Jack Photon
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Post by Jack Photon on Nov 4, 2023 23:02:29 GMT -5
Up first for comment is Character Gen for the K'Zin!
Features several page cultural write-up, basic character sheet and generate one of three classes: Warrior, Citizen or Telepath. Telepaths (and females) are highly encouraged to stay as the GM Tools they should be, strict NPCs. As to Warriors and Citizens... I don't see that I'd run a game based on them, but someone would -essentially a bunch of intelligent werewolves in cat's clothing and advanced tech.
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Jack Photon
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Post by Jack Photon on Nov 6, 2023 2:29:00 GMT -5
Over 30 views in one day. Sweet! I was surprised how much K'Zin society I was able to crank out, though it reads somewhat stilted right now. I don't knwo anything about them, but the wikipedia seems to corroborate much of my musings. Now I've been hitting the Gorn and a few notions spring to mind. Two classes, Warrior and Citizen. No officer/enlisted, simply ranked warriors who serve in all capacities. Critical age= 150 with fast maturation and active duty by age 11. Remove the DEX -20 modifier and double all AP costs when Gorn is in ideal temperature range and quadruple AP out of range. In-game this allows 1. Gorn to be as precise as humans, while accounting for the density of their skin and underlying musculature. 2. The perception of fast speed if you are very close to them while appearing slow at a distance (much like a jet airliner 20,000ft above your head right now.) Gorn fatigue easily. I'm working on fatigue rules that don't alter the END rating or shake things up elsewhere in the rules flow. With Gorn tech equivalent to UFP, their training should/could be too, so will simply mirror point totals and general career paths from SF Officers, Book 1. The Gorn Contact Team option will have a slightly different focus than Star fleets lol. FASA Gorn have -5pts damage for their skin. I'm considering at least -5 per die (primarily in consideration of the boulder Kirk drops on the Gorn's head). Kirk is right, the Gorn survived attacks that would have killed/dropped/hospitalized a normal man. The Gorn took them all and finally needed a canon filled with grapeshot. FASA Gorn bite/claws at +4. Eh. Maybe +5 to follow the precedent of 5/10's in the system. Maybe a LUC roll to see if there's a bonus bite or claw hit of +5. Not a caste society, but very ranked and pre-destined insofar as far as societal holes that need filling balanced against best-skills going where best applied to advance them all. Not interested in brute strength, but prize strength put to intelligent use. Not ruthless like Klingons or brutal like KZin, Gorn simply have no emotional capacity or responses -to such a degree that it makes Vulcans blush and recoil in horror. Responses are immediate, overwhelming, disproportional and merciless. While the philosophy of 'Push until it breaks then smash until it works' can be applied to Gorn, they are not stupid and will set about fixing things and working to their best. If anything that philosophy is even more Klingon than Gorn, but both share the stereotype. I don't think the Gorn are hobbyists of any kind. They have wake/sleep and work/eat. Maybe their rec time is staring at a wall for hours. They aren't building ships in bottles, nor dicing adventures on the table top. Sports, yes.
Males/females indstinguishable to non-Gorn. Asexual with eggs fertilized outside the body. Not cannibals as adults, but fresh hatched likely eat each other.
Ignoring all subsequent TV show references than TOS/TAS for source musings. I glanced through the listing at Memory Alpha. The new shows to my mind tend to denigrate/simplify the Gorn from a higher ideal/complexity they could be.
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Post by Falconer on Nov 6, 2023 13:19:21 GMT -5
FASA’s Demand of Honor has several pages of Gorn lore… way too much, in my view, but, part of that is me trying to run a 48-page module in a single 3-hour session.
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Jack Photon
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Post by Jack Photon on Nov 6, 2023 23:16:19 GMT -5
Thanks for the notion, Falconer. I only every bought The Outcast way back when so totally missed out on the bits of juice spread through all the modules.
EDIT:
As to Demand of Honor. There's some backstory I can work with, maybe modify it a little.
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Jack Photon
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Post by Jack Photon on Nov 11, 2023 10:06:16 GMT -5
Next up for review and comment is likely the Gorn very soon while I tackle the next alien species. With pending release target of this January: " Book 4: Balance of Powers" now has all the contents and placeholders laid out. The final print should fall 120-130 pages. Following in support of Book 4 across 2024 will be: " Book 5: Memory Bank Beta", housing all the adversary cultural data, excluding ships. Supplement 13: Adversarial Character Sheets will store all variant sheets. Supplement 15: TOS Recognition Manual cover all TOS era FASA ships from all sides. GM15: Adversarial NPC Roster will house 25 of your custom NPCs. GM33, GM34 & GM35 NPC Pack Adversaries I-III will each have 20, pre-rolled baddies for immediate use. 60 baddie NPCs total! Book 4 Contents1. Gorn: Warrior, Citizen 2. KZin: Warrior, Telepath, Citizen 3. Skorr/Aurelians: Citizen 4. Tholians: TBD 5. Klingons: Officer, Enlisted, Citizen 6. Romulans: Officer, Citizen 7. Orions: Ruddy/Green, Grey, Slave 8. Trader Captains and Merchant Princes Primarily Federation, but will see how I can add Adversarial Merchant alterations if possible.
Book 4 also includes Attribute, Ability and Skill refreshers with several new skills defined. Each Species has a brief overview and player character generation for up to several variants for each species.
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Jack Photon
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Post by Jack Photon on Nov 30, 2023 21:40:31 GMT -5
The Tholian Assembly I'm thinking of Tholians in terms of size categories, I-V, each with S,M,L subcats. Category I would be up to 250lbs. Category V would top out at 1,000,000 (lbs, kg, mt, whatevs).
I'm thinking that Tholians are grown to spec. That while there are human-sized Tholians, a specimen such as Commander Loskene is in fact his ship and not an entity inside a ship. That the largest of Cat V Tholian ships would consist of numerous entities grown into their role within the ship, (similar to Moya in Farcscape) and be able to transport Cat I Tholians within, such as a troop transport or passenger liner.
I'm thinking of Tholians as being formed under high-pressure, high-heat/magma environments. That they cannot exist in an oxygen environment. That they are a third form of life based not on carbon or silicon, but crystalline lattices.
I'm thinking of Tholians as having a crystalline holographic matrix neural network for brains similar to what's being worked on for computers these days. I'm thinking of Tholians as primarily communicating through vibrations or oscillations they generate within themselves somehow. That they have no senses such as we know them, but experience existence as waveforms impacting their forms from their surrounding environment, similar to sonar of sorts. That while they appear to have 'eyes' on a 'head', these are more facets reflecting internal energy processes that happen to coincide with thought and consciousness. Subsequently, the 'lights in their eyes' will literally dim on death. Tholians, like all crystals are simultaneously strong, yet exceptionally fragile. How the Cat I and II Tholians would move or have joints, I can't imagine how that works with rigid crystalline structures. It would tie in with their ability to generate sound and communicate. In combat they would cause immense damage for their density, sharp edges and mass, yet could potentially be shattered by a single blow.
How much of a Tholian is 'the Tholian'? Can they lose limbs without losing their life? Do Tholians 'bleed' energy loss when shattered similar to humans and blood? Can a Tholian head be revivified by a simple grafting to a new form?
If Tholians are all about vibration, can any truly 'die'? Can their vibrations be passed whole from crystal form to crystal form? Are the Tholians thus a hive mind? Are they similar to Vulcan psionics where Spock sensed the Intrepid's death?
--------------------------- Book 4 Status udpate:
The Gorn and KZIn are done apart from some last garnish. Skorr, being peace-loving people are getting a simple Federation Citizen copy-paste with tweaks. Tholians, per above. Klingons 1e is fully marked up and reconciled to itself. Porting in and reconciling 2e is coming up.
Romulans is the easiest. FASA did all the math right for them, first shot. Orions. There's not much I can do. I've got them partially notated up to Explorers (where the point spreads are all over the place). Traders. I've begun stripping down 1e, but have not paid any real attention yet. It looks like 2e is a thorough system in itself.
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Here's my intro to Romulans Romulan. The word strikes dread to the hopeless hearts hearing it; for the Praetor’s flock is ever on the wing seeking blood.
Before TNG Klingons became the honorable ones, it was the TOS Romulans. Before the TNG Klingons became the stoic warriors, it was the TOS Romulans. Before the TNG Klingons could cloak, it was the TOS Romulans. Before TOS Klingons, it was TOS Romulans, the first enemy.
Everything the Klingons became over decades since was taken from TOS Romulans, leaving TNG Romulans as little more than snidely incompetents, bumbling around to the point of their STAR EMPIRE unable to evacuate two single planets (in yet further parallel dimensional permutations of base-reality). (And let’s forget how supernova actually work with hundreds of thousands of years of warning signs. And red matt... Ugh. And I thought FASA took things to some silly ends!)
Jack Photon here presents for your gaming pleasure, the one, the only, the superlative, Original Romulans!
Let us salute Mark Lenard and his proud centurions! Let us sup nectar with Commander Joanne Linville!
These are the Romulans of Imperial Rome. These are the Romulans of Shogunate Japan.
These are the Romulans that Lt. Stiles lives in bitter fear and hatred of. And a’feared is rightly so! For Stiles knows the vicious and inhuman ferocity of “The Romulan Way”. No quarter. No prisoners. No mercy. No hope.
Where Klingons are ruthless, Romulans are merciless. Where Klingons conquer for resources, Romulans conquer for personal glory, for personal honor and in tribute to their Praetor.
Romulans conquer! “You'll know, sir. They're painted like a giant bird-of-prey.” -Lt. Stiles, U.F.P.
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Jack Photon
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Post by Jack Photon on Nov 30, 2023 21:46:49 GMT -5
New Skills ListBiogenetic Procedures (Skorr) Biogenetic Technology History Specialties Law Specialties ST Cloaking Procedures (Romulan) ST Cloaking Technology ST Web Spinner Procedures (Tholian) ST Web Spinner Technology Surveillance (Klingon, primarily) Torture (Klingon, primarily) The Missing Skills ListCourtesan Courtesan is not a skill, it is a personal status, a profession, a cultural facet and even more definitions originating from “Courtier, one who courts” (the ruling elite). A Courtesan employs various skills including; the Arts, Culture, History, Gaming, Gambling, Trivia and others. Yes, including Carousing and Seduction. Federation History and Federation Law These are defaults on UFP character sheets which are herein replaced by the respective societies, leaving “Federation” as a generic choice. Mining Mining is not a skill, it is a profession involving skills such as Materials Science, Cartography, Volcanology, Geology, Administration, Chemistry, Physics, ST Sensors and even fields such as Botany, Paleontology, Zoology and more.
Small Equipment Systems Operation. Ugh... Here... "Flip communicator open. Talk. Flip closed." Modifying a communicator to get better signal or explode some rocks was always SmEqSysTech. Use of a Tricorder comes under normal learning such as Doctors learn to use scalpels, x-ray machines and so on. A Tricorder in-universe is just another common tool. Modifying a Tricorder to get an exceptional result is again SmEqSysTech. "Operation" is a wasted skill slot. Same of other engineering equipment, beacons and other hand-held devices. Their knowledge is inherent.
Small Vessel Piloting This skill has been abrogated to Shuttle Pilot (<5,000mt) and Starship Helm (>5,001mt). Swimming/Diving is consigned to “Sports (s). Value Estimation is now Appraisal Skills such as Artistic Expression, Musical Instrument, Vocal Music are here collected under “Arts, The (s)” as other arts such as Acting/Performance, Dancing and other fields of creative expression are absent. Like Sciences, there are too many specialties to list. Second Edition Skills had all sorts of crazy names. They went bananas, which is a lot of the reason it’s being pear’ed back. Orange you glad I'm such peach for doing this? ;p
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Jack Photon
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4.0th Fantaversary Revision FASA Framework House Rules now available!
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Post by Jack Photon on Dec 5, 2023 19:55:32 GMT -5
Thanks to some help from Morena Shipyards, I've been able to thrash together the Tholians. The Skorr were pretty easy and in need of final garnish as the Gorn and K'Zin are. Digging deeper into Klings, Roms it looks like I must manually type up a great deal of it. I hope to paste most of Orions in place. Traders may need a full re-write as well with little paste work. Despite a surprise cross-country flight for a week now looming out of nowhere, I am still looking to release this work in January.
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Jack Photon
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Post by Jack Photon on Jan 8, 2024 4:11:52 GMT -5
I tricked myself and built Traders 1e into my layout. I finished roughing that up only to realize what I'd done. It's a good thing as second edition appears to minimize Background Type and goes with three lanes, academy-apprentice-laborer. I'm building privileged-normal-disadvantaged-caste-factor back in, especially in terms of pre-academy learning; privileged have leisure time to study while poor scramble for food, shelter and clothing before education. Repercussions abate over time, but the poor are hobbled from the start with fewer skills and grater learning difficulties. UFP standards preclude the Disadvantaged. New member planets may be disadvantaged to start, but will leave that behind within a generation or two as investment comes in. Even so, new folk would have shortcuts into Starfleet and similar off-world situations as personal representatives, observers and similar cultural exchange opportunities.
The older that a UFP member is, the more 'privileged' their opportunities by virtue of proliferation over time alone. The balance of the UFP is Normal, always moving towards Privilege (resetting the baseline to ever higher standards). Elimination of caste by raising the least up to the most, equalizing baseline living and opportunity for all.
The balance of Orions is select few at the top, many in the middle, all feediing off most at the bottom. A strict caste system, legally enforced.
The KE is highly Disadvantaged with select privilege and status quo. Extreme caste system, enforced via terror.
RomStar; likely favors select privilege, is mostly standard with some spots of extreme despair mostly confined to the most recently conquered worlds. Romulans take no prisoners, so it's difficult to say what they do with their conquered worlds. I would guess the roman model prevails with servitude states and local prelates. Samurai treatment towards peasants, a Romulan could murder any non-Rom for any reason with impunity. Severe caste system, legally enforced via violence.
As to all the others, I'll leave it to GM Discretion and due consideration. I've done enough thinking on all this already.
----
In editorial news. Book4 Balance of Powers. Of the first 100 pages, 83 are done while 17 have notes. Page 101-118 is Traders and likely to shrink a few as I dig in. Perhaps 30 pages total to finish off.
Book 5 is now Memory Bank Omega. Beta made sense for following Memory Bank Alpha. However, as the FASA universe is a closed-universe, Memory Bank Omega is the last of the collected cultural data FASA published. Klingons, Romulans and Orions. I'm not writing anything for the Gorn, Tholians or others. Book 5 is a simple copy-paste of existing material. The only trick is minimizing the movie Klingon influence.
With that, TOS recognition, Economics/Space Lanes and Familiar Faces completes my FASA conversion.
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Jack Photon
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Post by Jack Photon on Jan 10, 2024 2:36:42 GMT -5
Gorn. Done. K'Zin. Done. Tholians. Done. Skorr/Aurelians. Done. Klingons. Done. Roms. Done. Orions. Done. Traders. Done.
What a slog!
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Jack Photon
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Post by Jack Photon on Jan 14, 2024 6:21:32 GMT -5
All told 8 Societies 10 new character sheet blanks. (~20 pending supplement.) 10 new skills + sub-specialties
25 Character Paths + Specialization/Divisions (Pilots, Eng, Med, Diplomat, etc) 120 pages character creation 152 page count Never-before-done-by-FASA Tour Assign charts for all four Orion paths and for Traders, inc. OER, BG Type, Ship:Crew/size/quality!
------------------ 01 Gorn Warrior 02 Gorn Citizen 03 K'Zin Warrior 04 K'Zin Telepath 05 K'Zin Citizen 06 Skorr Citizen 07 Tholian Class I 08 Klingon Officer 09 Klingon Rating 10 Klingon Citizen 11 Romulan Officer 12 Romulan Non-Comm 13 Romulan Citizen 14 Rud/Grn Explorers 15 Rud/Grn Navy 16 Grey 17 Lodubyain 18 Trader, Any species 19 Advantaged 20 Normal 21 Disavantaged 22 Academy 23 Apprentice 24 Base Labor 25 Retiree
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Jack Photon
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Post by Jack Photon on Jan 15, 2024 8:18:49 GMT -5
It's time for a few days away to clear the mind and then it's proof-reading time for Feb 1 release.
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Jack Photon
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Post by Jack Photon on Jan 22, 2024 19:54:31 GMT -5
Flipping through a copy of book4, I am pleased with the results so far. A few stylistic inconsistencies on my part, but nothing worth fixing. Certainly nothing more egregious than FASA ever published. One major task I forgot so far is to look through & integrate Klingons 2e. What I have here is a 1e Klingon revision.
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Jack Photon
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4.0th Fantaversary Revision FASA Framework House Rules now available!
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Post by Jack Photon on Jan 25, 2024 0:28:20 GMT -5
I don't think there's another piece of information I could squeeze into the memory banks. Next time, I'll release a bigger one.
This book is done.
A few pre-release copies are going on ebay. Free pdf releases on the internet archive website next week sometime or so.
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Post by Falconer on Jan 25, 2024 13:50:16 GMT -5
Congrats, Jack! What a great accomplishment!
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