CODA or LUG

[LUGTrekGM]

I used spacedock to design my group's LUG Movies-era battlecruiser, then flattened the stats, so to speak, so that it uses the basic LUG rules again, along with lots of maneuvers ported frmo spacedock, since I didn't see a very straightforward way to port over coda's maneuvers without adopting it wholesale...

But I know, for example how much power needs to go to the SIF, and IDF, etc etc, even if the crew never uses it in a battle, I keep it in mind.

I will say that the critical hits / steps damage system in CODA is elegant. I think that's probably the fastest , yet most flavorful step damage system I've seen in any sci fi game in print, and I've played / run everything.

[stule]

Hey LUG!

So you think I should stick to CODA?

Don't you play LUG?

Do you like it?

Or is it really as complicated as it seems (I have been going over Spacedock)?

Character Creation took a bit to get used to but it doesn't seem so bad.

CODA just seems really simple to me (which I like), and my players like CODA but I think they want a more challenging game.

What has been your expierience in playing LUG?

Good?

Bad?

[Tobian]

How challenging the game is should NEVER be a function of how complex the rules are: The rules should just be a vehicle to the story...

In trek there are two routes to it: Either go down the 'realism' technobabble route, or go down the 'cinematic' route: Both are just as valid, and depending on your situation should be mixed and matched for your use. Spacedock is the closest to accuracy of treknobabble you are going to get! However, for my players it's FAR too complex, it's like roleplaying a spreadsheet! I never really got the basic ICON rules for space combat, and CODA rules are just AWESOME, so there's no convincing me

Both systems have flaws, as all rules systems do when it gets to certain granular details, it's unavoidable, but I guess it just depends on what your players like. LUGTrekGM probably had a good idea with flattening the stats, as unles sall your players are savvy with the complex rules, they are going to become bogged down and the game will slow to a crawl!

[Sea Tyger]

I don't think "simple" is an accurate way to describe Coda. For one, its complexity is at least on par with Icon (I'm not counting Spacedock here, which is a standalone document).

Coda is more streamlined than Icon, which I often found clunky. I personally prefer the smoother random curve of 2d6 vs. 1d6 that allows players to better gague what their skills allow them to do.

Coda also does in one book what Icon took three separate books to do. I also honestly feel the Narrators guide is one of the best toolkits in the gaming industry.

And, while I'm a gearhead at heart (I treasure Traveller 4th Ed's Fire, Fusion and Steel supplement), Coda's starship combat rules are beautifully cinematic, allowing the GM more freedom to describe the scene with words, rather than numbers. Star Trek's space combat has always been about the cinematic feel, even when everyone's spouting technobabble.

Icon was good; I like Icon (and still keep a couple sourcebooks around for flavor), but Coda is better at keeping the Star Trek "feel," IMO.

As with everyone, of course, it always comes down to personal preference and taste.

[Ensign Deconn]

I run CODA (big surprise), but still use a lot of the ICON stuff for reference. They convert over quite easily, adventures especially...

You got that right! I'm runnig the adventure from the LUG TOS Narrator Screen this weekend and the CODA rules easily port.

DC

[LUGTrekGM]

Well, I like icon because we use skills a lot, and it was really weird for me when I first hit the Coda system.

I admit as I often have the narrator's guide for CODA smokes it up. It lays out the acts, scenes, etc very nice, that star trek requires, since it isn't hack & Slash gaming.

But will I ever play CODA? No. It's too much like 3rd ed for me. I use some of it as source. The Worlds .pdf is great, as is mirror mirror. the rest of it, well it's nice to look at as a source for my LUG games.

Lug feels like FASA to me, only with slicker skill resolution, XP, ads & Disads. But Coda feels like 3rd ed..to me.

Spacedock is of course, entirely optional, and if you are new to ICON / LUG, play the basic rules without spacedock first, and use lots of description in your battles.

Some referees, of course just like to roll dice and use charts. and Spacedock has a lot of that, but it loses STORY when you do that. This is why I looked at spacedock, leartned all about star trek ships, then used it as background, not main story, and use the ICOn / LUG rules as printed in the TOS white book.

Otherwise it is gaming a system, not telling a story. There's a critical difference.

The chart might tell you the computers are out, or the bridge is hit. But in the story, it all makes a difference as to theme, and plot, which take a lot longer to develop as a skill set, as a GM.

Star trek stories require theme and plot.

This is why the LUG Narrator's toolkits and Decipher Narrator's guide are SO VERY CRITICAL to a good star trek gaming experience.

But I have almost 30 years of storytelling experience as a GM, so I mean, it's damn easy for me to write a scenario, pick one apart for flaws, or make one up on the fly in 5 minutes, or as we go, if the players as a crew, choos to do something else.

So CODA or LUG? It doesn't matter.

No system matters. all they do is to give you numbers to tell the relative difference between things, or describe the physics of the world, as the designer saw it. Each system gives a slightly different flavor, different odds for PC survival.

Old Top Secret used luck points, Boot hill, same combat system did not, so PCs died more, in dorves in gunfights.

RECON used percentile dice and damages were very, very high. PCs died a lot. But it took 3 percwentile rolls and a little math to make a new one.

D&D uses hit points and a d8 for longswords, and a d20 to hit.
LUG uses a few d6, based on attributes, one of which is wild.

There are CODA fans here, there are LUG fans. There are FASA fans.

I'll say this:
If FASA had better skills resolution, more straightforward, was not so wargamish, and had Ads & Disads, like LUG does, I'd still be playing it.

I saw the CODA space combat and loved it. Since it was tied to CODA PC generation so intricately it was too much work to convert, and thus, I play LUG.

Others who have jumped the CODA Character hurdle swear by CODA. I like some of it.

There is no one true answer. I like gritty, detailed games with lots of damage and wounded crewmembers, should combat break out. It's not straight Trek, but it is what I think trek would be like, I think.

Again, this is why I play LUG, since it has spacedock as an option. and I use SOME a few of those options.

Really in the end as I say the specific system, doesn't matter. I used to use TRAVELLER to play Star Trek, and Star Wars for that matter. But the FASA and LUG rules fit my vision of space combat, where heroic figures do heroic deeds.

If I want to have deadly as hell space missile combat, where whole crews die in space, sucked into the vacuum, I play TRAVELLEr.

If I want walking tanks laying waste to cities, a la godzilla, I ply battletech.

If I want to have weird quirky sc fi mixed with pseudoscience and magic, I play Skyrealms of Jorune.

Crazy off the wall weirdness with mutants, I play Gamma World.

The system doesn't matter, a slong as it gives the effects you want.

This is the TOTAL purpose of games like FUDGE. Once you get to a level of experience where all of what I just wrote is obvious, I have seen the referees tend to go less system, more story, and use character generation, and all of the combat systems as a very, I mean very rough guide, and make it up as they go, after that. and those games smoke, because they do not rely on systems and charts and have the following:

Introduction of the setting
Call to action
one way door or orders preventing retreat.
attacks by enemy or challenges
growing confidence of the crew / unit / party
more challenges
a rest period where the heroes discuss plans or the coming battle or how tough it has been so far.
Attacks by the enemy, pushing back the heroes.
Something horrifically screwed up happens
the heroes by being heroes save themseves in the nick of time.
bad ghuys driven off / defeated, maybe some player characters lost.
awards / rewards / the guilty punished.

That's a formula, it needs varied, game to game to disguise it, but it works.

The best games use it. Notice it is all character and story, no system.

Some systems are better at others, but all they give is the details that lend themselves to description, which NARRATORS should be doing already without the chart.

Rolemaster was great for this. dozens of charts that said "Cruel strike to foe's eyes blinds him with dripping blood for d6 rounds." "Your accurate lazgun attack causes secondary explosions to the enemy hull. -25% to his maneuvering."

on and on.

But if you have your story laid out, you already have what you need, then just make up these details as you go no charts needed.

If you aren't familiar with what maneuvers a ship can do, use CODA.

If you are, use LUG, or CODA, or *shrugs*

FASA is a great system too, and has a LARGE database of ships, but due to scaling, it breaks down for Next gen era and later. But I polayed that for years and loved it.

I know that's not an answer, but it's .. the truth, as I see it.

-LUGTrekGM

[LUGTrekGM]

Even simpler answer:

If your players want a more challenging game, give it to them. you don't need a change in system to do that.

the key to making a game fun are two things:

1)
Players must always have a choice, even if that choice is between crap, and more crap. Make it so that there is not a clear, easy choice, make it two very tough choices, where they will lose an opportunity, or something else as valuable by chosing one. Then force them to choice via time pressure, or running out of options.

2) No matter how good your setting, how good your background, how intricate your plot the maximum fun comes generally for most gamers (not all) from action scenes, and roleplaying scenes that have tension, and a critical thing is in the balance to be resolved, for good or ill.

Keep in mind also:
There has to be a risk of death or loss, or it is not exciting.

Reporting to Starbase 10 is no big deal.

Reporting to starbase 10 for acourt martial, because a PC is accused of murder of another crewman, hey, that's drama.

Patrolling the Romulan neutral zone is not all that exciting.

Striking a mine which tears up the forward shields and kills some crewmewmbers, and THEN patrolling, hey that's drama.


Seems like they (thew people you game tih) like that nail biting massive damage stuff, from your gaming reports.

It might be that it's too easy to kill thiungs in your game with your new damage system.

The drama of a combat is directly related to the toughness of the opponent.

Nobody gets XP for fighting kittens with a sledgehammer.

Make up a new race, have it attack their ship in waves, wearing it down.

Make it so that they are fighting boarding actions inside the ship with full phasers on kill.

Once they lose some PCs they will either hate it and go for less combat or love it and ask for more.

If so, you've got a lot of wargamers in your gaming crew. People like that tend to like Battletech, Twilight:2000, and RECON more than star trek, since there are a lot more bullets flying, and the rules favor PC survival. Star Trek does not, not really, which is why many Trek rules sets say CLEARLY DO not resort to phasers, use fistfights, since phasers vs. Disruptors kill off characters. (both on planets and in space combat.)

Games that are a military feel, that have long term character survival, have fuzzy combat systems where a PC can take a "Grazing wound" from a .50 cal round and keep moving. Real life, not very likely. But TV shows revolving around war as entertainment / drama, you see good guys get hit all the time, unless it's a gritty realism show or documentary. a tough battle leaves the heroes dirtied up, maybe some bandages, ready to go. Many, many first person shooter games are like this, too.

Saving Private Ryan was not like that, at all. That's why it was a one shot film, with the theme of death, and sacrifice, for this one guy, symbolizing world war II soldiers sacrificing themselves for the future.

Anyway, use what Feels Right to You.

[Doug Burke]

You got that right! I'm runnig the adventure from the LUG TOS Narrator Screen this weekend and the CODA rules easily port.

::nods:: Yeah, I'm currently running "Red Giant" from "Planetary Adventures".

The problem is that some of my group (most notably my older brother) have been with me since the ICON days and were run through most of the published ICON stuff (and even the adventures from here way back in the day). ::sigh::