Hindsight: Deep Space 9

by Charlie Plaine, Chairman

2nd April 2014

Welcome to Hindsight, my weekly series where I take a look back at previous expansions for the Star Trek: Customizable Card Games with a fresh eye. My goal is to examine the decisions made in each of these expansions using modern eyes and design sensibilities in order to learn from those decisions. As mentioned in the announcement article, this is not an attempt to create a new game. Instead, I’m looking to better understand the game and how it can be improved in the modern era by studying its history.

Once Decipher expanded their license beyond just Star Trek: The Next Generation, it made sense they would turn their eye to the other series. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was still on television at the time, and made a natural choice for the next series to appear in the game. Decipher would do just that, and introduce the characters and stories from DS9 in their appropriately named expansion, Deep Space 9.

Deep Space 9 (First Edition)
Released in July 1998
276 Cards (80 Common, 80 Uncommon, 100 Rare, 16 Starter) + 1 Preview Card

Card Types Introduced
Sites

Mechanics Introduced
Gamma Quadrant, Nors

Affiliations Introduced
Bajoran, Cardassian

Lessons Learned
1. Respect the table.
One concept every board, card, or table top game needs to consider is how mich "real estate" the game requires. Some games, like Chess, have a very low "real estate" requirement - just the board and some space for the pieces. A board game like Settlers of Catan requires a bit more "real estate" for players to keep their cards and pieces. Magic requires enough table space for you and your opponent to sit across from each other and have your cards visible to both players, but there is latitude in how the cards can be arranges. First Edition has never been a game with a low "real estate" requirement; arranging up to a dozen cards in a line chews up a lot of space.

Because the "real estate" requirements for First Edition are already considerable, the onus is on the design team to make sure "real estate" requirements add as much value for as little complexity as possible. Design needs to embrace the essential nature of the game's "real estate" and efficiently use the space. Cards should avoid adding complexity when it's not needed. I believe that one of the bigger shortcomings of Deep Space 9 (in hindsight) was not "respecting the table" in the design of the Nors.

If you are unaware, a Nor plays on the table as a facility, but is connected to up to six Site cards. That alone takes up a lot of table space, usually running parallel to a space line. Each site can have an Away Team, not to mention cards that play on sites; all in all, a lot of "real estate" used. There are many varied opinions on the complexity of the Nor mechanics, and it was a hotly debated topic as we were doing pre-design and design on Emissary. I'm not going to debate the pros and cons of the Nor mechanics themselves; instead, I will argue that modern design needs to ensure that we make the best use of table space we can.

2. Rewards have to be proportional to the difficulty.
As one would expect from an expansion based entirely around Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Deep Space 9 introduced the Gamma Quadrant to First Edition. As the Lead Designer of Emissary, one of my goals was to find a way to make the Gamma Quadrant a relevant area of play in the modern game; we ended up cutting a good bit of extra material as we tightened up the expansion (and I suspect you'll see it again). I found myself surprised how little was done with the as it was introduced, and how little of it held up well in the modern gameplay. I talked in a previous Hindsight article about how important it is to make use of new mechanics, so rather than repeat myself, I'd like to talk about how important it is to balance costs and effects.

For example, consider the card File Mission Report. This card requires a personnel to use one of their skills (or classification) to complete a mission. Then, in order to get the bonus, that personnel must return to an appropriate site and you must not even attempt another mission. The reward for this significant opportunity/time cost is 5 points. Explore Gamma Quadrant requires starting and ending at a facility in the Alpha Quadrant, and rewards 5 points and three cards - better, but still not proportional to the resource requirements. 

It is always important to make sure the rewards you offer a player are "worth" what you are expecting them to do. Explore Gamma Quadrant requires either two cards (Wormhole Navigation Schematic) or two turns. At best, three card draws and 5 points is a slight advantage; asking a player to go out of their way requires more in the way of reward to be "worth" their time. Design needs to make sure that the rewards (points, cards, advantage, etc.) are relevant to the risk and resources required by the player.

Good Stuff

1. Keeping the series distinct.
The designers of Deep Space 9 made a decision to avoid using the "mission specialist" mechanic for cards from Star Trek: Deep Space 9. To this day, there are very few personnel with the ST:DS9 property logo that have a single skill dot. While there are a lot of ST:TNG property logo personnel that are "support personnel" with two skills, that mechanic is far more tied to DS9. This is a nice and simple cosmetic and mechanical separation between the two series, and one that design has decided to continue to respect.

Expansion Stories
Here's a great story from Brian Sykes [Armus] about the Deep Space 9 pre-release and a later regional:

This set pre-released at Origins 1998 and was a BIG deal. I remember the Decipher staff sitting down with all of the pre-release players to explain the station mechanic and how it worked. In a sealed deck tournament, it didn't really come up, but I knew that there was now a whole new world of deckbuilding possibilities. Fast forward a month and I built and brought a Bajoran deck to the Lansing, MI regional. This was in the days of AMS Field trip decks, where the only mission used was a lone copy of Survey Star System. Unfortunately for one of my opponents, my Vedeks and Ministers were able to solve that mission, so I stole it!

I also learned the value of spaceline control with regional missions. By having my key missions all adjacent to each other, I seriously reduced the risk of being separated by my opponent's large span missions, which the Bajorans have a tough time dealing with.

And a story about creativity and a well-kept surprise from community member Chris Dilloway [phoenixhawk]:

I remember when the 1E DS9 expansion first came out and Decipher managed to keep a pretty cool secret until the day of release: the inclusion of the white-bordered U.S.S. Defiant. In this day of social media and instant info, it is hard to imagine keeping something like that a secret for long. I had ordered a pair of booster boxes from a local store and as I was opening them, the third to last pack in the second box yielded the U.S.S. Defiant. I was completely shocked...I hadn't heard about that card being included, but as I was driving home from the store, the news broke on Decipher's website. The guy from the store emailed me about it and a friend of mine called me to see if I knew about it. I replied I was holding the card in my hand. I figured the card was probably going to be somewhat easy to get since I got one out of my two boxes, but even today there are people looking for that card. I guess it really is a "tough little ship" (to find).

I still have it, my original white-bordered U.S.S. Defiant I pulled that day. I've never pulled another. It is in my autograph binder that also has some of my favorite ship image cards.

My other story relating to the DS9 expansion was that when Decipher first announced the set would be coming out, I made some "dream cards" of the main characters. This was before the "First Contact" expansion came out and the download icon debuted. Many of my cards were close, my Jadzia Dax was WAY off, but my Benjamin Sisko was spot on. I nailed every skill and attribute; the only difference was the download of Baseball, which I had listed as a skill since the download icon didn't exist when I made the card.

Thank you all for the stories! In the modern age of information, it's hard to imagine being able to keep something secret like the white border Defiant! If you'd like to share a story about any of the expansions we'll be looking at, you can do so via email (cplaine@gmail.com) or private message (to MidnightLich). I'm looking for players to share stories or memories tied into the release (or nearly after) of The Dominion, Blaze of Glory, and Rules of Acquisition, including stories about finding and opening product and stories about games played in release tournaments.

The Survey Says
You'll notice a survey at the bottom of this article, and I'd appreciate you taking the time to participate. This is something new. I'm trying to collect your feedback on the expansions as we go through them, and six (6) seems like a good number to use. I thought it would be easier to break up the expansions into chunks instead of waiting until the end. So take a few minutes and tell us what you think of the first six (6) First Edition expansions - the results will appear in a future Hindsight article.

Conclusion
Deep Space 9 introduced the crew of the station, the Bajorans, and the Cardassians to a lot of fanfare, but the expansion was frought with pitfalls and problems. The Gamma Quadrant should have been a centerpiece of the expansion, but instead felt out of place and difficult to use. The expansion did alter the face of the game, allowing new deck types and styles of play to exist where they hadn't before. I think the expansion is solid, and it definitely reshaped the game; I just wish it had done so in a way that had made the Gamma Quadrant relevant (and previewed the coming threat of the Dominion). 

As always, I'm eager to hear your opinions and your own thoughts about Deep Space 9 and its impact on First Edition. Please join the discussion on the forums and let us know what you think about the Bajorans, the Cardassians, Nors, and the Gamma Quadrant and how they were handled during their debut in Deep Space 9.

Next week, we return to Second Edition to discuss that edition's introduction of the Ferengi as we take a look back at Strange New Worlds. Thanks for reading, and before long you will start seeing spoilers from the next expansion in the DS9 block!

Discuss this article in this thread.

Back to Archive index