It's been a while since my last blog entry, things have been busy.
Worse, my wife tempted me with Maine Coon kittens (just before she jets off to Paris for a week's business trip). This about a year after we lost our cat of 17 years. These days there are websites such evil wives can use, they have 'kitten cams'. Most unfair.
And this has pushed out thoughts of RPGs for a bit. In the contest of Maine Coon kitten vs. RPG, the kittens win.
For those not in the know, Maine Coons aren't just cats. They're rather different and special cats, sometimes called dog-cats or the man's cat. They are large (males can reach 25 lbs), playful their entire lives and can be trained to the leash or taught to fetch if desired. They still maintain the cat's independent air, but are highly people-centric while doing so. If you've never known one, you'd find them quite the surprise.
I use them as a model for a fey breed in my fantasy games where they are something like advisors to a familyof white witches down through the generations. Because they are that cool.
Switching gears...
I've never much cared for most Sci-fi settings. Star Wars leaves me cold with its endless cycle of Jedi falling to the darkside and almost destroying everything. Star Trek was ruined for me over the years (as my last series of articles likely shows). Ringworld just didn't give me a reason to care. And so on.
On the RPG side things are even worse. Traveller bored me with it's nobles and empires (I'd rather play fantasy, with its nobles and empires) and low tech jump drive ships. The background of 40K bored me even more, with no good guys there's nothing to fight for- your era of endless war is thus pointless. Faded Suns, yawn.
I had thought that I'd be left with a re-imagined original show Star Trek as my only option.
Then I found the Federation of the Hub series by James H. Schmitz.
Think Space Opera. Think high end Psi Abilities. Think a series where things just happen without explaining everything in huge detail (thus leaving many mysteries for GM and players to fill in).
Think of a Federation that appears to be a true Federation, i.e. individual worlds can govern as they like- but may be better said to be a tyrannical librarian government. And yes, that is possible and it's oh so cool as an adventuring setting.
Just pure fun, and a mindset that I love for sci-fi campaigns. After Morrow Project runs its course, I think I know the next place we'll visit.
Schmitz wrote most of his works during the 60s and 70s, at the time his name will just about as well known as Heinlein or Asimov. But he was mostly a short story author whose works were published in the magazines like Analog. And thus he was almost forgotten as the era of the huge novel came to be.
The whole Federation of the Hub story can be had in four books. I seriously recommend them.
Telzey Amberdon
TNT: Telzey Amberdon & Trigger Argee Together
Trigger & Friends
The Hub: Dangerous Territory
The last contains the short novel The Demon Breed, which is perhaps my favorite written sci-fi story of all time.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
The Nerfing of the Starship Enterprise: Conclusion
Ok, I've sent some time reviewing the past and how today's Enterprise is but a pale shadow of the original.
The question now is why did it turn out the way it did?
Not the easiest of questions, and I believe it would be difficult to answer even if I did in-depth interviews with every decision maker behind every product. Frankly, I've talked with enough designers and writers to know that often they don't understand why they do things. I doubt this area is any different. But trends can be spotted and those can telling. Given that I'm not a mind reader, I may wrong- but that's not going to prevent me from trying.
There are two areas here, the first is Game and the other TV/Movies. I feel that the nature of each drove the nerfing of the Enterprise with only a little overlap.
Gaming:
However Star Wars' version of hyperlight is now the default image for FTL travel. It's blasters now the default of 'ray guns'. The makers of TV and movies love default images, and have a difficult time breaking away from them. In short, the original Enterprise was too... original.
I feel that this influence drove a lot of the changes we've seen. From how warp drive and phasers now work to the numbers of shuttles carried.
Dramatic tension was added to its battles by other means like sabotage (Elaan of Troyius), unknown foes (Balance of Terror), or outside influences (The Tholian Web).
TNG and later were created when Hollywood (and sadly much of America itself) had decided that traditional America was flawed and without value. Socialism replaced the original's Capitalism. Force wasn't the heroic defense of virtue any more- but the resort of those who have failed to understand what they were doing. Kirk claimed to be a soldier, in TNG Star Fleet was no longer a military arm.
The Captain of the Enterprise was French, and the model of the Federation became the EU.
With such a mind shift, there was no place for a powerful 'best of the best' Enterprise. It could no longer be exceptional. Thus any one-one-one battle with the Klingons or Romulans was now at best a toss up.
In a way it made for easy writing, just about everything was a threat. And the only path to victory was either technobabble, or by talking out the differences.
So IMO that's the current state of affairs.
We won't see anything like the original Enterprise with the current mindset in Hollywood, or the current state of the art in game design. And so, we left with memories of the good old days.
I did love those old days*.
Part: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII
*Like all memories, these are somewhat selective. To be honest, many TOS episodes were less than stellar. Really, Spock's Brian anyone?
The question now is why did it turn out the way it did?
Not the easiest of questions, and I believe it would be difficult to answer even if I did in-depth interviews with every decision maker behind every product. Frankly, I've talked with enough designers and writers to know that often they don't understand why they do things. I doubt this area is any different. But trends can be spotted and those can telling. Given that I'm not a mind reader, I may wrong- but that's not going to prevent me from trying.
There are two areas here, the first is Game and the other TV/Movies. I feel that the nature of each drove the nerfing of the Enterprise with only a little overlap.
Gaming:
- Ablative game design is frankly the market driver. It's the core (with HP) behind D&D and similar games as well as all the most successful MMORPGs.
It's easy for the designer, and easy to grasp for the player. Being easy, it has the deceptive appearance of being easy to balance. They are very popular indeed.
I don't like Ablative systems, and I've written about that before. The simple truth is that few things in life or even in TV/movies are really ablative. Once selected, simulation suffers. Further, once selected it very difficult to keep anything exceptional- it's now just a number of hit points (or boxes in Star Fleet Battles) to be reduced.
Lastly, once a type of game starts down the ablative path- it almost always dooms any following games. WotC hasn't tried to replace HP in D&D, it's an expected element of that genre. Who would risk something different when it has been prove ablative works?
- The Hobby's need for expansions in order to maintain sales drives expansion of setting and technology.
There is a strong pressure to keep a game line selling, and that's difficult to do if your first book out the door defines 'the best of the best'. What sexy reason does the buyer have to get the lastest expansion? It has to have new stuff, and sooner or later that new stuff is going to break the old.
- The desires of designers to 'fix' the original.
Designers often think they have wonderful ideas. They may not be part of the original, but dang it they are so wonderful they have to be in there anyway. The designers of Star Fleet Battles loved historical navy simulations- and names and concepts from historical navy simulations found their way into a Star Trek game.
TV/Movies:
- First and debatably the most important influence- Star Wars.
However Star Wars' version of hyperlight is now the default image for FTL travel. It's blasters now the default of 'ray guns'. The makers of TV and movies love default images, and have a difficult time breaking away from them. In short, the original Enterprise was too... original.
I feel that this influence drove a lot of the changes we've seen. From how warp drive and phasers now work to the numbers of shuttles carried.
- Cultural Change.
Dramatic tension was added to its battles by other means like sabotage (Elaan of Troyius), unknown foes (Balance of Terror), or outside influences (The Tholian Web).
TNG and later were created when Hollywood (and sadly much of America itself) had decided that traditional America was flawed and without value. Socialism replaced the original's Capitalism. Force wasn't the heroic defense of virtue any more- but the resort of those who have failed to understand what they were doing. Kirk claimed to be a soldier, in TNG Star Fleet was no longer a military arm.
The Captain of the Enterprise was French, and the model of the Federation became the EU.
With such a mind shift, there was no place for a powerful 'best of the best' Enterprise. It could no longer be exceptional. Thus any one-one-one battle with the Klingons or Romulans was now at best a toss up.
In a way it made for easy writing, just about everything was a threat. And the only path to victory was either technobabble, or by talking out the differences.
So IMO that's the current state of affairs.
We won't see anything like the original Enterprise with the current mindset in Hollywood, or the current state of the art in game design. And so, we left with memories of the good old days.
I did love those old days*.
Part: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII
*Like all memories, these are somewhat selective. To be honest, many TOS episodes were less than stellar. Really, Spock's Brian anyone?
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
The Nerfing of the Starship Enterprise: Part VII
The run of the reborn Star Trek TV series and movies would continue until 2005. Then the franchise ended for a time, heavily weathered and no longer well thought of in most circles.
During that period, Star Fleet Battles continued to be published, becoming a better model of ship combat in that revised setting than it ever was on its original release.
On the role-playing side, there was Prime Directive (193), Star Trek RPG (1998), and the Star Trek Roleplaying Game (2002). Given the Next Gen focus for these games, I didn't pay them much mind and can't really review them. I assume that they would at least attempt to mirror the changes found in TNG and later and thus would fail completely to model original Star Trek. If anyone wants to leave their insights in the comments below- please feel free.
2009 saw the release of a new big screen Star Trek under different hands. It was to include the original characters, and offered the hope of regaining the original ship (and adventure) style.
As I noted at the time, I rather liked the movie. However my hopes for a return to the Enterprise of old in all its glory were dashed.
This version was much larger (over twice the length, and thus 8x the size). It came with enough shuttles to service its entire crew in a single flight. That's fine, but other changes weren't so innocent.
The DVD notes that phasers are sublight weapons, carrying over TNG techology limits back to the original era. Sigh.
Worse, the Enterprise's Warp Drive was nerfed even more than it ever has been. Now it was completely a Star Wars style light speed drive. The ship becomes blind to the real world under warp- not seeing the wreckage of the fleet it nearly crashes into upon reaching Vulcan (in fact the scene is almost a direct copy from Star Wars and the arrival of the Falcon at Alderaan- complete with the fact that the rubble was in both caused by a planet killing weapon). This from a ship that used to be able to scan objects light years away.
At this point, very little of the original is left from a technology or usage PoV. Nor do I ever expect it to return in either game, TV, or movies.
Next, the conculsion where I ponder how this could happened.
Part: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, Conclusion
During that period, Star Fleet Battles continued to be published, becoming a better model of ship combat in that revised setting than it ever was on its original release.
On the role-playing side, there was Prime Directive (193), Star Trek RPG (1998), and the Star Trek Roleplaying Game (2002). Given the Next Gen focus for these games, I didn't pay them much mind and can't really review them. I assume that they would at least attempt to mirror the changes found in TNG and later and thus would fail completely to model original Star Trek. If anyone wants to leave their insights in the comments below- please feel free.
2009 saw the release of a new big screen Star Trek under different hands. It was to include the original characters, and offered the hope of regaining the original ship (and adventure) style.
As I noted at the time, I rather liked the movie. However my hopes for a return to the Enterprise of old in all its glory were dashed.
This version was much larger (over twice the length, and thus 8x the size). It came with enough shuttles to service its entire crew in a single flight. That's fine, but other changes weren't so innocent.
The DVD notes that phasers are sublight weapons, carrying over TNG techology limits back to the original era. Sigh.
Worse, the Enterprise's Warp Drive was nerfed even more than it ever has been. Now it was completely a Star Wars style light speed drive. The ship becomes blind to the real world under warp- not seeing the wreckage of the fleet it nearly crashes into upon reaching Vulcan (in fact the scene is almost a direct copy from Star Wars and the arrival of the Falcon at Alderaan- complete with the fact that the rubble was in both caused by a planet killing weapon). This from a ship that used to be able to scan objects light years away.
At this point, very little of the original is left from a technology or usage PoV. Nor do I ever expect it to return in either game, TV, or movies.
Next, the conculsion where I ponder how this could happened.
Part: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, Conclusion
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
The Nerfing of the Starship Enterprise: Part VI
There would be four Star Trek Movies with the original cast before the arrival in 1987 of Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG). These had very little to say about how the Enterprise operated. While they produced some fun moments, I remember them mostly for their deconstruction of Kirk's character, the elevation of Spock's, and the practical if not real absence of the others including McCoy.
Things would change greatly in 1987 however.
Where the original show was a style combining Old West and Age of Sail, TNG and the following series (DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise) were idealized socialism and political correctness. Kirk would tell the Organians that he was a solider and not a diplomat. TNG would deny that Star Fleet was even a military organization and the first officer of the Enterprise-D would call wargames a waste of time for explorers.
Kirk would push his crew to reach 100% in drills, I don't think Picard ever held a drill. The Enterpise-D didn't seem to know such things existed when Jellico took over command for a bit.
Kirk would claim that 'one God is enough', TNG would claim that any religion held a culture back. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" would replace the Capitalism on display in the original.
Rather than adventures being decided by fists, phasers or wits- talking and technobabble resolved the storylines. Real villians nearly disappeared, replaced by various degrees of misunderstandings.
In short, Roddenberry (and those who took over from him) brought their own press of Star Trek as a perfect future and attempted to make TNG (and on) match. Whatever the merits of that vision (I consider it to be foolish wishful thinking), it makes for boring TV. How that mindset keep things going for four series over 18 years is beyond me. Except perhaps for the fact that geeks will accept just about anything that is sc-fi no matter how bad it is.
I attempted watching each series and give up each time. So maybe they had better moments, however I must judge each of them on the whole of their first year or two.
From the techology point of view, the changes were just as drastic.
Gone was the Warp Speed warship. According to the new series bible, phasers were now light speed weapons unusable under warp. The photon torpedos would work- sort of. They moved at the speed of the ship + .98c as I recall. Think about that for a moment and try to map it out- basically such a weapon could only be used in a chase, mostly against the one doing the chasing. I think that says a lot about how TNG viewed the Enterprise's combat capability.
The ship now carried the families of its crew, which has to be the dumbest idea ever. It was made even dumber as communication was now instant and the ship commonly ran back to the home worlds without worrying travel time.
The multiple facing shields were replaced with one uni-shield. The cubic warp scale was replaced by a new more complex method that labeled Warp 10 as the max (it was infinite speed) for who knows what reason.
The impact on the Enterpise was noted. Perhaps the best example was in the very opening pilot of TNG when Picard decides to show Q what a Galaxy class starshp could do- by running away.
Winning battles was a rarity. I started thinking that Worf and the Enterpise would get their backsides kicked by K-Mart Shoppers running to a blue light special.
Sigh, how the mighty had fallen.
Later, DS9 would show runabouts fighting alongside a Galaxy class ship (and unlike the Galaxy, living). Actual Fighters would be introduced. I imagine the only reason we didn't see Carriers was because they knew that people would finally notice that they were copying other movies at that point.
And even more sadly, these changes weren't bad game design. They were real decisions by the people in charge. All we can do is note them, while remembering better days.
So to grade these changes:
Things would change greatly in 1987 however.
Where the original show was a style combining Old West and Age of Sail, TNG and the following series (DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise) were idealized socialism and political correctness. Kirk would tell the Organians that he was a solider and not a diplomat. TNG would deny that Star Fleet was even a military organization and the first officer of the Enterprise-D would call wargames a waste of time for explorers.
Kirk would push his crew to reach 100% in drills, I don't think Picard ever held a drill. The Enterpise-D didn't seem to know such things existed when Jellico took over command for a bit.
Kirk would claim that 'one God is enough', TNG would claim that any religion held a culture back. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" would replace the Capitalism on display in the original.
Rather than adventures being decided by fists, phasers or wits- talking and technobabble resolved the storylines. Real villians nearly disappeared, replaced by various degrees of misunderstandings.
In short, Roddenberry (and those who took over from him) brought their own press of Star Trek as a perfect future and attempted to make TNG (and on) match. Whatever the merits of that vision (I consider it to be foolish wishful thinking), it makes for boring TV. How that mindset keep things going for four series over 18 years is beyond me. Except perhaps for the fact that geeks will accept just about anything that is sc-fi no matter how bad it is.
I attempted watching each series and give up each time. So maybe they had better moments, however I must judge each of them on the whole of their first year or two.
From the techology point of view, the changes were just as drastic.
Gone was the Warp Speed warship. According to the new series bible, phasers were now light speed weapons unusable under warp. The photon torpedos would work- sort of. They moved at the speed of the ship + .98c as I recall. Think about that for a moment and try to map it out- basically such a weapon could only be used in a chase, mostly against the one doing the chasing. I think that says a lot about how TNG viewed the Enterprise's combat capability.
The ship now carried the families of its crew, which has to be the dumbest idea ever. It was made even dumber as communication was now instant and the ship commonly ran back to the home worlds without worrying travel time.
The multiple facing shields were replaced with one uni-shield. The cubic warp scale was replaced by a new more complex method that labeled Warp 10 as the max (it was infinite speed) for who knows what reason.
The impact on the Enterpise was noted. Perhaps the best example was in the very opening pilot of TNG when Picard decides to show Q what a Galaxy class starshp could do- by running away.
Winning battles was a rarity. I started thinking that Worf and the Enterpise would get their backsides kicked by K-Mart Shoppers running to a blue light special.
Sigh, how the mighty had fallen.
Later, DS9 would show runabouts fighting alongside a Galaxy class ship (and unlike the Galaxy, living). Actual Fighters would be introduced. I imagine the only reason we didn't see Carriers was because they knew that people would finally notice that they were copying other movies at that point.
And even more sadly, these changes weren't bad game design. They were real decisions by the people in charge. All we can do is note them, while remembering better days.
So to grade these changes:
- Revoked: It was a Warp Speed warship best used in combat at FTL speeds.
- Unknown: Non-ablative Deflector shields, able to withstand (for a time) planet wrecking attacks and completely ignore attacks below certain power levels
- Revoked: Shields were divided into at least four 'arcs' that were damaged and reinforced independently
- Revoked: Phasers and photon Torpedos were FTL weapons. There were a number of weapon mounts pointing in different directions.
- Revoked: The phasers were fired 'one bank' at a time in a twin beam using all the ship's offensive power in a single attack. Torpedos were launched in spreads (typically in sets of double launches) and never fired at the same time as the phasers
- Limited: Ship's Power was critical in how the ship operated. Often balanced between needs it could divert for increased offense or defense.
- Revoked: Warp Factors were a cubic conversion times light speed (maybe with a constant added)
- Revoked: It was the fastest ship in Starfleet as warp drive was power intensive. Shuttles were sublight only.
- Limited: The Enterprise was the most powerful, and most versatile ship in Starfleet
I note #2 as unknown because I don't know. My impression is that they operated very like they were ablative. I should count it as a failure, but if I don't know- it wasn't important.
I note #6 as 'limited' because it never seemed to matter. But I guess they did at least attempt it. Half point.
I note #9 as 'limited' because I think while the Enterprise-D (and later E) was the best the Federation had (depressing as the thought is) it had dropped markly compared to the best of the other powers. It never seemed a match for much of anything it encountered. Half point.
Simulation Quality: 1 of 9
Which is much lower than any of the simulation games before it. And this would become the new benchmark for Star Trek ship simulation in gaming.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
A Mixed Reaction
Was browsing the blogs and came across this at Motor City Gamewerks. And had a somewhat strange reaction. I'm a gun nut. I should agree, but for some reason I really don't.
For one thing, I'm having a hard time recalling a game that mixed up semi-automatic, automatic and auto-cannon. The first two sure, but not with the third. And confusing machinegun with assault rifles? Sure, that's stuff the major news media does. But not gaming systems as far as I know.
Perhaps he's speaking about indie games, or supplements, or something I haven't seen. So I'll grant that such games may exist. I just never bought them. Perhaps there was a reason :)
However I just don't care that there are people who think that cops are carrying .38 revolvers. I'm more concerned with people thinking .38s do more damage than .45s. One is knowledge of current events, the other is misrepresenting physical law.
Actually, even that doesn't upset me- unless the author is claiming his game is well researched and a good simulation of reality (like say GURPS which made that very error in the last edition I looked at- which was some time back I'd have to say).
And clips and mags, I must shrug.
I guess I'm all for people running their games the way the wish, as long as that's all they're claiming to be doing.
So do I agree with the suggestion that gamers should read more books on firearms and head out to the range? I have to say it depends.
It interests a person, sure. It's a lot of fun.
But it won't make them an expert. One has to learn enough and verify enough to be able to split the lies from the truth. And there are a lot of lies in the firearm world. All in all, it would take a great deal of work to understand even the basics. Not a book or two and a trip to the range.
So in the end, be as unrealistic as you want as long as you admit it. Go as deep as you like as well if you wish, but don't make claims unless you go very very deep indeed.
But mostly, have fun.
For one thing, I'm having a hard time recalling a game that mixed up semi-automatic, automatic and auto-cannon. The first two sure, but not with the third. And confusing machinegun with assault rifles? Sure, that's stuff the major news media does. But not gaming systems as far as I know.
Perhaps he's speaking about indie games, or supplements, or something I haven't seen. So I'll grant that such games may exist. I just never bought them. Perhaps there was a reason :)
However I just don't care that there are people who think that cops are carrying .38 revolvers. I'm more concerned with people thinking .38s do more damage than .45s. One is knowledge of current events, the other is misrepresenting physical law.
Actually, even that doesn't upset me- unless the author is claiming his game is well researched and a good simulation of reality (like say GURPS which made that very error in the last edition I looked at- which was some time back I'd have to say).
And clips and mags, I must shrug.
I guess I'm all for people running their games the way the wish, as long as that's all they're claiming to be doing.
So do I agree with the suggestion that gamers should read more books on firearms and head out to the range? I have to say it depends.
It interests a person, sure. It's a lot of fun.
But it won't make them an expert. One has to learn enough and verify enough to be able to split the lies from the truth. And there are a lot of lies in the firearm world. All in all, it would take a great deal of work to understand even the basics. Not a book or two and a trip to the range.
So in the end, be as unrealistic as you want as long as you admit it. Go as deep as you like as well if you wish, but don't make claims unless you go very very deep indeed.
But mostly, have fun.
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