I just started a "reset" 2364 campaign...

[Chris Donovan]

It's 2364 again. The horrors of the next decade + ("Conspiracy" aliens, Borg, Dominion War, etc) haven't happened yet. The Cardassian "war" is basically reduced to the point of border skirmishing and peace talks are underway (meaning the colonists along the DMZ-to-be haven't been sold out yet so no Maqis). The Klingon Empire are our committed, if still a bit uneasy, allies, and no one has heard from the Romulans in decades.
The Federation is fat and happy (and on occasion a bit smug and self-righteous). Oh, and the Ferengi are still mysterious and menacing, and not "angry gerbils".

I find myself looking at all the fun toys and considering how I can play with them differently. I've tried partial resets/reboots on occasion, but it always turned into what I call "jigsaw puzzle gaming": how fast can we put the old picture back together. I'm determined this time to see the situation as Legos or Tonka Toys. Taking the same parts and building something new. I haven't been this enthusiastic about Trek as a game in a long, long time.

I have plenty of ideas for now, but do any of you have thoughts to offer? Things you would emphasize differently? Things you might skip entirely?

[Owen E Oulton]

I like the idea of calling it a reset rather than a reboot.

[Chris Donovan]

It's a "reset" because I'm maintaining the pre-history as is, save a few minor things (mostly cosmetic). I'm not planning on having the timeline continue exactly as before, however. I want to emphasize other things (such as the "renegade" Klingons) and de-emphasize or omit a few (like the Borg).

And I'm damn sure I'm not going to have the "rabid gerbil" Ferengi. They're going to be presented as originally intended: ruthlessly exploitative capitalists and a significant opponent.

[The Tatterdemalion King]

It might be interesting to take the implied world of TNG s1 and run with it instead of having Cardassians etc.

[Omega1967]

When we ran the Discovery Campaign in those years we mostly just let the history slide by as a back ground note until we reached the events such as the Klingon Civil War and the Dominion War where we sent the ship into some minor and large scale battle. The Discovery was mainly a science vessel but with heavy combat capabilities. Then the after the Dominion War they had adjust back to the science missions.

The Discovery was a Nebula class a modified Tactical/Science Cruiser where they spent weeks or months a one place making an in-depth study before moving on to their next assignment. We would throw in a diplomatic, first Contact or emergency response every now and then but unlike the Galaxy Class their larger brethren which is over there last week, here this week and then somewhere else next week we created some very in-depth planets to visit with missions.

We even stopped over at Deep Space Nine for crew rotations and supplies and had an adventure set a year before the Klingon/Federation War that was the beginning of the Domitian War.

With reset you lose a lot of the back ground that could help guide you with political tensions in creating an adventure. But everyone runs their campaign they want to.

Well that is my two cents for what it is worth.

[The Tatterdemalion King]

I've often mulled over a game that started with the original Star Trek pitch and developed a world out of that.

[Omega1967]

We did the same thing for the Original Series era that we did for the Next Generation era. We used a Federation Starship Yorktown, with multiple crew rotations over the period with some overlap, that we had a number that was not as I want say 1717 as I have seen late but the one that is in the Original Series Technical Book the one with the Red cover and the funky dust cover. When it came to events like the Klingon War we involved the ships in a brief battle, the time traveler story that had an event felt thousands of light years away when they were crossing over. then in the movie era the ship was sent off to hunt for the renegade Admiral Kirk and then later was escorting emergency supplies to be delivered to Earth during the Voyage Home and then was part of the preparations to rescue Captain Kirk and Dr. McCoy from the Klingons. Then there was the Miranda Class ship we ran for a while from right after the Motion picture to 2328 when the ship was destroyed with one time jump ahead ten years and that was played all in FASA only.

We simple work in the major events to the time line when it come about time to have them apart of the adventures time line.

[Cut]

It's 2364 again. The horrors of the next decade + ("Conspiracy" aliens, Borg, Dominion War, etc) haven't happened yet. The Cardassian "war" is basically reduced to the point of border skirmishing and peace talks are underway (meaning the colonists along the DMZ-to-be haven't been sold out yet so no Maqis). The Klingon Empire are our committed, if still a bit uneasy, allies, and no one has heard from the Romulans in decades.
The Federation is fat and happy (and on occasion a bit smug and self-righteous). Oh, and the Ferengi are still mysterious and menacing, and not "angry gerbils".

I find myself looking at all the fun toys and considering how I can play with them differently. I've tried partial resets/reboots on occasion, but it always turned into what I call "jigsaw puzzle gaming": how fast can we put the old picture back together. I'm determined this time to see the situation as Legos or Tonka Toys. Taking the same parts and building something new. I haven't been this enthusiastic about Trek as a game in a long, long time.

I have plenty of ideas for now, but do any of you have thoughts to offer? Things you would emphasize differently? Things you might skip entirely?

So how have things developed since then?

[Chris Donovan]

Well, I don't get a ton of chances to play, so not as far as one might think.

The PC is a Bajoran refugee who joined Starfleet and was assigned to a 2nd line starship in a fairly obscure sector of space. So far, he's run into the Ferengi (being played the way they were originally intended) who were exploiting an entire planet by giving them just enough advanced tech to make them perpetually indebted to the Ferengi Alliance, explored a couple of uncharted planets (getting nearly killed on one of them by essentially a really nasty Bigfoot like crittter), stopped an evil psionic entity that had been recently released from a 20,000 year imprisonment from wreaking havoc, and met his first 24th century Klingons (laying the groundwork for future stories with them).

My PC says he's having fun, so it seems to be working.