For posting 1E deck designs for feedback from other players and members of the community.
 
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
#478502
Looking at the 4 TNG starters - both from the Next Generation (2012) and Coming of Age (2018) versions...

The Draw decks are almost exclusively personnel! Then 3 ships and only about 4 other cards (Incidents or an event). Barely an Interrupt or Equipment in any of them

if you compare these with the decks in the Introductory 2 Player game boxes 9 (from 1996 ish) they have around 15 Events/Interrupts then 4 Equipment..

My question is simple:

In the modern game, is it all personnel and hardly anything else?

Or have these starters been designed just to give that 'solving Mission' feel and nothing else?

It does seem that they are missing out on a lot of the basic card types.

advice and opinions welcome
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By Iron Prime (Dan Van Kampen)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
Moderator
#478511
That was intentional. The modern game has little in the way of the events and equipment unless they "free play" or [DL] in some way. Currently they are simply too expensive.
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By SudenKapala (Suden Käpälä)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#478522
. . . which is, in part, why I personally like the old, slower, more diversely packed game (Traditional/Decipher-era) better. :)
It's a choice! :wink:
And you could also try both in parallel.
 
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
#478535
Iron Prime wrote:That was intentional. The modern game has little in the way of the events and equipment unless they "free play" or [DL] in some way. Currently they are simply too expensive.
That's very interesting. Could you expand on what you mean?

Is it then that about a 1/3 of the card pool (Events/Equipment/incidents/Objectives) now doesn't see play unless seedable??

Crikey!
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By SudenKapala (Suden Käpälä)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#478540
dragoncymru wrote:
Iron Prime wrote:That was intentional. The modern game has little in the way of the events and equipment unless they "free play" or [DL] in some way. Currently they are simply too expensive.
That's very interesting. Could you expand on what you mean?

Is it then that about a 1/3 of the card pool (Events/Equipment/incidents/Objectives) now doesn't see play unless seedable??
The answers were there -- "downloadable" is the key word. If you want to use a fun card, use the AMAZING search engine to scan* ALL the cards whether there's one which downloads it (or makes it play for free) -- so it doesn't cost a card play.

Or make like me. Don't play Constructed competitive, but slow down at your leisure, and play whatever the idic you want. 8)

*: put the card title in the game text box (for most card types); and subsequently do a fresh search with the title in the custom skill search box (for personnel).
Then there's the difficult area where your wanted card belongs to a group ("HQ: ..."), or has a trait... then, perhaps ask.
Icons are easy too; you can search by them.
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By Iron Prime (Dan Van Kampen)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
Moderator
#478546
dragoncymru wrote:
Iron Prime wrote:That was intentional. The modern game has little in the way of the events and equipment unless they "free play" or [DL] in some way. Currently they are simply too expensive.
That's very interesting. Could you expand on what you mean?
Is it then that about a 1/3 of the card pool (Events/Equipment/incidents/Objectives) now doesn't see play unless seedable?
?

Crikey!
That's not it. It's just that those cards - at a competitive level - have to work harder/do more to earn their spot in the deck. Casual games still see most cards played - but if you're showing up to worlds with some random events in your deck you better have something really slick lined up that needs those cards...
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First Edition Rules Master
By BCSWowbagger (James Heaney)
 - First Edition Rules Master
 -  
Community Contributor
#478556
dragoncymru wrote:
Iron Prime wrote:That was intentional. The modern game has little in the way of the events and equipment unless they "free play" or [DL] in some way. Currently they are simply too expensive.
That's very interesting. Could you expand on what you mean?

Is it then that about a 1/3 of the card pool (Events/Equipment/incidents/Objectives) now doesn't see play unless seedable??

Crikey!
The game lasts very few turns right now. That means each and every normal card play is extremely valuable -- you probably only get 7 or 8 normal card plays per game. That means pressure on cards that use your normal card play is incredibly intense. They have to basically be game-changers, or they're not worth it.

Yes, this is a problem. Arguably, it's the game's biggest problem. Design is aware of it and has been for years. The problem really started during Decipher days, and it was already a visible issue in decklists as early as 2011... but it has steadily gotten worse. However, solutions are very hard to come by, because the game's limited number of turns is so baked-in to so many systems now.

There are, however, ways to mitigate it. If you want Equipment? Try an Equipment Replicator. Events? Temporal Almanac was designed to promote Events by letting them skip the card play. So was Obsession. Objectives? Take a look at Taking Charge.

So it's not like the game is just missing these core card types now. But there's soooo much pressure on normal card plays that you really do have to plan ahead in a way that you didn't have to 20 years ago.
 
 - Beta Quadrant
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#478621
BCSWowbagger wrote:
dragoncymru wrote:
Iron Prime wrote:That was intentional. The modern game has little in the way of the events and equipment unless they "free play" or [DL] in some way. Currently they are simply too expensive.
That's very interesting. Could you expand on what you mean?

Is it then that about a 1/3 of the card pool (Events/Equipment/incidents/Objectives) now doesn't see play unless seedable??

Crikey!
The game lasts very few turns right now. That means each and every normal card play is extremely valuable -- you probably only get 7 or 8 normal card plays per game. That means pressure on cards that use your normal card play is incredibly intense. They have to basically be game-changers, or they're not worth it.

Yes, this is a problem. Arguably, it's the game's biggest problem. Design is aware of it and has been for years. The problem really started during Decipher days, and it was already a visible issue in decklists as early as 2011... but it has steadily gotten worse. However, solutions are very hard to come by, because the game's limited number of turns is so baked-in to so many systems now.

There are, however, ways to mitigate it. If you want Equipment? Try an Equipment Replicator. Events? Temporal Almanac was designed to promote Events by letting them skip the card play. So was Obsession. Objectives? Take a look at Taking Charge.

So it's not like the game is just missing these core card types now. But there's soooo much pressure on normal card plays that you really do have to plan ahead in a way that you didn't have to 20 years ago.
That's incredibly interesting (and a bit sad) - a huge thanks for your honest response and I guess that's why, in some small way, Block format was introduced.
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By SudenKapala (Suden Käpälä)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#479590
(A reworked, expanded and appended version of the below post can be found here -- Vintage, low-profile, teaching & learning deck series: "TOT". :)  :thumbsup: )


Proudly introducing my Traditional Open Training deck line. 8)

Here,
Pazuzu wrote:I try to gather all starter decks.

And here,
Wowbagger wrote:I want your beginner-level 1E decks!

Well, for the longest time I've been talking about, yet never daring to share, the Traditional Training variants of my local gaming environment's "internal" decks. They are supposedly quite well-balanced among each other (but you know how that goes :shifty: ) --

dragoncymru wrote:
BCSWowbagger wrote:
Iron Prime wrote:(...) The modern game has little in the way of the events and equipment (...)
The game lasts very few turns right now. (...)
That's incredibly interesting (and a bit sad) (...)

-- and to remedy all that sadness ( :lol: ), additionally, my Training decks are very old-school. Premiere-like, even. With PAQ elements, but slow. No side-decks. Convenient. Easy. Not for speedy people :thumbsdown: . For beginners (or very drunk, or tired, people :thumbsup: ).

In any case, I've had a blast with them, teaching new people; and they can be made with with vintage physical Decipher ("Traditional") cards, for those who are looking for such a thing. And -- surprisingly or not -- a lot of new members do request such decks. :wink: I'm sorry it took so long, to get the deck lists in order.

[Fed] Training variant of my Traditional Open Deck 01 -- "Once Upon A Rare Killer Engineering Extension Course".
Deck notes:

This Federation crew, led by Krajenski, have 'unstealable' missions, a great skill density and distribution, and overal great resources. For these reasons, it's easy to name this the least unpowerful deck of the four mainstays in this Traditional Training deck line; and moreover, because it has a few of the more recognizable ships and faces, it may be the nicest deck to give to a prospective new player, to teach them the game with.


[Rom] Training variant of my Traditional Open Deck 02 -- "Tebok And His Sneaky Straightforward Mission Solving Team".
Deck notes:

Tebok's Romulans could do with a second space mission -- especially to relieve the other decks' dilemma distribution options. (Since these are Open format decks, a big pile of space dilemmas might just make the player decide to go only for planets!) But on other fronts (e.g. Facilities and personnel versus mission skill denstity), the Romulans are not dealt the best hand. So it may balance out... or the skill load versus the steep mission requirements might just make this the most difficult deck to win with. Something to keep in mind for the teacher, when they choose a deck against their unwitting opponents. Especially when that opponent it a new, prospective player.
One of the planet missions could eventually be replaced with the equally 'unstealable' Investigate Shattered Space (the only Romulan-only mission which I had available for this deck; Quash Conspiracy is not an option for this un-Intelligence bunch); but for this crew, "Shattered Space" is even more difficult than the planets.


[Kli] Training variant of my Traditional Open Deck 03 -- "Gowron Orders Kavok To Stop Hijacking Combat Lore Of K'chiQ".
Deck notes:

United by Gowron (but hailing from different Great Houses), this hodge-podge Klingon bunch have struck a pragmatic deal with the evil android, Lore; but there's enough honourable personnel among them, to keep his schemes from going too far. (And also some devious plotters, who are willing to aid him...) These warriors are, like their Romulan adversaries, simply of a mind to solve some missions. However, they have relatively small but sturdy ships, and an army of combat leaders to boot. This may come in handy to protect those few missions that are 'stealable'. So watch out for them, they may decloak when you least expect them.


[Baj] Training variant of my Traditional Open Deck 05 -- "The Shakaar VIP Delegation Supports Opaka And The Emissary".
Deck notes:

Shakaar's Bajorans are aided by a Husnock-tech boasting Maquis cell; their spiritual needs are tended to by Kai Opaka. They may have fewer, and less heavy, ships than the other draw decks. But they seeds a tug I've dubbed, "The Husnock Hammer". (It's the name given her by the Maquis who took an eerie deserted outpost for their clandestine base of ops...) Also, I added the Liberty, which according to the 'Vintage' (Decipher-era) rules & errata -- which our play group use -- still has only 1 staffing icon. In the current state of affairs, it has 2. More difficult to staff by this-here lot... but they do also wield the seeded "Hammer".


[Fer] Training variant of my Traditional Open Deck 06 -- "USF, or, Acquire Science Tomorrow - Sell Merchandise Today".
Deck notes:

Rest assured, Doctor Arridor and his team know what ails you. Probably, it's the inimidating numbers of your formidable opponent. These mischievous representatives of the Unites States of Ferenginar can remedy that! They used to be a crew of physicians and scientists, bent on conquering peer-reviewed journals to earn latinum -- but they found a quicker way. Delivering you their surplus sidearms for a steep profit. Just play 'em and enjoy the show -- watch them sell each other out for some of those sparkling gold-pressed bars.


(Which leaves, at least, the "public polished posting" of my approximately compatible [Car] deck for the foreseeable future; and, maybe, my rather-less-than-more compatible verion of [Bor] . Which we, internally, also have had many hours of fun with -- compatible or not. :thumbsup: )

Some more notes on these Traditional Open Training decks...
During 1995-2008 I built my first line of decks -- but interest of other players waned. Later, in the early days (2014-2017) of my new Traditional game group environment, I truncated my chunky, gimmicky, 'great fun' decks (dubbed as internal power level, "Tier-1") into "Training decks" which worked great together to teach the game to newcomers.

They were originally developed for Open format gameplay -- or at least according to Open format design standards. In practice, for these specific decks, this mostly means that more than 2 duplicate dilemmas might be included (often affiliation-flavoured; and never to employ the infamous "broken" tactics) and perhaps some banned cards (like Red Alert). But since these decks are specifically meant to be pitted only against each other, there'll be no problems.

The Open format background additionally means, that The Big Picture and Fair Play are not incorporated in the rules (as is the case with the currently prevalent OTF format); nor are those cards included in the decks, which is noteworthy.

Also, they might contain some dilemmas which might be a bit more confusing for novice* players -- and that's exactly what our wonderful Dilemma Resolution Guide is for. (The old one, by Decipher era documents guru, Major Rakal, will do fine; since that version is finished and polished; and it contains all dilemmas used in my decks.)

*: For the first few, and very quick -- showcase -- games, a veteran player might also instruct new players with my "Impulse Speed" decks, akin to "Warp Speed" but with far less changes from the full format.
I'm of a mind to post those -- and the "Impulse Speed" format rules -- too, some day soon.


For some time, I was hesitant to post either line of decks; but in the past months, there's been shown a consistent continuation of the sporadic (but ever-present, it seems) interest in decks with only Decipher-published (Traditional) cards.
And since I'm a Dapper Dan Traditional person, I like to accomodate those wishes! 8)  :thumbsup:


Something on the general design philosophy of the Traditional Open Trainers:
No side decks. Only original (Premiere set) card types are used (no  [Obj] ,  [Inc] , [Tac] , ...; and no [Art] nor [Holo] ). No consistent draw or play engines; but Red Alert has often sped up a game. (And certainly not always towards a win for the first player who brought it out!) It may be nice to replace the Red with a Yellow Alert, in any of the decks; in fact I encourage you to upgrade the lists to tailer them to your own needs. (And according to the wishes of your pupils!) Because, for certain, there's room for quality improvement -- these decks were never meant to be very efficient, fast, or powerful. They were meant to be easy, fun, and educational.
Because of the small total deck size (60 cards for the first four 'mainstays'; up to 90 for the others) and tiny seed decks (around 20 cards), there's also plenty room for simple expansion.
Last edited by SudenKapala on Sun Dec 06, 2020 1:06 pm, edited 3 times in total.
 
By Klauser
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
#497330
First off, thanks to all the players who posted these starter decks. Outstanding idea to have all these decks in one place!!

I was particularly surprised and pleased to see that David "Tomek" Bowling's Romulan starter deck - the one he built it to match the Federation and Klingon starter decks that were included in the Introductory 2-Player game.

In fact, I remembered I assembled that deck and added it to my copy of the Into 2-Player Game box many years ago. I just pulled it out again to look over the cards again ... when I noted that there were subtle differences - restricted to small changes in the events and interrupts - from the original deck and the one that Christoffer Wiker posted. (Personally, I prefer the deck list Christoffer posted over the original deck list from 1997.)

I dug back in my archives and sure enough, I found the original decklist as posted on Decipher's website back in January of 1997.

For those interested, here's his original post:

***********************************************

Tomek's 2 Player Game Romulan Equivalent

From David "Tomek" Bowling : bowling1@ix.netcom.com
January 1997

Those of us who love the Rommies felt a little discriminated against when we found out that: The Feds were good enough for a 2 Player Game deck. Those Klingons were good enough for a 2 Player Game deck. But were the Rommies good enough? NO...!

So in an effort to provide some justice for our beloved Rommies. Here is a Romulan equivalent starter deck for the 2 Player Game.

Outpost (1)
Romulan

Ships (6)
D'deridex x 2
Science Vessel x 2
Scout Vessel x 2

Missions (6)
Covert Installation
Excavation
Expose Covert Supply
Plunder Site
Relief Mission
Strategic Diversion

Personnel (20)
Galathon x 2
Jera x 2
Palteth
Tallus x 2
Tarus
Taul x 3
Tomek x 2
Varel x 2
Dr. Farek
Gorta
Narik
Vekor x 2

Dilemmas (6)
Alien Labyrinth
Archer
Phased Matter
Punishment Zone
Worshiper
Outpost Raid

Equipment (4)
Engineering Kit
Medical Kit
Medical Tricorder
Tricorder

Events (7)
Atmospheric Ionization
Espionage: Romulan on Federation
Espionage: Romulan on Klingon
Pattern Enhancers
Plasma Fire
Res-Q
Yellow Alert

Interrupts (10)
Countermanda
Disruptor Overload
Emergency Transporter Armbands
Kevin Uxbridge: Convergence
Long-Range Scan
Loss of Orbital Stability
Palor Toff
Particle Fountain
Wormhole - 2
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By Pazuzu
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#498735
I am trying to get some decks together for beginners and returning players. My idea is to give some decks that are fun to play against each other and are about the same power level without absurd cards included. Keep it nice and simple.

I came up with the following rules for deck building:
* No Q's Tent. All downloadable cards need to be in the draw deck.
* All Special Downloads must be included in the draw deck.
* Draw deck size is 40 cards.
* 3+3 Missions with 30 or 35 points.
* One draw engine.
* One play engine.

And here is the first deck WIP. Any input will help. Thanks!
Delta Federation Voyager
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By karnstein
 - Alpha Quadrant
 -  
#534717
winterflames wrote: Sat Nov 18, 2017 10:35 am From the 22nd century Starter thread:
SirDan wrote:Here are some links for the time being. Thanks to Paddy for assembling them.
Klingon
https://www.trekcc.org/1e/decklists/inde ... ckID=15922
Starfleet
https://www.trekcc.org/1e/decklists/inde ... ckID=15921
The Starfleet starter deck list (above) is missing a required card, namely UFP: One Small Step.
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First Edition Creative Manager
By KazonPADD (Paddy Tye)
 - First Edition Creative Manager
 -  
1E European Continental Runner-Up 2023
1E The Neutral Zone Regional Champion 2023
#534718
No, it’s there in the draw deck so you can download it with the outpost.

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