Rules Lawyers and how to deal with them.
- Thread starter Murph
- Start date
For SFB there were times it felt like we argued more over the rules than actually played the game. In fact I'm fairly sure that's an accurate statement. The famous explosion strength of an Andromedan Dominator self destructing with ships in the hangar, or the ECM debates, tractor debates, or the "How many drones can a Fed CVA group handle" ... the list goes on and on.
But comparatively, does TCS have all that many rules? IIRC most of the book is dedicated to building a fleet. Again, many apologies as all my stuff is locked up right now, so I can't reference it.
Compared to SFB, proportionally, TCS has zero rules.
The complaints are not TCS, but High Guard, since the only reason you make a 19,999 ton ship is because of the HG size DMs, which has nothing to do with TCS. The reason you make a 19,999 ton is to get the most tonnage for your credit while dodging a -1 DM.
SFB gets a bad wrap historically, but, frankly, the Captains (Doomsday) Editions clean up so much of the game. The problem with SFB is simply the geometric explosion of effects as all of the different systems and technologies interact.
Ship explosion damage is vastly redefined as well -- you did not want to be around a gorged ISC ship with PPDs and plasmas loaded. I saw two fleets (an ISC and a Hydran) just daisy chain in explosions back in the day. That was something to see. It was also Turn 1. That turn went much quicker after the bulk of both fleets were gone. That can't happen today though.
But, finally, these arguments are part of what make games like SFB so amazing. There are a lot of rules, there are a lot of edge cases, and a lot of interactions, which provide the just huge amount of depth to the game. They're part and parcel with it, and something that, at least for me, made it such a rewarding play experience, and just enormous replay value.
When you watch a C7 eat 4 Type IV drones through a shield the player himself dropped, because he screwed up the sequence of play, that's not rule lawyering. It's not cheating, it's not unfair. It's the game. It was even a friendly game (everyone was laughing as the blood drained out of the Klingons face). That was simply perfect. A few impulses later, after his front shield popped back up, there was a ship completely gutted and black with damage -- and 6, perfect shields for the rest of the turn.
And yes, the player asked for mercy, and no, nobody gave it to him
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Love it
I was not present for the following, but, friends were doing the Operation Unity Campaign against the Andros. This was pre-Captains. Commanders Edition, I believe. And one of the players had a Kzinti Super Space Control Ship, with all fighters and PFs launched. Said SSCS was in the back corner at the complete opposite end of the map from the Andros, who were hanging out in the "A" sector of the map, which he was in the "H" sector (if you recall, the old SFB map had the folded segments lettered).
Allegedly, and this is completely anecdotal, the Fed and Klingon player, with the Kzinti's fighters and PFs, charged the Andro player, and popped his Dominator. Said dominator wiped out the map. The SSCS, with all power reserves, threw everything into reinforcing it's #1 shield, but apparently that was not enough. Everything on the map was obliterated.o:
To this day, even though I wasn't there, it has been my contention that someone did some serious miscalculation of Dominator explosion strength, even though this was pre-Captain's edition.
You just don't see that with Traveller
I was not present for the following, but, friends were doing the Operation Unity Campaign against the Andros. This was pre-Captains. Commanders Edition, I believe. And one of the players had a Kzinti Super Space Control Ship, with all fighters and PFs launched. Said SSCS was in the back corner at the complete opposite end of the map from the Andros, who were hanging out in the "A" sector of the map, which he was in the "H" sector (if you recall, the old SFB map had the folded segments lettered).
Allegedly, and this is completely anecdotal, the Fed and Klingon player, with the Kzinti's fighters and PFs, charged the Andro player, and popped his Dominator. Said dominator wiped out the map. The SSCS, with all power reserves, threw everything into reinforcing it's #1 shield, but apparently that was not enough. Everything on the map was obliterated.
o:To this day, even though I wasn't there, it has been my contention that someone did some serious miscalculation of Dominator explosion strength, even though this was pre-Captain's edition.
You just don't see that with Traveller
Truth be told, all Captain's did was redistribute the problems to other areas...
Explosions under captains are less dangerous, thanks to fixed values.
And post Captain's, they kept adding more and more and more...
I started with Designer's ed; played commander's and captains... Quit playing around 1999 due no one left willing to spend the effort to learn the nightmare of rules.
Of the roughly 1500 distinct ships I've got SSD's for, I think between my friends and I, we may have used 200 total different ships each, and maybe 600 amongst the 6 of us...
And half the rulebook (not counting the scenarios) never got touched, or got used once and never again.
last I counted, SFB was averaging 600+ ships per race, not counting upgrades, 14 main races (Fed, Kli, Kzi, Lyr, Hyd, LDR, Wyn, Rom, Gorn, ISC, Thol, NeoThol, Selt, Jind), 8+ simulator races, several tholian old galaxy races (tho I don't have them)... (Counting upgrades, the feds have 148 in the latest MSC I've got and more added since then.)
TCS+HG generates complexity not from multiplicity of systems, nor complexity of individual rules, but from lack of restraints on design, and by allowing one to design one's own ships. No restraints upon abuses.
(break from writing adventure material
)I quit SFB for many reasons, the addition of ships and more systems was one of them. For Traveller ship to ship combat, the rules are pretty basic, and since it's an RPG the wargaming factor is kept to a minimum.
SFB, to me, at one point, was a healthy extension of Star Trek minus the proper nouns. Whether the core create forces of the TV series like it or not was immaterial, because we the fans liked it, and it was neat to see "stuff" beyond what the drama of the TV series could show the audience.
It still has a small like vibe to it, but said vibe is nearly drowned out by weapons, devices and abilities which derive their properties from trying to game the rules as opposed to bringing something that's really unique and innovative for a tactical challenge, and perhaps to allow the players to imagine how a Captain Kirk type might confront said thing with the Enterprise.
It's not a "Star Trek" game anymore. It's a game that has Star Trek components to sell it to people.
Traveller makes no such claims, and offers an empty tableau for people to create their own sci-fi combat situations. And if you're doing ACS ship combat, then your characters can get involved too (I've never done a game with PCs in a TCS game ... I'm sure it's fairly entertaining).
Granted Star Fleet Battles and Trillion Credit Squadron each have their problems with Rules Lawyers, but to some degree those systems actually seem to encourage rules lawyering. Ships with J-4/M-6, needle configuration, Meson screen 9, nuclear damper 9, Meson J or T, in the 1,999/19,999.74,999 ton systems are the illogical logical extreme for TCS. Which of course the Rules Lawyers will take complete and absolute advantage of in the game.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Murph, you keep posting this, but I can tell you it is not possible to build the ships you talk about without reducing their agility to such a point they are sitting ducks to j3 a6 designs.
If you have j4 and a6 meson screen 9 and nuclear damper 9 then you have little or no armour and my PA spinals tear you apart, not to mention the degradation my non-nuke factor 9 missile bays cause.
It doesn't matter if you build to the break points because my jump 3 ships have the agility you lack and the armour you can not afford.
Post the designs you think are munchkin, they are either broken or house ruled designs.
The only defence that works against spinal PAs is to be big enough that you don't take the crits (which is way beyond the breakpoints for size) or have enough armour to mitigate the crits.
Post the designs.
If you have j4 and a6 meson screen 9 and nuclear damper 9 then you have little or no armour and my PA spinals tear you apart, not to mention the degradation my non-nuke factor 9 missile bays cause.
It doesn't matter if you build to the break points because my jump 3 ships have the agility you lack and the armour you can not afford.
Post the designs you think are munchkin, they are either broken or house ruled designs.
The only defence that works against spinal PAs is to be big enough that you don't take the crits (which is way beyond the breakpoints for size) or have enough armour to mitigate the crits.
Post the designs.
Mike, I don't know how they did it, but they did. It was 20+ years ago, but they did, and I think (IIRC) that the theory was the spinal J and T ships would eat the PA armed ships, and the configuration gave a bonus. It has been so long, I can't recall the exact stats other than those I quoted. One of the players designed the "Burning Cross" class of armed merchants to be 1,999 tons, and I cannot recall the stats, but it was a darn hard target to hit. We quit playing TCS shortly thereafter since all the fleets looked the same.
I later moved the bar to 2,500 tons, 25,000 tons, and 100,000 tons for a while, but finally said F*** it, and we just ignored TCS and mainly played in a small ship universe for the players. If the Imperial/Concordat Navy showed up they had the big ships, and they tended to ruin the players days for the most part since they were always looking at some scheme borderline legal.
That is the best example, but another one is the old GDW game Soldier Kings were your troops got an increase for combat, and became veterans. Well the Guard soldiers were already maxed out, but our resident rules lawyer construed the rules that Guard soldiers would also increase so they became invincible....We had to put a "house rule" in place to cover that ambiguity.
Munchkin is a good description since one guy was definately a munchkin type player, and he caused us all difficulties. But back then (1978-1982 and then later) we tolerated it since we ran by the rule "no alignment in the party", and we forgave quite a bit. We did have another player who is now a lawyer, and his characters kept meeting...unfortunate....ends. He was a bit of a rule lawyer himself.
I later moved the bar to 2,500 tons, 25,000 tons, and 100,000 tons for a while, but finally said F*** it, and we just ignored TCS and mainly played in a small ship universe for the players. If the Imperial/Concordat Navy showed up they had the big ships, and they tended to ruin the players days for the most part since they were always looking at some scheme borderline legal.
That is the best example, but another one is the old GDW game Soldier Kings were your troops got an increase for combat, and became veterans. Well the Guard soldiers were already maxed out, but our resident rules lawyer construed the rules that Guard soldiers would also increase so they became invincible....We had to put a "house rule" in place to cover that ambiguity.
Munchkin is a good description since one guy was definately a munchkin type player, and he caused us all difficulties. But back then (1978-1982 and then later) we tolerated it since we ran by the rule "no alignment in the party", and we forgave quite a bit. We did have another player who is now a lawyer, and his characters kept meeting...unfortunate....ends. He was a bit of a rule lawyer himself.
