The STAR TREK RPG rules from 1983 had Vulcans being psionic.
"SPECIAL VULCAN ATTACKS
Psionics:
Vulcan mental techniques are a useful part of the game,
but they can be misused easily if Vulcan characters are allowed
to use them too often. These rules permit their use
where appropriate, but allow the gamemaster to restrict them
for the sake of play balance. Gamemasters mast keep Vulcan
telepaths on a 'short leash' and not allow psionics to dominate
the game."
And the rules also specifically say:
"There is NO WAY that a mind touch or other psionic
discipline can be attempted in combat."
LOL!
The Never Pinch stuff bring back memories:
"TO-HIT MODIFIERS FOR NERVE PINCH
Condition Modifier-
Victim totally unaware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . -30
Victim surprised or distracted . . . . . . . . . . -20
Victim on guard in general . . . . . . . . . . . . +20
Victim aware of nerve pinch technique . . . +40"
Here is Mr. Spock in Action. Go Spock go!
Because of the complexity of these rules, let's look at an example of Vulcan mind touch at work. Suppose a landing party from the Enterprise, commanded by Mr. Spock, is captured by hostile natives and locked in a cell. The jailer is right outside the locked steel door, dozing in a chair. The use of Vulcan mental abilities might get our heroes out of the spot they are in!
Spock can see the jailer through a small window in the door. He calls for silence and begins to concentrate...
The player running the character of Mr. Spock must now determine his chances of placing a suggestion In the mind of the jailer. He tells the gamemaster that Spock is trying to communicate to the jailer the feeling that the prisoners are escaping, hoping in his half-waking state he will get up and open the door to see.
Spock has a base PSI score of 97, and so he has a good chance that it will work. Looking at the chart of modifiers, the gamemaster sees that Spock is trying for a one-way mind touch for a short message or complex concept; the modifier is -10, adjusting the PSI target to 87. The subject is an Intelligent humanoid ( + 10), unaware ( + 10), and in sight and near ( + 0). The adjusted PSI target is now 107, and Spock can hardly fail. Furthermore, because the jailer is half-asleep, he probably would be easier to confuse, and so the gamemaster decides to give Spock an additional + 5 bonus, bringing the adjusted PSI target to 112.
The roll is made, but it's not a good one — 99! Fortunately, the modifiers have helped, and Spock would have needed to roll 00 to fail. In fact, he would have been successful if his PSI score had only been 84!
The jailer jumps up, startled, and dazedly unlocks the door to look for the prisoners. The other members of the landing party jump the jailer and knock him unconscious, and the party is freed!
Reference: "STAR TREK: THE ROLE PLAYING GAME SECOND EDITION 1983"
Yes. But did any redshirted ensigns die?
Yes. But did any redshirted ensigns die?
This leads us into Spock's Dirty Little Secret™. This is it:
"... a landing party from the Enterprise, commanded by Mr. Spock, iscaptured by hostile natives and locked in a cell..." What a loser!
Captured?! What are you Mr. Spock, a moron?
As far as redshirts are in on this, at the end, events presumably went
"... The other members of the landing party jump the jailer and knock
him unconscious..." It goes without saying that a redshirted ensign
was killed in that melee. Spock used his [psionics] to wipe clean the
short-term memory of the other party members. This is why we never
heard of this before.
Oh Mr. Spock, what secrets do you hide?
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Spock's dirty little secrets? Now there's a worm hole you do NOT want to go down.
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Yes. But did any redshirted ensigns die?
Do not belittle the sacrifice of the red shirted expendables for they draw the attention of the gods of certain doom while heroes run through a torrent of weaponfire screaming "Look at me! Look at me!" with a naked space princess under one arm and a tactical nuke under the other.
Other than the naked space princess, that sounds a bit like B5's own John Sheridan.
also: mmm... redshirts.
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I thought this would be Kirk/Spock slashporn.
> It < is no longer a secret.
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> It < is no longer a secret.
Is it just me or is 3/4 of Hollywood gay?
Also Zachary Quinto, not much of a shocker here.
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I knew it! His scenes with Zoe saldana seemed forced!
No, the actor himself seemed uncomfortable.
I knew it! His scenes with Zoë Saldaña seemed forced!You didn't read that, as Vulcan?
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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I knew it! His scenes with Zoe saldana seemed forced!
Aside,
One of the Bad Syfy shark attack movies had John Barrowman in it. There's a scene where he's making out with the female lead in the shower (Vanessa Angel?). I caught it once and the voices in the back of my head went. "Now that's acting!"
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I knew it! His scenes with Zoe saldana seemed forced!Aside,
One of the Bad Syfy shark attack movies had John Barrowman in it. There's a scene where he's making out with the female lead in the shower (Vanessa Angel?). I caught it once and the voices in the back of my head went. "Now that's acting!"
Barrowman has had a lot of scenes like that, most of which are quite believable. While I really could do without the make out scenes in Torchwood, I still enjoy the show.
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Whereas my problem with Torchwood and sexuality is that despite always promoting Jack as omnisexual, the closest we've seen him come to showing interest in a woman in several years is saying "That girl sure is pretty" while trying to convince another guy to plug him in the arse. And if you want to see him show an interest in anything non-human you have to leave Torchwood entirely and go to one of his appearances on Doctor Who.
Yes. But did any redshirted ensigns die?This leads us into Spock's Dirty Little Secret™. This is it:
"... a landing party from the Enterprise, commanded by Mr. Spock, is
captured by hostile natives and locked in a cell..." What a loser!
Captured?! What are you Mr. Spock, a moron?
You haven't actually watched the original series did you?
The landing party gets arrested like 1 out of every 3 episodes.|
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Whereas my problem with Torchwood and sexuality is that despite always promoting Jack as omnisexual, the closest we've seen him come to showing interest in a woman in several years is saying "That girl sure is pretty" while trying to convince another guy to plug him in the arse. And if you want to see him show an interest in anything non-human you have to leave Torchwood entirely and go to one of his appearances on Doctor Who.
The producer has already apologized on that score and said he woudl try to do better in the future. Here is hoping.
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Yes. But did any redshirted ensigns die?This leads us into Spock's Dirty Little Secret™. This is it:
"... a landing party from the Enterprise, commanded by Mr. Spock, is
captured by hostile natives and locked in a cell..." What a loser!
Captured?! What are you Mr. Spock, a moron?
You haven't actually watched the original series did you?
The landing party gets arrested like 1 out of every 3 episodes.
I am trying to remember, I know that there was one episode that they got arrested by the people in cloaks and stuck in an old west style jail.
I am trying to remember, I know that there was one episode that they got arrested by the people in cloaks and stuck in an old west style jail.Yes. But did any redshirted ensigns die?This leads us into Spock's Dirty Little Secret™. This is it:
"... a landing party from the Enterprise, commanded by Mr. Spock, is
captured by hostile natives and locked in a cell..." What a loser!
Captured?! What are you Mr. Spock, a moron?
You haven't actually watched the original series did you?
The landing party gets arrested like 1 out of every 3 episodes.
It is not that he got captured --It is that he *never* told anyone
about it. That makes it a secret.And it is dirty for other reasons we don't know about, because
Spock and the rest of the landing party have sworn to never speak about
it.
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Whereas my problem with Torchwood and sexuality is that despite always promoting Jack as omnisexual, the closest we've seen him come to showing interest in a woman in several years is saying "That girl sure is pretty" while trying to convince another guy to plug him in the arse. And if you want to see him show an interest in anything non-human you have to leave Torchwood entirely and go to one of his appearances on Doctor Who.The producer has already apologized on that score and said he woudl try to do better in the future. Here is hoping.
I saw that interview. He acknowledged it, yes, but he didn't really appologize, and said nothing about actually changing it for the future (assuming Torchwood has a future after the abominable Miracle Day).
Yes. But did any redshirted ensigns die?This leads us into Spock's Dirty Little Secret™. This is it:
"... a landing party from the Enterprise, commanded by Mr. Spock, is
captured by hostile natives and locked in a cell..." What a loser!
Captured?! What are you Mr. Spock, a moron?
You haven't actually watched the original series did you?
The landing party gets arrested like 1 out of every 3 episodes.
The Original Series is my preferred version of Star Trek.
And, no, that is an exaggeration. Yes, the landing party did get arrested by the local authorizes in six episodes (from the 79 filmed), but that was about it. (“Tomorrow is Yesterday”, “Return of the Archons”, “A Taste of Armageddon”, “A Piece of the Action”, “Patterns of Force”, and “For The World is Hollow And I Have Touched The Sky” )
I am trying to remember, I know that there was one episode that they got arrested by the people in cloaks and stuck in an old west style jail.
This is the "Return of the Archons" episode.
The life of a Red Shirt.
The Star Trek RPG had rules for warp drive as well.
How did these rules work?
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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I saw that interview. He acknowledged it, yes, but he didn't really appologize, and said nothing about actually changing it for the future (assuming Torchwood has a future after the abominable Miracle Day).Whereas my problem with Torchwood and sexuality is that despite always promoting Jack as omnisexual, the closest we've seen him come to showing interest in a woman in several years is saying "That girl sure is pretty" while trying to convince another guy to plug him in the arse. And if you want to see him show an interest in anything non-human you have to leave Torchwood entirely and go to one of his appearances on Doctor Who.The producer has already apologized on that score and said he woudl try to do better in the future. Here is hoping.
Give me some Eve Myles nudity and we'll call it even.
I pulled out my 1983 rules book looking for the Warp Drive rules.
I have to say I'm a little disappointed at how sparse the rules are.
A PC has a skill rating or Accomplishment under his or her
Space Sciences Index named Warp Drive Technology. But all it
says for game play is the player "has this skill."
Warp Drive Technology
All Engineering Officers have a rating of at least 10 in
this skill, and most have ratings of 40 or more. In starship
combat, this skill is used to coax extra power from the engines
and to make emergency warp speed changes.
Followed by, in another section:
Chief Engineer
He may use his skill in Warp Drive Technology to squeeze
a little more power out of the engines. ("Mr. Scott! Can you
get us more power to the shields?" "I dinna know, Cap'n,
but I'll gie herrr a trrry.") He can use this skill to make
emergency repairs to the warp engines as well (to regain
lost power), or to make emergency changes in warp speed.
And, for rules, that's about it.
Warp drive is mention, of course, in several other rule sections,
but in the context of mapping space:
Mapping Space
Gamemasters can keep telescoping this scale upward.
By doing so, whole planets, solar systems, and even the
known universe can be mapped. When expanded 16 times,
a parsec (about as far as a ship can travel in 1 day going
warp 10) is about 1 inch long.
Also,
Maps of smaller areas of space,
such as solar systems, may be made by reducing the scale.
Another useful scale is one-fourth inch equals 1 days' travel
at Warp 3, or about 25.9 billion kilometers. (By the way,
subspace radio travels about 10 billion kilometers in a second
traveling at Warp 15, and it's still too slow for some things.
Space is BIG!)
It takes about 28 hours to travel 1 parsec at Warp 10,
and thus the map of the Federation has a scale of one-fourth
inch equals about 11% days travel at Warp 10. To find the
travel time at Warp 10 between any two star systems, measure
the distance with a ruler and multiply the result by 11%
days per 1A inch.
Well enough to get you from point A to Point B at the speed of Plot.The Star Trek RPG had rules for warp drive as well.How did these rules work?
.
In one 1990's version of the pen & paper game (don't remember the author)
the warp rules were very user-friendly. There is a table you look up warp
factors based upon a chosen "speed".
It tells you how many hexes you can move. It is tied to concepts like
engine class and if you have any ship damage, and how much
energy you have chosen to use this turn and directed to the warp
engines.
Your engine class offered you a constant number of energy units
per turn (like 12), and you had to allocate that across your whole ship.
From life support, to shields, to weapons, to movement. Ship damage
from space-combat could reduce the number of energy units per turn;
either permanently or until repairs could be made. And if you didn't
have the required power to activate a system it could not be used for
that turn.
I remember having to get a piece of paper and draw grid, and then using
coins to mark my energy use while flying around in my bad-ass space ride.
Come to think of it, that is probably why this game died away. To much
book keeping between rounds.
.
Is this the game produced by FASA? I hated that game. HAY-TED. Any game that had sheets for each station on the bridge that you had to make changes on every round of combat (both negative and positive) bogged the game down so much that it was as much fun to play as slamming your head into a bed of nails.
Star Trek RPG. FASA version was from early 80s. 90s seen Task Force Prime Directive and later Last Unicorn Games (whose engine was also used for Dune RPG. I am not sure if it wasn't used in some version of Babylon 5 as well).
Yeah, the 80s FASA game is the one I meant. Awful. A friend bought several of the Last Unicorn books to start a game and we played one session. I rather liked the game, but like so many other things our group has started, it never went any further than that. We just don't have the time to get together more than once a month anymore, if even that, and no one (but me) wants to play anything but Pathfinder.