I need some help here

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I have to make some last minute adjestment to my player group. The boyfriend of one of my players has stepped down, so my group is down to two players, a bajoran CMO and an andorian Chief Tactical Officer. Now another of my friends would like to join the group, but she has no experience with RPGing at all and only some superficial Star Trek setting knowledge, having seen quite a number of VOY epiodes but not much more. She is more into stuff like Xena. Now my players thought, that they could somehow stumble or have stumbeled over a rogue somewhat barbarian character they nicknamed "Princess Xana". I was thinking about switching the setting over to CODA LOTR, but my two original players won't have that... Could you give me any hints as how I should handle this situation? I'd very much like to have her come along, but I'm not quite sure how to pull it off.

My campaign was supposed to start shorty after the beginning of DS9 an board a Niagara class vessel as found in the ICON sourcebook "Price of Freedom". I had some preleminary adventures around a nasty Trill ambasador planned out. Perhaps I could use one of those to "find" this Xana character, perhaps free her and try to bring her home... Any ideas anyone???

I have to build that character tonight, so I'd appriciate any kind of fast hints and will post again, how things develope from here on.

[Lt Cmdr Matt]

Maybe have the Federation ship destroyed, and this Princess is able to save the CMO/CTO only. It could make for some interesting rleplaying.

[Evan van Eyk]

Another option might be something like Tasha Yar ( she came from that barbarian colony ) or a Klingon character, maybe an ambassador or exchange officer.

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Yes, I had thought about something along those lines. But I could't figure out a likely scenario. I wanted to avoid starting off the whole thing with a destroyed vessel. But having the two stranded on a planet during a time similar to the middle ages could be fun. Yeah, that might actualy be fun for all involved. I would just have to find a way around the prime directive, when she wants to come along in the end...

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Originally posted by Evan van Eyk
Another option might be something like Tasha Yar ( she came from that barbarian colony ) or a Klingon character, maybe an ambassador or exchange officer.

That would have been me initial thoughts, but Ana is very much focused on the sword-playing sort of character. Perhaps she could befriend my Andorian PC and then follow him.

The other thought I had in mind, was having her freed by the ships crew after having been abducted by the Feregi or Orions. But she has no way of telling where she actualy is coming from, so she comes along the way, hoping, that the journey of the PC's ship will bring her closer to home. A little bit like Odo, if you know what I meen.

This only works of course, if her homeplanet is unknown to the Federation .

But thanks for your ideas...

[Owen E Oulton]

Three words: Klingon exchange officer.

No radical rationalisation needed - the Klingon officer has simply been assigned to the vessel as part of the screen-referenced Klingon officer exchange programme. Let her carry a Meq'leth like Worf did in DS9 - heck, even let her wear Klingon armour if she wants. Since she's watched some Voyager, she should have a basic idea of what Klingons are and how they behave from watching B'Elanna Torres.

Hell, you can even call her sogh (Lieutenant) Si'naH. No killer Frisbees, though.

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It has been done.

She didn't want to play a Klingon.

I have had some bad experience with players forced to play something against their wills.

Because of that, I cobbled together a package for her using the orphan package for personal and the Rogue profession for Professional development.

I have given her some weapons and equipment. Although she most likely will not have any use for it.

In the first episode my Starfleet players will free her from a smuggler / slaver organisation. But without any information as to her origins. She turns out to be noble woman on some kind of mideaval planet (perhaps I'm going to use some ideas found in the old TNG novel "Masks").

The supposed setting:

Our ship, the Atlantis, is assigned to a newly charted sector (not yet decided where this sector is situated) and her mission is to continue were the explorer type ships left.

Assigned to Atlantis is a Trill ambassador handling the first contact scenarios or missions to worlds, where first contact has been initiated only a short time ago.

Over the time there will be clues that will lead the players to Xana's homeworld, were they will find a Prime Directive situation.

Either the Ferengi or the Orions (perhaps rogues of both) have set up camp on her world.

First they wanted to use the planet as a basecamp or headquarters of sorts, but than they discovered something of more interest. (I will have to come up with something).

And to make even more profit, they began abducting strong and handsome people to sell them to the highest bidders, probably for amusement like brutal archaic tournements, with life or death fights.

Now the players have to find a way to help Xana and her people to get rid of the alien intrusion, without busting too many regulations.

As I see it coming Xana is a mix of Indiana Jones, Xena the Warrior princess and Calhoun (perhaps a little Si Cwan nobless).

I'll play some sessions along these outlines and will see what will happen...

Thanks for your thoughts.

[Phoenix]

Another species with a strong warrior tradition, Capellian. Federation ally if not full member by the time of TNG. They even use a weapon called a Kligat, very similar to the cakaram in use. They Have a culture that could have a Princess title attached to a name, and like to fight.

[Tobian]

Yeah, i was thinking the Capellans too.. it would fit, and she could probably be a Starfleet officer from their race, but then if she doesn't really want to be anything but her core concept... Hmmm

It wouldn't be terribly hard to write in any number of scenarios where such a character could be written in to a story.. a story.. finding a pervasive reason for her to be continuously in a ship based series could be a problem.. Perhaps if it was a DS9 scenario, and she was a Kira nerys type character, intergrated into the comand structure but still very much NOT Starfleet...

Perhaps if you wanted to theme it around that region... you could create an abandonned station in orbit of the planet.. The Starfleet PC's mission, allong with a small crew, is to retro-fit it to be suitable as a Starfleet outpost, so they can keep the Ferengi and or Orions away... and then you have the planet.. the Prime directive is in pieces.. you have a planet who've been exposed to space travel and aliens, but are relativelly primative.. perhaps she can be the Kira type character, who's a high ranking noble, who can liase between the people on her level (swords and fists) and the Starfleet people - helping them to come to terms with the new large imballances in their culture.. Some people know everything, some people have woven it into their mythology and some people are largelly ignorant...

You could have stories such as a Warlord who aquired a cache of Orion 24th century weapons and who is now oppressing people with his amazing 'lighting sticks', claiming to be a god etc.. Orion / Ferengi smugglers hidden in the system, trying to regain their foothold.. from small scale arms races (as above) to all out assaults on the station..

You could also have more general exploration missions as that thread runs dry (or you do!) as these people want to explore their system, make friends and find out what's in their back yard...

[Owen E Oulton]

Or, you could simply say, "We're playing Star Trek, not Dungeons and Dragons." It's obvious she doesn't want to play the same game you do. It may be harsh, but sometimes you just have to say "no." It all depends, however, on the tone and tenor you wish for your game - I did allow a D&D thief to be a main character in my Lucas campaign, but that was a tongue-in-cheek non-Starfleet romp with a Traveller mercenary as the main NPC, using the old FASA rules and nominally set in the Star Trek universe. (Details can be found in the Star Trek: Lucas section of my site.) I would be far less inclined, however, to put such a character on a starship.

As for the Capellans, I doubt that the society depicted in the series, where women are chattel with no property rights or rights of self-determination, dependant on their husbands for their very lives, would produce a Xena-type warrior.

If you want a strong female character, perhaps a Cygnan, depicted in TOS as being a matriarchal society. I've personally identified them as being the purple-skinned golden-haired species shown in Journey to Babel (similar to Trance Gemini v1.0 from Andromeda). Make the sword-play her hobby, much as Sulu was interested in fencing. Make her a Security officer - you can separate out Tactical and Security functions on the ship (there's no real need for them to be connected) - or a Ground Forces officer.

You can work the sword into an adventure or two - perhaps the Away Team is sent down to a primitive planet where swords are in use, or perhaps she winds up in a duel on a planet with a code duello.

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Originally posted by Owen E Oulton
Or, you could simply say, "We're playing Star Trek, not Dungeons and Dragons." It's obvious she doesn't want to play the same game you do. It may be harsh, but sometimes you just have to say "no."

That's not how it is. She wants to play with us, simply has never played a RPG before and wants to play something better someone she is a little bit more familiar with. WE ALL want her to be part of the group and so we'll give this scenario a try. If it doesn't work out there are numerous ways out of it.

I didn't realy want to make her part of the command crew. But I think that she would have to come down to the surface of a planet to see if she actually is home or not. Perhaps I will strand my other two PC after some episodes on her planet, so that they have to cope with an environment they are unfamiliar with like she had in the beginning.

I actualy like Tobian's idea with the warlord that aquires 24th century tech and starts overpowering the legitimate leader. Having the Xana character around to serve as a liason is another interesting idea. Perhaps it has nt to be an abandoned station but some small base set up to make sure the smuggler don't return after Starfleet made them withdraw, like the ones seen in "Insurrection" or the TNG episode "Who Watches The Watchers".

If your interested I will keep you posted on what is happening. The game is supposed to start of coming thursday night.

Gotta go to bed now...