Archive through June 19, 2002
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: Star Fleet Universe Training Command:
Getting women to play SFB:
Archive through June 19, 2002
Jessica, FASA also made a lot of their money off minis and their other lines...well, Shadowrun. Giveb that, at least amongst most BT players I knew, the Tech Readouts were poor selelrs in the first place, it's not surprising electronic distribution didn't have that big an impact.
FOr the RPG computer products, you touched on one real big point, the convience of the physical book. The fact that both incarnations of the Vampire CD, and the 2nd ed D&D CD, were less than useful when it came to browsing and searching doesn't help either. The 3rd ed D&D product is just a char gen/tracker with a handful of other utulities, it doesn't have the rulebooks on it.
And the other big difference is that most of this is pre-Napster. With peer-to-peer systems like Kazaa, it's not like warez sites that can be found and stepped on.
So while a CD o' SSDs would be nice, I'm certainly not gonna wish the game to go away for the sake of some convience. I'm gonna get around to scanning them all for my own use someday.
What would be nice, if the software hurdle with Paramount ever gets cleared, it's a utility CD with some nice little utils (impulse caller, DAC, and such) and if anything CDs, a utility for customizing SSDs for variable/generic units like tugs and bases. But I'm not gonna hold my breath 
I gotta a crazy idea. Take the steps that are in the Cadet Training Manual and produce a small rulebook from then put that in a box (with a nice cover on it) with 2 minatures (The Fed CA and the Klingon D7) and possibly add the map from Module W and sell that as a beginner product. The benefits are:
1) Most of product already exist.
2) The rules are already there they just need to be re-formatted
3) Simple rules that most people can pickup
4) Get some of the minitures people.
(Note: I am not sure if this would actually help get more women interested or not)
Paul Franz
There are other difference in Fasa that made electronic distribution more palatable for them. In Btech, a core part of the game was designing your own 'mechs and vehicles. So, naturally a program of some sort to allow that was wanted, and they did in fact produce it (though IMHO it wasn't as good as many fan-based ones out there on the web.) That, to me, is the problem. By having a design system, a good programmer can come up with a freeware program that will make anything you like. They ran into the same problem with other games, like the Renegade Legion series. I myself wrote a program that would build Centurian vehicles for you.
SFB isn't like that; there is no official design system that calculates BPV, so there isn't any way to make a program to do it. I think sticking with paper SSD's, bought in the form of modules, is good enough for me. If I want to make my own designs, I can. But it's alot of work to do, and not everyone has the patience.
About using early years ships as an introduction.. I taught my wife and two sons sfb using the early years module and the cadet manual. The cadet manual got them interested but y-1 sold them. It has several advantages. First you can use the Captains Edition rules, so you get the full flavor of sfb with limits. The smaller and slower ships are easier to handle than the general war era versions and the options for weapon use are too(no overloads etc.) You can ween the rookies on this version as all other rules still apply in lesser form. eg. tactical intelligence, reserve power, electronic warfare. They were ready for tournament and general war era ships as these are essentially larger versions of the y-ships with more options and required only an adjustment of scale for them. Definately give y-1 a shot as an intro I think you'll find it worthwhile.
One note however, the PC+ uses general war era rules and may be too much for the other races ships.
I got to thinking about it, and I think that if SFB has a flaw where kids go, it's that it isn't very flashy. If you look at most FASA products, they were very colorful, with neat looking little forms to use, and multi-colored counters. SFB tends to be a bit drab in that respect. It's a better game by about a million miles, but it doesn't draw the eyes of a younger player the way a Battle Tech or Fasa Star Trek Combat Simulator would. I once showed an SSD of a Fed CA to someone...they immediately said "That doesn't look like the ship." I tried to explain that it wasn't necessarily supposed to, that it was a graphical representation of systems. They still didn't get it. I make alot of "JFF" SSD's, that dolook like the ship in question, and he liked those. But they take alot more time to do.
The other thing, and there's nothing that can be done about it, is that most kids today see TNG or later as their Star Trek...not the classic Trek most of us grew up with. So, they don't like the look of the game, because to them, it isn't Star Trek.
Just my humble insights...could be totally back-asswards wrong.
No your right Mike. It takes people with high inteligence and insight like us(on the BBS) to really understand this game!
Ha...I know, include a ST:TOS DVD with Basic Set!
Ya, ya, I know.
If I were to try teaching this game to a complete newbie, I'd go with the Captains basic game, no optional rules at all, and the 10 impulse system to keep things speedy. That, and use minis. Always helps to use minis to make a game more interesting.
Mike: On the minis point...
There is nothing that attracts attention like (hopefully well painted) miniatures. Particularly in a game related to Star Trek.
I'm a bit surprised that minis aren't used for finals in tourneys and such.
When people see a table full of starship minis, they say "Cool." When they see tiny counters on a small black map, they tend to say "Boring."
I took a mega map and some minis to a tourney only to be told no I couldn't use them because my opponnents were too used to viewing small hexes, and it would provide me an advantage.
Lessss, I've run into something similar. Some folks have some sort of mental hang-up with using miniatures instead of counters. I really fail to understand it, but I have seen players express it as well.
Honestly, miniatures are what got me back into SFB. I started playing years ago (in high school), but college and the military pulled me away from the game until about three years ago. I developed an interest in modeling, and maintained an interest in things "Trek", but my SFB stuff gathered dust in storage. Then I meet another guy in the military who had a big collection of minis, and I was hooked. Within a week, I had started ordering updated rulebooks and miniatures. The rest, as they say, is history.
I enjoy many facets of SFB, but I have to admit, it was miniatures that brought me back. At every convention or gaming store I've been too, spectators walk right by a black hexmap full of tiny cardboard counters. But miniatures draw attention, the first step in attracting new players.
Absolutely. I think that's one major reason that games like Axis & Allies did so well...they discarded the counters, and went with little plastic tanks, ships and planes. It made the game more attractive to the eye.
I'd love to see "Renegade Legion" style box minis for SFB, for the ships that are too obscure to get minis of their own.
I'd be perfectly happy to pay 10 bucks for a PDF file that had box minis for 6-9 ships per 8x11" sheet to print on my color printer.
The artwork exists to do it (with Geibel), and I happen to have the templates done up for my own game.
"box minis?" What do you mean, exactly?
The original few printings of Renegade Legion Interceptor (and I believe Centurion and Leviathan as well) from FASA had card stock counters...escept instead of being flat, there were T-shaped thingies that your punched out , folded up, and glued into little boxes or blocks. The top had a top-down pic of the ship in question, the 4 sides had appropiate side views, and the bottom had a little info box with type of ship, name, and such. Not a mini, but they had good art and still provided a 3D effect.
And gave rise to one of my favorite rules ever. Interceptor had no stacking limits for a hex...but if you knocked a stack over, each of your ships took a 5 point hit.
Oh, yes, that's right...I remember that, now.
There are several games out there now that have plastic, one color ship minis included. The detail isn't as great as with the SFB minis, but for catching the eye, they're great. Probably cost a small fortune to make, though. I wonder if it would be possible to use the old elite series mini molds to make plastic elite-sized minis in one color for SFB? Sort of "SFB Junior" or something? Just woolgathering, I guess.
At Desert Con we used Megahex maps and counters for the final battle between Vince and Jared. The large map and counters were attractive to the spectators, but were a bit laborious for the players. However they didn't seem to mind. Next time I will definately try to use Module W and Minis instead of counters. After all a tourney can serve 2 purposes, first a contest between players and second as an attraction to would be players. We sfb enthusiasts need to do whatever we can to attract new blood to this great game.
Sigh...MegaHex...
I bought both Mega Hex 1 and two when they came out, and supplemented for "x ships" with the counters from the old Fasa game. The worked great together.
At Desert Con most of the events were miniature oriented. The people attending and spectating were drawn by the attractive 3-d events. If Captains tournaments used minis they would get a lot more attention from newbies, especially if the minis were well painted. The problem is that not all Official tournament cruiser types have a mini that can be used as of yet. I know SVC is Trying hard to remedy this and get them out. Until then some improvisation may be called for.
Btw most women I know like miniatures (although these are usually fantasy type minis). One way to get women to play sfb might be to ask for (help) painting some of the ships. Well you might at least get a date out of it, ( for those that are single!)
Hugh, alls well now? Did you e-mail me as User? Some one did and left no other name. I have a feeling it was you.
I know one thing that will help recruit women: GPD. The @#$% lawyers finally approved us giving the Kzinti women a brain equal to the Kzinti males.
Whoa! Really? I remember a big conversation about that in the Gurps thread. Ah wait, that blows my idea about the Male/female together as one PC, idea. Oh, well, that's good for the game in the long run.
Svc HOORAH!!! That will be a great opportunity for roleplayers and will thrill my wife.
Loren if I sent an e-mail without i.d. it was either a mistake or I didn't do it. Things have been real hectic here with finals and starting summer school, so I haven't been as active here as I am usually. Now that I'm back at Unlv for the summer I can post from the library when I just can't study any more.