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I've never had a beef with the quality of ICON material or it's character generation system. Whenever I GM a game those unexpected die roll results that should have succeeded/failed are what keeps me on my toes and makes the players feel that they can have an outcome on the story thread/adventure. Otherwise if turns into a Railroad the Players Game!
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Except that, dice rolled, looking at the Poor result, generated by Mechanics, you know that it "Should have succeeded, Should have failed." And do what? Fall back on "The Dice say so, and we hate the system don't we?" Or Rule.
This is my point.
SO get rid of the dice, or don't rely on them, and tell the story.
It's not railroading the players. It's a shared story.
Players desribe their actions, you describe what happens, players react, the world reacts.
They get choices, so does the GM.
If they don't get choices, it's railroading.
- LUGTrekGM
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...So it's the things they have only a small affect over (in chargen, no less?), and that you interpret for them anyway, that gives them the feeling of having power? As opposed to all the stuff they do in between?Originally Posted by Silverback
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Players have a choice of whether to use the character packages method, the point-buy methof or a combination of both when creating their character, I'd say that's full control not lack of control.
And yes the result of dice rolls should influence how the story/adventure/scenario pans out. Otherwise it becomes shared storytelling based upon the GM's preconceptions of what exactly should happen rather than an actual game based upon the characters individual abilities and skills. If the characters 'screw-up' due to either bad die rolls OR bad decision-making then it should have a direct impact upon the scenario. It makes the characters think their way out of situations and/or find alternate solutions - just like they do in Star Trek when things don't quite go 'right'.
If the players have roleplayed an encounter/situation particularly well/badly then a small bonus/penalty should be awarded to the die roll to reflect the quality of their roleplaying. This is where the ICON system 'falls down' as statistically it doesn't make a significant amount of difference whether or not a character has better skills/attributes than another. This is why I've chosen FUDGE - there's still the possibilty of 'wild results' happening but with far less frequency than occurs under the ICON system.
If you wish to continue arguing the validity of the ICON system you may do so - it just doesn't suit the needs of me and my group who, by the way, love the way I run my Star Trek games.
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Except for the whole, you know, dice and GM thing.
But it can't be anything else...And yes the result of dice rolls should influence how the story/adventure/scenario pans out. Otherwise it becomes shared storytelling based upon the GM's preconceptions of what exactly should happen rather than an actual game based upon the characters individual abilities and skills.
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"Otherwise it becomes shared storytelling."
To me, that's the point of the game, not...
"Based on idividual abilities and skills."
That's a character sheet, and numbers and stats.
The character is in the heroic choices, and fear, and courage under fire.
I've often done it as:
Gen up the PC let's see what they have, their background, history, assignments, then pitch all that out and just ***Play.***
The player knows who the character is and doesn't need a sheet to tell them +2 this or +3(4) that. That's all reference and notes for the ad lib, just like my plot is notecards, that often have to be pitched, when they zig, when i thought they were going to zag...
when they kill the ambassador, by accident, rather than save him in the nick of time...
...When they cross into romulan space against three vessels bewcause some metagamer said "No, it canb't be that tough, or it wouldn't be here to fight."
....When they countdown to blow up the ship, and I let it happen.
When they shoot Spock in the face with a phaser on stun, because they thought he was a romulan spy, dressed as Spock, because paranoia took hold among the command crew...
What actually happens is when we sit down at the session.
In my games. Basic idea, what happens is shared. And i have to struggle to keep up with the changes, just like the players do.
Your mileage may vary.
- LUGTrekGM
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I'm glad you found it, and hope you've found it useful. It sounds like FUDGE is a good match for your group.
Please let me know if there are parts that work better than others; I never did get a chance to playtest it.
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I've been looking at it from the ground up - so to speak. Rather than switch to FUDGE terminology I've just subtracted 2 from the ICON numeric scores so that an ICON score of 2 becomes Fair (0) under FUDGE. Therefore scores now run from -2 to +4/5 rather than 0 to 6/7.
The difficulties from ICON and FUDGE can then be transferred across on a like-for-like basis. We're also considering reducing the number of Attributes and Edges by reducing them into probably half a dozen core characteristics. We found that the application of Edges caused too much dissent amongst the group.
If I have any further notes I'll start a new thread in the General RP, Systems, & Mechanics section of the forum rather than letting this thread slide off at a tangent.
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