New to the Forum

[Black Armos]

Hey all,

I hope people are still playing the Star Trek game by Decipher. I ran a game last summer in my hometown that seems pretty successful. The players were standard Starfleet characters and it was set about 6 months after the Dominion War offically ended. I am now at college finishing up my last year and hope to return and continue the game. I have been running a modified version of the Neutral Zone Campaign published by Last Unicorn when they had the licence with my own stuff thrown in.

I do have a question about mechanics if anyone can help. A player running a Klingon in the "exchange program" is wanting to change his profession from Soldier to Starship Officer. Is there a way in the game to do this? I did not find anything in the players or narrators book. Am I just missing it?

THANKS either way. I think the Decipher game is great (I bought all the books and PDFs and love them). I wish it could be supported better but I understand Supply and Demand. Anyway...

[The Tatterdemalion King]

Supply and demand have nothing to do with it; Decipher just had some weird expectations. Anyway...

As each individual Starship Officer division is actually an Elite Profession, you can find the process on page 155 of the PG. Essentially, you spend all 5 picks from an advancement to join an elite profession (if you meet the requirements) and you get a free pick from that profession's list of abilities (again, if you meet the requirements). At that point, you advance using both professions.

Additionally:

You're limited to advancing in two different professions at a time. If you have two professions and join a third, you have to drop one of the previous ones (while retaining all the stuff you got from that profession).

The "Starship Duty" prerequisite in the Starship Officer elite professions requirement list should be followed by an "OR", not a comma. Starship Duty is for characters who start as Starship Officers, the other requirements are for people who join the profession during play.

While it is not explicitly stated to be so in the books, I seem to recall that the process is the same for choosing another basic profession.

Welcome to the board! (And what've you used from the Neutral Zone Campaign? I've had the book for ages but never got to run anything.)

[Black Armos]

Weird Expectations? Anyway...

Thanks for the info on the professions and I will check it out when I have time.

I really like A Fragile Peace. I have started a thread in the Narrators area about my campaign and it will have some thoughts I have on the Last Unicorn product.

[Doug Burke]

Actually, multiple professions have been modified a bit in the latest version of the errata.

Q: I have a question concerning the number of professions that a character can be in at any one time. The rulesstate quite clearly on page 155 of the Player's Guide that a character can only be in 2 professions at once. However, the example immediately following uses a starship science officer who has joined the explorer eliteprofession, and must choose between professions on becoming an envoy. The problem is that starship science officer isn't one profession, it is two: the base starship officer and the elite science officer! How would this be resolved?
A: Starship officer is a special case for this rule. For purposes of the rules you reference, the first starship officer elite profession is considered a special description for "Starship Officer," rather than an additional elite profession. Only the first one, though; if a starship officer changes fields (a security officer crossing over to flight control, for instance) would have his basic profession of Starship Security Officer, with an additional elite profession of Flight Control Officer. To pick up another profession, he'd have to let one of his SOEPs go.
For purposes of this rule, then, the two professions the character has in the example are Starship (Science) Officer and Explorer. The only time the starship officer elite professions would count against that total is if the character acquired it from another basic profession (say, Soldier), or if he already has one (our starship security officer mentioned above).

Feel free to check out the errata over in this thread...

[The Tatterdemalion King]

This is presumably something you'd put in "Starship Duty..."

[Doug Burke]

This is presumably something you'd put in "Starship Duty..."

Actually, it's in the FAQ, but I see your point...

[PGoodman13]

I kind of see the point, too, but my mandate wasn't to rewrite the rules in the errata. That's why that wound up as an FAQ/clarification rather than a piece of errata.

[Doug Burke]

I kind of see the point, too, but my mandate wasn't to rewrite the rules in the errata. That's why that wound up as an FAQ/clarification rather than a piece of errata.

I knew there was a reason you put it there...

[tonyg]

Weird Expectations?

Decipher's management was completely unfamiliar with the RPG market, and based their expectations upon their experience with Collectible Card Games. In other words, they expected Star Trek and Lord of the Rings to achieve sales figures comparable to Dungeons & Dragons, right out of the gate.

When the games got a good reaction and quite impressive sales, they were not the numbers than Decipher was expecting. When someone finally gave them the "RPB Market 101" info that they should have had before jumping into the market, they pretty much killed their RPG division and ceased supporting the games.

Technically the games are still alive and well, but and Decipher could release one of several products that were in development (some finished), but in actuality, the odds of such an event are only slightly higher than a Constitution-class starship showing up in our skies.

[Tomcat]

... the odds of such an event are only slightly higher than a Constitution-class starship showing up in our skies.

That happened in the 60's. It was on TV... I saw it.

[The Tatterdemalion King]

Not to mention the snafus with some of the books themselves. Don't use stats from the SOM or Starships without looking hard at them, first...

And Creatures was out of the gate before Worlds. That there even was a creatures book...

[tonyg]

Not to mention the snafus with some of the books themselves. Don't use stats from the SOM or Starships without looking hard at them, first...

And Creatures was out of the gate before Worlds. That there even was a creatures book...

Or stats from the GM's book either. That old Ranger-class is a tiger.

Of coruse, that is one of the weakness of the CODA ship rules-the type II or Type III phaser (depending on ship type) gives the most bang for the buck. Pretty much any ship can increase it's firepower to double or more by ripping out and replacing the phasers with the lower grade models.

It is just that whoever designed the Ranger actually went and did it!

[The Tatterdemalion King]

Or stats from the GM's book either. That old Ranger-class is a tiger.

Dude, the Ranger was in SOM.