Archive through May 30, 2010
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Company-Conventions-Stores-Ideas: New Product Lines Development:
GENERAL PROJECTS:
New Product Suggestion Topic:
Archive through May 30, 2010
If the 'Campaign Designers Handbook' ever got a second (expanded) edition, that might be a good place for it.
It's a fun product, on its own, but lots of parts of it (CERTAINLY the entire 'tech block' section) could use updating for current SFU products (the updated X1, Module R10 with plasma sabots and such, Module Y2 to provide more context to 'early' systems, etc), that have come out since it was published. With a slightly larger format, rules for integrated F&E more cleanly would be welcome.
(As well as, potentially, a place for a 'master' set of the published mini-campaigns or full SFB campaigns to date, but this is a "if there is room" idea)
And, finally, a VERY useful update might be to make the lot of it (or at least a big section of it), FedCom-friendly. That's one thing FedCom could benefit greatly from - as the Campaign Designer's Handbook notes in the pitch, a "campaign" can lend meaning to a series of battles a group plays, and can thus help keep a group sticking together. An important idea! Yet there isn't really much in the way of 'campaign' material for FC, yet.
I always though OpV was going to be the middle area from which SFB scenarios could easilly be generated.
Randy: Could you clarify what you were meaning by "generate scenarios"?
If you're looking for terrain and conditions ...
Each F&E sector is of sufficient size that most terrain features could reasonably be found in any given sector. Therefore, eithr you're arbitrarily indicating that terrain in a particular sector is always going to generate a certain terrain, you're changing the map or you're back to using S4.0 (IIRC).
If you're talking about units ...
There are several people I know who have very solid campaign systems to facilitate that and several have "bridged" that gap in systems that they have put up on the web for other's to ape in their persuits.
What I'd always heard, and I'm not an F&E player so I can't comment, is that the engagement size that you typically got from basing it straight off of F&E was generally larger than most poeple want to work with on a regular basis.
I've seen people half command limits, use variable command point costs to account and even those that just arbitrarily put a BPV limit in place.
I know there are people out there that don't mind having regular battle station assaults and max the command ratings on a regular basis. When I was younger and could play sun-up-to-sun-down I fought my share of those, but frankly I don't have the time to do it regularly now. I'm curious as to how much sell a product would have that would require you a) to have/buy F&E and b) generate reasonably large encounters on a regular basis.
On the other hand ...
I agree that the CDH could use an update/expansion. My problem with the book is that it's guidelines of things to think about without actual practice. After reading it, I now had a more daunting task put before me as I became aware of many of the things that I hadn't taken into account earlier. It also, didn't lend itself to letting me start a campaign without weeks to months of effort on to come up with rules for my campaign. Then when I actually went to execute on that plan (writing my own) I tripped over a lot of problems that I hadn't foreseen that may have been briefly mentioned as "other things to think about" in the campaign rules.
My thought would be that you could give a (smaller) section of the book over to design principals (which is pretty much all of the book today) and then provide 2-3 different ways to generate a campaign that may or may not implement all of them. I'd recommend picking 2-3 very, very different campaign models to give people a wide variation in how they play.
That gives people who want to write their own campaign rules fully-functional examples to go by and gives those that want something "out of the box" a couple of options to pick from so that they can find one that suits their style.
Maybe ...
1 ... F&E style, something like Jeremy Gray's Admiral's Game rules, with mostly free-build rules and tech-by-year.
2 ... Something with totally free-build rules, using the tech blocks (I'd move them here out of the principals section).
3 ... Something a little more artificial, smaller battles, fixed build lists. Andy has run something like this in the past which I've heard was well received.
I'd suggest that no more than one of them requiring an impartial GM, cause frankly I don't know many groups that have players that want to run the campaign but not play.
Run this up the pole and see how it flies...
Avalon Hill did a game many years ago called something like "Source of the Nile." It was an exploration of Africa game in which players took on the role of explorers with various types of equipment. They would land at different spots on the African coast and travel inland into blank hexes on the map. The game used a system to define the terrain and random cards to describe events (good and bad) that befell each expedition. If the explorer made it back to England, the hexes he mapped became permanent and he won prestige, meaning more money for another expedition.
There is another game I've seen at game stores called Settlers of Cataan (or something like that). Never played it, but between its title and the Nile game, here is the SFU idea.
Players would take on the role of explorers who seek out new life and new civilizations. Terrain, levels of civilization, and events would be handled by the game system. Players would take on the persona of ship captain, free trader, private corporate manager, or whatever. Each role would have its own benefits and drawbacks.
Not really role playing like Prime Directive, but definitely not military command like SFB/FC.
Set in the SFU, this could be a family game and not just another combat game if the right people with the right ideas designed it. A basic game might include a strategic sector map with events and names peculiar to that sector. Other modules could be released for other sectors of space with their own unique events and names. Throw in some elements common to the SFU such as the various empires, monsters, technology, rudimentary ship encounters, pirate raiders, etc. and it might make for a good game.
And, oh yeah, include nice playing pieces and game components that are eye-catching and desirable for modern gamers. Something like this could expand the SFU genre to more than just wargamers and might even draw in some to the SFB/FC fold who never knew what was in the SFU.
Just some thoughts...
The Admiral's Game Jeremy and I play is adapted straight out of Advanced Missions... the main differences being we use the Flexible Command system in the CDH, and we picked a year to start and advanced the campaign per turn, instead of just ignoring YIS dates.
I've found the Flexible Command System to be workable. It has some kludges and gray areas, but worked better than 1/2 F&E command rating (you tend to get all-cruiser fleets using 1/2 F&E).
My understanding is there's a "Federation Admiral" in the works using the Victory By Any Means engine. Would love to see that in print, even though it's for FedCom and not SFB.
Not new thoughts. I've had people suggest exploration games before, even using Settlers or Nile concepts. It might sell, or not, but the crowd that buys that kind of game expects more expensive production than we usually do, creating a serious element of financial risk. Worse, I don't know anything about such games and am not qualified to design it, or even tell if it's any good.
Admiral actually works better with SFB than FC as SFB has more of the specialty ships needed. Indeed, Admiral won't work with FC at all unless we print a briefing with 70-90 new ships, which is one reason it has never happened, because the workload on the briefing is just plain scary. (I agreed to admiral when I was starting Briefing 2 and it seemed simple. By the time I finished Briefing 2 I frankly wanted nothing to do with Briefing 3; it's just too much work.) The other issue with admiral was the manuscript was going to need entire weeks of SVC time to rewrite and reformat and fix it, being full of formatting problems.
Perhaps modern Carnivons could be in C4R, as a Simulated Race for either/both of the Lyrans/Kzinti, perhaps variants from each.
Is Admiral effectively dead?
Have I said anything to indicate that Admiral is effectively or ineffectively dead? It's still on the "to do" list for this year, last time I checked.
Well, yes, the comments you made on Thursday, May 20 at 11:23am did at least hint that you thought it was too much work to do and that you wanted nothing to do with it.
SVC said:
"Admiral won't work with FC at all unless we print a briefing with 70-90 new ships, which is one reason it has never happened, because the workload on the briefing is just plain scary. (I agreed to admiral when I was starting Briefing 2 and it seemed simple. By the time I finished Briefing 2 I frankly wanted nothing to do with Briefing 3; it's just too much work.) The other issue with admiral was the manuscript was going to need entire weeks of SVC time to rewrite and reformat and fix it, being full of formatting problems."
With all the other things on the "hotlist" that are being bantered about on a daily basis, it seemed as if Admiral might be dead in the water.
Glad to hear that it is still being planned. If it has broad acceptance, it may spell the end of random scenarios.
It says that I want nothing to do with briefing-3 (but it will have to be done no matter what I want). It doesn't say that I want nothing to do with Admiral.
I totally forgot about the CDH when I asked my question. A lot of my F&E to SFB rules are based, at least in part, on the ideas in that volume.
(I just forgot where I got them from...my bad!)
I had a thought, if SSJs do not sell well do to marketing issues, could they be something to experiment in PDFs with?
On Dave's Thought above:
Is there a reason why you don't sell the SSD's from Captain's Log as PDFs like you do thru the spare parts for CL, since they are playtest until published elsewhere?
ADM: It's the same amount of work, and whether we sell them PDF or not, the sales have to justify the work. Remember that with POD we don't have a "minimum print run" on black and white stuff.
Phil: Same answer as any PDF sales. We need to, we haven't had time to mess with it. It is on the list to discuss after Origins.
FYI: Weekly clamoring for a 'Master [R-sections] Ship Book' to commence, now. OR! Alternatively: a Master Rulebook update that actually includes all the rules you need. (I think, in actually thinking about it, I'd almost prefer the latter. A master ship book would be seriously cool, but what with the carrier charts already in G3A, the only thing seriously still MISSING that would benefit us GREATLY is the rules in a centralized/organized place.)
Gaming group last night wanted to play another match last night, but using the ground bases with DEFSATs. Unfortunately, I'd only brought 'everything you need to play' - Module G3+G3A, Master Rulebook, counters, maps, charts, etc. No R-sections. Mostly because that is so many volumes of material with rules scattered about them.
Issue, here, of course, is that nobody could remember the special rules for the small ground bases, or DEFSATs (how many go in which orbit? And how far are these orbits??)
So, as a list of things we've run into (have no idea how complete the list is - these are literally just a list of 'rules that the omission of caused an issue for our group'), here is a summary of "rules needed to play alpha sector SFB that aren't in the master rulebook":
- Hydran fighter fusion beams (how far can you shoot with a single charge? A double? It's not in the rulebook...)
- ISC rear-firing plasma torpedoes (how many can shoot how often at what kind of targets? Anything special about powering them? What about pseudos? Nothing in the rules...)
- Small/Medium ground bases (what are the special rules for these? How is power allocation done? etc - nothing in the rules)
- DEFSATs (where are these put on the map? Do they move? How fast? Is energy allocation needed for them? How do they take damage? How far can they shoot? How far away can they be detected? Again, nothing in the rules)
- Orion pirate cartel system availability. (G15.0 certainly covers the idea of restriction based on cartel 'operating zone' and 'home territory'...but never shows what these are for the various cartels. A chart would be handy!)
If I had a 'wish list' for a Master Rulebook update, it would include all of the above, and also the Jindarians (and, to a lesser extent, Vudar). These races feel somewhat like the red-headed stepchildren of the alpha octant, in that they have ships about, interact with multiple races (especially the Jindarians, who are pretty much everywhere), but none of the rules needed for their unique/special systems are in the master rulebook! It kinda defeats the purpose of having a 'master rulebook', when you still need to carry stacks of additional rulebooks along with it.
So...the request. If the 'Master Ship Book' is more of a long-term project still, how about just an update on the 'Master Rulebook' that includes the missing rules?
Xander, as always, thanks for the suggestion. However, posting that request before Origins means it will get buried and forgotten. Please think about bringing it up sometime after July 4.
There is a lot more missing "R" rules than just those.
Jean - oh, I bring it up pretty regularly. I'll probably have a few items to add to the list the next time it comes up. 
We play a LOT of SFB, and I just don't have the room in my messenger bag for all of the R-sections.
Loren - I'm sure there are. As noted, these really are the ones that our group actually encountered in attempting the play the game. I seem to vaguely recall a question had come up earlier about the operation of minesweeping shuttles, too, but I think we were able to answer that one (at least, well enough to play the game) with what was in the MRB. In any case, my group loves trying new ship types, new situations, new races, etc. So the list may well grow with time.
This is why I'm happy with the plan to not redo the R section but to simply organize it, add errata, and get it published.
(although I'd also REALLY like an R-section rules index... that is, an index of game rules that appear in the R-section, not of ships.)
Either plan is fine with me. As mentioned, my preference is to just get the "rules" from the R-sections into the "rulebook", but any way to centrally organize these is welcome.
Well, I do not (never did, never will) consider anything in the R section to be "something that needs to be in the RULEbook".
Yeah, I didn't think R section rules should be in the "rulebook" either. There are ship class rules in the R section which is the obvious place for them, the ship rules section. But an index of these rules sure would be handy.
I suspect that Petrick will generate some kind of "supplement" compiling these "rules". He is a river to his people.