My Personal Opinions

Well, my web site was shut down for several days due to ADB's official web policy. I am now bringing it back up, but you should expect major changes within the next few weeks. Technically, none of the following are allowed on any authorized site:

This means that a large amount of material on my site is going to be taken down over the next few weeks. I will have to find it a new home on the web. For those who have material posted on my site:

You must (by June 1) decide if you are willing to submit your material to ADB. At that point, they would own rights to it and can do with it as they please -- but they should in most cases give their permission to post it unless they decide it is something they may print. If you want your material submitted, then just send me email at jhkim@fnal.gov, and it will automatically be "submitted" to ADB.

If you do not want to do so, I respect that. I am not abandoning such material, but I will need to find it another home at which to live. Where I do not currently know, but I don't have to decide until June 1.

Web Policy

Personally, I disapprove of the ADB web policy both in terms of the legal rights it claims and the attitude it takes towards players. The essence of ADB's policy is to convince players to voluntarily accept the restrictions on "authorized" sites (none of which can be legally forced), under the threat of enforcing their copyright to an extreme extent.

ADB makes the specific claims that they have copyright over tables as generic as the movement cost tables, which consist of the numbers 1 through 30 multiplied by a constant (like 1/2 or 2/3). Further, they claim that printing of the 6-12 numbers in a turn mode chart automatically constitutes more than "fair use" of a copyrighted work, regardless of whether it is for profit or not. To my knowledge, this is not substantiated by any legal ruling, and ADB has not provided references to back this.

Now, my site certainly had many genuinely copyright-infringing elements to it. Examples would include variants of an ADB-produced ship like my Federation Cloak-Hunter Cruiser, or reproduction of handy rules tables from my Play Aids section. These are undoubtably "derivative works" similar to fan fiction. Legally, ADB is justified in blocking distribution of player-designed variants just as Paramount could attempt to block distribution of Star Trek fan-fiction. However, doing so would seem to be a move guaranteed to turn off fans of the game and do little else.

By comparison, many games companies allow players to freely post material for use with their games as long as they provide appropriate disclaimers. For example, Steve Jackson Games has an online policy which has similar requirements for "authorization" as ADB. However, they say that non-authorized sites are free to create and post original characters and scenarios for use with their games.

For other examples, see the online policies of TSR, as well as Palladium Books, and Games Workshop as posted on their sites.

It appears that in the past, TSR has had a more restrictive policy, as dicussed on Jim Vasilikos' page on the TSR Copyright Debate, which includes a page on the online policies of other game companies.

My Current Activity

Right at the moment my time on SFB will be taken up with re-organizing my website to comply with "authorized" requirements and finding places for material that will not be allowed on my site when/if it becomes authorized.

I have basically stopped designing new ships as it became clear that (1) I didn't have time to try them out, and (2) there are by this time more ship variants, official and unofficial, than one can shake a stick at. There are over 1000 official SSD's, and hundreds more on the web.

I guess I am getting back to thoughts on how to make the game more playable. I have been pondering for a while the idea of a much simpler version of the rulebook which would be sufficient for tournament play -- I will release what I have soon. If you want my opinion of my game as a whole, I review it more thoroughly in the pro's and con's section of my introduction to SFB.

The Future of SFB

SFB has not produced any new products for over three years. See my product news page for specifics, but basically a clash over the liscensing meant that nothing new has come out for SFB for two years and the old material has gone out of print.

So until we have something more than promises from the company, new stuff for SFB is by players, for players. This is pretty much the purpose of my pages. Whether this will survive in the face of ADB pressure remains in doubt.

Rules Structure
Even the basic rules of SFB are far more complicated than they have to be, especially for tournament play. At the same time, there are a lot of rules dilemmas which are not answered. (See my rules answers page for some examples.)

At this point, I am coming to the opinion that in the ideal, SFB should be restructured to have a simple ruleset that would work for tournaments, with simple replacement and add-ons for expansions.

Doomsday was a great idea compared to the previous edition, but I think that the present game has become overburdened. Currently, the official SFB tournament uses rules which are scattered through six modules: Basic Set, Advanced Missions, Modules C1, C2, C3, J, and T. And yet the tournament itself is very simple, needing only a small fraction of these rules.

Expansions
After the deal, ADB has expressed interest mainly in new races and ships: the dreadnaughts-based R7, Module C5 (Vudar, Nicozians, Xorkaelians), and Omega. I feel that SFB already has more ships and races than anyone could ever use -- especially for those of use who are willing to use unofficial sources.

I had high hopes for Module Y (The Early Years) as a potential expansion. However, it has been many years since the playtest was released, with few signs of any support from ADB. The main input from ADB to on-line playtesters was to shoot down ideas for conjectural warp Romulans or stardrive Romulans -- with nothing to replace it (i.e. Romulans are stuck with tactically dull sublight ships).

Another idea would be an ``advanced fighters'' supplement. Fighters are great because they involve much less bookkeeping than PF's and ships (no EA or DAC). The supplement could introduce post-Y200 fighters, which include a range of fighter classes from swarm-like drone defense to PF-equivalents with 180-degree shields. Note that by expanding the variety of fighters, you can make for some all-fighter games -- quick and fast for beginners with no EA or DAC. (Perhaps include a mini-campaign in which wormholes are found which allow reaching to new territory, but only fighters can fit safely through.)

Play Aid Products
In general, SFB has a basic problem with user friendliness. Anyone who has played can attest that you must constantly scribble notes in whatever lingo you prefer to record secret information, and then fold over part of it to reveal such. The official EAF lacks lines for vital recorded information like repair and reserve power usage. The SSD freely mixes where it shows public (i.e. crew, BP's, and shuttles) and private (i.e. drone, PPT) information.

I now have a page of play aid comments which goes into detail. My suggestion is to urge ADB to consider play aids more in their releases. Currently, the only play aid supplement (and a terrific one at that), Battlecards, has been out of print for ages with no immediate plans for re-release.

Fewer General War Ships:
ADB has produced a very large number of supplements while still staying in a very small range of time and space. If you go through the R-modules, the Federation introduced over 60 classes of ships in a ten year period. Also, many of the ``new ships'' are very minor variations: like the Fed `Heavy' CC which basically just adds 2 phasers and 2 warp to the CC.

Personally, I think it's about time they expanded either their geographic area, or the time periods which their supplements cover. Now, they have taken a nice step with Module C4, which introduces 9 new `conjectural' races. But they still seem concentrated on coming out with ever-more ships in the same period.

Less ``Over-Balanced'' Ships:
Many of the late-war ship classes have become increasingly `generic' between the races. This trend presumably started so that single-ship duels are easier to balance. However, I think it is getting out of hand. Tournament ships should be strictly balanced, of course, but for other ships it can be more interesting to differ from the generic mold.

For example, in R6 every real race is given a Heavy War Destroyer (HDW) - even the Jindarians (13 races, skipping only Tholians and Andromedans). Each HDW has approximately 120 BPV, but a fair amount of variance (from 110 to 135, I think). However, all HDW's have 2/3 Move Cost, 24 Warp, 2 rear-firing (RA) option mounts, 4 Non-Weapon Option boxes, 2 fighter boxes (Hydrans have 6), and 4 convertible APR (similar to Non-Weapon Option Boxes).

The original ship classes never fell very neatly into the ``generic'' categories. The Klingon D6 was smaller than the ``real'' Heavy Cruiser, but it was very different from the Federation (Old) Light Cruiser. The Romulans didn't have a real ``heavy cruiser'' for a while: the SparrowHawk was comparable in BPV because of the cloak, but it was more the size and armament of light cruisers. No two frigates were the same -- the Federation frigate is a monster compared with the Hydran frigate.

As mentioned, ADB's email address is ADB$@genie.geis.com if you want to send them your opinions. However, they will not respond to mailto: links from this page, so you should type in the address by hand.

Rules Preferences

I'll just list here those parts of the game that I most like and dislike. I'm a Klingon player, for what it's worth, but in general I like most of the race-specific material. Most of the things that I dislike are generic among the different races.

I am a bit annoyed at the complications of Electronic Warfare and Mid-Turn Speed Changes, but I am willing to live with them for the extra level they add to the game.

Dislikes  include:

Racial Tensions

My favorite race to play is Klingon, mainly for the flexibility. In the tournament I have taken to using the WYN Shark because I feel the tournament D7CT is too dependent on its scatter-pack as opposed to direct fire. Historical Klingons tend to have greater firepower because their ships are cheaper but less well equipped with shuttles, labs, rear shields, and phaser-1s. The tournament D7CT, in contrast, matches most others in terms of labs, shuttles, rear shields, etc. but is light on weaponry.

In general, I prefer the original races: Federation, Klingon, Old Romulan, Kzinti, Gorn, Orion, Archeo-Tholian, Hydran, Lyran.

Later additions like the LDR and WYN Fish ships are rather bland by comparison. I especially dislike most of the races from Module C4, such as the Barbarians who were intentionally designed to be bland.

Decent additions include the Seltorians and the new Andromedan material. The ISC and Neo-Tholians are neat but are mostly one-trick ponies, as are most of the C4 races. The historical ships don't have a lot of flexibility or alternates.

Back to John's SFB Page
John H. Kim <jhkim@fnal.gov>
 Last modified: Thu Jun 22 12:47:04 2000