First Edition Updates!

by Jeremy Commandeur, First Edition Director

27th February 2009

There are a few new First Edition updates this week to be aware of.

First, there is a new hi-res version of the Identity Crisis PDF now available for download over on the Identity Crisis page (https://www.trekcc.org/1e/index.php?id=129).

As you know, the original images from Decipher were heavily compressed and did not translate well onto new cards. As such, we'd like to extend our thanks to Johnny Holeva for pulling a fresh copy of each image and cleaning them all up in Photoshop. And thanks again to Seth Claybrook for making the set possible. Their efforts created the cleaner, shiny PDF you see today.

Updated versions of the Conversion Rules Document and Current Rulings Document also release this week. The biggest change in the Current Rulings is that you are now allowed to use Special Download icons during the seed phase. Timing out is often a problem in First Edition and this small rules change should help speed things up without causing escalation or dramatic changes to gameplay.

In the conversion rules, a new approach to conflicting personas is being taken. Though the previous persona method was sufficient, it was also very limiting. When the rule was designed, there was only one card that was an issue (Winn Adami); now, there are several. To make matters worse, not all of the personnel with the same card title belong to the same persona. For example, James T. Kirk, Original Thinker is obviously the Second Edition version of Admiral Kirk, who is a persona of Captain Kirk. James T. Kirk, Irrational Human Being is better suited as a persona of the ultra rare James T. Kirk from The Motion Pictures. Since these personnel share the same title, a single persona entry would be confusing. The new rules approach is to add persona to the lore, allowing cards to be dealt with individually. More trek sense and less confusion? Sounds like a winner to me. Especially since there are three backwards-compatible Beverly Crushers, but only one is Beverly Picard.

Thanks to the First Edition rules committee for their efforts to make the rules cleaner and easier to understand.

Finally, I want to encourage everybody to vote in the polls Warpaw is running on the 1E Gameplay board. One new poll appears each week and the results will greatly influence which out-of-print First Edition cards get new virtual versions and which Second Edition backwards-comptible cards are converted onto First Edition templates first.