A Fresh look at Familiar Faces

[Jack Photon]

The 1st and 2nd edition Familiar Faces Attributes and Skills are generally 'ridiculous', cherry-picked and cannot be generated using the game system.  That's partly intentional as the Fanta crew held 1701 as an unattainable standard no PC could ever achieve or come close to.  I disagree, but that's me. 

1701 as a whole are indeed a step-above, but to my mind PC's should at least be able to go a few rounds with them even if 1701 ultimately 'wins'.  Even Kirk has contemporary heroes.  If Kirk himself is a hero, that makes those that much more. 

No PC should be so great as to eclipse 1701, but could certainly be in 'friendly competition'.  The 'greats' must come from somewhere and they should be the PC's of your campaign is my thinking.  However, any PC that thinks they're so so-great should be introduced to the newer, younger, faster, smarter kid that just moved in next door. 

We will see that even among the 1701 crew, there are 'greats' and 'normals' in the mix.

The only way that I can see to get a fair look at the 1701 crew and thereby set any kind of standards or dice equivalencies for everyone else in the galaxy is to lay all their Atts out in a matrix such as this and compare and contrast each Att relative to each character.

Here's my take on the numbers.

For these purposes, this math assumes the LUC and PSI are natural rolls and no bonus points have gone to them.  This leaves six Atts of STR, END, INT, DEX, CHA, COOL.  If you don't like COOL, drop it and sub LUC as the 6th Attribute for these purposes.

There are only two anchors in the chart above, Kirk's STR and Spock's INT.  Everyone else is based around those and then relative to each other.  Kirk must be able to throw a big punch, so is set to min of STR 76.  Spock's INT 102 is okay by me from 1st edition.  Then it's all 'Is McCoy stronger than Scotty or Uhura and how does Rand compare', and so on.  Sulu is likely as strong as Kirk, but no one else is and since the next threshold is STR 50 for dice and 55 for SFC, it doesn't matter the actual number values.  With all that set in place, who is stronger than each other, who is smarter, faster, talkative, etc.  Change this, tweak that, set those there.

Kirk is the best as he is the star.  He is the ideal mold that everyone flows from.  Characters are listed by importance or arrival, so chekov is down bottom.  To round an even dozen I threw Hadley in as he is the most bad-ass of them all.

To set numbers, I went with game mechanics, so for END or DEX, any singles column is rounded away so doesn't matter if a 71 or 79, it's still a 7.  Right? 

So in that regard, I went for plateaus. I chose each ATT as a player would, looking for die mods on the generation charts and so on.  I allow Caitians to round DEX down/up for AP purposes so MRess has an 86 for 13AP instead of 12AP as an 85 would round down to 80 for Caitiains.  But we digress.  Whether you agree with given numbers, we'll go with what I've done here while you go about creating and posting your own analysis.

Mean Dice

The next chart takes the above and averages and counts the pips. 

3d10+40+bonus points. Max avg ATT = 78. 

That is 48 Bonus Points divided evenly across 6 Atts.  The 2 straggler points making 50 bonus points are unimportant for these purposes.

The following math assumes each character rolled three 10's for a 70 and then has up to 50 bonus points available.  (Read as: 70+50)

Every Attribute above 70 counts as bonus points spent while every ATT below 70 counts as 'bonus points accrued' (as it were) for math purposes.  55 is Starfleet minimum.

Assuming a 5.5 on 1d10 is the bell curve, that is 40+16.5=56.5 average Attribute.  If average % is 25 bonus points, that is +4 each for ATT 60.5.  The following math assumes mean 61 rather than 60.

This analysis also resulted in the chart at the top right; Hero, Co-star, etc.  I'll get back to that later.

MAX 70+50.  Each character's Atts are counted as above or below 70 and disregards Species modifiers. The mean is 70 - 54 bonus points for an average ATT 61.

This resulted in the bottom right results of Kirk at avg 77 to Rand at 59 and everyone in-between. The 40+16.5+4=61 puts the average PC just above Rand while Shatner at the top rolled three 10's and 46 bonus points for Kirk. Nimoy did well with 27 bonus points and Takai with 21.  Everyone else did not need to roll straight 10's and therefore have 'negative bonus points' as if they had rolled 10's. Right, rights? So while Spock lists at 70+27, McCoy is 70-17.

I can say from this chart that I like to have my PC's be in the average roll of 3x7's+24bp's yielding a Chekov to McCoy/Scotty range.  Hadley is the next plateau at 3x8+24bps.  The ordered list bottom right is interesting as the ATTs are steady from Rand at 59 to Hadley at 68, then there's the jump to Sulu, Spock and Kirk. 

59, 60, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 67, 68, 73, 75, 77.

That's an interesting number set.  I wonder if there's something to the gaps or if it's just coincidence.

If you, the GM, allow no re-rolls, your PC's are Rand - Uhura. 

Re-roll 1 & 2's and your PCs are now in the MRess - Hadley range. 

Re-roll 3's for McCoy - Sulu.

I will guess that re-roll on 4s if not 5's puts you are in the Spock/Kirk range with big bonus points to boot.

That gets back to the top right chart of Super-hero, Hero, Co-Star, Support and Background actors. 

Roll LUC/PSI normal but...

If you want a fast Co-Star, assume base 60, add 1d10(d10) bonus points. 

If you need a Kirk, base 70 + 1d10(d10) bonus points.

If you need a Garth, roll Super-hero 80+.  Daystrom might be in there as Spock's super-hero. 

Any titan of the era would count as super-hero. 

A Dr. Sevrin, Korby or Adams would count in this framing...  Lawrence Marvick as Scott's super-hero... 

I guess Perhaps Larry is the quiet, unassuming super-hero type in sheep's clothing.  lolz.

[Jack Photon]

Looking at this number set a bit more, we've got four ranges.

> 59 60 // 63 64 65 // 66 67 67 68 // 73 75 77 <


Up to 60~61 we can say is high-end Enlisted to Basic Officer.
61~65 is Low-end Officer.
66~70 is High-end Officer and most weighted in this case.
71~80 is Top-elite Officers -and highly bracketed in this instance as compared to the other ranges which show smooth progressions.

81+ is the super-hero.

And it should again here be noted that 78 is the Max the system will generate with Kirk at 77.

Let's guess at Daystrom right now.

STR 76 :dude tries to crush Kirk and probably could
END 80 : Looks healthy as an ox to me
INT 99 : You really questioning that?
DEX 80 : Sure, good hands, building, programming, etc.
CHA 80 : Severe gravitas, Eloquent, very well-spoken man
COOL 49: May have been more stable in youth, but worn down over years
LUC 25 : passed over every time, theories and work snatched
PSI 35 : Strong willpower, moral character, but broken by jealousies and similar life harms.

Nope, no super-hero. Goes toe-to-toe with Kirk at 77.33!
Most fitting and very nice guess work on my part if I do blush saying so.

Let's tweak Daystrom's STR to 85 as he is distinctly stronger than Kirk and CHA 85 for that smile of his...
Now he's 79.766666. If only he had his COOL together. Let's see that with a 75... Bam! 84! Super-hero status.

So in Daystrom we we see the flawed super-hero. The effect that one really bad ATT can have in dragging all the others down.

[Jack Photon]

Another interesting note.
Rolling all 1's is 43, therefore 12 points below starfleet officer min 55 (per 1st edition). My 3rd Edition establishes Min 45 for Enlisted.

(EDIT: Now that I go looking for it, I can't find the 55 min where I thought I had read it.  2nd edition mentions 57 as an average with a typical range 50 +/-10.)

Rolling 50 bonus points puts +6 each ATT for avg of 49 which is still 6 below Officer min but now meets Enlisted.
There's little chance of rolling 50 bonus points. so even meeting Enlisted mins is a challenge in this case.

Rolling all 2's is 46+bonus points and now meets Enlisted. This is why my 3rd Edition allows re-rolls for Officers, but not for Enlisted.

Rolling all 3's requires rolling 48bp's to meet Officer mins and just barely.

Assuming a meaningless amount of bonus points are rolled, a player must otherwise roll three 5's or better to meet Officer mins.

[Jack Photon]

The FAST NPC CHART

Title      BaseAtt+Bonus Points

Khan    150+1d10(d10)

Wha'?    100+1d10(d10)

Unreal    90+1d10(d10)

Super    80+1d10(d10)

Hero     70+1d10(d10)

CoStar  60+1d10(d10)

Support 50+1d10(d10)

Extras   40+1d10(d10)

Generic 30+1d10(d10)

Teen     20+1d10(d10)

Child    10+1d10(d10)   

Baby    0+1d10(d10)

Per 1st/2nd/3rd/4th Editions, LUC and PSI (and COOL) top out at 99 in all cases.

[Jack Photon]

I now feel much more comfortable with saying in Book 1, Character Generation that "The magnanimous GM may allow re-rolls on 1's and 2's and possibly 3's." 

f your PC's are re-rolling 4's and 5's, you are into some Monty Haul-grade scenarios, imo.

I say "possibly 3's" as 4,4,3 is just as bad as 3,3,3 and keeps you out of the Officer's club just as well. As a GM, re-rolling 1's and 2's are fine by me, but 3's are usually per Attribute when they do come up as weighed against other Attributes already rolled, which Attribute it is and how it applies to the character's expected role. Do I as GM think that player with that character and that attribute at that rating can handle what I think will be going down?  That is the question for each GM to answer.

Successful Power GM's can likely handle beefier characters. Other GM's will want the lower-end crew while others will rest in the middle -as I would appear to be with my Chekov-McCoy range of Supporting/Co-star PC/NPC's.

[Jack Photon]

Average 1st edition Attributes using my given COOL rating as the 6th Attribute, assuming straight LUC points.

Kirk 80.3 vs. my 77 (FASA +3.3)
Spock 85.6 vs. my 75 (FASA +10.6)
McCoy 69.6666 vs. my 67 (FASA +2.6)
Scott 65.3 vs. my 67 (FASA -1.7)
Sulu 74.5 vs. my 73 (FASA +1.5)
Uhura 71.16 vs. my 65 (FASA +6.1)
Chapel 64.3 vs. my 60 (FASA +4.3)
Rand 60.83 vs. my 59 (FASA +1.8)
Chekov 68 vs. my 63 (FASA +5)

Hadley ~
MRess ~
Arex ~

My estimate was <2pts shy on Rand and Sulu, but split the middle on McCoy & Scotty with 67's.

While Scotty is the only one I over-stated as compare to FASA, all my other estimates are wildly shy FASA #'s by up to a lot of 'em!

That's not a bad thing for me.   And I thought I gave these guys some high ATTs too!

Scroll back to the top and check my #'s for Spock...  Big stuff there I wrote and yet, FASA's Spock is 10pts higher? Holy cow with a side of guacamole.

And again, granted, 1st edition's pitch to publication time frame meant few if any second looks at the material.  Whatever sounded good, went.  That said, second edition had the time to rectify all this.  That FASA were wargamers rather than players and no one knew star trek at all, well, there ya go.

[Jack Photon]

Another interesting number set from FASA there...
Rounding up/down as appropriate, we get:
61 64 65 68 70 71 74 80 86

I don't even know how to bracket any of that...
61 / 64 is easy for Rand to Chapel.
What is Scott doing at 65 with Chekov at 68 when Scott should be nearer McCoy's 70 by their own terms.

So, by FASA edition and dictate, Rand is above average compared to any PC you can or should ever expect to have.

That's a downer when your players expect to be the heroes, not the background shuffle. This further strains game play when your PCs are less-than-Rand level while the percentile mechanics expect command staff abilities with up to decades under their belts. It's no wonder FASA had to cheat their own dice system with the 'Under 40' and 'Skill Level 10/1d10' sub-rules.

Am not advocating for a bunch of Kirk's running around your campaign.  Kirk and Spock are exceptional by any definition -but should never out of reach as  goal for players to strive for.  At least to my mindset.  There must always be a summit to achieve or there's no point to gaming.

I believe my 3rd/4.0th Edition character gen revisions fix this fundamental crack in the FASA character generation. Not only for ATTs, but skills, experience, rewards and dangers over a character's life-time.

For Attributes, I am surprised to see that only 2 FASA Faces are un-rollable whereas my off-the cuff chart made even Kirk within the dice tolerances, (at least on this one point).

The Fast NPC Chart from a few posts ago will help the GM quickly deduce the comparative level of campaign/characters they are looking to create.

Rolling straight dice will give you a basic Officer/High-end Enlisted, while re-rolling 1s, 2s will yield a low-to-high end officer, etc.

FASA Fam Faces wasn't only bad for the ATTs though, but also the scatter-shot and crazy skill totals.  At some point I'll tackle that, but not soon. 

Of course, I  welcome anyone's initiative to roll Kirk up via my system and see what you get. 

Please present any results or additional data or thoughts any may have.

[Jack Photon]

A quick note on the SKills side of things. One trick I had needed was a way for players to share stats without actual numbers. Not everyone wants to be free with their sheets and there's no reason a GM should allow a PC to look up the actual numbers for a fellow officer of any rank -though that officers should have access to some kind of public record of each other.

Thus I came up with the A-H rating. If you aren't familiar with it as detailed in my "Book 1, Lifeform Readings",  'A' equates to "Galactic Authority at 90, B a Master's at 80, C a bachelor's at 60, down to H describing a 3-day seminar level of knowledge for skills 01-10.

Spock tells Wesley he has an A-7 computer rating. Does that mean PC Spock has a Comp Op or Tech of 97? Ehhhh, I wouldn't say so as to me that is Daystrom territory. But for the sake of convenience and linking a game mechanic to a dialogue quote is always nice. Even though a minor stretch, the notion of Spock at that rating does not strain credulity.

1st Edition FASA credits Kirk as Galactic Authority on the life of Abraham Lincoln, makes Uhura's dulcet vocals as equal to the galaxies best of the best 'galactic authority', Sulu is 1pt shy of GA with only a Master's in Ancient Firearms (-same for Scott and Whiskey, 89). It doesn't get any better for anyone else on the list with the rest of their skills. Meanwhile, key academy-grade skills that those characters should have can be missing or have weirdo numbers.

1st Ed, Skills Page 40, Lang: Everyone is assumed a 99 in their native tongue. Okay, so why bother listing Uhura at 99 Swahili but give Chekov a Russian 96 and not mention Kirk's native language is English for a 99 as well? Kirk specifcally states "English" on hearing the Melkots message.  While poor Scotty has Gaelic @ 48.  Makes sense to me.  Half the time he's likely passed out or too drunk to speak!    . 

Comm Offcers get 40pts of Language and FASA says Uhura put it in -French? Yes, Nichelle at the time had the chance and was deciding between stage work in Paris and Star Trek and chose star trek after meeting Dr. King. We certainly know from ST VI that Uhura does not speak Klingon.

So yeah, all the characters need a refit from stem to stern and ground-up. The trouble at that point is at what time do you set them? Deadly Years Kirk says he's 34 and Sulu says he's served with Kirk for 3yrs. We see Sulu served during WNMHGB which presumably shows us Kirk having just assumed command from Pike at age 31 and probably just barely 31 to make the time frames work. Deadly Years could be seeing Kirk just days away from his 35th birthday or having just turned 34 a few days previous. Slide the timeline to suit your needs.

Either way, those years represent skill points earned, so do matter when down in the fiddly details.  I suppose that you set the average of 2.5yrs into their mission for the skill sets.  Subtract or add a few points depending.  By STTWOK certainly most all those skills will be way different.  But this is TOS we're talking.

[Jack Photon]

Any skills with 3 cols indicate 1/2/III numbers
Any skills with 2 cols indicate NoChange/III

Any skills with 1 col indicates No changes over the 3 sources.

I count 2,008 skill points awarded by 1st edition Fantasimulations Associates.  (I did not count 2nd edition points and STIII is years later + rank mods.)

By comparison in my 4.0th Revision which awards more skill dice, I'm looking at 2 commanders, one 22yr Security at 942 skill points and a Doctor at 705 points for 25yrs service.

Assuming Kirk went in at 17 and finished cadet cruise at 22, that gives him 12yrs to say "I'm 34." in Deadly Years.

In my 4.0th Revision, Officers get a fixed 350 academy points. 
I give Kirk Contact Team for +150 and Command School for another fixed 180 = 680 base skill points.  And also assigned him Starship for max points possible.

Kirk adds to that:

16d10 Pre-acad rolls

10d10 Branch Acad

  8d10 INT bonus
  5d10 Cadet Branch
  8d10 INT Bonus
  9d10 Years served (no count: C.Team or Cmd School, 3yrs tot)

  3d10 Contact Team Bonus

  4d10 Starship

  2d10 INT Bonus
  3d10 LUC Bonus

70d10 Total =  Max 700

700 + 680 = 1380 by my 4.0th Revision. 

A full 600 points less than FASA and still improbable as it relies on rolling all 10's.

Rolling 5.5 average at 70d10 = 385 + 680 = 1,065 skill points for such a character.  Fully half the FASA guess.  I'll be rolling Kirk's base parameters up via my 4.0th Rev and then apply fudge as needed.

Biggest problem with Kirk as written is, he has no where to grow.  He is galactic-top best even by FASA standards in 3 or more skills -and they're the most crucial for his job.  No wonder he is so glum in TMP.  he has no where to go but "Out there, that a'way."

By 1e standards, it would be `58d10 maybe and the base skills are rated less making Kirk even more impossible.

My Revision is not overpowered, but does re-balance success/failure for us normal folks.  lolz.

[rredmond]

Yeah, but he's The Captain James T. Kirk.

[Jack Photon]

He simply needs 99's in everything in that case.

We see Kirk swing a sword more than sevral times and with adequate skill, yet that was skipped giving him Archaic 36 for the 2x he fires a pistol. Meanwhile Kirk has TPorter Op 66? What? He knows the switches, but is no such master. For Kirk's TPorter sabotage Wink of an Eye, he gets no Tech skill here.

We see Kirk's diplomacy fail and be stalemated several times, we see his authority questioned, we don't see him fail ST Cbt too often if at all... But one time he mentioned Abe Lincoln and he has a 96.

All sorts of fat and silliness in there, plucking numbers from the air.

I will demonstrate in followup posts how even such an exceptional character's skills can be distributed more rationally and within given game mechanics -even if barely so in a case such as Kirk.

[Jack Photon]

Re-revised Kirk's character sheet above. 

(I had counted the STIII update as the 2nd edition numbers.)

Any skills with 3 columns indicate 1st/2nd/STIII

2 cols indicates no change from 1st to 2nd and a change for STIII

1 col indicates no changes across all three sources.

Kirk gained 254pts over the intervening years and lost points in two skills between 1st and STIII, but lost/gained others in 2nd edition alone.

This assumes I read and transcribed the numbers correctly.  i"m sure i did, but always do the footwork when it comes right down to it.

For a skill like "Gaming", I must assume FASA mistyped the "32" for 2nd edition's entry as it goes 82/32/89.  I am also assuming STIII was printed after 2e released, but maybe not.  I'd have to go back and look at that.

[Jack Photon]

Mar 29, 2022 18:51:12 GMT -5 Jack Photon said:

So, by FASA edition and dictate, Rand is above average compared to any PC you can or should ever expect to have.

That's a downer when your players expect to be the heroes, not the background shuffle. This further strains game play when your PCs are less-than-Rand level while the percentile mechanics expect command staff abilities with up to decades under their belts. It's no wonder FASA had to cheat their own dice system with the 'Under 40' and 'Skill Level 10/1d10' sub-rules.

Am not advocating for a bunch of Kirk's running around your campaign.  Kirk and Spock are exceptional by any definition -but should never out of reach as  goal for players to strive for.  At least to my mindset.  There must always be a summit to achieve or there's no point to gaming.

I believe my 3rd/4.0th Edition character gen revisions fix this fundamental crack in the FASA character generation. Not only for ATTs, but skills, experience, rewards and dangers over a character's life-time.

Over the last few days I've been looking at Char Gen for KZinti, Gorn, Klingons, Roms, Orions, et al. My mind kept coming back to FASA designing weak PCs into the fabric of the system. I couldn't place where I'd read that and wanted to make sure I wasn't making it up. It took a little scouring, but here we go. They believed in it so firmly, they wrote it twice.

STTRPG 1e page 18, paragraph 1. "The crew of the Enterprise are the most capable in Star Fleet. As such they are far above the average in both attributes and skills. Player Characters created with the player character generation system are not likely to have the depth and breadth of skill levels possessed by the Enterprise crew."

Also that the Familiar Faces were not rolled but pulled out of air based on observations.

STTRPG 1e page 38, 2nd-to-last paragraph, sentence 3. "Also note that it will be very rare indeed -almost unheard of- for player characters using the player character generation system in the game to ever gain skills and levels to rival the foes listed in the familiar character section for such persons as Kirk, Spock, McCoy and the like."

It goes on to say that 1701 are legendary and if you are rivaling them you have been running a long campaign or handing out skill points too freely.

I agree. Do NOT hand out skill points and make things easy.  I also say that to hinder characters so that they cannot make their skill rolls such that the whacky 2nd edition formula was created to counter all the die fails that Star Fleet Academy leaves you with is a flaw in the underlying mechanics.

While I'm focused on my work for the Adversaries Book 4 and the Security/Services NPC Pack (and alphabetizing all the AD&D monsters with new cover artwork and writing a biography about my dead father of 50yrs ago and all my other hobbies and the normal daily life stuff that goes on), I am looking forward to rolling the top few 1701 crew up in my system and seeing how this turns all out.

[Jack Photon]

The other big issue there is Attributes.
STTRPG 1e page 30. 2nd column generally. 3rd paragraph into 4th...

Roll 3d10+40 apply racial mods...
"In all cases, any score that finishes below zero is raised to one, but any score going above 99 is allowed to do so."

Finally roll d%/2 round down for bonus points...
"No attribute may be increased above 99 with bonus points. (If it's already above 99, it cannot be increased after all.")

...

Right there the rules in successive sentences across two paragraphs allow for over 99, give no mechanism to do so, then forbid 99+ via bonus points.

The greatest PC ATT mod is Vulcan STR+20 (+3d10+40+9 bonus) = 99. This means the strongest human is as strong as the strongest Vulcan, a people noted for their exceptional and super-human strength.

Relevant to this is INT, specifically again, Vulcans.
Spock at INT 102 and Sarek at INT 104. Ummm. 3d10+40+10=80+19 bonus points =99.

Attributes may never rise in 1st or 2nd edition, therefore "dub-T-F?!?" is invoked by me.

This problem goes away by reading racial mods as not only being applied to the die, but also on top/shave off of the human-base 99.

This makes a Vulcan's max ATTs:
STR 119, END 109, INT 109, DEX 99, CHA 99, LUC 60, PSI 100

Read this way, Sarek and Spock are suddenly no longer marked as exaggerated outliers. While they may be atypical, they are not too-uncommon and while among the Vulcan best, they are not the best that Vulcan has.. This makes Spock and Sarek more realistic, grounded, believable and even achievable by dedicated players.

If the Tellarites CHA -10 means no Tellarite can ever have a CHA 90, it follows that a Caitian DEX+20 yields a MAX 119. That is their "99" in human terms. Indeed, there should be no Human who is as fast as a Caitian could be.

This interpretation sets all aliens as genuinely superior and inferior to the human baseline in all regards. Thus, the Jack Photon system inserts the simple phrase "bonus points may not modify above 99 or species max".

[Jack Photon]

This all brings up the third philosophical issue underpinning the game system.  Skill-based vs. Level-based rulesets.

Previously quoted was a line about "your campaign going for a long time" to warrant having characters with high skills or placements.   This implies the AD&D mindset where you start at 1st level and go from there.

In the case of FASA's Trek, you can start as an Admiral.  If that isn't skipping "1st level" to  18th or so, I don't know what is.  In AD&D experienced players can indeed skip to various power levels with ready skill.  But this is not that.

If a PC is going to command a ship, the most capable character the system can generate equates to less than Yeoman Rand as previously discussed.  There's no way to run a ship with PCs who are so hampered in ATTs and skills.  That's probably why the RPG side is not as often cherished as the ST CBT side which remains, apparently, relatively vibrant for its age.  Of course, this is also what led to the John Wheeler Skill tree formula.

This again is where I think I fixed things over by making a more resilient character generation system that still yields half the skill points of a Kirk or Spock, yet creates a very viable officer that can function in critical situations without massive die failures all over the table.

Critical Situations.  This was the real tweak that made it work, circumstance.  From Easy to Impossible and from No Tools to Adequate and Superior equipment modifiers.  Spock at Edith Keeler's working with "stone knives and bear skins".  Impossible circumstances with inferior tools.  Two die mods against Spock's Sm Eq Sys Tech. 

This feature allows low-skilled to succeed in easy times and fail in hard while giving highly-skilled distinct challenges for the toughest times.  The die mods become relative to the character with no need for the 2e Wheeler Formula.  Two charts, + to -, Roll.