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Thread: A Failure to See the Forest Thru the Trees

  1. #1

    Unhappy A Failure to See the Forest Thru the Trees

    As my Star Wars Saga Edition mini-series was winding down, my group started discussing what would be next on our roleplaying agenda. I was giving up the GM chair, but I wanted to flesh out some ideas I was having for a Trek game and I tossed the idea out onto the table for some input.

    Player A: Why Star Trek? Star Trek is a good TV show, but I have no interest in roleplaying in the setting.

    Player B: Ugh... Star Trek? Star Trek doesn't work as a roleplaying setting... never has and never will.

    Player C: What kind of Trek game did you have in mind?

    At which point our discussion turned into why one would like the TV show but not be interested in roleplaying in it and also why they felt it didn't work as a roleplaying setting.

    The discussion went on much longer than I anticipated and while player A and B made some valid points, I didn't feel like they were seeing the bigger picture.

    Player A thought that the setting wouldn't translate well to an RPG because it wouldn't be as exciting as the shows. Player B thought that people would have to play more than one character because of the whole away team/bridge officers scenario. Player B also thought that the game would have to take place on a starship and that no one would want to roleplay Star Fleet officers by the book. Player C seemed to think that there were lots of possibilities for a Trek game, but that a Starship would certainly need to be involved in the game somehow (a good point in a way).

    I had wanted to run a series of games dealing with the Maquee (spelling) and their rebellion vs. the Cardassian Occupation. The players would not be by-the-book Starfleet Officers anymore and, in fact, the Federation would sometimes be the opposition during the course of the game.

    Player C was the only player that expressed any interest and thus I shelved the idea. Player A just didn't like the idea of playing in a Trek setting and Player B just stuck to his guns that Star Trek doesn't work as an RPG because no one wants to follow orders and such, even though it wasn't going to be a Star Fleet game.

    That's fine and dandy. No one has to like every setting or game obviously. It just frustrates me that I run into this issue every time I propose a Star Trek game. When I see the Trek setting, I see a dynamic universe filled with all sorts of campaign possibilities, not all of them Star Fleet officers type games. When most of my friends see Star Trek, all they see is a Star Fleet officer game that won't work out because a) cool show/bad for RPG gaming or b) no one will follow orders, so why bother?

    Does anyone else run into this sort of thing on a regular basis?

    I just had to vent that out. Thanks!

  2. #2
    A's objection sounds normal, and I don't know if there's anything you can do. If A just isn't interested in the setting, that's fine–you couldn't convince me that Dragonlance is a compelling place to run around, regardless of how well-reasoned your argument, without filing off the names before rebooting.*

    B's objection is a weirder in that it sounds like a flat-out Arch Statement about roleplaying habits, which may apply to him, but I'm sure other groups with other group dynamics could be totally into the drama that comes with working in a structured organization. The police force, black ops teams, other military games, even fantasy games with societal class structures all have those kind of power imbalances in-group. Even in CoC, the hobos are going to be bossed around by the mobsters.

    That said, both ICON and CODA had big sidebars discussing how most groups don't engage well with those kinds of rank structures. Instead, they encourage hashing out the options OOC and then coming to a consensus, which the ranking officer then enacts in character. This seems to be the best option (unless the group's into the above-mentioned drama) not only because everyone contributes, and no one's suggestions are dismissed out of hand, but because those kinds of discussions will evolve anyway out of player disagreements.

    *actually, if you convince A that you're doing a BSG-style reboot, and then just do what you would anyway, it might work.

    **and it's Maquis
    Portfolio | Blog Currently Running: Call of Cthulhu, Star Trek GUMSHOE Currently Playing: DramaSystem, Swords & Wizardry

  3. #3
    Of course you could use the way TOS presented 'issues' disguised as Sci-Fi for inspiration.

    Perhaps offer the game you want to play, let them be rebels, representing disenfranchised colonists, who are living in territory governed by an oppressive and fascist dictatorship, with few resources, out-gunned, outnumbered and surrounded.

    Make it hard-line, with executions, their friends and allies are tested, and even the nearby 'friendly' government has political reasons for staying out of the fight, leaving the freedom fighters to their own ends, with minor humanitarian and covert help.

    Give them an old ship, or small bunch of fighter craft, let them repair them to make them spaceworthy and jury-rig powerful weapons, let them have only a few allies none of which are powerful enough to change anything, and a couple of neutral space-stations/planets.

    Do all this and change all the obvious names. I would challenge them to spot it as a Mquis game, especially if you take some reference from Star Wars (Rebel Alliance) and Robin Hood (among others)...

    Set them loose, and the game world is theirs to influence and change as they see fit, if they want politics, armed conflict or sneaky commando raids, maybe they want to become traders (War is good for business y'know)...

    Try that, but never mention Star Trek.
    DanG/Darth Gurden
    The Voice of Reason and Sith Lord

    “Putting the FUNK! back into Dysfunctional!”

    Coming soon. The USS Ganymede NCC-80107
    "Ad astrae per scientia" (To the stars through knowledge)

  4. #4
    I feel your pain. I have recently run into this problem with my own gaming groups. I was admittedly spoiled by the college group that BEGGED me to run Star Trek (old FASA trek). I'm more mature now and feel I have even better ideas to bring to a campaign, but my wife, who tried the game, didn't like what I did with it the first go round. I'm going to see if I can change that this next time. Problem is that it will definitely have the multiple character issue mentioned above, because I want to do occasional Focus (for want of a better word) episodes that concentrate on one character. Using a Next Gen example of this, I want to be able to do things where one character is the focus point and the players play the people around him or her. For example: The episode where Data had to convince the population of a lost Federation colony to leave because there was an uberrace coming to wipe it out. Or when Picard lived the life of... oh, can't remember the name (the episode he got the Riskan flute) or when Worf went to the planet with all the captured Klingons mating with their Romulan captors. Those episodes translate to a RPG best, I feel if the other players are playing what would normally be NPCs. Just a thought...

  5. #5
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    I've heard complaints against playing a trek game before: alot of people don't want to because of reasons mentioned above. They don't want to be stuck taking orders from another player, or stuck in an organization like SF.

    Which is funny, because those same gamers LOVE to play as Rebels against the Empire, and sometimes they are not the boss. I guess the theory is that in the Rebellion, it's much more of a 'free-form' organization (after all, they accept Luke, Han and Chewie right away), where you're free to 'do as you please' , as long as you're hurtin Palpatine.

    Another complaint I've heard is "I don't know that much trek stuff.": I guess the issue here is they couldn't pull off what you see on the shows.
    -Geordi and Data figure out which obscure particle could cause a temporal shift in the warp core, not show up on sensors, but could be generated by primative 21st century equipment.
    -Spock gives the exact date and time that terrorists will attempt to blow up the United Nations, allowing Kirk to save the day and the future of Earth.
    -7 of 9 gives a complete list of Alien species that have more than two genders, and begins to explain their dating practices to Harry Kim.

    To be fair, it is hard to rp that kinda detail (and narrators should reward cast members richly); I've often suggested 'winging it'; Just spout some factoid. If the narrator feels it needs to be checked, then do some kind of knowledge test to see if they remember it.
    Another way to do that is sorta reverse: If you think your character SHOULD know that tell your Narrator that you think your character might know something. He might allow you to do that knowlege test, which would them be your character remembering the factoid. Then, you can spout it out (maybe with help from the N or other players)

    Sorry if I hijacked the thread a bit.

    _________________
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    Professor Farnsworth

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Captain Macek View Post
    Those episodes translate to a RPG best, I feel if the other players are playing what would normally be NPCs. Just a thought...
    Better still, save them for one-off adventures for those times when your main group is unavailable, and give one session first, then when its successful offer the next...

    Soon the rest will be begging you to run a one-off session.

    If that works then it would be worth offering the NPCs as DPC (directed player character) under player control (for XP earned by their main PC...)
    DanG/Darth Gurden
    The Voice of Reason and Sith Lord

    “Putting the FUNK! back into Dysfunctional!”

    Coming soon. The USS Ganymede NCC-80107
    "Ad astrae per scientia" (To the stars through knowledge)

  7. #7
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    Chello!

    Why not use Ars Magica's Troupe style of play.

    There were 3 types of PCs: Wizards, companions, and grogs (grunts).

    Everybody had a PC wizard, the most powerful character in the game. However, not everyone could always play their wizard, so everyone had a Companion, like a priest, or a guard captain...a "normal" Pc in most other fantasy games. Grogs were the workers and servants in the Covenant where the PCs resided...minor PCs rolled up by the group, but communal property...used in scenes by anyone who did not have a mojor PC available at the time.

    I think that would work in Trek....everybody has a department head,but then a secondary Pc like an O'Brien or Chapel or O'Reily. Then a pool of commonly seen NPCs (NOT red shirts!) that could be used by players in split scene siuations.

    Just a thought anyway....

    Tony
    Anthony N. Emmel, M.A.
    Learned Scholar & Catholic Gentleman

    U.S.S. Victory NCC-1760
    "England expects that every man will do his duty."

  8. #8
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    Hi,

    I think that would work in Trek....everybody has a department head,but then a secondary Pc like an O'Brien or Chapel or O'Reily. Then a pool of commonly seen NPCs (NOT red shirts!) that could be used by players in split scene siuations.
    I second that, i have had many good experiences with this kind of play. This way everyone could stay involved in the current action. Also i acquired a decent stock of unique NPCs with relatively low effort. This makes Crew related plots much easier to come up with.
    "Space may be the Final Frontier, but it's made in a Hollywood basement"

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    "per aspera ad astra"

    Seneca

  9. #9
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    What I have done in the past when mutiple character were necessary was to award the people who played those characters XP that they could apply to their regualr characters. Since XP awards are really for the player not the character it makes sense, and lets them feel sort of privleged, since if they get the character killed, it won't hurt their regualr character next week.


    As for the pulling of technobabble stuff. I'm strongly favorting using the declatartion rule from SotC. Basically, when someone with some sort of academic or sceintific knoweledge is working in his field he can just make something up, spend a FATE point (think courage point), amake a skill roll and it becomes true.

    So you can have science officers make up a weakness ot tehcnobabble answers to something an affect the story. Something like, oh, "venting gas will make it possible tod detect a cloaked ship!". THe GM Sets a difficulty, the PC spends the point and rolls, and if successful the tactic works.

    It makes characters like Spock the sort of threat that they are in the series.

    "Captain our shields are completely effective against this sort of weapon. However, if we were to reroute plasma directely from the warp core into the main navigational deflector, it should stregeth the out defesive screens by 346.2%. Assuming we can keep the plasma flow in phase with the reactor core, otherwise."

    "Spock! Okay, sure. Just do it. Three and a half times the stregnth?"

    "No. 3.462 times the shield strength. I'm afriad we'd need a 3.8% higher plasma flow for."

    "Spoock!"

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by tonyg View Post
    It makes characters like Spock the sort of threat that they are in the series.

    "Captain our shields are completely effective against this sort of weapon. However, if we were to reroute plasma directely from the warp core into the main navigational deflector, it should stregeth the out defesive screens by 346.2%. Assuming we can keep the plasma flow in phase with the reactor core, otherwise."

    "Spock! Okay, sure. Just do it. Three and a half times the stregnth?"

    "No. 3.462 times the shield strength. I'm afriad we'd need a 3.8% higher plasma flow for."

    "Spoock!"
    Man, I forgot to comment on this. I thought that was hilarious and useful all at the same time.

  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by PaladinCA View Post
    Man, I forgot to comment on this. I thought that was hilarious and useful all at the same time.
    And those answers are of a rare kind indeed

    Man, I need to play in a game rather soon, I'm missing all those good things so much.

  12. #12
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    What I like about declarations is that they are so Trek. How many times are we told that something is impossible only to have a character spurt out some exception, new theory or whatever that changes things?

    -It takes a half a hour to restart the warp engines; unless you do a cold start.

    -You can't beam through a ship's shields; unless you match phase with the shield.

    -You can't get a torpedo through a defelctor shield; unless you match the shield frequency.

    -You can't return back you your own time; unless you charge towards the sun and do a slingshot effect.

    -Scotty "cannae change the laws of physics"; unless you really need him to.

    -Matter degrades in a transporter beam; unless you lock the pattern buffer into a diagnostic mode.

    -You can't detect a cloaked ship; [unless] you set up a tachyon field.

    -You can't stop a Bird of Prey from blasting right though you shields thanks to thir knowing your shield modulation; unless you an trip their defective cloaking device.

    -You can't get out of a locked cell; unless you can turn a light fixture and a transponder into a laser beam.

    -You can't take off in a shuttlecraft that's out of fuel; unless you drain the energy from the hand phasers.


    About every week some new exception, alteration, addum and hypothesis get introduced because everyone would be dead unless they have a way out.


    The ability to use those science and engineering skills to make declarations seems ideally suited to Star Trek. It really does make Scotty a "miracle worker" and Spock almost unstoppable. Until the points run out or they fail the roll or the GM sets a difficulty too high ("You really want to make a tricoder with stone knives and bear skins?!).

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by tonyg View Post
    What I like about declarations is that they are so Trek. How many times are we told that something is impossible only to have a character spurt out some exception, new theory or whatever that changes things?

    {SNIP!}

    The ability to use those science and engineering skills to make declarations seems ideally suited to Star Trek. It really does make Scotty a "miracle worker" and Spock almost unstoppable. Until the points run out or they fail the roll or the GM sets a difficulty too high ("You really want to make a tricoder with stone knives and bear skins?!).
    I've used this very reasoning in my games before. Unarmed engineer trapped in a room about to be stormed by Romulans? A few quick modifications to the audio output of a tricorder (and some pretty high TN Systems Engineering tests) and WHAMO! Instant sonic disruptor that does damage equivalent to Phaser Stun 3.

    It definitely make the game more memorable...
    Former Decipher RPG Net Rep

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  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by Doug Burke View Post
    It definitely make the game more memorable...
    I'm sure the Romulans didn't forget it!

  15. #15
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    I use the same rule in my Unisystem game. You can spend a Drama Point and spout some technobabble to circumvent some in-game limitation. Then, you make a skill roll and if it's successful, ut happens. My players like it a lot.

    As for PaladinCA's players, I agree with TTK, you'll probably have to let go of the game. Unless you can convince them to at least try one session. My friends and I had this problem with games with rigid hierarchies, like the Camarilla in Vampire (we ended up playing Sabbat undead), but strangely enough, it was never an issue with Star Trek. Except for one of my friends (who unfortunately passed away two years ago), but even him agreed to play a couple of sessions. My group does exactly as described above: the players agree on a course of action, which is usually carried out by the commanding officer PC. That's what those senior officers meetings are for after all. Of course, sometimes, one of the players decides to exercise their prerrogative as the official leader and does something else, like I described in my Doomsday Machine thread.

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