Please critique campaign idea

[Acroyear]

This isn't going to be typed out very well, since it's still in me wee widdle hayud...thanks for your patience.


The time: Not long after the Dominion War

The situation: Cardassia’s weakened state has caused them to lose control of many worlds. In some cases, freedom fighters are seeking to collect “interest” along with what they lost. Some smaller, bordering powers are seeing this as an opportunity to jab at Cardassia. Many worlds are seeking new allies or are simply looking to get rid of all outside influences.

This provides political tension as the Federation responds to calls from other worlds and then has to deal with situations in which they are seen as a savior, a failed savior (what do you mean you can’t give us what we need?) or have to deal with xenophobia. They also have to deal with relief efforts for Cardassians who may or may not appreciate them.

Similarly, this provides some exploration along newly opened frontiers as Cardassia’s borders shrink and routes into newer space open up (including gaps between Breen and Ferengi territory).

The campaign: The crew is aboard an Intrepid class ship (it’s got a cozy size where I have enough people to kill for drama, if needed, but not enough to where you can ignore body counts) which runs very TOS like missions in the area. Exploration, supplies, escort, etc. Its scientific stations and excellent speed really work well for it out here. There may be a Cardassian aboard as an observer/diplomat (which may or may not be a PC and may or may not be a nasty git). The Federation is working hard in this section of space (just as they do with the other big races). Pretty general stuff to start.

Growing sub-plot:
The subplot will not be the main focus, at first. Instead it will drop hints and grow little by little as the campaign goes on its merry TOS style way (I plan to make full use of the adventure seeds collected here )....

One of the races on the far side of Cardassian space chose flight over fight when their terriroty was attacked. The Cardassians never did figure out what those outposts were defending as they expanded, because no world using that technology was found. In truth, that world developed the technology to take itself “out of phase” with the rest of our universe. Unfortunately, its prolonged presense has begun to disrupt space and begun causing “weird things” to happen (think of it like a Bermuda triangle that reaches out and affects things rather than only things that enter it).

Sub-plot points:
How do we communicate with this hidden world once we find out about it?
How do we convince these people that the harm they are causing is important when they are safe? Are they safe?
How do we convince these people to come back into phase? That they won’t be overrun by a brutal cardassian government?
What do we do about this dangerous technology?
What do we do about all these other races trying to get their hands on that technology?


How does it look? Any gaping holes in the idea?
Thanks, guys.

[Steele1701]

The abandon outpost almost sound like the Glassmakers and Stoneburners from the Alternity Stardrive setting. Glassmakers exited out of this reality to explore higher dimensions. As to how to communicate with the aliens that would present a problem. An abandon piece of tech left at one of the outposts would give your players a start at figuring out who and where these aliens are. The tech might even give them a start in figuring out how to communicate with them.

[Acroyear]

I'm not familiar with the Alternity Stardrive setting, but maybe I can hunt up some stuff on it to, er, "borrow."

The whole post-Dominion war, Cardassian space thing doesn't feel overdone, does it?

[qerlin]

Looks good to me. I'd play up the internal politics of a battered defeated Cardassia.

[Acroyear]

Originally posted by qerlin
Looks good to me. I'd play up the internal politics of a battered defeated Cardassia.

You mean like old-schoolers and new agers in conflict about where they should go from that point in time? How would that work in the Cardassian social structure where it seems all about who has the dirt on who?

Maybe I'll touch on the outside politics some, too. Klingons would be thinking "they were defeated, they should be wiped from the map/assimiliated to the benefit of the victors" while the Federation would view it more as a restructuring period in which they can try to guide them to a more productive and friendly government? Something like that?

[Paul]

Much the same as post-war Japan or Germany.

The US spent a lot of time and money in those two countries after WW2, rebuilding their economies and infrastructure.

You can bet that there were those who would have liked the two countries concerned to be removed from the planet...

[Acroyear]

*scratching head*

I pitched the campaign idea to my players and surprisingly, when asked what characters/positions they wanted to play they almost universally shunned the department head/command positions. A couple of them actually said "I'll just be a red shirt" (actual quote).

After some prompting, one player chose to be the doctor (an odd choice for that player) and one asked to be the Cardassian observer... one decided to be the ops officer. I inquired as to if they wanted to play in something other than starfleet but, no, they wanted to be starfleet...

That kind of left me baffled, to be honest. I'm not sure if I should try to talk them into the higher ranks or if I should try to find some info on that "Prime Directive" style (someone mentioned that game resolved around landing parties that perform missions rather than the command crew?)

I'm not sure how a series would flow with the ranking guys being the doctor and ops guy, really.

Any ideas?

[AslanC]

Well the idea of Prime Directive was a highly trained "Away Team". Given the very military bent of the Star Fleet Universe, they were almost Star Fleet Commandoes. But that does not mean the core idea doesn't hold water.

Think about it, if thety play a specialist team, then you need some security training, shipboard systems, diplomatics, medical, etc...

The idea that they all are a bit crosstrained, with each character having its' own specialty.

I could even see a Cardassian working in there as well

[Acroyear]

I wanted to add for the possible benefit of discussion that my group ranges from 6-10 people (so at least 50% of the group is Joe Security).

It does sound a lot more military leaning, doesn't it?

I guess I'll fiddle with it some more and see if I can persuade some more players to be more than the fodder (I can't kill off security to dramatic effect if the entire detachment is PC's... well, I can, but that's not the style I'm going for in this game )

[toadkiller]

I did something like Prime Directive. Had several junior PC's so I slipped in the concept that there is a regular rotation of away teams. Basically when you check on to your ship (in my game) you have to qualify for away team duty to get put on the rotation. This qualification process provides a handy way to do some one on one orientation gaming with new players. They can do a little holodeck adventure to learn the rules which is safe - as the PC can't die, but also has a bit of game-stress as the character can not qualify and have in game implications.

I had several teams Alpha - through whatever. Charlie team was a security/bodyguard type team lead by the Security chief, Bravo a science team and Alpha was led by the XO and was the "as seen on TV" team.

I had intended that they get placed on Delta team and do some lower decks stuff but the players were role playing all over themselves from day one to get on Alpha team as is was "best".

Actually it worked out really well as it motivated them to actually role play - and that sort of "I want to the best" attitude is in keeping with the ambitious SF officer. They became alternate Alpha team members then eventually primary (with the XO).

[ds9guy]

I've always found in my games that smaller parties seem to work better. Have you thought about splitting your group into two teams?

Since you have that many characters another idea comes to mind. You could have some people play security/away team and others play bridge crew. Then you could cut back and forth between the two groups. That might be more work but its an idea.

right now, I'm experimenting with having my group do this very thing. I'll let you know how the experiment goes...

p.s. If your group seems to prefer security types you can try to mix up the batch some by having one of them be a marine or Starfleet intelligence operative. I've found that the marine/security rivalry oboard ship can make for great role-playing. If you're not a big fan of intercharacter conflict then I wouldn't do that though. But if you prefer DS9 type dynamics then i say go with it

cheers,

Monty