the purpose of skill selection and advancement.
• PIG-HEADED (I warned you!): Tellarites are stubborn and suspicious of the motives of those who are not. Add +2 to either Willpower or Savvy (player's choice). Conversely, this attitude is seen as a detriment by other species, and as a result, Tellarites suffer a -2 penalty on all Social tests with non-Tellarites.

:)
05-02-2002, 02:47 PM
tonyg

How about

HAM: Tellartites recieve a -1 to all acting skill tests. :D
05-02-2002, 04:03 PM
AllenS

hey, two versions :) this game is starting to do what the Icon version did; generate fan material to fill in until the official stuff gets published :) . These versions are veey close together, although I do agree with Dan about the "Argumentative" thing in tonyg's version; that should be left up to roleplaying, mush as the Vulcans emotional suppression is.

Maybe I should post my version of the Zakdorn :)

Allen
05-02-2002, 04:14 PM
tonyg

Allen,

Go ahead. Post it. It might be a while before DECTREK gets to the "minor" species.

One thing that I wish Decipher did was what WotC did when they released the 3E PHB. They put some info in the back of the book so people could play the game before waiting for the DMG.
05-02-2002, 04:20 PM
qerlin

One of the reasons I started darking this board. The fan-swarned racial templates. Keep it up guys!

Once I get my friggin' book, I'll probably start working on some of the minor races, too...
05-03-2002, 12:28 PM
CrimsonHawk

May I recommend the following additions?

*****
LANGUAGE: Tellarite, Federation Standard
FAVORED PROFESSION: Starship Engineer.
*****

Then again, that was probably pretty self-explanatory, eh? ;)

=====O
Dale W. Robbins
05-03-2002, 09:17 PM
Doug Burke

Actually, I listed their Favored Profession as either Starship Engineer or Diplomat. :)
05-04-2002, 02:45 PM
Erik Filean

I plan to give my Tellarites a Pattern Recognition species ability that grants a +2 bonus to academic tests used to understand the layout of a complex system and diagnose systemic problems.

The idea comes from the long-time gamer's stereotype of Tellarites as engineers (which, for no canonical reason, has come to be associated with them since FASA). However, I didn't want to play completely to stereotype, so Pattern Recognition is designed to have use for Tellarite diplomats, ecologists, computer scientists, economists, doctors, etc. while still supporting the "traditional" Tellarite engineer. I also like the approach because it supports Tellarites in a number of specialist professions without making it any easier to fix a system problem per se.
06-06-2002, 11:48 AM
Sea Tyger

Balancing the Tellarites w/ the NG

I chose to have the Tellarites with +1 Str, +1 Vit and -2 Prs, Night Vision, Persuade (Debate), Pattern Recognition and Doug Burke's Pig-Headed ability.

Abilities balance out to 0 picks. Nightvision is worth 2 picks. Persuade (Debate) is worth 3 picks (1 for the specialty). Pattern Recognition is worth 2 picks. Pig-Headed is worth 4 picks (6 picks for the +2 reaction, and -2 points for the social flaw). This totals 11 picks. Again we're underpowering the race.

There are two ways to handle this. The first is to follow Doug's lead and reduce the Presence penalty to -1 (to bring the total to 16).

The other way is to leave the Presence penalty intact and add the Armor species/creature ability...this is just a personal thought, but I've always believed that Tellarites had thick hides to go along with their thick skulls. ;) The armor value would be 3, and would be worth 3 picks by itself. That would bring the total to 14 picks. Each additional armor point, according to the NG rules, would be worth 1 more pick, so if you wanted to bump the armor bonus to 4 or even 5, you'd total out at 15 or 16 picks respectively (although an armor value above 3 would be excessive IMO).

Maybe I'll break out my FASA books at some point and work up the Edoans... :D
06-06-2002, 11:57 AM
AslanC

Don't forget that once you have the NG you may want to remake them as the book has cool guides for making aliens species :)
06-06-2002, 11:59 AM
Sea Tyger

And that's exactly what I was doing. :) I can't say enough how much I love the NG! :D
06-06-2002, 12:50 PM
AslanC

Quote:

Originally posted by Sea Tyger
And that's exactly what I was doing. :) I can't say enough how much I love the NG! :D

I know! Isn't this thing amazing? I have never loved an RPG book as much as I love this one :)

Back on topic, don't you find the "picks" system for aliens makes so much sense? I love it :)

Lite math, if you can add and subtract you can make a starship or an alien civilization :)

I will post up my take on the Tzenkethi and the Talarians when I get the chance :)
06-06-2002, 02:08 PM
Doug Burke

I agree that the Species Creation rules are awesome. I used the guidelines therein to create the suggested Tellarite stats given previously. (It helps to have a final proof of the book when you need it... :))
06-06-2002, 07:51 PM
ds9guy

I was thinking about Tellarites...what does the group think of male tellarites having tusks like a boar (but smaller)? Seems to make sense to me.

I think part of the argumentative nature of Tellarites in Trek fandom is in part a recognition that the they are patterned on pigs and so, since the wild boar has such a reputation for ferocity and bad temper, so should the Tellarites. At least that is what I have always assumed. Not saying that all Tellarites necessarily are like this but I think a lot are...

its a shame that more wasn't done with them.

Monty
06-06-2002, 11:01 PM
Sea Tyger

Well, there is a chance that they'll visit them on the new series. :)

I always considered the Tellarite's penchant for debate and argument to be based on the ambassador's firey temper and stubborness in the episode "Journey to Babel." Now, Roddenberry and Co. may have based the Tellarite on the wild boar... :rolleyes:
01-10-2003, 08:42 PM
Julian

Tellarite

While I do not have the NG I have been working making a lot of NPC's for a friends newly created sector. I have always like the Tellarites, I played them multiple times in the LUG system and this is what I came up with for my version of what the Tellarite should look like...

TELLARITES

SPECIES ADJUSTMENTS: +1 Intellect, +1 Vitality, +1, -2 Presence. Tellarites are strong and resistant to injury, but their argumentative nature makes them somewhat difficult to get along with.

SPECIES ABILITIES
• ARGUMENTATIVE: Tellarites love to argue and debate. Whenever a Tellarite character is given the opportunity to engage in a debate or argument they will do so unless the character spends a courage point. Note that the degree of argument and opportunity to do so are somewhat subjective to outside circumstances (no Tellarite would stop to engage in a debate during combat or other dangerous situation).
• SKILL FOCUS: NATURAL ENGINEER +1 Propulsion Engineering, +1 Structural Engineering. Tellarites known to be naturals when it comes to Engineering...even to the point of being posesive when it comes to their engines
• BONUS SKILL: PERSUADE (ARGUE): All Tellarites learn how to argue. They gain the Persuade skill level 1, with the specialty of Argue. Tellarite characters can treat this skill as a professional skill for purposes of skill acquisition (see page 98) and advancement (see page 153).
• STRUCTURAL APTITTUDE: +4 Structure (Spaceframe) Tellarites are attributed with building the first atmospheric teather. And have a knack for shipbuilding

This is my all IMHO of course
01-11-2003, 12:07 AM
Phantom

Quote:

Originally posted by Sea Tyger
Well, there is a chance that they'll visit them on the new series. :)

I always considered the Tellarite's penchant for debate and argument to be based on the ambassador's firey temper and stubborness in the episode "Journey to Babel." Now, Roddenberry and Co. may have based the Tellarite on the wild boar... :rolleyes:

I believe Sarek made some comment about the willingness of the Tellerite, as a race, to engage in debate.