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Just curious if anyone in the know knows if there will be any books that'll include pre-made stats some of the main characters we've grown to love over the years? I don't know about everyone else but I'm planning on having some of them make guest apparences throughout my series and just trying to decided if I should start making them up or not.
Kyle
I seem to recall someone (or several someones) mentioning that the major characters from all four shows will be in the Narrator's Guide. Give it a couple more weeks.
And something to consider:
Do you actually need stats for them to appear in your game?
Unless you're planning on having them rescue or fight the P.C's you should be able to make do with their portrayals from the TV shows... :)
I remember some years ago, a game designer said that to give a "canon" NPC stats is to invite the PCs to challenge and probably kill them. :)
But the truth is that canon character stats are useful to serve as an example of what the PCs can aspire to...also its a good guide as to how to develop skills to fit the relevant position (okay Data may be an exception).
I'm not a big Star Trek novel person, but having read the Peter David "New Frontier" books I was wondering how much support of the novels will there be. I personally couldn't care less if there was no support for most of them but I'd like some of the New Frontier areas explored (maybe a NF sourcebook). My pilot episode featured members of the Haven colony crew being dropped off by the Excalibur and one of the group is a Brikar, so it'd be great to have some RPG resources for them.
Charlie E/N
I'd be extremely surprised if there were any. Decipher's license extends to the TV shows and movies and that's it. Unfortunately, the novels (any of them) just aren't considered canon - so no official game support...Quote:
Originally posted by el queso
I'm not a big Star Trek novel person, but having read the Peter David "New Frontier" books I was wondering how much support of the novels will there be. I personally couldn't care less if there was no support for most of them but I'd like some of the New Frontier areas explored (maybe a NF sourcebook). My pilot episode featured members of the Haven colony crew being dropped off by the Excalibur and one of the group is a Brikar, so it'd be great to have some RPG resources for them.
However, there's nothing stopping you working it out for yourself, and posting your results for the rest of us :D
Tilarium: There are stats for 12 characters from the series in the Narrator's Guide (in alphabetical order: Janeway, Kim, Kira, Kirk, LaForge, McCoy, Picard, Quark, Sisko, Spock, Tuvok, and Worf). Stats for the characters repesent them at the end of their respective television series.
elqueso: Decipher has no plans to support the Novels or New Frontier in any way.
Gawd dammit!
Don't they know I'm already busy creating things for game systems too unperceptive to know EXACTLY what I want!
Well I'll probably end up having to do it myself. Guess I ought to read the other books first.
I think someone posted the Hermat race and I posted a basic Brikar race that one of the group made. I guess between us we can do Xenexians, Thollonians, etc.
I'll give a shout once I'm done, but I'm going to wait for the NG just in case there are any things to help with race-building.
Charlie E/N
Well it will be very interesting to get a look at these character's game stats. I am especially curious about the edges and professional abilities. After a first glance at the Players Guide (just got it a few hours ago) I am under the impression that these two options are very important if you want to be a 'true' professional in your field.
Hmmm. Three each per show...is the version of Worf, then, the character at the end of TNG or the end of DS9?Quote:
Originally posted by Doug Burke
Tilarium: There are stats for 12 characters from the series in the Narrator's Guide (in alphabetical order: Janeway, Kim, Kira, Kirk, LaForge, McCoy, Picard, Quark, Sisko, Spock, Tuvok, and Worf). Stats for the characters repesent them at the end of their respective television series.
I'm now looking forward, more than ever, to actual era-specific sourcebooks so that complete write-ups of all the characters can be included. I realize they were fighting for space here, but I don't think they're doing justice to any of the shows by not showing the breadth and depth of all the characters. But that's just me.
Hey Doug, thanks alot for the reply! I'll have to fine tune them all to represent them for 2367-68...including McCoy and Spock sense them and Scotty are the only ones from TOS still alive :)
See, now this is even more reason for me to want the NG....wonder if my supplier can try and get a copy on the 4th so I can get it before I leave.....
Kyle
Worf's stats reflect the character as he stood as of the end of DS9.Quote:
Originally posted by PGoodman13
Hmmm. Three each per show...is the version of Worf, then, the character at the end of TNG or the end of DS9?
stupid question. will there be another manual that gives the rest of the main characters stats, in the list of coming manuals.
like a voyager title giving full info on the main personel on the ship. Enterprise, DS9, NG, and the Original, would also be cool. giving the stats at the end of the full series.
Have there ever been CODA versions of the Enterprise main characters? Maybe in Don's Enterprise netbook?
Don's book has stats for Archer, Tucker, and T'Pol. His book, if you're looking for it, can be found at my site (which is sorely neglected at the moment). One of these days, when I get a lot of free time, I'm going to get back around to working on my own Enterprise sourcebook, which will have all the main characters. Don't hold your breath for this, though.
Thank you! I shall see if I have Don's book on my external HD. It should be there, as I remember getting it back when Don announced his little present to the gaming comunity. If not I shall get it from your site, which I should check out more often anyway.Quote:
Originally Posted by PGoodman13
Looking forward to any take on the main cast, but take your time. I don't plan on going anywhere :)
Hope all is well with you and the family! :)
One more question regarding the existance of (official) stats of Main Characters of the shows:
Has no CODA book ever tackled Data?
Please don't come by with the typical argument, you wouldn't need his stats anyway. I am curious how the CODA ruleset would be able to reflect Data and if it has been done and I just can't find it right now or if there are no stats at all.
Well, assuming you're making him as a PC... he'd be constructed using the Mechanical Body trait from the NG; he'd probably have resistance to Radiation and Disease (not Invulnerability!). To model the specific vulnerabilities he has, you'd probably want to create unique template traits. Given the variation among the Soong-type androids we've seen (Lal vs. Lore, Data vs. Juliana Tainer) I don't know whether it'd be worthwhile to create a baseline template for all of them, like Artilects does. Whether you'd need to specify things like his battery life depends on how your group approaches things.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cut
Intersting approach, TDK.
Another issues would be trying to model the almost-instant information intake and analysis–would he just have all Knowledge skills at +20, or Intellect at +20 and the ability to use all Knowledge skills untrained given access to a database of sufficient size? He can perceive microchanges in people's expressions, but predicting behaviour accurately based on them seems hard for him. His childlike lack of guile may indicate a severely negative Savvy modifier, but his instant recall and complex analysis might make lying to him about most things impossible. His Willpower seems high enough that he can override his own ethical programming (cf. "The Most Toys")–surely a TN 25 test at least.
Data is probably best left as an NPC with some undefined abilities. He would work best as a plot device, as in if the PCs are struggling to come up with a course of action or are not sure how to continue then Data could step in with a possible course of action. Not sure I would welcome a Data PC in a group.
I didn't want to include a Data in a PC group. I was just thinking about how one could reflect Data's skills and make-up with the CODA rules. Even a somewhat downgraded Soong-Type android would be off-limits in my groups, unless maybe for one of the most experienced roleplayers I know and trust to be up to the challenge. But the issue never came up. My question was out of curiousity only.Quote:
Originally Posted by CypherWest
Aside from that: Would it have been fitting to include some sort of 'Song Type Android' template or write-up in the ALIENS sourcebook?
I wouldn't necessarily desighn Datas abilities using the book. he would just do what I needed him to do but keep limits within what we have seen on the show. After all if Data could do everything then there wouldn't be a need for the other people on the ship. I feel he should be handled in game the same way.
I really don't think they needed to put such a template like that in Aliens. I have always constructed Androids more using the Creatures book. Even then I don't think there needs to be one. I think one of the great strengths of the systems is that it allows the Narrartor a pretty good amount of lattitude when designing Alien beings/creatures to help or challenge the crew.
my 2 cents
I think that Data, like many other characters and Treknologies, would have to be toned down in order to fit in the RPG.
After all, the problem of putting Data's abilities in term of RPG stats arises for many other characters : I don't think there is any way in CODA to account for Troi being able to sense the emotions of an alien in another starship (that is, a few hundredth kilometers away at best), unless she has a ridiculously high PSI modifier. Likewise, I'm not sure Jadzia Dax's would be able to do as many things she said to know from a previous host in the CODA system (unless she has had a few dozen of them), nor would Seven be able to have that much functions for her Borg implants. Similarly, I don't think the Vulcan Trance Healing as described could allow Spock to recover from a gun injury in a matter of days (or was it hours).
So, unless you want to go the Q way and state that no roll is necessary for such characters, I guess devising stats for Data would mean first finding how to represent most of his abilities in a coherent way, and which ones to drop or tone down. A CODA Data would not be able to do anything that Data did on screen, just like a CODA Troi would not be able to tell that a character on a planet surface is lying while her being on orbit.
I'll try to see if I can expand a bit on that, but I'm a bit short of time these days.
With the new Star Trek movie coming out in May 2009, I wanted to share my take on the CODA stats for the 4 Original Series Bridge Crew characters which were left out of the Narrator's Guide by Decipher: Sulu, Scotty, Chekov and Uhura.
I posted their stats in the topic "TOS stats in CODA" in the Narrator's Ready Room Forum just now. I welcome all your input. Cheers! :)
Since 2004, I've had an Android as a central character in my campaign- Lt. Commander Omega (short for Prototype Unit Alpha-Omega-425)
A quick description: He's bald, and a sort of Bolian-blue (I use a photoshopped image of Michael Rosenbaum to represent Omega). He is a hybrid built from the remains of two Androids from Mudd's Planet (TOS) found in a crashed shuttle on an asteroid by an eccentric hermit scientist.
Later, he was somewhat rebuilt, and upgraded to include internal components based on the Soong Type design.
He serves as Operations Manager on the USS Legacy.
Originally, Omega was created in the FASA system. And I used the stats they gave for Data in their TNG Season 1 Sourcebook as a starting template. Omega came out very well- not at all an overpowering character (no moreso than Data is on the show), but playing Omega would give a Data fan the feel of actually stepping into Data's Starfleet-issue boots for a moment.
Last night I converted Omega to CODA (and mulled over the fact that his name- Omega -sounds like it should be a game system in it's own right). I used Artilects, and my own system for converting FASA to CODA. And I think his character sheet came out quite well.
It definitely added to the character to include flaws, and edges. And Omega was actually one of our characters I found it easiest to convert.
I wish Decipher had come out with a book (or books) with game stats for the TV show characters ! When you're converting characters that have been established over (sometimes) more than a decade of role playing, it would really help to see the kinda of skill levels, attributes, and etc. the canon characters have for a comparison.
Also... well... the idea of a Voyager game with the Voyager characters would really appeal to me.
Well, they did convert over three of the characters from each series (at least from the first four series) in the Narrator's Guide, so it at least gives one a ballpark place to start (to compare one to Kirk, Picard, Worf, Janeway, etc.)Quote:
Originally Posted by FASAGrrl