Having started a Star Trek campaign this weekend, set during the Earth-Romulan war, I had looked around, researching any material associated with that I could find. There's plenty of material in places like Memory Alpha and Beta, as well as dozens of other places, on the war itself and how it played out. Frankly, that was too much information, so I promptly ignored it all and decided to do it my way.
As for ideas for adventures during that time, I couldn't find much of anything. Certainly not much with a "wartime" feel to it. For that I went and dug up my old Space: Above and Beyond series dvds, since my players aren't familiar with it (it's a short tv series from over twenty years old, I believe.) Basing my campaign very loosely on that, I was able to come up with a bunch of potential adventures for this era. Since I'm already scratching out a rough draft for the campaign, I figured I'd copy and paste it all here as I develop it, with a mind toward any GMs who might want to use it for their own play.
Basic background notes and scratch first:
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Setting
Era: Enterprise Era/Earth-Romulan War (2156+)
Region: Sector 001 and bordering sectors
Travelling: Starfleet Vessel, Shuttlecraft
(In my campaign this is the NV-13 "Valiant", an Enterprise-era Intrepid class, but GMs should note that Neptune, NX-, Columbus and Daedalus classes are all available during this era as well).
Crew
Organization: Starfleet (see notes on Rank below*)
Mission: Wartime support, reconnaissance and ground-based special operations.
Composition: Human (predominantly), Vulcan, Andorian, Tellarite, Coridanite, Denobulan, Rigelian and any other naturalized alien United Earth citizen. Inter-species exchange programs are also viable.
Base of Operations
Mobile Bases: PC starship; Starfleet 3rd Battle Group (5th Squad, 2nd Wing).
Stationary Bases: Starbases 1 and 2.
Technology
Era Technology: 22nd Century.
Available Technology: (In my campaign: plasma-based personal weapons, hull polarization, no ship shield, no matter transporters (as a means of transportation), ship grapplers).
Adversity
Threat and Opposition: Romulan military aggression, Terrorist Romulan sympathizers, various wartime situations and environments.
Feel
"War is hell"
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Enterprise Era Starfleet Ranks*
NCO
Crewman 3rd Class
Crewman 2nd Class
Crewman 1st Class
OFFICER
Ensign
Lieutenant
Commander
Captain
Commodore
Rear Admiral
Vice Admiral
Series Rank and Standing, Advancement and Experience
This campaign assumes standard character generation without any initial advancements granted by the GM. Consequently player characters will likely be fresh out of the academy, of Ensign or Lieutenant rank and probably won't have the command edge. Characters with the Command edge are assumed to be in command of the team, rather than any ship department. Player characters are expected to simulate their own promotions, command assignments and commendations through standard player character advancement (via experience in game). However, it is reasonable for the GM to reward players in-game with free promotion, command and commendation edges depending on their gameplay during the campaign, allowing the players to spend advancements on other areas of improvement. It is highly recommended, and the campaign tends to assume, that the player characters eventually take command of their ship and its associated departments.
* See bottom of post for suggestion on exp rewards and advancement.
Additionally, the player characters are assumed from the beginning to be their ship's standard, go-to away team, to justify the inordinate amount of time they are to spend off the ship in this campaign.
They should also serve as bridge crew in order to participate in the campaign's several space battles. This will likely be Beta or Gamma shift (reserving Alpha shift for those NPC members of the command crew who probably outrank the player characters). Nonetheless, the GM need only wave a hand and declare these space-based events just so happen to occur during the player character's bridge-shift, whatever shift that might be and whatever position they hold in the ship's chain of command. Our player characters are the heroes around here, after all.
The Player's Ship
The GM can toss any Enterprise-era ship to the players as they like (even creating an entirely new class) and need only tailor space battles in accordance with that. In my own campaign the players were given an Intrepid class (Enterprise-era, not to be confused with the Voyager-era Intrepid class). This put the player's ship at slightly less tough than the NX or Columbus class (but certainly superior to a Neptune) in order to justify their spending so much time doing things other than fighting on the front lines. Their ship, being deemed weaker than NX, Columbus or Daedalus class vessels, receives special missions away from the front lines (or, occasionally, behind them).
Crew Equipment
Standard GI (general issue) gear for the player character "away team" is:
* Communicator: Built in translator program limited to: Earth Standard, Vulcan, Andorian, Tellarite, Denobulan, Coridan and Rigelian; Internal locator allowing tracking from orbit by the player's ship; Duration: 500 hours, rechargable; Range: 100km.
* Hand Scanner: +2 bonus to all relevant tests when used. (Alternately, GM may rule this era offers specialized scanners, such as tactical, engineering and individual sciences, offering a +3 bonus to that specific use.)
* Combat Knife: Damage: 1d6+2 (+Str modifier)
* EM-33 Sidearm: Damage: 3d6+6; Range: 5/10/20/30/+10; Energy: 50 shots
* EM-41 Pulse Rifle, Type III: Damage: 3d6+12; Range: 5/30/60/120/+30; Energy: 250 shots
* Other Gear: Player characters can request, and most likely be granted, any other gear relevant to their mission (universal translators, for example, or plasma grenades). Bear in mind that matter transporters are not utilized as transportation in this era, though the player characters are free to use it in that manner (suffering very real risks, and probably against the direct orders of superiors). Transportation to and from the surface of planets (and most everywhere else) will be via shuttle, allowing the player characters to take along more gear (per GMs approval) than they can necessarily carry.
Campaign Particulars
* The Vulcans have opted to sit out the Romulan war, leaving it to the Humans, who they are inclined to believe instigated the war. In addition, Vulcan High Command is assumed to still be rooting out Romulan infiltrators in their government and Vulcan sympathizers among the populuce, which also impacts this decision.
* The various other allied members of the soon-to-be Coalition (Andoria, Tellar, Denobula, Rigel and Coridan) offer token support for similar reasons. As the Coalition is yet to be, the future members of the organization are reluctant to enter into a war that is largely seen as a Human problem.
* Starfleet is still very "humanocentric" during this era, and certainly still a United Earth organization, but this does not preclude non-Human species being present on Starfleet vessels as naturalized United Earth citizens, even in command positions. In my own campaign the ranking officer of the team is an Orion, born in Texas, who will eventually be granted command of the ship.
As for the Romulan/Vulcan Common Ancestry and Cloaking Tech Problems..
* Romulan cloaking tech deteriorates rapidly in effectiveness during the course of the war until the Romulans are forced to abandon it entirely, due to Starfleet becoming better and better at overcoming it. This is represented in the campaign as cloaked Romulan vessels becoming easier to detect, until it eventually becomes useless to them.
* Romulans may or may not be revealed as a subspecies of Vulcan by the player characters during the course of the campaign. This should not be an easy thing for them to do, with Romulan soldiers wearing full-body armor/body suits with built-in thermite charges and Romulan ships auto-destructing when disabled or self-destructed by their Romulan commanders (or whatever else the GM comes up with). This is all a mere nod to established Star Trek canon, but it should not be impossible for the player characters to uncover this. In my campaign the players decided from the start that it'd be a lot of fun trying to "discover" Romulan-Vulcan common ancestry, however meta that might be. They succeeded in our first adventure, despite my best efforts.
* GM's are certainly free to say, "Who cares?", and ignore both of these two points. It's probably easier to just let the Romulans be a Vulcan subspecies (or at least just look a lot like Vulcan) and let them have cloaking tech long before established Star Trek canon allows them to. In the end it's just a game and "Who cares?" is a reasonable response to canon, IMHO.
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Adventure Timeline, Advancement
1 Training Day (November 2156)
2 Bridge Duty (November 2156)
3 Far From Home I (December 2156)
4 Far From Home II (December 2156)
5 The Bone Ring (April 2157)
6 Mutiny (June 2157)
7 Soldier's Creed (August 2157)
8 Ex Vivo (December 2157)
9 Fear Itself (June 2158)
10 Trojan Horse (August 2158)
11 Prisoners of War (September 2158)
12 Rogue Moon (June 21, 2159)
13 Rommie von Richtofen (July 21, 2159)
14 Tank Girl (September 2159)
15 Dead Drop (December 2159)
16 Sugar Dirt (May 2160)
17 Cheron (July 2160)
*Experience Rewards: In my campaign, I have determined to offer experience in the following manner in order to provide Advancements roughly per adventure and per game-time year, as so...
Successful completion of tests related to story objectives - As normal, per NG p.125
Successful completion of adventure - 2000 experience (divided among crew)
Successful completion of individual scenes - 100 experience per character
Exceptional roleplay or problem solving - 20, 50, 75 or 100 experience per character
Each passing year, game time - 1000 experience per character
Player characters should then earn three advancements for in-game time passing (3 passing years) and roughly one advancement per adventure, for a total of approximately 20 advancements by campaign's end.
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Adventure outlines to follow...