A not entirely positive review of CODA, or "d20 travelling incognito..."
Before I begin I'd first like to apoligize to people for this long, long review. I got the Player's Guide the other day, and this is my reaction, but I guess I got a little carried away. This will be long, so I'll continue my review in several posts after each other, but all in this threat.
Secondly, I'll warn people that I'll make references to the d20 system by Wizards of the Coast (WOTC), particularly the new (!) D&D 3rd Edition (3e) game that launched it. I've been a D&D game master for more than a decade, so the new edition was a big thing for me...
I should also begin by admitting that I've played LUG Trek RPG for years and think ICON is one of the best systems I've ever encountered, and I've played games like Shadowrun, Call of Cthulhu, Star Wars RPG, Vampire the Masquerade, and a host of others over the years. And ICON is about the best mix comprises a game has yet offered between not-overly-complicated rules and credibility that doesn't suspend your disbelief every two seconds with rules that are either stupidly unrealistic (like D&D's 'hit points') or joy-killing details (like ICE's endless tables in Role Master...).
That I like ICON so much and know that CODA is conceived and developed by mostly the same people makes this even harder to bear, because CODA is just a huge leap backwards from ICON in my opinion... I've looked only at the Player's Guide so far, but it's obvious which way the game is going. Let me just describe my thoughts according to the chapters of that book.
Chapter 1 is a pretty straight-forward description of Trek, so nothing much there, except for the glossary that had comments in it that didn't exactly fill me with confidence... This became even more clear by the time I reached the 'character sheets' of Archetypes, but I digress.
Chapter 2 was the first disappointment. In ICON all 'species' (Templates in ICON) had fixed attributes. You never rolled for stats, you just adopted whatever your species gave you, then proceeded on that basis to built your attributes with Development Points (DP) before you even began playing. You could raise attributes all the way to the maximum 5 (or 6 in some cases), but only by then choosing not to get some else instead.
The key word here is choice, because in ICON that's what you had - you had to _choose_ your stats and live with those choices! In CODA species simply have modifiers to attributes, just as characters do in WOTC's d20 system. This is the main problem with CODA because all the things that have been removed from the ICON system have now been replaced by annoying d20 copies. I'll demonstrate how this happens over and over below... If you love d20 that is probably a good thing, but as you can probably tell, I'm a determined skeptic of it myself...
Anyway, there are then descriptions of each species. CODA scores a few points here because it actually includes examples of names that individuals of the various species have, something that was sorely lacking in ICON. These are described as "possible character names" which is a problem because it's misleading in that all the names listed are names of characters from the various shows. Choosing them for a character quickly becomes woefully unoriginal, which should have been mentioned. Not so cool, but the lists are nice as examples of the nomenclature within each species, and I definitely think CODA scores points for having them.
I don't like that each species has a 'favored profession' because somehow it seems to 'force' certain choices on people. Sure, the rules tell us not to consider this a 'straight-jacket', but then why include a 'favored profession' entry in the first place? If there is a need to say many Vulcans are diplomats or scientists, then obviously it would have been included under the 'personality' for that species... I kept waiting to find a rule that somehow penalized characters who chose professions outside the favored ones, since I had the ominous feeling this was the CODA version of d20/3e's 'Favored Class' (it certainly sounded like it), but I couldn't find it so maybe it's just me... If there is such a rule in the Narrator's Guide I'll know my concerns were well justified, however.
The various species descritions are pretty much what can be expected, except for some odd choices and a strange tendency to favor humans... I'm not sure, but is favoring humans over other species in an RPG a form of racism? Humans get a bonus to 'reactions' (see below), extra courage, and additional skill levels. The latter sounds very much like d20/3e where humans get extra skill points, doesn't it?
For example, in ICON humans and Bajorans were practically identical. The only real difference (except that species specific skills that obviously focused on each culture) was that Bajorans had the 'Species Enemy: Cardassians' Disadvantage, which really is part of the Bajoran heritage and so made a lot of sense... It is gone now, though, and Bajoran 'species abilities' are a whole lot less useful than those of humans. For example, they get a forced 'artistic' ability for some reason, even though Bajorans are supposed to be just as diverse as humans... Kira is best known Bajoran, yet people who have seen DS9's "Accession" know that although her family is supposed to have a tradtion for it, Kira has absolutely no artistic skills. That makes this seem rather strange...
The human bonus to any skill is replaced by a similar bonus to Bajoran religion, which you obviously won't use very often. Bajorans also get extra courage, but only if the player sucks up to the Prophets repeatedly. Not exactly the most playable skill, I think...
Yes, I did play a Bajoran myself in ICON, so you might argue I'm just angry because I think 'my' race got a raw deal, but then I could argue I just focus on it because I know that stuff... Yes, every child may learn about the Prophets on Bajor, but that doesn't mean it will embrace them. Ro Laren certainly didn't - she may have worn the Bajoran earring, but she consistently wore it on the wrong ear, which is rather spiteful and defiant.
These rules don't allow for that, which makes them restrictive and less playable than they should have been... The Narrator can overrule it or the player can do it in spite of the consequences, but then the rules are supposed to encourage and support the role-playing experience, not work against it...
Another odd thing about the species are the actual species that have been included. I was more than a little surprised, for example, to see both Ocampa and Talaxians. We've only ever seen one regular character of each of these races, and one of them was there for less than half the show... They are also both restricted to the Delta Quadrant, thus making them unlikely in any Trek campaign but one taking place on Voyager, a problem that the book even points out itself.
That being the case, why waste time putting them in there? Even on Voyager there was only one of each of them. On the other hand, three of the founding races of the Federation are curiously missing. I flipped back and forth, but nope - there are no Andorians, no Centaurans, and no Tellarites anywhere... It was more important to include Ocampa and Talaxians than these?!?
How about the Bolians who are also missing? We may not have seen many Andorians, Centaurans, or Tellarites in the show, but we've seen lots of Bolians as recurring characters, not to mention Benzites, yet they are all AWOL for some reason, whereas even Klingons, Trills, and Ferengi are in there. You could argue that Klingons are important in Trek by now, but there are also Cardassians in the book, but no Romulans... Very strange.
(continued)