Design Log: Stardate 07.30.2003

Call to Arms: Lotsa New Stuff. No New Rules.

One of the major problems that bogged down Star Trek CCG First Edition was the sheer volume of the rules. Oh, the original rulebook was tiny, sure. But nearly every expansion set brought a new rules supplement, because nearly every set had new mechanics that weren't entirely (or at all) card-based. First Contact, for example, was the worst: a six-pane foldout that had about five 8x10 pages of new rules, from objectives, assimilation, timeline disruption, and scouting to regions of space, countdown icons, downloading, and a complete revamp of personnel battles. Soon, prospective new players turned away when they found out they had to gather a dozen rules documents together and assemble them in the right order to figure out what the rules were now. Even consolidation into a comprehensive glossary couldn't do anything to cut down the volume of rules (though it did finally get them all in one place).

Small wonder that one of the major design goals for Second Edition was to keep everything card-based as much as possible, instead of bloating the rulebook with supplements of new rules. And the designers have succeeded spectacularly in meeting that goal. Energize didn't have even a tiny rules sheet, and now Call to Arms, even with two completely new affiliations – the two which in First Edition resulted in the worst ballooning of the rules – has a new rulebook included in its starter decks, but no new or vastly changed rules, just improved clarity and the inclusion of the handful of errata and clarifications currently housed in the modest one-page Current Rulings document. That's right, no new rules to learn!

This probably brings two questions to mind: Does that mean there's nothing new in Call to Arms? And, how the heck did we do the Borg and the Dominion without rules for infiltrating, assimilating, skill-sharing... all that flavorsome Borg and Dominion stuff? Well, as the title of this Design Log says, there's lotsa new stuff, but still no new rules; and to the second question, the answer is, "It's in the cards." Literally.

What kind of new stuff? (Besides the obvious, "Two new affiliations and their associated new card templates.") Infiltration. Assimilation. Skill-sharing. Delta quadrant missions. New icons. Missions that Borg can attempt (not scout – that's be new rules!) and solve. Missions that combine some aspects of First Edition objectives with traditional missions. New keywords. New uses for old keywords that until now didn't do anything particular. New twists on dilemmas and new dilemma-manipulation cards for better dilemma strategy.

Whew! Now I suppose you'd like to see some examples, huh? There's one of them up there – Hunt Alien. New quadrant icon – treated exactly like the old ones in terms of movement (add 2 to the spans when moving between quadrants). You don't need to go through contortions (or Transwarp Network Gateways) to get to and from the Delta Quadrant. It can be attempted by Borg or Klingon affiliations – in exactly the same way. The Borg don't need an objective to let them scout it, and there are no restrictions on how many Borg you can send to the planet (just keeping in mind that dilemmas like Pinned Down will affect the Borg exactly as they affect other affiliations).

Infiltration is a perfect example of one of those rules-laden First Edition mechanics. Infiltrators had a special icon, turned into the infiltrated affiliation when they were actually infiltrating, had complicated rules for what actions you could take with them while infiltrating, could be exposed by the persona they were impersonating (if any) but not by an opponent's copy of the same infiltrator, and didn't really have all that much they could do to mess with your opponent. The Second Edition infiltration mechanic, exemplified by Pseudopod, I think you'll agree is much cleaner. "Infiltration" is a new keyword (as is "Morph") – in this case, one found on verb cards. It lets you use your Infiltrator (another keyword, not an icon!) to kill an opponent's personnel present, at the cost of returning the Infiltrator to hand. No complicated "storyline" rules about how he infiltrates; just get him present with the opposing personnel and play the interrupt as an Order.

But what about assimilation, you say. Surely there must be some rules to govern how that works? Nope. Think about what assimilation really meant in terms of First Edition gameplay, once you stripped away the rules about names, icon changes, and what became "irrelevant": your Borg took control of an opponent's personnel, so it worked for you. In Second Edition terms, you "command" cards rather than "conrol" them – and that's just what a card does that allows assimilation, like Abduction: it lets you take command of an opponent's personnel under appropriate circumstances. Subcommand icons have been eliminated in favor of using the same staffing icons everyone else has, so there's nothing to convert; classifications are already gone in Second Edition, and gender isn't used, making them irrelevant to everyone, not just Borg. But the net result is the same: you now have assimilated and command an opponent's personnel, just as you did in First Edition – but you didn't have to memorize a bunch of rules to do it.

Of course, there are plenty of other assimilation and infiltration cards besides Pseudopod and Abduction, but this should give you a taste of how Borg and Dominion "flavor" has been provided without fattening the rules. Watch for more in upcoming designer's notes from Evan Lorentz and Brad DeFruiter. The other "new stuff" I'll leave for future Design Logs.

Kathy McCracken
Major Rakal
Star Trek Intelligence Officer

July 30, 2003

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