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 and . 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?