I finally got to be the Narrator for my first Star Trek RPG episode (Coda rules).
There were the usual delays/problems in learning a new system. I had to look up certain rules as they came up.
There were 2 PCs and 2 NPCs in this Crew. To save time, I let the players choose from the pre-generated characters. One chose to be the Trill Diplomat & another chose to be the human command starship officer. The 2 NPCs were a Bajoran pre-med student & a young Klingon warrior going through the Academy as part of a cultural exchange program. I used the Decipher quick-start rules to give the players a crash-course in the Coda mechanics (Although I noticed a difference in ranged weapon penalties b/t the quick-start rules & the rules in the PG). After transferring the data to PC sheets, I started them as Academy cadets & ran the "Survival Test" adventure from the LUG ST Academy boxed set.
Overall, the Crew did quite well. They successfully crash-landed the damaged shuttle, found food & water & made friendly contact w/ the Aldosian natives. After they learned about the Cardassian occupation of the Federation research station & the using of slave labor to mine dilithium from the planet, the Crew came up w/ the plan to attack the research station & free the prisoners. First, they ambushed a unit of 4 Cardies leading prisoners to the mines. They all hit on the first shots & killed the guards, freeing the prisoners. One of whom was a Federation scientist who gave them a layout of the research station (I had to make that up since a map of the station was not provided). It happened so quickly the Cardies were unable to raise an alarm.
Then the Crew attacked a second unit of Cardies & prisoners. One PC got spotted b/f the ambush, but she quickly neutralized the Cardie. The second ambush was a success. Then 2 NPCs put on the Cardie uniforms & led a group of Aldosian warriors to the front entrance. In the twilight light, they were able to get close enough to achieve surprise by pretending to be guards & prisoners. Meanwhile, 2 PCs went in through the back entrance, blasted open the rear locked door w/ a phaser & found the main communicators to jam them so the Cardies couldn't call for help from their warship. They also surprised Gul Givar & stunned him. Then the PCs joined the battle in the main room & all Cardies were either killed or subdued in a few rounds. 2 Cardies surrendered & the PCs turned them over to the Aldosians to do w/ them as they will (for which they were later reprimanded by their instructor). About 6 Aldosians were also killed (one by friendly fire), but no Crew members were injured. Then the Commander appeared & ended the holoprogram, which the PCs were unaware of.
Star Trek phaser combat is very deadly & it's easy to stun/kill on opponent w/ a phaser/disruptor. PCs learned the importance of Dodge & cover. However, cover increased the TN to hit an opponent & for first level PCs, it was tough to hit an opponent w/ as much as 50% cover (+6 TN) unless they got lucky.
The Narrator's screen was extremely helpful & let me find info. quickly so that the game kept flowing. I found the Coda rules relatively easy to use but it does take time & several sessions to get over the Narrator's/Crew's learning curve.
My plan is to keep these characters as long as the players want them (and they don't get killed in an adventure). They seem happy w/ these characters for now.
The next adventure I plan is the 2nd adventure in the Academy boxed set & then maybe a Kobayashi Maru scenario. After that, I'm going to let them graduate the Academy, have them go through a short starship tour of duty (off-screen), & begin again as junior officers of a starship bridge crew, possibly an Intrepid-class vessel.
At this point, I only plan to use the published adventures from LUG (converted to Coda) & the free ones from Decipher as I don't yet have time to write my own.
Hey, welcome to the club! There are also some adventures available on my Memory: ICON site. They're ICON system, but since you're converting anyway... I've also had a great deal of luck using Traveller adventures in my Trek game.
Thanks, Owen. I've downloaded those ICON adventures & have several of the adventures from the main TrekRPG web site when it was up & running. I plan to convert them all to Coda eventually for my campaign.
One thing I forgot to mention was that the cadets were reprimanded for technically violating the Prime Directive. In the adventure, they trained & armed the primitive Aldosian natives w/ Cardassian disruptor rifles, so the Aldosians could help them against the Cardassians, who outnumbered the Crew. No attempt was made to retrieve the disruptors after the battle.
Although the Aldosians were already aware of the Federation outpost on their planet & the Cardassians who invaded, the cadets were admonished about teaching the Aldosians how to use disruptors & actually giving them some. The players knew what they were doing b/c they even joked during the game that if they came back 5 years later, the chief of this tribe would probably be the new warlord of Aldos II.
One inconsistency in the adventure is why was a Federation research station operating openly on a planet w/ primitive sentient natives & why was it being used for a cadet survival training? Wouldn't that also violate the Prime Directive? As it turned out, this was just a holoprogram, but had the test been real, this inconsistency is difficult to explain.
Of course, these players are new to playing the Star Trek RPG. While they are passingly familiar w/ the Star Trek shows, their only prior RPG experience was D&D and similar RPGs. But Starfleet officers are expected to act quite differently than PCs in other RPG genres, and I think it takes some time to learn how to do that & act in character.
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