Testing Tribbles And Time-Travel

To: Decipher Central Command
From: Major Rakal, Tal Shiar, Romulus Sector
Re: Covert Mission to Sector 001

A couple of weekends ago, the intrepid field operatives of the Holographic Tal Shiar Barbering and Engineering Guild from numerous regions throughout two quadrants converged on Central Command Headquarters (aka the Office of Praetor Holland) in Sector 001. Our mission: to investigate the incursion of small, furry alien lifeforms that reproduce at an alarming rate and make strong Klingons hyperventilate. Or to put it another way, to playtest the next expansion, The Trouble with Tribbles. Hip-deep in tribbles and taking appropriate security precautions to keep the pesky critters from consuming our stocks of soda, Ho-Hos, chips, peppermint patties, donuts and pizza, we began building decks.

While the set will contain a variety of cards from throughout the Star Trek universe, we were most intent on testing the gameplay of the expansion's main theme: tribbles and the "crossover" Deep Space Nine episode, "Trials and Tribble-ations," bringing the DS9 crew together with the classic Trek crew on Station K-7. Federation and Klingon decks were understandably popular, but we also checked out how other affiliations such as the Romulan Star Empire, the mighty Dominion and the implacable Borg would fare against the furry nemesis as well. My first day deck pitted a Romulan mission-solving deck laced with tribbles against several Klingon decks, with and without tribbles; the second day I tested a variety of other cards including some new dilemmas and Q-icon cards, and a couple of homeworld-related cards. Here's a sneak peek behind the scenes of our tribble hunt. (Just remember that it's still early in the development process and not everything you see here may appear in exactly the same form in the final set Ð that's why we're playtesting!)

Rakal's Random Observations:

"I'm going to attempt that mission using the Enterprise-E personnel..."
"Um, Starship Enterprise."
"Right."
Despite the similarity of Captain Kirk's Starship Enterprise icon (which of course also appears on the other 23rd-century folks like Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy as well as the time-travelers like Lieutenant Sisko and Ensign O'Brien) to the Enterprise-E icon, you'll find it's much more than just a basic staffing icon. From easy reporting to efficient operation of the Starship Enterprise (no bloody A, B, C or D), you'll find it advantageous to have a selection of [SE] personnel.Besides the expected classic and DS9 characters, you'll see other crew members from the two Tribbles episodes, including a universal classic SECURITY personnel who was promptly nicknamed "Ensign Redshirt" by the playtesters. Even the classic equipment cards have been taught some new tricks to help fill in personnel skills.

"We look for things... things that make us go. Your Bynars make us go." Hmm... Mot told us that the Pakled affiliation was on the list of rejected ideas for the next expansion! Has he been holding out on us?

Battle Stations (again?) While we can't be sure at this point exactly which cards will make the cut, I saw several, including the Chain Reaction Pulsar tactic, that could affect the armada and commandeering balance of power. Empok Nor potentially becomes 33% trickier to commandeer, and another card may make you think twice before setting out to blow up your opponent's HQ.

"I want Kirk. I want Waddle. I want death." Playtesters can be very singleminded. This one was outlining what he saw as the essentials of the new time-travel mechanic to Sherman's Planet, sometimes referred to by the playtesters as "Stop Kirk Contact."

Vagh, Neral, Jaresh-Inyo, General Krim... One card might provide an added incentive to include one of these personnel, among others, in your deck.

"You will use PADDs! You will use PADDs!" Then again, you can never have too many Equipment cards.

"It was the first time I ever put a Ready Room Door in a Dominion deck." Between a new Dominion ship and the VR Headset that Gelnon can special-download, Evan found that some Captain's Orders suddenly became a lot more significant to the Dominion.

And Deep Space 9 gets a new site... The Bajorans sometime feel they don't have as much incentive to use Deep Space 9 as the Cardasians have to use Terok Nor. A new site for the station may change your mind.

The Trouble With Tribbles... ...is tribbles, tribbles and more tribbles. A few overheard comments:

"I need some more of those sticky tribbles."
"Anybody got change for a 10 Tribbles card?" We were a little unprepared for the demand for 1 Tribble cards.

"There ought to be some way to get rid of sticky tribbles."
"How about a Breen CRM114?" Seems like a good way to expand the functionality of a specialized weapon.

"It was a drive-by Tribbling."
One player found it easier to breed tribbles on his own ship before delivering them to his opponent.

"I put every Cardassian with Transporter Skill in here and I still couldn't get enough."
"I'll report K'chiQ and give her Transporter Skill."
"Does anyone know what Romulans have Transporter Skill besides Lovok?"
Forget about Anti-Matter Pods and Orion Syndicate Bombs Ð the real reason for Transporter Skill is now revealed to be tribbles.

"Tribbles are irrelevant."
Of course, if you can share Transporter Skill through an Interlink Drone, you probably have all you'll ever need. Three guesses what affiliation this player was playing.

"I had 2,560 tribbles on my outpost and there was no way I could get rid of them."
Maybe that Breen CRM114 would help.

"Population 4 Billion -- All Tribbles."
OK, so we used proxies for some of them.

Resistance is futile
One innocent tribble handed to my Major Rakal, and before she could put it down, the Continuing Committee was overrun with them. Next they moved down the hall and took over the Office of the Proconsul. It certainly put a crimp in my plans to report all those free personnel. But fortunately, I managed to secure Romulus before the tribbles spilled out onto the planet and engulfed it.

Increasingly random observations:

"I hate it when Isabella goes marauding down the spaceline."
When you don't have enough Borg Ship dilemmas to go around, almost anything will do for a proxy.

"Somebody swapped a persona! Somebody swapped a persona!"
I didn't think it was that infrequent an occurrence, but Bill's jubilant exclamation brought cheers from the whole group.

"This card bites!"
This playtester wasn't disparaging the designer's efforts; the card in question bites in the same way that the Black Hole sucks.

"I may be a geek, but at least I'm not wearing a classic communicator toy like Bill."
Tim may not agree, but Bill got my vote for Most Appropriate Playtest Accessory.

Rakal's Rules (with continued apologies to Robin Lefler)

•You can never have too many Chula dilemmas.
I thought he must be out of Chula ideas by now, but Tim the evil Chula designer strikes again.

•Evenwith two Headquarters, you still need an outpost.
When your homeworld is running over with tribbles, you'll be glad you have an uninfested outpost at another location.

•Temporal mechanics gives me a headache.
Let's see, should I use Wormholes or the Orb of Time or a Temporal Vortex to get to 23rd century Sherman's Planet? What will happen to the 24th century if I fail to save Captain Kirk from the Fuzzy Bomb? What century is it, again?!?

Kathy McCracken (MajorRakal@decipher.com)
February 11, 2000