More Questions from a Newbie Narrator.

From my previous post "Is this fair for the narrator to do?" I think I left the wrong impression. I do not intend to "kill" a character intentionally or based on bad dice rolls. The problem I am experiencing is my group is of the opinion that I am not going to be put their characters in death type danger situations. That I am going to throw them into situations where they are going to breeze through without any problems. I want to set an example early that this might not always be the case. I want to have situations where they have to work together and use their heads (instead of technobabal or phasers) to get out of situations.


I am still working on the first adventure, and the group is still coming together (we all have our jobs (for me grad school) and life issues to work around). It is looking like there will be 5 players total. Maybe start the gaming in Mid-May.

Anyways, if you have comments on what I have said, I would appreciate reading them.

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Originally Posted by Jerod

From my previous post "Is this fair for the narrator to do?" I think I left the wrong impression. I do not intend to "kill" a character intentionally or based on bad dice rolls. The problem I am experiencing is my group is of the opinion that I am not going to be put their characters in death type danger situations. That I am going to throw them into situations where they are going to breeze through without any problems. I want to set an example early that this might not always be the case. I want to have situations where they have to work together and use their heads (instead of technobabal or phasers) to get out of situations.


I am still working on the first adventure, and the group is still coming together (we all have our jobs (for me grad school) and life issues to work around). It is looking like there will be 5 players total. Maybe start the gaming in Mid-May.

Anyways, if you have comments on what I have said, I would appreciate reading them.

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Extended Life Support- Good or Bad

This is similiar to a discussion we have had in one of the other threads not in the Narrator's Room. You might want to check this out.

Personally, I have my players with the fear of God without the Die Roll Die rule some Narrator's employ. To those that use it, if you can not get the fear of God in another fashion than someone failed. ~My Opinion.

How do I get the fear of God? Simple out of all the GMs we have in the group I have taken several lives. WHy? Simple. Your group sounds like a cocky bunch it sounds like the first adventure, which is the one that helps set the tone for the game. should be something challenging. Something in there should let them do a really, really stupid mistake. If they are as cocky as you say, they will fall for the trap and depending on the degree of stupidity should be serious hurting to death. That is a judgement call. Nothing deflates egos as much as a long nasty hospital stay keeping their character out of the game or even failing the mission. Play off their cocky view points and make them suffer.

Killing a character is easy, making a character suffer that is a true skill.

But everyone has their style and you need to find yours. If you think the Die Roll Death works for you, go for it. I don't. I see too much in Trek Series where I think a fail or botch happened, where the character was severly wounded nothing more.

Set up specific situations, that are not ship-based.

One big problem is that Voyager, specifically often used the techno solution.
Back in the day, Roddenberry was clearly against it, but he was gone by then. He urged screenwriters to provide human solutions, to human problems.

Too many times have I seen scripts, and Trek novels that have the "[Pick one] radiation threatens the ship. [Pick a character] realigns the sensor dish/power conduits, etc, etc to counter it." Bleh.

Where is the human story of love, hate, revenge, cowardice, loyalty, sacrifice, underhandedness, horror, longing, greed?

These are not specifics, by any means, but for the style...

They must convince the Leader of the unaligned Planetary Council to side with the Federation, vs. [Pick an enemy], requiring Diplomacy.

Conversely, the Interstellar Enemy, is using bribery, blackmail, or threats of large scale destruction, which as Federation, the heroes do not have access to, as tactics.

What moral lines are the characters willing to cross, to match one for one, with the other side? Set it up so that it is not a case of battling the bad guys in space, thus eliminating them from the competition.

Complicate it by setting it up that the planetary leader is already on the brink of overthrow, by an even worse leader. If he appears weak, and asks the Federation for help, he's already lost his last chance to hold the shreds of his government together.

Or the whole thing has already been decided, days before the Federation arrives.
Allowing the crew to arrive as ambassadors is just for show, so that the planet can take their offer, act like they considered it, and after "Careful consideration" reject it. The whole scenario then becomes a complicated plot, where the crew gets "A hint" from someone "High up" in the government, who may or may not seem trustworthy, that reports on how secret backchannel deals are being made. Perhaps the Federation agents in place on the world have been turned, maybe they are inept, maybe they have not reported for weeks, and have been missing (killed / kidnapped), which is why the Federation was ordered here in the first place, to investigate.


Set up a different scenario where the enemy is a rival captain, and another Federation crew, where the other captain arrives to steal the glory, and promotions, pushing the heroes out of the way, or arranging things so that they just barely fail, while he succeeds. He's supposed to deliver a key part, or piece of information, and he does, but not in time for the PCs to use it. It's probably not even intentional, but it might appear that way to a paranoid crew.

A lot of the problem is that some of the shows laid precedent for this. I have even seen game scenarios, where the author writes [insert technobbble here] reason for failure of a critical ship component.

This leads to blablah solution, since a lot of this is imaginary and ill-defined, in any case. One helpful reference I have used is the Star Trek Encyclopedia, to look at and examine specific terms long before hand.

Alpha Particles, Beta Particles, and Gamma Radiation are all radiation, but with different properties.

Polaron radiation, is not the same as Tetryon Radiation, but what either specifically does, or can be used to do, depends on the scenario. DON'T GO THERE.

Focus on the crew, their flaws, their strengths.

Gear and equipment are multipliers or enablers for skills, not the end solution.

Imagine a scenario, where a character wants a "Date" with another character.

One ill-advised solution would be "I retune my tricorder to make mind-affecting waves, tuned to their specific genetic pattern (scanned in earlier, or taken from a ship's database), so that he/she will desire me." What kind of BS is that?!? But Engineering types will try it, especially if they are fond of Voayager-as-Tech-as-Solution.

Why not just "ask for the date", roll a carousing or seduction skill, vs. Savvy.
or do the whole political setup, where the pcs asks out The Friend, and it ends up the Friend falls for them, the Friend is not desired, gets dumped and then because the PC has dumped their friend, no date is forthcoming, ever.

Things like retuning the shield frequency harmonics, all of that, I can see the sort of science behind it, but with all of that going on, why give the ship stats?

The Shields can take X damage, against Y Class weapons, then they go down, or short out, or are drastically reduced in performance. If a ship has a little armor, like the NX Enterprise, use that instead, then that's it, the boat takes a hit.

Don't let players invert the phase cycle on the shields to quantum shift the romulan plasma.

If they try it, roll dice behind the screen, ignore it, and say "The Ship takes a big hit, as red lights from emergency power come on, and the ship rocks from a hit on deck 4."

It's a battle. Fight it.

Fire back, divert power to defenses, fly around, outguess thier next move, negotiate, or surrender. That why the characters have Weapons, Engineering, Helm, Tactics, and Diplomacy skills.

If those skills are never used, why are there people even ON THE SHIP?

Beware especially of PCs that want to Invent the New Thing that will Crack the Scenario.

Yeah, they might be the smartest person in the fleet, and helped Scotty re-engineer Enterprise-A. So what.

It still takes years of design, testing and manufacturing work to develop and prove a new weapons system, not 2 minutes after it is described.

Too many players I have seen have tried to Invent Quantum Torpedoes 100 years ahead of Schedule.

Recall that the Federation stole a cloaking device, long ago. It could not be made to work on any sort of scale fleet wide. It's a Tech solution, not a human one.

If your ships need to sneak in, have them run silent, with a large chance of hitting an asteroid, comet, or black planet.

I am not saying thwart the players at every turn. I am saying make them use the skills they have, design the scenarios so that 3 different bvut possible solutions, based on skills, will resolve it. Make all combat a last option, and make it deadly.

Kill an NPC first, if you must, to show how deadly it is, then if they press on, let come what may to PCs.

If they write off NPCs as Red-Shirts, "no names, who cares?" Have them defend thier actions to an Admiral, at a board of inquiry. I saw another thread, here I think, that Required the PC playing the Captain, or XO to physically write a full page "Letter of Apology" for each crew member dying under thier command, to the dead NPCs family, extolling their fine service, and sacrifices. That's EXCELLENT advice. Give them XP for it, say 50 XP per letter (Decipher) as they will learn something in-character. Any dead NPC can have active duty relatives, that will be able to make trouble for a character.

Have stories where another Captain is retiring, after a full career, on his last mission. The PC crew uncovers some sort of corruption in his command.

Do they
Let him retire, allowing him to get away with it, "For the good of the Service?" Bring it to light, thus making it hard for his family?
Let him retire, but let him know they expect him to make amends?
Rig up a full court martial, which thus then prompts the other guy to investigate THEM. Players being what they are, some might have very dark secrets or other skeletons, that won't look pretty under full examination, let alone being framed for something.

Recall specific scenarios, where human elements set up the situation. Kirk and crew went to Argelius, and Scotty got drunk, and was accused of murder, found with a bloody knife in his hand. His only defense, "I canna remember, I canna remember!" Sure, they used a lie detector, a tech device. And a library computer to track the path of the real killer. But it was the logical deduction skills that solved it.

There are some applications, where I might allow a Tech solution, as a referee.

A hand phaser has many uses. It can be a stun gun, a destructive weapon, a rock heater, or a bomb. But it all boils down to it's use as a focussed or unfocussed energy source. One might be taken apart, retuned, and used as a medium angle beam, to perhaps signal a ship in orbit. If the math of the orbit can be calculated, perhaps from a crude observatory, set up. if there's a good skill roll, or a series of them. Something like that is even stretching it a bit, but as it is along the lines of the original design, hey, I'd allow it.

Likewise, In the City on the Edge of Forever, Spock and Kirk needed a way to see time passing. Thus the reconfigured Tricorder was used, because "There Was No other Way." But it was not a simple process. The overall tragic love story was the main story. And a good one. The little gadgetry allowed the main story to HAPPEN.

There are some things that are just totally crap.

I once had a player group tell me,

"Space is absolute zero, we are going to retune the main deflector dish so that it emits a 3-D hologram, of water. Since we have seen 3-D holograms run around the ship on Next Gen, we know this will work. Next, since space is absolute Zero, we are gonna use the water outside the ship to freeze it, then back that up with shields. With the ship encased in ice, plus shields, we are gonna attack the Borg ship, so that if any kind of heat weapons come at us, it will bounce off, or the ice will melt. To fire the weapons, we are gonna cut a long hole in the ice with a low power beam, so that we can fire out, but not big enough so that it won't allow a weakness to the Borg. Now we have them because they can't adapt for ICE."

DON'T ALLOW THIS CRAP.

It is very common for me to hear this kind of stuff. Some things are just not possible, because there are physical limitations. With no limitations on anything your story loses dramatic tension, because anything is a potential solution to anything. This is where a lot of trek referess get lost, I think.

If the crew can always retune the engines / phasers / shields for more speed / power / defense, it must always be at the expense of something else, like endurance, reliablilty, or stability. If the ship can normally make Warp 8 at all out full speed, making it go to warp 9 means not you get 1/8th the endurance, thus it's no longer a 5 year mission, but a 4.2 year mission. No.

It means if you blow the engineering skill tech roll, after flying like that for 10 minutes, the warp reactor containment fails, and 2 minutes later the ship goes up like a firework.

It was said long ago, you can have Fast, Accurate and Cheap, pick Two (or variations on similar).

In the above the problem is the Borg are tough. the problem is the fear of the crew of death, so they try to death-proof the universe. Don't let them. There is al ways danger. "Risk is our business."

Have an Admiral contact the ship, and directly ask the PC Captain, "What the hell are you waiting for?! We (always make it we, to draw them into the bigger universe) have 2 hours until that scout ship arrives at Altos V! If they respond, Sir, we are on it, it will be done", well and good. Sign off.

If they ask for help, have the admiral state flatly "You are the best we've got. Nothing else can be there for another 4 hours, 2 billion lives are counting on you."

If they whine and complain "it can't be done.", You can either have the Admiral say "It will be, we have no option, do what you must."

Or, if you want to be really hard core, state the obvious, "I have given you your orders. Failure to carry them out is a court martial offense. Now is not the time for excuses."

Give them a solution, no matter how slim their chances. Set it up so they can do it with courage or luck points or what have you, or the modifeirs from a Team effort (LUG).

Predict in advance, what they will do. Try to think outside the box, and don't stick with a "All of you players must guess what the secret combo / password / clue is." That's definitely railroading.

Best of luck.

This comes to mind, based on what Nene posted, made me think of it, when it was "Lead them into a trap," I have seen it, LOTS of the FOLLOWING:

Players play D&D, or Battletech, or something else. Someone needs a break, players, DM or both. Most are kind of burned out, have hit 15th level or are sector overlords by now.

Talk is made of switching a game. Trek is finally decided on, perhaps with some reservations, but the holdouts say "I'll give it a try."

Disruptive, Passive-Aggressive elements will generate pcs, and play, but they will play TO LOSE.

They will do what they can not to get everyone killed off but to kill everyone's spirit and the spirit of the game, either by "Not Really Playing" "Not taking on the Role" or "I am just playing my character, so I can do what I want, setting be damned."

Be wary of this. It will continue until you disinvite the problem player, or until people lose faith in the game, and he or she hopes it comes-back-around-to-something-they-like-better" when the game and referee changes again.

A lot of referees have this kind of "like my game, like me" kind of attitude.

If the game fails, they feel it was thier fault, and generally a referee is about half of the factor. But sometimes, it is passive agressive players not playing to full value, not showing up on purpose, or all kinds of other possibilities.

So, I mean to say, if there is a trap to waste the crew, these problem players who want the game to die anyway will leap at it, and once the crew is killed off, play some kind of political game making it seem like "the Killer GMs fault, we all died, let's play something else, get a new GM, etc."

Aside from all the other political crap that tends to come with gaming, too, like "you killed my brother's PC we are both leaving," or "I Don't play nuthing but 3.5, and Ted and Joe will leave if I do, etc. etc., so don't even try to run no Star Track BS." any number of variations on split factional loyalty can happen. I 've seen it all, many times.

A whole different thread, perhaps. Just something to watch out for, before you "Drop the Hammer on the crew." Some might be praying for it to hit and smash the game to bits.

Seems to me, what gives them the idea that it is gonna be easy?

I have never seen a group I run for expect it to be easy.

Specific individuals, maybe, have thought thet their character's would never be killed off, (until they did something totally unsurvivable) but I don't drive for that, in any case, it just happens, sometimes.

So, what kinds of past experience, games, jhappenings, have you done for this group?

Seems like you are saying that you have a gut feeling that they think you are soft on player death.

Maybe they really don't care, and some might have the attitude, of "If he kills my PC, I am quitting." I have known players like that, too.

It's a fine balance between fun, drama, and dedication to the game and the group.
Some players wil never be serious, it's like a relaxing TV show that you can add to. Some are deadly serious, with Tech manuals, and the whole bit. Most are in between, so far as I have seen.

Some players might have the view that since it is Star Trek it is light hearted, TOS save the galaxy fun, when you are looking for DS9, "As we look into the darkness of Space, all we find is the darkness of our inner selves."

What is your goal with the game?

What do you think the players are seeking from it?

In my old ICON Trek group, we have something called pulling an Elad.

We had a Bolian player in our first game ever in ICON, we were accused by this government to be there to take over their world, this is what their Romulan advisors told them.

To put a long story short, the Bolian shouted out it was true! And nearly destroyed the mission! I kid you all not that is what happened. In the end we barely survived even barely surviving with the Prime Directive in tact and my character ended up having to have the Bolian arrested and put in for deep psyche evals, and he was court martialed. Why? The GM a former Navy used the Blue Book and listed all his crimes.

Let's say in the end he is bunking with Garth of Izor and leave it at that.

Yep, court martialing is a good way of going after people as well. Why kill when you are expected to conduct yourselves in a certain manner in Starfleet.

If they get out of line run a court martial sequence or reduction in rank.

Nene, that's hilarious.

If you did it as an NPC, players would go "Huh??!?"

I try to envision a Bolian Barber / Agent Provocateur in Starfleet, Screaming "It's a Cook book!" While other pcs try to stun him, wrestle to the ground, etc.

That's just priceless. Chaos can be beautiful, in it's own way.

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Originally Posted by LUGTrekGM

Nene, that's hilarious.

If you did it as an NPC, players would go "Huh??!?"

I try to envision a Bolian Barber / Agent Provocateur in Starfleet, Screaming "It's a Cook book!" While other pcs try to stun him, wrestle to the ground, etc.

That's just priceless. Chaos can be beautiful, in it's own way.

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Oh, forgot to mention that one tid bit, the Bolian was the one put in charge of the away mission and I was the Ship's Councilor. :cool:

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Originally Posted by Jerod

From my previous post "Is this fair for the narrator to do?" I think I left the wrong impression. I do not intend to "kill" a character intentionally or based on bad dice rolls.

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Really no problem. After all I made a lot mistakes as a narrator and most of the points I brought up came from own experiences and dealing with my mistakes.
It also depends on what you actually want.
I have an emphasis on story - meaning drama and tragedy as well as the occassional comic or scientific adventure. Additionally I like to develope characters.
In such a series it becomes difficult to motivate players if their characters die.

Of course you can decide to start a realistic campaign, but the question is - is this worthwile? I mean "real" we have in real life, so maybe "not so real" gets more interesting. ;)

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The problem I am experiencing is my group is of the opinion that I am not going to be put their characters in death type danger situations. That I am going to throw them into situations where they are going to breeze through without any problems. I want to set an example early that this might not always be the case. I want to have situations where they have to work together and use their heads (instead of technobabal or phasers) to get out of situations.

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Ever considered to simply tell them that? When you meet the first time for the game and set up the way of conduct to run the game, e.g. who tells what he/ she does, when, etc. You could easily point these things out to them as well. Tell them that those who watched most Trek episodes, meaning knowing most technobabble, wont "win" the game and realiance on technology rather than self-thinking wont help them. Tell them you want to stimulate their brains and that only using it will be rewarded. Tell them that as long as they actually make an intelligent effort, they will get a fair chance to survive an episode - even if they happen to have bad luck concerning dice rolls ( I understood you that way ) but that "stupid" ideas will get them into trouble.
Something like this. Explain them what you expect for the game, what you plan for the campaign, what your goals and ideas are ( not so much contentwise of course ;) ) and of course you could/ should ask them about theirs, just to get the right direction right from the start.
And that way no one can say that they "did not know" about your "policies".

Maybe you are approaching this from the wrong angle..

Startrek shouldn't be about weekly threats of death.. it is not star-munchkin - where each week you fight a bigger and badder space monster and get uber-loot.

The threats are to their morals and ethics. A Character 'death' could simply be they made a DUMB decision, are court martialed and have to retire the character !

Put your players in a scenario where they have to make hard CHOICES: They kill an innocent alien and have to stand trial in the aliens court of law; An Admiral is really an undercover spy, they have to take him out, by shooting him, or by ruining his career, but what if they are not sure, or he really wasn't a spy, and someone is playing with them...

The characters in the shows typically get away with severe breaches but that is a storyteller caveat - you don't have to let them! Also the show's PC's don't neccessarily make the wrong decision, just an ambiguous one, which they argue their way out of, or they call a favour on.. your PC's may make a hideously ad choice, and argue their way out of it poorly.. The point is the risk to their lives is low, but simply 'living' is not the issue.. the consequence is being court martialed and kicked out of Starfleet - which in terms of the character removes him from the game, and is the same as death for that person! Plus it's not nice and clean, it'll be agony, and involve lying, cheating, and getting caught too hehe. It could also mean, if you re feeling nicer about it, demotion, which is hideous for PC's too!

If you want to threaten death - one word - disintergrate ! Nothing like someone being disintergrated to increase the players sense of danger. It still comes under the above.. they mess up on a diplomatic mission, the aliens raise guns and disintergrate one of them before they can blink.. the dice rolling is irrelevant - settings 8+ are just simply that deadly - it's THEIR actions which affect the outcome!

Players can become accustommed to being comfortable when they reach that certain 'level' in some games - a lucky hit shouldn't kill them outright.. BUT it doesn't matter what 'level' they are in a treknology game - vapourise is vapourise irrespective of technology level.. also stun is SO much fun.. Ok stun doesn't kill you? Yeah but it means you go down in a single hit! that in and of its self is dangerous because an enemy can then do what they like with you, including killing you.

But all of that said Death should be used lightly in the game, and only as the result of stupidity or wearing a red-shirt :D Just because you don't loom death over their head every session, doesn't mean they can't suffer for their actions, and loose their character all the same!

The potential for death should be a factor, in every confrontation, but agreed, not every scenario.

Otherwise, former D&D players used to the all combat, all the time style will "Wade In" and get their whole away team, or ship smoked, because they have way less Hit points, and no Armor.

If there is a scenario where PCs have to lie to defned each other from an investigation, every NPC on board with Starfleet Code should turn them in.

Service in the fleet should not be about covering your tracks, but doing the right thing in the first place, and making the tough decisions, that will affect not just your life, but your crew, and ultimately, the planets and worlds of the federation.

Tobian Wrote:

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If you want to threaten death - one word - disintergrate !

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I think it is not so much a problem of how to threaten the PCs with death or disintegration, so much as the players don't think the GM will be tough on them, which is a different matter entirely.

If he's been easy on them before, or other Referees in the group have, they will typically think it will remain the same.

And perhaps, they might like it that way. Hard to tell. I'd like to hear about what ultimately happens in the game.

In trek they do often have a gismo or a gadget which can save them at the last minute, which is largelly left to drama, but it's not even if you want to be mean and make it conveniently fail: What about if what happened in the Dominion war happens... Their ships blow, and the Dominion fighters destroy all of the escape pods! That would be a very sobering sight for the PC's or it should be anyway ! Ok it might not happen to their ship, but it would sharpen their tactics! Make a mistake, take too much damage - everyone is DEAD!

LugtrekGm - you are right about the crew turning them over, but situations are always complex, and sometimes things happen in privacy.. Private being a relative term in Trek, when they can detect biosignatures weeks old, and even use a psychotricorder or mindmelds to get information out of people: they don't do that routinelly, but the point is they CAN!

As a GM I often have to get players out of scenarios when they mess up, but through no fault of their own.. I.e. if I inflicted it on them hehe - but I am only under that obligation if *I* do it, not if they do it - they can dig their own grave and it's up to them to get themselves out of it - or not!

PS: LugTrekGM I loved some of your stories there HAHAHA - that holoemitter one takes the peach! This is one of the reasons I always am glad I am treknobabble king - I.e. I can quite comfortably say - what a pile of rubish, AND explain why! In that scenario 1) it's HOLOGRAPHIC water / ice.. whatever - it's still a holograme.. Do you remember what happened to the maitre de's head in First Contact - it went all wibly and dirupted when the Borg SCANNED him.. so how would that stop weapons.. and 2) Ice is not as strong as SHIELDS and 24th century hulls - and since the Borg can mince those, ice is not a problem and 3) the Borg can adapt to anything dumbass! :) That and I really want to hurt whoever came up with that idea LOL

In Trek there is always an arms race of oneupsmanship - yeah so this week you retune your shields and you take half damage from Romulans ships.. whatever.. next week they work out why and adapt.. In much the same way as it was damned impressive that Federation shields were helpless to Dominion weapons, but they adapted. It's not just the Borg who can adapt.. If you can do it so can they You generate effect X, they generate countermeasure Y - it's why ships get BETTER in the future: you can't own it! The Borg are vulnerable to multiphasic torpedoes.. So what.. next week they won't be! Even on Voyager, sure they got some doohickey which could do something new... and it usually had a fatal design flaw, which caused it to fail eventually. Without devoting years of R&D everything will have flaws.. Sure ensign "i want a girlfriend" realigns his tricorder to aler people's deltawaves to like them.. and it'll probably have a hideous or hilarious unintended side effect - such as ALL the women want him badly (remember when Xander did that in buffy - a crew of devoted females all fighting over them! try explaining that to the captain!) or it knocks them all uncoonscious, or infects them with a computer virus! :D Or simply one of the crew detects an anomolous delta wave, investigates, and he's thrown in to the brig and or demoted for being such an ass!

I find that as a GM I never say no... I just make happen what could happen because they haven't thought through the consequences, or I simply let the fail or I give them an extended test TN of 200, with a 3 months test interval :D

Sounds like you run a pretty wild game.

Mine are mostly deadly serious, and perhaps a comedy / shore leave scenario, when the crew starts fighting each other from tension.

I do occasionally say no.. Such as the inamous Borg Whales plan :D (one of the PC's was assimilated at one point in his life, and as suchhe had borg nanoprobes.. They were trapped on a planet surrounded by a minefield they couldn't penetrate, so their ingenious plan was to use his nanoprobes to assimilate local marine life, and make Borg whales - to launch at the minefields, clearing their path.. After I stopped rolling round on the floor, I said no, to save them time! :D)

But more what I mean is sometimes you can only say no so many times before you just simply have to let them do it - again this comes under the Darwin Award concept - let nature take it's course. It's much like in Starship combat - the chief engineer is really good so he is able to perform the 'jury rig' action. While it's not strictly in the spirit of the rules, I tend to find it fun that the entire ship is jury rigged, and will fail at any moment.. and it only takes someone to roll a double 1 (a critical fumble in my rules) and bang - it all goes wrong :D I am not playing it for laughs, I am allowing them to fudge the rules, many times because they can't go the direct route, and I encourage creative plans.. I prefer it if players find it funny when their exploding cake explodes in their face, it's better than them throwing a hissy fit and going off in the huff!!

That same adventure also had some monumental fluff-ups..

In it, the Borg drones wre hiding among the populace (have a look at my Social minefield adventure, to see why!) and they had a hefty bonus to avoid being properly scanned A side result was they couldn't be locked onto with Transporters.. However the players laid out a trap.. they set a tricorder up as a visual relay and arrayed pattern enhancers in the room... between the equiptment bonus they give, and a string of 6's the player in question rolled, they were so enormously pleased with themselves that they'd overcome the wierd dampening field the (apparently) primiate aliens had, that i let them achieve it.. Of course that was a story caveat I'd placed in deliberatelly to avoid what did happen.. they beamed up a Borg drone!! It prompty began draining ships power, recharging it's self, and raised the ships own security forcefields around it's self, and systematically began assimilating the ships systems... Imagine the look on their faces, it was a picture! :)

Since there was only one drone, their next stunning plan which exploded in their faces was to take their Captain (the ex borg) and interface him to the Drone, to get him to stop doing what he was doing.. Sadly after a contest of wills, the Borg (by fluke of ice!) won the clash of wills.. and they had another Borg drone.. who was the ships captain, with all the ships access codes, and promptly the Drone opened the airlocks on the ship :D Seeing as the ship was in a marine trench at the time, it got fun! :)

Another unintentionally hillarious event was when a crewmember fired a phaser on setting 16! at the Borg drone and missed... At this point the coridoor section was half flooded with water.. which promptly flash boiled, giving several of the other crew third degree burns!

These are examples of Darwin award winning logic! and exactly why you don't always need to create special scenarios to kill the crew - let them do it themselves with spectacularly bad ideas!

Yeah, definitely wild games, there. :)