New Game starting soon

[IceGiant]

I have a DnD group that is willing to give ST a go when we take a break. My problem lies in that none have ever played a ST game before but are familiar with the universe.

They have voiced that they like the DS9 series and would like to play in the time frame. My questions are as follows. How should i run these newbies in a game.
I'm going to either be useing a Defiant or Nova class for their small size. Should i make the captain an npc till they get the hang of the game style, or should i put them on a runabout first to give them a feel for the universe without the headeache of command structures and organization issues?

I'm not sure how to ease them into the ST roleplaying which is considerably different that your standard DnD game. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[Phoenix]

Well if you have good strong gamers I'd start them out on a "going to get our ship from the docks mission". Go ahead and make them the command crew, currently on a runabout or hitching a ride on someone elses ship in route to their new/refit posting. think of this as a "testing of the waters". If they handle themselves correctly, your game is now underway. This could also be done from a starbase, let the characters interact (meet for the first time) with each other for a little while, catch a ride to the ship (add complication here), then proceed with the exploration of the universe.

Now if you have less then dedicated players, start them off in a lower-decks game recentaly assigned to new ship.

Remember: You can always go back and fix problems later. If their familiar with the ST feel things should go well, even with the lack of technical game system knowledge.

[Captain Otto]

If you have played a combat heavy rpg like DnD a change to a ST can be complicated, as many players of this kind usually seek a quick and violent solution of any problem presented.
If they are like this you should be carefull at first an start with conflicts that will not provide fertile grounds for violence - Stress delicate diplomatic measures and so on-
As for the ship starting with a small Vessel is quite a good idea.
You might consider a Saber Class Light Cruiser as well if you want a combat oriented ship that is not clearly a Defiant clone.
I crew rooster could add a little depth to your game (and gives you some NPC names and positions for interaction with the players)
As for the captain I would at first use an NPC unless a player with reallife leadership abilities shows up and voices interrest in this position.

[Jem'hadar]

My players have played RPGs but never Star Trek until I introduced them to Codatrek. I used the pre-generated characters in the PG & the introductory adventure on Decipher's website to save time w/ character generation. I let them choose from the list of available characters.

I have a lot of ICON material so I started them off as seniors in Starfleet Academy and ran just a couple of adventures in the Academy before graduating them to ensigns. I let a year pass outside game time & told them they did a tour of duty on other ships w/ routine missions. I then put them aboard an Intrepid class starship as mid-level bridge officers operating the gamma shift (third shift).

I chose Intrepid class b/c it's fast & powerful, but the crew complement is a manageable size. Plus they've all seen VOY & know what the exterior & interiors look like.

I've run them through a few ICON adventures & they've done well so they've been promoted to beta (second) shift. The Captain or XO gives them assignments, including away team assignments. The Captain or XO will assign of one of the Crew to be the leader of the away team. They report to the Captain or XO but are given a lot of autonomy. This allows them a degree of independent action but w/i certain limitations. If they get far off-track, the Captain or XO will contact them to put them back on track. Plus having the Captain or XO as an NPC over them can keep them in line in case they try to do something against Starfleet Regulations.

[Tobian]

Hmm I'm thinking if they like the feel of DS9 you could run your campaign out of a shipyard in a remote sector: Create some unique local problems and give them a chance to use both runabouts or maybe get temporarily assigned to full sized starships, for field tests etc.. it could provide a good dynamic playing field.

Startrek, especially in the 24th century is definatelly not like D&D.. Pehraps what you need to do is start out without any combat, to help reinforce that it is not - hit things, kill things, gain XP.. Set a number of challenges which reward directly in XP, rather than pure combat, and make the corelation obvious. Ok I sound like I'm trying to get you to train a puppy, but I'm sure you know what I mean!

I recomend you have the players play junior characters. Making one of them a Co could be a mistake because a Co is under his own rules.. I.e. they may start disegarding Starfleet regulations etc, not realise, and gloss over them, drifting out of the genre, into a hack and slash etc !

If the players have no real idea who or what they want to be, I suggest you lead them with opoortunities, and let them discover the world, and learn all of the things they can be, and then they will start to move down their chosen path.. If you hem them in too early they might not like it, especially if they are used to the D&D approach! As Ensigns they have a broad range of skills and could, perhaps, serve an alpha and a beta duty, such as Tom Paris the Pilot / Nurse.. make them chose 2 duties they have to be involved with and then later they will drift to where they want to specialise.

Food for thought!

[kridenow]

Hello,

I am running my current campaign with players being crewmembers on a refitted Excelsior class ship.
None of them is a top, senior officer.

My stories are emphasizing personnal initiative and the captain (NPC here) is asking for reports and advices.

So far, even if the players are not formally in control of the ship and the big decision, they feel their advice count, that they can influence the way things are happening.
The trick, for me at least, is to show a NPC captain trusting its subordinates and taking decisions including what they think and did.
If the NPC captain was constantly having decisions opposed to players opinions (or contested at least), they would probably slowly give up and lose interest, switching from "interested because involved" to "duty only".

I also rarely let the players "alone" for a long period of time, to continually remind them they are from a ship crew.
Away teams stories usually get its senior officer, or reports must be made regularly (which fits to the Star Trek theme, most of the time, anyway).

The ultimate NPC captain (or senior officer) decision is also a kind of nice safety net either to correct something you feel wrong about your game (not necessarily about your story), or to remind some Starfleet principles.
The "captain safety net" also doesn't prevent morality questioning, unless players are doing blatant (and probably consciously) wrong proposals.
A wrong, bad, advice but looking justified can let the captain finally takes a somewhat wrong decision. If he is still responsible for it, the players should feel they have their share of responsability too.

Of course, if the NPC captain follows blindly the players advice, it will weaken its personnality, making it look like a simple puppet. However, unless your players are perfect manipulators (then, do they fit in a regular Starfleet game ? or should you move to a variant of the theme ?) or paragons of Starfleet virtues, you should regularly have the NPC captain opinion differing, even only slightly. Just be careful to make your NPC decision justified from at least its point of view and not a kind of railroading device. It sometimes helps players to be better Starfleet officers Lead by example.

In my current campaign, it works really well.
So, I believe my players feel they are part of a crew, on a Starfleet ship, that their opinions matter even if they don't have full control on the final and important decisions. Most of the time, working hard to provide accurate infos and advice, they are actually tailoring the captain decision.
I believe they feel quite proud when they found a valid solution to a problem. The fact they don't themselves give the final order seems to matter little. They know what they brought in the story. The final order itself is only cosmetic.

Pierre

[IceGiant]

Thank you for all the advice. I think I will try letting them be bridge officers on a 24 man Oberth class. Small enough so they don't get lost in the shuffle and still be a "full-sized" starship. I can keep the ranks low with dominion war loses and ship size. Leave them as Lt(jnr) when they leave the academy and have them with no advancements.

[IceGiant]

Hmmm, I was wondering something. Do you think starfleet would bother reclaiming the USS Pegasus? I thought it might be an interesting idea for the campaign, but I also thought they might not bother with all that happened with the ship.

My basic idea was that the PC's are sent back to recover the Pegasus and bring her back to a spacedock. They would be given a modified version of the phasing claok without the claok part. They would be on a runabout with the 4 modules filled with parts and equipment. So they would get to know the ship and get a hang for the system without the hassle of a "normal" adventure so to speak.

[Tobian]

Hmm I don't understand.. if you remove the 'cloak' part you.. have a box with flashy lights?! it' cloaks the vessel because it is out of quantum phase with spacetime, it's hand in hand with the way it works!

The reason that Starfleet doesn't use cloaks is because of the treaty of Algeron, formed with the Romulan Empire which does not permit them to own, use or develop cloaking technology. The only exception is the Defiant which possessed a Romulan built cloaking device for observing the Dominion.. they flagrantly ignored the treaty on a few occasions, but then 1) it was an older model, so likelly detectable by the Romulans and 2) they knew they had it.. which is the point, and they didnt then go and install it on all their ships.. 3) Them owning it helped the Romulans NOT get invaded, so they bent their own rules

I'm probably missing the point

There is of course, nothing to stop you from running a pegasus mark II project.. I.e. Some admiral somewhere decides to continue with the project.. after all it is a cloaking device! Hides evidence well!

PS: In a runabout with all 4 comparments filled with gubbins, it's going to get very uncomfortable, as there's only a couple of bunks and a toilet in that rear compartment, so they'll have to hot-bunk it.. you could always fit a module above the runabout and give them one bunk module, so they didn't all have to sleep inthe same 2 beds for a couple of months! hehe!

[Ergi]

Sounds like Pandora's box to me. Bringing back the Pegasus will certainly cause trouble with the Romulans, especially if part of the cloaking device is still in use. An other reason why I think you should reconsider using her is player ingenuity - they will (want to) use the phasing ability for all kinds of things, like hiding inside asteroids, planets or even stars, to become immune to enemy fire, and a lot of other things you might not always want them to do.
What do your players want? Since this is their first exposure to Star Trek roleplaying it might be a better idea to give them something more ordinary, so they can get a better understanding of the setting. First impressions count a lot. They probably already have a certain concept of what the game will be like, based on the shows, so you might scare them off by doing something "different" right from the beginning.
And one last question: Would you like to serve on the Pegasus or would you rather be posted on a different ship? The vessel is probably quite notorious, and it might seem like an undeserved punishment to post them there.

[IceGiant]

Yeah you're probably right Ergi. Think I will stuff them on your run of the mill Oberth. Keep it simple for myself and them.

[Tobian]

Perhaps you could simply set it on a recently salvaged or recomissioned Pegasus, which gives a background for the players and an interesting colour... without having the phasing cloak element installed. It could have hastilly been recomissioned due to the Dominion war, unlikelly, but if half the ship was left, and they recovered it they may have decided to re-use it!

This could give you scope for a few missions without, as Ergi points out, actually having them try new and interesting ways to make your life hell with a phasing cloak For example.. a Romulan Commander might hasle them, asking to look at their cloak.. Ok so they don't have one, but when you are a tiny Oberth faced down by a D'Deridex battle cruiser, you had better think fast! There's also the option of a 'ghosts from the past' style adventure.. either literal ghosts.. some of the crew didnt actually die! Or something from the old crew rears it's ugly head for the present crew.

Having a ship with a history of some kind, good or bad, can be a great opener for stories!