Character A Day, Day Seventeen(ish-ish)

Decipher’s Star Trek

To Boldly Go Where… Lessee… Three Other Systems Had Gone Before

(And Another One Will, Too)

There was the original Heritage Star Trek. The FASA system, arguably the most successful, and the one where I played a drunken Irish engineer. The Last Unicorn Games system. And then came the Decipher system (which I’m covering here), to be followed by the Modiphius system, which I plan to do later. 

My reader¹ may note I missed another day yesterday. There was a good reason for this: Baby Yoda. And Christmas lights. Our county has one of those quaint rural county things, where all the tractor dealerships and churches and silo insurance firms and churches and funeral homes and churches sponsor displays of Christmas lights in one of the local parks, and we drive slowly through and admire them. So, we had to do that, it’s an annual tradition, and we didn’t get started until a little before 7, and by the time we got back, it was growing late, and I need to see the finale of the Baby Yoda Show before I saw any more spoilers (since the biggest reveal was ruined for me around 9 AM by idiots posting YouTube videos with the spoiler in the title), and since it’s clear just how much care, patience, and attention I put into this blog (that was, for the record, sarcasm), I simply did not have time to squeeze even the simplest of systems into what remained of the evening after that. So there you go. And here we are.

Anatomy Of A Character

Seriously, That’s How the Character Creation Section Begins

I Wonder If Vulcans Have Spleens?

The first thing is to pick a species, with notes that certain species do best in certain roles, but that each is diverse and that playing against type can be fun. I have already decided I want to be a Tellarite Engineer. Some people like to coax machines into behaving; I’ve got a duotronic monkey wrench and I know how to use it. Work, blast you! (KLANG!) There you go.

But Tellarites aren’t listed. Foo. A little digging shows they’re relegated to Book 3, the Starfleet Operation’s Manual, a slim “splatbook” of additional player rules and options. But they’re also in Book 5, Aliens, with slightly different modifiers and more detailed rules. For simplicity’s sake, I will use the Book 3 version.Amusingly, Engineering is preferred for them, as they’re detail-oriented perfectionists. So by coincidence, it’s a perfect fit.

Stat-wise, I get +1 Vitality and -2 Presence.

Second step is to choose a Profession.This is, of course, Starship Officer (Operations). Which means I gain the Starship Operations Professional Ability, and then I must choose the Starship Engineer Elite Profession. Which has a bunch of skill prerequisites, but we didn’t get to picking skills yet. Go figure.

So now attribute. I will choose a random method: Roll 2d6 9 times, discard the three lowest, and then arrange.

9,4,7,8,11,9,8, 7,10. So I discard 4, 7,7 and arrange:

Ranx Grillon
Agility: 9 (+1)
Intellect: 11 (+2)
Presence: 6 (0)
Perception: 10 (+2)
Strength:8 (+1)
Vitality:  9 (+1)

(Tellarite mods added in.)

Skills require picking a personal development package (basically, background/upbringing skills) and a professional skill package (your job training). You have sets of skills to pick elements from. I will go with Engineering Brat, and when all is said and done, I have:
Engineering (Propulsion) +2
Conceal +1
Engineering (Systems) +1
Computer Use +1

And the Skill Focus (Attentive) Edge. Don’t know what it is, but it sounds good.

From the Professional skill package, I start with:

Construct +2
Engineering (Propulsion) +4
Engineering (Structural) +3
Engineering (System) +4
System Operation +2
Unarmed Combat (Self Defense) +1
Energy Weapons +1
Computer Use +2
Repair +3
Physical Science +3
Unyielding (Edge: +2 to Willpower Tests)

Adding in my Personal choices, the totals are:

Computer Use +3
Conceal +1
Construct +2
Energy Weapons +1
Engineering (Propulsion) +6
Engineering (Structural) +3
Engineering (Systems) +4
Physical Science +3
Repair +3
System Operation (Flight Control) +2
Unarmed Combat (Self Defense) +1

A +6 bonus is as high as you can get for a starting character.

I also get Int x 2, or 22, points to divide among “species skills”, which I allocate as follows:
Culture (Tellarite) +5
Culture (Vulcan) +2
Culture (Human) +2
History (Federation) +2
World (Tellar) +3
Politics (Federation) +2
Language (Tellarite) +4
Language (Vulcan) +2

I also meet the qualifications for Starship Engineer. This lets me gain Engineering Expertise (Propulsion), granting me a Physical Sciences/2 bonus, or +2, for a total of +8 when dealing with “make it go” technology.

Ranx likes things that go fast. He is always seeking ways to squeeze 0.0001% more performance out of the warp core. As a meticulous, perfectionist Tellarite, he is not likely to do so by overriding the safety interlocks, but he will deem other systems as “nonessential” and try to route power or resources his way and become angry when his objectively-superior and perfectly justified beliefs are opposed. (“I have studied human dietary needs. ‘Flavor’ and ‘texture’ are not required for nutrients! If the rest of the crew would be rational and accept a diet of grey paste, I could utilize 81% of the replicator’s energy and subsystems to make us go 0.25% faster! Faster, do you creatures understand? What’s wrong with you?”)

I also get an Edge. But while looking through Edges, it seems, Skill Focus (Attentive) does not exist. I’ll switch to the other option I had, Skill Focus (3D Thinking). For the Edge I pick, I will go with Exceptional Concentration.

For Every Reaction, There Is An Equal And Opposite Die Roll

Reactions are, basically, saving throws. Each is calculated based on the better of two given attributes. I have:
Quickness: +2
Savvy: +2
Stamina: +1
Willpower: +4 (Includes +2 from Unyielding)

Other derived attributes include:
Defense: 8
Health: 8

This game uses a Wound Level system, so the first 8 points have no effect on me, the next 8 makes me Dazed, the next 8 Injured, and so on, with corresponding penalties. These “death spiral” mechanics are more realistic than “1 hit point left out of 100 = fully functional, 0 left out of 100 = dying”, but they also can be annoying as players “forget” to apply their negative modifiers during a fight.

No Lions Need Apply

Courage is another stat, which is actually a “Hero Point” type mechanic. I start with 3, as does everyone. Typical for these mechanics, you gain a bonus on die rolls from spending it, you regain them all at the end of each session, and the GM may speed up recovery if you spend Courage doing heroic, noble, or plot-advancing deeds.

Renown: That’d be zero, since I am just starting out.

Reporting For Duty!

And we’re done! Again, I’ve made a character I’d enjoy playing, although I admit, from a roleplaying perspective, playing an abrasive technology-obsessed character who deems other beings’ desires inherently wrong and ill-headed and is happy to explain, at great length, precisely why he’s correct, while contemptuously dismissing all arguments to the contrary would be a bit of a stretch for me. Can’t really get into the head of someone like that.

1: Not a typo.