Some Submissions are Unusable
This is Steven Petrick posting.
We have a lot of creative customers who send in their own ideas, and when we can we try to use them. Some take the time to try to do our work for us, and sometimes they do such good jobs that we are able to use what they send with only a little editing.
The problem is that sometimes we get things where the customer has done a lot of work, but the customer saw fit to include his own ideas of where thing should go and how things should be without asking us if this was a good idea.
Some recent examples from one customer (no, I am not going to name names as there is no intent here to embarrass anyone, just to try to use a lessons learned format).
A customer really, really, likes the Iridani from their background. So he wrote us an article to use in Captain's Log in which he determined that the Iridani had appointed themselves as more or less the peacekeepers and law enforcers of the Omega Octant. He determined that all "quests" were assigned by the Iridani King, and the King used his central control of the quests to assign ships to missions that would enable Iridani ships to help empires that the author liked, and hinder empires that the author (essentially taking on the role of the Iridani King himself) did not like.
This was, of course, inconsistent with what we already knew of Iridani background. Indeed, the only extant campaign in the Omega Octant so far is in fact an Iridani quest, and it takes only a short examination of it to determine that our questing knight is basically on a piracy campaign. And among those he is conducting operations against are some of those empires the author thinks the Iridani should get along with. The quest this knight (Sir Bonnaventure) is on is not assigned by the King, but rather self-imposed.
The reality of the Iridani is that they have a King, but the king is not all powerful. Individual knights, dukes, barons, and whatall can assign themselves quests, or challenge others to go on quests, and yes even the King can impose quests when the Iridani honor code allows it. But there is no central control, and a quest might simply be a group of knights (or other nobles) literally banding together to try to make a little money by piracy as their "quest." Again, see Bonnaventure's quest or the backgrounds of several of the published scenarios.
One of the things that does not yet exist for Omega Octant is its own version of (S8.0). For now, they would skate off the existing (S8.0). But the Magellanic Cloud (Module C5) has its own version. Our author thought it would be a good idea to do one for Omega Octant. But again, his love of the Iridani stepped in. He decided to include in this write up that the Iridani would never, ever, under any circumstances work in conjunction with the Zosman Marauders, or the Andromedans, or the Souldra. By his own fiat he determined that if an Iridani ship was ever in a scenario with those three empires, it would have to be the odd man out that the other three could ally to destroy. No negotiation, Iridani honor demands the player of the Iridani ship die rather than try to work a deal. He extended this that if a player wanted to create a battle group of Koligahr ships that happened to include an attached Zosman mercenary ship and an Iridani mercenary ship . . . you could not. He made it illegal. The Iridani ship would refuse to serve with the Zosman ship.
He had other restrictions applying to empires he thought noble. (Can you picture never having a scenario where a Federation ship was working with an Orion Pirate ship?)
I have no doubt that the author put a lot of work into his version of Omega Patrol Scenario rules, but once you got into his (for want of a better term) "honor restrictions" it was unworkable.
I do not, at this time, know what a "grand quest" order of battle would look like for the Iridani trying to retake their home from the Andromedans. I would, however, be more than willing to bet that it was not all just Iridani ships. I would bet that they made up a large portion of the Quest, but also that they would have hired (which might include calling in favors from the other Omega Octant empires that quests might have helped) whatever other ships they could. And I do not think they would have quibbled at including Zosman mercenary ships in the quest.
We have a lot of creative customers who send in their own ideas, and when we can we try to use them. Some take the time to try to do our work for us, and sometimes they do such good jobs that we are able to use what they send with only a little editing.
The problem is that sometimes we get things where the customer has done a lot of work, but the customer saw fit to include his own ideas of where thing should go and how things should be without asking us if this was a good idea.
Some recent examples from one customer (no, I am not going to name names as there is no intent here to embarrass anyone, just to try to use a lessons learned format).
A customer really, really, likes the Iridani from their background. So he wrote us an article to use in Captain's Log in which he determined that the Iridani had appointed themselves as more or less the peacekeepers and law enforcers of the Omega Octant. He determined that all "quests" were assigned by the Iridani King, and the King used his central control of the quests to assign ships to missions that would enable Iridani ships to help empires that the author liked, and hinder empires that the author (essentially taking on the role of the Iridani King himself) did not like.
This was, of course, inconsistent with what we already knew of Iridani background. Indeed, the only extant campaign in the Omega Octant so far is in fact an Iridani quest, and it takes only a short examination of it to determine that our questing knight is basically on a piracy campaign. And among those he is conducting operations against are some of those empires the author thinks the Iridani should get along with. The quest this knight (Sir Bonnaventure) is on is not assigned by the King, but rather self-imposed.
The reality of the Iridani is that they have a King, but the king is not all powerful. Individual knights, dukes, barons, and whatall can assign themselves quests, or challenge others to go on quests, and yes even the King can impose quests when the Iridani honor code allows it. But there is no central control, and a quest might simply be a group of knights (or other nobles) literally banding together to try to make a little money by piracy as their "quest." Again, see Bonnaventure's quest or the backgrounds of several of the published scenarios.
One of the things that does not yet exist for Omega Octant is its own version of (S8.0). For now, they would skate off the existing (S8.0). But the Magellanic Cloud (Module C5) has its own version. Our author thought it would be a good idea to do one for Omega Octant. But again, his love of the Iridani stepped in. He decided to include in this write up that the Iridani would never, ever, under any circumstances work in conjunction with the Zosman Marauders, or the Andromedans, or the Souldra. By his own fiat he determined that if an Iridani ship was ever in a scenario with those three empires, it would have to be the odd man out that the other three could ally to destroy. No negotiation, Iridani honor demands the player of the Iridani ship die rather than try to work a deal. He extended this that if a player wanted to create a battle group of Koligahr ships that happened to include an attached Zosman mercenary ship and an Iridani mercenary ship . . . you could not. He made it illegal. The Iridani ship would refuse to serve with the Zosman ship.
He had other restrictions applying to empires he thought noble. (Can you picture never having a scenario where a Federation ship was working with an Orion Pirate ship?)
I have no doubt that the author put a lot of work into his version of Omega Patrol Scenario rules, but once you got into his (for want of a better term) "honor restrictions" it was unworkable.
I do not, at this time, know what a "grand quest" order of battle would look like for the Iridani trying to retake their home from the Andromedans. I would, however, be more than willing to bet that it was not all just Iridani ships. I would bet that they made up a large portion of the Quest, but also that they would have hired (which might include calling in favors from the other Omega Octant empires that quests might have helped) whatever other ships they could. And I do not think they would have quibbled at including Zosman mercenary ships in the quest.
posted by Federation Commander at 2:05 PM
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