Starting up a new game--what makes for a great pilot episode?

[Ineti]

Title pretty much covers it. My co-GM and I will be starting a new Trek game soon, one we hope will grow some legs and last for a while. We had a great Trek game run for 45 sessions over three years, and we'd like to take a shot at replicating or outdoing that.

So, what makes a good first episode a great one? What makes a good Star Trek pilot episode so good that you just have to watch or play the next session?

In my mind, DS9's "Emissary" is a great pilot. Interesting problem, interesting solution, touches at the heart of the human condition, and gives all the major characters a nice intro and a moment to shine, and pretty much sets up the look, feel, and tone of the entire series. Even VOY's "Caretaker" did a good job of it.

[Tobian]

Hmm I guess you outlined in both of those the premise: That you need to have a look and feel and over-plot for the series in place. Have you any ideas on what you want to do, what area of space you want to explore, a new species to interact with, a new threat to the Federation, or do you want to play as Non Starfleet characters, which again would create a whole lot of opportunities to create some flavour!

I'm good at bouncing ideas, just not coming up with a whole campaign on my own haha

[The Tatterdemalion King]

My suggestion? Watch like two or three different pilot episodes for really successful series–not necessarily Trek. The X-Files, the new BSG ('33', not the miniseries)... uhh... gimme another one...

The pilot episode establishes a baseline for the series to come. If there's going to be elements of your series that you wanna highlight, have them be the big moments in the first ep. Romulans gonna be a big thing? Have a Romulan exile with information on the secret coup in the senate be one of the fugitives on Dessica II. Section 31 and the corruption of the Federation is a continuing theme? Have the local Admiralty assign an unethical mission to the Crew. The awesomeness of living on the frontier and making your own rules? A Zakdorn bureaocrat impounds the ship and they gotta bust it out.

To leave room for plot development, you should think of two or three questions the pilot should raise; questions about the major factions in the series, the individual player characters, and the ship/planet/artifact/major npcs that will feature prominantly in the series.

[Tricky]

IN regards to "Emissary" Being a great pilot, don't forget the major amounts of forshadowing that went in there, if I remember correctly, the Prophets tell Sisko that his is "Of Bajor", and what do we discover many seasons of the show later...that he is ever so slightly Bajoran!

"Encounter at Farpoint" is another good one: The flagship of the FED is sent to negotiate a treaty with the Bandi, only to run afoul of an near-omnipotent being! Watching the crew negotiate the mysteries let's us see what the NG era will be like: multi-racial (and species) crews, more thoughtfulness, more powerful tech (that often makes things easier for the crew...except that holodeck!) but somehow more focus on the human condition than TOS. IMHO (which i capitalized, showing my humbleness!)

So, what's your new campaign like?

[C5]

IN regards to "Emissary" Being a great pilot, don't forget the major amounts of forshadowing that went in there, if I remember correctly, the Prophets tell Sisko that his is "Of Bajor", and what do we discover many seasons of the show later...that he is ever so slightly Bajoran!

Sorry to barge in here for no other purpose than nitpicking, but the "you are of Bajor" quote from the Prophets occurred much later in the show, somewhere in the 4th or 5th season if I remember correctly. Actually, I think that in the Emissary episode, the Prophets seemed far less interested in Bajoran affairs than they showed later on the show, having even trouble to understand the concept of time (which led me to the twisted theory that Sisko, by entering the wormhole, caused the Prophets to take an intereset to humanoids, eventually causing is own birth).

Back on topic, I'd say it depends whether you want your series to have a central plot that will slowly evolve through your episodes (like the TCW in Enterprise or the DW in DS9), or be mainly focused on characters and situations (more like TOS or TNG). In the first case, you might like indeed to have a first episode heavy with foreshadowing, or posing a mystery that any attempt to solve will only deepen. In the second case, you could instead focus on the various important NPCs and allow for more interplay between the various PCs.

[The Tatterdemalion King]

So, what's your series idea?

[Ineti]

Thanks for the responses, folks.

At the moment, the campaign will be a Starfleet game based on a Nebula-class ship, exploration being the main focus. We'll also mess with post-Dominion War politics some, I imagine.

I'm focusing most of my stories in the Beta Quadrant, though I'm not sure what my co-GM is planning. We have a mixed crew of PCs (two humans, a Bajoran, a Trill, an Andorian, and a Vulcan), so there is a lot we can explore and mess with.

I plan to use the Orion Syndicate to mess with one of the PC's backstories, and maybe try to do something big with the Romulans or Klingons, or both.

[Tricky]

Well, for exploration stories/series, you can never go wrong with the old 'ancient artifact' story. Maybe it's like the Guardian of Forever almost older than anything recorded, possibly from the future, and maybe intelligent. (and able to give you bunches of forshadowing/red herrings!!)

Or maybe it's something on a much smaller scale; like the progenitor program from "The Chase": a minor discovery that leads to a world shattering conclusion!

[tonyg]

Sort of funny. Typically pilot episodes tend to be a bit weak, since they have to do a dual job. First they must introduce the major characters, setting, and background for the series. Then, after that, it has to be a story with all the elements that go into a episode. Typically a pilot will tend to do one job better than the other.

To try to get a great pilot you must have an adventure that manages to both introduce the setting, signficant characters, and series premise, PLUS be a good, exiciting, adventure to boot. Usually, the constant "infodumps" required to get the players/audience "up to speed" take away from the story aspect of the show. Once up a running, everyone knows enough so that the storycan just get going without haivbg to reintroduce Sisko, Dax, or explain DS9.

I'd suggest trying to work up your adventure in stages, alternating between "infodumps" (spots where the GM reads off imporantant info like signficant NPCS, PCs, the starship, local starshups, etc.) and advenutre/roleplaying stuff. If possible, prepare some handouts with info and give it to the players in advance. That way they spend less time listening to the GM telling them useful things (important, but boring) and more time interacting with each other. THis is especially effective if you only give certain PCs some info, so the others have to interact with that character.

Put some sort of minor emergency into the adventure early on, after all the PCs are on baord, but not before they have all gotten to know each other. A quick red alert, sort of thing to keep things exciting. It doesn't have to be any serious threat, in fact, it could even be a malfunctioning alarm. Just something to keep things moving.

If there is any sort of long term problem, or stotryarc, with a long term villian, it helps to introductce or hint at it during the pilot, but isn't a requirment. Often, aGM has no idea how things are going to turn out "long term". In that case, the story part of the pilot should be something of a demo of the kind of advenutures to come.

If you are going to focus on a exploration campaign, have the ship explore something. IF you are going to use the Orion Syndcate or some other power, you could put it into the pilot episode as either an instigator or maybe as a rival or even an ally.

For example, using Tricky's idea of the "ancient artifact" story (a classic). What if the PCs ship is sent to investigate the artifact, but the Orion Syndicate is also interested in the artifact for some reason. This gives you the usual 3 story plots: investigating the mysterious artifact; introducing the characters and setting; and dealing with whatever complications caused by the Orions. Not a bad framework, but just one possibility.

[Ronin84]

Thanks for the responses, folks.

At the moment, the campaign will be a Starfleet game based on a Nebula-class ship, exploration being the main focus. We'll also mess with post-Dominion War politics some, I imagine.

I'm focusing most of my stories in the Beta Quadrant, though I'm not sure what my co-GM is planning. We have a mixed crew of PCs (two humans, a Bajoran, a Trill, an Andorian, and a Vulcan), so there is a lot we can explore and mess with.

I plan to use the Orion Syndicate to mess with one of the PC's backstories, and maybe try to do something big with the Romulans or Klingons, or both.

Star Trek: Antebellum

The voyages of the USS ( ), it's mission to bring the light of the Federation back to this quadrant, connecting those that have been lost back with civilization.

Episode I: Fair Market The USS ( ) arrived within the Beta Quadrant only to find shady merchants and unfair business practices. Federation materials have been siezed by various peoples and the political mess is growing, but the Federation is here and everything will be ok, right?

Ok that was just my first thought as I read your question...

[The Tatterdemalion King]

I can't tell if the typo is intentional or not...

[Ronin84]

I can't tell if the typo is intentional or not...

No just really tired, corrected anti bellum, my civil war history teacher would have had me beaten.