Where has all the Glory gone...?

[tonyg]

I have bad memories about this one. The GM ran it kind of strangely, with the "Commodore" doing a routine inspect of a ship, with a PC captain (me).

During the "crisis" the NPC took command. Things went badly, in part because the GM ran the man as very cagey. Practically all of his behavior was something that could be rationalized.

What didn't help was that the guy playing our Chief Medical Officer wouldn't take a stand on the Commodore's mental state. Since the ship's doctor wasn't willing to go out on a limb and state that the Commodore was unfit for command, it make it all but impossible for anyone else to relieve him of command.

In the end, as acting XO, I had to back the crackpot during the mutiny, until he went catatonic and left me in charge to get us all out of dodge.

[K.G. Carlson]

It's a good scenario. I ran it way back in the day & it formed the 'framework' for most of my FASA Movie-era campaign (we wanted to steer clear of Project Genesis. Way clear)

This was back when the Klingons were the sneaky & treacherous foes and the Romulans... well, they hadn't been touched on since TOS.
Neutral Zone tours were always edgy. I had a tape set up to play 'now hear this... now hear this... deck six will remain at yellow alert...' & similar stuff. Really played up the Cold War feel.

Yeah, that module is really more of a campaign starter kit than a mere adventure module. When the game picks up again I will definitely be spending some campaign time along the neutral zone.

Even if the Romlulans are hardly visible at all in Movie-TOS (first appear in 5 I believe), the FASA ships were just too cool not be be put into play.

Kudos on an awesome game prop with the recordings.

[K.G. Carlson]

I have bad memories about this one. The GM ran it kind of strangely, with the "Commodore" doing a routine inspect of a ship, with a PC captain (me).

During the "crisis" the NPC took command. Things went badly, in part because the GM ran the man as very cagey. Practically all of his behavior was something that could be rationalized.

What didn't help was that the guy playing our Chief Medical Officer wouldn't take a stand on the Commodore's mental state. Since the ship's doctor wasn't willing to go out on a limb and state that the Commodore was unfit for command, it make it all but impossible for anyone else to relieve him of command.

In the end, as acting XO, I had to back the crackpot during the mutiny, until he went catatonic and left me in charge to get us all out of dodge.

My Crew were not that advanced in rank yet; the aspiring Captain was a Lt. (spent advancement picks after adventure to bump to Lt. Comm. as he is now the XO). The group really handled it well. I played the Regulan/Caitian XO as competent but a little blindly loyal and so the players had to work to convince her to relieve the Captain. Good times, great roleplaying.

I have the opposite problem with my player who is the medical officer. He's just itching to relieve someone of command. I have to remind him on a regular basis that if a board of inquiry finds him abusing his authority as medical officer, he'll probably end up as a nurse in a Tellarite STD clinic.

[tonyg]

My Crew were not that advanced in rank yet; the aspiring Captain was a Lt. (spent advancement picks after adventure to bump to Lt. Comm. as he is now the XO). The group really handled it well. I played the Regulan/Caitian XO as competent but a little blindly loyal and so the players had to work to convince her to relieve the Captain. Good times, great roleplaying.

In all fairness to the adventure, I think most of our problems were caused by the GM. Oh, and I'm definitely referring to Decision at Midnight, in case there was any doubt.
For one thing, he choose it as the opening adventure for a campaign. Not exactly a great way to bond a group of PCs together.

His homemade follow up adventure went even worse.

I have the opposite problem with my player who is the medical officer. He's just itching to relieve someone of command. I have to remind him on a regular basis that if a board of inquiry finds him abusing his authority as medical officer, he'll probably end up as a nurse in a Tellarite STD clinic.

In our group, the Medical Officer was a Caitian, and Vellicorp's Catian aide de Camp was using threats to keep the PC from acting. Had the PC Doc brought this out in the open, the rest of us could have acted. I'd had thrown the other Caitian in the brigand get an investigation under way.

My Security Chief was itching to remove the Commodore of command, but I kept reigning him in. I thought that any board of inquiry would fry us if we removed the man under grounds of mental incompetence without the support of the medical officer. I had visions of the Caine Mutiny, with the council for the defense asking about my qualifications in psychiatry.

In the end, most of us wound up defending the nutcase during the mutiny. It ended up causing bad blood between some of the characters (not the players), and split up the crew.

[K.G. Carlson]

I guess I only "technically" used the Decision at Midnight as a campaign starter. I've found that running a Starfleet Academy mini-campaign when most or all of a group are new to Coda Trek works really well, and the background info in the module stated that the PCs had gone to the Academy together and this was the first time they'd reunited since. I had the players cook up their missing six years of backstory, which yielded some intersesting nuggets for future plot developments. So for my group it was more a campaign interrupted start.

When next we play they'll be shipping out about 4 months later game time, after the hearing for Capt Vellacora is concluded and he's off to the nuthouse.

[Nuclear Fridge]

Decision at Midnight was a sore point for me and my player group back then. Didn't help matters that one guy 'knew' the setting better than I did and 'Knew' the rules better than I did... He really wanted to unseat Vellacora.

I still shudder at his idea of mounting 'one shot' photon torpedo pods on the outside of a destroyer's hull.

Given 20-some years experience in gaming and real life, I now must say that Decision ought to be run for mature & sensible players, not ubergeek munchkins on a Rule The Universe kick...

[tonyg]

I guess I only "technically" used the Decision at Midnight as a campaign starter. I've found that running a Starfleet Academy mini-campaign when most or all of a group are new to Coda Trek works really well, and the background info in the module stated that the PCs had gone to the Academy together and this was the first time they'd reunited since. I had the players cook up their missing six years of backstory, which yielded some intersesting nuggets for future plot developments. So for my group it was more a campaign interrupted start.

When next we play they'll be shipping out about 4 months later game time, after the hearing for Capt Vellacora is concluded and he's off to the nuthouse.

Oh, I think it can work. I just note that it didn't work for us, especially the way it was handled. Since the GM was trying to force the PCs onto different sides during the mutiny, it had the end result of splitting the group. My PC (the Captain in our group, although he got bumped down to XO when Commodore Vellacore assumed command during the crisis) didn't want anything to do with the multinous PCs. It's one thing when some crewman mutinies, but something else when your department heads turn against you.

The GM didn't expect that, and was surprised by how things turned out. He also ran things very heavy handed, and after taking control of the ship away from me on every mission, he was stunned when my character resigned from Starfleet.

His thinking was that if the "brass" didn't want to give him a command, why didn't they just keep him as a Commander? Likewise, if the GM wanted to run the ship, he should have wrote up a NPC Captain.

[K.G. Carlson]

I see what you mean. And yes, playing the PCs against each other is tricky at best, better avoided all together.

Also, I see your point regarding the NPC takeover. Why taunt you with your own command if you're going to be co-opted from the start?

Bummer experience. Good to see you're still Trekkin' even after all that.

[Nuclear Fridge]

Oh, I think it can work. I just note that it didn't work for us, especially the way it was handled. Since the GM was trying to force the PCs onto different sides during the mutiny, it had the end result of splitting the group. My PC (the Captain in our group, although he got bumped down to XO when Commodore Vellacore assumed command during the crisis) didn't want anything to do with the multinous PCs. It's one thing when some crewman mutinies, but something else when your department heads turn against you.

The GM didn't expect that, and was surprised by how things turned out. He also ran things very heavy handed, and after taking control of the ship away from me on every mission, he was stunned when my character resigned from Starfleet.

His thinking was that if the "brass" didn't want to give him a command, why didn't they just keep him as a Commander? Likewise, if the GM wanted to run the ship, he should have wrote up a NPC Captain.

Ouch. That couldn't have been any fun to endure.

When I was GM'ing my FASA Movies campaign, I had a guy playing the Captain who had the 'Janeway DNA'. He had to be involved in everything that went on aboard ship - if not directing it hands-on. Sensor scans, helm duties, you name it.
It got so bad my brother - playing the XO - began to blue-book notes to me during play that he was off below decks to do some 'cargo-pod spotting'. Captain Amazing even tried to tell the CMO her job regarding a badly-injured diplomat she was treating.
I - as the CMO - tore him a new hole.

Things got even worse when we began a TNG campaign, but that's a tale for another day.

[tonyg]

I see what you mean. And yes, playing the PCs against each other is tricky at best, better avoided all together.

Also, I see your point regarding the NPC takeover. Why taunt you with your own command if you're going to be co-opted from the start?

Bummer experience. Good to see you're still Trekkin' even after all that.

The end result was positive.

The GM was impressed with my roleplaying, as I had told him that I was familar with the adventure, and then I ended up being "Commodore Crazy's" biggest supporter.

And the other players were much more appropriative of my GMing skills, as I tended to give them the freedom to do themselves in rather than do if for them.

When I was GM'ing my FASA Movies campaign, I had a guy playing the Captain who had the 'Janeway DNA'. He had to be involved in everything that went on aboard ship - if not directing it hands-on. Sensor scans, helm duties, you name it.
It got so bad my brother - playing the XO - began to blue-book notes to me during play that he was off below decks to do some 'cargo-pod spotting'. Captain Amazing even tried to tell the CMO her job regarding a badly-injured diplomat she was treating.
I - as the CMO - tore him a new hole

That's one problem I didn't have. Generally most of my players used to resent the Captain since they were used to RPGs without a chain of command. So whenever the Capt. gave an order the other PCs felt slighted. Now whenever he asked people for their advice or suggestions, you could hear a pin drop, but that didn't matter.

This held until one day the Capt. let the rest of the PCs beam down to a alien planet while he stayed on the ship, where he belonged. While on the planet, the players developed a base case of "I've got that skill" and wasted a hour while the Doctor examined the weapons, the communication officer checked out the bodies in the cryo chambers, the Helmsman mucked around with the Antimatter generators, the Engineer was going over the computers, and the Science Officer played with the communications system.and so on, with no one making any headway (the difference between having the skill, and having it at a useful level).

Finally, the Science Officer got the comm system working, and gave a status report to the PC captain, who was more that slightly annoyed to find out that everyone was wandering around like idiots pressing buttons at random because they had 10% in a skill. The Captain promptly beamed down and reassigned everyone to operate the systems that they were actually trained at. PC then said, "You see, that's why I'm here. The Captain doesn't get to do anything, but at least he makes sure that something does get done, by making sure that the right character attempts it."

After that, the players had fewer problems with a Captain telling them what to do.

[Nuclear Fridge]

That does pop up now and then. No matter how much a GM 'hints', players sometimes go off on such a tangent you'd think they were being mind-controlled.