From: samaritan1975	Date: June 4th, 2009 01:06 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Oooh. This is something I wanna think on- because it's something that might work for the Transformers PDQ game I wanna give a spin sometime. :)

	From: arashinomoui	Date: June 4th, 2009 01:10 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Not having had dice hit the table, I look at this and wince - one of the things that I liked about PDQ# and S7S is the flexibility and straightforwardness of the setting. The sub-systems were self contained. I either was dueling, or I was using S7S Vehicular dueling.

I would choose which one you wanted to do (my suggestion is Vehicular dueling, which I found neat and useful for making everyone useful).

My suggestion:
Fighter: 1 Role: Pilot. Get's to Captain himself.

Corvette: Standard positions from S7S reskinned for Space Opera. I don't have PDF or book, but the marines position may need to be changed. But this size should be the flexible PC Party ship, i.e., can handle 4-7 roles fairly easily (even if the PC is just in the passenger compartment, the player can roll dice for the NPC).

Capital Ship: At least double the positions from the Corvette (and thus the PCs have two roles - it would be great if you could divide the roles into active combat and support and have people pick and chose). I would argue against passive shields (ala Starwars) if only because that doesn't let you have someone playing active defense.

	From: torresroman	Date: June 4th, 2009 01:30 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Just an initial impression, so please take with a whole saltshaker.

First, I'm wondering if these will be generic space opera rules. If not, I'm wondering which setting they'll most likely resemble. Star Wars? Star Trek? Flash Gordon? Battlestar Galactica? Babylon 5?

I suppose the reason I ask is because each of these settings has a different "dial" as to how much, say, an individual fighter could damage a capital ship.

Hm. Now there's a thought, perhaps? Setting dials for ship-to-ship combat, with different bonuses, etc., for each setting of the dial?

	From: chadu	Date: June 4th, 2009 01:31 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Further idea: If a bigger NPC ship misses a smaller PC ship with an attack, one of the PC's non-player "squadron mates" goes boom anyway.

	From: animadversio	Date: June 4th, 2009 01:41 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Hmmm.

My group's about to kick off our S7S campaign this Saturday night, with an in media res flashback adventure to explain how they all came together on the ship that I'm providing them as a team vehicle for the campaign.

I'm still working on it, but the central premise of this kickoff will be a nearly epic aeronautical battle near Colrona, during the Jungle Sky, in which several opposing factions (pirates, a Barathi squadron, a trio of Zultanate heavy war galleons, Viridese mercs on gliders, Sha Ku ruq riders, maybe even some bluemen, etc.) battle each other and the Colronan defenses over control of a Colronan flying fortress/prison (think a mash-up of Alcatraz and The Guns of Navarone).

Something like that... I'm mixing up a heady but deliberately vague stew, and throwing the PCs (at least 4 and quite possibly 7) and their various agenda/motivations in there -- most if not all of them will start in Vexing Misfortune, with a few Style Dice on hand to be creative with fleshing the situation out for themselves and each other). The only controlling factor is that they have to make some effort to make their "unity" make sense by the end of the session... or if that doesn't work, I imagine we'll play it by ear, because all of these folks are cool and know how to bring the awesome.

It could all go horribly, horribly wrong... but I imagine it will still be fun no matter what. :)

The one thing I've been mildly concerned about (of course, not actually having played it yet) is how to handle the multiple ship battles that I'm envisioning as a mini-Trafalgar, with various sides firing at each other, as well as the Colronans. Our first session, therefore, might either be the completely wrong time to attempt use your rules above ... or the perfect opportunity.

I'll ponder this.

(It also occurs to me that if you're bored and have no social engagements this Saturday night, you're MORE than welcome to show up, since I'm in the Fairfax County portion of Alexandria, not too far from the Krispy Kreme on Rt. 1. Two of the folks playing are ENnies judges. Just sayin' :)

In any event, I'm still reading and re-reading the Vehicular Duels section, but it might not be a stretch or a bad idea to incorporate what you've got above.

Edited at 2009-06-04 01:45 pm (UTC)

	From: jonlaw	Date: June 4th, 2009 03:30 pm (UTC)		(Link)

I have been pondering this heavily and getting some thoughts down (not quite ready for prime time) in using S7S/PDQ# for a Starship Combat for my take on PDQ# Trek. I have been shamelessly stealing ideas on the character development from markwalt.livejournal.com's writeup that you posted links to several weeks back.

I am trying mightily to keep things as simple as possible while providing the flexibility to cover the range of conflicts seen in the various Star Trek movies and series. Not sure how well I succeed, but one of the ideas that I had is that some conflicts had to be governed by an "advantage." This could be based on the scale of the forces on one side (think Klingon Negh'Var warship versus Federation Intrepid class cruiser), or the technological advancement (for example a Borg cube (which also has scale) or say even a refit Constitution class cruiser against an original model). In any conflict, the advantage will be relative (that is, rather than trying to line up all possible ships on some continuum, the GM should just make a judgment call and assign in the particular situation).

So, how would it work. Again, preliminary, but advantage would do two things principally. It would be ranked on the usual PDQ# scale, Average [0], Good [+2], Expert [+4], Master [+6]. When a ship (or side) in a Starship combat has an advantage rating, first the advantage adds to rolls just like the ship rating in vehicle duels (e.g. S7S pg. 229, 231). Second, during the "violence is done" phase, the rating of the advantage acts like the "one shot kill" style of firearms (see PDQ# pg. 28) and adds the TN of its rating rather than the MOD to the overall damage done by a hit. Thus an "Average" advantage, which would add nothing to rolls, still adds 7 to the damage done on top of the roll made by the captain when compared to the defensive roll of the opposing ship. This makes technological or scale (capital ship versus freighter, etc.) advantage deadly, but still manageable by heroic characters, which is as it should be.

No playtest of this yet. Still working it all through, but it seemed a simple thing to add, while leaving the default the "equal footing" conflict as described in S7S, with the option to use the minion squad rules to deal with enemy fighters, etc. Didn't care too much about fighters in the Star Trek universe, but then the Maquis and the Dominion came along and started using things classed as fighters, so, have to account for them.

Anyway, that is my first thought of a solution for things. I like the idea of allowing for additional vehicle dice in situations for the NPCs. I had definitely considered that in trying to conceptualize an encounter with a Borg cube (although that is more of a roleplaying challenge than a realistic battle). Also, I would, in certain situations, extend the use of the PDQ# chart for really big differences, if I thought starship combat should be allowed at that scale (e.g. Borg cube might have a Master+ rating; having the normal +6 on rolls, but using something like the TN at "Intimidating" or "Impossible" level.

The bottom line has to include flexibility, simplicity and most of all fun.

Will have to see (or anyone else is welcome to try it out and let me know) how an actual play would make this work or not.

Cheers.

	From: lcdarkwood	Date: June 4th, 2009 08:00 pm (UTC)		(Link)

So I wonder if the Millennium Falcon is actually a poor example to look at with your Corvette class.

In Star Wars, individual action is always the center of focus, even in situations where there's teamwork. In A New Hope, when the Falcon gets swarmed by TIEs, the action shifts exclusively to Han and Luke individually blowing up fighters. It's almost like Chewie just flies the ship in a straight line while the two work - you never see him maneuver or anything.

Likewise, in Return of the Jedi, if there are turret gunners in the MF, you never see them and they don't matter. The camera stays exclusively with Lando buzzing about and being hotshot pilot guy. The MF does shoot things, but it's cut to make it look like Lando, and not some anonymous turret gunner, is directly responsible. So, there, the MF is clearly acting just like a starfighter in the dramatic sense, despite its size and multi-person crew.

There's also no focused instance of capital ship combat in the films. They're just background elements or devices used to introduce a change in situation. The novels do play with this a little, but of course, that way lies madness.

So, yeah. This might not be the space opera you're looking for.