This is a sort of survey I'd like to start after reading the "Is the ICON system too lethal" thread in the Questions & Mechanics section. In our TNG games combat on the personnel level is a rare occurence (as is starship combat, BTW) and fist-fights happen about once a year.
How is it in your games, are fist and phaser combats a common thing or what?
And if you are a Narrator and answering this post: Do you just throw in combats to spice up a dull game or do you use them only when it's really necessary to advance the story?
Any comment welcome!
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"To seek, to strive, to find and not to yield" - Alfred Tennyson
>>"How is it in your games, are fist and phaser combats a common thing or what?"<<
Well, in the TOS games I run, they're almost par for the course. They don't happen with alarming frequency but you might see one every other game session.
But then.... TOS is quite different in feel and flavor than TNG.
>>"And if you are a Narrator and answering this post: Do you just throw in combats to spice up a dull game or do you use them only when it's really necessary to advance the story?"<<
I use them when it's suits the nature of the situation... not as a relief from boredom.
As a player, I think my character alone ended up in 5 fist fights, 1 hand-phaser, 3 ship (plus one other ship based, but when your in a shuttle and a Romulan Warbird decloaks you run and let the Big ships talk. So I'm not counting that one), and one very, very strange battle (We were faceing more Klingons than we knew what to do with, and there was a jamming field set up to prevent energy weapons from working, by the end of the fight I had one dead and 3 uncon. Klingons around me, at that point I knew what was going through Kirk's mind near the end of ST:...umm the Quest for God one...ya know looking down the barral of a B'Rel (the whole thing just screemed PLOT DEVICE). Unlike Kirk though, I didn't lose heart, nor was I beamed on board, I stood there with the remains of a Bat'Leth (like it was going to do any good, right).
Oh and two of the fist fights and the phaser fight happened in the same session, repelling borders.
As a GM there has yet to be a single fight of any type (I'm fairly certain that is gion to change next session) other than character banter of each other...the childish type...
Well bye bye...Phoenix...
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"Of all the shadows cast in this world, it is my own that I fear the most"
-Phoenix Merrick 2001
In the two seasons my group has played, we've had all of two fistfights/melee combats. In one of the two cases, it wasn't even an anticipated part of the plot, but the result of a challenge between players. The event promoted RP not only between the combatants, but between their (player-character) seconds and witnesses, and enhanced the campaign...the event added backstory for everyone involved, was nonlethal, and the players had a blast OOCly. :-) Perhaps fistfights do hail more towards Kirk's era, but we have ample evidence of fists proving their power a century later, particularly with Sisko whacking Q on his arse. ;-) In LUGTrek, phaser battles have a tendency to be vicious, short and unmerciful, which in my not-so-humble-opinion, is not very heroic...so fistfights allow a wonderful way of introducing cinematic struggles to Trek.
Our characters get into their fair share of fist fights, but it's not something that happens a lot either. We spend far more time role playing and problem solving, than we do rolling dice.
More often than not if there is combat it's phaser fights, which are just as lethal as they should be.
As far as the hand to hand combat rules, I don't think they're too lethal. If you're fighting an evenly matched character, things can go on for a while. Sure, one or two good hits can put a character's lights out, but that's the way it should be. And if you're fighting a superior opponent, well you should go down quickly. And vice versa of course.
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Captain Daniel Hunter
CO NCC-74600, U.S.S. Intrepid Star Trek: Intrepid
How many fist-fights in your games ?
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