Hey all. Just dropped by to say, while I don't like the concept of PD20 myself,(product of 10+ years of D&D burnout ya understand), I know of several people who would love the book. Just make sure it's well thought out and works and you'll have a winner. After all, you need to stand out above the 80% or so of D20 product that is an absolute waste of paper and shelf space,(No, I'm not bitter...much). Personally I think D20 modern would work much better than 3.5e. Any way keep up the good work.

P.S. the reason why I'm rooting for PD20 is that if it takes off, you'll have the cash to make other stuff the rest of us want, say like FEDCOM and the fabled SFBF expansions

By Joshua J Brumley (Sweeper) on Friday, July 29, 2005 - 11:42 pm: Edit

To Gary: Do you think a living SFU campaign would work? It seems like it would be just as difficult to do that as it would be to make a living WWII campaign, eveyone knows the results so how could one make an impact on the Alpha(or other)Octants and not screw up continuity?

By Andy Palmer (Andypalmer) on Saturday, July 30, 2005 - 07:46 am: Edit

Bart. The standard D&D or D20 Modern/Future Character Sheet should work. ADB/we can probably put together a "SFU" version and post it as a PDF.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, July 30, 2005 - 10:57 am: Edit

Character sheet: If somebody gives me one I'll post it.

3.5 vs Modern: It was a tough decision, and worked about the same either way. More people have 3.5 but many of them are fantasy only.

I don't think we have any trouble standing out among D20 products. Our design, editorial, art, and print quality is worlds above all but two or three d20 publishers and equal to those two or three.

By Nick G. Blank (Nickgb) on Saturday, July 30, 2005 - 02:04 pm: Edit

Are there "staff" copies of this coming? If not I will include it in an order, but let me know so I am not just waiting around for it if it isn't coming. Thanks!

Nick

By Joshua J Brumley (Sweeper) on Saturday, July 30, 2005 - 05:53 pm: Edit

addendum: I just thought of a way for Living SFU to work, but you'd have to set it after Y205. Put it during the Trade-Wars/X2 era as they haven't been set in stone yet. Heck, you could do story campaigns that concern both the RPGs and the wargames in a similar fashion to AEG's Legend of the Five Rings series of games with the results of both working towards how the next few years of the Alpha/Omega octants work. This gives SFU players of all types a chance to help shape what is to come. Will the Klingons all of a sudden gain unheard of wealth through savy trading and luck in finding riches in the leased sector or the cloud? If so, how would that affect the Empire? How would the Federation react, or the other empires for that matter? The initial Amdromedan Invasion failed, but what if they we're just the vanguard of the real invasion force? I read the mention of Kevin Collin's essay and I like it. If it could be done you'd have scenarios for both out the wazoo, not to mention giving the ADB crew a slight break ;).

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, July 30, 2005 - 06:56 pm: Edit

Staff copies are being sent. Some of you guys are 1-generic RPG staff and some of you are 2-d20 staff and some of you are 3-GURPS staff and some are 4-SFU staff. In theory, the first two groups need PD20, the third has no use for it, and the fourth needs any one version of any given book.

If you want to confirm that the group you think you are in is the one I think you are in, Email me.

By Troy J. Latta (Saaur) on Sunday, July 31, 2005 - 11:47 am: Edit

I don't know about the editing being better. So far the spelling and grammatical errors alone are nearly as bad as AEG's, and they're the worst of the "major players" editing-wise.
I've also found a couple spots where the sentences just plain don't make sense.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, July 31, 2005 - 12:36 pm: Edit

I frankly don't agree that there are that many spelling and grammatical errors. I can't remember for sure but I think there were 11 or 12 in Klingons (all fixed in later printings anyway). That's not bad for a book with 50% more word count than any other 144-page book, and with 100% more word count than 90% of d20 books. Probably on the order of the average issue of newsweek (which has gotten really sloppy of late). By all means if you know of such an error email it to me and if it hasn't already been fixed I'll take care of it.

By Troy J. Latta (Saaur) on Monday, August 01, 2005 - 08:15 am: Edit

Up till now I've just been flipping through to get a feel for it, but I'll start going through page by page and compile a list.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, August 01, 2005 - 10:27 am: Edit

Like I said, Email it to me when you have it.

There's lots of variations to the theory of "lots of typos". Steve Jackson would regard three typos in a million words as a fiasco. I would regard 20 typos in a 190-page book as "no big deal" and fix them during new print runs without a lot of anguish.

Then there are those who don't know what a typo is, like the guy who insisted that "Captain's Log" means "Captain is a log". Then there was our friend from Australia who reported 600 typos (all of which were American spellings of "British" words). It is common any more to leave out the period before the and in a series (even if this is just wrong) and some writers leave it out and we do a less than perfect job of putting it back in. Then again, I for insist that if the quoted part of a sentence didn't include the final punctuation then the quotes go inside the period, while others insist that this is "wrong". Too bad. I'll do it either way and not worry about it or score either of them as a typo.

Do be careful, however, as you may get an unpaid and thankless job of proofreading new books.

By Troy J. Latta (Saaur) on Monday, August 01, 2005 - 09:13 pm: Edit

Hey, if I get to see the material before it's published and help the sales of my favorite company (by helping to improve the product), then I consider that thanks enough.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, August 01, 2005 - 10:34 pm: Edit

Troy: Email me a list of 25 typos in PD20 and your address and I'll send you a copy of K20 to proofread.

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Monday, August 01, 2005 - 11:37 pm: Edit

That reminds me of something Guy Hamilton said after one young man wrote a letter concering the film, GOLDFINGER.

The boy asked why Bond was driving with Dunlop tires in one scene and Bridgestone the next.

So he ( the Director ) wrote back saying that, that was one of the 6 mistakes they'ld deliberately put in the film and that if he spots the other five he'll win a trip to Barbaidos (sp?).

In the interveiw Mr Hamilton wondered if the young man was still looking.

By Michael Arellano (Conclave27) on Monday, August 01, 2005 - 11:44 pm: Edit

I am impressed with the Prime Directive D20.
I bought as soon as I saw it... yet I do have some questions

1) Where's the charcters sheet?

2) Races: What about mixed species? Human/Vulcan,
Human/Romulan, Human/Klingon, etc....

Looking forward to the entire SFU D20 universe very excited!

By Andy Palmer (Andypalmer) on Monday, August 01, 2005 - 11:54 pm: Edit

SVC. The mixed-breed thing is something you might want to consider for all the RPGs; I don't believe it has been addressed at all. They would basically be separate Racial Templates.

By Michael Arellano (Conclave27) on Tuesday, August 02, 2005 - 12:18 am: Edit

Something else I was wondering.
Since SFU is all TOS...is there any plan to introduce race/species from other series?

I know it is said the SFU is not the Star Trek Universe of the movies and late television....

Perhaps will we see some Next Gen/Enterprise series races? A First Contact D20 books would be a great way to introduce Cardassians, Ferangi, Bolians, Denobulans,Beta-ziods etc... since I imagaine SFU is also about exploration!

By michael john campbell (Michaelcampbell) on Tuesday, August 02, 2005 - 01:25 am: Edit

Or we could introduces races of our own design which will fill the universe with more sensible races and avoid court costs.

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica) on Tuesday, August 02, 2005 - 07:47 am: Edit

Michael Arellano,

The licensing for the Star Fleet Universe does not extend to material from Next Generation or Enterprise (or the ten films, or Deep Space 9, or Voyager, or anything other than the original series).

That said, if fans don't provide unofficial, home-crafted material for some or all of the above in short order, I'll be shocked.

By Troy J. Latta (Saaur) on Tuesday, August 02, 2005 - 07:48 am: Edit

Half-breeds are briefly mentioned in the Zorski section. If you play d20 you know the basic rules already, though. Average the stat differences, take a couple minor SQs of each race, but lose most of the major SQs.
Or you could use the Munchkin d20 rules, which state you take the best of both worlds. Just depends on your campaign and how lenient your GM wants to be.

By Andy Palmer (Andypalmer) on Tuesday, August 02, 2005 - 08:48 am: Edit

Troy. I understand how to do it in D20; if its done, however, it should be done consistently across PD-GURPS, PD-D20, PD-D6, etc., hence my suggestion

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Tuesday, August 02, 2005 - 10:51 am: Edit

As Jessica pointed out, ADB's license prevents us from using anything from TNG or later series or the movies; Cardassians, Ferengi, etc. If we did that, Paramount would jump on us and ADB would go out of business five minutes later, because everything depends on that license.

So "official" material as you request is never going to happen, in any game system. This gets brought up about twice a year, and it is a dead topic. And before you ask, no -- we cannot go back to Paramount and change the license.

All there is ever going to be is unofficial, fan-produced templates and the like, and you'll have to be satisfied with that. Sorry.

On the other hand, there has been some discussion about making mixed-race Racial Templates, ie Human/Orion, Human/Vulcan, etc. That type of material is doable, the big questions are how popular would it be, and where would we print it?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, August 02, 2005 - 12:03 pm: Edit

Character sheet: There are about a bazillion of those all over internet. We didn't see any need to take out two pages of game material to include one when everybody would rather have a download PDF anyway. If somebody wants to do one specifically for PD20 I'll be happy to upload it.

Mixed species is something to consider in Final Frontier, but when you consider how many possible combinations there are, I would be dubious that it's possible. If you just take human/AC, Rigelian, Vulcan, Cygnan, Prellarian, Deian, Arcturan, Andorian, and Tellarite you would have something like 72 different RTs, and you would have to have multiple copies of each one for the child who "favors his mother's side of the family" as opposed to the child who "has uncle Zagabod's eyes".

Races from other series: Sorry, not in our license. I'll bet there are at least 27 web sites which cardassians for d20 but it would violate my contract for me to help you find them. (No, I am not kidding or being a jerk.)

I should note that Troy's theories on mixed-race people work nicely. Both of them.

Gary, could you let me handle pronouncements of company policy in future?

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Tuesday, August 02, 2005 - 06:02 pm: Edit

Jessica "The licensing for the Star Fleet Universe does not extend to ... anything other than the original series." Not entirely true. You forgot the cartoon series from the early '70s. In fact, that how the Kzintis got into SFU.

Re: half-breeds / mixed race ... the way I would do it is say "average the advantages of each, rounding down, and the disadvantages of each, rounding up, and go from there". Then give two or three examples. I would NOT attempt to create a templet for each and every combination. (What happens if two mixed-race beings have offspring?????) You might have a matrix table listing those races that can / cannot inter-mix.


Garth L. Getgen

By Andy Palmer (Andypalmer) on Tuesday, August 02, 2005 - 06:50 pm: Edit

SVC/Garth. I would imagine the breedable races to be a much smaller subset.