Well i just mentioned there should be one of these somewhere, so I thought I'd start one off...
Often when you are running a game you can get rapidly unstuck because you didn't think to create a loophole in your story to get round a sticky problem. Fundamentally Roleplayers are very good at walking right round the cleverly designed scenarios, sidestepping all of the pitfalls and problems you carefully designed because they come up with some incredibly simple thing you overlooked. So with that in mind I thought we could put together a number of problems we've run into and solved by a bit of quick thinking.. or didn't solve, but then thought up the perfect reason why it shouldn't have worked , or simply because (like me) you are unhinged and think up impossible to escape traps :D
Ok a few to get going...
Kelbonite: Yes apparently even with state of the art sensor arrays simple ores and rock can be the biggest bane of any Starfleet crew scanning for those missing crew/hostages/hidden enemy. It can be frustrating to have a mission revolving round finding something.. and then have them find it with sensors from orbit, beam it up and go home without a plot :D Burry it deep inside a huge trap laiden mountain range all covered in kelbonite, and get them to walk.. Walking is health, though not if you find those traps :D
Thoron Emitters: These things are the Gold pressed Latinum of hiding people: the architypal 'Maqis trick' They block tricorders plain and simple. Of course the players can simply scan for Thoron emission.. but then if you know that, use it against them.. have lots of them, all over the place :D
Dampening Fields: Again a special grey area in the hearts of all GM's. Dampening fields are basically cheap coaking devices. They can mask energy, life or technobabble so as to be nearly invisible to starships or tricorders. Sometimes you can detect the field it's self, but then you don't know what it's... dampening! :)
Pattern Enhancers: the ultimate foil for Kelbonite and Dampening fields.. for when players try to use them back at you! :D With insurection we were brought the snazzy isolinear tags, which could make for a good cat and mouse game of 'it' :)
Solar Flares: Space is a far more dangerous and unstabe place than it often appears on Trek. Nature can be a great story telling ally. Solar flares, especially heavy one's can stall travel intrasystem, cause atmospheric disturbances, prevent transporters and all sensors from working correctly and even make a good plot device if they are artificial.
Ok there's a couple.. Does anyone care to add more! :)
