Dominion war series

[ds9guy]

I've been wanting to do a Dominion War game or series of games for a while now.

My players have both Federation and Klingon characters so one thing I fdefinately want to do is switch gears at some point in the series and let them play the Klingons. And I'd really like this to tie back in to the StarFleet game.

Second, my Captain player was recently demoted from Admiral so what I'd like to do is have him tasked by command to head a scraped-together Reserve Fleet. I was thinking he would be field-promoted to Fleet Captain or Commodore for this. What does the board think the composition of a reserve force should be? I was thinking of it in terms of a motley collection of ship types from battle-hardened veteran ships to brand-new ships crewed mostly by green cadets. They would be tasked to "plug the hole" somewhere the battle is going against the Federation/Klingon alliance.

I found some good stuff in the Dominion War sourcebook for LUGTrek.
Right now, I was thinking of including a game centering around a special forces type mission, one having to do with the changeling threat of infiltrators and a big fleet game centered around taking out a Dominion uber-ship.

If anyone has any successful Dominion War game ideas they used I'd be greatful...
or if anyone ideas for colorful NPC ideas for the major players in the Reserve force...

thanks in advance,

Monty H.

[Pericles]

By the very name of "Reserve Fleet" that brings to my mind more of a scraping together of hastily repaired ships or ships brought out of storage with a few decent officers, but largely comprised of burn-outs, misfits, and other forms of down and out crew.

The only experienced officers and ships you'd have would be ships that sustained very heavy damaged and were deemed unsuitable for action with the rest of the battle fleet. Due to the damaged sustained, these ships would be short handed on crew due to battle losses and prone to break downs because of battle damage. Most of your replacement crew to fill in for the losses would be a bunch of just out of the Academy ensigns filling positions way above their paygrades.

I personally haven't run a Dominion War campaign, but it is next on my list after my "Lost Years" campaign finishes up.

[JALU3]

I've been wanting to do a Dominion War game or series of games for a while now.

My players have both Federation and Klingon characters so one thing I fdefinately want to do is switch gears at some point in the series and let them play the Klingons. And I'd really like this to tie back in to the StarFleet game.

Second, my Captain player was recently demoted from Admiral so what I'd like to do is have him tasked by command to head a scraped-together Reserve Fleet. I was thinking he would be field-promoted to Fleet Captain or Commodore for this. What does the board think the composition of a reserve force should be? I was thinking of it in terms of a motley collection of ship types from battle-hardened veteran ships to brand-new ships crewed mostly by green cadets. They would be tasked to "plug the hole" somewhere the battle is going against the Federation/Klingon alliance.

Why do you think a demoted Admiral would be given such a high command as a fleet? A training squadron maybe, but not more beyond that, that is unless he has a high public stature as Kirk did. But most likely Kirk is an exception, not the rule. Demotions, outside of Junior Enlisted Personnel, in my experience, are rarely handed out. If anything it's the static effect it has on promotion, that is someone with that huge of a blemish stay at that rank.

I myself would place him in a position where he mainly does logistical or other support chance. And then give him a situation where there is a raid by the Dominion on the supply lines. This would be common even into the latter half of the war. For any military strategist knows that logistics are a key part of any fighting force. Without it, even the most advance fighting force will degrade into a poor fighting force to none-at-all.

This would give him the chance to show his worth again, that is if he suceeds. In my personal opinion, don't make it an out-right victory if you can help it. Give him a bloody nose, but give him the taste of it.

I found some good stuff in the Dominion War sourcebook for LUGTrek.
Right now, I was thinking of including a game centering around a special forces type mission, one having to do with the changeling threat of infiltrators and a big fleet game centered around taking out a Dominion uber-ship.

If anyone has any successful Dominion War game ideas they used I'd be greatful...
or if anyone ideas for colorful NPC ideas for the major players in the Reserve force...

thanks in advance,

Monty H.

I think you have to make your players work for that chance. But the question is how far into the war are you going to place them into it? If it is early on in the war, then his actions in this first battle can prove him as a combat commander. And as in WWII, pre-war officers who didn't make the muster under fire were placed on the backburner in non-line positions; and those pre-war officers who did make the muster quickly rose the the ranks, even if they had higher ranking officers who opposed them above them. This was also true for war-time officers.

If it's later on in the war, his demotion could mean a lot lot more. As the reasons for demotion would be more severe then those in a peace-time situation (although if the demotion was connected to the brief break in the Khitomer Accords, this can be a BIG problem to gaining any significant command (even part of a squadron)). And thus his chances of being placed in an elite force would be VERY slim indead.

Or you can change things. Keep in the Dominion War, but in an area away from the front-lines, the forgotten rim-ward sectors. There would still be a lot of holes there to be filled due to the deviation of the major resources to the Front-lines of the war. Furthermore, don't think that the Founders wouldn't attempt to expliot those weaknesses to the Federation, and the to the Klingon Empire. Remember the region past the Romulan and Klingon border are mainly a big unknown to the Federation and her Alpha Quadrant member systems. This would give your PCs more freedom to work with.

[ds9guy]

Jalu,

good points. The game where the PC was demoted was years ago while TNG was still on the air. I was playing an XO on other ship involved in the same game. Basically, it ended up with the pair of us defying orders to help stop a war with Cardassia starting. The then admiral character was made an example of and demoted to captain. I think my character they promised would never see his own command. Simply put, we did what was right in a situation but ran afoul of politics (which was the Gamemaster's whole point of the game).

I didn't mean to imply that the reserve fleet thing was meant to nullify the demotion I mentioned. I only really brought it up to show that the player's character had command experience. With the way the war was going the last few years of DS9's run I thought it made sense that command might tap an expereinced (if somewhat out of vogue) person for just such an assignment. It seemed a good way of acknowledging that they need him but still don't think of him as a team player.

The reserve fleet assignment would then by the nature of the game turn out to be really important. It would give a chance everyone's characters to shine even ina situaton where they weren't originally meant to.

make sense?

I think maybe my first post gave the wrong impression of what i was trying to set up.

To address a second point, I'm looking through my DS9 companion tongiht to see what season I want the games to connect to. My initial guess would be earlier in the war...

[ds9guy]

A few adventure seeds I hope to flesh out into full games for the Dominion War campaign.

1. An homage to Guns of Navaronne where a mixed group of security and spec ops types have to go blow up some important Dominion something. Not sure what the big target will be. Maybe a whopping big subspace gun?

2. A mission involving the freeing of several prisoners of war from a Dominion or Cardassian prison camp. Information the prisoners have can easily link to any other adventure in the series. This might be a way to bring in the Klingon characters too...or to introduce a changeling infiltrator!

3. A mission involving the siege of a planet or space station. I have in mind the historical siege of Stalingrad during WWII.

4. Another sneaky-sneaky mission like #1 above except the team has to infiltrate a ketricel white facility and introduce a drug that will poison the Jem'hadar. This may be a section 31 tie-in game.

5. A mission where an ambitious attack is planned that might turn the tide of battle but that goes disastrously wrong due to mismanagement, bad luck, etc. This is a good chance for the PCs to show their true grit by helping salvage the op and get in some real Rolepleying as they deal with the ramifications during and after the failed mission. I have the mind here the WWI Gallipoli campaign.

A few comments about the setting. I want to set things around a Federation Starbase, my sector HQ for the Dominion arc I'm planning out. Early in the series the admiral in charge's flagship (Nebula class) will be destroyed. The captain Pc and his Ambassador class will have to step up to the plate, take over command and save what's left of the fleet as well as the station.

[Phoenix]

A few adventure seeds I hope to flesh out into full games for the Dominion War campaign.

1. An homage to Guns of Navaronne where a mixed group of security and spec ops types have to go blow up some important Dominion something. Not sure what the big target will be. Maybe a whopping big subspace gun?

2. A mission involving the freeing of several prisoners of war from a Dominion or Cardassian prison camp. Information the prisoners have can easily link to any other adventure in the series. This might be a way to bring in the Klingon characters too...or to introduce a changeling infiltrator!

Take a look at books 1 and 3 of the Dominion War Series by John Vornholt, They deal with what the Enterprise-E was up to during the war. Very much like what your thinking about for both the above concepts. Books 2 and 4 of the series delt with the Defiant during the off-air (between seasons) portion of the war, in an unrelated story.

[ds9guy]

Thanks for the book suggestions Phoenix.
By thw way, would the Tales of the Dominion War anthology be useful to anyone GMing a Dominion War game?

[Archr]

HAving read most of the Anthology, it really depends on what you want out of it. The one with Scotty and McCoy gives a little hint of what it is lioke on some of the rim worlds, especialyl those who do not want to get caught up in the War. The Picard/Troi at SFC story shows an in-the-trenches look at what (could have) happened on Earth when the Breen blasted San Francisco.

Actually, more or less any War Story could be lifted from any period and tweaked to work (within reason, of course). Other sources of inspiration:

Pearl Harbor (sudden attack and the response that follows, as well as how the lives of those involved are changed by the events)
U-571 (Attempt to enter enemy territory by stealth and procure a piece of enemy tech or intelligence- remember when Kira, Damar and Odo stole the Dominion fighter with the Breen weapon? Same premise)
Men of Honor (SCE or Rapid Response Teams, rescue/salvage operations)
Flight of the Intruder (pilots and how they deal with the missions they are and are not given, and how they deal with the war)
Heartbreak Ridge (SF Ground Forces/Rapid Response Teams - deal with Hawk/Dove mentality, as well as sending them on rescue missions, taking point on an invasion, etc. Hard-ass NCO's, Platoon Leaders in training, by the book jerk off Battalion Commanders, etc.)


Just a few ideas that came to mind that might fit in with the War setting.

Later all.

R/
Drake