[MidnightLich]

Welcome to today's First Edition Friday Question, where you get a chance to answer questions that will help shape the future of First Edition. If you'd like to catch up on previous entries, here's a list of all of my previous Friday Questions:

1 MAY 2020: What was the best Star Trek gift you ever received?
24 APR 2020: How often do your dilemmas get scouted?
17 APR 2020: What do you want to know about how we work?
10 APR 2020: Should we make animated series cards?
3 APR 2020: Should we make more Tribbles/Troubles?
27 MAR 2020: Should we develop new cards?
20 MAR 2020: What regions should we focus on in the future?
13 MAR 2020: How would you feel about 1E adding extra "bits"?
6 MAR 2020: What are your favorite "almost good" S/P dilemmas?
28 FEB 2020: What are your favorite decks to play?
21 FEB 2020: Which Decipher expansion most deserves a sequel?
14 FEB 2020: Which "broken link" should be fixed first?
7 FEB 2020: What's your favorite episode of Star Trek?
31 JAN 2020: Which TOS main character needs a new card?
24 JAN 2020: What should qualify a card for the "watch list"?
17 JAN 2020: What card would you unban without changes?
10 JAN 2020: What single card would you ban to improve your game?
3 JAN 2020: What are you looking forward to in The Neutral Zone?
27 DEC 2019: How can we help you recruit new players?
20 DEC 2019: Where do you want the game to be in five years?
13 DEC 2019: Which concepts should 1E "import" from other games?
6 DEC 2019: Which couples should get a dual personnel card?
29 NOV 2019: Which old, unused 1E cards deserve some love?
22 NOV 2019: Which upcoming milestones need celebration?
15 NOV 2019: What's your favorite card image?
11 NOV 2019: What was your first 1E experience?
1 NOV 2019 What is your opinion of the "full page" policy?
25 OCT 2019: What do you want to see in a Halloween set?
18 OCT 2019: What is your favorite expansion?
11 OCT 2019: Which TNG main character needs a new card?
4 OCT 2019: Which Star Trek story needs more cards?
27 SEP 2019: How many points should [SPOILER] be worth?
20 SEP 2019: Which rules always confuse you?
13 SEP 2019: What do you think of [SPOILER]?
6 SEP 2019: Which card needs an alternate image (AI)?
30 AUG 2019: Which characteristic needs love?

Hello, all! If you enjoy Tribbles (or just enjoy looking at very well put together images featuring tribbles), check out A Tribble of a Different Color, a brand new Tribbles expansion that released earlier this week. It was a lot of fun to put together, work on, and play test, and I hope you enjoy playing with it too.

With that plug out of the way, let's get to today's question.

Which episode - of any available series - should inspire its own boutique set?

A "boutique" set is one that is smaller - usually less than eighteen (18) cards - and often tightly focused or themed. Q Who, the expansion from earlier this year, was a boutique set. The two small expansions that came out at the end of 2018 - The Gift and Equilibrium were also boutique sets, themed around the Gamma Quadrant and Trill, specifically.

So, my question today is if you could pick any episode (or two-part episode) to inspire a boutique expansion, which one would you pick? And why would you pick that episode? For the purposes of this question, assume the set would be no more than eighteen (18) cards and it would be almost entirely drawn from the episode(s) chosen.

Please limit your selection to the source material we have available, so not including Discovery or Picard. But anything from The Original Series through Enterprise is fair game. You can pick any episode for any reason - it can be something we've already done, but you think could use another try. Or it can be an episode that's underrepresented in the game. Any reasons are valid, but please share them with us when pitching your idea.

Feel free to pitch some high concepts along with your post, but remember that you aren't pitching cards, mechanics, or card lists either - this is a concept pitch, where you explain at a very high level what the set would be about. For example, if I wanted to pick "Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang" - one of my favorite DS9 episodes, I might post something like this:

As one of the most fun episodes of DS9, we should make a boutique based on "Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang." Aside from getting new characters like Frankie Eyes and Zeemo, we can get "costumed' versions of mains - Waitress Ezri, for example. Add in some themed Crime verbs and gambling dilemmas, and you have a fun boutique.

I look forward to reading your pitches and see what episodes you want to see as inspiration for future boutique sets. Have a great weekend, and expand your power in the universe!

-crp

[Armus]

The one that comes immediately to mind is Yesterday's Enterprise - one of my all-time favorites.

2e covered both TNG bridge crew and Enterprise-C folks at various points and it was ok... but I think the richness-of-story that 1e affords makes this some really ripe ground to cover.

The only downside is it's yet another blue deck focus and is thus susceptible to the "blue gets the most (best) toys" problems that are currently part of the game. However, done correctly, I think it could definitely be a net positive.



Good question!

[JeBuS]

Can I pitch you a "functional Errata+" "boutique set" revolving around TNG's "Descent"?



Basically, there's a subset of cards in the game today that can't be used or are near-useless because Rogue Borg Mercenaries aren't a thing. We can bring a card off the ban list and provide new life to a handful of others.

[BCSWowbagger]

"Soldiers of the Empire"

*
* The Rotarran front and center
* Making Music and Honor matter
* The Klingon fight song as frame for the set: the terrible, dishonorable rendition at the start; the triumphant and honorable one at the end
* Just a really rich episode
* Definitely not stealing from a Make It So option Moskop and Zef'no and I worked on in 2013 but abandoned in favor of a submission about the Orion Syndicate

(speaking of which: "Honor Among Thieves" would be a great candidate for a 9-card set, too)

[aabecame]

Honor Among Thieves
Orion Syndicate - Section 31 - The Dominion
and lets not forget Chester

[pfti]

The dreamer and the dream
Weird personae, and an objective that paysoff the DS9 was all a dream implications

Build better future.

[Orbin]

The Savage Curtain - two cards are already designed from the recent Will of the Collective

- James M

[Armus]

The Savage Curtain - two cards are already designed from the recent Will of the Collective

- James M

I thought the plan was to include at least the WotC cards in the TOS block (So... Londo at this point)... Is that not still the case?

[Orbin]

The Savage Curtain - two cards are already designed from the recent Will of the Collective

- James M

I thought the plan was to include at least the WotC cards in the TOS block (So... Londo at this point)... Is that not still the case?

The WotC cards are currently being tested as part of Londo though I still think it would be cool to do a small set focused on the episode

- James M

[scox]

As we are in the TOS block, and just had Ent block, I'll pick one of each from the other series where I think there is unexplored potential for new cards:

1) Chain of Command
2) Improbable Cause + The Die is Cast
3) Year of Hell

[Slayer07]

Dark Frontier. More non Borg Borg. Possible infiltrators against the Borg. Probably even some new Borg.

Dominion War arc. That's been said more than enough times, no examples are needed here.

[Spectre9]

Year of Hell and Future's End for Voyager.

Maybe The Killing Game but I know there is certain imagery that we need to be careful of. Turanj

Siege of AR-558 and Far Beyond the Stars for DS9.

Interestingly although there is a 2e set named for the episode only 2 cards are from that episode and not from that set. No 1e cards.

Not like I'm not a fan of TNG but I feel at this point is has been picked over and there's nothing but scraps and bones left.

[Tosk]

TNG: - "Tinman"

DS9: "Little Green Men"

Voyager: "Barge of the Dead"

[jadziadax8]

A Qpid set could be fun

I like the idea of Sons and Daughters, so you could get some more Klingon love. Along that line, maybe Apocalypse Rising? Lots of new Klingons and maybe fill in the suite of O’Brien, Worf and Odo from the episodes.

Need more Cardassians? Wrings Darker than Death or Night

Ferengi? Tough to say; it looks like most of those have been mined already.

Romulans? Absolute Candor

[SudenKapala]

So many to choose from, I never get these questions "right". It's always a spur of the moment thing for me. That said -- one of my fave eps came to mind, The Nth Degree.
2e already has its exceedingly cool, hyper-beefed Barclay, but I'd like to see one in 1e -- alongside a wacky mechanic that possibly ties into Repair Mission, triples or negates Cytherian points, does something flippant with Alien Probe... or something else flavoury.

And what would happed to other affiliations' personnel if the probe chose them...?