Re: Trek/SFB conversions

In message <970129153413_40626355@emout19.mail.aol.com>
FieldScott@aol.com writes:
> <Sarcasm mode on>
> 
> It seems a lot of people are of the opinion that the excessive
> rules-lawyering of SFB is a BAD thing. But if one wants to faithfully
portray
> space battles in the Trek universe then it's actually quite
appropriate --
> after all, how many Trek battles are won by anything as mundane as
*tactics?*
> They're won because someone figures out a new and interesting way to
activate
> warp drive, or because Scotty/ Geordi/ Wesley/ whoever figures out how
to
> reverse the polarity on the frim-fram in time to destabilize the
enemy's
> whachamacallit! In this spirit, I offer the following system, soon to
be made
> standard on all my Federation ships:

If Scott hadn't made this point, I would have done so (and I don't
think it would have been nearly so funny).

Star Trek is about characters and stories. Taking battles out of
episodes defeats the point. Episodes serve better as a model for
RPGing rather than wargaming.

The thread-originator mentioned the Kobiashi Maru, for example. I
don't know what it is in SFB, but in the film it was a no-win
encounter, to see how the examinee reacted to mission failure. An
exercise, therefore, specifically in role-playing and not in
wargaming.

(Presumably they were looking to see if the examinee retained the
air of heroically smug cultural superiority even in death...)

> (Can ya' tell I'm a Babylonian at heart?)

Do you really think B5 is any better? I'm not an expert on B5. I've
got a heap of borrowed tapes of season one. One story concludes
with a space-battle settled, not by tactics, but by the "player
characters" effecting the destruction of the enemy fleet by
suitably heroic action from a nearby planet. They even brought along 
a sacrificial NPC. Very Trek. I hope that's far too vague not to 
count as a spoiler.

-- 
David Brewer