Decipher Spacedock?

[IceGiant]

Steve,
Will we see spacedock in the decipher version of star trek? Ot a t least a version there of.

[Steve Long]

To answer that question, I'm going to have to delve a little into planned products. Hopefully Christian will forgive me.

At present there are three roleplaying products with starship info in 'em:

1. The ST Narrators' Guide. The starship rules in that are being written by Don Mappin. I am developing the book. I expect Don will do an excellent job with these rules.

2. A book of Federation starships. I am neither writing nor developing this book; I have no interaction with it whatsoever.

3. A third book that I'm not going to describe further at this time for reasons of confidentiality. I am not writing for this product, but I am developing it.

What Don and the others writing starship rules for Decipher Trek do with that material is up to them. Whether any of them consult my works (or me personally) for information or other purposes is up to them. Neither Spacedock nor any of the other ship books I've been working on are going to be published by Decipher as far as I know. Certainly no one has, as yet, spoken to me about that, for a wide variety of very good reasons.

I did, however, write the starships chapter of the ST Players' Guide.

Steve Long

[odoital]

what possible good reason could they have for not approaching YOU about starships?

Unless you are currently tied up with something else that you cannot get out of. I cannot imagine you not writing it unless Sternbach or Okuda have game writing skills!

[SIR SIG]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by odoital:
what possible good reason could they have for not approaching YOU about starships?

Unless you are currently tied up with something else that you cannot get out of. I cannot imagine you not writing it unless Sternbach or Okuda have game writing skills!</font>

Yeah I agree with Odoital

Why weren't you envolved Steve? If you can say that is!


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SIRSIG
AKA: SirPostalot
AKA: The MapMaker
AKA: The Trek Cartographer
AKA:...Well I could keep going forever

[Erik Filean]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by odoital:
what possible good reason could they have for not approaching YOU about starships?

Unless you are currently tied up with something else that you cannot get out of. I cannot imagine you not writing it unless Sternbach or Okuda have game writing skills!</font>

One suspects Steve might be a little tied up developing the Lord of the Rings RPG, also coming from Decipher to a store near you...

[Calcoran]

Forgive my bad English again, but what subtle difference is there between writing a book and developing it?

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Sometimes it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms)

[Steve Long]

Writing a book is, well, writing it.

Developing is a game industry term (AFAIK). It involves taking the written manuscript, editing it, rewriting things that need rewriting, making sure all the parts are consistent, making sure the rules make sense and are explained clearly, etc. In a sense, a developer is like a mega-editor -- though game companies often have professional editors also check over their manuscripts purely for spelling, grammar, etc. (the more eyes that look at something, the more errors you catch ).

If you've got good, creative writers, developing is easy and fun. If you don't, it can involve rewriting huge chunks of a manuscript and becomes a real chore.

In theory, at least, the developer is ultimately responsible for the content and nature of a book. In practice that's not always the case, of course.

Steve Long

[Calcoran]

Thanks Steve . I feel more knowledgeable now !

[AllenS]

From what I read about the new game, the Decipher team is going for a starship system even simpler than the basic system from ICON. This would mean 9and I distinctly recall them saying) that a complex product like Spacedock would not fit in with their plans.
I respectfully submit that this is a Bad Idea for the following reasons:

1.) Having lived through the various versions of Fire, Fusion and Steel from TNE and T4, I am no fan of complicated starshipbuilding for RPG's. Spacedock is not complicated. Detailed, yes, but actually quite easy to use as most of the math is simple addition and subtraction.

2.) The basic starship combat system in the Star Trek RPG's from LUG was a great system, and the rules options added in Spacedock make it even better. I think it will be hard to accuratley reflect starship combat ala Trek and make the system simpler at the same time, although I'm sure Don can do it if anyone can.

Hopefully once the new game comes out we can figure out how to use Spacedock with it.

Allen

[Cochrane]

Well, I like the idea of an ultra-simple system, and I don't want to have to read a whole lotta rules. It's nice to have detailed stuff available, but I'd like to start with something simple. I love Spacedock so far, it takes me forever to read these things. I can tell I'll get a lot of use out of it if I ever get through it. I just think it's always good to try things new ways. My uneducated opinion.