Humans are "Special"

[Spence]

Re: Humans are "Special"

 

I know! They should get Steve Long! That guy knows his Trek.

 

Hey Steve? Which is better, LUG Trek or Decipher Trek?

 

 

 

So.....stirring the pot eh?

 

 

 

[wylodmayer]

Re: Humans are "Special"

 

Well, I can certainly agree with the remark that Prime Directive is more true to TOS in spirit than TNG was. Which may or may not be a good thing. But it's definitely "more military," which, funny enough, is a change I make in my TNG games - I play up the military angle a LOT more.

 

And, for the record, the PD guys SHOULD be system wh*res... because the Prime Directive game that came out in the early 90s sucked monkey on wheat toast. Anything but that.

 

I started out with FASA, and incorporated elements of it into my heavily-modded Decipher game. LUG was okay, but I didn't like the skill system. Decipher has it's flaws, too - I'd be hard pressed to call one of them a lot "better" than the other in pure concept. However, execution on LUG was clearly superior. Decipher was virtually unplayable as released, and it totally didn't have to be.

[Captain Xenon]

Re: Humans are "Special"

 

this is a fun thread

 

ive not seen the star trek rpgs. so dunno about those... Most game systems set humans at zero, and rate everything relative to us.

 

something to think about for star trek though- im guessing your list is incomplete, including only those species that have star travel. So therefore, its not about how smart you are, but how long it takes you to get into space. the smarter vulcans/romulans (same species) got there sooner than humans. we dont know how many races get to the stars in what time frame, or how long their empires take to advance to the industrial age.

 

brains alone is not enough. you need creativity, curiosity, ect. stuff that all the star-faring races are going to have to some degree.

 

In any game setting.. humans are going to be the only 'average' race. our edge is we can spend more build points on skills, and choose a more diverse specialization than the guys who have half their points tied up in a racial package. in other words.. you see a range of humanity, but only the weaker members of the 'strong' races.

 

things to consider for this discussion however.. humans naturaly form groups. we take sides, form tribes. we are xenophobic of things that look nasty, before we even ask if its dangerous. So we have an edge over non-group species, and will avoid the 'nasty' looking species to group with the others.

 

Now, imagine a human empire, built by allying ourselves with species that dont offend us to look at, and trying to mold them into what we expect. we minght be able to do it too. we get into your head, figure out how you think... and give you a logical explination as to why agreeing with us is your best option. well, marketing does anyway.

[wylodmayer]

Re: Humans are "Special"

 

In any game setting.. humans are going to be the only 'average' race.

 

Glad you like it.

 

The point I was making, though, was that while humans are "average" in terms of character creation for most games (i.e., no modifiers to attributes), they may not be "average" in terms of what exists in the game world.

 

For instance, of the DnD core playable races, just to take an example:

 

Humans are stronger than fully one-third of the main races, and are only beaten out for strength by one race. They are likewise more charismatic than one-third of the main races.

 

In (Decipher's) Trek, of the "main" Federation species, more than a few have Int bonuses, meaning that, as long as we're taking those as our group for consideration, Humans are actually kinda dim, despite not having a penalty to Int. On the other hand, several major species have Vitality penalties, meaning that, among a certain group, humans are kinda tough.

 

In other words, just because humans have no bonuses or penalties to attributes doesn't make them average as such, at least not for any particular area of consideration.

 

Suppose, for instance, that DnD were written such that Elves had a slight (say, -1) Str penalty. That would leave humans and dwarves as the only main races (I don't count Half Elves) without a strength penalty, except half orcs, who have a bonus. So, in that scenario, humans are tied for 2nd strongest race out of six.

 

Basically, in any game where different species who have different advantages tend to wind up with a penalty in the same area, humans start looking more above average all the time, at least in that one area. This can happen a lot with lazy designers, especially if they don't appreciate the use of a "charisma" stat. They can't think of any thing to penalize on their pet aliens or monsters, and so Charisma takes a hit, and, soon, Humans are in the top ten percent of "most charismatic" species... simply because just about everyone else has a penalty!

[ParagonAlpha]

Re: Humans are "Special"

 

I Like the fact that humans are used as the norm. In most games this also means that they are capable of being any class, type, archtype or whatever without penalty. (I always tease people who play non-humans as powergamers).

 

The fact that humans tend to be the "most charismatic" people is fine, otherwise they'd be wiped out by every other race/species that meets them.

 

As for LUG Star Trek, I'd have to say it rocked. I ran a campaign for nearly a year and it was a simple yet complete system for getting the job done. Steve Long really knows his system design. (Unashamed kissing up)

[Spence]

Re: Humans are "Special"

 

 

And, for the record, the PD guys SHOULD be system wh*res... because the Prime Directive game that came out in the early 90s sucked monkey on wheat toast. Anything but that.

 

 

I think you just insulted sucked monkey on wheat toast

 

Actually the original Prime Directive game system was even worse that any of the original Avalon Hill RPG's, which is a really hard thing to accomplish.

 

I am glad to see the old WEG system get a new lease on life.

 

I do admit I would like to see an official Hero book, especially a ship construction book.

[Tim]

Re: Humans are "Special"

 

In the FASA Star Trek game, Humans were the only race to NOT have a penalty on their LUCK stat. And you rolled d100 for LUCK.

 

So when I created my first character, I rolled LUCK, looked down ad saw a 0 on the tens die. "Damn!" I thought, then I saw the 0 on the ones die. "DAMN!!!" I made the guy sittting next to me witness the roll.

[Peregrine]

Re: Humans are "Special"

 

Well' date=' I can certainly agree with the remark that Prime Directive is more true to TOS in spirit than TNG was. Which may or may not be a good thing. But it's definitely "more military," which, funny enough, is a change I make in my TNG games - I play up the military angle a LOT more.[/quote']

 

When I run Trek, ditto. In fact, I incorporate the idea that the Federation "cycles" between periods of exploration/expansion (non-military) and conflict with a strong neighbor (military), usually one encountered during the previous exploration phase that they couldn't assimi- negotiate with.

 

And' date=' for the record, the PD guys SHOULD be system wh*res... because the Prime Directive game that came out in the early 90s sucked monkey on wheat toast. Anything but that.[/quote']

 

The original PD rules looked like they were written by someone who started gaming with 1st ed Shadowrun, which also sucked. ADB recognized the suckitude and decided to play to their strength - the detailed setting they had developed for their tactical and strategic games.

 

I started out with FASA' date=' and incorporated elements of it into my heavily-modded Decipher game. LUG was okay, but I didn't like the skill system. Decipher has it's flaws, too - I'd be hard pressed to call one of them a lot "better" than the other in pure concept. However, execution on LUG was clearly superior. Decipher was virtually unplayable as released, and it totally didn't have to be.[/quote']

 

I, too, started with FASATrek, but never tried any of the follow-ons (I won't call them "successors") as I was not gaming Trek when they came out, and I was not impressed by what I saw of them. (Actually, Paramount's direct and deliberate contradiction of everything FASA ever put out that Paramount did not originate, even though Paramount had originally approved all of it for publication, was one of the many factors that turned me off of Trek in general.)

[Metaphysician]

Re: Humans are "Special"

 

What kind of stuff did FASA introduce?

[Tim]

Re: Humans are "Special"

 

FASA was where the Klingons of classic trek was explained as Klingon/human hybrids. Also developed the Triangle, an area of space sandwhiched between the Klingons/Federation/Romulans that belonged to non of the empires.

 

They had several other gems, and the request bunch of drek.

[Clonus]

Re: Humans are "Special"

 

FASA was where the Klingons of classic trek was explained as Klingon/human hybrids.

 

Of course they got it from Ford's Klingon novel.

[Peregrine]

Re: Humans are "Special"

 

As Tim and Clonus mentioned, FASA incorporated the Original Series Klingons as per an authorized Trek novel written by John M. Ford (the title escapes me at the moment) as well as hypothesizing Klingon/Romulan hybrids (and introducing the posibility of others) ,plus incorporating three-nacelle ships as introduced in Franz Joseph Designs' Star Fleet Technical Manual (status unknown to me at present). Paramount has officially disclaimed all of the above (with the exception of the three-nacelle Enterprise in the TNG series finale, which was later established to have come from an apocryphal future that officially did not exist), even to the point of having Worf announce, in the DS9 time-travel episode Trials and Tribbilations, (which put DS9 crew members on the TOS Enterprise and the space station during the TOS episode The Trouble With Tribbles), that "We (Klingons) don't talk about" the physical appearance of the Klingons on the space station - and that's the only explanation Paramount has ever given.

 

FASA also introduced an in-depth look at the Orion race(s) (that remains a personal favorite of mine) which Paramount has simply ignored. Plus additional historical elements similarly disregarded.

 

Again, as Tim indicated, not all of FASATrek's setting material was good. But all of it was approved for publication by the PTB at Paramount.

[Clonus]

Re: Humans are "Special"

 

episode Trials and Tribbilations' date=' [/i'](which put DS9 crew members on the TOS Enterprise and the space station during the TOS episode The Trouble With Tribbles), that "We (Klingons) don't talk about" the physical appearance of the Klingons on the space station - and that's the only explanation Paramount has ever given.

 

...Weeeeell...technically they have given another. You see on Enterprise a few products of the genetic experiments that produced Khan got on the loose and four of them ended up getting taken on board by a Klingon ship. They then proceeded to beat up the entire crew, took over the ship with the intention of using it to conquer the galaxy. Yes, they were all insane. The Klingons found this alarming and embarassing, so much so that they got their hands on some of the genetic material that produced these psychopathic freaks and spliced it into a virus that would, in theory create a race of Super-Klingons so bullies would no longer kick sand in their faces. It didn't really work out but for a while there were a bunch of Klingons who had human facial features and dispositions that were even more unpleasant than usual. Finally sometime before the TNG era a method was discovered to reverse the last of the of the genetic alterations and they all lived happily ever after except for Keh'lahr, who now looked a bit funny.

[Spence]

Re: Humans are "Special"

 

...Weeeeell...technically they have given another. You see on Enterprise a few.......

 

Enterprise?.....?.......Enterprise?, what is this Enterprise you speak of??........

 

 

 

 

 

[Captain Xenon]

Re: Humans are "Special"

 

on the topic of self-geneticly-modifying species... look at the Kzin from Larry Niven's known space series. they engineeried their females to be stupid. its a social change from when a primitive race conquered a more advanced one, stole their tech, and abused it.

 

then in Dr Who, there where those gargoyle-things that kept taking traits from various other races they met, to augment themselves.

 

If a species messes with its own genetics and has an 'oops', then its lifespan becomes much shorter... and theres another fermi paradox variable.

 

If we presume a universe where man is the stupidist, most socialy primitive species... I think we could even then find a way to make that an advantage. a 'oh crap! the barbarians sacked rome!' kind of thing.

 

perhaps a better argument, would be what happens when a primitive race encounters a galactic civilization, and why would the civilization decide this is not a good thing to happen? how dangerous is going to another world, really?

[Peregrine]

Re: Humans are "Special"

 

Enterprise?.....?.......Enterprise?, what is this Enterprise you speak of??........

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Spence said.

[Peregrine]

Re: Humans are "Special"

 

...Weeeeell...technically they have given another. You see on Enterprise a few products of the genetic experiments that produced Khan got on the loose and four of them ended up getting taken on board by a Klingon ship. They then proceeded to beat up the entire crew' date=' took over the ship with the intention of using it to conquer the galaxy. Yes, they were all insane. The Klingons found this alarming and embarrassing, so much so that they got their hands on some of the genetic material that produced these psychopathic freaks and spliced it into a virus that would, in theory create a race of Super-Klingons so bullies would no longer kick sand in their faces. It didn't really work out but for a while there were a bunch of Klingons who had human facial features and dispositions that were even more unpleasant than usual. Finally sometime before the TNG era a method was discovered to reverse the last of the of the genetic alterations and they all lived happily ever after except for Keh'lahr, who now looked a bit funny.[/quote']

 

More seriously...

 

... they filed the serial numbers off of the John M. Ford explanation and presented it as their own. Which was typical of the material produced by the later (un)creative teams. (Like ripping the whole plot, including McGuffin, from one of the Trek novels Shatner (ghost)wrote, substituting the TNG crew as the main characters, and calling it Star Trek: Insurrection; which is, to this day, the only Star Trek movie I have not seen and will never watch. I'll watch Star Trek V again before I will agree to watch Insurrection.)

[Metaphysician]

Re: Humans are "Special"

 

More seriously...

 

... they filed the serial numbers off of the John M. Ford explanation and presented it as their own. Which was typical of the material produced by the later (un)creative teams. (Like ripping the whole plot, including McGuffin, from one of the Trek novels Shatner (ghost)wrote, substituting the TNG crew as the main characters, and calling it Star Trek: Insurrection; which is, to this day, the only Star Trek movie I have not seen and will never watch. I'll watch Star Trek V again before I will agree to watch Insurrection.)

 

. . .you know, I think the plot would have actually worked better with the TOS cast. . .

[wylodmayer]

Re: Humans are "Special"

 

I didn't like any of the TNG crew movies, which is funny considering that I liked the series a lot. Well, relatively speaking. It must be remembered that I, generally, don't like sci-fi very much.

 

That having been said, I am quite in love with the Battlestar Galactica reboot.

[Spence]

Re: Humans are "Special"

 

I didn't like any of the TNG crew movies, which is funny considering that I liked the series a lot. Well, relatively speaking. It must be remembered that I, generally, don't like sci-fi very much.

 

That having been said, I am quite in love with the Battlestar Galactica reboot.

 

Well, overall the TNG Movies were IMO substandard for TNG. When I go to a movie I expect a movie, I don't want to find myself anticipating the "commercial break" while sitting the theater. Which was how the TNG movies felt. At least to me...

 

 

And I second the remark about BSG

[Mister E]

Re: Humans are "Special"

 

BSG is rock'n. That last episode went totally HeavyMetal.

[Peregrine]

Re: Humans are "Special"

 

. . .you know' date=' I think the plot would have actually worked better with the TOS cast. . .[/quote']

 

Shatner's novel used Kirk as the main protagonist (surprise! surprise!) and was set post ST:VI, after Kirk's retirement from Starfleet, but pre ST:Generations (which had not been filmed and released at the time Shatner's novel was published).

[Peregrine]

Re: Humans are "Special"

 

I didn't like any of the TNG crew movies, which is funny considering that I liked the series a lot. Well, relatively speaking. It must be remembered that I, generally, don't like sci-fi very much.

 

That having been said, I am quite in love with the Battlestar Galactica reboot.

 

De gustibus non est disputandum. I, myself, just couldn't get into the new BSG - too dark for my tastes.

[ParagonAlpha]

Re: Humans are "Special"

 

But Heinlein was retarded.

 

You're lucky I can't take rep away.

 

You dare blaspheme the name of Heinien???

 

I have sent my cyber-ninja-pirate-zombies to your secret lair to deliver my vengence.

[Kestrel]

Re: Humans are "Special"

 

Humans, as a race, are lucky. However, if you look at all the sci-fi movies, books and tv series, human FEMALES seem to be compatible with darn near every race out there. That's why Earth keeps getting invaded. Just alien crewmembers wanting to "get lucky" when they hit port. (If you've ever been in a town where a Navy ship puts in for shore leave, you'll understand this.)