Star Trek Customizable Card Game
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The Star Trek Customizable Card Game is a collectible card game based on the Star Trek universe. The name is commonly abbreviated as STCCG. It was first introduced in 1994 by Decipher, Inc., under the name Star Trek: The Next Generation Customizable Card Game. The game now has two distinct editions, though both forms of the game have many common elements.
Contents |
[edit] Standard elements
The standard central goal for a player of STCCG is to obtain 100 points, primarily by completing missions or objectives. This is done by bringing personnel, ships and equipment into play, then moving an attempting team to a mission. Once a mission attempt starts, the personnel will create away teams to encounter dilemmas which will challenge them in some way. Often if the personnel have the required skills or attributes they can overcome certain dilemmas' effects. Once the required dilemmas are passed, the personnel still active in the attempt must have the skills and/or attribute totals required by the mission to solve it. If the mission is solved, the player earns the printed points.
Other aspects of the game increase player interactions: ships and personnel can battle, or otherwise affect each other; cards like events and interrupts can alter the environment for one or more players; and points can be scored using methods other than mission solving.
One of the most attractive themes of the game is the differences between affiliations. These are groupings of ships and personnel based on the major interstellar powers of the Star Trek universe, and most decks will be based around one, or perhaps two, of these groups though first edition in particular allows the use of many powers.
[edit] First Edition
| Star Trek Customizable Card Game (1st Edition) | |
|---|---|
| Players | 2 |
| Age range | 8 and up |
| Setup time | 15 minutes |
| Playing time | 1 hour |
| Random chance | Low |
| Skills required | Deck optimization, Planning, Strategy |
What is now known as First Edition (commonly abbreviated "1E") among players is the original conception of the game, through various designers and iterations. As mentioned above, it was first licensed only to cover Star Trek: The Next Generation, and the first three card sets were limited to that show's universe. As such, the only affiliations created were the Federation, Klingons, and Romulans, plus a placeholder for other groups called Non-Aligned. This narrow scope caused little attraction for players, and it was felt that only five more sets could be released before running the full course of available material.
In 1997, Decipher announced that a wider scope had now been licensed for the game: DS9, Voyager and the TNG movies would soon be depicted in new cards, thus the game's name was shortened to the existing title. The First Contact set arrived late that year, based on the film Star Trek: First Contact; that set introduced the Borg affiliation, among other new concepts.
This was soon followed by several sets based on situations in DS9; these introduced affiliations for the Bajorans, Cardassians, Dominion, and Ferengi, along with enhanced systems for battling and capturing. The era of these expansions is considered by many players to be the 'golden age' of First Edition.
Two more sets featuring Original Series cards came next (when that property was added to the license), followed by sets drawing heavily on Voyager which introduced the new, but smaller Kazon, Vidiian, and Hirogen affiliations. It was after this that the game began a serious decline in popularity and sales.
Sales faltered during the release of the last two sets, based on the films and on holodeck scenarios. This dip in sales resulted in Decipher taking a serious look at the game's future.
[edit] First Edition's problems
Some of Decipher's concerns included the complexity and bloat that the game had built over seven years; there was no balanced 'cost' system for cards, causing stopgap and complex systems to be added to the game over time. As well, the game had embraced many different and not fully compatible ideas over time; this made for long, corrective rules documents and a steep learning curve for beginners. In addition, the number of cards types went from nine, to over 17 in just a couple years, which made the game that much more difficult. These problems led to a questioning of the game's future.
[edit] Initial ideas
At first, the game designers sought to introduce an entire new game based on Star Trek; it would be simpler and be targeted to beginners, while the original game still produced expansions, but on a slower schedule. This concept was abandoned when the sales figures showed that the original game could not continue on its own merits.
[edit] Fan Sites
Numerous fan sites existed, the majority of which contained tournament reports and strategy articles for the first edition of the game. The most popular of these was named WNOHGB and featured the popular Ruling Britannia series of articles. There are also some sites, which developed interactive tools like card search or trade engines like Decipher-Games ST-CCG.info
[edit] Second Edition
| Star Trek Customizable Card Game (2nd Edition) | |
|---|---|
| Players | 2+ |
| Age range | 8 and up |
| Setup time | < 1 minute |
| Playing time | 1 hour |
| Random chance | Low |
| Skills required | Deck optimization, Planning, Strategy |
The solution was to reinvent the original game along the basic lines, still allowing 'complex' gameplay but avoiding complex rules and concepts. The standard card types and gameplay would remain, allowing some new cards to be used with the original cards, known as backward-compatible cards, or First Edition Compatible (abbreviated as 1EC). These cards are able to be used in First Edition gameplay, though some key words need to be changed to fit the First Edition's old rules and setup. Further information on how to use Second Edition cards in First Edition gameplay are listed in the First Edition Conversion Rules. Many cards central to the new form of the game can only conform to the new rules and setup. Second Edition, commonly abbreviated "2E", was launched in 2002, and came to a close with its final expansion in December, 2007.[1]
Because the game was essentially starting from scratch with the hindsight of seven years' work, the initial Second Edition set was able to progress quickly. As a result, five affiliations debuted in that set compared to three for the original. It could be argued that the number was really six, because of a unique new system that divided the Federation affiliation into groupings based on the shows' casts. The focus of the Second Edition sets has been on characters and situations in The Next Generation and DS9, though 'supporting' cards have images and concepts drawn from every part of the canon Star Trek universe.
[edit] Cost/Resources
One major difference in Second Edition was the addition of a cost system to personnel, events, equipment, and ships. A card's cost is listed in the top left-hand corner of a card, directly preceding the card's title as a single digit number. A player receives seven 'counters' at the beginning of each turn; to play a card, the player must expend a number of counters equal to the cost of the card. Interrupts do not have a cost; when a game effect target's an interrupt's cost, it is treated as zero.
[edit] Dilemma pile
Another major change in the gameplay of Second Edition was the new method of handling dilemmas. Instead of using First Edition's lengthy procedure of a 'seed phase', which could last upwards of 15 minutes, Second Edition employs an 'on-the-fly' method for constructing dilemma combinations. Whereas a First Edition player was constrained to using the same dilemmas in each game of a tournament, the Second Edition player has a side deck, or 'dilemma pile' from which to draw a random selection of dilemmas based on the number of personnel the opponent uses in a given mission attempt. This concept is similar to First Edition's Q-Flash side deck, and also to a rules variant of First Edition introduced by a group of players from the San Francisco area called 'Trek 1.5'. This more dynamic method of selecting dilemmas is dependent on a player's ability to remember which personnel his/her opponent has played, and their ability to satisfy a dilemma's requirements.
[edit] Gameplay considerations
While First Edition attempted to sometimes literally represent instances from the Star Trek universe in the game, Second Edition has focused more on a consistency of gameplay as a priority over design consideration with regard to remaining faithful to the source material. Effects on cards sometimes lack the "Trek sense" that First Edition cards contained, but are generally much more equitable when compared with other similarly costed effects.
[edit] Reporting icons
One aspect of affiliation uniqueness that Second Edition has continued is specialized reporting icons. While not a new idea (First Edition's Mirror, Mirror set first featured Empire and Alliance icons for affiliated personnel and ships), Second Edition's widespread utilization of the icon as a cultural identifier has allowed designers to introduce support cards that better represent the various Trek shows' themes. This is the primary tool to divide the Federation affiliation into separate groups (The Original Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager each have an icon representing their personnel and ships.) Other likeminded groups can have these icons as well; the Maquis incorporate members of three different affiliations into their arsenal, while the Terok Nor personnel and ships represent the brief period of Cardassian/Dominion command of Deep Space Nine.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Star Trek CCG Ends Long Run (HTML) (2007-12-04). Retrieved on 2008-01-03.
[edit] External links
- Decipher web site
- Second Edition homepage
- First Edition homepage
- Garak's Star Trek CCG DataBase
- Star Trek CCG Online Database & DeckPADD
- Official European Championships 2007 Website
- 1ELives.com - Independent Star Trek CCG 1st Edition fan site with current information, deck designs and some card images.de:Star-Trek-Spiele
sv:Star Trek CCG
