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Hi there!
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Looking for playtesters, Vassal module is prepared, we can also try some forum game - but there I need someone else to mod ;) - Please geekmail me if interested. Looking forward to setup a game asap!
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I*m about to create some alternate characters from various directions. The first one is maybe the most famous captain in scifi history:
Captain James T. Kirk. The background was taken from a free Star Trek desktop wallpaper site. Also thanks to everyone who has already and will help me to balance out all the new characters.
All feedback welcome. Full download will follow when a few characters have been added along with the link to the resources.
Iam also about to create a vasal module expansion that can be used with BSG, Pegasus and/or Exodus.
1. Kirk
2. Spock
3. Sarek
4. Chekov
5. Sulu
6. McCoy
[b]7. Montgomery Scott
8. Uhura
9. Kahn (CL)
10. Harry Mudd (CL)
still in progress / planning:
additional characters from TOS:
11. Hadley
??.
Amb. Fox (pol),
Cpt. Pike (mil),
"number one" (pil?)
Nurse Chapel (sup?)
Janice Rand (sup?)
Allies
- nurse chapel
- redshirt (sup?)
- Nomad (The Changeling (Star Trek: The Original Series))
99. Line of Succession:
V102: Fixed Sarek and Kirk
V103: Added Draft Khan
V104: Improved Character sheet template (CL leader board)
V105: Added Harcourt Fenton "Harry" Mudd
V106: Added Hadley
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Chris J Davis
United Kingdom
Overtext pending moderation...
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Re: More Alternate Characters
I'd change the first ability so that it is optional and maybe make the card added to the check faceup.
The OPG seems very weak seeing as it costs a civvie to use it.
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Re: More Alternate Characters
Since the per-turn doesn't have a real cost or specify that it can only be used on Kirk's own turn, it seems ridiculously powerful. In a five-player game, Kirk will draw 10 Skill Cards each round of turns, while most players will only draw 5.
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ackmondual
United States
Virginia
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Re: More Alternate Characters
salty53 wrote: Since the per-turn doesn't have a real cost or specify that it can only be used on Kirk's own turn, it seems ridiculously powerful. In a five-player game, Kirk will draw 10 Skill Cards each round of turns, while most players will only draw 5. While his weakness only triggers on his turn, making it even more OP.
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Jared Ferenczy
United States
Dist of Columbia
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Re: More Alternate Characters
Alright, so as pointed out above, his OPT needs to be rephrased to limit it to his turn. Also, you might want to add language that limits it to crisis cards or to only once per turn so that is can't trigger from a location. Then again, the ability itself isn't that powerful, so it might not be necessary.
My next big concern is largely hinged on him being used in a complete variant set of Star Trek characters where is in top in line for the admiralty. One of the more interesting designs in the game that I feel tends to get overlooked is that the higher you go in the line succession for the admiralty and the presidency, the harder it is for the character to defend themselves from losing the title from a location. Roslin is completely at the mercy of the other players when administration is activated, and Zarek and Baltar aren't much better. Adama and Tigh (and Cain in Pegasus) are at the mercy of the table if they are ever targeted by admiral's quarters (and again, Tigh has a better chance than Adama). All of that being said, Kirk has too much diversity in his card draws from the top of the line admiral. He gets a politics right off and then draws a card that has a better chance of helping him defend himself from the AQ than not if his crisis is a skill check. I would probably advocate making his skill draw exactly like Adama's (3 Leadership/2 Tactics), but that is all largely hinged on this being a complete new set of characters with no overlap of core game characters. If not, then you are going to have to reconsider where he gets positioned in the line of succession.
On the good news, I do like the three abilities you came up with. They are interesting without being powerful (once again, the mark of well designed character high in the line of succession), his negative ability is situational but harsh when it comes up and his two abilities can be used by either side to good effect. I'd just advocate fixing up his skill set.
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Re: More Alternate Characters
Hi thanks for the great input :) In the end he should be balanced of course!
1. Imho the character must be compatible to the existing set of characters. So I will have to adjust the draws - I didnt think of the admirals office situation.
Just worried if Kirk does not apply for Politics, who else from the star trek TOS crew, they mostly have just tactic / engineering / leadership draws then... maybe spock could apply for some politics though
2. The OPT was meant to be once and per his turn only. I will edit the text.
3. Thanks for the info on the abilities - I had big help from Chronos117 for some good ideas :)
The original post will be updated soon with an update + spock ;)
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Robert Stewart
United Kingdom
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Re: More Alternate Characters
Acenoid wrote: Just worried if Kirk does not apply for Politics, who else from the star trek TOS crew, they mostly have just tactic / engineering / leadership draws then... maybe spock could apply for some politics though
Uhura?
The closest the original series comes to politics (from memory) is when Kirk settles the affairs of that week's aliens by seducing the leader of one faction and punching the leader of the other...
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Jared Ferenczy
United States
Dist of Columbia
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Re: More Alternate Characters
This is part of the problem I have found when creating characters from other sources into the game, not everything fits within the theme of Galactica and you have to bend the rules of the show a little bit to fit the balance of the game. I'm not too familiar with the Star Trek TOS (I've only seen about 10 episodes if even that many) but as far as design space goes McCoy and Uhura seem apt for some politics. Maybe Mr. Spock, but I believe he is supposed to be second in command which should put him at second highest rank military leader and I have a much easier time justifying an engineering draw for him than a politics. What about the random blond woman from the first season that sort of disappears after a while?
Also, Kirk is kind of a failure as political character. His form of talking things out is to demand something and keep demanding it until he gets his way. But once again, limited experience with the series.
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Re: More Alternate Characters
Hi!
I will search the TOS cast for some people who held some diplomatic ranks and will make them some highly ranked political person probably... :) Someone from Starfleet so to speak.
Kirk -> Military Leader
Sulu -> Pilot (he is a helmsman in TOS)
Checkov -> maybe also pilot to have 2 of them
Uhura -> military or support
Scotty -> Support
Spoc -> Support
Still looking for political leaders
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Re: More Alternate Characters
Updated first post with done / pending characters and begun to addd abilities, feel free to keep ideas flowing ;)
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J Holmes
New Zealand
Dunedin
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Re: Alternate Characters for BSG - Star Trek TOS (in progress)
My initial thought would be to include characters from the other Star Trek shows, it gives many more choices [and theres that weird Janeway/Admiral Cain thing going on] and make the "Expansion" process easier.
If you are totally attached to the original series (The Best by a mile) then Spock's father Sarek would make an excellent choice as a political leader since hes an ambassador.
As others have said, Uhura makes sense as a political character as well.
How are you going to solve the problem of pilots?
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Re: Alternate Characters for BSG - Star Trek TOS (in progress)
Quote:
If you are totally attached to the original series (The Best by a mile) then Spock's father Sarek would make an excellent choice as a political leader since hes an ambassador.
As others have said, Uhura makes sense as a political character as well.
How are you going to solve the problem of pilots?
Hi!
Well I don't want to make this "too big" for now" there are many characters from the other series. And I did yesterday exactly what you are suggesting: Sarek is being created already and will be added to the list :)
Regarding Pilots, I think I should pick Sulu and Checkov since the other posts (ML, PL, Supp) are mostly covered then. Question is - should they be "cheap pilots" and have a OPG that benefits the ship or should they have the usual piloting powers to move & destroy ships.
In the original post Iam still collecting what powers they could have so the character becomes interesting.
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Re: Alternate Characters for BSG - Star Trek TOS (in progress)
I'm really digging spock.
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Pieter
Netherlands
Maastricht
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Re: Alternate Characters for BSG - Star Trek TOS (in progress)
Yes, Spock is good. Maybe his drawback should have explicitly mentioned that it is "on your turn".
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Re: Alternate Characters for BSG - Star Trek TOS (in progress)
Spock updated, Scott updated and some characters added.
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Re: Alternate Characters for BSG - Star Trek TOS (in progress)
Hi there!
I have done now the initial batch of characters and it would be great to playtest it. I have vassal modules ready, so we could test it.
I will try to join up in approx 14 hours from now [19:45].
The modules can be transferred via dropbox, skype or other means.
See you then ;)
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Matt Downey
United States
Alexandria
Virginia
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Re: Alternate Characters for BSG - Star Trek TOS (playtesting V100)
Sarek is way too powerful. His card draw is great, his OPT is awesome, his OPG is amazing, and his drawback is too weak to counteract the rest.
I would suggest changing his OPT to saying he CAN make an IC in effect if he does something, like discards two cards. Keep the raise difficulty by 1 though, or consider raising it higher. As is, the increased difficulty of 1 is not something that can be used by Cylons all that much, and the IC is ALWAYS good for humans.
His OPG is similar to Boomer's in power, but he does not have as bad a negative or handicapped by not having leadership and by drawing two politics.
His weakness just makes him lose four cards once. That is no where near bad enough to balance the other abilities. I might say instead that every time the ship jumps he goes to sickbay.
Regardless, something needs to be altered to make him balanced; right now he is the single most powerful character I have ever seen.
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Re: Alternate Characters for BSG - Star Trek TOS (playtesting V100)
Putting him into sickbay too often would make him boring to play i guess and a crappy unrevealed cylon.
The IC is only in effect on his turn. So with 3 politcal draws it is likely that he would usually have an IC on the hand once per turn.... so it saves on average 3 pts.
When I compared against other characterslike roslin and boomer who can hide crisis cards the whole game and his ability only works on a single crisis card, it is powerful but not overpowered I think.
Maybe the difficulty of the OPT ability should be increased by another point, but I think he should be playtested to see if this is as powerful as thought or not.
Other characters negatives, baltar , helo have no drawbacks all other than loosing a turn or getting a loyalty card (which is no drawback at all). Kara gets a complete action in addition which I think is very strong too...
Finally I made the OPT automatic because every human would find it suspicious if Sarek would not use the ability. And if it costs 2 cards, well then the ability is worthless as it is better to play in the cards right away.
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Re: Alternate Characters for BSG - Star Trek TOS (playtesting V100)
Hi there!
Anyone who is intersted in playtesting (Vassal or PBF) please geekmail me so we can arrange a test game. Looking forward to trying these out as soon as possible to get a good balanced set that works on its own and with BSG chars!
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Gregory Wong
United States
San Jose
California
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Re: Alternate Characters for BSG - Star Trek TOS (playtesting V100)
More characters...
Yeoman Janice Rand (with a secret crush on the Captain) and Nurse Chapel (with a secret crush on Spock).
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Re: Alternate Characters for BSG - Star Trek TOS (playtesting V100)
Going for a test game vassal now and if someone wants to fill the room let me know :) (short notice but it was not planned)
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Re: Alternate Characters for BSG - Star Trek TOS (playtesting V100)
First playtesting done. Some improvements will be inlcuded and new versions will be uploaded by end of this week.
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Matt Downey
United States
Alexandria
Virginia
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Re: Alternate Characters for BSG - Star Trek TOS (playtesting V100)
And how did it go? Who was a cylon, who was not, who won?
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Re: Alternate Characters for BSG - Star Trek TOS (playtesting V100)
I think it went pretty well. Cylons won sometime after sleeper the resources went down quickly, but I think it was due to harsh crasis and being only 4 player. Some checks were overkilled others were missed slightly, so the humans deserved to loose ;D
There were no major complaints yet.
I think we had:
Uhura (later Sarek)
Sulu
Spock
McCoy
Actually I played McCoy and I was a cylon from the start. I really like the "He's Dead Jim" OPG, I think especially in F2F game it would be funny :) However the other abilities are crap and I need to think of something better.
We noticed that there might be too much "blue skill draws" around, so maybe I have to tone that done slightly.
Sulu seems to be the only pilot in the universe with 3 red draws, but the player thought it's okay.
I had to remind the players of their OPT abilities a bit, but Spock used his OPG early (a cylon ploy) and I think it was overall good to play with them.
After a few turns I think it is already forgotten if you play Star Trek, or other characters. Iam not sure how they mix with original characters from BSG though, but I placed them into the normal LOS.
But my guess is, to play them exclusively, to keep it more thematic :)
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Posted Sat Feb 4, 2012 4:20 pm
