I've seen a number of people mentioning they are running games set after the end of DS9.
Just curious, how do people find the time period? What limitations do you find? What advantages are there? The most obvious type of game would seem to be a Cardassian reconstruction game. I'm curious if anyone has done a straightforward "TOS/TNG-style" game (i.e. cruising around the galaxy, sitting in a way cool chair and watching TV... er, the viewscreen) set during that period. If so, how is it different from an exploration game set earlier...
I'm mainly interested out of curiosity, though some players in my old Wells game every once in a while mention "when we play those characters again..." so someday it may have a practical reason too...
(I'm reminded of my old FASA games back in the 1980's - hoping that Star Trek IV didn't shakeup the universe too much...)
I think the period's got a ton of potential. There's all sorts of political mayhem you can do with the major powers; they all took a pretty good hit from the War, so figure there should be a fair amount of shake-up internally, as well as between their relationships with each other.
Main problem for me is the technobabble runs a little hot and fast. I've made a real effort to keep people from reconfiguring every piece of hardware on the ship to get out of problems; our campaign is much more political and people driven.
The campaign I'm WORKING on, though whether I'll actually get to play it ever is a matter of some doubt, will be set only a few years (5-10) after the war.
It borrows heavily from the concepts behing Peter David's 'New Frontier' books.
Essentially, the Romulans try to return to the way things were before the war, but their economy can no longer handle it anymore, and they collapse. The Crew is sent in in a moderately-decent starship (a veteran, probably, of the War, but not a big-ass Sovreign or Defiant... possibly a new ship I'll design, or one I'll borrow from the SRM) on a mission with multiple objectives, including peacekeping, making overtures to friendly Rom factions, exploration of previously restricted territory, first contacts, etc.
I set my game 6 months after the last episode of DS9. From there, we moved forward with jumping some weeks or months at a time for downtime. Currently, we are three years after the end of DS9.
My players like my game a lot. The biggest advantage to the time frame is you can do anything you want with the universe. If you played within the time frame of the series itself, some players may expect certain results to occur.
As an example, the following things have occured in my game:
- Bajor joined the Federation.
- The races in the Dominion rebelled and broke away once they learned the Founders could be killed. Even some of the Jem'Hadar (sp?)have broken away.
- The Cardassians are rebuilding and are slowly healing the wounds with Bajor.
- The Romulans asked the Federation for help with the war against the Taurhai (see Romulan boxed set) and the disease killing thousands of Romulans (see boxed set)
- The Breen have once again attacked the Federation with the help of the Soma.
- A strange alien race of shadow like creatures have been sighted in Federation space. No one knows who or what they want.
- Various races have been appearing on DS9. Each of them have white streaks in their hair or on their head if bald. They each exhibit great strength, enhanced senses, and resistance to all forms of telepathy. They believe they were genetically altered by some alien race to help them fight a war (one of the PCs is altered).
Those are my two cents. :-) Now I'm out of change!
Some interesting ideas. It is beginning to look as if Paramount is soon to be leaving the 24th century behind, with the exception of the TNG movies. That would seem to give quite a bit of opportunity for narrator wiggle-room...
I find myself wondering what would happen if the Romulans were to get wind of the games Sisko played with them in "In the Pale Moonlight". One of the subplots of my Wells game was a Tal Shiar operative tracking down those who attended the conference Sisko doctored... If I ever do bring the Wells characters back, that is one thread I'd probably coninue.
One thing I find difficult when wrapping my brain around the era is who plays the role of adversary - not quite as obvious as a pre-war game. As far as major powers go, the Romulans would seem to be it - the Cardassians are in no shape to be a major foe for some time.
The Romulans still have a little fight left in them. Not every soldier, senator or civilian believe in a peace interpretation of D'era, some still believe they need to bring the galaxy under the Romulan wing...By force if necessary. The cold war is not over yet.
For my game I've found that the Romulan make excelent major 'villans' for the game as the Way D'era box set has their Command Fleet a total of 6300 ships then not to mention the other fleets they have so it is assumed the held back durring the war perefering to let the others take the brunt of the damage as well as prepare for the future (like the weapons planted on the moon of Derna).
Though my two series I ran post DS9 have been around the TOS/TNG sort of theme where the players are part of the Federation's New Exploration Directive, a call to heal the wounds left on the Federation by the war, through the return to the old ideals. Most recently it has become somewhat like the Fleet in TOS explorers but with a slightly millitary mindset as well. It's been a great deal of fun to play.
In mine, the new adversaries are the Breen and the Soma. There isn't too much info on them, so I felt it gave me a lot of leeway on what I could do with them. Besides, remember the Soma are supposed to be very technologically advanced (hence the reason why the Federation could not mimic the metaphasic collector) so imagine what its like to have them as enemies.
There is also the shadow like creatures I've introduced as a nemesis. I prefer to sometimes create my own enemy races to put a little spin on Star Trek. Besides, who would have ever pictured seeing the Romulans, of all people, ask for help?
I think the Main Advatage for a post-DS9 campaign is that you have alot of freedom as there is no documentation for what happens in
the "real universe". But this is also the main disadvantage when you are interested in canon adventures. You have to be careful if you do things which might be contradicted in the future movies.
However I am doing a campaign set, especially as you said at the beginning a campaign for advanced characters.
At the beginning it was a Voyager-like campaign in the Delta-quadrant and after that we took part in the Dominion War. We planned to end the campaign at that point - end the
"season". Our final episode was the Battle for Cardassia.
Later I got an adventure idea for our characters and consequently it had to play after the Dominion War something like the movies for the Classic series. We play not that often but still regulary and longer adventures. And it works.
Afer much deliberation (due to the traditionalists and isolationists' obstruction) Bajor joins the UFP.
The Baku incident, the multiple wars wit hthe Klingons, Dominion, and Borg cause a distrust of the Federationin some of the outlying colonies; a situation jumped on by the Orions and Ferengi. The Fed president is ousted by no confidence vote after some evidence of dirty tricks during the war comes out.
Elections bring a new president, but after about two years, it's uncovered that he was connected to the Orion Syndicate...and that major members of his staff were infected with those parasite aliens. (But he didn't inhale...) He's ousted and (drum roll), Spock winds up as the president.
The Cardassian Union has a new interim government about every ten to twenty seconds. There are toomany agendas and too much distrust of the UFP as ask for help. They fragment into warlord states, each under the control of a jagul.
The Romulans suffer a major upset when the peaceful moves by Pardek and his Nej'Ahar are blindsided by Tal Shiar and Jol Tan moves in the Senate. These guys grab power by replacing the proconsul (with a guy infected by...the parasite aliens.) A civil war between the Romulan Star Navy under Centurion V'Kar and Senator Kassus vs. the Tal Shiar begins.
The Breen start nibbling at the Cardie's outlying territories, and the Taurhai are taking a crack at the Romulans.
The Federation is trying to avoid any entangling alliances, but Spock decides to lend support to the V'Kar faction.
The Klingons are having some power struggles, but are surprisingly stable, compared to everyone else. And boy, doesn't the Romulan empire look tempting right now..?
I wonder if perhaps some power would demand massive reparations from the Cardassians, well beyond its ability to pay, destroying the already damaged Cardassian economy.
My Game set up is taking on a bit this look so far.
Post-War situation
As part of the final Peace treaty, signed 2377, the Dominion lost all rights and territory in the Alpha Quadrant. Thanks to Odos participation the allies managed to get a 27 sector Cube at the other end of the Wormhole (The entrance is in the center and administered jointly by the allies and Bajor). Each of the Big Three got 9 sectors as there zone of occupation after 15 years the zones are to be returned to the Dominion but become a Demilterized zone. But other than this the Dominion had to make very little other concessions
The Cardassians, while the Romulans and Klingons insisted on Reparations and when it looked as if the entire allience was going to split apart on the issue at the peace table the Federation backed down from opposing them. The military was forced to reduce its size to 10% of its pre war size. But other than Allied observer groups and few worlds the Union remained unoccupied. The Breen got away even less with having to give up only a few Worlds to the Romulans in a separate peace from the general "Peace Treaty of Bable"
Currently
By 2382 the war is receeding into memory and the Federation is shaking off the last vestiges of the post war depression it suffered from. Everywhere the Starfleet is seen as the hope of all worlds for a lasting peace but this is soon to change. A major shift in the Romulan government has occured and the Breen are moving toward a war of revenge against the Cardassians. The Klingons falling apart at home faster than anyone would have gussed have decided to withdraw from the Gamma quadrant ten years earlier than the peace treaty had envisioned. Within the Federation despite the out world appearence of the return to normality Isolationist factions have begun to emerge. The Cardassians bearly on their feet due to the reparations face the threat of war with the Breen with no ally to support them.
But in an ignored area of space a long known of but generally disreguarded race is about to jump forward. The 16 worlds of the Abar Hesse league have joined together to form a solid political force along the klingon border. Long standing aniomosity between the Klingons and the Abar is on the brink of boiling into open war and in the Klingons weaken state anything could happen.
this is the World of
Star Trek: Breath of the Lion
Campaign Styles of Post-DS9 Games
Reply With Quote
