How to run a game Abrams style

[Renny]

I've been asked to run a game of Star Trek around the time of the release of the new movie. It's been suggested that I reimagine the plot of a classic series episode in the JJ style. What can I do to make the game fell like it's set in the style of the reimagined universe? Anyone had any experience of this?

[selek]

I've been asked to run a game of Star Trek around the time of the release of the new movie. It's been suggested that I reimagine the plot of a classic series episode in the JJ style. What can I do to make the game fell like it's set in the style of the reimagined universe? Anyone had any experience of this?

1) Combine the most mundane elements of three different plots. Discard any canon elements which conflict with making it "your" movie.

2) Invent a new love-story around two of the original characters (no matter how improbable- slash fiction a plus).

3) Make your primary villain a cardboard moron with a speech impediment.

4) Insult your players' intelligence every other scene by throwing in little in-jokes from the original series in ways that make no sense. Then claim it's THEIR fault for being offended.

5) Hire a bunch of psycophants and groupies with no knowledge of Star Trek to post online about how your brilliant reimagining breathed new life into a moribund classic.

6) Admire self in mirror.

[PGoodman13]

I will try not to take offense at those remarks.

[selek]

In all seriousness, your best bet is to:

1) keep the plot relatively simple and straightforward, and

2) hype up your pacing.

Aside from the factors already mentioned, the Abrams movie is an popcorn action flick more than a drama.

The number of things happening- including camera changes and different shots take place in quicker succession in order to build a more "exciting" pace and to keep the audience focused (or distracted, depending upon your point of view).

For an extreme example of the phenomenon, go back and compare the Scooby Doo cartoons of the seventies to almost any other TV shows. Note how often the shots change. Because the target audience has a shorter attention span, the changes are necessary to keep the audience from getting bored.

The Abrams flick- which relies more on eye-candy than story- uses the same technique to keep audience members from fidgeting, changing the channel, signing up for elective surgery, or even starting a conversation with their mothers-in-law.

(In fairness, ALIENS- a much better movie- uses the same technique, but only in moderation).

If you really want to replicate the JJABrams feel, you'll need to approach the story the same way: keep the story light, the tension high, the background music snappy, and flog your players (or at least their characters) mercilessly to keep the pace moving.



If they have time for a long soliloquy or to plot out a comprehensive battle strategy, you're moving too slow.

[BaronVonStevie]

I've actually done this in a Gurps Trek game; the whole point was to take classic TOS plots and put an Abrams spin on them. What I ended up doing was something like...

1. Take the set up of an episodes plot to create your dilemma. you can often glean this from the part of the episode before the first commercial break.

2. Allow the characters to role play, take notes while they do so, and then try to tie their story elements into the adventure so they feel as if it's their narrative and not yours. (this is something any GM/DM should do, but when you're adapting an existing Trek episode, you'll get tempted to lead them by the nose everywhere. Don't)

3. Take anything the episode was limited on budget-wise and vamp it up. Ignore or modify canon when you feel it's appropriate (example: I ran "Friday's Child" and expounded upon the alien culture; I took note of their costumes and demeanor and made them kind of an Ottoman Empire rip off culture with a sprawling capital city to set the first act in that I described in detail. The players really enjoyed it)

4. Let the plot be open ended. Take note of the experience awards and come up with contingencies; the maximum EXP award often lines up with the actual resolution of an episode. That makes it easy.

[Renny]

I had just written a post berating Selek for using this thread to have a go at the movie and then he went and posted some great advice. Drat

[C5]

I have to confess I very much wanted to post something similar to Selek's first post (minus point 5, I guess).

Another thing to keep the Abrams feel, in my opinion, would be to put a greater emphasis on the characters and story, no matter if the suspension of disbelief has to be cranked up a few notches (this is not a critic on the movie BTW - my very first RPG was James Bond, and they put a great emphasis on how to keep the feel of the movies in the game, no matter how unrealistic some situations may appear).
After all, Star Trek is a series where the full command crew would routinely beam down to potentially dangerous planets. In the Abramsverse, such a command crew could also be cadets who happened to be at the right place.

To sum up, if I had, say, to play a scenario based on Balance of terror in the Abrams way, I would probably add a few Romulan boarding parties in order to bring the fight to the ship, and maybe have the Captain send some boarding parties to the Romulan's ship once it has been detected. All the while as the ship is trying to dodge the unseen element if the pilot or weapon officer is a PC.

And don't forget the lens flares and to violently shake the camera during combats

[Fugazi Grrl]

3 things would hamper my ability to enjoy playing in the Abramsverse -

1 - I'd say a good 60% of my characters are Vulcan, or have some kind of Vulcan background. Since JJ made Vulcans an endangered species I'd have a difficult time converting.

2 - Most of my characters are PCs who've been around since FASA's heyday. Thus, a bit old for a universe with 20-year old Captains.

3 - I tend to play more in the TNG era, and later. DS9, or post Dominion War. I'm not sure how JJ's universe would work out in the "kinder, gentler Federation" of Jean-Luc Picard.

That said I can well see having some good fun at playing in JJ's universe. If that's what you like, by all means indulge in it, and have a great time. And to that end, to capture the feel of Abrams-Trek, try to have a lot of action. Don't worry too much about canonical Trek, and "what's gone before" (tweak the stories to suit your setting). And feel free to let characters advance fast.

Kirk went from Cadet to Captain in one mission - that means he got several advances, and in game-terms was able to buy several levels of the Promotion edge off that one mission.

Hmmmm... fast advancements... maybe in a way I've been playing Abrams-Trek for a long time and just didn't know it.

[BaronVonStevie]

To sum up, if I had, say, to play a scenario based on Balance of terror in the Abrams way...

okay. just off the top of my head...

1. Those outposts in the first act. Have the Enterprise race to rescue any survivors and discover the gruesome aftermath of the Romulan attacks with an away team. Suddenly they discover the Romulans have left booby traps (a time bomb for example) and it becomes a race against death to evacuate before they go off. The Romulans are playing for keeps this time; using weapons that have been banned since the Romulan/Earth war. (gives you an extra action scene in there)

2. Keep in mind that things are a bit different between the Abrams Trek and the old canon. For one, the Romulans look different and also the Federation has seen them. Feel free to dress Romulan ships from the period however you like; I imagine the Romulans in Abrams' Trek being bald with face tatooes, but still wearing the wide shouldered uniforms complete with jackboots. Lots of black and green. The ships in my head look fearsome (more influenced by the Narada).

3. Lt Stiles can still be included in the story, although this time around he probably suspects Spock immediately of being in cahoots with the Romulans. Combine this with the Abrams-verse destruction of Vulcan, and you could pattern him as something akin to a Holocaust-denier. That could really work.

4. The boarding scenario is nice. I would probably do that once with the Romulans doing something very quick and nasty to the Enterprise during the adventure; I would have them beam aboard in an attempt to sabotage the warp core with the same weapons used on the outposts (mentioned above).

[Tricky]

Was thinking about Fugazi Grrl's comments about Vulcan characters: a running subplot for any Vulcan could be things like: SF offers all Vulcan's honorable discharges if they want to leave the fleet to help their people: a Vulcan officer, seeing that logically his people are doomed, so his best course of action is to preserve as much as their culture as he can, or maybe he wants to ensure that no FED race ever has to face what he has faced; or maybe he goes looney toons and tries to fix it (time travel plans? better keep him away from the Guardian of Forever...).

There was a comic out that showed some first season Star Trek episodes redone with the Abrahmsverse crew. It's available at your local bookseller.

Speaking of comics, a lot of the new Trek universe reminds me of the Marvel 'Ultimate' comic line: the basic premise is a lot like the movies (well, actually they are making the movies by borrowing heavily from the Ultimate line); superheroes first appear in the modern era, not back in the 60's: Peter Parker was bit by a spider a few years ago; the Fantastic Four were basically some scientists going for the 'X-Prize'/independant space program, for example.
One of the main things they do is substitute things; you may know the name (weapon X program for example), but the premise is changed (instead of an old program to make mutant super soldiers, it is now a program where mutants are kidnapped and forced to undertake extremely dangerous black ops missions for the US gov't). Also a lot of gender/race changes, as well as updating tech to make it more advanced than ours.

Depending on how things work for you, you must tell us how you did iconic figures from TOS: Kahn, Nomad and tribbles all sound great!

[BaronVonStevie]

a Vulcan officer, seeing that logically his people are doomed, so his best course of action is to preserve as much as their culture as he can, or maybe he wants to ensure that no FED race ever has to face what he has faced

Vulcan's Vengeance (#7-8 ) have a plot similar to this.

[Renny]

Ok, some really excellent ideas here. It's going to be hard to not do Balance Of Terror given how many cool things have been put on the table here.

[Tricky]

Going along with my earlier post about Ultimate Trek stuff, sometimes you can cange the premise a bit. In Marvel, they changed the origin of the Vision (built by Ultron, ant man's evil runaway robot) into robotic warning device sent to warn earth about Gal-act-us (giant killer cloud...see bad F4 movie for more details). They also made it a curvy female, because they could.

So, I was thinking about Nomad. At first I thought about having Nomad being a next gen spaceprobe, like a better version of our Mars landers. It's pretty much the same origin as the original Nomad. But what if it was something else: lost communication satalite, experimental space war device, or maybe take it's origin away from the US/Nasa all together. Make it some other countries lost space junk, come back all super crazy and godlike. (I'm looking at you, North Korean space program)

Or, you can play with the story: Remember, the original Nomad collided with an alien probe (Tan-Rue); what if HE shows up in place of Nomad. (or, call it Braniac and mess with your players BIG TIME!!!) Just thinking...

[Fugazi Grrl]

3. Lt Stiles can still be included in the story, although this time around he probably suspects Spock immediately of being in cahoots with the Romulans. Combine this with the Abrams-verse destruction of Vulcan, and you could pattern him as something akin to a Holocaust-denier. That could really work.

I must say that just screams Good Plot !

I love that idea. It makes good use of what I thought was one of the worst points of the Abrams film.

Great idea.

[selek]

Ok, some really excellent ideas here. It's going to be hard to not do Balance Of Terror given how many cool things have been put on the table here.

To my mind, doing "Balance of Terror" will actually be harder given all the ideas introduced- and that's the problem.



Call the story what you like, but it will no longer "Balance of Terror" once it's been JJBastardized- any more than West Side Story would be "Romeo and Juliet in the Bronx" once they omitted the love-story between Tony and Maria in favor of a menage a trois with Anita (Rita Moreno's character).



The original plot was a classic duel of wills between Captain Kirk and the Romulan commander- tense, gritty, and psychological.

The story pivoted on the experience and judgement of the two antagonists- hinging upon their cunning and force of will, not zippy-doo special effects.

Kirk's internal doubts and assessement of the Romulan commander were the crucible in which the grist was ground and the fulcrum upon which the drama turned.

Everything else was "B" plot and set dressing.



By diluting that central conflict, you are fundamentally altering the nature of the story itself- just as removing or altering the central romance would destroy West Side Story.

Once that happens, it is no longer "Balance of Terror".

By mixing in the extraneous elements, you are robbing the story of its classic simplicity- and thus of its narrative power.

You can run a Abramized episode with elements of BoT, but in my opinion it just won't be "Balance of Terror".