Anyone playing homebrew?

[nocac]

Is anyone playing ST using their own homemde rules? Can you tell me in brief how you handle situations?

I like percentile for ST since it feels sorta "techie", though the damage system requires a little math. Not much, but right now I've just been faking the damage since I usually post my stuff at 5 in the morning.

Any thoughts on simple homemade systems that would work for play-by-e-mail?

[qerlin]

i'm drinking some homebrew...is that close enough?

[Pope]

It's not homebrew, but I think The Window would make an excellent "unofficial" system for ST games... http://www.mimgames.com/window/

[buck rogers]

I have played most versions of Star Trek. This includes FASA, Gurps, LUG, & now Coda. But at one time we did play a d20 Trek homebrew of my own design. It was easy to work it out. Everything to construct a good rpg is there. We still have the link to all the ships and the crossover from LUG to a d20 system. here it is if anybody is intereted, http://dunks271.freehosting.net/ this will lead to a pretty good list of trek ships in d20 format. Also included are rules for vaporizing people with phasers and such. It is based on the d20 Star Wars rpg, which uses the much improved system of vitality/wounds instead of simple hit points. this adds more reality to the game, in my opinion.

[nocac]

Thanks. What I am thinking of is a game where you roll 1-5 or so dice depending on your skill level. 1-3 is a failure, 4-6 a success. You roll versus an opponent or target #.

Is this almost exactly like LUG version?

[C5]

Actually, this sounds closer to WhiteWolf Storyteller system to me

[nocac]

So is that good or bad to be like the White Wolf storyteller system? What are the strong and weak points? I've never picked any of their stuff up because I like SF/superhero much more than gothic.

[Argyle]

There are two main flavors of the Storyteller system. The World of Darkness version, which is older, and the Aeon-verse/Age of Sorrows version, which is somewhat simplified.

In both versions, a character has nine attributes and some number of skills. Both are nominally rated from one (or zero) to five. A test involves rolling a number of ten-sided dice equal to the relevant attribute plus the relevant skill. Usually, this is pretty straightforward. Can I spot the guy sneaking up on me? Perception + Awareness. Can I shoot the bad guy? Dexterity + Firearms. This also allows for some odd combinations. Last week, my Exalted character had to roll Strength + Medicine to re-break someone's arm that had been set badly and was not going to heal correctly otherwise. The number of successes (dice which exceed the target number) determine how well the action went. There's also a method for determining botches as opposed to a simple failure.

The World of Darkness version is, in my not so humble opinion, a good try. Not bad, fairly clunky, not great, it gets the job done. There's some bizarre probability problems, like botches being more likely as your skill increases, handling modifiers gets kinda ugly, and it is not optimized for combat.

I vastly prefer the Aeon-verse/Age of Sorrows version of the system. This revision stripped out vitrually everything that was broken while leaving the basic mechanics in place. It's pretty fast, easy to understand and teach, and character advancement is done by buying abilities with XP; no character levels here. On the down side, it's coarsely granular, which can turn off some people.

Since you prefer sci-fi and supers games, see if you can get a hold of a copy of Abberant, White-Wolf's supers game. The setting is modeled on what they speculate might REALLY happen if a handful of people suddenly developed fantastic powers. Few supers (called Novas in Abberant) would dress in spandex and save the world (though some do) or try to conquer it with some mad scheme (though some do). Most would probably use their gifts and become fabulously rich and/or famous legitimately through private industry and media. Abberant is White-Wolf's second best work. It is sadly out of print, but you can still order it from their online store or find it in some shops.

White-Wolf's best work is easily Exalted. It's Greek and Chinese mythology (with a splash of Old Testament) done in anime and wuxia style. And it rocks. A lot.

[Evan van Eyk]

Before I got my hands on LUG, and since the FASA edition was not wide spread I did a Masterbook edition. It was published by West End Games and quite similiar to the Star Wars d6 version. It served us quite well until LUG came out. The problem was that the characters advanced very fast - wich was a bit complicated because we did an Academy series.

[buck rogers]

We also used the d6 system for star trek and babylon 5. The d6 system was based on their Star Wars rpg, and an actual book published titled the d6 system came out. I still have my copy any it still serves me well. I must say however that the Coda system is second to none! I just bought the LOTR rpg and love it. In my opinion its the best fantasy rpg out on the market. The d20 system is good don't get me wrong, and I still use it. But having a system as flexible as the d6 system easy to learn and NOT dependent on a 20 sider is wonderful. I have seen to many d20 systems the market is flooded with them. The best is D&D 3rd editon and Star Wars. My personal favorate is Star Wars because I like the Vitality/Wounds system. But I still missed the d6 system sometimes, until Coda came out.

[nocac]

I love d6, but I use a success/failure (4-6 succeeds) rather than doing all the math. However, I wish the probabilities were a little easier to work out. I like to have a rough idea of how hard a certain action is.

I'd love to go diceless, but just find the idea of "bidding" using luck points or something like that is a little too "metagame for my tastes.

[Kirbinator]

Before LUG came out i used a palladium version. and more recently i have begun work on a new campaign using the same version. my players prefer that system to coda or icon. due to the fact that the are more familiar and more comfortable with palladium after years of playing Robotech

[Lt Cmdr Matt]

CODA is definitely one of the best systems that I have played. I do like D20 in the form of 3rd edition of Dungeons and Dragons though.

[Polanski]

Some basics from me ...
http://forum.trek-rpg.net/showthread...&threadid=7168

[Gabriel]

Long, long ago, I did some work on a Palladium version of Star Trek. My group and I used it for a campaign we called "Wolf Trek", where three psychotic wolf brothers got hold of and learned how to use an Avenger class starship. Episodes featured the overly violent characters wandering around space and causing mayhem.

Recently, I've thought of Mekton Z and BESM versions. However, I like Icon for Trek, and Coda looks passable. So, I doubt I'll ever do the adaptations.