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Sorry I missed that game, Sheliak Bob! Good use of the Kzinti
As for Starfleet Voyages- you really don't need a copy in your collection. It included the spaceship rules and didn't really change much to the original rules, except remove the proper names (no licence...). I'll look. Mayby I still have an extra somewhere. ...maybe.
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"The best diplomat I know is a fully charged phaser bank" -Montgomery Scott
Okay I need to know exactly what the names of these two games are Cmdr Powers, as like Bob, I must possess them in my collection of Star Trek gaming.
Maybe I will be able to find something at Toronto Trek later this summer
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Aslan Collas
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RPG_Trek; http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rpg-trek
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Ferengi Rule Of Acquisition #76: Every once in a while, declare peace. It confuses the hell out of your enemies.
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lol Sheliak Bob!
Reminds me of my own games in high school in the 80's. My GM based a scenario off of Hunt for Red October (the book--movie wasn't out for like 3-4 more years). An experimental Federation ship was hijacked and headed for the Triangle. Our ship was ordered to stop it all costs.
The problem? This was a ship designed to start a war. A light cruiser with a cloaking device, the prototype for a new line of ships. The commander decided that the best way to level the field was to sell it to the highest bidder in the Triangle.
Best scenes:
My confrontation with the Klingon commander on the scene. I was the captian (Andorian)in a Loknar class. The Klingon was in an L-42 Greater Bird. But I bluffed him through intense role-playing and a really good roll. Just as I had him cornered right where I wanted him, my g-f at the time popped up with "Excuse me, Captain Pooh-Bear, message from Star Fleet Command." I turned white. So much for armed negotiation.
Later, we had arranged to evac the crew. The captain wouldn't let us use transporters, only the little shuttles that dock at the photon bays (ST 2). We had to make 3 trips. Our engineer faked a problem with shuttle (the doomyflothcy was causing ionic particles to leak, making scans of the shuttle impossible). We let the first 2 trips go by w/o incident ("lull them into a false sense of security"); on the 3rd trip we loaded the shuttle with Marines and our security and helm officer. Now, the Klingons already had troops on board, but we had determined that there were only 2 at the docking port. When the doors opened, the helm officer (who was standing at the back/entry with our Kzin sec off) shouted "Open Fire!" Sitting on the Bridge of the avatar and unable to say or do anything, I clapped my hand to my forehead seeing the flaw in this reasoning. Fortunately, so did the Kzin--he tackled the helm off to the floor as disruptor and phaser bolts flew by overhead.
To make a long story short, the captain of the Rommel, released the anti-intruder gas (forgot our breathing apparatus). However, the Kzin kept making these outrageously difficult endurance rolls while climbing up the turbolift to the bridge...finally failed though.
The captain and his officers hauled the rest of our crew to the shuttle and ejected them. the captain then commed us and told us why he did what he did. Then he blew up the ship and we went back to SFC for answers.
Hey, we were 16-17 too!
Just sharing a few FASA memories.
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Hi Cmdr Powers!
How are things at the bookstore? Haven't seen you in a while.
The Cmdr still writes here and there. In fact, my Warhammer buddy and I played a mini game designed by Cmdr. It was a blast, too.
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You would be looking for Star Trek: Adventure Gaming on the Final Frontier by Michael Scott Kurtick, published by Heritage Games, and Starfleet Voyages by the same, published by Terra Games. Both titles in bad need of errata and rewrites. A whole bunch (hundreds) were given away as a premium at one of the Coastcons down in Biloxi, MS.<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by AslanC:
Okay I need to know exactly what the names of these two games are Cmdr Powers, as like Bob, I must possess them in my collection of Star Trek gaming.
Maybe I will be able to find something at Toronto Trek later this summer
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I went and dug out my copy of SV and gave my wincing muscles another workout. God that needed an editior so bad!
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"The best diplomat I know is a fully charged phaser bank" -Montgomery Scott
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Glad you enjoyed it! Simpler is sometimes better. Working at BAM is great- except for rotating shift schedules that seriously interfere with the idea of weekly gaming sessions.<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Dave:
Hi Cmdr Powers!
How are things at the bookstore? Haven't seen you in a while.
The Cmdr still writes here and there. In fact, my Warhammer buddy and I played a mini game designed by Cmdr. It was a blast, too.
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"The best diplomat I know is a fully charged phaser bank" -Montgomery Scott
Registered User
Redwood973, why not contact Zocchi Distributers and see if they have any copies of Star Fleet Battle Manual? Then you'd have something to go with. Of course, you could adapt one of the many other games to the compass and string method of play. In order for it to work properly, you need to have phaser ranges on the order of 3 to 5 feet with movements in the foot or so range or less. This seems to give the proper feel (assuming you're using micromachines, that is). Since SFBM was licensed by Franz Joseph Schnaubelt, would you believe that we used 400 grad compass roses instead of 360 degree ones? 45 degrees equals 50 grads and so on. Check out the Star Fleet Technical Manual and you'll see what I mean.
Good luck! The SFBM has needed an updating for over a decade!
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"The best diplomat I know is a fully charged phaser bank" -Montgomery Scott
[This message has been edited by Cmdr Powers (edited 06-08-2001).]
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Hay I like it! I use Micro-Machines for any fleet activities. I'm going to try making some and see how it works. Any suggestions or comments from experience would be appreciated.<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Cmdr Powers:
The Star Fleet Battle Manual is played with 4"X4" cards- 1 per ship. On a card is printed a circular compass rose. A length of fishing line or thread is attached to the center of the rose. You use the line to rotate the card to a new heading, to see if your angle-plotted phaser fire hits the enemy ships, and to measure if your phasers are in range. For example: If you plotted a turn to starboard of 25 degrees, you would pull the line taut and move it to the right until it was over the 25 mark, then rotate the card until O reaches the line. You then move the ship the plotted distance for that turn. Phaser fire is eye-balled by looking down on the card and deciding what angle might hit an opponent. You then stretch out the line over that angle. If the line reaches the enemy, you're in range. If the line is over the angle you wrote for phaser fire AND crosses the enemy ship silhouette, you made a hit. Your phaser fire reduces his shields, etc, etc. Did that help any?
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Was going through those old notes again. Couldn't help it, once the nostalgia thing took hold. Most of the stuff was, um, "quaint" or "amusing" but some bits showed promise. This one caught my eye:
Planet: Nieblos 4
situated right smack on the Federation/Kzinti border zone, regularly patrolled by ships from both sides, though Kzinti police cruisers have nominal jurisdiction.
A terrestrial planet with an inexplicably thick and exotic atmosphere, given to megalightning storms and unpredictable atmospheric disturbances.
The main colony is an "Ion-mining Station", a floating anti-grav habitat built and maintained by colonists from Ardana (remember Stratos?). The Ardanans (nevermind the stats I gave them for the game, different mechanics. they'd translate roughly as straight "2's" in ICON with a +1 Logic, +1 Empathy and -1 Vitality) basically harvest electrical energy and charged ions from the megalightning, using them to charge "ionic capacitors" big crystal thingies that plug into ships' shields. The ionic capacitors use like charges to shield ships from the effects of ion storms. They are particularly popular with smaller ships that don't have as powerful of shields as the big Federation cruisers. The capacitors let smaller ships run safely through storms that otherwise would shred their shields and break up the ship.
They can also be adapted for use in Ion Drive propulsion systems--favored by the Orions. The Ion Drives don't make a "warp wake"/signature in modern usage which the Federation sensing stations can detect at long ranges. The downside is that the ion trails left by these drives are three to four times as easy to follow, once you run across them, and last for a very long time. Orion smugglers and pirates slipping across the border into Kzinti space do so very near Nieblos 4, thanks to a region of intense ion storms and charged nebulosities near there.
Also, the ionic capacitors can be rewired to be used as weapons, creating a kind of megalightning cannon. That's why the Kzinti REALLY want them.
The Kzin have a permanent presence on the Nieblos habitat. Their sector of the floating city is called "Tiger Town" (but not infront of the Kzin). Kzin "restaurants" there are in fact intricate mazes with gardens where the Kzin can stalk living prey. Preferrably living prey that will make for an intriguing hunt. Gangs of humanoid thugs called "Caterers" abduct victims off the streets in the seedier parts of the Nieblos port sector to sell as "entres" to the ever hungry Kzin. (an Edoan PC, an expert in "Space Karate"--don't blame me, James Blish wrote it!--triple kicked the snot out of a surprised Kzinti hunter in one of those mazes).
Beneath the Nieblos floating city-station was a "roiling cloudscape" of multi-colored gases. Red, green, blue, orange etc. all distinct and never flowing into one another, with very strange chemical properties. The surface under the cloud-layer has never been properly mapped. Sensor scans are blocked by properties of the clouds. Lightning flickers constantly through the clouds and reaches up to strike at the capacitor-charging rods hanging down from the station so frequently that the crashing booms sound like surf and can be heard & felt throughout the city. Natives are used to the constant pounding. It can be unsettling for visitors though.
The scenario started out with a crazed Kzinti telepath "prophet" wandering the streets holding his ears and shrieking that "THEY" were coming to destroy the city. He was killed by a discharge from the central capacitor core before the PC's could interrogate him.
Meanwhile, under the cloud cover, Orion smuggler-slaver-pirates have set up a domed base. They use a tractor-beam shield funnel to open a hole through the clouds and guide down their ships. Ships trying to go through the cloudlayer without such protection are generally torn apart by hurricane force winds. Inside the dome, the Orions have set up a decadent pleasure palace. They know what everyone else on the planet doesn't. The multi-colored "clouds" and "mists" on the planet are actually living creatures, gaseous beings with a rich and varied ecosystem. Most importantly, the blue ones, which send out siren-like emanations that occasionally cause a colonist to jump from the city railings, can be "smoked" by filtering through a water-pipe type system. The "blue fog" is a powerful narcotic and aphrodisiac, but is also very addictive. The living being which is "smoked" by the user is forced into the smoker's bloodstream where it slowly dies. "Blue fog" also makes the smoker immune to phaser stun effects and more resistant to other settings of energy weapons. (The gaseous beings absorb energy attacks--it came right off the charts!)
The PC's found the Orion base by breaking up a den of "Blue Fog" smokers on the Nieblos station. These addicts had been smuggling ionic capacitors to the Orions. The PC's had to set down in a reinforced shuttle (being unable to just fly down the funnel without alerting the Orions that they were coming). They found that there was no wind of any kind on the barren, Mars-like surface. But colored fogs and mists drifted like serpents through the canyons and craters. And attacked them. A LOT. With gaseous "teeth"! (It was loads of fun watching the PC's panic, blasting away with ineffectual phasers while a red cloud ATE party members! weeeee!)
Eventually, they discovered that while phasers were useless, a simple hand-held fan could be used like a "sword" to chop apart the gaseous beings. They hacked their way to the base. The Klingons had gotten there first and were staking out the Orion operation, but my PC's assumed that they were "parameter guards" and attacked them, driving them off. They infiltrated the base and killed or captured all the Orions inside, and found vital clues to the smuggling route, as well as an unexplained room full of dirt from the planet Phylos with "grow lamps" overhead. (A guest room for the villainous Dr. Bega!)
all in all, a very fun scenario that I cannot believe I ran ALL of in a single night. (These days, with things like, oh, "characterization" and "role-playing" I'd probably take at least four sessions to work through all the Nieblos plot. I'm not sure, in retrospect that is such a good thing. It was, after all, a very entertaining and action filled evening--way back then.)
I'm seriously considering revamping the whole Nieblos scenario and retooling it for LUGTrek. I might have to replace the Kzinti with another hostile alien species (or not, I generally don't see them as "canon" anymore, but do have a soft spot in me heart for the little man-eatin' tiggers!)
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Oh yeah. Forgot a couple of items.
The "Blue Fog" once smoked, leaves blotches of blue on the skin of the users. This isn't noticeable among the Orions. (Following the precedent of the "Pirates of Orion" animated episode, which depicted the Orion males as having light blue skin, and the "Journey to Babel" bit about an Orion agent masquerading as an Andorian with fake antennae, I went with the idea that Orion males have blue skin while Orion females are green.)
The leader of the Orions under the dome had smoked so much "Blue Fog" that he was practically possessed by the gaseous beings he was consuming. He was in fact becoming deranged and referred to himself as an "Emperor of the Clouds" and used what his nervous underlings only THOUGHT was the Imperial plural when referring to himself. He was secretly organizing the cloud creatures, who offered up their blue brethren as tribute, for an attack on the Nieblos station.
The scenario in fact ended with the PC's, with their prisoners, escaping up the funnel and returning to the city just in time to help defend it from an assault by a gigantic "cloud army" of gaseous creatures. The indigenous creatures used lightning as "artillery" and "stormed" the gates of the city. They were turned back by rerigging the environmental controls so that the circulation fans that were everywhere in the habitat could be made to blow outward, shredding the invaders.
Mind you, all of this would lead to horrendous Prime Directive issues in a more sophisticated game, and I'd have trouble imagining that the Federation, once they knew about the sentient cloud creatures, allowing the colony to stay in place at all!
At the time, it was just a rousing siege-battle finish to the adventure, with PC's, Ardanans, Orions, Kzin and even a few Klingons fighting side by side against the "monstrous" enemies.
Ah, The Good Ol' Days!
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VERY COOL! I now know the origin of that white box labeled "Starfleet Voyages" that's sitting on my bookshelf.<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Cmdr Powers:
You would be looking for Star Trek: Adventure Gaming on the Final Frontier by Michael Scott Kurtick, published by Heritage Games, and Starfleet Voyages by the same, published by Terra Games. Both titles in bad need of errata and rewrites. A whole bunch (hundreds) were given away as a premium at one of the Coastcons down in Biloxi, MS.
I went and dug out my copy of SV and gave my wincing muscles another workout. God that needed an editior so bad!
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Yup, there it is, Terra Games, copyright July 1982. I don't seem to have the Gamescience High Impact dice, however.
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Ah, another Baton Rougean. One of the many joys of self-publishing your own game is sitting at a table for hours, stuffing dice in little ziplocks and assembling the other components of the game. Quite an education in production necessities... Maybe you already used your dice for some other game and just forgot where they came from?
On another thought, get in touch if you want to be involved in a game or two I'm running locally.
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"The best diplomat I know is a fully charged phaser bank" -Montgomery Scott
Moderator
Don said:
"Interestingly, White Flame is the only FASA Trek product I don’t own. That sucker is difficult to find."
You want a copy, Don? Mine is surplus to my needs - interesting read, but I never ran any of the scenarios. It's in pretty good shape - a couple of minor creases and scuffs on the spine is about all.
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you guys just missed my auction then, one of the things I had was White Flame :-)
Dave
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