Never been a big fan of troupe play - I love the idea, but find in my groups it tend to dilute things a bit too much.
One idea I am playing with is to change the way I view the Gates as working. Basically, my current premise is that these are more primitive than the ones seen in TNG and DS9. Rather, they are a few thousand years older in tech. I had viewed them as each gate being a pair of platforms, one a receiver the other a transmitter. You need a powered gateway at both ends. Only the Bridgetown Gateway was to be working at the start of the campaign and many of the adventures were to involve visiting the various worlds with Gateways to repair them. A map was found on Bridgetown showing the various locations.
I'm planning on chaning it to incorporate a Lesser Gate and Greater Gate (though both are primtive compared to the later Gates.)
The way these Gateways will now work is each Gateway is in effect a cylindrical chamber, maybe 2 meters in diameter. When a connection is made between two chambers the contents of the two chambers are transposed. A Greater Gateway can initiate such a transfer while a Lesser Gateway can only participate. To make life interesting, it takes something like twelve hours to build up enough power to activate a Gateway and once it has been activated a subspace link is established between the two Gateway Chambers. This is not instant, instead travelling real real fast, like Warp 9.99999.
Example - There is a Greater Gateway on Bridgetown and a Lesser one on Skaro. The characters power up the one on Bridgetown, taking twelve hours. Once it is powered up, it takes another six hours to establish the connection between the two chambers. Once the connection is established the two chambers have a faint glow. A final button must be pressed to actually initiate the transfer, which will be instantaneous. Whatever was on the Bridgetown Platform will now be on the Skaro Platform and vice verse. To get home again, the process must be started over again - the connection is broken by the actual transfer. Since Skaro has a Lesser Gateway, the return trip must be initiated on Bridgetown. Better hope the valiant explorers don't get captured by Daleks.
Now how do I explain what happened in the previous adventure...
- The map the characters found was indeed a map of worlds with Gateways. But it is not a traditional map. Rather it is a strange five-dimensional map used to program the Greater Gateway control panel, requiring all sorts of mathematical skill tests to program. One of the goals on arriving on a planet is to figure out where the heck it really is. Most of the Gateways will be in the Kellinan Reach. Though some might be back in time...
- The Intrepid-class ship will indeed be to big. I suspect the evil Cardassians will sabotage it right away, causing it to need months of refitting. In its place another Defiant will be sent, along with the possibility of a small scout ship (crew 5-15 I'd say). This allows some space travel if desired. Commander Kharn will still receive her promotion to Captain.
Now whoever has the Greater Gateways has a huge advantage. Starfleet will control one. It seems reasonable that the Kellinan will have another. I may actually impose a limitation that a Greater cannot connect to another Greater. And the "Cardassian Government in Exile" will no doubt be hoping to find one.
I've never seen the Stargate show, but the premise sounds a little similar to the movie. I view it as having a nice touch of the classic Doctor Who, especially the old Hartnell episodes. A nice sense of danger and isolation being the first team to visit a new world with only one way home. No ship, the only gear being what you can carry. No hours of scanning the planet from orbit. I think this modification is actually more in spirit with the intent of the Bridgetown saga. It keeps Bridgetown as the base and it forces characters to really rely on their own resources.
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