This forums is for questions, answers, and discussion about First Edition rules, formats, and expansions.
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Director of First Edition
By MidnightLich (Charlie Plaine)
 - Director of First Edition
 -  
Prophet
#571871
Hello folks,

Happy Friday! It's a big weekend with both the Super Bowl on Sunday and Valentine's Day on Monday. I hope that whatever you've got going on, it's going to be safe and fun. And maybe you can fit some 1E in, because who doesn't like to play 1E.

I had a really nice conversation earlier today about the state of 1E. And on Sunday, we'll be having a meeting with the current crop of designers. So with all of that swirling around in my brain, I thought I'd reach out to you today and ask you:

What parts of 1E do you want to see simplified?

Dream big here. Do you want battle rules simplified? Side decks? Game speed? Specific cards? Affiliations or factions? Do you want to see big, deep-cut changes? Or do you prefer smaller, more subtle alterations? If you've got suggestions for how to implement your ideas, let's see them!

I look forward to reading your thoughts.

-crp
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Chief Programmer
By eberlems
 - Chief Programmer
 -  
Explorer
2E European Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
2E  National Second Runner-Up 2023
#571873
A bunch of cards like Alien Parasites with extra rulings that imply placing it under the mission after being stolen?
And would anyone guess that ruling entry after reading that card?

Nothing on Assimilate Homeworld links to assimilation - planet in the glossary, and that can be a big surprise to new players.
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First Edition Rules Master
By BCSWowbagger (James Heaney)
 - First Edition Rules Master
 -  
Community Contributor
#571875
I'm interested in seeing the responses!

For some ideas: https://www.trekcc.org/op/1e_rulebook/?advanced=y These are all the "Advanced Rules" -- all the rules that aren't in the (very simplified) Beginner's Rulebook. Most of 1e's rules complexity lives there.

Of course, 1e has other forms of complexity besides rules, do don't be limited to rules complexity! But obviously it's the first thing I think about every morning. :)
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By boromirofborg (Trek Barnes)
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
1E North American Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
2E North American Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
#571884
Broadscale, I'm an advocate for reducing the memory burden of trying to keep crews hidden information as much, and especially revealing only the relevant part of personnel.

I realized the other day why I always had the misconception of your personnel remaining face up while at your outpost. The rulebook said (and probably still says) when reported, place them beneath your outpost. 12-year old me, reading that in 1994 read that as:


Mission (seeds)
Outpost
Personnel

Not:

Mission (Seeds)
Outpost (Personnel)

(Hopefully that made sense.)


So in a pipe-dream, designed from the ground up, I'd say personnel should be viewable unless on a cloaked ship.

Realistic suggestion: I would do away with the part of the rules that lets you reveal only part of a card to an opponent for several reasons that have been talked about before, so I won't go into detail, but will summarize:

1: parity between paper and digital play - since online has no rules enforcement, or the ability to show only partial cards, the only way to verify things is to show the entire card.

2: dexterity. For a long time, most card games have done away with as many things as possible that disadvantage disabled or differently dexterity level people. There's no way to get rid of shuffling, but there's certainly a level of playing twister involved in covering everything but the third listed skill and the gender in the lore of a personnel when revealing it.


_____________________________________

The colon rule. It's also been mentioned before, but I do dislike the rules having an actual difference between a hyphen and a dash.

Trim it to be just just colons, errata the handful of cards that use dashes, and change Mission II to be Mission:II.

--------------------------------------------------------
Why no clone swaps?
Cards like Clone Machine may allow you to put more than one copy of a unique card in play. This does not change the rule that you may have only one version of a unique persona in play. If you have two Tom Parises in play, you may not exchange either for a Captain Proton in your hand.
Storywise, there's no reason why Tom2 prevents Tom1 from going to the holodeck.

Gameplay wise, I don't see that it would be that hard. Tweak the rule from "you may only have one version in play" to "you may not play if already in play". Then clone machine and other quirks would work. Possible balance issues.
______________________________________

Starting to get crazy ideas:

Remove Affiliation attack restrictions except [Bor] and [Fed] . For most affiliations we've seen inter-affiliation civil wars and the like to allow them to attack themselves, so there's not much flavor reason not to.

Borg need to keep their attack restrictions for obvious power reasons, and Fed because flavor is strongest AND because as the biggest affiliation, it's fair to be a little different.


Remove the requirement for a leader to initiate battle
Made sense back in the day, but the idea of Klingons, Kazon, non-aligned, or many other groups needing an actual leader to start battle seems out of character.

super-crazy, would never happen idea
Remove rotation damage as a rule (possibly except for limited)

Rotation damage is boring, it's anti-flavorful, it is way too all-or-nothing, it has weird timing for repair (two full turns with no obvious way to mark it). Also a minor nerf in some respects to battle decks requiring them to use a seed slot.
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By PantsOfTheTalShiar (Jason Tang)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#571888
I'd like to see a deckbuilder wizard. You start by choosing an affiliation and an era/property, and then you get a choice of play engines. Once you've chosen your play engines, you can click on them to bring up a list of the personnel who play with that engine, which you can filter. Perhaps you can also bring up a list of frequently used cards according to Affiliation HQ, and maybe you can even define a set of your own personal frequently used cards.

Also nice either as part of the wizard or just as part of an upgrade to the deckbuilder would be search suggestions as you type and real-time stats as you add/remove cards.
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Chief Programmer
By eberlems
 - Chief Programmer
 -  
Explorer
2E European Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
2E  National Second Runner-Up 2023
#571890
PantsOfTheTalShiar wrote: Sat Feb 12, 2022 5:53 am I'd like to see a deckbuilder wizard. You start by choosing an affiliation and an era/property, and then you get a choice of play engines. Once you've chosen your play engines, you can click on them to bring up a list of the personnel who play with that engine, which you can filter. Perhaps you can also bring up a list of frequently used cards according to Affiliation HQ, and maybe you can even define a set of your own personal frequently used cards.

Also nice either as part of the wizard or just as part of an upgrade to the deckbuilder would be search suggestions as you type and real-time stats as you add/remove cards.
sounds like a bunch of work, I would have started with filter for formats.
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By Iron Prime (Dan Van Kampen)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
Moderator
#571907
MidnightLich wrote: Fri Feb 11, 2022 5:13 pm

Hello folks,

Happy Friday! It's a big weekend with both the Super Bowl on Sunday and Valentine's Day on Monday. I hope that whatever you've got going on, it's going to be safe and fun. And maybe you can fit some 1E in, because who doesn't like to play 1E.

I had a really nice conversation earlier today about the state of 1E. And on Sunday, we'll be having a meeting with the current crop of designers. So with all of that swirling around in my brain, I thought I'd reach out to you today and ask you:

What parts of 1E do you want to see simplified?


Dream big here. Do you want battle rules simplified? Side decks? Game speed? Specific cards? Affiliations or factions? Do you want to see big, deep-cut changes? Or do you prefer smaller, more subtle alterations? If you've got suggestions for how to implement your ideas, let's see them!

I look forward to reading your thoughts.

-crp
I'd say any individual card that has a glossary entry longer than a couple sentences or so. I love this game, I love the complexity, but there are just too many "corner cases" and counter-intuitive things. The CC has been working on this slowly and making some progress admittedly, but there is still so much to do that this remains at the top of my list.

My second choice would be a refinement of timing rules. When "at any time" doesn't necessarily mean at. any. time. you've got some sort of issue...

:twocents:
 
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
#571915
I think the rulebook itself does a great job of calling out exactly what rule most needs simplification (or elimination!).
Tip: Valid responses are hard!
Understanding what is and is not a valid response, how they affect the action-response cycle, and who gets to respond when is often the hardest part of the game for beginners, and gives rise to many, many rules questions. Ironically, it also one of the least important parts of the rules.
It's one of the hardest things to learn? It's one of the least important things to learn? Dump it!

As much as I hate the term "NPE," I think not understanding "valid response" rules is likely to lead to some new players having an "NPE" because they won't understand that that card they stocked in their deck can never be used in the way they intended, or thought it could be used, because it's not a "valid response" to something.

Not understanding a rule sucks....but not understanding a card that you've stocked in your deck before the game and have drawn into (to the point where it's pretty much useless to you, so that card in your deck and your hand is now dead weight) sucks even more.

(The rulebook uses Fitting In as a great example of this. I could totally see a new player thinking this is a great card to use as a skill save during a mission attempt and thus stocking it, but it can never actually be used until after or before a mission, making it a lot weaker).

So is there any reason why the "Valid Response" part of actions/timing can't just be done away with? Obviously some cards would become a lot more powerful, but would any actually become game-breaking?

(And if so, are there enough to make a few erratas cost-prohibitive?)

Also, my compliments to the writer of the rulebook for finding a way to use "Howard Heirloom Candle" in a gameplay example (and the weakest of its many functions, to boot!)

(I don't think the rulesbook example of Temporal Rift and Borg Ship apply anymore, since a Borg Ship is no longer "your" ship in the sense of "your" according to the rulebook, since it's no longer under "your" control).
boromirofborg wrote: Fri Feb 11, 2022 10:07 pm Starting to get crazy ideas:
I can get behind most of your "realistic" suggestions, Boromir, but your "crazy" ideas are definitely pushing it!
Remove Affiliation attack restrictions except [Bor] and [Fed] . For most affiliations we've seen inter-affiliation civil wars and the like to allow them to attack themselves, so there's not much flavor reason not to.
I disagree. I think it was a big deal whenever we saw ships from the Cardassian Union's military consider firing on other ships in the Cardassian Union's military, and it was a big deal whenever we personnel in the Romulan military consider assaulting (or killing!) other personnel in the Romulan military.

Usually there was some insidious intelligence agency at work (Obsidian Order or Tal Shiar), and that's why there were rules and cards created for those specific exceptions. Otherwise, it'd be unthinkable for individuals and ships from such highly organized groups to start attacking and killing their own kind (same applies for the Bajoran militia and the Dominion military).

I think you could make the argument that the Klingon attack restrictions (can fire on anyone) can be applied to the Kazon and Vidiians, as the Kazon are even more loosely combined than the Klingons (and seem to always be in some form of civil war, either hot or cold), and the Vidiians are probably desperate enough that they'd attack anyone for organs. But for storyline reasons, I think the other affiliations have too many ethical and/or institutional barriers to brazenly attacking and killing their own kind, especially since most of the ships are of a military nature.
Remove the requirement for a leader to initiate battle
Made sense back in the day, but the idea of Klingons, Kazon, non-aligned, or many other groups needing an actual leader to start battle seems out of character.
I think the idea is that to actually have the courage to attack and kill someone (to say nothing of getting others to jump in the fray with you), you need some special characteristic beyond just a lack of respect (or contempt) for their kind.

Most Romulans hate Klingons, from a racist, cultural perspective, but I don't see most Romulan civilians having the balls to start a fight to the death with another Klingon, even if they think they'll win.
super-crazy, would never happen idea
Remove rotation damage as a rule (possibly except for limited)

Rotation damage is boring, it's anti-flavorful, it is way too all-or-nothing, it has weird timing for repair (two full turns with no obvious way to mark it). Also a minor nerf in some respects to battle decks requiring them to use a seed slot.
Don't most battle decks use battle-bridge door anyway?

Wouldn't that also be a nerf to other non-battle decks, like decks that use dilemmas that do damage? That'd be a great way to de-flavor some cool dilemmas, since many would just not stock a combo that suddenly requires another seed slot.

Finally, can't you rotate your ships 180 degrees to mark rotation damage, and then rotate another 90 if it's halfway repaired?
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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
#571917
I would simplify wall dilemmas. Right now there are several dilemmas that look like walls because they say unless, but aren't actually walls because they fizzle if there's no target. Zaldan and Cardassian Trap are the marquee examples of this genre. This has been discussed recently, so I won't rehash arguments. I would just note that I am in favor of removing this rule and/or clarifying these dilemmas.
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First Edition Rules Master
 - First Edition Rules Master
 -  
Continuing Committee Member - Retired
Community Contributor
#571919
Timing. Like, the entire timing/action structure.

To this day I am shocked that Decipher never pulled a Sixth and did a ground-up rework with actual timing instead of all the "suspends" and "at any times" and junk.
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By stressedoutatumc (stressedoutatumc)
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
#571920
Initially, three things.

1. Timing, particularly with downloads. Either the card should say specifically when you can download, or the download timing should be universal. For example, all downloads happen at interrupt speed and can happen in any phase of the game as long as the card is in play. That sort of thing. Even it’s in the glossary, the rules are not obvious in relation to the game phases, etc. also, I think the rules are they are now drag the game.

2. Related to that, I think the game needs a second play phase after the execute orders phase but before the draw/end phase. This is akin to MtG and I think it would offer some interesting and fresh strategies. It wouldn’t change how much you could play, but it would encourage more interaction and reaction if you had to make decisions with the idea that you opponent can still play something after executing orders and moving cards around. I think it’s silly you have to basically play everything everything at the start of your turn. If you’ve ever played magic, you know that the best players use both play phase to their advantage. Trek needs this.

3. Let me look in my Qs tent whenever I want. It’s nuts I can’t during the game.
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By boromirofborg (Trek Barnes)
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
1E North American Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
2E North American Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
#571921
DISCO Rox No More wrote: Sat Feb 12, 2022 5:48 pm
I can get behind most of your "realistic" suggestions, Boromir, but your "crazy" ideas are definitely pushing it!
Usually there was some insidious intelligence agency at work (Obsidian Order or Tal Shiar), and that's why there were rules and cards created for those specific exceptions. Otherwise, it'd be unthinkable for individuals and ships from such highly organized groups to start attacking and killing their own kind (same applies for the Bajoran militia and the Dominion military).
So, from a gameplay perspective, I would say requiring the specific cards to interact in a meaningful way with your opponent based on the quasi-random factor of what affiliation they are has some of the same downsides of the magic bullet system. You either have to make the card so broad it becomes a near auto-include, or it becomes a tough thing to include. That's why magic bullets needed the [Ref] system to make them worth including, and that's still a dubious proposition.

Flavor has some issues, but I would put this almost in the realm (personally) of why each player can have their own copy of unique personnel. You don't want to punish PLayer One too much for what basic affiliaition PLayer 2 happens to play.

I think you could make the argument that the Klingon attack restrictions (can fire on anyone) can be applied to the Kazon and Vidiians, as the Kazon are even more loosely combined than the Klingons (and seem to always be in some form of civil war, either hot or cold), and the Vidiians are probably desperate enough that they'd attack anyone for organs. But for storyline reasons, I think the other affiliations have too many ethical and/or institutional barriers to brazenly attacking and killing their own kind, especially since most of the ships are of a military nature.
I think this actually points to why I thought it should be simplified. There are currently 12-13 affiliaitions, depending on if you count [Neu]. Of those 13, there are 4 that have the "Klingon" attack restrictions.

I think the idea is that to actually have the courage to attack and kill someone (to say nothing of getting others to jump in the fray with you), you need some special characteristic beyond just a lack of respect (or contempt) for their kind.
I agree that from flavor perspectives, there's good reasons to keep the leader requirements. I'm just not sure that here is a strong enough gameplay reason left to require it. One way to look at it is that Decipher unloaded the rules in cybernetics, the CC did the same for Miracle Worker. (And Garumba?). This would just be unloading OFFICER and Leadership the same way.

Not really something I deeply care one way or the other though and I still miss Miracle Worker being special.


Don't most battle decks use battle-bridge door anyway?

Wouldn't that also be a nerf to other non-battle decks, like decks that use dilemmas that do damage? That'd be a great way to de-flavor some cool dilemmas, since many would just not stock a combo that suddenly requires another seed slot.
So, full disclosure, I'm of the opinion that overall, the BBSD is tied with the concept of downloading and being one of the two core things that should have been in STCCG from the beginning. If I were Q and remaking the game from scratch, you'd just automatically have the BBSD and it would be required. It takes battle from being something that is super obvious and boring into something with risk for both sides, counterplay, etc. 2E
s battle system and the lack of any stakes is the biggest negative against it, for me.

SO I look at it like this. We have two current forms of damage. That's complicated. If we want to simplify things, we should get rid of the one that (while simpler) is the less interesting one. For dilemmas, what's better for players and the game as a whole? A dilemma combo that can rotate my ship 360 degrees, lose my entire crew ad ship, and possibly lock me out of the game, or every dilemma in the dame that damages also having the text (kill a personnel of X classification.). Instead of limiting damage dilemmas to just combos, it makes all the damage dilemmas like the ones boosted by Let Me Help.

(I have a really radical suggestion for the BBSD as well, but that's not simplfying rules and I'll discuss in another post some time.)


Finally, can't you rotate your ships 180 degrees to mark rotation damage, and then rotate another 90 if it's halfway repaired?
Yes, but... the rule is it has to be docked for 2 full turns to be repaired. So turn 1, I rotate it 90. Then something happens and I need to move my ship away. That first turn now didn't count for repairs at all (I think), so I should rotate it back to the 180 technically. That's not intuitive, and it doesn't make sense that a partially repaired ship has to always start over.
 
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
#571949
boromirofborg wrote: Sat Feb 12, 2022 11:49 pm So, from a gameplay perspective, I would say requiring the specific cards to interact in a meaningful way with your opponent based on the quasi-random factor of what affiliation they are has some of the same downsides of the magic bullet system. You either have to make the card so broad it becomes a near auto-include, or it becomes a tough thing to include. That's why magic bullets needed the [Ref] system to make them worth including, and that's still a dubious proposition.

Flavor has some issues, but I would put this almost in the realm (personally) of why each player can have their own copy of unique personnel. You don't want to punish PLayer One too much for what basic affiliaition PLayer 2 happens to play.
I see what you're saying and I actually agree with it. But I think this is why having the "Intelligence" skill be a loaded skill (that let you attack players of the same affiliation) was a good idea. Requiring the stocking and use of a magic bullet, just in case your opponent is playing the same affiliation as you, is too heavy of a cost, and unloading that skill was a mistake.

The Intelligence skill is mostly useless, compared to other skills. If your deck was focused on it (using it for free reports or card-drawing engines or basing your mission selection around it), great. But it rarely comes up in dilemmas, relative to other skills, so unless your deck was specifically using it, it's a lot less powerful than other skills. Having it be loaded not only was good for flavor, it also prevented you from being punished by a mirror match, which helped make up for its lack of utility otherwise.

Reloading that skill isn't "simplifying," but it would be the right thing to do.
I think this actually points to why I thought it should be simplified. There are currently 12-13 affiliaitions, depending on if you count [Neu]. Of those 13, there are 4 that have the "Klingon" attack restrictions.
To be fair, I don't think [NA] really should be thought of as "affiliations" (even if they could be played as such and the rules necessarily must treat them as such for simplicity). They were designed as, and usually play as, "third parties" that you slot in your deck as mercenaries for, or temporary allies of, your main affiliation. Given that, it probably should come as natural to any player to assume they don't have any attack restrictions, as they don't have any longterm loyalties.

Same goes for [Neu], which is even less of a "real" affiliation. There aren't enough of them in the game for it ever to really come up anyway.

I still miss Miracle Worker being special.
Me too!


So, full disclosure, I'm of the opinion that overall, the BBSD is tied with the concept of downloading and being one of the two core things that should have been in STCCG from the beginning. If I were Q and remaking the game from scratch, you'd just automatically have the BBSD and it would be required. It takes battle from being something that is super obvious and boring into something with risk for both sides, counterplay, etc. 2E
s battle system and the lack of any stakes is the biggest negative against it, for me.

SO I look at it like this. We have two current forms of damage. That's complicated. If we want to simplify things, we should get rid of the one that (while simpler) is the less interesting one. For dilemmas, what's better for players and the game as a whole? A dilemma combo that can rotate my ship 360 degrees, lose my entire crew ad ship, and possibly lock me out of the game, or every dilemma in the dame that damages also having the text (kill a personnel of X classification.). Instead of limiting damage dilemmas to just combos, it makes all the damage dilemmas like the ones boosted by Let Me Help.

(I have a really radical suggestion for the BBSD as well, but that's not simplfying rules and I'll discuss in another post some time.)
So what do you think about BBSD being a "free" seed (like your six sites), given that you think it should have been included from the game from the get-go? It certainly incentivizes more interesting and flavorful gameplay, if it has no cost.

If everyone gets a free BBSD, is that nerfing or boosting any one specific deck type, or does it end up being a wash?
Yes, but... the rule is it has to be docked for 2 full turns to be repaired. So turn 1, I rotate it 90. Then something happens and I need to move my ship away. That first turn now didn't count for repairs at all (I think), so I should rotate it back to the 180 technically. That's not intuitive, and it doesn't make sense that a partially repaired ship has to always start over.
Is that how it works?

That's dumb.

That should be changed, to make it more intuitive and simpler, as well as to bring it more in line with Tactics damage, for the sake of game balance.
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By boromirofborg (Trek Barnes)
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
1E North American Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
2E North American Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
#571955
DISCO Rox No More wrote: Sun Feb 13, 2022 5:47 pm But I think this is why having the "Intelligence" skill be a loaded skill (that let you attack players of the same affiliation) was a good idea. Requiring the stocking and use of a magic bullet, just in case your opponent is playing the same affiliation as you, is too heavy of a cost, and unloading that skill was a mistake.
Agreed. I'm in favor of reloading it. I had forgotten it was built in at one point,
So what do you think about BBSD being a "free" seed (like your six sites), given that you think it should have been included from the game from the get-go? It certainly incentivizes more interesting and flavorful gameplay, if it has no cost.
My crazy radical idea would be make it a free seed AND make it where all hull damage is ignored. (After all, it's rare for the hero ship to be destroyed.)

Then, battle decks no longer become NPE lock outs, but they strongly delay people. Every skirmish ends in a wounded ship with a couple of people dead, and if damaged enough, the ship has no range and is functionally destroyed, but there's still hope.

Also means facilites can't get blown up, so you can't really lock out. I have not thought out the repercussions of not being able to destroy borg ships for bonus points. It's a out there idea..
If everyone gets a free BBSD, is that nerfing or boosting any one specific deck type, or does it end up being a wash?

I think there's enough defensive tactics for it to be a wash, and would be interested in testing it as a free seed as is.
Is that how it works? [Rotation repair]

That's dumb.

That should be changed, to make it more intuitive and simpler, as well as to bring it more in line with Tactics damage, for the sake of game balance.
I'm pretty sure it is, since the rules say:
however, rotation damage is only repaired after two full turns docked at an outpost or other repair facility.
but the fact that it's even nebulous is a good indication of something to be changed. I wouldn't even deeply object to rotation damage being repaired in 1 full turn if it meant simplifying in this case.
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