"Star Fleet Fast Play" Topic

I thought I would just post this incase anyone would be interested in seeing/using it.
Our gaming group has a set of house rules we use when we want to feel like we have played SFB with out the anguish of having played SFB. We can take 15-20 ships and blow them up in 2-3 hours. The rules are also great for conventions since the rules, one page, take about 5 minutes to explain. Obviously these rules are more in line with Starmada and FullTrust.
The SSD's are taken directly from SFB. There is only 3 impulses per turn, no energy allocation, no hit location roles and some other things that always slowed SFB down.
We did include the speed or overload choice, for the flavor, drones and plasmas are handled as direct fire weapons still affected by phaser fire and WW's. Theres more to it then just that but you get the idea.
Anyway, take a look if you like, try them out if you want. Heres the link in my yahoo group, leave a comment if you like. Happy gaming all.

link

gamer

This is going to sound like a silly question, but have you looked at Federation Commander yet?

Ages ago they came out with a card damage system for SFB. You just drew the number of cards equal to your hits and applied the results. Cards were like: "Fwd Hull", or "Primary weapon right side or aux gen". If you didn't have any hits left in the area(s) specified then the hit went to excess damage. Greatly speeded up play and you didn't have to wear a ship down to nothing to destroy it. If you hit a ship well enough and got the right mix of cards, it could make a large explosion as excess hits were exceeded and the ships "magazine blew".

Ya, we have played Fed Commander and it is about twice as fast as old SFB but if you wanted to do 20 ships that means it only takes you 6 hours instead of 12:(
Yes we have the cards and yes they also save time but there are other factors that still slow it down to a crawl in huge battles like the 32 impulses, always having to double check that little know rule like in what order of the impulse can you do this, etc.
Don't get me wrong I love SFB and only God knows how many hours I spent enjoying it. I just know that IF there is any negative about it, its usually about the time it takes to play.
Just thought I would put this up incase some one was wishing they could play a large SFB battle in a short amount of time. As they say in 12 step meetings, take what you like, leave the rest.

I feel exactly as you do gamer1. I always say I like the idea of playing SFB better than actually playing. Fed Commander is faster, but they didn't do enough to streamline the system to make playing large forces that much less of a headache. I'd rather just play a smaller game of SFB myself. I've been reading up on the Starmada Klingon Armada book and liking what I see, but I'll take a look at your rules as well. Thanks for sharing. :)

I started playing SFB when it was the little pocket book edition. It was fun then. Even the expansions in that format were simple and fun. SFB is *the* example of a game gone wildly out of control. Not fun. Not managable. The person with the enycopeadic knowledge of rules will win.

All I can say is that I think ADB blew it. They had a great game that could have been one of the all time greats. Instead it has become the example used by anyone trying to make a point about the danger of adding "features".

Better link to the Yahoo! Group: link

I downloaded the rules and the 4 player races (Fed, Klingon, Romulan and Gorn). I noticed the rules included Hellbores and ESG though….as well as drones. Did anyone make ship lists for the Hydrans, Lyrans and Kzintis as well???

Xrays is right, of course… the original game pretty much collapsed under the weight of its own rules… but considering everything else the company ever did was a colossal failure, can you blame them? They had to keep the company going to have jobs, and the one thing that consistently sold was SFB stuff.

Editor, thanks for the help. Subwind I do have SSD's for several of the lyran and hydran ships as well. I haven't taken the time to post them yet because I figured I would wait to see if any one wanted them or not. I can tell you that I made them based on the SFB SSD's.
Obviously any questions you can ask in the yahoo group. I will be curious to hear about any games any one runs with the rules to see if they enjoyed them or not.

gamer1

Thanks again for the input and the intrest in the group. If there are any ships or rules that those that have been interested would like to see feel free to let me know.

Travis

Just an update for those that have been interested there is a rules update for maulers, statis field generators and scout functions along with SSD's for several maulers.

Thanks,
Good Hunting,

Travis

You should take a look at the new Klingon Starmada supplement. It's everything I hoped Federation Commander would be in that it condenses SFB into a much quicker game without having to worry about impulses and energy allocation.