Ultimate Star Trek

As I had said in a previous post, my roleplaying began at the same time as my love of Star Trek via the FASA Star Trek RPG.  The two came hand-in-hand and even introduced me to one of my best friends who still plays in my regular campaign all these years later.

This has over the years given me a rather unique view of Star Trek, that does not necessarily conform to that of either the TOS Trekker, the Movie Era Trekker, the TNG+ Trekker or even the new JJ Abrams Trekkers.  For me, if I had to take a moniker it would be that of a FASA Trekker.

There is a feeling to the FASA Trek universe that I just feel happily connected to.  I love almost everything about it, though the game system is a bit dated, and can say that it truly, more than anything, created a Star Trek universe that I can honestly see happening.

To be more specific, I like the Movie Era period, set within the FASA Trek universe.  You know?  That thing on the front of the Enterprise is a sensor dish and NOT a magical do-it-all navigational deflector.  The Federation uses credits and the Klingons... oh the Klingons!  Well that will be a post for later, but let me just say Kai JM Ford!


So then, what is Ultimate Star Trek?

Basically it is my amalgamated Star Trek Universe designed for role-playing. Over the years of Star Trek, between various series, rpgs, fan books, et al, the idea of Star Trek has changed. Sometimes dramatically. I can't say that I enjoyed all of it either and of late I have noticed a rather steep decline in the enjoyment I have been getting from official Star Trek product.

One day I noticed that Marvel Comics had begun to revamp their universe with a side set of comics called Ultimate (Ultimate X-Men, Ultimate Spiderman, etc). In these comics each the basics remain identifiable, but the flavours, specifics and such have changed. It struck a chord in me.

What if I could do this with Star Trek? What if I could "cherry-pick" the stuff I liked and make it all into one cohesive"alternate" universe?

Thus Ultimate Star Trek was created.

Do I think my vision of Star Trek is better than anyone else's? Of course not. It is just more to my tastes and my desires. Most of it comes from other sources and not me. That means I respect and enjoy the creations of others and have co-opted them into this game. All respect and credit where due.

In the end I think Star Trek has become as much a part of literature and western mythology as Shakespeare's works or Lord of the Rings, but like Shakespeare's works, I believe it is open to interpretation, adaptation and change. Your mileage may vary. If you believe that the canon of Star Trek is absolute, then you will probably not like this page at all. It is so very far from canon and proudly so.

That said I will occasionally post here an Ultimate Star Trek article, or image, or something, as sort of an ongoing-series to explore what it is to me.  Some of the topics I will cover are, but not limited to, as follows;

• Races, specifically Klingons, Gorns, Romulans, etc...

• Star Fleet of the 23rd century.

• Ships and such.

• The timeline of the Ultimate Star Trek universe.

• Maps and such.

I hope you will enjoy the articles, and as always feel free to ask me questions about it as I go along.

The word is given...

Creative Collaboration Causes Change

I'm alliterate.

Get it?

Okay shitty jokes aside, it's been one hell of a day so far.

As many if you know, I recently have teamed back-up with Alex Williamson for the art on HEROIC, my upcoming indie comic.

So this morning we had our regular creative conversation and as we discussed the script and the epilogue, we started to come to some interesting things.

I'll break them down by points.

1] The epilogue doesn't work, it would have worked better as the prologue for issue 2.

2] While Alex (or Jason, haven't finalized) is an interesting character, and his origin is interesting, he is not a strong character in my mind, which is why the plots for issues 2 - 6 tend to have things happening to him more so that him doing things.

3] A common feedback is that the prologue, the Lady America bit, is strong, engaging and going from that to Alex is jarring and leaves them hanging, wanting to know more about the first story and what "Activate number 23" means.

Now here's the thing.

I love Lady A.  I feel closer to that character than any I have ever created.  I know her like I know my own skin.  I know her heart, her mind and her soul.  I know why she is a bitch when she leads and I know why she never lets anyone see that part of her.

So Alex asked me, without preamble, why I wasn't writing a story about her?

Then I talked with my publishing partner Walt, and he said he found it odd that I hadn't focused on her either (also he wasn't a fan of the story until I added the prologue).

So this got me thinking.  How do I save what I have and make this about Lady A?  I mean, she dies in the prologue right?  Yeah, sure, you buy that don'cha?

There were always three characters that would eventually become the primary ones in this ongoing story.  I believe in the Star Trek holy trinity of characterization.  Body, Mind and Soul.

Kirk is the Body, he takes advice from the Mind and Soul, but he is the one who acts.

Spock is the Mind, he is the one who thinks things through without an over abundance of emotion.

McCoy is the Soul, he reacts from his guy and wears his heart on his sleeve.  He believes in right and wrong, and is the natural sparring partner of the Mind.

Originally Alex was to be the Body, a character named Isaiah the Mind and a third character called Molly the Soul.

Now without giving too much away, I ask this;

What if Alex becomes the Soul?  Isaiah remains the Mind and now, Molly, replaced by Lady A becomes the Body.

Complicated at a glance, I know.  That said, knowing what I know in my mind, it actually works and works well.

Plus I get to keep the Alex origin for a later issue when he tells his tale, so that saves me some pages of writing down the line.

The result of this was a brainstorming session between Alex and I that lead to expansion of the Zenith Universe, tightening of it as well and trimming some of the fat off.

All in all a very productive and creative process between an artist and a writer whose goals remain creating the best damn comics for your enjoyment.

Now I just have to write the damn thing.

HEROIC: D6 Supers - Attributes Update 2

Hey all.

So I recently took a friend's advice and posted a thread about this project to rpg.net in an effort to get a bit more input.  I was hesitant at first, given my previous experiences with online forums and my projects/conversations in the past (I should blog about that someday), but I sucked up my hesitations and made the post and prepared myself for the onlsaught.

I was stunned at how positive the response has been.  Mind numbed actually, since my past adventures in the online rpger community have not been the most positive, but I am digressing and should REALLY do a post about this at some point.

Back on topic.

So while I do not share or agree a lot of the same ideas as others, and I am writing this for myself, it has been enlightening seeing how others perceive this little project of mine.

This has lead, through conversation there and here, to be cementing a decision that I was having trouble with earlier.

Instead of having individual Jump, Running, Climbing and Swimming skills, they get folded into one catch-all skill called Athletics and those previously mentioned skills become specializations for this skill.

Now you could continue this though process and start reducing all skills this way, but for me this is about as far as I go.  Yes I have reduced the world of sciences to Science skill, and all ranged attacks as Ranged Combat, etc...  But piloting and driving should remain separate skills to me.

As always your mileage may vary and you should totally do the way you think you would like to see it done.

Cheers!

HEROIC: D6 Supers - Part 5 - Powers

Hey I heard you missed me, I'm back!  Okay and with that I will officially stop paraphrasing  Van Halen.  But yes, here I am, back on track and back with colour and vibe!  And today I am tackling the question of what changes to make with SUPERS! to work with my D6 HEROIC.

First up you will need to buy a copy of SUPERS! which can be done easily through RPGNOW.  While there you might also want to check out the free Quick Start rules.  No pressure, just saying.

Okay here we go.

The thing you need to know is that there are no "tiers" or "level costs" for powers.  All powers cost the same, 1D for 1D.  Why?  Because they ALL have the same level of usefulness and the more creative you are, the more useful a power will be.  In the hands of a very creative thinker, Super Leaping would be more useful than say Gravity Control in the hands of a linear thinker who only flies and blasts people.

Essentially, aside from minor rules/caveats, what your power can do is up to you and your Narrator to decide... on the fly... in play.  No power stunt rules or limitations, only fast paced, exciting super-heroic comic book action!

I am only going to list the powers that I have had to redefine or tweak for D6, the remaining powers function exactly as per SUPERS!

Now let's get down to brass tacks.

Armour: Use as a first step Soak roll (unless attack is Armour Piercing, see Power Boosts later) and any damage not soaked in this way then goes against normal Soak.

Duplicate Self: For every D in this power, the can double the number of duplicates.  So at 1D he can make 1, and 2D make 2, 3D gives 4, 4D gives 8, 5D gives 16, etc...  The trick is, for each duplicate past the first, they others gain a cumulative -1D to EVERYTHING.  So if only one Duplicate is made, they have full stats, but if more than one is made, ALL are reduced by the OVERALL total at -1 per D spent after the first.  So if you have 5D in Duplicate Self you can generate 16 duplicates, but they suffer a -4D to everything.  The more you spread yourself out, the less useful the copies are.  Think of it like a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy, etc...  The penalty can be bought off as a Boost, at the cost of the PENALTY, so if you want to remove up to -3D of penalty, it is a +3D boost.

Flight: As per SUPERS! but speed doubles with each +D added.  To fly in space requires a Boost called "Space Flight".

Healing: With this power the character can heal others with a touch.  the D in this power is rolled vs. a target number based on the wound level;

Stunned = Easy (1)
Wounded = Moderate (2)
Severe Wound = Very Difficult (3)
Incapacitated = Heroic (4)
Mortal Wound = Legendary (5)

Any successes beyond the target number reduce the wound an extra level.  For example, Devil Dog has taken a Severe Wound.  Faerie is going to use her healing of 5D on him.  She needs to get 3 successes to reduce his Severe Wound to just Wounded. She rolls and get a whopping 5 successes!   Devil Dog heals 3 wounds levels (1 for the TN, and 2 more for the extra successes).

Note this power cannot be used to resurrect the dead.

Mental Blast: This is resisted by a Mental Soak (average of Reason + Intutition + Psyche round down), but otherwise as per SUPERS!

Mental Shield: Functions not only as Armour for the mind, but can be used to resist ALL mental powers.  As per SUPERS! it gets weakened with each successive use per round.

Mind Control: Resisted with Psyche (Willpower).  For each success beyond the initial, add +1 round until the next attempt to break free.  Mind Control must be focused for the duration of the control and if the controller is attacked, the controlled gets an immediate attempt to break the control.

Power Drain:  Resisted by Body (Resistance), for every success 1D is drained from the target and added to ANY Attribute or Power of the attacker.  The bonus lasts until that power/attribute is used, or a number of rounds equal to the D in Power Drain, which ever comes first.  Targets recover drained powers at a rate of 1D per round after the attack.

Paralysis: Resisted by Body (Resistance), otherwise as per SUPERS!

Regeneration: As per healing but only localized to self.  Also to regrow limbs or missing body parts the target number is Unearthly (8).

Shape Change: There are 2 versions of this power, one is the ability to take on the appearance of anything and the other is to take on the appearance of specific people.

When changing shape into other forms animal or not, you may gain powers inherent to that form, based on a distribution of your Shape Change dice into said powers.  For each power the new form has, the difficulty of the Shape Change task is raised by +1.

In the second type of shape changing is being used, then each success creates the target number for others to detect that their is not the person it appears to be.

If a character wishes to have both types (very powerful) they raise the final cost by +1D.

Referees should be very careful of this power, as it can be abused by players.

Size Change: As per SUPERS! but with the bonus for Growing added to Body and removed from Agility and vice-versa for Shrinking.

Super Brain: Is added to all Reason tasks, including skills checks.  It is possible to go above 10D with this power.

Super Strength: For each 2D you have in Super Strength, add +1D to all Body related calculations regarding Damage (dealing and taking) and for any Skill that relates directly to raw physical power.

Rank    Benchmark

1          1 Ton

2          10 Tons

3          100 Tons

4          1000 Tons

5          5000 Tons

6          10,000 Tons

7          50,000 Tons

8          100,000 Tons

9          500,000 Tons

10        1,000,000 Tons

Vampiric Powers: Same as Power Drain but it targets physical Attributes (Fighting, Agility and Body).  If all these Attributes are reduced to 0D, the character is considered dead.

Webs: Do not cause damage and target Agility.

Wizardy: Functions as per SUPERS! but the Target Number is the amount of D in the final power/spell.  For example, if the Wiccan wanted to cast a flight spell of 4D, she would need 4 successes on her Wizardy roll.  Any extra successes beyond the target number are discarded, as this power is already very versatile.

That's it for the powers, but there are many powers not covered in SUPERS!, for those I highly recommend just winging it, unless you need a specific effect or result.  The beauty of SUPERS! is the openness of the powers (for the most part) and the flexibility they allow without forcing an arbitrary Power Stunt mechanic.

Up next; Power Complications and Power Boosts

Hey There

Long time no speak, I know.

I've been not feeling it lately, between looking for work, dealing with getting my health in order and it being spring (or Sprinter as I am calling it).

Needless to say that I haven't been terribly inspired to rant and rav about gaming, comics or really anything in particular.

That said I feel the fog lifting, so you might see my return sooner than you think, with lots of opinions and comments, just like before.

Cheers!

Comics, Digital Revolutions and the Future

Hello again.

I would like to address the statement "Kinda long for a comic".  I have heard this from more than one person who has read the script.  It struck me as odd, like saying "Kinda long for a novel" or "kinda long for a movie".  Just because Marvel & DC feel that a comic should be 20 to 22 pages these days doesn't mean all comics have to be.  Do they?

I think not.

If nothing else, the digital comic self-publishing avenue allows us to tell comic stories as long as we want.  It isn't a TV show in the end, where we have to have X amount of minutes per half-hour set aside for commercial breaks and the show has to end on either the top or the bottom of the hour.

This is now a freer medium, due to the print impositions being lifted.  Much like in the roleplaying game world, the self-publishing revolution has lead to some brilliant pieces of work (and yes some turkeys) so to can that happen for digital comic books.

For that to happen though I think two very important things need to occur, first being that we need artists to start coming to sensible rates for their work (some do, but far too many do not).  While I understand that every artist is trying to make a living at this (note to too are writers), when the industry standard (IE: What you get paid walking in the door at Marvel or DC) is $100 - $125 per page of pencils, where is the logic in demanding $150 - $200 a page when you are an unknown artist and you are not working for Marvel or DC?  This, of course, is a discussion for another day, but one that needs to be had.

The second thing we need to do is to shake off the traps and limitations of the old ways.  Marvel and DC have worked out their formula of page counts from a mostly cost-to-profit basis.  Not because 22 pages is the best way to tell a story, or the audience will only read 22 pages and then get bored.  It is because based on art, writing, and production costs, vs. sales and advertising revenues, this hits a sweet spot for them.  Or it did for one of them and then like always the other played follow-the-leader.

I remember reading an article years ago, sometime after 2000 I think, where the writer took a critical analysis of the American comic book industry and compared it to the Japanese model.  His conclusion was that for the industry to survive another 20 to 30 years it would have to move away from monthly titles and start heading towards the idea of quarterly trade-paperbacks that told a complete story.  At the time most of the comments seemed to be geared towards telling him what an idiot he was and other less than savoury things, but here we are 13 years or so later and everyone is "writing for the trade" as they say.  Stories that come out monthly, but are being told with an eye towards collection sales, which are becoming the real bread and butter of the industry.

So make your comics as long or as short as you want them.  There is no one to tell you you are wrong, save yourself (or your publisher if you have one) and at the same time put as many or as few toppings on your pizza as you like.

Cause I'll tell you this, if you don't write something that makes you feel satisfied, how the hell can you expect a reader to be satisfied by it?

Cheers!

HEROIC: D6 Supers - Attributes Update

So as I sit down to make characters for this playtest, I realize something that I really wanted to change and forgot to, but am unsure if it would work.

The idea is to fold Strength and Endurance into one stat called Body.  This leaves us with Fighting, Agility and Body as our physical stats.

What this also means is that Super Strength as a power replaces Body for ALL Strength related tasks, including damage.  Now the only issue becomes this, well how much can one person lift if they don't have Super Strength?  Now I don't know about you, but I have never seen a Superhero comic where there was great drama for a hero lifting anything under a ton.  Maybe that comic exists, but I've never seen it.  So that leaves me thinking, we don't really need to know how much a hero can lift, except when they are either super strong (a power) or super weak (a hindrance), so is a "regular Joe" lifting chart really needed?

Now I can already see issues that could crop up like, needing to have more dice in Super Strength for it to be effective in combat, though you could simply rule that for damage purposes you add the two together (Super Strength + Body) or that if your Super Strength is less than your Body, use Body for hand-to-hand damage, or even for every 2D in Super Strength you have, you add +1D to Body Damage.

Actually that last one appeals to me the most.

Could also use that for resisting damage as well.

Not a perfect solution but easily one that can be used.

So, now we have our Body entry like this;

BODY

A measure of the raw physicality of the character, including his endurance, his ability to resist damage and his over all physical fitness.  It also determines the base amount of dice used in a hand-to-hand attack.

Rank    Benchmark

1          Reduced or impaired ability

2          Minimal ability or exercise

3          Occasional exercise

4          Moderate exercise

5          Regular exercise

6          Intensive exercise, limit of human ability

7          Enhanced ability

8          Enhanced and trained ability

9          Rarely tires, great fortitude

10        Never tires

SUPER STRENGTH

For each 2D you have in Super Strength, add +1D to all Body related calculations regarding Damage (dealing and taking) and for any Skill that relates directly to raw physical power.

Rank    Benchmark

1          1 Ton

2          10 Tons

3          100 Tons

4          1000 Tons

5          5000 Tons

6          10,000 Tons

7          50,000 Tons

8          100,000 Tons

9          500,000 Tons

10        1,000,000 Tons

SKILLS

BODY SKILLS

Climbing - The hero knows how to scale a vertical surface. She can move up the surface at her normal movement rate (barring environmental factors) with this skill; otherwise she moves at half her normal rate.  Specializations include rock climbing, indoor wall climbing, rope climbing, wall-crawling, etc…

Feat-of-Strength – When a hero has to push themselves or dig down deep and get that burning car off their teammate, or hold up the crumbling building, etc… this is the skill that is used.  Note it does not increase the amount the character can lift.  Specializations are things like carrying, dead-lifting and pressing.

Leaping – This skill governs leaping over pits, chasms, or other obstacle gaps, as well as jumping up and grabbing an outcropping. Specializations include things like long jump, high jump and such.

Resistance – Need to resist the effects of a poison?  Need to see if that power nullifying field is stronger than you?  Need to hold out against an alien plague?  This is the skill.  Specializations are toxins, diseases and energies.

Running – When you need to go a little faster or last a little longer in the race, this is the skill for you.  Specializations include sprinting, marathon and pacing.

Stamina – When all else fails and you have pushed yourself to your limits, this is when stamina is called into question.  Specializations are Pushing and Exhaustion.

Swimming – This skill helps the hero float as well as move quickly through water. For every round the hero wants to float or cover some distance, she must make a swimming roll.  Specializations include long distance, short distance, diving and treading.

Wrestling – The only hand-to-hand style that doesn’t use Fighting as its base.  Wrestling is used primarily for grappling attacks (see Combat for more details) and specializations include specific maneuvers.

The change to Body also means the need to change one of the Active Defenses, specifically Soak.

ACTIVE DEFENSE

Soak
(Fighting + Agility + Body)/3 round up

I am now very sleepy, so I will get back to this later, but I think I am on to something here.

More tomorrow, but right now sleep!

Cheers!

HEROIC: D6 Supers - Playtest Imminent

So this coming weekend I get to run a game for my old group, with two players making a one time appearance (both have kids and haven't been able to game regularly for about 2 years now), and I have decided to pick-up and run my DC LEGACY campaign.

In this game the DC Universe starts with Superman in 1938 and everyone ages normally and passes down their mantles to their progeny or strangers pick-up the mantles.  It was a LOT of fun when I ran the campaign back in 2009 and I am really looking forward to running it again and playing with these friends.

Last time I ran it we used FASERIP (Marvel Superheroes RPG from TSR) but I think this will be an excellent time to test out this little monster I am creating!

I will be back with a full report after the game.

Cheers!

Heroic Issue 1 - 8th Draft

So here it is, the fabled 8th draft of issue one PLUS the Epilogue.

Now for the most part this is tightening and minor tweaks to streamline the script.

There won't be a 9th draft at this point, well except for the Epilogue, that might have one or two more rewrites to it, but rather than wait here is it for your reading pleasures!

HEROIC Issue 1 - 8th draft with Epilogue

Please leave any feedback below, good or bad.

For me, except for the Epilogiue, I am off to work on issue 2 now.

Cheers!

Zenith Comics, You and Me

So here we are in the middle of March and Zenith Comics is still struggling to get our first comic out the door.

Often, when these long delays in achieving goals or even getting production done I tend to get a bit squirrelly and start second guessing myself.

Let me share that process with you so you can understand how my mind works.

I chose to write the story for issue 1 that I did for a very simple reason.  There was no way I could see to tell the history of the Zenith Universe without performing a massive info dump on the readers.  Not the best way to introduce a new universe, treating it like a history text book that is.

Now this just makes sense, introduce the universe in 3 steps, 1 a prologue that sets up some of the universe back story and presents a mystery.

2 tell the story of a new hero entering the world so we can see it through his eyes.  Again I can't resist tying him to the rest of the mystery without making it too obvious.

3 add in the epilogue that introduces a 3rd side to the whole conspiracy angle.

This works and everyone who has given feedback on the script (minus the epilogue, which as yet remains unwritten) has been very vocal and supportive, wanting to see it in print.

Alex is gay.  It is the way it is.  I thought about changing it, making him straight and not worrying about it, but he won't let me.  He wants what he wants and I have no choice but to obey that or I will betray the story.

Okay, I can more than live with that and it makes the story stronger and unique.

So why am I losing the faith?  Why am I getting squirrelly?

Simply the lack of progress, after losing 2 artists and now in a holding pattern with a 3rd while he gets some other projects done.  I don't want to announce him to your all or show you his work, until I see the first set of work on the Zenith Universe.

One bitten, twice shy as they say.

So what is the point of all this rant?  I have no idea really, I think I just needed to get it off my chest.

Look, there is one thing I want to say, and that is this.  I need your interaction, I need your feedback, support and hope.  I need some outside energy to help me rekindle my engines, cause the tank is running dry and it's 100 miles until the next gas station.

If you get what I mean.

Read the script here, share it with your friends, post comments below and even jump over to the Facebook page and start the chat there.

If you want to Zenith go forward, this is a way that costs you nothing and pays off in spades as it will revive my imagination and my work ethic to get this product up and out.

So there it is, this is me asking you to help me by showing me that you care or that there is interest.

Consider it a reaching out, a cry for help or a shot in the dark.

Whichever you choose to see it as, but if even 10 of you do what I am asking, that could be the start of a ball rolling.

This is me, hoping and praying in Montreal.

Cheers!

Still Alive...

Sorry for the absence, but my personal stuff is occupying my mind these days.

Also, in the weirdest twist I never saw coming, I am starting a Star Trek campaign for my players tomorrow, using THOUSAND SUNS!

I know right?

Insanity.

More to come when I get the chance.

Cheers!