This forums is for questions, answers, and discussion about First Edition rules, formats, and expansions.
User avatar
First Edition Art Manager
By jjh (Johnny Holeva)
 - First Edition Art Manager
 -  
#558686
I approve everything about the original post.

Thanks for the laugh!
User avatar
Executive Officer
By jadziadax8 (Maggie Geppert)
 - Executive Officer
 -  
2E North American Continental Semi-Finalist 2023
ibbles  Trek Masters Tribbles Champion 2023
2E Deep Space 9 Regional Champion 2023
#558688
Well played, sir!
User avatar
First Edition Rules Master
 - First Edition Rules Master
 -  
Continuing Committee Member - Retired
Community Contributor
#558722
DISCO Rox No More wrote: Thu Jul 29, 2021 7:43 pm Seeing today's card of the day stirred up some long held resentments.
Joke aside, wasn't the problem that Paramount wouldn't approve anything that didn't appear on screen in the early days? So Feds (as the folks who hog all the screen time) had plenty of time to justify all their abilities), while the "guest star" affiliations got hosed?
User avatar
 
By nobthehobbit (Daniel Pareja)
 - The Center of the Galaxy
 -  
Moderator
#558727
AllenGould wrote: Fri Jul 30, 2021 12:48 pm
DISCO Rox No More wrote: Thu Jul 29, 2021 7:43 pm Seeing today's card of the day stirred up some long held resentments.
Joke aside, wasn't the problem that Paramount wouldn't approve anything that didn't appear on screen in the early days? So Feds (as the folks who hog all the screen time) had plenty of time to justify all their abilities), while the "guest star" affiliations got hosed?
Was it Paramount, or was it Decipher not putting that stuff on in the first place? They'd changed that policy by Q Continuum, anyway.
User avatar
First Edition Art Manager
By jjh (Johnny Holeva)
 - First Edition Art Manager
 -  
#558728
What if…

7 - 10 Premiere "Mendaks" from ROM and KLG affiliations were enhanced to FED Bridge Crew-level Skills and/or Attributes?

"Premiere: Special Edition"

I'd support that.
User avatar
 
By Iron Prime (Dan Van Kampen)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
Moderator
#558730
jjh wrote: Fri Jul 30, 2021 2:42 pm What if…

7 - 10 Premiere "Mendaks" from ROM and KLG affiliations were enhanced to FED Bridge Crew-level Skills and/or Attributes?

"Premiere: Special Edition"

I'd support that.
Sign me up!
User avatar
First Edition Rules Master
 - First Edition Rules Master
 -  
Continuing Committee Member - Retired
Community Contributor
#558732
nobthehobbit wrote: Fri Jul 30, 2021 2:09 pm
AllenGould wrote: Fri Jul 30, 2021 12:48 pm
DISCO Rox No More wrote: Thu Jul 29, 2021 7:43 pm Seeing today's card of the day stirred up some long held resentments.
Joke aside, wasn't the problem that Paramount wouldn't approve anything that didn't appear on screen in the early days? So Feds (as the folks who hog all the screen time) had plenty of time to justify all their abilities), while the "guest star" affiliations got hosed?
Was it Paramount, or was it Decipher not putting that stuff on in the first place? They'd changed that policy by Q Continuum, anyway.
This is old lore and I could easily be mis-remembering, but my memory was that it was a Paramount thang (remember, a lot of early CCGs were thought of as collectables first, games second), and Decipher lobbied to be allowed to start adding bits of lore on their own for game balance once it became clear that this whole "game on cards" thing was gonna stick around for a while.

(Plus, pretty sure this was something Decipher said, so entirely possible this is just spin. :D )
 
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
#558734
AllenGould wrote: Fri Jul 30, 2021 3:36 pm
nobthehobbit wrote: Fri Jul 30, 2021 2:09 pm
AllenGould wrote: Fri Jul 30, 2021 12:48 pm

Joke aside, wasn't the problem that Paramount wouldn't approve anything that didn't appear on screen in the early days? So Feds (as the folks who hog all the screen time) had plenty of time to justify all their abilities), while the "guest star" affiliations got hosed?
Was it Paramount, or was it Decipher not putting that stuff on in the first place? They'd changed that policy by Q Continuum, anyway.
This is old lore and I could easily be mis-remembering, but my memory was that it was a Paramount thang (remember, a lot of early CCGs were thought of as collectables first, games second), and Decipher lobbied to be allowed to start adding bits of lore on their own for game balance once it became clear that this whole "game on cards" thing was gonna stick around for a while.

(Plus, pretty sure this was something Decipher said, so entirely possible this is just spin. :D )
Hm, I recall it being the opposite actually... Paramount gave Decipher license to add to the cards, for example there was no on-screen evidence that Dukath was an archaeologist (or that he ever studied Berthold rays for that matter). It's been almost 25 years since I saw the BradyGames strategy guide, but I recall a statement in there to the effect of Decipher's lore actually being approved by Paramount as canonical, as hard to believe as it is. Can anybody with a copy of that book confirm?
User avatar
 
By Professor Scott (Mathew McCalpin)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
Trailblazer
1E Cardassia Regional Champion 2023
#558741
From page 21 and 22 of the Brady Games Official Player's Guide

Star Trek Canon

Canon, n. "A body of rules, principles, or standards accepted as axiomatic and universally binding, as in a field of study or art."

Star Trek fans, like me, have always enjoyed discussing and listing the 'known facts' that have been revealed in the show. But to avoid argument, it was necessary to be strict about the difference between what is official and what isn't.

Official Star Trek info is rigidly defined. Nothing is considered to be real unless it has been used or explained in an episode. All the books, novels, lists, products, and other compilations of Star Trek information are not canon.

Paramount gave us this same hard-and-fast rule. We could only use canonical information that appeared in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Since Paramount had the responsibility of approving every single card in the game, this meant we had to be able to justify every single fact and piece of information on the cards!


The author is this passage is credited as Tom Braunlich

From his Wikipedia entry;

Thomas Braunlich, son of Frank H. Braunlich Jr. and Phyllis Braunlich, is from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and is a journalism graduate.[1][2] Braunlich and Rollie Tesh were world champions of Pente, a game originally published by Parker Brothers, and later by Decipher.[3] In 1993, Braunlich and Tesh came to Decipher with their idea for a licensed collectible card game, the result of which was the Star Trek: The Next Generation Customizable Card Game (1994).[3][4][5]
 
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
#558746
Professor Scott wrote: Fri Jul 30, 2021 6:00 pm From page 21 and 22 of the Brady Games Official Player's Guide

Star Trek Canon

Canon, n. "A body of rules, principles, or standards accepted as axiomatic and universally binding, as in a field of study or art."

Star Trek fans, like me, have always enjoyed discussing and listing the 'known facts' that have been revealed in the show. But to avoid argument, it was necessary to be strict about the difference between what is official and what isn't.

Official Star Trek info is rigidly defined. Nothing is considered to be real unless it has been used or explained in an episode. All the books, novels, lists, products, and other compilations of Star Trek information are not canon.

Paramount gave us this same hard-and-fast rule. We could only use canonical information that appeared in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Since Paramount had the responsibility of approving every single card in the game, this meant we had to be able to justify every single fact and piece of information on the cards!


The author is this passage is credited as Tom Braunlich

From his Wikipedia entry;

Thomas Braunlich, son of Frank H. Braunlich Jr. and Phyllis Braunlich, is from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and is a journalism graduate.[1][2] Braunlich and Rollie Tesh were world champions of Pente, a game originally published by Parker Brothers, and later by Decipher.[3] In 1993, Braunlich and Tesh came to Decipher with their idea for a licensed collectible card game, the result of which was the Star Trek: The Next Generation Customizable Card Game (1994).[3][4][5]
Interesting, I guess I had it backwards then. But there is plenty of material on the Premiere cards that has no basis in the episodes... lore references like McKnight being a relative of a 20th century game designer or Kromm eating 15 pies at a sitting, Vekor having any medical ability, the names and skills on most of the Romulan and Klingon background characters...
 
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
#558748
So I did some more digging and found that the strategy guide is available for checkout on the Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/startreknextgene0000brau).

I think this is the passage I had in mind (boldface mine)... it seems Paramount had to approve every card, and only wanted to approve "official info", but were willing to create new official info for Decipher to put on the cards.
p. 28-29
"Paramount's licensing department had the responsibility to approve every card. Ross Campbell at Decipher deftly handled this process, working with Guy Vardaman and Seema Molhatra, two of the Star Trek experts in Paramount's licensing department.

... (omitting paragraph about Vardaman's role as an extra in many Trek roles, and appearing in the game as Darian Wallace)

"Vardaman also provided us with special details when needed. Most cards have a box containing background information of trivial interest which we call "lore." Sometimes little canonical information was available for a certain character or thing (particularly many of the Klingons). Vardaman created for us some official info to use on those cards. For example, Divok's card says, "Studied the effects of Tribbles on the Klingon nervous system." (This is, is [sic] as far as I know, the only official reference in The Next Generation about Tribbles!)

"Vardaman and Paramount even allowed us to include new official data in the game. For example, the Federation Nebula-class ships have a holodeck! But you won't find this information anywhere else. We requested that Paramount let us have this ship attribute, arguing that they are comparable in size and age to Galaxy-class ships which have several holodecks. They agreed.

"Paramount didn't always agree to such proposals, hower. For example, in the original design of ST:TNG CCG, we had 'starbases' instead of 'outposts.' We have a beautiful image of a Federation Starbase (from the episode 11001001) that we wanted to use.

"However, nowhere in TNG do we ever see a Romulan or a Klingon Starbase. Decipher offered to create realistic digital designs for these cards using known Romulan and Klingon architectural styles, but Paramount refused. The licensing department tries not to make decisions which may constrain the production department in the future."
User avatar
First Edition Rules Master
By BCSWowbagger (James Heaney)
 - First Edition Rules Master
 -  
Community Contributor
#558758
Rachmaninoff wrote: Fri Jul 30, 2021 8:51 pm "Paramount didn't always agree to such proposals, hower. For example, in the original design of ST:TNG CCG, we had 'starbases' instead of 'outposts.' We have a beautiful image of a Federation Starbase (from the episode 11001001) that we wanted to use.

"However, nowhere in TNG do we ever see a Romulan or a Klingon Starbase. Decipher offered to create realistic digital designs for these cards using known Romulan and Klingon architectural styles, but Paramount refused. The licensing department tries not to make decisions which may constrain the production department in the future."
Oh, so THIS is whom I have to blame for the fact that we have fifteen space facilities with planet pictures on them!

Good research, thanks kindly.
User avatar
 
By Takket
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#558781
Wow this thread is fascinating, I never new a lot of this stuff.

It makes sense that Paramount would have had to have someone work with Decipher on allowing SOME leeway in creating lore and skills. Otherwise there never would have been a viable game.
User avatar
 
 - Gamma Quadrant
 -  
Continuing Committee Member - Retired
#558934
BCSWowbagger wrote: Sat Jul 31, 2021 12:41 am
Rachmaninoff wrote: Fri Jul 30, 2021 8:51 pm "Paramount didn't always agree to such proposals, hower. For example, in the original design of ST:TNG CCG, we had 'starbases' instead of 'outposts.' We have a beautiful image of a Federation Starbase (from the episode 11001001) that we wanted to use.

"However, nowhere in TNG do we ever see a Romulan or a Klingon Starbase. Decipher offered to create realistic digital designs for these cards using known Romulan and Klingon architectural styles, but Paramount refused. The licensing department tries not to make decisions which may constrain the production department in the future."
Oh, so THIS is whom I have to blame for the fact that we have fifteen space facilities with planet pictures on them!

Good research, thanks kindly.
Or maybe it's fifteen cards wihlth planet pictures that were forced into being space facilities.... :P :P
1EFQ: Game of two halves

Honestly, I don’t think I’ve re[…]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

Happy birthday to @Takket ! :D :thumbsup: […]

Opponents turn

Remodulation