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Never been a big fan of troupe play - I love the idea, but find in my groups it tend to dilute things a bit too much.
One idea I am playing with is to change the way I view the Gates as working. Basically, my current premise is that these are more primitive than the ones seen in TNG and DS9. Rather, they are a few thousand years older in tech. I had viewed them as each gate being a pair of platforms, one a receiver the other a transmitter. You need a powered gateway at both ends. Only the Bridgetown Gateway was to be working at the start of the campaign and many of the adventures were to involve visiting the various worlds with Gateways to repair them. A map was found on Bridgetown showing the various locations.
I'm planning on chaning it to incorporate a Lesser Gate and Greater Gate (though both are primtive compared to the later Gates.)
The way these Gateways will now work is each Gateway is in effect a cylindrical chamber, maybe 2 meters in diameter. When a connection is made between two chambers the contents of the two chambers are transposed. A Greater Gateway can initiate such a transfer while a Lesser Gateway can only participate. To make life interesting, it takes something like twelve hours to build up enough power to activate a Gateway and once it has been activated a subspace link is established between the two Gateway Chambers. This is not instant, instead travelling real real fast, like Warp 9.99999.
Example - There is a Greater Gateway on Bridgetown and a Lesser one on Skaro. The characters power up the one on Bridgetown, taking twelve hours. Once it is powered up, it takes another six hours to establish the connection between the two chambers. Once the connection is established the two chambers have a faint glow. A final button must be pressed to actually initiate the transfer, which will be instantaneous. Whatever was on the Bridgetown Platform will now be on the Skaro Platform and vice verse. To get home again, the process must be started over again - the connection is broken by the actual transfer. Since Skaro has a Lesser Gateway, the return trip must be initiated on Bridgetown. Better hope the valiant explorers don't get captured by Daleks. :D
Now how do I explain what happened in the previous adventure...
- The map the characters found was indeed a map of worlds with Gateways. But it is not a traditional map. Rather it is a strange five-dimensional map used to program the Greater Gateway control panel, requiring all sorts of mathematical skill tests to program. One of the goals on arriving on a planet is to figure out where the heck it really is. Most of the Gateways will be in the Kellinan Reach. Though some might be back in time... :D
- The Intrepid-class ship will indeed be to big. I suspect the evil Cardassians will sabotage it right away, causing it to need months of refitting. In its place another Defiant will be sent, along with the possibility of a small scout ship (crew 5-15 I'd say). This allows some space travel if desired. Commander Kharn will still receive her promotion to Captain.
Now whoever has the Greater Gateways has a huge advantage. Starfleet will control one. It seems reasonable that the Kellinan will have another. I may actually impose a limitation that a Greater cannot connect to another Greater. And the "Cardassian Government in Exile" will no doubt be hoping to find one.
I've never seen the Stargate show, but the premise sounds a little similar to the movie. I view it as having a nice touch of the classic Doctor Who, especially the old Hartnell episodes. A nice sense of danger and isolation being the first team to visit a new world with only one way home. No ship, the only gear being what you can carry. No hours of scanning the planet from orbit. I think this modification is actually more in spirit with the intent of the Bridgetown saga. It keeps Bridgetown as the base and it forces characters to really rely on their own resources.
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Ok, the way I see it, the Federation has three problems in this region.
1) Maintain a presence to try to keep the lid on things.
2) Deal with this "Cardassian Government in Exile" group
3) Find all the Iconian Tech they can.
We have an experienced Starfleet operative, with an intelligence background. And a smuggler/tech who knows the area.
1) Build a better base, add Defiant class as a big stick.
2) Good for the Defiant, and the Intrepid, or another Defiant if you want to replay history a bit.
3) Ostencibly, this is what the Intrepid is for, right? But, it's not. It's designed to draw the Cardassians off the track of where the real work is being done,
that's where the PCs are. Commander Kharn gets a promotion to Captain, and re-assigned to this Intelligence/R&D project. Someone else will be assigned to the Main Station, and others will command the Defiant and Intrepid. She'll be in overall charge of the forces in the area, probably assigned out of the Intrepid, for argument's sake.
But, her primary objective will be Iconian Tech.
Give them a small souped up smuggler/scout vessel, and let them go exploring. Because Commander er Captain Kharn is nominally the leader of the Federation in the area, she'll still have to deal with all the other issues, she'll just be free of day to day issues.
You'll still have to play lots of different roles, but you can abstract most of the action away, since the PCs probably won't interact with every lieutenant on both ships, and will probably be somewhere else most of the time.
Comments?
Alex
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Dan,
What was the relationship like between the two other characters and the Romulan PC?
How was the Romulan PC written out of the campaign?
Regards,
CKV.
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I guess I'm chiming in a little too late here, but here's my tuppence on the continuing campaign.
Pull back to a long-term point of view. Jump from event to event, and simply have time pass between adventures.
Both characters have job responsibilities that would be boring to play out, the base commander running the base, the smuggler dealing with smuggling runs and organisational stuff. They basically wind up having to arrange times to take trips out, and delegate while they're gone. This could also lead to some interesting situations when a mission overruns, and the NPC back home won't be able to deal with an expected but vital event...
This also gives you the advantage of being able to plot stuff over a realistically long-term period. I mean, doesn't anyone else believe the Dominion War was over in far too short a time? :D
As for the arrived Quetzalcoatl, she got recalled due to a sudden and ongoing emergency elsewhere in the quadrant... Maybe the Bridgetown project is not quite high enough to get it assigned permanently! It could even become a running gag... "Yes, Commander Kharn, I know we said she'd be with you six months ago, but the Bajoran hostage situation is of the utmost importance - and the Quetzalcoatl is the only ship in the area..."
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Well, the Romulan PC is still in the game right now. It's the eventuality I'm preparing for. He tended to make the other characters (not players) nervous - he was openly in the Tal Shiar. However he formed something of a bridge - the smuggler was happy she was working with a non-Starfleet type while the Starfleet officer was pleased to have at least another military type in the game. (Yes, I know Starfleet is not a military....)
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You could have the gates be sort of like the "Guardian of Forever", by having some sort of intelligence. This could make it as easy or complicated to use as you want (sort of like those troublesome intelligent weapon in D&D).
The Gate could have a strong personality and "like" some characters more than others. You could have it "like" the PCs, justify the reason why Starfleet would assign them the mission.
You could even give the commander a brevet rank and/or put them in Starfleet Intelligence to reflect the sensitivity of the assignment-and help reward the player for "losing command".
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I was thinking that you could also have the ODESSA-like Neo-Nazi Cardassians be a step up on this technology. Sort of like all the advanced weapons programs that the Germans were running during WWII.
THis could lead to lots of story ideas.
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Another way to hook the PCs into the campaign would be to have them discover a gate and get transported once or twice. After working out a way back home (given you the opening for a nice episode or two), they PCs get back and discover that thier DNA has been altered (as slightly or radically as you desire). Apparently the gateway is designed for ICONICAN ;lifeforms and eith accidently or deliberalty altered the PCs.
You could then use this as a hook. The effects of this change might not be known, or could be life threatening. The character would probably want to stick arounddtofind a cure, and Starfleet might want to keep them there rather than risk the same thing happening to others.
Perhaps other bits of ICONIAN tech only works for ICONIANS and the genetically altered PCs are the only characters (that they know of, anyway) in the quandrant who have a chance of getting stuff to work.
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You could always use the Talon class scout. It is a good size with better sensors than the danube class. Now i would upgun it from the version in spacedock as i believe it is way underpowered from what we saw in Insurrection. Hell the danube has better phasers that it in spacedock. And it only has a top speed of warp 5!!!!!!
Just my 2 cents.
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When the Romulan character steps out, have him leave a cryptic message something along the lines of: "I have discovered something that disturbs me greatly and have gone to investigate...blah blah blah."
Have a short mission go by and then they receive another message even more cryptically worded, something along the lines of: A disheveled-looking comes on screen, panting and out of breath, a wild look in his eyes, "They've found me out!!! They're after me now but I think I've lost them. I can only trust the two of you!!! But I do not have time to explain!!! I'll contact you in days and explain all then...it could be the very key to the Reach!!! And we cannot let them get it!" Followed by another frantic look around...a soft swear and then the end of the connection...
Of course at this point, something comes up that needs the characters attention and they must go off for another mission event...they come back and time passes, the Romulan PC does not get in touch with them but something occurs that indicates the Romulan ran into foul play...
...nobody in the Romulan Command or Starfleet seems to care about whatever the circumstantial evidence is...leaving only the PCs to look into.
Perhaps Kharn takes a leave of absence to do so and as she goes off with the smuggler this allows you to explore some of these issues exposing them to the characters drawing them in deeper while trying to uncover what happened to their colleague and perhaps even what it was that had set him off so.
Regards,
CKV.
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Strange the way games work out... As it winds up happening, the player who was moving to DC won't - job fell through - which kinda sucks since he just got hit by Genuity's latest round of layoffs. :mad:
Be that as it may, it does mean the group is staying at its current size, at least for the next few months - beyond that who knows. Mind you, my first born will be arriving at the end of May, which will eliminate any gaming for a while! :D
That said, the plan is for the game to continue which means I'll be introducing a ship larger than the Defiant-class Avenger. I'm bumping this thread up for my own benefit, bouncing one or two further ideas out there.
Can anyone see a Star Trek series that allowed some non-Starfleet characters on a major starship? Obviously I'm the narrator, so I decide reality, but I'm a little unsure if Starfleet command would allow a Romulan Tal Shiar and a former Cardassian smuggler on a top-of-the-line starship like an Intrepid or Galaxy. Dan G, if you're reading this, I see you have some Romulans on your Venture game - how does that work for you - does it stretch believability or fit in well? Part of me sees Starfleet going "Ok, so we need to work with these undesirables and it's all nice the Romulans are providing a cloaking device to aid in the mission, but ain't know way they get aboard the Icarus! I think we hava a Miranda that survived the war..."
Also, I know with TNG coming out on DVD next week the temptation to bring back the Galaxy-class Icarus is gonna be huge! :D :D Though I'd really love it if I could dig up a set of deckplans for the Excelsior or Ambassador classes. Exhasustive searches on google indicate that they sure don't seem to exist, though I do have deckplans for a cruise on Ambassador Cruise Lines!!!
