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Thread: Trek RPG for the Future

  1. #1
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    Question Trek RPG for the Future

    Well....with the success of Nu-Trek being overwhelming, I've yet to hear anything about a new RPG being put out, But the Starship construction sources for ICON, and CODA are going to need some serious tweaking to bring them up to speed with the new 'verse.

    Anyone heard anything on new stuff in the pipeline?
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  2. #2
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    Nope Nada Nyet Nein Zip Nil Non

  3. #3
    I honestly do not look for one. I just do not think that anyone is going to spend the money to try one out, and with Decipher going away from it... /shrug.
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  4. #4
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    It's saddening, but not surprising. For whatever reason, CBS Consumer Products has been very cautious about licensing. Very few tie-ins associated with the film, slow roll out on toys, only 1 model and 4 fiction books based in the AU next year, and they're still saying no plans for non-fiction (Art of, Making of).

    I'm not sure if its a strategy, the economy, or that CCP is understaffed and doesn't feel they can handle the review process required by an RPG. Maybe they feel burnt by LUG and Decipher. Maybe its something else entirely (merchandising and contracts clauses).

    Personally, I think they're leaving money on the table by not licensing more. On the other hand, I don't think they're losing any money by not having an RPG now.
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  5. #5
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    Well, remember that while Paramount/Viacom licensed everything to everyone and it didn't all work out, CBS/Paramount is likely to be much more cautious. It just makes business sense.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by mechascorpio View Post
    and they're still saying no plans for non-fiction (Art of, Making of).
    The problem with those books these days is that the material you could only get in them is now all over the intarnets, and these guys don't have a page limit so you get to see everything they have the time to dig up. Not that I wouldn't appreciate more art of X books, but they're competing with a free product.

    Personally, I think they're leaving money on the table by not licensing more. On the other hand, I don't think they're losing any money by not having an RPG now.
    Well, unless we get hard data on what the LUG and Decipher runs made, we just don't know. Given Decipher's losses, it might have hurt Paramount too.
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  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by The Tatterdemalion King View Post
    The problem with those books these days is that the material you could only get in them is now all over the intarnets, and these guys don't have a page limit so you get to see everything they have the time to dig up. Not that I wouldn't appreciate more art of X books, but they're competing with a free product.
    That's why I said "...and they're still saying...". But did you notice that John Eaves put up and immediately took back down a post last week?

    Fortunately I saved it and the picture he posted:

    art of the new Star Trek book might happen after all
    from Eavesdropping with Johnny by johneaves


    It seems that requests by all the fans for an art of book might have pushed Paramount and Pocket Books to reconsider putting out a publication of all the art from the film,,,, Requests for art from all the concept and set designers has been happening at a fever pace and if this in fact true it will defiantly be a book I have to have, Watching the art work come from so many incredible artists was breathtaking to say the least and this will be one awesome behind the scenes book if it does in fact get made. No confirmation on this for sure but sounds more than hopeful!!! Go get em Margaret Clark,,, We all love you and all the great books and calenders you have put out!!! If I get any official news I’ll let you know so keep your fingers crossed!


    Not only that, but Ryan Church and James Clyne suddenly took down all that wonderful pre-production work they'd posted on their own sites. So that goes directly to what you're saying. Now they won't be competing with free quite so much!
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  8. #8
    [QUOTE=mechascorpio;173778]
    Not only that, but Ryan Church and James Clyne suddenly took down all that wonderful pre-production work they'd posted on their own sites. So that goes directly to what you're saying. Now they won't be competing with free quite so much!
    Mmmm... sounds like they're thinking about it, then.
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  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by mechascorpio View Post
    It's saddening, but not surprising. For whatever reason, CBS Consumer Products has been very cautious about licensing. Very few tie-ins associated with the film, slow roll out on toys, only 1 model and 4 fiction books based in the AU next year, and they're still saying no plans for non-fiction (Art of, Making of).

    I'm not sure if its a strategy, the economy, or that CCP is understaffed and doesn't feel they can handle the review process required by an RPG. Maybe they feel burnt by LUG and Decipher. Maybe its something else entirely (merchandising and contracts clauses).

    Personally, I think they're leaving money on the table by not licensing more. On the other hand, I don't think they're losing any money by not having an RPG now.
    You do know that Paramount was split in two in the Viacom split into New Viacom and CBS? Paramount Picture, a part of Viacom, has the movie rights to Star Trek and CBS Paramount TV has the copyright and original series. CBS may not want to promote Viacom Trek over CBS Trek, ie. original Trek as they have Simon publishing original Trek books. Or the ball got dropped on which licensing arm should do what as it is the first Trek project after the split.
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  10. #10
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    As far as I know, based on what I read back in March over on TrekMovie, the company "CBS Consumer Products" (part of "CBS Enterprises" and not the same thing as CBS, Viacom or Paramount) handles all of the licensing for all of Star Trek right now, and has since 2006.

    If you look, I think you'll find that in those cases where a manufacturer has licensed merchandising rights for both, you'll see that Classic Star Trek now says:

    "TM & © 2009 CBS Studios, Inc. STAR TREK and related marks are trademarks of CBS Studios, Inc."

    and New Trek says:

    "© 2009 Paramount Pictures Corporation. © 2009 CBS Studios, Inc. STAR TREK and related marks are trademarks of CBS Studios, Inc."


    I don't pretend to know the intricacies and exceptions (I think home video is supposedly a complicated one), but as far as I know, Classic or Nu, all merchandise gets licensed and approved by the same office headed by Liz Kalodner.



    BTW, I came here to post about something completely different, a sobering assessment of the "RPG Industry" right now by James Mishler of Adventure Games Publishing:

    http://jamesmishler.blogspot.com/200...-rambling.html

    Definitely made me think twice about the (un)likelihood of a new Trek RPG, or any new big namebrand RPG.
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  11. #11
    That's a depressing read mechascorpio.
    Phoenix...

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    but maybe we should just remove all the safety lables and let nature take it's course"

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  12. #12
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    Yeah, but for what it's worth, lots of folks are saying that Mishler's full of it, or perhaps only half right. Personally, I don't see a lot of growth in this hobby right now. At the same time, companies like Mongoose, Paizo and some indies I know of are expanding their product lines, doing just fine. I got approached for freelance work today, which caught me by surprise.

    But to the topic itself, it probably means that only a WOTC or a Mongoose could really afford to put out a new Trek RPG that would meet the expectations of TPTB. I'm not sure how I feel about that. Would I rather see one of them do it than no one at all?

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  13. #13
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    Back to something in BC's original post:

    Quote Originally Posted by BouncyCaitian View Post
    ... But the Starship construction sources for ICON, and CODA are going to need some serious tweaking to bring them up to speed with the new 'verse.
    At the risk of this devolving into a debate about how big the Enterprise is, or whether or not JJ Abrams' Star Trek sucks, I wanted to repost what I wrote on this same topic over at RPGnet, and get some opinions and thoughts from folks over here:

    ===========

    Quote Originally Posted by Hasmoline View Post
    IMHO, I think the CODA system is perfectly acceptable, but the Ship design system will need a complete rebuild with the scale differences between Old Trek and Nu-Trek, but otherwise as Written, it works rather well.
    I think it would be a mistake to mix scales, or mix universes. I don't think it will require a rebuild, but CODA (and any system, really) may require some additional options depending on which "path" you choose. I don't want this to turn out to be a "How big is the new Enterprise?", and I don't think anyone wants that at their gametable either. Having said that, let's acknowledge there are two schools of thought on that particular subject.

    #1. The new Enterprise is roughly the size of the classic Enterprise (@300m long, CODA Structure @30ish, maybe a little larger).
    #2. The new Enterprise is @718m long more than 2x the size of the classic.

    Things to consider:

    - Other than the shuttlebay fitting a lot of fairly large shuttles, a big bridge and massive engineering, there's little "canon" in the film that talks about the new ship's systems (phaser power, shields, etc). Warp speed seems to be about the same. Decks? Who knows?
    - Some sources cite the crew complement as 1000 (vs 400-500 classic); the Kelvin carried at least 800 (who knows how many died)
    - The saucers of the ship classes seen appear to be about the same size as the new 1701.

    So there are a couple of ways to approach this.

    If you go with #1, then there's very little you have to deal with. Handwave crew complement and shuttles, and just go with a universe of CODA (or LUG, or FASA) ships that are statted pretty much the same as in those books. Who's to tell you you're wrong? It's not impossible to fit 1000 onto the classic Enterprise. In this new universe, maybe it's 4 to a room instead of 2, and there's always three shifts. In these desperate times, with war raging in the Laurentian System, life on a starship is more like a submarine, not a cruise liner (my handwave, not canon).

    If you go with #2, there are two options:

    a) Everything is bigger. Everything. The Kelvin incident led to many things, including an arms race. The Feds kept building big 1000-crew, 600m+ ships. The Klingons built bigger ships to keep up. The Romulans... well, have we met them yet? It's up to you! Anyway, the practical effect of this approach is that if everything is bigger, then it's still in scale to each other. So again you can pretty much stick with what's in the books and just handwave length/beam/height. In and of itself, it's kind of irrelevant. All that matters is how it compares with that "Klingon Warbird" that just decloaked off your port bow.

    b) Construct a new Enterprise (or any of the others) with the RAW. In CODA, that means the new Enterprise is a Size 9. Maybe it looks more like a Sovereign than a Constitution, but without quite so many technical advancements. Maybe it has some flaws because they're pushing the edge. Maybe some systems in this universe cost more space in 2258 (again, look at engineering or the number of shuttles these starships have to support). And, again, who's to say that a "Klingon Warbird" isn't a D-7, but rather a D-70 dreadnought nearly as large as a Negh'Var?

    I've been doing some messing around in spreadsheets, and really haven't run into any obvious problems yet. Is there something else that you've found, or have I missed your point entirely?

    The way I see it, this alternate universe is blissfully free of many constraints, so ignore expectations and have fun with it. The only real problem I see is if you try to mix universes. If you open up a black hole and have your AU crew of the new USS Exeter NCC-1706 go up against the TOS NCC-1701, it's probably not going to be pretty unless you chose Path #1.

    ===========

    Anyone have any thoughts on this, or have a preference (or alternative) to the options above?
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  14. #14
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    We don't actually know if the newer ships are more powerful, just bigger (going with #2) - size wise it would be about Galaxy or Sovereign (8-9) - however with 'older' systems it wouldn't be quite as reliable or powerful. There's also 'timeline' issues with regards to technology - TNG is still likely to be better shielded and more powerfully armed, with weapons that can partly/mostly ignore their shields etc (as the Nerada did to the Kelvin, and most likely most of the fleet round Vulcan).

    In either size category, while it will punch a LOT above it's weight relative to a TOS ship (which it should) it wouldn't necessarily against a TNG era ship.

    I really don't know what they will do with the franchise. In so far as yes, a lot of material is available on the net, and home brew systems exist: I much prefer a nice printed glossy book with definitive, specifically tailored rules. I can't take my computer to where I run my games, so it's not much use to me
    Ta Muchly

  15. #15
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    The way I see it, it's bigger, can probably take more punch, but there's no reason to think that the Federation weapons are much more powerful if at all.

    To retcon it, you can assume that something related to the Kelvin incident caused some advances in technology (computer, for instance) and perhaps structural engineering. But the nu1701 doesn't have a faster warp drive and the Narada still cleaned the Feds clocks at Vulcan. From that I assume that many things didn't change. I would still expect a starship from Picard's era to wipe the floor with the nu1701, regardless of its size.

    Can't deliver a nice glossy book, but perhaps something worth printing.
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