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Thread: One Shot, One Kill

  1. #16
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    Jem'Hadar, I think the point is was to get a more epic rather than realistic aspect to the games. In the movies, the Enterprise always suffer a lot of damage without blowing up, while ennemy ships tend to blow after one successful hit. It goes the same for brawls in movies : one bullet or one punch is enough to deck most unnamed guards (while the superboss takes much more time), but the hero on the other hand suffer at worst flesh wounds or a bruised eye.
    And most game rules usually don't allow this sort of things, except with incredibly lucky rolls, something which doesn't happen every time.
    "The main difference between Trekkies and Manchester United fans is that Trekkies never trashed a train carriage. So why are the Trekkies the social outcasts?"
    Terry Pratchett

  2. #17
    "If it can happen in the shows, it can happen in my games."

    That's a good idea.

    It is my feeling though, that you are trying too hard.

    As Ensign Deconn says, (and C5 also) it's for expediency, as the writers don't want each show to be a half hour long space battle (or hand to hand) with all the maneuvers and such, unles sthe episode is ABOUT the space battle.

    In TOS "City on the Edge of Forever", McCoy (who is not known for his martial arts skills, at all) enters the Transporter room (albeit jacked up on cordrazine), and with a Space Karate chop to the neck, and looks like the left kidney, he takes out a transporter operator tech in two moves, taking all of 1 second, and the guy goes down.

    The next scene is Kirk and people on the bridge being notified MCoy has left the boat via transporter. So the story flows, rather than have McCoy wrestle with this younger, stronger looking guy, and stop the story right there.

    I don't think this requires rules, so much as the narrator deciding ahead of time, what story he/ she wants.

    If you need to have an npc escape the ship, he does, via this one hit deal. If it's all about capturing him, and interrogating him, use the rules as written, or just rule that security shows up, and captures the guy.

    Space opera has a few unwritten conventions:
    (this applies to Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, etc. etc. ad infinitum)

    The good guys fly in white ships, while the bad guys fly in ships that are greenish grey or black.

    All good guy ships with characters on them, pretty much no matter what the size, can take multiple hits, (if it's a small fighter, it takes less than a cruiser, though)bad guy ships or good guy ships with no Main story characters on them die with one or two shots.

    Any bad guy ship with the Evil Commander or the Series Focus Crew, takes a boatload of damage.

    The only way to truly destroy a good guy ship, piloted by the series crew is to have them self destruct, or fight an IMPOSSIBLE MONSTER SHIP (Like the Borg), and then they find the Secrtet Weakness to killing it. (Usually by a spy mission)

    I loved the mook rule in LOTR, many many games have this, Gangbusters, Twilight:2000, and others.

    It allows PCs who are tough as nails, to fight a bunch of bad guys, without having to have a stack of paperwork to keep track of bad guy's hit points, etc etc.
    Twilight:2000 was especially good for this, since bullets are so lethal, the PCs get extra hit points.

    Really if you want to simulate what you are seeing on screen, go for it. With your triple damage rules, etc, it WILL make it more dramatic, for both PC and bad guy crews. Just be prepared to lose the ship of the player crew. If you are okay with that, and they are, game on.

    Doing it as a story / plot factor without as many rules serves the same purpose. When a PC rolls some incredible shot with a full salvo of torps, ***Boom*** the bad guys cancel Christmas. no need to count up shield points. It just gets there with less rules. Same deal.

    As long as your players are happy with it, there it is.

    I think keeping down the amount of paperwork is always a big key. Just depends on how gritty you want to make it. Sometimes it's MORE of a challenge to force players to maneuver, twist and turn to set up for the perfect kill shot, using all the rules.

    Star Warriors the board game of the Star Wars d6 by WEG was kind of like that.
    If you muffed up your maneuver, you got a TIE on your tail, and usually lost an engine or got torched. And to get on the tail of one was difficult, but if you did, he was smoked. Trek is a different flavor, being large scale ships, but the idea is there.

    Big Mon cal cruiser / Star destroyer ships in that game, real simple combat: roll a pile of d6, each "6" scored on a ship within range was a hit, and reduced the amount of gun dice the enemy was firing accordlingly.

    Ships were slow and could move a space and turn or move two spaces straight (If I recall correctly). To the players that wanted gritty simulation, it seemed too random.

    To the players that wanted to see BIG SHIPS GO BOOM (TM) real fast, while they were zooming around in X-wings, Y-wings, and A-wings as Squadron commanders, it was just exactly perfect.

    Since I was in the latter category of player / ref, I used that system as written, since it was easy to track, implement and use, and didn't need a damn Star Fleet Battles control sheet for each ship present, so that we could have a fleet engagement of say 10-15 ships per side, and finish it up in an hour, or LESS.

    Anyway, nice to see people still playing LUG version. I'm glad to see that, since it seemed a lot of the Decipher faction was a lot more numerous around here.

  3. #18
    Wow!

    Thanks again LUG.

    Nice response.

    As for as trying to hard, that's not it.

    I'm bored and I have too much time on my hands lol!!

    I have rewritten all my NPC's at leat 3 times (and there are about 10 of them).

    So I decided to try to make my game more like the movies.

    I really wish someone would tell me where those Mook rules are in LOTR. I have all the books and can't find them anywhere.

    Again, thanks for the feedback.
    If Matt Damon is going to be Captain Kirk, does that mean Ben Affleck is gonna be Mr. Spock?

  4. #19
    Search these forums for Mook, I think Doug Burke or Don or one of those famous designers (TM) reprinted or excerpted them. I saw them again 2 or 3 days ago.

  5. #20
    HELL YEAH!!!

    I FOUND DA MOOKS!!!!!

    PG. 270 LOTR under Combat Pacing!

    Kinda makes my Minion Rules moot though lol!!

    Thanks LUG!!!
    If Matt Damon is going to be Captain Kirk, does that mean Ben Affleck is gonna be Mr. Spock?

  6. #21
    Join Date
    Jul 2008
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    Animate thread!

    Hrm, that was kinda creepy....


    Anyhow, just to chime in the way I do damage to unshielded ships is weapon damage +2 for complete, +4 for superior, +6 for extraordinary. I'm a little leery of writing one shot, one kill rules in, especially when it could take out the entire party. Cinematic insta-kills on NPC ships is another story.

    For character action, I think the phaser combat is deadly enough. I wanted something for non-lethal hand to hand that didn't require knocking down all your Health to end the fight. What I'd come up with was the PC (or NPC) must declare knock-out intention before rolling to hit. If they rolled a superior or extraordinary success, the opponent must make a stamina TN as follows:

    Superior - TN 5 + damage dealt (minimum TN 5) or stunned 1d6 rounds
    Extraordinary - TN 10 + damage dealt (min. 10) or stunned 1d6+5 minutes

    I assigned the minimum based on those pesky Klingon and Cardassian bar thugs who insist on wearing their armor everywhere.

    I haven't run enough to fully test out these house rules. If anyone takes them for a shakedown cruise, please post your results!

  7. #22
    Join Date
    Aug 1999
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    Worcester, MA USA
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    One rule I used for instant kills in a pre-CODA starship game was that the instant kill could be reduced to 1 damage point if a PC/significant NPC spent a courage point.

    THat allows for lots of ships blowing up while still giving the PCs and major NPCs some protection against a lucky die roll. Tieing to to Coruage points also kept the players from felling invulnerable, since they only had a limited number of points and many things to spend them on.

    It could probably be adapted to CODA\maybe limit the perk to characters in command of the ship (Captain, Exec).

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