Query about comprehensive ICON Chargen Document

[LUGTrekGM]

Okay, I have wrestled with this problem for some years now.

When I am doing character generation for ship's crews, I am searching through:

TOS
TNG
DS9
Price of Freedom
TNG Player's Guide
Academy Sourcebook

for all of the Ads& Disads, Templates, etc. Oftentimes, I and a player have a veritable pile of post it notes, etc, checking each book for possible permutations of the various steps of the system.

Now, years ago, a gent calling himself Admiral Reliant created the TNG character generator, (which I am sure had a link on this site to it, and still might) which I did some skill, and race plugins for use in my own non-canon Star trek movies era campaign.

My question is (inasmuch as I don't think anyone here is a lawyer) Is or would it be possible for me to make a single combined document with all of the LUG options, and then release it in say a month or less as a .pdf?

What's the likelihood for getting flak for doing something like that? Or is it a case of whatever we do with this info at home is grand, as long as it is kept for personal use only?

I think if I did such a document and did a good job of it, it would be welcomed by many frustrated LUG referees. Perhaps with follow-on software.

Yes? No? Comments?

I figured the best place to ask would be here.

Thanks, gents, and ladies.

I do so love this game, and well, it's really replaced FASA for me, as my favorite trek rpg incarnation.


-LUGTrekGM

[tonyg]

A friend of mine did this for LUGTrek a few years back. He printed up a sort of Character Creation booklook. THe idea was to make one book that the players could use to create characters and avoid the need to "lug" around certain books for one trait, template, or skill. He got things finsihed and then Player's GUide and SF Academy came out and set his effort back.

Hope you get it done. I think a "Player's Book" would be the ideal supplement for LUGTrek.

[LUGTrekGM]

Thanks. I have been working on it for a while. Work proceeds.

[Phoenix]

LUGTrekGM,
Do you have Windows, and/or can you work with MS Word XP?
Because I have a lot of those documents already typed up and double checked for math errors.

In your list you forgot "The Way of Kol'onar" Vulcan book, "The Way of D'era" Romulan Box Set, and "Among the Clans" Andorian book. All or them have Advantages, Disadvantages, and Templates, etc that can help build Starfleet characters.

[LUGTrekGM]

I didn't forget them, just didn't list them. Thanks for the reminder, though.
(In my campaigns, we don't often use Romulans, Andorians, or Vulcans, and anyone who has played a Vulcan went with a template, from TOS or TNG, not the Kolinahr book, which my Vulcan NPCs use. My players do not want to work that much on researching rules for characters, Expressly Because of multiple books flipping, but I don't mind.)

All the books of the entire LUG series that were actually printed will be included, rest assured.

I am wondering what you imply by "Double Checked for math."

The various templates? I know some of them are off, yes. I am correcting and annotating the text as I go with notes in an appendix area to be placed in the back with my suggested changes / Clarifications for such things as:

TNG P. 72 chart, Academy Life History: Starfleet Medical Academy; Physical Science (Chemistry) 1 (2) changed to Personal Equipment (Medical Tricorder) 0 (1) OR Physical Science (Chemistry) 0 (1). I saw this change would balance the points for the stage from 10 to 8, and I didn't believe that Medical doctors would be taking classes in General Physical Sciences, such as Physics, Math, Etc. in a Medical Academy, to support the 1 (2) Skill level as listed in the original text. Granted, they might learn some (bio)Chemistry, thus the option of the spec was maintained.

TNG P. 72 chart, Academy Life History: Advanced Tactical School; Starship Tactics (Planetary Support Tactics) Changed to Starship Tactics (Planetary Support Tactics) 0 (1). Seems like this was the intent, likely just left out of the line item as an oversight (or before 0-level skills were developed) and it didn't mess up the points badly.

TNG P. 72 chart, Academy Life History: Intensive Theoretical Science Program; Any Space Science (Astronomy) changed to Any Space Science (select), to make it consistent with the Physical Sciences choices in the line item, and also because I felt it was needed to open up more fields of space science to academy cadets, not just Astronomy, in that Astronomy is not really theory, so much as a knowledge based skill, thus allowing Astrophysics, etc.

[stule]

Heya LUG!

Just wanted to tell ya that we had our 1st Starship Combat today, and I have to say it was alot more fun than CODA. Everyone got to do something. The Ops officer in my game became the favorite person in the game, everyone was asking him for power allocations lol! Anyway, just wanted to say thanks again for all your encouragement.

ICON rules!

[LUGTrekGM]

Hey, wonderful, man. My own group is more or less due to break up due to political problems.

Recent Quotes:
CAPT: "Well hell, if we're gonna be stuck in this alternate universe for another 6 months, hell, full speed ahead to the Romulan Goddamn Border, Shields down, and ram the closest planet!

SEC Chief: "Dude, this sucks. This just blows. I am pissed off."

Vulcan Navigator: "Alternate dimensions, and time travel generally pose little problems, once we calculate the equations. Once someone loops around a sun, anyone can do it...theoretically. Such matters thus become trivial."

CWO2 Engineer: "Final Log Entry: In case we die, I want it to be known that we did our best. We are lost in time, near the Romulan Border. Maybe lost in another dimension. We are not sure. We hope to make it back."


THUS, I am working on my combined document. And have started a different group of 4 people. to be run alongside the other on a different day, hopefully, both will run for a while, but it looks grim. *shrug*

[EmceeShran]

Okay, I have wrestled with this problem for some years now.

When I am doing character generation for ship's crews, I am searching through:

TOS
TNG
DS9
Price of Freedom
TNG Player's Guide
Academy Sourcebook

for all of the Ads& Disads, Templates, etc. Oftentimes, I and a player have a veritable pile of post it notes, etc, checking each book for possible permutations of the various steps of the system.

Now, years ago, a gent calling himself Admiral Reliant created the TNG character generator, (which I am sure had a link on this site to it, and still might) which I did some skill, and race plugins for use in my own non-canon Star trek movies era campaign.

My question is (inasmuch as I don't think anyone here is a lawyer) Is or would it be possible for me to make a single combined document with all of the LUG options, and then release it in say a month or less as a .pdf?

What's the likelihood for getting flak for doing something like that? Or is it a case of whatever we do with this info at home is grand, as long as it is kept for personal use only?

I think if I did such a document and did a good job of it, it would be welcomed by many frustrated LUG referees. Perhaps with follow-on software.

Yes? No? Comments?

I figured the best place to ask would be here.

Thanks, gents, and ladies.

I do so love this game, and well, it's really replaced FASA for me, as my favorite trek rpg incarnation.


-LUGTrekGM

LUG

I'd love to give it a crack. I'm looking for anything to enhance my game. I have the generator and would love to get a copy of yours, as i have no ability to make the plugins or modifications. any chance?

m

[LUGTrekGM]

Fair enough. In recent runs of Reliant's code, after converting to XP from WIn 98, I have seen some bugs that I have yet to track down.

Four options here:

I) I give you my buggy version of Reliant's code, you help me to fix it and learn how the coding of Reliant's program works, and in the process, help me to make even more expansions for it.

II) Hold off about two weeks, and I'll give you an error corrected version of Reliant's code, that still has his bugs in the code (more or less just quirks), but it's still runnable with all of the recent errors or as much as I can find corrected.

III) Hold off until Late January - Mid February, when I will have my own version LUGGen 1.0, cleaned up, ready to go, with open source code so that anyone with quick basic can make their own expansions / modifications. (Reliant did not do this.)

IV) I can show you and others viewing this thread how to make your own plugins for Reliant's (just basically following his own notes and instructions) ...just like I have done...which are basically text files in Windows Notepad. Reliant's prgram is basically a Visual basic application that takes input from a list, then parses text then sends it to a printable output file. His core source has some minor quirks, which since I do not have the source, are not able to be fixed.

Thus, I am doing my own version, from scratch, totally seperate from his.

[LUGTrekGM]

Not much of the new stuff I have done for the Compendium has been entered into the Reliant Program, I was intending to start that in January, when I just redo my own software to replace his, after I finish this Compendium book.
My own plugins for Reliant's (Still buggy) version has the following templates (old + current plugins):

RACES
0=Andorian
1=Arkenite
2=Axanari
3=Betazoid
4=Bolian
5=Caitian
6=Centauran
7=Edoan
8=Efrosian
9=Human
10=Tellarite
11=Testrace [I use this as a test, for building new race templates]
12=Tiburonian
13=Trill
14=Vulcan

EARLY LIFE
0=Academic Upbringing
1=Colony
2=Failed Colony
3=Famous Parents
4=Mercantile Upbringing
5=Normal Upbringing
6=Orphaned
7=Political upbringing
8=Religious-Ideological Training
9=Starfleet Brat
10=Trader Upbringing

CAREER
0=1st Year Cadet (For those wanting to play an Early Academy Series)
1=Command
2=Engineer
3=Enl-Engineer (Enlisted Engineering Template)
4=Helm
5=Medical
6=Navigation
7=Science
8=Security
9=Ship's Counselor

ACADEMY LIFE
0=Advanced Research Engineering
1=Advanced Tactical School
2=Colonization School
3=EVA Training
4=Exploration Training
5=First Contact Training
6=Intelligence Training
7=Intensive Theoretical Science Program
8=Language Training
9=Starfleet Medical Academy

CADET CRUISE
0=(Random Edge)
1=(Random Skill)
2=(Random Trait)
3=Commendation +1
4=Perception +1
5=Promotion +1
6=Willpower +1

PRIMARY TOUR
0=Academic Instruction
1=Academy Instructor
2=Deep Space Exploration Mission
3=Diplomatic Mission
4=Hostile Frontier Defense Mission
5=Medical-Rescue Mission
6=Scientific Mission
7=Shakedown Cruise
8=Starbase Mission
9=Starfleet Command
10=Terraforming and Colonization Mission

SECONDARY TOUR
0=Academic Instruction
1=Academy Instructor
2=Deep Space Exploration Mission
3=Diplomatic Mission
4=Hostile Frontier Defense Mission
5=Medical-Rescue Mission
6=Scientific Mission
7=Shakedown Cruise
8=Starbase Mission
9=Starfleet Command
10=Terraforming and Colonization Mission

ADDITIONAL TOUR
0=Academic Instruction
1=Academy Instructor
2=Deep Space Exploration Mission
3=Diplomatic Mission
4=Hostile Frontier Defense Mission
5=Medical-Rescue Mission
6=Scientific Mission
7=Shakedown Cruise
8=Starbase Mission
9=Starfleet Command
10=Terraforming and Colonization Mission

[LUGTrekGM]

Bugs I have (As far as I have noticed) in Reliant's with my plugins:

ACADEMY LIFE STAGE:
Advanced Tactical School not delivering text to right side window.
Language Training not delivering text to right side window.

CADET CRUISE STAGE:
None of the following Generate text to the right side window:
Commendation+1
Perception+1
Promotion+1
Willpower+1

There also seems to be a bug somewhere in his attribute calculations.

And, I am not entirely sure that his skills are adding the points correctly especially for multiple specializations.

Again, this is why I wanted to do my own version from scratch, and give it free to everyone, with Source, and make plugins easier to do. His was written in 1999.

[LUGTrekGM]

Worked on an interim fix for:

Advanced Tactical School (Encyclopedia entry was misnamed)
Language Training (No Encyclopedia entry...corrected)

[EmceeShran]

Fair enough. In recent runs of Reliant's code, after converting to XP from WIn 98, I have seen some bugs that I have yet to track down.

Four options here:

I) I give you my buggy version of Reliant's code, you help me to fix it and learn how the coding of Reliant's program works, and in the process, help me to make even more expansions for it.

II) Hold off about two weeks, and I'll give you an error corrected version of Reliant's code, that still has his bugs in the code (more or less just quirks), but it's still runnable with all of the recent errors or as much as I can find corrected.

III) Hold off until Late January - Mid February, when I will have my own version LUGGen 1.0, cleaned up, ready to go, with open source code so that anyone with quick basic can make their own expansions / modifications. (Reliant did not do this.)

IV) I can show you and others viewing this thread how to make your own plugins for Reliant's (just basically following his own notes and instructions) ...just like I have done...which are basically text files in Windows Notepad. Reliant's prgram is basically a Visual basic application that takes input from a list, then parses text then sends it to a printable output file. His core source has some minor quirks, which since I do not have the source, are not able to be fixed.

Thus, I am doing my own version, from scratch, totally seperate from his.

I know nothing about coding and don't know where to even begin, but i want to make my game better so in any way that would help. I will. I do favor options 2 and 3, but 1 isn't out of the realm.

I could also be a beta tester for you to check for bugs

m

[LUGTrekGM]

In a test run, still some bugs. Language training is reflecting new languages in the printout , during the tour, but not in the skills listing.

This is why I really want to do my own version.

[Silverback]

In a test run, still some bugs. Language training is reflecting new languages in the printout , during the tour, but not in the skills listing.

This is why I really want to do my own version.

Trying to debug and reconstruct someone else's code can be an absolute nightmare! I've seen some Excel character generation assistants for other RPG's but a standalone application would obviously be the 'best' option!