Non-Federation/StarFleet Campains ?

[Sevekk]

Is anyone out there running any Non-Federation/StarFleet Campains ? If so how are they going ? I am particularly interested in any 3R/DS9 campains. I am trying to start a Triple-R game and wanted any tips, pointers, or suggestions that I can get. Any Non-Federation/StarFleet Campain ideas would be of help though.

Thanks in advance,

Doug Odell

[SIR SIG]

I've gotta ask, just what is a 3R/Triple R game.
The only one I can think of is one with a lot of violence and or adult material.

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SIR SIG a Aussie TREK Narrator

[Sevekk]

Originally posted by SIR SIG:
I've gotta ask, just what is a 3R/Triple R game.
The only one I can think of is one with a lot of violence and or adult material.

3R or Triple R refers to Raiders, Renegades, and Rouges. It is a suplement for the ST S9 RPG and is available in the Online Store.

Doug Odell



[This message has been edited by Sevekk (edited 01-16-2001).]

[SIR SIG]

It makes so-much sense now...

Well I've had some big pirate battles but with SF PCs.

I pinched the Raiders Battle Wagon from B5 and made it a size 8-9 ship with a lot of fighters and B5's BFG!


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SIR SIG a Aussie TREK Narrator

[toadkiller]

What I've noticed is that RRR gives the PC's a lot more control over the plot than Star Fleet character's have. As "free spacers" or whatever they 'don't take no orders from nobody'....but if you are comfortable with your players it can be a bunch-o-fun.

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TK

[Wizdoc]

I did run a short 3R/Klingon mini-campaign. The characters were a mismatched bunch aboard a beaten up B'Rel Bird of Prey trying to regain their lost honor (and maybe make a little profit on the side). Ah... all that glory, honor and blood wine.


Wizdoc

[starkllr]

Right now, I'm running (over email) a game based on board the former Empok Nor station (a sister station to DS9). In the onscreen DS9 continuity, it was abandoned by the Cardassians when they withdrew from Bajor.

In MY continuity, the Cardassians sold the station to a Ferengi-run consortium (the "Zek-Trans Operations Group" or ZOG, owned mainly by Grand Nagus Zek, Quark's cousin Gaila and Brunt of the Fereign Commerce Authority). It's been refurbished and is now called the "Nexus One Interstellar Commerce Facility". It's located only a couple of light years from DS9, and by treaty it's a neutral port with access rights to the wormhole.

The PCs are a varied lot: a Romulan merchant, a Cardassian engineer, a couple of Starfleet officers, a Trill pilot, etc.

It's slow going via email; right now, the players are coping with Cardassian-sponsored pirate attacks designed to increase tensions in the region and create an opening for the Cardassian military to come in.

At the same time, the events of DS9 are happening just as they did onscreen, and appear as news reports in the campaign (we're right now in early first season DS9). One of the characters has visited DS9 to speak to Sisko, and has gotten caught up in the mess surrounding the attempt to frame Odo for murder (from the episode "A Man Alone"), and soon the events of the episode "Babel" (a virus gets loose and renders everyone on DS9 out of commission will happen, and the players will be the closest ones able to respond...

[SIR SIG]

Well if anyone likes Star Wars, then run a mirror universe game where the alliance are the imperials and the terran freedom fighters are the resistance.

Could make for a good game!

Or make SF the imperials and the resistence the Maquis/neutrals/frontier types. Avoiding 'assimilation' into the federation.

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SIR SIG a Aussie TREK Narrator

[Owen E Oulton]

Funny you should mention that, Sir Sig...

I once ran a series of adventures where the Federation Miranda Class starship USS St. Roch went through a wormhole into a mirror Star Wars universe where Emperor 0B-1 Kenobi and his protégés, Lord and Lady Vader were endeavouring to stomp out the Rebellion being led by Senator Palpatine and Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker...

BUT I digress...

I've run a number of rogue campaigns in the Trekkiverse under the old FASATrek rules. I found that it can be fun to run them in parallel with a Starfleet campaign with events cross-pollinating between the the campaigns.

It can get really amusing when you cross the two campaigns over with half the players playing their Rogues and half playing their Starfleet officers. I did this once with the player who normally played the captain of the USS Challenger playing his Rogue character interacting with the Challenger PCs on DS9 itself. It was a hoot!

[Don Mappin]

While I haven't run full-blown campaigns, I have run two adventures that were "spy"-oriented, ala "Mission: Impossible" or "Top Secret." Neither went particularly well.

I'll take the blame for most of it, but it seemed to be one of those situations where the players were more thinking about standard Trek and how to react in "Trek" terms, rather than taking the ball and running with it.

Running a "MI"-style Trek game (as in "The First Line") sounds like a hoot to me, but preliminary tests have not been encouraging...

I think a Romulan-centered game could be interesting as well.

Ahha, so many ideas, so many games, so little time.



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Don
trekrpg@trekrpg.net

[Sevekk]

Thanks for the Ideas. The group I have has been playing in a Starfleet game for over a year. We have lost players though and had trouble keeping it running. So we decided on the 3R game idea. We have a group of "treasure hunters" out looking for lost civilizations to dig up and exploit the remaining technology (ie. Universal Exports from B5, but without the government backing).
So far it looks promising. Any other ideas will be welcome however.

Doug

[qerlin]

I'll admit, until this last campaign, the Star Trek universe was -- for me and my players -- the white elephant of the gaming world: great idea, but never really seems to pan out. The universe itself is very static; nearly every major plot development is later canceled out (Genesis, Spock's death), or ignored by the slew of writers.

The ideas I posted earlier have worked, but more despite the cannon universe than due to it. In fact, I pretty much ignore anything that is contradictory or unweildy (so, like the entire first show).

Honestly, B5 or Dune is a much better scifi universe to roleplay in, IMO. Despite that, I have been running and enjoying Trek for the past year. It shows no signs of losing steam, as of yet.

[CaptainGonzalez]

Originally posted by Sevekk:
Is anyone out there running any Non-Federation/StarFleet Campains ? If so how are they going ... Any Non-Federation/StarFleet Campain ideas would be of help though.

I'm currently running five side campaigns (each meeting at least once every two week) which are offshoots of the central campaign (which plays at least twice a week).

Of the non Starfleet campaigns...

One is a group of doctors who handle health care for the station and surrounding sectors with occasional excuritions on runabouts to handle medical emergencies. This was inspired by the TV shows ER, M*A*S*H and Trapper John MD. The player characters are: a young andorian Lt.jg. fresh out of the Academy; a grizzled human captain who is chief surgeon and a veteran of the Cardasian War; a totally in charge vulcan Lt. Cmdr. who besides being a beautiful surgical nurse, knows more than all the doctors combined; a pair of lieutenants, one bolian the other trill, who besides finding humor in everything, are the best doctors on board; a betazoid petty officer nurse who literally holds the medical wards together and usually knows what doctor need before they ask.

The other is a just begun (six games so far) underworld campaign where the players are working for the local Orion Syndicate boss, who is a regular character in the core game (think Tony Soprano). The players are: a fast talking trill gambler who loves to take risks with other people's money and lives; a ferengi con artist who spends money faster than he can steal it; a tough orion female who makes people pay up or become intimate with pain; a nausican enforcer who makes everyone scared but is really all bluff;

The last campaign is my favorite, a Klingon game of combat where the players use the station as a base for their exursions. It isn't all about combat but about the horror of battle and glory of victory. The players are: a pair of young officers out to prove themselves; a battlehardened veteran of almost every major conflict in the last 50 years who feels he has to protect everyone from dying dishonorably because they make a stupid mistake; the berserker female warrior who is probably the best fighter of the bunch; the strategist former general who is always on look out for a worthy female with whom he can establish his own house.

The central game is with 11 players, 8 regulars, who are the senior officers on board a space station on the frontier. DS11 is as far away from Earth as you can get coreward without leaving the Beta Quadrant. It orbits a planet trying for Federation membership. The Romulans, Ferengi and a race of my creation also have interest in the area so tensions are high. (Don't think Babylon Five, think Hong Kong during WWII) The other campaigns are about Starfleet Academy cadets both at the station for field study and back on Earth for classes and group of junior officers with one or two of the regular players often playing their senior officer characters from the central game.

[Sevekk]

Originally posted by Wizdoc:
I did run a short 3R/Klingon mini-campaign. The characters were a mismatched bunch aboard a beaten up B'Rel Bird of Prey trying to regain their lost honor (and maybe make a little profit on the side). Ah... all that glory, honor and blood wine.


Wizdoc

How long did it run for ? And, how well did it run ?

Doug

[qerlin]

We've run a short Romulan campaign that went not too badly. Also have done a lot with the underworld (Ferengi/Orion. I think they work a lot better than the Starfleet stuff, but then again, I'm not really fond of the sociopolitical background of mainline TNG.

The DS9 rules are put together much more clearly and concisely than the TNG core book. When I need to find something fast, I usually use the DS9 book.