Player's and Narrator's Guides Core Rules: What's broken?

[Ergi]

Something I would like to see is a one-page (or less) summary of the character creation process. I'm not 100 per cent sure, but I think there is no such thing in the PG. This list should include all steps necessary, as well as the page numbers of the required chapters.

Another thing I'd like to have are rules for creating unjoined Trills. Most Trill aren't joined, and Ezri is living proof, that even in Starfleet there are unjoined Trill.
A IMHO great flaw that could go with that would be Jealous: the player has to make a ??? test, every time she could make life harder for a joined member of her species.

I could live without the flaw, though. Somebody pointed out to me once, that due to the reverred status of the symbionts in Trill society, such behavior would be very unlikely. This argument hasn't really convinced me, but maybe that's just because I'm human and not a Trill.

[RayJ]

Mirror Universe gives rules for unjoined trill for the mirror universe. I'm not sure the benefits are as good as being joined, but porting that over would make a good start.

I agree, however that a more in-depth explanation of character creation could be useful.

[PGoodman13]

I agree, however that a more in-depth explanation of character creation could be useful.

Something like this, perhaps?

[Ergi]

Something like this, perhaps?

I knew somebody had done such a document, however I didn't remember, that it was you.

Having this somewhere in the book, maybe as an appendix, would be highly useful.

Mirror Universe gives rules for unjoined trill for the mirror universe. I'm not sure the benefits are as good as being joined, but porting that over would make a good start.

It seems I will have to buy Mirror Universe after all.

[PGoodman13]

I knew somebody had done such a document, however I didn't remember, that it was you.

Having this somewhere in the book, maybe as an appendix, would be highly useful.

I don't know about in the book, but Kieran has been provided the raw text of the document so that he can make it all nice and pretty for the website when it goes live, as well as a reasonably detailed example of character generation (which needs some polishing still). Will that do?

[GandalfOfBorg]

One of the latest issues of Beyond the Final Frontier includes a very detailed character creation guide along with an example iir.

[CaptCStark]

I hope this is the place for me to bring this up.

The RPG group I GM are mostly Star Trek fans (part of a local club). A few of them are experienced RPGers, but the majority are first time gamers. Thus when they are reacting to my sessions, they usually try to justify it off of what they have seen ont he show. Which brings me to my question:

Narrator's Guide, Page 119: Ramming Speed Maneuver. Prerequisite: Cannot be used at a Full Stop.

As a GM, I've altered this prerequisite because the Enterprise-E was able to perform this manuver in Star Trek: Nemesis. If both vessels are at a Full Stop, then the ship that has initiative may perform this Maneuver.

I believe that the Narator's Guide was released before Star Trek: Nemesis so I see the logic behind it. I just thought that the rule needed adjusting.

Thanks for the opportunity to bring this up.

[Tobian]

Depends on how you want to look at it. You could argue that mechanically the ship just built up speed with a manouevre first. Having speed behind you would be essential to do something other than bounce off the shields or scratch the paint

[PGoodman13]

Ballance in Trek is essential to make it work. The existience of the Federation makes PC's bellong to rational right thinking pacifists.. however in reality players do not come from a utopianist society, and are used to playing things like D&D, so they can become statto's and minmaxers.. This is not the place to discuss those issues, but what I am trying to say is basically it is exactly the way in which it is designed which makes me like the system.. it seems ballanced, and that's a complement to the designers!

It was a kludge; it went through several iterations, some of which have relics left in the existing text.

I tend to agree with Ergi that Psi needs to be treated like a normal attribute.

If I understandy your house rules on telepathy, what you are saying is essentially everyone rolls on a 7th statistic, and if you don't chose to be a telepath, then you distribute those points to your other stats?! This would mean a higher base character stats than the present spread. Or am I misunderstanding you? If you're suggesting only telepaths get this seventh roll, then I find that unfair and I would have 'fixed' it had it been part of the official rules. it is one of the bad parts about ICON which I feel Coda fixed.

Here's how I understood it, and what I'm proposing:

If a player chooses a psionic race (a Vulcan or a Betazoid, for instance), instead of having just a flat 4 in the Attribute, it would be treated as just another Attribute. If the player is using the roll method of character generation, they get to roll 2D6 10 times (instead of the standard 9) and discard the lowest 3. If they're using the pick method, they get an additional 4 to put somewhere, but they get no extra bonus points to spread around; like everyone else, they'd still just get 8 bonus points.

Alternately, they could just take the best 7 scores of the 9 already rolled if using the roll method for generating attributes.

I don't see how this treats psions unfairly, and neither do I see how it treats non-psions unfairly.

I also happen to like the wide zero base spread of the stat modifier as well, as I find it incredibly disapointing and annoying to get a negative stat, and given the actual Startrek setting, innapropriate; given that most Starfleet officers are in their worlds 98th percentile, and ergo their counterparts are equally as good (non Starfleet characters etc) because they register as more than blips on the radar of teeming billions!

I can take or leave the changes to the attribute modifier table, but I can certainly understand where Ergi's coming from with that. I can also understand where you're coming from with your stance. This is why I'm leaving it up to someone else, since it's not a big issue to me from a development standpoint.

I am not sure if I am missing the point of the question here but surelly the character creation process creates characters at the beginning of their career....

Yep; says so right on page 97 of the PG.

Ergi's not asking for initial chargen to create Kirks and Picards. He was asking for an oddball attribute to be treated just like any of the other attributes, and I don't see a problem with trying to make that happen.

[PGoodman13]

Okay, in regards to this and my last announcement: This is your last call to get in suggestions as to what's broken in the Star Trek RPG Player's Guide, since I'm working on getting the errata document together for Decipher for layout and such. I need any further input on this by, say, Friday 5 May 2006. That'll give me time to run it past our volunteer development group and get it compiled to turn in by the beginning of the following week.

Thanks for your help and your input so far.

[PGoodman13]

Managed to miss this all those moons ago...guess it's good I'm reviewing this thread.

The first of these is mixed species. Decipher's team did an excellent job of fitting a lot of information into such a small space, but maybe a full-page explanation could help to broaden the topic. The only problem with these rules is the fact that the player gets to roll two sets of attributes and apply the highest rolls to the attributes he will choose from that race, resulting in higher overall attributes for a mixed-species character. Under these rules, it is almost best to have every character be mixed species of some sort.

To correct this, have the palyer roll a single set of stats and choose the 6 he would like to use. Apply the numbers identically to both species and then take the picks from each. This will create a more balanced hybrid of the two species.

I think I like this idea. I'll run it up the flagpole and see who salutes.

The second thing of note is the favored profession given for each species. As it currently stands, this is just flavor text and doesn't contribute anything rules-wise unless I havecompletely missed something in my many readings of the PLayer's Guide (not impossible). I would like to see some sort of bonus for a species entering its favored profession rules-wise so that it is more than just a guideline.

This one I'm not so wild about. I like it as flavor text, because I don't see a particular need to reward someone for creating a stereotype. I honestly don't think it's a problem as it stands.

[LUGTrekGM]

Perhaps thwese have been suggested before:

Less busy character sheets.


And if it was possible to go year by year or at stages through character generation, a LA FASA, and LUG, that'd be a greeeeeat help for clarity, for writing bios, for figuring out what is what.

The way it is now, it's way too confusing for me, and my small group. We are staying very firmly attached to ICON as a result, because it doesn't feel tep by step, it fells like some kind of holisitc overview, that you have to force numbers to match, not In the first year of the academy, I studied X, then 2, 3rd, 4th, then cadet cruise, then a rom border frontier mission, a medical rescue mission, etc.

Or some guidelines as to how to accomplish that within the rules.

Finally character conversions from FASA and LUG would be really helpful. I know there are fan sites (and this one, right?) with it, but maybe something official?

[Ineti]

And if it was possible to go year by year or at stages through character generation, a LA FASA, and LUG, that'd be a greeeeeat help for clarity, for writing bios, for figuring out what is what.

Or some guidelines as to how to accomplish that within the rules.

Try going here and download issue 7 of the Beyond the Final Frontier webzine. There's an article in there by Trek-RPG.net's very own Doug Burke on using tours of duty in the Coda system.

[Ergi]

I agree that the mixed species rules should be changed. Right now, they are loophole for powergamers. RayJ's suggestion would be an improvement, but it would still allow a player to select all the positive attribute modifiers from the two parent species and ignore the negative modifiers. Okay, this isn't possible for all combinations, sometimes you would have to pick one or two small negative modifiers, but the Vulcan-Betazoid would be such a negative example (INT +1, STR +2, PRS +1). This would be unfair to non-mixed characters, since for the other species, the positive and negative attribute modifiers add up to zero, or a positive balance is paid for elsewhere (less species abilities or courage points). And since the mixed species background can be selected for free, the other characters would be at the disadvantage.
Therefore I suggest that step 2 and 3 of the mixed species generation rules are changed.
Roll or pick your unmodified attributes as normal, i.e. you create only one set.
Then you add up all the positive and negative attribute modifiers of the two parent species and divide the result by two (rounding up). The result is X.

Example
Klingon [STR +1, VIT +1, INT -1, PER -1] & Betazoid [PRE +1]
Total = +1
1 : 2 = 0.5
X = +1

Now you create your individual set of attribute modifiers, using the parent species' modifiers as upper and lower limits, respectively (no modifier for one of the species means that the limit is 0). For this you have X points to spend. You can get additional points by lowering applicable attribute modifiers by the same amount.

The player would like to have high modifiers for Strength and Presence. However, he has only one point to spend (X = 1) unless, he also selects a negative modifier. Only the Klingons have negative modifiers, so he can select either Intellect -1 or Perception -1. If he also wanted the typical Klingon Vitality modifier of +1, he would also have to reduce the other attribute by 1, too. Selecting an Intellect modifier of -2 wouldn't be possible, since this would be outside the allowed limits.

[The Tatterdemalion King]

I agree that the mixed species rules should be changed. Right now, they are loophole for powergamers.

Trek, more than most other games, needs a big genre-hammer to swat powergamers with.