Had a good time. I only had one player but seeing he was the captain it worked well. hopefully next time we'll get one or two more players.
Need to beat the bushes.
The basic pitch:
QuoteThe year is 2373, the Klingon war is over and the Federation is gearing up for the inevitable confrontation with the Dominion. Across the Empire, cut off from the bulk of the federation for three hard years, a small collection of colonies in the Nemodian sector has struggled against overwhelming odds to stay alive. Now the crew of the USS Baikonur, the best ship Starfleet could spare, find themselves traversing the Klingon Empire to pick up the pieces.
The first episode opened up with a group of Warbirds doing a smash and grab on a Starfleet station and the Baikonur tracking them down through a large stellar anomaly. The Klingons had dropped the goods at a trade station for pick up by an as yet mysterious alien race. Some fighting, some bullying and one teeny tiny favor owed to a Ferengi later the Baikonur returned with the goods.
All in all a successful game.
Some impressions:
-Subplots are hard to make happen with only one player.
-K'vort class ships are nearly worthless.
-Combat is capital D deadly.
-The general disorganization of the rule books extends to combat :/
-The stock NPCs in the book kind of suck (selection wise).
How did it compare with LUGTrek? (I'm sure that I saw that in your sig. recently as an RPG you were 'currently running'). Beyond combat, and rulebook disorganization, how did Decipher Trek handle in play? (Task resolution, chargen, space combat).
~11 years ago, I played a demo of Decipher Trek at Gencon, but I barely remember details about the system. And, I never ended up buying into the game line - never got interest from my gaming group to ever run Trek.
I own FASA Trek and LUGTrek TOS, and they're decent enough. I've always been more a fan of the TOS-era, so I don't know how well Decipher Trek handles that time period compared with the other versions.
Yeah, I would love to hear about some the nuts and bolts of the game and your sessions. :)
Quote from: K Peterson;617703How did it compare with LUGTrek? (I'm sure that I saw that in your sig. recently as an RPG you were 'currently running'). Beyond combat, and rulebook disorganization, how did Decipher Trek handle in play? (Task resolution, chargen, space combat).
~11 years ago, I played a demo of Decipher Trek at Gencon, but I barely remember details about the system. And, I never ended up buying into the game line - never got interest from my gaming group to ever run Trek.
I own FASA Trek and LUGTrek TOS, and they're decent enough. I've always been more a fan of the TOS-era, so I don't know how well Decipher Trek handles that time period compared with the other versions.
I honestly liked it better than LUG.
I think LUG had some bits that where cool, like how the dice worked and how talents (or whatever) fit in. But it was just too much work to figure it all out. Making LUG run felt like a chore.
Decipher, while rather "plain" in comparison is a much easier system to handle.
Space combat was cool, basically each turn you got to try two "maneuvers", things like locking sensors, closing distance, "evasive action", attacking, etc... It's a little "pick from list, Do." for my liking but it works well enough to give you excuses to make phaser noises without drawing out forever. As well the maneuvers are spread out among the various bridge crew so in theory everyone gets to make spaceship noises.
Chargen is fast once you get past the horrible rule book.
Basically it's a LOT like d20 except with 2d6.
Skills are bought in ranks that add to ability mods, you have a set of derived "saves", you have "Edges" (feats) and "Flaws", etc...
As far as time period goes it really feels like it was made first for Next-gen era and then the TOS stuff was shoved in. All the layout, the default skills, etc... all seem very Next-gen to me.