What do you think of DecTrek?

[Phantom]

My copy will be, hopefully, next Thursday. Can't wait to get a look at it.

[Don Mappin]

I put down that I thought it was better than I expected.

[aelius]

Actually the game mechanics remind me of a combination of D20 and Megatraveller.
The professions are loose enough that they do not bind like classes.
The only change I felt I needed to make was eliminating the restrictions on how many careers you can have at once. It just seems silly to me that if you have two careers and spend 5 picks to learn a new one that you would have to "forget" one of your old careers.
Other than that I like it.

[Falkh]

I voted 4. better than I'd expected.

At first I found the format of the book confusing. Trying to create a character involved a great deal of page flipping. I would have liked to see perhaps a page set aside for each profession, complete with descriptions, skills, abilities and examples, but as has been pointed out a few times on this thread, professions appear to be more like skill/trait packages than D&D-style character classes.

I was amazed to find Decipher had managed to condense the entire combat system to within the last 10 pages of the book. Initially I thought they'd forgotten to print it. Maybe this means a simpler system, so games will be more character-driven. At least for myself, I'm quite happy with the results.

I would have liked to see the Narrator's Guide released at the same time as the Player's Guide, mainly because as a DM (or Narrator), I'd feel more comfortable with more resources at my disposal. Hopefully there won't be too much of a delay with the NG release.

All in all an excellent job! I'm much happier with this CODA system than ICON. I was never too keen on the whole skill/specialties thing from LUG. I think CODA has a better handle on the use of specialties.

[qerlin]

OK...finally got the game. Read it last night and actually built a couple of characters.

First impressions: I sa the attributes with the modifier stuff and said "nooooo! I've been duped into d20!" Then I looked again. Ues, it's similar in that respect, but there's only so may ays to can quantify traits for a game. So cool there...

Species first impressions: Ocampa and Talaxians, huh..? How 'bout the REAL Trek aliens: Andorians, Tellarites, Orions, Romulans..? No movie era aliens like Efrosians or the cat guys, but we've got the Voyager ones? Lame. NO, wait... Naaaah, it's still lame.

Profession first impressions: These ability things are a pain in the a**. Oh, wait, they're essential traits, just not called the same thing. Oh, great, you go into one line and are stuck? Oh, wait...you can buy into another line or profession as an advancement. Cool there...

Skills first impression: no tricorder skill. I'd kiss the guy who took that out...if I anted to look like a whoopsy of something. (No, honestly...thank you!)

Traits -- more edges and flas, please. Guess I'll have to convert some of the old ones.

Time and ease of building a character: first one was alittle slow going -- about 1/2 and hour and a bit confusing. Second one: done in 15 min / no trouble. 3rd...10 minutes, no waiting.

Did a few test rolls with the characters -- looks good. Gonna run a test adventure on the weekend.

Overall, I like it. I might wind up liking it better than ICON.

(Feels like pre-Enterprise days -- nay-saying the new show before it as out, then seeing it and saying "oh...this isn't so bad.")

[Calcoran]

Looks like you'll soon have to buy a new keyboard, Qerlin. This one definitely has troubles with 'W's and 'N's !

[Silverthorne]

Not having the game yet, I will not vote, yet. From the sounds of the descriptions, I think the game will be very nice. I personally like the die+ability+skill rolls, its like the Anime roleplaying games, but those work on a d10 and cap out at 10. I think there will be very little that my house rules will change, but then again, I have very soft house rules.

[Trotsky]

This is the point I think people are missing, The basic mechanic of the game IS different from "The D20" system, but the ESSENCE of that mechanic ( dice roll+attribute mod+skill level ) is the same. Are we saying rolling 2d6 is better or worse than rolling d20?

Well, a number of people would say its better, yes It makes extreme results less likely, you see, and has a distribution closer to Normal, which arguably simulates real life more effectively.

To me, all that matters is that I own a game that I enjoy playing. And I will enjoy playing this.

Which is cool, of course

[tonyg]

Originally posted by Wraith2000_uk


This is the point I think people are missing, The basic mechanic of the game IS different from "The D20" system, but the ESSENCE of that mechanic ( dice roll+attribute mod+skill level ) is the same.
Are we saying rolling 2d6 is better or worse than rolling d20?. To me, all that matters is that I own a game that I enjoy playing. And I will enjoy playing this.


Wraith

The ESSENCE of that mechanic (DIE +STATMOD+SKILL MOD) isn't a D20 original! Heck, NOTHING in D20 is orignal! THe mechanic dates back long before D&D.

In fact, Jonathan Tweet, on the the designers of the new D20 D&D was also one of he creators of Ars Magica that had a game mechanic of Die+Stat+skill. He certainly used the same idea in 3E, but he wasn't the first to come up with the idea.

Many early RPGs used die plus modifer. Original TRAVELLER comes to mind, and that was 2d6 plus modifer.

Just becuase D20 uses a similar mechanic doesn't make CODA D20.

If you look at RPGs, there are probably less than a dozen different die mechanics used. THat doesn't mean that there are only a dozen differnt RPGs. It take more than how you add up the dice to detemine an RPG.

[Wraith2000_uk]

Glad my post got people thinking about the game.
At the end of the day, arguing about system and mechanics is a bit like the chicken and the egg. If the system works go with it. If it doesn't, to quote The Borg "........Adapt to service us(the players)"





Wraith

[qerlin]

Originally posted by Calcoran
Looks like you'll soon have to buy a new keyboard, Qerlin. This one definitely has troubles with 'W's and 'N's !

Yup. W's acting up. Gonna be hard to replace...it's a friggin' laptop. The n prob is just my bad typing.

Oopp...nope there was a crunb of some unknown food thing under the W key. Came out with a bit of flipping over and smacking against my hand.

[Ineti]

Haven't had a chance to go in depth with it, but I like what I've read so far. Many things very similar to LUG Trek, which might speed up the learning curve.

One low point for me is the photographs. A lot of them are unfocused, or unclear, or grainy. I guess they're pulled off the original film prints or something, but I had expected much clearer photos. The original art is okay. I certainly can't do better.

And a full-color character sheet? Nice and flashy, but useless for a gamer. I'll wait for someone to put together a PDF form version or a clean black and white.

But, initial impressions are that it's a worthy successor to LUGTrek. More as I read it.

[tonyg]

Ineti,
Good News, a couple of people are working on new character sheets. You can find them in the CODA rules& mechanics area (in other words, this forum).

[qerlin]

I noticed something in the starfleet character creation templates, or whatever the hell they're calling them this iteration of the game: no law. Yeah...I know it's a skill under knowledge, but I would think a law of 1 would be de rigeur for a military character -- they should at least have SOME knowledge of SF regs. Oversight, or was it assumed you'd take in with one of the 5 skill level you have to play with.

I hadn't realized how much we used it until we ran a playtest this evening.

[Erik Filean]

I figured I'd count organizational rules and regulations under Administration.