My first RPG, need some advice!

[Miss Q]

Hello,

I am about to begin my first RPG game and I would like some advise. I have all of the Star Trek RPG books except the Starships book and downloaded the adventure “Ordeal on Gamma Elster IV” and would like to use that as my first game. I have more than three players that want to play and they asked if they could make their own characters. I am a big fan of individualized characters but was wondering if I should limit what alien races were available? I know some should be used as NPC’s but I don’t want to limit my players either. Here is my list, any suggestions would be appreciated.

Andorians
Bajorans
Benzites
Betazoids
Bolians
Centaurans
Deltans
Grazerites
Humans
Klingons
Regulans
Tellarites
Tiburonese
Trill
Vulcans
Zaldans

[Lancer]

Without consulting my rulebooks I'd say your list looks good.

About the only thing you might want to reconsider is including Klingons on the list of possible PCs. Not that there is anything wrong with Klingons as player characters, but all the others could well be Starfleet officers. With a Klingon character you (and/or the player) might have to go an extra mile to make it work. In itself that's not a bad thing, but it could get in the way of "group cohession" in the long run, especially if the rest of the characters are Starfleet and the Klingon is not.

OTOH, if you are comfortable with possibly having an "outsider" in your group or just want to run a single adventure and not a series I'd say go for it!

[TFVanguard]

Well, I would allow the races that you feel comfortable with as a GM. If you don't know much about, say, the Edoans, or you're not comfortable with them, then you wouldn't want to allow them yet.

Sounds pat, I know, but it's an easy trip to start allowing a player to have his 'pet' race, and then bombard you with 'info' that benefits his character that may or may not be backed up with source material. It's also a problem, the other way around, when the player starts asking for details about his race in certain situations, and then you can't provide those details.

Remember, as a GM, you have to have comfort with the material that you're using. If they ask for something you don't know, then you probably just want to tell them that you don't know enough about it to run it.

[Miss Q]

Originally posted by TFVanguard
Well, I would allow the races that you feel comfortable with as a GM.

Well that is understandable, I guess I was thinking of my players instead of what I can handle. Thanks for the help.

Originally posted by TFVanguard
Sounds pat, I know, but it's an easy trip to start allowing a player to have his 'pet' race, and then bombard you with 'info' that benefits his character that may or may not be backed up with source material.

Well I know of one player that will want to do this, guess it’s good to resolve these issues before they arise. I guess I could just stick to those races that have been featured on more than 3 to 5 episodes that would cut my list probably in half.

[Lancer]

Originally posted by Miss Q
I guess I could just stick to those races that have been featured on more than 3 to 5 episodes that would cut my list probably in half.

If you have enough time you could show the list to your players well in advance and just ask them for their preferences and why they want to play a certain species.

Sometimes people just select a race/species/profession, simply because they feel like doing it, at least judging by my personal experience.
In that case you can always try to work out something that fits your game, working with the player, which may be better than just ruling out some possibilities from the start.

If, OTOH, the player's answer makes it obvious to you that they want to force something on you that you are not comfortable with, you could always rule that out as a choice for a PC species.
Just take note that once you do this you should stick to it, no matter what interesting concept for that race another player (however innocently) presents to you.
The last thing you want is to have players think you are applying double standards, but if you can avoid that, leaving as many options open to players (especially the ones who don't want to take advantage of you) is always a good thing.

In the end it depends a lot on how well you know your players and on your own skill in dealing with said players. OTOH, that being said, when in doubt it's probably best to play it safe.

[ComaBoy]

Given that this is your first go at running a game, you can always restrict the races you want to use to those you are most comfortable with now while telling your players that once all of you have more experience (both playing and interacting a s a group), you may be willing to allow a wider range of races to be played in the future. Perhaps players can add another PC in the future or take the option of having their current character 'transferred to another ship' and replaced by another PC.

[Tobian]

Maybe it's just my group (but the fact that he term 'munchkin' exists suggests otherwise! ) but players always try and wring jewels of power out of characters. One of the things I wasn't happy with the Decipher system is that the player character classes are actually unballanced and are built on a range of points rather than a set number. This becomes obvious when you look at races like klingons!

However with respect to 'pet races' you have to remember two things 1) the book is your enemy AND your friend - what it does NOT give is as important as what it DOES - there should be no FREEBIES - if they picked a race because they THOUGHT they could get something - make sure to read the description - if it doesn't mention it - then it doesn't exist!

2) YOU are the GM (period)

usually when I am starting out making a character (as a player) something I like to do is help the GM! I ask what is missing (not all groups need to be like D&D but if there's an obvious gap I can fancy that because it will both be a niche for me, rather than making me ANOTHER security officer etc) and because at the end of the day you can make your character interesting without making him a powergamer character! As several of my friends say when they run a game - the more YOU give me the more I can give to you.. the more material the player can give the GM to work with then the more the GM can hook adventures on too! and these don't have to be 'points' based things, just stuff about your family and background and or friends and families.. and an outline of your goals and outlook on life.

People often misinterpret this as "My grandfather is an Admiral and he gives me a weekly promotion" which will of course result in Admiral ensign being flished out of the airlock in week one

Also another thing you MUST remember is flaws - if they are a flaw they are a FLAW - they are not just something that a player can use to gain freebie points, they are a tool for the GM to get revenge on the player character who used them to bump his CONN skill up to 15+ on every roll

Given sufficiently interesting characters a GM can develop a storyline hardly without writing anything! because the characters, and their odd actions write it for him

You should also make sure, converselly, that the tail does not wag the dog. Characters who would usually be implausable to use regularly can present wonderful opportunities for non standard stories. or example a Feregi bartender on yoru ship will be hard to write in, but imagine the possibilities for fun !

[Miss Q]

Thanks everyone for the advice, I will certainly put it to good use. I have narrowed my list of races but will most likely allow more as the game progresses. I also talked with my potential players and some of the races I dropped they haven’t even heard of before. There is one player that wants to play a mixed species of Betazoid and Bajoran. I don’t want to say no, but has anyone had experiences with this, good or bad?

BTW my races are going to include; Andorians, Bajorans, Benzites, Betazoids, Bolians, Centaurans, Humans, Tellarites, Trill and Vulcans.

[Tobian]

Hmm mixed races are a little odd. They should give you a good reason why this ever happened. it's much laghed about to this day but i recall one of my players making a Ferengi Vulcan (what manner of horrible thing happened there we have no idea!) so that he could gain advantages and disadvantages he wanted. This is the reason you shouldn't allow it! You should ask your player if he really wants to play that or he wants to have specific advantages in a combination and that's his only motivation!

if you havent heard of the species, as I said just simply state if it's not specifically detailed in the book then they cannot have whatever advantages they wanted from being that race ONLY the one's listed in the book!

[ComaBoy]

Reminds me of the Betazoid/Pakled mix joked about here many moons ago . . .

[C5]

One rule I devised as far as mixed species were concerned was that the mixed species was considered like a new species, sharing traits from both parents, but whose pick cost should not exceed the average of both parents species pick costs.
That way you can prevent players from min maxing using mixed species (of course it forces to make a little more calculations).
And if the player is more interested in roleplay than minmaxing, he can even take every traits from one parent species and only a few cosmetics traits from the other (for instance, a human/Vulcan who would use the human template, but have pointed ears and possibly the Enhanced hearing trait).
For instance, the Betazoid/Bajoran hybrid could look like a Bajoran and have most of the Bajoran traits, minus the pagh one that would be replace by the Psionic trait. Or something like that.

Also, I see no problem in including Klingons among playable races. Either they are among Starfleet officers as exchange officers, or you twist canon a bit and have them Starfleet officers as well (more likely if your series happen in late DS9).

[Balok]

The rule for generating hybrids, given in the PG, is (IMO) broken. A clever player can quite easily min-max it to produce truly amazing stats.

Instead, I have the player roll stats in the usual way, and I allow him some flexibility in assigning species modifiers, such that the total adds up to the average of the two parents' modifiers, rounding in favor of the player.

For abilities, I allow the player to select them according to the rules (generally all but one from the dominant parent and one from the other). However, if I feel he's picking all the "good" abilities, then I reduce the strength to bring him back in line, using as a guideline the alien creation rules from the NG. For example, telepathy might get downgraded to empathy.

I also make a player justify a hybrid characters. Remember that hybrids are *rare* -- as a rule, different species simply aren't attractive to each other, even if they're both humanoid. They don't smell right, they don't act right, there are dozens of subtle cues that are *wrong*. When it happens, it happens because an emotional bond forms that can overcome all that (difficult), OR because one of the parents is a half bubble off plumb!

Until you have a few sessions under your belt, and unless you can trust your players, you may want to avoid allowing hybrid characters.

[7 of 11]

As I starting read this I was thinking to myself, "Self, should I say something about mixed species?" Lo and behold! I follow the rules exactly BUT the rolls. When they pick the 2 species I look them up in the aliens guide and read both their personality information to the player and ask them "Is this what you want to play?"I do the primary gets all but 1 species bonus and have them pick 1 from the secondary species. Then the rolls I handle like this to keep it simple. I have them roll 2 sets of attributes like normal. Even mark out the 3 of the lowest numbers. Then they must pick which set is the primary and secondary like normal BUT they must only use the top 4 attributes on the primary and the last 2 on the secondary. They can assign the top 4 (primary) and bottom 2(secondary) anyway they want but instead of them picking the 4 highest of the 6 and the 2 highest of the other 6 they kinda have balanced character. I had someone pick the highest of the bunch and they only had 1 low 10 in their attributes! Also you may want to do a Search here at Trek-RPG.net on for a Character Creation sheet to guide you through the creation steps. It is a life saver! You may want to tab off on your players guide where the skills section is, traits, equipment, delevopment, attributes, and so on to help speed the finding of info (it also helps if all the player's had their own, helps Decipher, and minizes the time EVERYONE has to share 1 book). You may wish to create a few characters on your own to see how it's done and how to exploit the system too (so you'll know what to look for when players do it). You maybe wish to consider advancements as well and how they work (pretty easy but you might want to test them out). All in all I think that covers anything I can think of off the bat and welcome aboard!

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[Miss Q]

Originally posted by 7 of 11
When they pick the 2 species I look them up in the aliens guide and read both their personality information to the player and ask them "Is this what you want to play?" . . .

Sounds like a good way of doing it that is alternate from the book. I will keep that in mind.

Also you may want to do a Search here at Trek-RPG.net on for a Character Creation sheet to guide you through the creation steps. It is a life saver!

That’s one of the first things I downloaded from this site, it does help.

You may want to tab off on your players guide where the skills section is, traits, equipment, delevopment, attributes, and so on to help speed the finding of info (it also helps if all the player's had their own, helps Decipher, and minizes the time EVERYONE has to share 1 book).

Good idea about the tabs. The additional books would pose a problem, the only game store in town doesn’t carry much more that d20 stuff and I had to order my books online.

You may wish to create a few characters on your own to see how it's done and how to exploit the system too (so you'll know what to look for when players do it).

My husband suggested that and/or to make a group of Star Fleet Archetypes (he runs All Flesh Must Be Eaten, which uses archetypes in their games). I could create one from each species and vary their professions to cover most of what’s out there.

[7 of 11]

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