This forums is for questions, answers, and discussion about First Edition rules, formats, and expansions.

What should the future of dual-personnel be in 1E?

Eliminate them. (No more new cards, ban the current cards in OTF.)
4
8%
A rarity. (Make very few and only on special occasions.)
20
38%
Status quo. (They are fine, use them occasionally.)
24
46%
Embrace them. (Make them regularly, rules overhead is acceptable.)
3
6%
Other. (Please make your opinion known in the replies.)
1
2%
User avatar
Director of First Edition
By MidnightLich (Charlie Plaine)
 - Director of First Edition
 -  
Prophet
#569769
Hello folks,

Welcome to the first Friday Question of 2022. I hope you all had a lovely holiday and a wonderful New Year's celebration. Today, I want to talk to you about a polarizing concept in First Edition: dual-personnel and get your guidance on how we use them moving forward.

If you aren't familiar with the term dual-personnel, they are the cards that represent two personnel on a single card. I believe the most recent one printed was in Dogs of War last year, Anjohl and Winn. Here is what the rulebook says about dual-personnel:
A few special personnel cards, such as Sons of Mogh and The Trois, have two individual personnel printed on the same card. They count as two personnel, but the individuals on a dual-personnel card have a linked destiny: what happens to one usually happens to the other.

If either personnel on a dual-personnel card is: stopped, killed, captured, moved, removed from play, downloaded, reported for free, or otherwise experiences some change in status or position (for example, is phased, "held by aliens", or changes affiliation), then the same thing automatically happens to the other personnel on the card. One cannot survive without the other, so they can never be separated.
Dual-personnel were introduced by Decipher in the Fajo Collection (with Sisters of Duras), but embraced in Enhanced Premiere as a cool way to get condensed star power and help move product. Over the years, both Decipher the CC made more when making personnel not quite worthy of their own cards, or lately, to provide one-card access to couples. But they introduce a lot of rules overhead and I know at least one member of the Rules Team really wishes Decipher hadn't made these cards.

For example, here are some common Rules questions about dual-personnel:
As I was recently told, "if you ask 3 people what happens... you're liable to get three different answers. And all of them are liable to be wrong." It's just a complex piece of the game. And recently, we've been discussing how much we want to keep making dual-personnel as we move forward. Today, I'm hoping you'll help us make that decision.

What do you want the future of dual-personnel to be in First Edition? You can vote for any of the options in the poll above this thread, or write in your own. If you want dual-personnel to be banned and never see them again, tell us. If you love them and want more, tell us that too. And if you're somewhere in between, tell us what you like and don't like about them.

Thanks for reading everyone. I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

-crp
Last edited by MidnightLich on Fri Jan 14, 2022 12:01 pm, edited 1 time in total. Reason: Thank you to @Orbin for the correction about Fajo Collection and Sisters of Duras.
User avatar
First Edition Art Manager
By jjh (Johnny Holeva)
 - First Edition Art Manager
 -  
#569785
They are weird and cool and 1E. Status quo.

If anything, I'd love to see specific answers to the Dual Personnel rules questions Charlie raises, in the the Rules. (and here on the thread) Teach and reinforce the right way to play Dual Personnel cards.
User avatar
First Edition Rules Master
 - First Edition Rules Master
 -  
Continuing Committee Member - Retired
Community Contributor
#569801
I'd love to make 'em just a single personnel that happen to have two persona attached. Then all the other questions become easy:

What happens when your Worf and Jadzia face a Lineup or a Love Interest? The same thing that happens when any other personnel hits it. Worf/Jadzia could be selected as either male or female (because they have both traits), and then you'd pick a second personnel for them to run away with.

How many dots do you count if you download Jake and Nog with Ferengi Conference? Six

How about The Trois? Four.

And does the order you download those cards matter? Nope, because you're just downloading a personnel.

What happens if Data and Picard encounter Chula: The Chandra? Probably not much, because they'd have really high stats.

The reason I suspect we *won't* do that is because then Worf & Jadzia can't be their own romantic partner.
User avatar
 
By Armus (Brian Sykes)
 - The Center of the Galaxy
 -  
Regent
Community Contributor
#569802
AllenGould wrote: Fri Jan 14, 2022 2:25 pm The reason I suspect we *won't* do that is because then Worf and Jadzia can't be their own romantic partner.
Same with Mr. and Mrs. Troi but IMO if built in love couple is the tradeoff for copious amounts of rules simplification, then it's one I'm personally willing to make - that's a good trade.

Also, I feel the need to point out that ALL of the "problem cards" on this front are CC-era creations, generally [Fed] , and considered to be really powerful (almost to the point of too powerful).

If you need two actual personnel to have a Romantic couple and get your love Cafe draws, is that the worst thing?
User avatar
First Edition Rules Master
By BCSWowbagger (James Heaney)
 - First Edition Rules Master
 -  
Community Contributor
#569805
AllenGould wrote: Fri Jan 14, 2022 2:25 pm I'd love to make 'em just a single personnel that happen to have two persona attached. Then all the other questions become easy:
Speaking only for myself and not the Rules Committee, I would like this as well.

I am going to hold off on answering @jjh's rules questions for a few days just because I want to see whether I am actually correct that people find these rules confusing. If actually everyone in the community knows exactly how to handle a Recruit Mercenaries download with Ah-Kel and Ro-Kel, then I am overly concerned about dualies and that would be good to know.

(For the very curious, the answers to all these questions are clearly stated in the Rulebook. It's just that, in my admittedly biased experience answering rules questions, people tend to rely on their intuitions / memories of how dualies worked in 1998 rather than checking the rules today.)

((My own personal position on dualies is that we shouldn't ban the ones we have -- that'd be a lot of cards sent to the ban list forever--but it would be best not to make more, or to make them rarely as a Very Special Treat.))
User avatar
 
By Ensign Q
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#569806
i voted other.
i like them, but the rules are weird.
wouldnt mind treating them as just a regular personnel with a bunch of [SD]

edit: what allen said.
User avatar
 
By Professor Scott (Mathew McCalpin)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
Trailblazer
1E Cardassia Regional Champion 2023
#569812
A dual personnel has only one affiliation at a time, even if that card is a Dual Affiliation personnel. That means The Trois and Jake and Nog in [1E-Fer] mode should count as 4 [SD] and 6 [SD] respectively, in my opinion.
User avatar
 
By boromirofborg (Trek Barnes)
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
1E North American Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
2E North American Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
#569818
I chose rarity. They certainly are a rules headache, but I think a few of those can be healthy for a game to have.

I love Sisters of Duras, and how they made sense being together. I also liked Ah-kel and Ro-Kel and the Delaney sisters. All three of those had enough flavor to overcome any other objections for me.


What I haven't liked is almost every other dual personnel.

1. Because 1E doesn't really have much of a cost/resource system, Dual personnel come way over budget on stats and raw skills.
2. Because of the lack of room in the text box, they also usually are pretty boring, only being raw attributes and skills.


If we do more in the future, there needs to be a stronger flavor then "there were in a scene together". (See most EPP dual personnel.)
User avatar
First Edition Rules Master
 - First Edition Rules Master
 -  
Continuing Committee Member - Retired
Community Contributor
#569826
Professor Scott wrote: Fri Jan 14, 2022 4:11 pm A dual personnel has only one affiliation at a time, even if that card is a Dual Affiliation personnel. That means The Trois and Jake and Nog in [1E-Fer] mode should count as 4 [SD] and 6 [SD] respectively, in my opinion.
But what if you download Jake and Nog in Fed mode? (You still can, because Nog is Ferengi-by-species).
User avatar
 
By Professor Scott (Mathew McCalpin)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
Trailblazer
1E Cardassia Regional Champion 2023
#569832
AllenGould wrote: Fri Jan 14, 2022 5:57 pm
Professor Scott wrote: Fri Jan 14, 2022 4:11 pm A dual personnel has only one affiliation at a time, even if that card is a Dual Affiliation personnel. That means The Trois and Jake and Nog in [1E-Fer] mode should count as 4 [SD] and 6 [SD] respectively, in my opinion.
But what if you download Jake and Nog in Fed mode? (You still can, because Nog is Ferengi-by-species).
Assuming you can legally report them as [Fed] then 3, since Nog has 3 total [SD], and Jake is not Ferengi by species so his [SD] , are along for the ride just as both [DL] are along for the ride on The Trois. Good catch!
User avatar
 
By Takket
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#569842
i voted status quo. they are a fun quirk of the game, and while there are some edge cases where it gets really weird, 99% of the time the rules on them are pretty straightforward. i think they are fun cards, enjoy the dual template, keep them coming! just don't put out so many that there are 20 of them in a deck
User avatar
 
By Professor Scott (Mathew McCalpin)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
Trailblazer
1E Cardassia Regional Champion 2023
#569890
Yes, it should be 2 as only Deanna is CIV.
User avatar
 
By Smiley (Cristoffer Wiker)
 - Gamma Quadrant
 -  
Continuing Committee Member - Retired
#569915
Make them go away. This game doesn't need more complexity just for complexity sake as well as just better cards for feds.

and it really makes design harder for having them.
1EFQ: Game of two halves

Honestly, I don’t think I’ve re[…]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

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

Opponents turn

Remodulation