Just about everything from Steve Jackson games tended to be fast, furious and fun...
Is Star Fleet Battles officially dead?
- Thread starter ChallengerHK
- Start date
There's an annual local gaming convention in the small city where I live. Attendance under 1000. Every year, a guy shows up to run wargame-ish games like SFB and MechWarrior. He usually has a tableful most of the weekend, armed with miniature terrain and tape measures. I played an introductory scenario with him one year, single Fed & Klingon light cruisers duking it out. While it was fun, it was a lot to remember just for that short time. I lost, of course.
I'd seen the SFB rulebooks for decades, but never bought any because I had no one to play with, and a reluctance to get sucked into long-form wargames (a bad high school experience with the Avalon Hill Midway game...). I even bought a set of Star Trek ship minis (based on the Technical Manual) from Lou Zocci at a different small local con in about 1980. But nothing has changed about my lacks of opportunity and massive amounts of time to devote. I have lots of other interests that are easier to devote time to...
What's sad about that is ABD created a Cadet rules set version specifically for introducing new players to the game. Those cons should be using those specific rules for "newbies".
I never thought their Cadet rules were well optimized for teaching. I created my own.
Well of course you did. Because that's just the sick sort of thing that someone who really enjoys SFB would get their kicks from doing.
^^(Please read that in the tone that it is intended in. I'm not really calling you a sicko. Well, maybe a little neurotic, but pot, meet kettle.
I've never, ever, ever created my own complete D&D campaign setting. Or 10.)
Well of course you did. Because that's just the sick sort of thing that someone who really enjoys SFB would get their kicks from doing.
^^(Please read that in the tone that it is intended in. I'm not really calling you a sicko. Well, maybe a little neurotic, but pot, meet kettle.
No offense taken. And you may be right
Seriously, though, I think making my own cadet rules came from having been a teacher and then an instructional designer. Every time I tried to use the cadet rules they made, I'd hit some point where iI would say "This is not really optimized for learning."
^ And that's probably the saddest truth of all!
I can't remember if I ever actually tried the Cadet rules myself (many moons have past since then).
I can't remember if I ever actually tried the Cadet rules myself (many moons have past since then).
From the publisher's discussion board, in a thread on a tournament game:
"We've dropped below critical mass required for tournaments."
Sad, at least in a sense, but this is what I was seeing.
"We've dropped below critical mass required for tournaments."
Sad, at least in a sense, but this is what I was seeing.
Partly their own fault for allowing the rules system to get so far out of control...
I agree, at least partially. There was a guy in a Facebook page with whom I was discussing this, and he was saying that he wanted to buy the Designers Edition rules and Expansions and just play those.
I'm also part of the crowd that mourned each race having unique ships instead of all races having all ship types, all perfectly balanced against one another.
I'm also part of the crowd that mourned each race having unique ships instead of all races having all ship types, all perfectly balanced against one another.
That's the darned if you do, darned if you don't problem. Every time ADB created ships that were unique to one empire, like the Klingon F5 that fit between everyone elses frigates and destroyers, players complained it was unbalanced and thus unfair. Once one empire got a pariticular ship, such as a medium-size carrier, everyone wanted one. And yet when they issued the BCH class, for example, people complained about cookie-cutter designs. You can't win for losing.
I do tend to think that is an honest telling of what happened. Things is, for a couple of smart people such as them, you'd think they would have figured out that the loud are not necessarily the numerous and vice versa.
Then again, neither of them were ever very creative, so maybe this is just another example of them relying on what they could get people to send them to publish. The most vocal people would probably be the people who were submitting stuff as well; people on the fence about design strategy would be less likely to take the time.
Then again, neither of them were ever very creative, so maybe this is just another example of them relying on what they could get people to send them to publish. The most vocal people would probably be the people who were submitting stuff as well; people on the fence about design strategy would be less likely to take the time.
I disagree about Steve & Steve not being creative, but otherwise there is some truth in what you say about the loud vs. numerous (just like in politics, I suppose). I've been active on the SFB board since the old GEnie days, before the World Wide Web, and have seen how vocal some people can be. That doesn't change the fact that about the complaints both for and against cookie-cutter ships. I've seen it for years. Decades, now. To me, it looks like a no-win, and the best you can hope for is to strike a balance of equal-but-different, or different-but-equal.
Everyone had to have a "War Cruiser" and a "War Destroyer" and a "Battle Frigate" etc...
When the Klingons got the B-10 Battleship, everyone had to get something similar (even if "officially" just a design study).
It did get way out of hand.
When the Klingons got the B-10 Battleship, everyone had to get something similar (even if "officially" just a design study).
It did get way out of hand.
Yep, that's the cookie-cutters. But I remember the discussions waaaay back in the late 1980s about the Klingon F5 and how it was "broken". It's been called "either the best frigate or the worst destroyer" in the game. There were three or four people who wanted it removed from the game and replaced with two ships that were balanced to everyone else's FF & DD.. Like I said, can't win for losing.
I always liked the idea of fleets having a "flavor". This is the part of the reason I gravitated towards FASA's system in the mid to late 1980's.
While that system does lack in some areas, the Klingons seemed to go for "quantity over quality" (like ol' Joe Stalin) and the Romulans were very dependent on cloaks to give them an edge.
Some weapons were pretty weak at long ranges but, nasty when the range closed. There were multiple variations on Phasers and Disruptors, not just a few specific types but, whole ranges of variants.
You could actually design your own ships (thought that process was also flawed).
While that system does lack in some areas, the Klingons seemed to go for "quantity over quality" (like ol' Joe Stalin) and the Romulans were very dependent on cloaks to give them an edge.
Some weapons were pretty weak at long ranges but, nasty when the range closed. There were multiple variations on Phasers and Disruptors, not just a few specific types but, whole ranges of variants.
You could actually design your own ships (thought that process was also flawed).
Exactly. We loved that there was nothing really like the Tholian DN or the original Fed CV, that only the Klingons built a BB, that not everyone had carriers or PFs, yadda yadda yadda.
...and now the publisher has announced that they're going back to having an official, publisher-run tournament. It looks like the idea is to use a giant stick to get people to play (pay to play, if you miss a session you're out, etc.). I can't help but think that a carrot would be far more successful in getting people to do something that they don't have to do, but sure, why not? Either way it will be announced as a massive success :-)
Just my two cents here...
I'm reminded of a conversation I had at Kublacon a couple of weekends ago, about how Steve Jackson never changes, never updates his game mechanics. At the time I quipped, "Ask how many games in this convention use combat results tables?" Ogre could be great if it just streamlined the combat resolution into something more mainstream today. FFG's X-Wing or Armada approach to attack-defense even would make it so much better. And this would likely make the game played much more often.
SFB is in the same boat. The complex mechanics pushes this game out of the eyes of mainstream gamers, where they turn to things like Attack Wing for their star trek fix. SFB's lore is interesting, but I've heard the complexity ridiculed more often than praised. It's all well and good for devoted fans to keep the game alive but would you rather do that, or pick up something that is also star trek and takes far less time?
Federation Commander is a nice step in that direction but I feel like it doesn't go far enough. It's a distillation of SFB, not a new game setting out to accomplish the same objective with modern mechanics.
For myself, neither SFB nor WizKid's derivative theme-pasted-on Attack Wing do it for me in terms of satisfying starship battles on the tabletop. At this point, I'd be more likely to design my own than play either of them.
I'm reminded of a conversation I had at Kublacon a couple of weekends ago, about how Steve Jackson never changes, never updates his game mechanics. At the time I quipped, "Ask how many games in this convention use combat results tables?" Ogre could be great if it just streamlined the combat resolution into something more mainstream today. FFG's X-Wing or Armada approach to attack-defense even would make it so much better. And this would likely make the game played much more often.
SFB is in the same boat. The complex mechanics pushes this game out of the eyes of mainstream gamers, where they turn to things like Attack Wing for their star trek fix. SFB's lore is interesting, but I've heard the complexity ridiculed more often than praised. It's all well and good for devoted fans to keep the game alive but would you rather do that, or pick up something that is also star trek and takes far less time?
Federation Commander is a nice step in that direction but I feel like it doesn't go far enough. It's a distillation of SFB, not a new game setting out to accomplish the same objective with modern mechanics.
For myself, neither SFB nor WizKid's derivative theme-pasted-on Attack Wing do it for me in terms of satisfying starship battles on the tabletop. At this point, I'd be more likely to design my own than play either of them.
I think you're 100% right for the vast majority of people. People have less time nowadays, and millenials in particular want to have something akin to instant gratification. I had a kid at a convention tell me that he thought half an hour was a LONG TIME for a game. Console games take away a lot of wargaming's audience. Euro games take another chunk.
Again, I appreciate what you're saying, but for me it's just the opposite. When I think of great games, with lots of replayability, I'm thinking Terrible Swift Sword, Atlantic Wall, War in Europe, etc. Fed Commander, for me, is a step up from Battleship, maybe two. I just have zero interest in it.
I could, fairly easily, fix SFB, at least to my satisfaction. I still don't think it would have any mass appeal, however, and as I've said upstream, I can't find people locally who will play it. As for Fed Commander, ADB says it's popular, but I have my doubts. I never see it in stores or being played at cons, but that could be for a wide variety of reasons. The only people I ever see discussing it are people who apparently get free copies for playtesting and the like. I have to believe that they sell more than that, unless they're making all their money on Shapeways nowadays.
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