New LUG Game Discussion

[Nene_Richards]

Just finished the Tango Sector Map that my upcoming campaign will be using.

http://www.landofetarnon.net/TangoSectorPrint.jpg

It printed out very nicely on 8 1/2 X 11 glossy <a style='text-decoration: none; border-bottom: 3px double;' href="http://www.serverlogic3.com/lm/rtl3.asp?si=23&k=photo%20paper" onmouseover="window.status='photo paper'; return true;" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true;">photo paper</a>, a few minutes ago.

Moving on to adjacent sectors, for a few days, for some scenario wiggle room, then I will start mapping individual systems in Tango Sector, along with the system writeups, hopefully by the end of this weekend, then start generating NPCs.

Some potential players are asking my to run it using Decipher. We'll see. For now, I am more comfortable with LUG, and I like it's skills breakdown and character generation a lot more.

Hey as I said in my e-mail, I have all the LUG Books so I am cool with you going with LUG (I own all the books). I have a background of my character in mind, but I am waiting for more game info and Ok from you to go on.

[LUGTrekGM]

Galactic South or Rimward, as it were of Tango Sector is Epsilon Sector, just finished.

http://www.landofetarnon.net/EpsilonSectorPrint.jpg

None of Epsilon Sector has writeups yet.

Sorry, haven't checked email, been too wrapped up in rigging these maps.

Will check it now.

[LUGTrekGM]

Capt. V'lor has requested assignment to USS Majestic, and is approved.

The Captain's slot is now closed.

Interested participants, please apply to other positions.

[LUGTrekGM]

More game info such as?

Ask away.

[Nene_Richards]

Just what you just sent me. Sorry damn response was tp log for the PMs you are getting in 5 parts.

[V'Lor]

Excellent

[LUGTrekGM]

Nice banner, Captain. I like the colors contrasting / complementing.

[LUGTrekGM]

A Clarification on Characters, and positions:

I have fielded a few inquiries as to open positions recently, and also have received some notes (and also have read many posts here on these forums, that there is a concern with having a player portray the role of Captain, rather than the GM).

I want to lay out my goals for character generation for the crew, and the role of the Captain as leader of the crew.

What I do as referee is promote to the Captain's player (and the rest of the players, really) the idea of delegating authority to the lower ranks as much as possible, but not responsibility, which lies with the senior officers, and thus ultimately the Captain.

I want to minimize micromanagement by the Captain, and urge the Captain in all missions/Episodes to set the goal, but not the methods. When doing the missions/scenarios (as Starfleet Admirals, etc.) I do the same thing: Here is your mission, go to it.

The Admiral won't say "Once you get there, Fire all forward torpedoes first, then turn about, hitting them from the rear. After that, take the left flank, once they are open." No.

All of the characters portrayed are competent officers of Starfleet. They don't need to have their hands held when the crap hits the fan. They take action, and drive the problem, and utilize the skills, talents and competence of their subordinates to the fullest.

The Admiral will say "You are the only ship available (if that is true for the episode). We have to prevent X from happening. You have 36 hours. Best of luck."

I urge the Captain to not cut some Player Character out of the scenario by "Ordering them to stay aboard ship." It's a simulation of life in Starfleet, sure, but we are all players, and want to have fun. Let's work together, have discipline, and unit cohesion.

I once had a past episode where an ensign security escort, led by a Commander Security officer beamed down to an encounter with some neutral smugglers. The security ensign, kind of trigger happy, drew his phaser, and it nearly turned into a fight, right there, but it was finally resolved by negotiation. But during the incident, the Security officer Commander ordered the ensign back aboard ship, thus "cutting him out of the scenario." This was wrong, in my view as referee, and I disallowed it, overruling the commander, with the First Officer.

After the scenario was concluded, the XO took the Ensign aside and privately counseled him about being too agressive. He likewise had a short talk with the Security officer about managing his people with a less dictatorial style. And the game went on.


I urge the Captain to give a landing party a goal, put someone in charge of it, and develop leadership in junior to mid-level officers, by letting them take charge, for good or ill. If the person in charge of the landing party screws up, a fix can be found, usually.

A whole landing party does not have to be Captain, and the whole bridge. It can be, but doesn't have to. I allow players to have multiple characters, at all levels of ranks. I also allow non-commissioned officers and enlisted people in the crew to be portrayed, if the player, and scenarios dictate.

I am fully aware that TOS said that everyone aboard USS Enterprise was an officer.

As a Navy veteran, that doesn't make sense to me, so I have most of the crew as enlisted persons, with ranks appropriate to their position.

A Chief might be in charge of a phaser crew, A First Class Boatswain's Mate might be a shuttle pilot.

The Medical section of the ship will usually include a Doctor/Surgeon of at least Rank LT, a Nurse rank LTJG, and a few Hospital Corpsmen of perhaps Chief, First Class, and 2nd Class Petty Officers.

Any of these characters might be sent with a landing party, depending on the mission. Granted, the junior enlisted guys might not have the same levels of education, and initiative, perhaps, but they are still valuable crew members, not just "Red Shirts".

Please be aware of that, when you are portraying your Starfleet Officer characters.

Micromanaging is a very real problem, since there is a set rank structure.

I don't have it set up where the powers that be call every maneuver or shot in combat, and they trust the people in the chain of command to do thier jobs properly, and let them do it.

The Captain has the final say as to the ship's course of action, but they should take into account as much information as they can get from the crew.

If I run into a character/player that wants to micromanage everything, (sometimes it is not the Captain, but a Department Head PC) I have a few scenarios where an Admiral comes aboard (or I have one of the senior crew do it), and illustrates by example to the player/character, "give your people a free hand."

I am aware that such a problem exists, but if it crops up, I will be sure to correct it as I see it develop.

I served on a Cruiser that was a flagship in the Navy, and so I have seen this work in action. I was lucky to have a very good Captain, for many years.

As to the positions still open, I want to clarify a few things:

CO: PC Capt. V'lor [Position Closed]
XO: GM
Science Officer: PC [Open]
Chief Engineer: PC [Open]
Doc: GM
Comms/Damage Control: GM
Security: PC Optional [Open]
Helm/Weapons: PC [Open]
Navigation/Shields: PC [Open]

Of course, If you'd like to play something else, let me know. I reserve the XO to myself as an advisor to the Captain, to fend off trouble with the scenario before it starts, as much as I can, by giving useful advice as to possible courses of action.

The Doctor, I am not really opening to players. I have run a few ship-based games before and the doctor would often act out or try to hog scenario time with all kinds of open heart surgery and other similar things, and thus take the focus off the bridge and mosts of the scenarios. If we need to do such things (like a medical dept. involvement, I can do them faster, as a cut scene, as GM.

I reserve communications to myself since most of it is The aliens say X, and then the Comms person repeats it to the crew. Similarly as a Comms NPC I can give damage reports faster, without having the type this to the player / relay to the crew thing going on.

Most Security Officer positions I have seen usually are not content to be on the bridge, and thus agian, want to take the focus away from the more or less main space action, having security drills and such, that while realistic, do not add substantially to the overall theme of the episodes that I am trying to present.

But they are very effective and have a lot to do in a landing party, so it is an optional position.

I ask that any Helm/ Weapons or Nav/Shields characters take some other sciences as a backup (such as Sulu was an Astrogeologist, before he was a Helm Officer) to fill out a landing party.

I am also open to players having multiple characters, so that there is a variety of roles open to all. In one game I had the same player who ran the Captain (and did an outstanding job of it) also portrayed a 2nd Class Petty Officer enlisted medical technician, so that when the XO (or lower ranked officer) and party beamed down, he went along as medical support, allowing say, the Navigation LT. to lead the landing party.

In this way, everyone has a chance to practice leadership, and followership, at different times, with different scenarios. I believe this is called "Troupe-Style" play.

In my experience, it worked out well.

So if you have a character, say a young ensign Biologist, or some other type that is not a Dept. Head, but is useful on a landing party, I can and will accomodate those other types of characters, just that sometimes the focus will not be on them, all the time, every scenario.

It is not that the characters are less important than the episode, or my story, it is that I need more than just the two or three characters of a small handful of players to do the story to what I feel is full effectiveness.

It is the adventures of the Crew, as a whole, and as individuals within it.

It might be the case downj the road, say there is a medical emergency, I will need players to play the roles of a doctor, Nurse, etc, but I don't want to have full time players for those positions As Their Only Character. I also don't want to be caught is a situation where I, as GM, am playnig Doctor, Nurse, and Patient all talking to each other, while the crew watches. I really can't stand that type of thing.

So I ask that players have a "Main" character, and one or more "Backups" from the regular crew, and that they also be open to taking over selected one-shot or guest NPCs, if they like, for one or two scenarios, or playing their "backup" characters, from time to time, so that everyone gets a chance to play, nobody is "Stuck on the Ship", etc.

Enough ranting. I just wanted to bring these issues to light.

I am pretty sure that this will be an exciting, and dramatic experience for all.

I still have about 2 weeks' worth of work to do before we launch, but I am getting there.

[LUGTrekGM]

After seeing some of the work V'lor did with Banners, I was semi-inspired, did a few that were not what I ultimately wanted, but ended up finally with this, for the game:

[JALU3]

Hmm . . . pre-TNG . . . post-TMP era trek . . . interesting time . . . if I get the time . . . which work seems to soak up like a spung . . . I may submit something. So this is going to be a Yahoo Forum based game?

[LUGTrekGM]

Good question, Jalu.

I'm using the Yahoo Groups as the storage of files because 4 years ago when I started the game, money was tight, and yahoo and geocities are free.

I ran 5 games since then, and just got in the habit of using the Yahoo Groups area for storage of files and data, and as a mailing list. I had the geocities site in place since my old FASA Trek games in college in the 90's.

What I plan to do now on the 1st of May is to rent yet more webspace (I already run a Neverwinter Nights Server, plus forums) and build a for-real Trek RPG website and forums, to have all the data in one place. That should all be in place around or near episode 3 or so, as there are a lot of graphics and data to organize, so mid-late May. I've already started that provcess, just not uploaded a lot of pictures, since I am currently limited by bandwidth on Geocities, and my yahoo groups, both.

To answer your question directly, I'd MUCH prefer if we played it using OpenRPG on some night convenient to all.

I'd prefer thursdays, if I had to ask for a preference, mostly because my old Trek groups (who I might be able to recruit from) played the majority of times on Thursday nights, and most gamers have a friday game already rigged. Of course, if none of the old crews return, I'm open.

As of yet, no one has expressed any preference for a night, except I have scheduled it for thursday nights on the RPG Registry recruiting database, and Capt. V'lor has confirmed a sign-up for the captain's position. If we proposed a non- thursday night, as a group, I'd need to get with V'lor, but for right now, Thursdays is on, and set.

All positions are first come, first served, and since V'lor has committed to that, I have too.

Failing to set up a coherent group via openRPG, I will ultimately have a forums set up, but I much prefer real-time chat a la open RPG, which is free software.

But if it comes down to a turn based email / forums post, I can live with it, since there is a tradeoff of detail, for action. Again, it's up to whatever the group as a majority can deal with, but I prefer a chat interface with a diceroller function. If needed, we can do a chat room, and I do all the dice rolls by hand, but really OpenRPG is a good tool.

I have also used WEBRPG in the past, didn't like it much. I have heard of other software out there that costs 20-30 US, but forget the name right now. I have GRiP for Traveller (played in another gents Traveller game online), but it's got bugs, and I am not all that familiar with using it as a GM, either. I feel that GRiP was a waste of money to buy that software and the QLI company that wrote it has been slow in fixing GRiP's well-known bugs.

In the past, I have run my Trek game on wednesdays, thursdays or fridays. In 2004, I ran a differnet game on each of those nights, but it was ultiamtely too much work to maintain.

Sunday afternoons to evenings is out for me, as I have a tabletop group that plays at my home, run by another GM. Any other night is fine.

I know that most gamers have fridays or saturdays all tied up already. It's all a question of what nights people have open.

I'd like scenarios to run for 3 or 4 hours, if possible. In the past I ran games from 7 or 8 PM to 11 PM or Midnight, EST, which seemed to work well, but I am open in hours or time, also, since I am retired.

If players need a game every other week, rather than once a week, I am fine with it too.

Once every three weeks to once a month is too broken up for me to keep consistency, usually consistency in player participation, but also my own sense of timing.

[LUGTrekGM]

Here is a very short .avi trailer (4.71 mb) that I did, that both pays homage to the franchise, and the players of the last campaign that I ran on openRPG using LUG / ICON Rules, called "Triangle Quadrant."

Scenes depicted are of ships and places used in-game, shot with minis, and various backdrops using a webcam.

My wife is urging me to do a better one, since I have better software and tools now.

http://www.landofetarnon.net/LUGTrekTrailer.avi

(I can't get this to work via browser, you might have to rt. click and "Save As.")

[JALU3]

Where can one get a Codex to view this?

[LUGTrekGM]

Sorry, I'm not sure. It opens for me with Microsoft Media Player 9, after I save it to my hard drive and play it. I have it hosted on my Neverwinter Nights Server.

I'm not at all versed in multi-media or the different codecs and such. My PC does all the work.


After searching around a bit on google, I found this:

http://www.updatexp.com/codec-for-wi...-player-9.html

For media player 9.

I'll rig some software tools from there, and try to identify what specifically is needed.

I see that windows is now using WMV format. I'll look around, and see if I can convert .avi to .wmv by re-installing Pinnacle Studio 7 (which is what I used to shoot, cut, and edit the thing some years ago.)

[LUGTrekGM]

After re-installing studio 7, I was able to convert it from .avi to .wmv by resampling it.

However, the quality of it is horrifically poor, with graininess all throughout, dropped frames and lots of problems.

Maybe I'll just shoot and release an updated version, down the road.