Session Nineteen: The Man of Law's Tale

Defiling the Shrine

You Can Desecrate Chaos Shrines as Much as you Want!

Magnus takes one of the rust and blood-encrusted great swords for his own use. Sir Henri takes the banner and rolls it up around its support pole. The others tip the cauldron over, spilling blood and numerous human bones onto the floor. Pierre notices that at least two, and likely more, human beings contributed the remains to the cauldron. The company proceeds to dump oil on the spreading pool and ignite it, filling the shrine with foul, black smoke.

The company makes for the stairs. Magnus, in the lead, hears someone praying fervently out in the shrine of the Lady. He creeps out and discovers that the shrine’s occupant is Lady Josephine, who is dressed in riding leathers and armed with a saber. He interrupts her prayer and manages to convince her that she had missed seeing him when she first entered the shrine. Magnus also convinces her that he is both lost and afraid of the dark, and asks her to escort him back to his temporary chambers. She relents and accompanies him. Magnus thinks that she likes him a great deal.

Once the lady has been led away, the rest of the company enter the Lady’s shrine and seal the door behind them, but not before Sir Henri chips some stone off of the stairwell wall. Now that they know that the valley is secretly beset upon with ruinous dark forces, the company decides to gather allies. They plan to ride first for Saint Jacqueline’s shrine and then to Grandcamp, in the hopes that they can convince people to join with them.

Magnus, realizing that the company is leaving without him, quits his bedchamber and joins them in their journey.

A Rag-Tag War Host

The faithful at Saint Jacqueline’s shrine are easily swayed by the company’s words and by the sight of the banner of Khorne. They promise to march with the company and provide religious support to their deeds. The company also informs Constance that someone in the baroness’ household is not only a devotee of Khorne, but is also likely behind the poisoning of the knights. At this, Constance requests to be broken out of the wall so that she can lend her strength to the company’s.

Constance, Freed at Last!

The now much larger group travels north to Grandcamp, where they are admitted and escorted to the castle’s receiving hall. There, they meet with Baron Stephane, Lord Alexandre, and Lady Valerie. The company explains what they have discovered, show off the sigil of Khorne, and request Grandcamp’s aid. The baron savors the delicious irony of marching to Maisy as a liberator instead of a conqueror and accepts. He asks Alexandre and his knights to join him, but orders Lady Valerie to stay behind.

Andre, who is still convinced that the baron—or someone in his retinue—is a vampire, surreptitiously cuts himself with his knife just prior to entering the receiving hall. During the discussions, he reveals his injury, which surprises his companions and draws looks of concern from the baron and his household. Dismayed that none of the nobles show an unrelenting desire to feast upon his blood, Andre allows Pierre to bandage him. Baron Stephane, seeing the quality of Pierre’s surgeon’s bag, offers up one of his fine handkerchiefs to dress the wound. Pierre and Andre exchange glances when they realize that the baron’s handkerchief is bright red in color.

In the village of Grandcamp, Garnier and several others incite its people to action against Maisy. Realizing that a Chaos purge is imminent, many of the Grandcamp locals gather up pitchforks and torches to storm Maisy.

Those in the company who have no horse of their own are given one by Baron Stephane. Though they realize that this is likely temporary, the company (Renee and Magnus, specifically) hope that they can keep theirs for the duration of the pilgrimage.

The March on Maisy

With a host consisting of the priests of Saint Jacqueline’s shrine, the locals of Grandcamp, and the knights and leaders of Grandcamp, the company returns to Maisy. On the way, Magnus meets and befriends Sir Maximillian, seemingly the leader of the Grandcamp knights. Sir Maximillian is quite pleased at the chance to finally fight the knights of Maisy, and hopes that the imminent battle will give him the chance to get in, “a real good scrap.”

Word of the host reaches Maisy ahead of them, and the company finds the castle gates closed and guards swarming atop the walls. Baron Stephane levies the charges of Chaos worship against Maisy and demands that Baroness Louise be brought out to the parapets so that she may answer them. After much running back and forth, the guards of Maisy say that they must fetch Lady Josephine instead, as the baroness is, “currently indisposed.”

While this is going on, Andre, Sabina, and Garnier slip around to the back of Maisy and locate the culvert that allowed Constance to escape the castle. There they watch and wait, making sure that Maisy’s forces aren’t exiting the culvert in preparation of a sneak attack.

Lady Josephine does not take the accusations well. She loudly berates the company for pretending friendship, only to use the opportunity to betray Maisy and unite its enemies against it. Sir Henri attempts to reason with Lady Josephine, swearing to her that he has proof of his accusations. He asks that the company be let inside so that he can show her the truth.

After some back and forth, Lady Josephine relents. She permits Sir Henri, Magnus, Maurice, Pierre, Renee, Jim, Jules, Frieda, and several priests to enter the castle and deliver their proof while under heavy guard.

Lady Josephine, Appalled at the Accusations

Proof and Accusations

Sir Henri and his companions, under heavy guard, show the banner of Khorne to Lady Josephine. She is not convinced, however, which forces Sir Henri to lead her to the secret door in the castle’s shrine to the Lady. Here, Sir Henri takes the chip he had earlier struck from the staircase wall and replaces it, thereby proving that he has been in this area before. He then asks that the lady and her knights accompany him below.

The lady and her knights are horrified to see the shrine to Khorne, even in its defiled state. The priests who have accompanied Sir Henri begin to pray most fervently, asking the Lady to cleanse the baleful shrine of its Chaotic influence.

Lady Josephine quickly recovers from her shock and grows wroth. She says that her mother has much to answer for, and orders that her knights come with her while she seeks out the baroness. Magnus, absolutely lovestruck by Lady Josephine, accompanies her.

Meanwhile, out in the back of the castle, Sabina, Andre, and Garnier all hear unpleasant noises issuing up from the other end of the culvert. Creeping forward, they soon realize that what they hear is ritualistic chanting in an ugly, almost obscene language. The trio signal the army and order them to march to the rear of the castle and into the culvert. Those on horseback must dismount before they continue within.

As they progress into the lower levels of Castle Maisy, a frantic Josephine learns from one of her household guard that the baroness has holed herself up in the receiving hall. Josephine runs to the hall and, with Magnus and her knights in tow, throws open the doors and storms inside. There, she finds the Baroness Louise seated on the baronial throne.

Lady Josephine upbraids her mother, accusing her of serving the Ruinous Powers and for murdering ten of Maisy’s knights. The baroness listens to these accusations with seeming boredom before making a strange gesture with her hand. At this, the doors out of the receiving hall swing shut with loud and ominous booms.

Laughing, the baroness rises from her throne.

The Audience Hall of Castle Maisy

Even More Boldly Go Art: The SFS Oswego

I got yet another email from the fantabulous Dave Woodward of Badgerlord Studios, and...

(Do you remember who he is? If you don't, let me remind you! He's the guy who is doing all of the art for Boldly Go. You can see all of the hard work he's already done by clicking on this self-referential bit of text right here! If you want to hire him for things, I'm sure he would be both excited and gratified to work with you! Let him know I sent you!)

Okay, now that that's out of the way, I got an email from Dave that had more art in it. Specifically, the art of the sample ship, which is referenced quite frequently throughout the text of Boldly Go. That's right, I'm talking about the dauntless ship that is currently crewed by our dauntless sample characters. Put your hands/hand analogues together and give a warm welcome to the SFS Oswego!

I have to say, I'm really happy with how this turned out, especially since I gave Dave virtually no guidance at all beyond, "yeah, so I want something iconic-looking that's not so iconic that people, and large entertainment conglomerates, can sue me for it." He sent me a half-dozen drawings or so and this is the one that I liked the best. I really do love that giant viewing window in the center!

As is right and proper for a game set in this particular genre, the Oswego is every bit as much of a character as the ones who crew her. Part of this has to do with the fact that, during character creation, players get to assign a traits to their new ship. As with character traits, ship traits can be pretty much anything the players can imagine. In many cases, players try to make a "well-balanced" ship with traits that cover a wide variety of possible adventure scenarios. In other cases, however, I've had players make experimental ships, abandoned alien ships that they've found and barely know how to drive, medical ships, science ships, and the ever-popular, 'bristling with weaponry and heavy shielding' ships.

That last sub-category of ship probably doesn't have the giant viewing window. I'd imagine they replace the window with more guns.

Since the Oswego is a character, I thought I'd run through its traits. Keep in mind that this ship was designed organically by one of my long-suffering teams of playtesters, so it is, for all intents and purposes, a "real" ship made by "real" people.

THE SFS OSWEGO: SPECS

The Oswego is a part of Space Fleet's new line of deep-space exploratory vehicles. It rolls off the factory assembly line with the following customized traits and features:

• Upgraded Canteen (Featuring Robot Chef Pierre)
• Superior Maneuverability
• Advanced Shuttlecraft
• Reinforced Hull Plating
• State-of-the-Art Xenobiology Lab
• Upgraded Navigational Systems
• Point-to-Point Teleport Pods
• Enhanced Tractor Beam
• Well-Trained Security Personnel

The Oswego, and ships like it, can be yours for the low price of zero galactic credits, because we don't use money in the future, for some reason!

Boldly Go Character Art: Part 5

In this, the last post featuring the various crew members of the Oswego, you will finally meet the captain of our dauntless ship. Unlike the other characters in the game, this one is based on a real person.

I would also, once again, like to take this opportunity crow about the artwork of Dave Woodward of Badgerlord Studios. Do you need art for a project? How about a cool drawing of your LARP or tabletop gaming character? If so, look him up!

This is Ray Sexton, the many-times decorated captain of the Oswego. He was the former helmsman of the SFS Megalodon prior to being promoted to the captaincy. He's one of those captains who always winds up becoming something of a parental figure to the people under his command. His relaxed, sometimes jokey attitude while in command has gotten him in trouble with higher-ups more often than he'd care to admit. Still, virtually everyone who has served under Captain Sexton likes and respects him, and would be more than happy to lay down their lives and professional reputations in defense of their captain.

When I was running a session of Boldly Go! at Metatopia, one of my players remarked, "Ray Sexton! That's a great pulp sci-fi name."

It is, indeed, random player. And it's made all the more fortuitous by being someone's actual, factual name.

Captain Sexton is based on Ray Sexton, a dearly-departed friend of mine. I met Ray thanks to my work with SlugFest Games. In brief: He and some of his friends, many of whom are now dear friends of mine, created an expansion for Kung Fu Fighting, discovered that I was local to them, and asked me to come hang out with them and play the game and the expansion with them.

After that fateful meeting, the group and I began meeting quite regularly. Initially, these meetings were to test new SlugFesty products (this was before Red Dragon Inn became the thing that it is now, thereby becoming all the products). Shortly thereafter, these meetings became just hanging out and playing role-playing games (mostly Marvel Super Heroes, if you're wondering).

Through all of this, I learned quite a bit about Ray. He was one of the most relaxed people I have ever known, and he was friends with just about everyone. He had several game groups (and a backpack full of stuff for each) that he gamed with regularly. As a gamer he was very intelligent, clever, and a team player who had a penchant for goofy humor and IG jokes. He never talked over anyone, he always made people feel welcome, and he always made games better with his presence.

I am sad that he passed away before I got to know him even better than I already did.

Ray was big into Star Trek. Several members of his fan group attended his funeral in full regalia. At the local con the following year, the group that he once played Star Fleet Battles and various flavors of Star Trek RPGs ran a series of commemorative convention games in his honor. 

Because of his love of Star Trek, and because of what a great friend and gaming buddy Ray became to me in the brief time I knew him, I could think of no better tribute to him than to include him in my first solo role-playing venture. I hope you're still out there, Ray, having incredible journeys among the stars and making alien species crack up with your unique brand of humor. You are missed.

Boldly Go Character Art: Part 4

We're almost done with the roster for the Oswego. This installment features the last two members of our bridge crew. Then I'm going to follow that up with another post devoted to the dauntless captain of our heroic ship. (The captain deserves a post all his own, for personal reasons. You'll see why when we get there.)

As a constant reminder, the art in this post (and all other Boldly Go posts) is provided by the amazing Dave Woodward of Badgerlord Studios. He's not single, ladies, but he does do commissions!

Character number seven is a personal favorite of mine, and is none other than Helmsman Grummox Benthos. Grummox first came to life many years a go in a funny sci-fi novel I was writing. I may try to finish that novel someday, especially since I've learned quite a lot about writing between then and now. I'm not sure if I'd keep Grummox in that story or if I'd change him a bit...It might be too confusing. Then again, it might give the fans (he says, somewhat hopefully) something to argue about for the rest of time.

Oh, right. Grummox! He's a krakenoid, a species of squid people that originated on the oceanic planet of Yurgos. The krakenoids have a culture based around their military, and hierarchy and proper protocol. Grummox is an exemplar of his species, and is even more fussy and hidebound than the usual krakenoid. As described by someone who played him at a playtest, he's, "kind of a cross between Worf and Sam the Eagle."

High praise!

Character number eight is Ensign Vexxa Smith-Merienas. She's best friends with Janine Tarian and a member of the Oswego's security team. Vexxa is also the game's example of a Mixed-Species character; in her case, she is half human and half krakenoid. Mixed-species characters are able to mix and match benefits from both of their parent species, but also gain the I Don't Fit In trait. Many characters who are mixed-species join Space Fleet in order to "find themselves" and find a greater purpose.

Vexxa is more than a bit like that. She grew up in the Terran Embassy on Yurgos, all but unaware of the finer points of krakenoid culture. She has always felt different and like an outsider, even on her own planet, and for that reason she is often hesitant and unsure of herself. She does, however, possess a natural empathy which makes her an asset to any security detail she is assigned to. She's often teamed with Janine, and acts as the "good cop" to Janine's "bad cop."

Boldly Go Character Art: Part 3

Four crewmembers down. Five to go. Let's talk about two more of them here, shall we?

For those of you who forgot, all of the art in Boldly Go! is being drawn and inked by the fabulous Dave Woodward of Badgerlord Studios. I am sure that Dave would be happy to take your money and draw for you, so drop him a message or something if you are so inclined.

Character number five is none other than Dr. Phinnea Del*Prinnus, the Oswego's Chief Medical Officer. She is a rittian, which are a species of sapient sloth people native to Rittia I. Like most of her kindred on Rittia, she is extremely laid back, eerily calm, and seems never to be phased by the strange phenomena the crew encounters every week. Under her care, the crew of the Oswego has never been healthier, whether physically or mentally. In her spare time, she hangs around on the cargo netting strung from the roof of her quarters, or on various bits of piping or ductwork that run throughout the ship.

She has a good working relationship with Omolara Namuyangu, the Oswego's Chief Science Officer.

We cross the hall from Medical to Engineering and encounter crewmember number six, Vistabo Roseus. His name means something in Latin, and that something is a joke that is marginally funny to, like, six people or so.

Vistabo is a gattoan from the savage, desert world of Gomeisa (which orbits Beta Canis Minoris--another terrible joke for those of you playing from home). Vistabo's species is based on our very own sand cat (seriously, check them out, they're super cute). Like other members of his species, Vistabo possesses keen reflexes, cat-like grace, and a somewhat territorial disposition. Do not touch his console, or you risk pulling back a stump.

Vistabo has personally saved the ship on numerous occasions, which has won him the respect of the crew and a certain amount of forgiveness for his personality. In addition to his territorial nature, Vistabo can be rather brutally honest, and sometimes this can border on offensive. Despite this, he has become rather close friends with Mott'trog, sharing a love of big band music and all things technical.

Boldly Go Character Art: Part 2

As previously mentioned, Dave Woodward; from Badgerlord Studios, is slaving away over a hot Bristol board to finish up some high-quality art for Boldly Go.

In this installment of the art-o-blog, we have two more portraits of the crew of the SFS Oswego.

Our third crewmember is Mott'trog, a mordon from Gajwanbex II, an extremely dense planet that orbits a dying, red giant star. Because they were born beneath the light of a dwindling star, Mott'trog, like all mordon, is a little bit melancholy, but also sees the fragile beauty in all living things. They, like all members of their race, have aspects of both male and female, though the particulars of their reproductive cycle are kept secret from outsiders.

Mordon are silicon-based species, so Mott'trog here is essentially a rock person. They, like most mordon, have shiny, metal skin. This description, plus their innate androgyny, inspired Dave to give Mott'trog a look inspired by David Bowie.

Mott'trog is the Chief Systems Officer on board the Oswego. They are constantly muttering about defragging, uptime, and other computer words I remember from reading xkcd.

Our fourth crewmember is Chief Social Sciences Specialist Robert Trebuchet. Robert is a synthoid from the R-7 series. He chose the last name of "Trebuchet" both in honor of his studies (he was researching medieval French warfare at the time), and to differentiate himself from his fellow Roberts.

The synthoids have an interesting history: They were manufactured in secret laboratories on Europa as part of the Jovian Conspiracy--an attempt to peacefully overthrow Terran governments by replacing their leaders with synthetic copies. The plan might have just succeeded, had not the synthoids gained sapience, realized what they were doing was wrong, and politely turned themselves in to the Terran government. Since then the synthoids have repeatedly proven themselves valuable allies to the humans, and have become fully integrated into society and Space Fleet.

While it is not uncommon for synthoids to serve on starships, it is a little strange for them to pursue a career in the social sciences. Robert has done so, due both to his interest in cultural and social histories, as well as his endless fascination with the personality quirks of the organic beings he encounters.

Yet more crewmembers to come! Stay tuned!

Boldly Go Character Art

Dave Woodward from Badgerlord Studios is a wonderful, talented artist who is quick, takes direction, and has reasonable rates! He is also a super-cool guy to LARP with!

Dave was kind enough to help me with my art needs for Boldly Go, that game that I talk about almost constantly, but which hasn't yet been released. However, with the way Dave produces art, the theoretical release date for the game draws ever closer.

Today, I'd like to present the portraits that Dave has done for some of the game's "iconic" characters. These characters are the crew of the game's iconic ship, SFS Oswego, and they feature prominently in all the rules examples provided throughout the book. There's even a few continuing narratives in the examples, for those of you who, like me, might like that kind of thing.

Our first character is the first character I ever designed, Security Officer Janine Tarian. She's a brash, slightly-overconfident human security officer of Iranian descent. She believes that there's nothing, whether in space or planetside, that she can't handle and, as far as anyone can tell, she's been 100% right about that so far. In play, she has been known to leap face-first into dangerous situations and to blast raysers straight out of her opponents' hands.

Our second character is Omolara Namuyangu who, funnily enough, isn't the first sample character that I've designed who has been named Omolara. I think it's because Omolara is a really pretty name.

This Omolara is the Chief Science Officer on board the Oswego. She grew up in Fort Portal, Uganda, and is known for her stoic seriousness, determination, and resolve. She once saved the crew of the Oswego from a deadly disease while suffering from the disease herself. When she's not reading up on the latest scientific discoveries or working with the crew to analyze new samples and species, she can be found in the Oswego's gym, running laps on the track.

I am very, very pleased with how Dave has chosen to render my characters. He has captured their personalities, done a wonderful job on the uniforms and gear, and has made them really stand out, both in their own right and from one another. My favorite detail, so far, is the Space Fleet insignia, which is worn as a uniform belt buckle instead of as a badge. The starship even has ye olde timey porthole on it, for maximum sci-fi goodness.

There are more crewmembers to come, so watch this space!

Exciting Crossover Event: Part II

With all of these related posts, it's starting to feel a bit like Marvel up in here!

Ahem.

Anyway.

In my previous post, I talked about my design philosophy for Boldly Go, (though, at the time, it was called Velour and Go-Go Boots), and the simple and straightforward stat/skill system I created for the alpha version of the game.

As is often the case with game design, the system described in Part I got tossed out of the window with both hands. The short reason is that I found a way to make the game do what I wanted it to do in a much better way. The significantly longer reason is...this post.

I made up a bunch of sample characters for the game, so that I could quickly run it for my friends, or for random strangers at conventions. These characters have become the "iconics," to use a D&D term, of the game and feature prominently in the rulebook.

The first versions of these characters were...well...they were okay. One of the problems that I noticed was this: With only a handful of stats and skills, there was going to be a lot of overlap between characters. In some ways, this is fine. Remember my example from last time: everyone on the Enterprise knows some Science, but Spock knows the Most Science, and it all works out.

The real trouble came when I started adding advancement rules. The iconic characters don't have to worry about advancement--they'll remain perfectly adequate starting characters from now until we have a soft continuity reboot 43 years from now, featuring more attractive art and better special effects.

Player characters, on the other hand, are going to advance. No matter how few advancement points one gives them, and no matter how rarely they are allowed to advance, players will buy skills. In a game whose skill pool is a very, very tiny pond, that means that all of the characters are going to look pretty samey pretty rapidly.

I want to park that train of thought in the station and get up a full head of steam on a second train of thought. This particular train started because I noticed something else about the TV show that I tried to emulate in the rules--interpersonal ethical conflict.

This is a thing that happens all the time on the show, but which doesn't really feature at all in any of the other Star Trek games. For instance, Spock will say something coldly logical about how people dying is inevitable, but...and then, before he finishes, McCoy jumps in and says terrible things about Spock's ears and/or blood and then demands that the crew SAVE those people, goddamn it, because he's a doctor and that's what you do.

This is one of those things that happens once an episode in The Original Series, and many, many times per episode once we get to The Next Generation, and I desperately wanted to get it into the game.

The rule behind it was easy: Any time something happens that triggers your personal code of ethics, positively or negatively, you get a Drama Point for it (Drama Points are those thingamajiggers in other games that allow you to spend them to alter reality, or improve your rolls, or whatever). If you get into an argument with another player and both of your personal codes fire (such as Your Needs of the Many versus their Still a Doctor, Goddamnit), you both get a Drama Point.

The implementation was much clunkier. Okay, so now we have this new mechanic, so there's this new spot on your character sheet where you list your characters basic ethics. Oh, but I need to have examples, so here's twenty ethical codes that a player can pick from, such as Honest, Compassionate, and all that, plus a brief description of what that means. Then there's the problem of whether or not players can take multiple ethical codes at once, because people are complex, and blaaaaahaaaahahaaa...

It was then that Bob Dunham, secret savior of all games, came swinging in on a vine and said (and this is paraphrased), "I think it would make more sense if you made all of character creation work like the personal code of ethics system works." Then he threw a smoke bomb and vanished. It was hella dramatic.

And thus (he said, in his best Cartoon Network announcer voice), the Traits System was born!

This required a couple of months of rewriting, in which I pulled out the old stats/skills system, along with the personal code of ethics system, and installed a brand spanking new thing that works a bit like this. Your character has X number of traits to start with. Some of those traits are determined by your character's species and occupation, but the others are ones that you get to pick. There's a short list in the book of example traits, but you can come up with pretty much any trait you can think of and add it to your sheet.

Since that all sounds terribly, terribly abstract, let me show you what it looks like in practice. Here's the first of the iconics: Janine Tarian, human security officer.

Species and Occupation Traits	Other Traits
Indomitable, Outside the Box, Warrior Species, Academy Training, Security	Alert to Danger, Cocky, Intimidating, Physically Fit, Weapons Training

One thing to note is that any trait listed in italics is a negative trait (usually), while any trait that's listed normally is a positive trait (usually). Positive traits usually help you, while negative traits usually hinder you, but, depending on the situation, they can flip. You never know what's going to happen.

The way the new version of the rules work is as follows: Any time you try to do something, you may list off any appropriate traits. You get one die for free (as described by one of my players as the, "I am a person doing a thing die"), plus one die for each trait you use. If Janine wanted to shoot someone with her rayser, she might pick Warrior Species, Academy Training, Security, and Weapons Training, giving her a total of 5 dice to roll.

In addition, any time Janine is in a situation where one of her traits forces her to do something or prevents her from doing something she wants to do, she gains a Drama Point. For instance, say she and a fellow officer are sneakily sneaking around a base somewhere when they spot a lone guard. The other officer might insist that they continue sneaking, but Janine is Cocky and knows that she can take this guy. So she steps out from around the corner and tries to hit him with a stun beam. Since that changed her plans, Janine gets a Drama Point.

Let's further say that the fellow officer has the Quite Discreet trait and wants to get through this base without attracting any attention at all. The officer and Janine might have a quick, whispered discussion right before Janine stands up and rayser blasts the guard. Since the fellow officer was trying really hard to be discreet and was trying to prevent Janine from doing anything cocky, they also get a Drama Point.

The nice thing about this system is that players don't just buy more points in a set number of skills. Instead, they get to increase the depth and breadth of their character's personality and knowledge through play. For instance, if your character got taken over by some kind of technological hive mind for a game or two, you might want to give him the Lover of Autonomy trait, or similar. Because traits are mostly picked by the player, and because every player and character is different, that means that no two Boldly Go characters will ever look exactly the same.

But that's more than enough of talking about why my game is awesome and great. Next post, I'll be going back to rolling up characters for other people's games.

Exciting Crossover Event! Part One!

Back when I started pumping out Star Trek characters, I mentioned that, should gumption win out and the stars align, I might feature an EXCITING CROSSOVER EVENT between two big themes on this blog: character creation and Boldly Go!

Oh, looky! That day has arrived!

Those of you who have been following along (and many, many thanks that you have and continue to do so), may have noticed one thing that is common to all of the Star Trek games that I own and have made characters for. They are all extremely fiddly and also have loads and loads (and also loads) of skills.

Boldly Go isn't like that at all, and not because of any conscious decision on my part to run as far away from the other Star Trek RPGs as I possibly could. I didn't wind up looking at any of them until well after I had started working on Boldly Go and had this odd idea to just go back and see if my ideas dovetailed at all with any of the ideas that had been previously published. It turns out that the answer was a big no.

Boldly Go's first system was something I cobbled together after watching about half of The Original Series episodes of Star Trek. I was, maybe, four episodes in when I decided that I might want to write an RPG, based on the show, and so I continued watching with a notebook and pen beside me, so that I could write down anything that was either obvious or repeated that needs to be in the rules.

One of the earliest ones (and a perennial favorite), is the Torn Uniform Rule. To wit: In the event that you suffer damage from an attack, you may instead tear your uniform to ignore the effects of that attack. So, for all of you who have been wondering just how Kirk can fend off Gorn, solid-light holograms of his Academy nemesis, and unruly children without suffering much more than a scratch, now you know!

And, yes, this rule is silly. This is because I am silly, and also because Star Trek can be, has been, and (thank you, CBS) will be silly in future episodes. It's not silly all the time, certainly, but it's not a deadly-serious, hard-SF series all the time in which there are no jokes and weird/surreal things and no laughing. That's one thing that makes my game slightly different from other games that have come before--the acceptance that some things in Star Trek are just goofy, and that that's okay.

The other big thing about my version of the rules, which is what I wanted to talk about here, is that my first version of a Star Trek game had very few stats or skills. In fact, there were exactly five stats, each of which each stat had four associated skills. This made a stat/skill chart that fit nicely on a character sheet and looked a bit like this:

Strength	Dexterity	Mental	Personality	Technical
Athletics	Agility	Culture	Charm	Medicine
HtH Combat	Dodge	Cunning	Intimidate	Pilot
Might	Rng Combat	Intellect	Trick	Repair
Resilience	Stealth	Science	Willpower	Use Tech

Where other games have, say, the Science skill broken down into a dozen different sub-categories (Astrogation, Astrophysics, Geology, etc., etc.), I only have the one skill. Why is that? Two reasons!

• Reason #1: I hate lists of things so, so very much. The fewer lists I have to deal with, the better.

• Reason #2: Because, in the show, just about every character knows some science. Spock knows the most, of course (unsurprisingly, his character wold have high scores in both Mental and Science, which would be representative of that knowledge), but Kirk, McCoy, and the others also know some science. 

During character creation, the player gets to assign some points to their stats and some points to their skills. Whenever something happens in the game that requires a skill roll, the player gets a number of d6s equal to stat + skill and rolls them. Any result of 5 or 6 counts as a success.

There's two paths to take at this juncture, and I decided to take the one that resulted in fewer lists. To wit: Rather than say, "here are a dozen different science skills. Spock has high ratings in most of them. Kirk has moderate ratings in, let's say two," I said, "there is one science skill that should properly be pronounced, 'SCIENCE!' Spock's score in it is amazing. Kirk may have one point in it, so he's familiar with science, but not particularly good at it."

Anyone who has played the game recently will look at the above and realize that this isn't actually how Boldly Go works. And that's true! That's because, with the help of Bob Dunham, I came up with an even better idea that makes even more sense in the context of the show.

I'll talk about that...next time!

The RPG Character Library: Star Trek (Decipher)

To finish out the Star Trek section of the character library, I made a character for the most recent, officially-licensed Star Trek game (at least, until Modiphius releases their game, unless it's already released, in which case, I'm at least one game behind). This version was published by Decipher Roleplaying & Miniatures Studio in 2002, and it allows you to play a character from any era of Star Trek except for Enterprise. It also boasts, "Original Star Trek canon consistent with previous versions of the Star Trek RPG."

There are quite a lot of similarities between this game and the version of the game made by Last Unicorn Games, though the rules are different enough that you couldn't easily switch a character between the two without serious reworking. Comparing the two, I like the Last Unicorn Games version a bit better because it's a lot more dialed-in on what you can play and where (and when) you're playing. Decipher's version allows you to play anything from any era and, because of this, adds in a lot of complexity and a lot of explanation.

As an aside: Last Unicorn's game is complete in one book. The Decipher book, while a bit smaller than the LU book, is just the player's guide, meaning I need at least one more book in order to properly play this game.

I won't say that the breadth of what you can do in this game is bad, necessarily, just daunting. This is also the first Star Trek RPG that explicitly allows you to play someone who doesn't work for Starfleet. I can understand the allure, but I also don't understand why you would do this. In my limited experience with Boldly Go, making a character that doesn't fit into the ship's hierarchy tends to leave one a bit outside of, and without a clearly-defined role in, the player group. Still, though, I suppose it's nice to have options.

Character creation sort of follows Last Unicorn Games. You pick your species, which gives you bonus skills, edges, and powers. You generate your stats. You pick a Personal Development template, which gives you some skills and edges. You pick a Professional Development template, which involves picking, say, "Rogue," and the one of the three options given under "Rogue," which gives you more skills and edges. If you want to be a member of Starfleet, you need to take one of the "Starship X Officer" development templates, which include: Command, Operations, and Science. Each of these covers way more than three templates, allowing you a lot of leeway in picking what you want to do.

As has become tradition with these games, the species you can pick from in the Decipher version is different from any species list in any of the other games. Decipher lets you pick from:  Bajoran, Betazoids, Cardassians, Ferengi, Humans, Klingons, Ocampa, Talaxians, Trill, and Vulcans. They also have rules to allow you to make a Mixed Species character and, though they are a bit clunky, they are a welcome addition to the game.

Amused and encouraged by the idea that I could literally make anything I wanted, I went ahead and made a Klingon who was a Starfleet ship's counselor. I gave him the Nomadic Childhood Personal Development, explaining why he's met so many different people and why he may not think about things the same way as more "typical" Klingons. I suspect much of his therapy involves forcing the patient to confront their problems head on and, possibly, using pain sticks whenever necessary.

Also: The character sheets provided in the book are very pretty and done up to look like something printed on a Starfleet computer in LCARS. Not all that easy to photocopy and probably very easily mangled once you had to change your character, but top-notch in the looks department.

T’ang the Intractable

Klingon, Starship Officer (Starfleet), Ship’s Counselor with a Nomadic Childhood

Strength	7	Quickness	+0	Defense	7
Intellect	7	Savvy	+2*	Health	5
Agility	5	Stamina	+0	Courage	3
Vitality	5	Willpower	+0	Renown	0
Presence	11
Perception	5

*Favored Reaction

Abilities: Pathos (Make people feel comfortable. Ignore all social penalties when making an Inquire (Interview) roll.)

Edges:  High Pain Threshold, Skill Focus (Persuasive), Brak’lul (Extra bones and organs. +2 Stamina reaction bonus. Half effect from stun weapons), Ferocity: RAMPAGE! (+2 Armed Combat +2 Unarmed Combat +1 Health. Spend 1 Courage point to break out of it prior to the end of the duration), Honor (Add Renown modifier when interacting with Klingons.)

Fluent Languages: Klingon, Federation Standard

Skills

Armed Combat (Klingon Traditional Weapons) +3

Athletics: +1

Computer Use (Retrieve) +1

Culture (Ferengi) +2

Culture (Earth) +2

Energy Weapon +1

First Aid +2

History (The Klingon Empire) +3

Influence (Charm) +1

Inquire (Interview) +4

Language (Ferengi) +2

Language (Vulcan) +1

Medicine (Psychology) +3

Negotiate +1

Politics (Federation) +3

Repair: +1

Specific World (Ferenginar) +2

Specific World (Earth) +3

Specific World (Vulcan) +1

Survival: +1

System Operation (Command) +1

Unarmed Combat (Shat-Fu) +1

The RPG Character Library: Star Trek: The Next Generation (Last Unicorn Games)

As previously mentioned, I have multiple different versions of Star Trek roleplaying games. The one I'm covering in this installment of ye blog is the one produced by Last Unicorn Games. It is specifically set in the era of The Next Generation (it's right there in the title!), with show-appropriate species to choose from and whatnot.

Of the three Star Trek systems that I have, I liked this one the best. That's not to say it was easy--by no means, no--but in comparison, it turned out to be significantly less work than FASA's game and...I guess differently convoluted than the one I'll be reviewing next time. I will say that it covers everything that you would need to make a Starfleet character, and even has some hints on how to make a non-Starfleet character--if you want to make an ambassador, or merchant, or something.

It starts out simple enough: Pick a species template. Add a professional overlay. These snap together in a satisfying way with stats and skills already filled out.

It gets a bit more complicated when we move on to backgrounds. This is a life path system where you decide how your character grew up, where they studied, who they know, and so on. You get a different number of points to spend on each step of your background, and you may either use these points to pick and choose skill bonuses, advantages, and disadvantages. Or, if you're lazy, like I am, you can use your points to buy one of the pre-built packages. This is actually much faster, less fiddly, and still allows you to create an interesting character. I'd imagine I'd use the other method once I was familiar enough with the system to know how everything works.

And that's...pretty much it. Much less hideous when compared to the FASA system, though it does have rather large bits of kludge stuck to it. Do you want to see the biggest one? Okay! Here it is.

It is possible for you to get the same skill from two (or more) different sources during character creation. There is a half-page table that explains that this is something to be expected, that it's normal, and that you don't need to see a doctor, probably. It also tells you how to resolve it.

• If both sources provide the same skill with different specializations, I know two specializations. So I'd get History (Tellar) 1 (2) and (Federation) (2).
• If both sources provide the same skill with different specializations at different levels, I take the higher skill and know two specializations.
• If both sources provide the same skill with the same specialization at the same level, I add one point to either the skill or the specialization.
• If both sources provide the same skill with the same specialization at different levels, I take the higher skill level, then add one point to either my skill level or my specialization.
• Skills without specializations (such as Dodge), simply add together.

For those following along, the skill number (what my skill currently is) is the first number. My specialization is in the parentheses. I'm still not 100% sure how that works, since I read the character creation rules and not the "how to do things" rules. That said, it only took me about 40 minutes to make a character that might a) be correct and b) be ready to play.

I find it interesting which species make it into which Star Trek games. This one, being set in the Next Gen era, allows Andorians, Betazoids, Bolians, Centaurans, Humans, Tellarites, and Vulcans. I guess, since Worf was the only Starfleet Klingon in canon in this era, I can't play a Klingon.

Don't worry, though. I'm going to scratch that itch...next time!

Lieutenant Bashlan Cov, Tellarite Engineer

Fitness 3 (6)	Strength +0	Courage	3
	Vitality +1
Coordination 2 (5)	Dexterity +0	Renown	1 in Skill
	Reaction +1
Intellect 3 (5)	Logic +0	Rank	Lieutenant
	Perception +0
Presence 2 (5)	Empathy -1	Wound Levels	4
	Willpower +0
Psi 0 (5)	Focus +0
	Range +0

Advantages: Alertness +2, Commendation +2 (Famous Incident), Infrared Vision +2, Promotion to Lieutenant +3

Disadvantages: Argumentative -1, Intolerant of Poor Maintenance Procedures -1, Slow Healing -2, Vengeful (Frigging Cardassians) -1

Early Life: Failed Colony

Academy Life: Advanced Research Engineering

Tour of Duty: Hostile Frontier Defense Mission

Skills

Athletics (Parrises Squares) 1 (2)

Dodge 2

Computer (Modeling) 1 (2)

Culture (Tellarite) 2 (3)

Energy Weapon (Phaser) 1 (2)

Engineering, Propulsion (Impulse) 2 (3), (Warp Drive) (3) (Ion) (3)

Engineering, Systems (Environmental) 2 (3), (Transporter/Replication) (3)

Engineering, Material (Mechanical) 1 (2) (Starship Design) (2)

Material Engineering (Starship Design) 1 (2)

History (Federation) 1 (2) (Tellarite) 1 (2)

Language (Federation Standard) 1 (2), Tellarite (2)

Law (Starfleet Regs) 1 (2)

Persuasion (Debate) 2 (3)

Personal Equipment (Communicator) 1 (2)

Science, Physical (Computer) 1 (2)

Planetside Survival (Arctic) 1 (2) (Mountain) (2)

Shipboard Systems (Envi) 2 (3) (Transporter) (3) (Tactical) (3) Sensors (3)

Starship Tactics (Cardassian) 1 (2)

Vehicle Operations (Shuttlecraft) 1 (2) Ground Vehicles (2)

World Knowledge (Tellar) 1 (2)