Icon vs. Coda

[BytomMan]

I wasn't sure where to put this post, but I've got both LUG and Deciphe versions of the game, but I just can't decide which to use for my campaign. Can you all summarize pros and cons of each and general feelings. I like the character gen (easier and more flexible) better in Icon but the starship combat better in Coda (more cinematic).

[Owen E Oulton]

ICON all the way!

[C5]

In a nutshell, because it's sadly been a while since I've played either of them:
ICON is a rather original system, and its character creation is easier. I did not like much the die system, but that's a matter of personal preference (for me there was too many tests that relied on the drama die to succeed).
CODA shares a lot of similarities with D20 (I see that now that I've played with that system). It's overall much more cinematic (starship combat is the most glaring example), but it lost a few things I liked in ICON (renown types and stun points come to mind).

[Owen E Oulton]

There are some minor glitches in the ICON Chargen, most of which I've fixed woith my House Rules at file:///C:/0Gaming/!Webpage/current/game/startrek/universe/rules/newrules.htm . They're pretty simple to use. I've been running an ICON campaign for 15 years now, and the Drama Die crops up a 6 often enough that the difficulties aren't a problem. You can always adjust the difficulty levels downward to suit yourself, though.

[BytomMan]

Could you repost that link? I don't think that will work since it refers to your c: drive.

There are some minor glitches in the ICON Chargen, most of which I've fixed woith my House Rules at file:///C:/0Gaming/!Webpage/current/game/startrek/universe/rules/newrules.htm . They're pretty simple to use. I've been running an ICON campaign for 15 years now, and the Drama Die crops up a 6 often enough that the difficulties aren't a problem. You can always adjust the difficulty levels downward to suit yourself, though.

[The Tatterdemalion King]

http://coldnorth.com/owen/game/start...s/newrules.htm

[Owen E Oulton]

Oooops, sorry. Thanks, Chris.

[knarf]

The CODA system is more strongly trying to fit into the d20 mold with races and classes and such as you'd expect. It feels odd that the rules are geared towards a "Level 1" experience. Maybe I missed it, but there's not a lot of discussion of building more advanced characters and benchmarks of how many advancements is what.

The starship combat system for CODA is very nice, probably the strongest feature of those rules. Positioning is not done via a map, but simply a line of range bands between you and your target. It manages to be abstract without being too handwavey.

ICON is a point-based character generation system, but the process as described in the books uses pre-designed packages of traits for character building. There's more guidance for advanced characters, making it easier to spend your first session as Captain Kirk rather than Ensign Riley. Starship combat is more detailed, requiring the players to allocate power to various systems as they fight.

I generally prefer ICON, not because it is terribly strong, but because it doesn't have any glaring weakness.

[Owen E Oulton]

Oooh, don't tell the CODA people that CODA is a D20-clone. They don't like being reminded about that.. It is my (admittedly speculative) feeling that when LUG was acquired by WoTC and before Paramount decided to to let the Trek license be transferred with it, the satff started writing a d20 version of Trek, and when Decipher got the license and they hired most of the former LUG staff to write it, they cobbled a D6-oriented version of the rules to fit. Most of the background materials, being written by the same people, are of course the same as for ICON, which makes getting copies of the CODA stuff somewhat useful.

[C5]

You know, I used to be an supporter of the "CODA is not D20", but now that I have actually played some times with AD&D 3.5 edition, the similarities have become more and more difficult to ignore, especially with regard to how attributes and modifiers are handled. Then again, it is not necessarily a bad thing, as it at least gets rids of some annoying things from D20. Still, even though I quite liked CODA, I missed the Stun and Renown rules from LUG.

[The Tatterdemalion King]

Oooh, don't tell the CODA people that CODA is a D20-clone. They don't like being reminded about that.. It is my (admittedly speculative) feeling that when LUG was acquired by WoTC and before Paramount decided to to let the Trek license be transferred with it, the satff started writing a d20 version of Trek, and when Decipher got the license and they hired most of the former LUG staff to write it, they cobbled a D6-oriented version of the rules to fit. Most of the background materials, being written by the same people, are of course the same as for ICON, which makes getting copies of the CODA stuff somewhat useful.

Neither Hite or any of the other writers on CODA indicated as such; instead it was simply that d20 was the new thing at the time and a similar format was desired. Now, 15 years later, that d20 is a marker of lack of quality, that people would want to imitate it might be hard to envision.

In fact, I'm not sure if anyone wrote a single word for Trek after the WotC acquisition of LUG. Everything I've heard from people says that Paramount was not of the opinion that the license transferred with the buyout.