Ideas for a Quick Start introduction?

Hello fellow narrators,

I'll be narrating a couple of 1-hour sessions at a small Star Trek con (probably only a few hundred fans) in the Netherlands next month (June 22), and I was wondering if anyone has any ideas for a simple stand-alone 1-hour introduction adventure for up to 6 new players, instantly showing them the range of possibilities, excitement and fun to be had in a Star Trek RPG.

Two years ago I already ran the Decipher Quick Start Adventure 'Ordeal on Gamma Elster VI' which fit in very well for just 1 hour, and at last year's con I ran a homebrewed Quick Start adventure set in 2385 where the crew had to ferry admiral Picard from Starbase 23 to Starfleet HQ. During this routine mission they found and brought in some indestructible alien probe which knocked out Picard (it sabotaged his artificial heart). While Picard was beamed to sick bay, several Borg beamed onto the bridge, ignoring the crew but trying to get their hands on the alien technology themselves (at which they finally succeeded) leaving the crew in awe, ending on a funny note with admiral Picard contacting the bridge informing them he was recovering and asking them if they had anything interesting to report while he was out. -The end- :)
I already tried the modules 'The Crusoe Effect', 'Perdition's Flames', 'Pieces of You' with my usual group, but they all took me over 3 sessions and several hours to narrate. That's too long, and I don't want to end the workshop somewhere in the middle of the adventure.

So this year I wanted to try something new (preferably also set after the Dominion war), introducing up to 6 potentially new players to the game mechanics and possibilities in just one hour.

Ideas, anyone?

Do you have any of the old ICON adventures? There's one in the TOS Narrator's Handbook which is an excellent little Forbidden Planet-style adventure with Klingons and mad scientists. The FASA adventure 'Ghosts of Conscience' is also kinda cool, and shouldn't be too hard to convert.

Alternatively, if you want a new one, what would you want in it?

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Originally Posted by The Tatterdemalion King

Alternatively, if you want a new one, what would you want in it?

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Ditto.

If you've got a rough idea of what you want, I can cull my voluminous but somewhat mad-hatter arranged archives and polish them up.

Worst case, I can probably hash something new together.

TDK, do you think any of the Sentinel missions I submitted might work for him?

If BTTF doesn't plan to use them, there's no reason we can't cut them loose in his direction....

Thanks for your responses so far, unfortunately I don't have any of the sourcebooks you mentioned.

Next to all the CODA sourcebooks by Decipher all I’ve got are a couple of ICON sourcebooks by Last Unicorn Games which are all set in the TNG-era. That’s the Narrator’s Toolkit, ‘The Price of Freedom: The United Federation of Planets Sourcebook’, ‘The First Line - Starfleet Intelligence Handbook’, ‘The Way of Kolinahr: The Vulcans’, ‘A Fragile Peace: The Neutral Zone Campaign Volume 1’ and ‘Planetary Adventures Volume 1: Federation Space’, though I only use them for the fluff since I want to work with the CODA system.

Anyone visiting this con should be a Star Trek fan already, probably most familiar with TNG so that’s the era I’m going for. I want to show them that an RPG is a chance for them to be stars in their own episode and take away any false preconceptions about Trek RPG's (Like players have to do a lot of math and understand all the technobabble etc.). I’ll hand them 6 pre-made Starfleet characters to save time since I’m bound to only one hour per session. In that hour I thought about walking them through some scenes which should be familiar to them as Star Trek fans and show them how they play in gaming terms.
These are some of the things I'd like to put in:
- Begin the episode by narrating a Captain's Log.
- Introducing some familiar TNG NPC (Admiral Picard again?).
- Beaming down.
- Using a tricorder.
- Discovering, saving or salvaging an alien lifeform or unknown object.
- Using a phaser. (Against familiar villains like Klingons or Romulans)
- A small space skirmish in which they simply disable the other vessel (A Klingon Bird of Prey would suit best, I think) and escape, ending the episode.

I'm going for a simple plot since I'll probably have to take a lot of time in between scenes showing them how the game system works, and show pictures and layouts of what the ships, people and items look like. I want to give them the opportunity to chat a bit with an NPC, use skill checks, fight enemies, then get back to the bridge to show them just a glimpse of a space battle since running them through a full battle would probably take more than 15 minutes (especially for newbies).
By the end they should feel like they’ve accomplished something and be hungry for more.

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Originally Posted by Calastir

Thanks for your responses so far, unfortunately I don't have any of the sourcebooks you mentioned.

Anyone visiting this con should be a Star Trek fan already, probably most familiar with TNG so that’s the era I’m going for. I want to show them that an RPG is a chance for them to be stars in their own episode and take away any false preconceptions about Trek RPG's (Like players have to do a lot of math and understand all the technobabble etc.). I’ll hand them 6 pre-made Starfleet characters to save time since I’m bound to only one hour per session. In that hour I thought about walking them through some scenes which should be familiar to them as Star Trek fans and show them how they play in gaming terms.
These are some of the things I'd like to put in:
- Begin the episode by narrating a Captain's Log.
- Introducing some familiar TNG NPC (Admiral Picard again?).
- Beaming down.
- Using a tricorder.
- Discovering, saving or salvaging an alien lifeform or unknown object.
- Using a phaser. (Against familiar villains like Klingons or Romulans)
- A small space skirmish in which they simply disable the other vessel (A Klingon Bird of Prey would suit best, I think) and escape, ending the episode.

I'm going for a simple plot since I'll probably have to take a lot of time in between scenes showing them how the game system works, and show pictures and layouts of what the ships, people and items look like. I want to give them the opportunity to chat a bit with an NPC, use skill checks, fight enemies, then get back to the bridge to show them just a glimpse of a space battle since running them through a full battle would probably take more than 15 minutes (especially for newbies).
By the end they should feel like they’ve accomplished something and be hungry for more.

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The wheels are already turning- I've got something in mind:D

I'll have a rough draft ready for you by the beginning of next week.

Can you specify which timeframe of TNG you want to run? Any particular season (it will determine the stardates and which NPCs are available) or movie? Post-Dominion War perhaps?

And the ark? BTFF gets the ark when they're finished, right?

Oops.....wrong movie.;):p

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Originally Posted by selek

And the ark? BTFF gets the ark when they're finished, right?

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I've got top men working on it. Top men.

OP, 'ghosts of conscience' is available in the archive of the guardian of forever yahoo group. If you can find the TOS NH, it's a damn good book in general (the whole TOS line was excellent, really).

Since everyone there is going to be pretty familiar with Trek, is there anything from a particular episode you'd like to revisit? The dyson sphere, Vaal, Triskelion, the Iconians... TNG didn't leave as many doodads lying around after their episodes (the RPG downside to character-driven episodes, i guess). Are there any TNG guest stars you'd like to see again?

Of course the ark goes to Beyond the Final Frontier, doctor Jones. :)
I read some of those articles, I think they're great and plan on using most of their content for my regular group.

Here's some more info on my campaign's premise:
The timeframe is Post-Dominion War. The year is 2385. It's a time for making and keeping the peace in the Alpha Quadrant.

For this purpose, a unique diplomatic vessel was created called the U.S.S. Unification NX-851702.
It's a Starfleet/Ferengi Armored Scout. Only the saucer section looks Ferengi.
To be exact; I made it to be a combination of the Starfleet's Nova Class Surveyor Mk II and the Ferengi Alliance D'kora-class.
Length/Height/Beam: 344/64/168
Complement: 150 (60 officers, 90 ensigns, up to 75 or 3000 emergency passengers)
It's got 6 Type 11 UFP Shuttlecraft (In case there's some atmospheric interference and they "Can't beam through") ;)
Weapons systems and sensors have taken a backseat to speed and safety in order to ship diplomats to and fro within the Alpha quadrant.
The vessels' homebase is Starbase 23 along the Romulan neutral zone under Commodore/rear admiral Bajoran female admiral Li Fala (From the Decipher Quick Start Adventure 'Ordeal on Gamma Elster VI'). She usually supplies the missions.

The premade characters are mostly bridge officers and are as varied as possible to gain immediate trust throughout the quadrant.
They usually only take on dangerous missions when there's a distress signal and they're the only vessel in the vicinity. (Which is often the case) :p
I'd like the captain to be played by the party leader, except when it's a landing party, that player takes on a throwaway character in the landing party as the captain usually stays on board without much to do.

Omean, Cardassian male diplomat, acting captain
Kram Aldin, Andorian male first officer (studied scientific archeology on Vulcan)
Taris Dar, Romulan female doctor, chief medical staff
Brute, Ferengi male security officer
Telok, Klingon male security officer (Stats also from 'Ordeal on Gamma Elster VI')
Antos Lenaris, Bajoran male starship ops
Sirok, Vulcan male chief engineer

Usually 'ensign Redshirt' tags along like a Kenny from South Park whom I can kill off to demonstrate any dangers by example, but who also mysteriously reappears every episode. :)

As for TNG guest stars, I think the ones most fans will be familiar with would suit best so that's ambassador Spock, Picard (Who I imagine to be an admiral by 2385), Data, and Scotty might still be flying around in that shuttle...

There are several sites from the previous series I'd like to revisit such as in my main campaign I'm running my own conversion of 'Ghosts of the past – Return to Minos' from Planetary Adventures Volume 1: Federation Space. That's the planet with all the sophisticated weapons from TNG1.21 'The Arsenal of Freedom'.

Another site I'd like to revisit is Armus on Vagra II from TNG1.22 'Skin of Evil' who killed Tasha Yar. That's an episode that should stick in the minds of most fans mostly for that reason. (I might let Scotty crash down on Vagra II and send out that distress signal! Perhaps he was being chased by some rogue Klingon captain looking for an honorable kill. That's a nice small plot right there.) :cool:

It could be interesting if instead of beaming down because of said atmospheric interference (and even pattern enhancers won't do the trick), they have to use a shuttlecraft to get back to the ship while being under fire from a Bird of Prey (Like in Star Trek V; the Final Frontier).

Okay..........


...........just to specify: do you want a one-off/stand-alone mission for the convention or do you want to incorporate your campaign into the event?

It's meant as a one-off/standalone mission, but since I plan on using this ship and handing out these pre-made characters anyway, I thought I might incorporate my campaign as a backdrop.

By the way; The Dominion war ended in 2375. Star Trek Nemesis ended in 2379 with the apearance of B4. Whoops, I almost forgot...no Data. He's been dead for 6 years in my timeline.

Okay.....with the exception of a good name and a handful of pre-generated characters, the Ark is ready in all respects.....

After eight hours of review, revision, and revamping- I think I'm turning obsessive complusive.

The draft has been sent to your respective e-mails and feedback is welcome!

Thanks selek,

I sent you a reply just now, I'll try narrate your adventure for my regular group this weekend as a test and see how long it'll take them. Like you said, I'm also afraid it might be a bit too long for inexperienced gamers. If I rush them through the plot, they might feel railroaded and if I give them free reign, they'll probably not get to the end quickly enough and miss half the plot so I'll see how that runs.

I appreciate you even named the ship USS DeRuyter after one of our country's heroes 'Michiel de Ruyter' and even named its 7 shuttles after 7 of our provinces.

Thank you so much, I'll definitely have fun running it. :)

Hi everyone, eventually the session I ran at the Star Trek Fanclub Open Day last sunday lasted from 14:15 to 15:15; I had 5 players total and gave them a choice of 6 pre-made 4th level characters; 1 captain, 1 first officer, 1 security officer (a Ferengi), 1 officer at OPS and 1 officer at CONN.

The sixth character was a Betazoid ship's councelor/medical officer but nobody wanted to play her. I'd thought she'd come in handy especially near the end of the adventure to establish telepathic contact with the alien queen, but the Vulcan would do fine as well.

The organization gave us a perfect location, quiet so we could hear each other well which was a plus since the guy who played the captain had a soft voice.

My girlfriend played OPS and was already familiar with Trek rpg, the guy who played the captain had already played along with two of my previous Trek rpg sessions, the two guys who played the first officer and the security officer had only played D&D before so weren't familiar with the Coda rules and then the guy who played the Vulcan had never played any RPG before. Since he's the president of the Dutch doctor Who fanclub of which I'm also a member, I was determined to make a good first impression.

I started off by explaining the basics of roleplaying saying that this is a game of the imagination, that there's no winner, the main goal is to make up an enjoyable story together and any time you try something with a risk of failure you roll the dice and add your skill points to determine whether you succeed. Then I explained the setting, showed them the bridge layout, explained the roles of the characters and let them choose their characters based on that. All this already took 15 minutes but I'd taken that into account.

I also warned them that we'd been given only 1 hour total by the organization so if they felt a bit railroaded or rushed at times they should realize this wasn't part of a regular game at home in which they'd feel a lot more freedom in their actions.

Then I ran selek's draft almost to the letter; I read the Captain's Log explaining their mission was to find the USS Kouri. After they found the marker buoy the Admiral contacted them to inform them of their secondary mission of finding and possibly assisting 2 Klingon Birds of Prey that had disappeared; the IKS BijDa and the IKS BortaS. Then they were approached by the alien probe. The captain called for yellow alert, the security officer raised shields, but they relaxed when I told them the probe moved and behaved like a dolphin. That mental image did the job. The Vulcan player's roll was insufficient for an empathic link with the probe so I let the NPC Betazoid ship's counselor tell them she sensed primitive feelings of joy. Then after the probe's scan resulted in an exploding bridge panel, I let the NPC explain she sensed alien emotions of shock and regret. Suddenly the probe was attacked by the Bird or Prey which turned out to be the IKS BortaS. I acted as the Klingon captain Kadur and demanded the players' help in his revenge on the alien probe for destroying the IKS BijDa. The security officer (a trigger-happy player who'd have played a Klingon if I let him, I think) was eager to join in the hunt but the guy who played the captain refused and reminded everyone that their mission was to seek out new life, not destroy it. The security officer argued that the Admiral instructed them to assist the Klingons, but the captain held firm. A classic Star Trek moment! :cool:

Then the IKS BortaS' engine broke down leaving the Klingons behind.

They saw the probe disappearing through the anomaly and received the USS Kouri's distress signal coming from the other side but they were still hesitant to follow. (If they had waited a bit longer, I'd have let the NPC Admiral contact them again and order them to go through), but before I could do that they decided to split up and take a shuttlecraft through carrying only the first officer, the conn and the security officer. Since I was running out of time, I easily allowed them to compensate for the high particle count on the other side and push performance from Warp 2 to Warp 6. They found the USS Kouri powered down and abandoned in orbit around the small planetoid with all life pods in place, but the emergency equipment gone. This made them guess its crew was on the planet below, and confirmed this with a scan. They beamed down in the middle of the USS Kouri's refuge camp and their lieutenant Barker who said he suspected the nearby structure to be an enormous alien intelligence, but that he couldn't confirm this since both their Betazoid and Vulcan crewmembers were dead.

This triggered the guy who played the Vulcan conn officer to make Telepathic contact. The alien lifeform told them she was the queen of the alien probes, explained she thought starships were queens like herself and their crew to be probes. She regretted her probes' scans had damaged their starships, and the players persuaded her to safely drag the USS Kouri and her crew back through the anomaly.

Meanwhile, the guy who played the Ferengi security officer had his character plant a flag as a joke and said: "I hereby claim this planet for Ferenginar!" which made everyone laugh (the classic funny bit before the end-credits) :D

I wrapped the session up and told them that even though they'd saved the crew of the USS Kouri and made first contact with an alien life form this time, they'd still have to deal with a very angry Klingon captain Kadur some other time. I think the players all got a good impression of the Star Trek rpg in the end, and I told the trigger-happy guy that in a Star Trek rpg, he could even play a Klingon captain on a Klingon ship. Which he liked, so maybe I'll give that a try next year. :)

Afterwards, 3 other people told me they'd become curious about the game and definitely wanted to join in next time.

I've got all of the ICON adventure books and I found them very easy to convert to CODA. You just have to change the test levels to fit CODA's 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 system. As far as converting the NPC stats, you can use the sample NPC stats in the Narrator's book to speed things up. Also I think there's an ICON to CODA conversion document floating around the Web somewhere.

However, most of them would take longer than 1-2 hours to play so they may not meet your need for a single session quickstart adventure. Although, you could modify them to cut down on the playing time so that they could be completed in 1 session.

There's at least a couple of adventures or adventure hooks in the free BTTF webzine. Be sure to check them out.

You can also get ideas from S. John Ross' Big List of RPG Plots:

http://www.io.com/~sjohn/plots.htm

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Originally Posted by Calastir

I already tried the modules 'The Crusoe Effect', 'Perdition's Flames', 'Pieces of You' with my usual group, but they all took me over 3 sessions and several hours to narrate. That's too long, and I don't want to end the workshop somewhere in the middle of the adventure.

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Really? I've rann all three of these at DecipherCon in less than three hours each. Even when I wrote "Perdition's Flames" (then called "Tragedies and Statistics"), it only took two sessions.

Guess you must add a lot of extra detail to the adventures (which is, of course, your prerogative)... :)

Perdition’s Flames actually took me 6 sessions to narrate with 5 players, and I didn't add a lot of detail. The first session just to brief them, the second to get them to explore the Rift and both ships, the third to introduce Captain Davis, the fourth to infiltrate the Klingon camp, the fifth to leave Captain Davis' camp, the sixth with the encounter in the ancient Temple.

I think the main reason why it took so long is because the players were all Star Trek fans so we had a lot of discussion inbetween actions. But it was still exciting and we had a lot of fun, so I didn't want to rush them. :)

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Originally Posted by Calastir

Perdition’s Flames actually took me 6 sessions to narrate with 5 players, and I didn't add a lot of detail.

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How many hours were the sessions?

3 hours per session, that's usually the attention span if I give them free reign. A more focused group could manage the same amount of actions in 1 hour I think.
In that case, Doug's estimate of 2 sessions for 6 hours total running 'Perdition's Flame' would be correct.
Triple that for my group up to 18 hours total. (I'm not a very strict narrator) ;)

Hi

The adventure you ran sounds intriguing. Although you've provided enough information to piece it together, is there any chance this could be made available for download? I'm always looking for quality adventures and this one seems to fit the bill.

Renny

And I'm always looking for adventures to put on my CODA support site, so anything you guys come up with, please feel free to send my way so that I can put it up where people can find it.