Star Trek: The Golden Age
A couple of events have prompted me to want to start posting a campaign digest.
I have recently dusted off my first Star Trek campaign after a three year hiatus. I have really been enjoying it, the RP is great, and I didn't realize how much I'd missed it. The group is great and their tale deserves a telling.
About a year ago, my "professional" group, the one that run events at conventions, allowed our group website to expire, mostly due to group apathy. I'd generated quite a bit of content; fortunately the ship conversions didn't go to waste since Patrick Goodman has given them an alternate drydock for your viewing pleasure. Unfortunately, all of my convention campaign digests are gone.
I have two non-convention Star Trek campaigns started, one set in the years before Kirk and company's original five year mission, and the other set in the TOS-movie era. The TOS-movie era is my personal favorite time period, and the pre-TOS is special to me for RPG related reasons.
Although I started my actual gaming career with D&D back in 1990, the game that drew me to the hobby was the Star Trek RPG products advertised in the official Star Trek III movie magazine. I'd become a Trekkie when my father took 10-year-old me to see Wrath of Khan in theaters, and I spent the mid-80s immersing myself in the seeking out of new worlds with the Enterprise. And as I read the expanded universe novels of Pocket Books, I eagerly set about turning them into RPG scenarios.
Fast forward to 2008. I'd played and run a wide variety of RPGs, even getting to play Star Trek under the FASA rules in the early 90s for a brief time. But I'd yet to get behind the screen and run Star Trek. Word of the "new" Star Trek caused me some dispair; my maiden voyage adventures of the [I]Enterprise's /I] maiden voyages under Captain Robert April and based on two Diane Carey novels (Final Frontier and First, Best Destiny) were about to be officially de-canoned.
By 2008, my three active groups were all good RP groups; I'd had trouble in the previous 2 decades of getting the kill-loot-collect crowd to get into the cooperative, enlightened mindset of a good Starfleet crew. Of these, two of the groups were willing to give Star Trek a try and one of them had an old FASA fan like me in. The dream would finally launch. Aboard the USS Coda, my favorite rules set for Trek, I was finally leaving Spacedock.
In the quarter century since my mind began weaving together adventures in the 23rd century, the territory has been further explored in comics, novels and short stories. And I even had a few original ideas to plug in as well.
I hope to share all our adventures together with the Trek community here. If I ever catch up, I'd even like to use you as a sounding board for upcoming adventures.
Between the holidays and a hectic work schedule, my posting may take some time before its reliable; please be patient. And thanks in advance for any positive feedback or suggestions you'd care to make.
Coming soon, more details on my pre-TOS campaign, Star Trek: The Golden Age
Personal Combat Simulations
While not new to gaming, Coda combat is different from the heavily d20-influenced gaming world of the early 21st century. An average defense number of 7-9 with opponents rolling 2d6 plus their combat skill means that getting hit is more of a conscious choice of action than having the right levels and equipment stacked up.
Most of the personal combat training using energy weapons took place in an imaginary arena based on the various Photon and LazerQuest arenas that I'd frequented in my youth. The maze/bunker/tower layout emphasized the importance of using cover to increase defense. It also allowed me to remind the players that unlike many other current RPGs, in Coda a moving target is harder to hit. Aside from straightforward team and single combat in the maze, I also had some special scenarios from my paintball days like capture the flag, protect the ambassador and rescue the hostage. The players also got to see that stunning is a very effective use of the phaser.
The players had a fairly good understanding of the melee and hand to hand style of Coda fighting, since Niles' player had GMed Lord of the Rings for the group about 3-4 years before I ran Star Trek. This was a good chance to test out my house rules for knock-out, since beating on someone until their out of Health levels is the one major flaw I've found with the Coda system. (My house rules are on a famous site over here).
During the indoor training missions, the cadets were using phasers locked in Stun mode. For the outdoor survival/elimination training, they wore sensor harnesses and the weapons were signal-beam set, and a starship in geosynchronous orbit beamed up anyone "killed" (wouldn't want a stunned cadet falling off a cliff or into a river and dying).
Each team on the survival mission was beamed downed to a separate area of the training grounds with some basic survival materials and a few pieces of personal equipment. Since the scenario was assuming they were beaming down for an intentional landing party, they were permitted to request permission for items beyond the basic survival needs. Niles and Payne asked if there was any way to rig their communicators for hands-free operation; I thought that rather clever and allowed them with a minor Repair roll to link those ubiquitous communications ear-booms to their communicators in a retro-bluetooth kinda way. Niles decided that its better to be over prepared, so he ordered all landing party members to bring a tricorder.
The training was to take place on a Starfleet reservation, so there was little danger of encountering anyone other than another team of trainees. The cadets' tricorders contained a map based on their ship's "orbital scan" that contained the rendezvous site for pick-up. Other teams of cadets were to deemed hostile forces. The scores were based on how quickly each team could reach the beam-out site and how much of the team was still "alive." Naturally, Niles and Payne added "make sure Rittenhouse doesn't make it" to the mission parameters.
The first day, Niles and Payne force a fast pace from the team, using Courage to boost their Persuade attempts to keep the others moving in the face of mounting Fatigue. Having determined the most likely place that the other teams would cross the river bisecting the training area, the planning of Rittenhouse's doom proceeded. Payne wanted to use the tricorders as a life-sign masker. I ruled that, with a proper Repair TN of 15, a tricorder could be bent to that purpose with the caveat that it worked as a double blind (no hiding inside the field and scanning out), said tricorder could not be used for any other purpose while jamming life readiings, and such use would drain the tricorder's batteries in 4-5 hours.
Setting aside half the landing party's tricorders for making duty, a rotating shift of a solitary spotter placed outside the field but in view of the shielded and camouflaged rest area while the others recovered from their long day's march.
The next morning, a few hours after sunrise, the next team is approaching the river's ford; its Rittenhouse's team. I don't recall who was on sentry duty, but the last tricorder set aside for masking duty had been running for about two hours. The sentry scurried back into the masking field and everyone rolled Stealth to avoid being visually tracked. The ambush went down by the numbers, and to add insult to injury Niles and Payne offered the survivors a chance to surrender after "gunning down" Rittenhouse. The sour look on his face as he was beamed out of the scenario gave the players something to crow about.
Up next: the Mercury mission
Jupiter Flight Test Range
The flight training scenario was a short one and rather rules heavy, but it went a long way to helping the player characters get over the fear of taking the helm.
A short trip aboard the Drake brought the trainees to the flight test range at Jupiter. There are two parts to the pilot training scenario.
The first training session was based on the flight simulator in the original X-Wing PC game of the early 90s. A series of platforms projected a holographic arch, and the trainees had to fly the shuttlecraft through the arch, with the bottom of the shuttle oriented towards the projection platform; although it still cost the trainee points, crashing through the non-solid arch was preferable to hitting the platform. There are five levels of difficulty, starting with a Systems Operations (helm or flight control) TN 5, with each successive level increasing by 5. Starfleet cadets are required to score at least level 2 before being rated as qualified pilots. A little flavor text while the trainees maneuvered the course kept them on the edge of their seats; Payne scored a level 3 success and Niles scored a perfect level 5 on his first run through the course.
The next part of pilot training involved high speed touch-and-go landings to simulate emergency insertion or pick-up missions. There were several different locations on a variety of Jupiter's moons for flavor (different environmental conditions), but mechanically speaking the Systems Operations (helm or flight control) was TN 15, with a marginal success on three out of five attempts needed. Failure meant the LZ was overshot, Complete failure meant that the pilot had set down hard enough to dent the shuttle and Disastrous failure meant a full-blown crash. Although Payne did dent his shuttle on one of his touch-and-go runs, both player character cadets passed three out of five attempts on the first day of training.
Up next: the events of junior year, the Incident, and the intrigues of senior year at Starfleet Academy.
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While you were at school...
While the cadets are attending the Academy, big things are afoot in the Federation.
During Freshman year, the cadets were shown the "Ships of the Line" presentation attached below.
From the pre-Federation NX, the Daedalus and the Ranger-class as presented in the Starfleet Operations Manual, its clear that the distinct saucer shape of the TOS Enterprise was an evolution of sorts. I decided that the Class 1 starships from the Starfleet Technical Manual (reprinted in 1986) would be the first of the "new breed". The Constitution-class heavy cruiser, the Ptolemy-class tug, the Hermes-class scout and the Saladin-class destroyer (the last two of which are externally identical, hence the "missing" graphic). These prototype ships were under construction based on Ranger-class hull refit and would begin trial runs in the summer of 2243, while the cadets were on field assignment before starting their junior year.
In October of 2243, Dr. Richard Daystrom unveils his duotronic circuit, which revolutionizes Federation computer technology. Because of the timing of this event, the NCC-1701 will enter actual service before the class leader Constitution; the Enterprise will be built with the duotronic circuits, while the Constitution needs to be rewired with the new technology after completing trial runs. Just in time for Robert April to take the cadets on the mission of a lifetime fresh out of drydock...but I'm getting ahead of myself.
