The Spirit of Trek

[Steele1701]

Has anyone thought about getting back to the spirit of Trek? Has anyone had trouble with there players arming there ship to the teeth? I am getting ready to start a new Star Trek game and two of the players are already talking about refitting the ship with Quantum torpedoes. If anyone else has this problem what was your solution, I don't want to come across as heavy handed and I have some ideas on how to deal with it but I would like some suggestions. Thankyou for your input, guys, you have always been helpful.

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If you love, love with all your heart. If you fight, fight to win. If you must die, die with honor.

[Publius]

Three possible points:

First, My solution to this kind of thing in general is to have the "enemy" essentially mirror what the Players are doing. If the players want to arm up, then all of the threats they will meet are armed up too.

Quantum Torpedoes? Well I guess the Carddies in your game have developed a new form of Dechyon Carrier Wave technology which carves through shields, or their shielding technology has essentially doubled because of Dominion technological assistance.

This position actually works best with personal weaponry though. If the players insist on walking around with Disrupt A as the default setting of the Phasers then so do the bad guys. That will make them stop in a real hurry.

Second, try something different altogether. They are members of Starfleet right? (I am assuming this, but I think that it is a safe assumption) Who says that their superior officers are going to allow them to have Quantum Torps? (Admiral Pagh-Safist says "Quantum Torpedoes on a research vessel? Certainly Captain you must be kidding... we are going to send in one of our counselors to help you deal with this apparent paranoid breakdown...") Who says that Quantum Torpedoes are going to become standard issue in any case? Perhaps they are reserved for wartime or for high-end vessels (I am also assuming that you have not given the players a ship which would otherwise be assumed to have them like a Defiant-class escport or something). Perhaps their superior's just say "No" for some arbitrary reasoin and when Quantums to begin to be outfitted, the Players vessel is done last.

One interesting wrinkle on this is to use the old "Speed Barrier" idea to make the technology 'tainted'. Quantum Torpedoes cause a weakening of Subspace similar to the high warp of pre-2360-whatever engines that placed (for a short duration) a 'speed limit' on Starfleet ships (I am at work, cannot look up the exact date of the episode in question -- one I never liked anyway). The assignment of Quantum Torps on any but the flagship and dedicated war vessels like the Defiant-class has been halted during a self-imposed moratorium.

Third, if the players manage to wheedle out Quantum Torps from their superior officer (which started aout as point two above but because of their constant nagging was finally granted) take them away. The first adventure after this centers on a Tal Shiar/Obsidian Order/Orion Syndicate Agent which manages to snake a few of these puppies off of the ship along with full technical schematics and whatnot. Oops. The players are accused of having gone Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and even if the situation is resolved they will not want anything to do with these things in the near future. Moral of the story: “Be careful What you wish for,” or “Make sure you take care of your toys children.”

Mad Political Scientist.

[Dan Stack]

One possibility is to change the style of the campaign - take a cue from the classic Trek, where they barely ever ran into other starships. Instead, the challenge was dealing with strange new worlds and civilizations.

[Steele1701]

Thanks guys, I like both of those ideas. The crew I am getting ready to start will be on an excelsior class starship. I will put those ideas to good use. Thanks.

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If you love, love with all your heart. If you fight, fight to win. If you must die, die with honor.

[reimero]

Another thing to consider is that all the quantum torpedoes in the universe won't do a dang bit of good for an away team-based mission. You don't have to play the benevolent Narrator. In fact, one of your jobs is to keep things in balance. You may have been generous enough to give them control of their ship, but you are the admiral who assigns the ship's mission and the quartermaster who has final say on armament and loadout.
One mark of an effective Narrator is the ability to give players what they think they want and still make things a challenge. If they want a ship that's a mean, lean fighting machine, then as a Narrator, I'd send them on lots of scientific and recon missions. Don't be afraid to throw in wrinkles. One of the things I really like about role-playing games is the opportunity to solve difficult problems with creative thinking. As a Narrator, I'm not at all afraid to award experience for clever or innovative ideas. Similarly, I'm not afraid to make them face the consequences of shooting first and asking questions later. (In case you haven't guessed, we play a LOT of D&D, so it took a few minutes for them to figure out the idea that a single disruptor shot would mean rolling up a new character, as they were set to kill. Then they figured out, pretty quickly, that there was something to be said for being discrete and thinking.)

[Steele1701]

I plan to introduce a new alien race based off of the Kinshaya from the Klingon Source book from FASA. I have always thought that with a little tweaking that the Kinshaya had the potental to be a good adversary for the Federation. I do think I will develop a little more of a culture for them than what the source book had for them, but I might keep the carnivore aspect though. It might just put some real fear of them in my players.

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If you love, love with all your heart. If you fight, fight to win. If you must die, die with honor.

[Phoenix]

Kinshaya!!! COOL, I'd love to see the write-up on the species Klingons have named Demons!!! super heavy plasma torps, ouch. The species can survive hard vacuume for quite a while, and then kill several Klingons in hand to hand on thier own ship, double ouch!!!

I don't know if I'd ever use them, but hey it's a big galaxy.

Phoenix...

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The more you disapprove,
The more fun it is for me.

[Steele1701]

I will post thr write up for them when I gat it ready. One of my players hits this board ever so often so it may be a while before I post it.

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If you love, love with all your heart. If you fight, fight to win. If you must die, die with honor.

[tonyg]

Another possibility in toning down the desire for firepower is to present adventures that cannot be solved with brute force.

You could put the PCs in situations where they must adhere to the Prime Directive, such as being on a pre-warp planet and thus are limited in thier use of high tech.

You can run adveunteres involving cultures that, while warp capable, are not as advanced militarily as the Federation. Say a few cultures capable of Warp 2 or 3 with weapons eqvilanet to Phaser Vs or so. Starfleet would have a commanding advantage in combat, but the Federation is looking for a more peaceful way of resolving conflicts.

[Legate Legion]

Steele1701,

I say give them Q-Torps & then never give them a reason to use them. Of course this depends upon when your game is set. If it is set in TOS, there is no way they should have them. If it is set in TNG, then they are in the experimental phase & there should be a lot of problems with them, such as exploding in the launcher, the entire spread... If it is DS9 (Pre-Dominion War), then again no, they are experimental & again on a botch do the same as in TNG, but instead of doing massive damage the Torpedo Tube is out. If it is the Dominion War, yes let them have them, but a limited number. If it is after the war, then give them a quarter to a third of their normal load as Quantum Torpedos, but make them account for every one they use & why they used it.

Of course it also depends upon where they are. If they are in the Core Worlds of the Federation, no. If they are on the Borders, yes go with a quarter to a third. And, if they are exploring them about a third to half.

But, you are the GM, so you can set up adventures where they either need to use them, or they don't. It is up to you. You can give them something & never give them a reason to use that item...

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~Legate Legion

"When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite. " - Sir Winston Churchill

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/The_13th_Fleet_Starfleet_Academy
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[Steele1701]

Thank you, guys, for all of your suggestions. I will put them to good use.

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If you love, love with all your heart. If you fight, fight to win. If you must die, die with honor.

[jahn]

What I do is penalize with Renown. Excessive violence is Aggressive, shooting first is negative Openness, unauthorized equipment or modifications is negative Discipline, overreliance on tech is negative Initiative. That and I plainly told the players my vision of Starfleet and of the campaign. If players know these are the ideals, then at least when they break them and you punish them they don't ask you why.

Of course, I would do the other things too. After one encounter bad guys would get better to match the players. Once they get that cool new-fangled gadget make sure it's never needed again. Gloss over combat (tough one to get away with) if that's not the focus of the campaign.

[toadkiller]

Bring in the Enterprise.

I was in a "super-duper combat Trek game" for awhile and the PC's/players had pretty much adopted the "shoot first, shoot often" mindset.

The Narrator had us run into the NCC-1701-D and go on a joint away team with Riker, Data and etc. (I forget the actual mission - but although it was made to seem dangerous it turned out not to be). Enterprise crew were basically shocked at the militant view of the PC crew - resulting in a very nice lecture from Picard about "the spirt of Star Fleet". Pretty effective and totally "in game".

TK

[Ineti]

I think I've been lucky in that all the players I've had in my games "got" the spirit of Trek. Meaning, they understood that Trek was something other than phaser-blazing a trail from one end of the galaxy to another. When my players get that blood-thirsty urge for action, I take a hiatus from Trek and run Star Wars.

Basically, as Narrator, I dictate what they players have. If I tell them they're posted to a Galaxy-class ship with regular photon torpedoes, that's what they get and they go on with it. I don't think I've ever had someone come up in-game and say, "Hey! Why don't we have quantum torpedoes? We should go get quantum torpedoes!"

In the end, Trek is about humanity, not technology. Using tech to solve episodes seems to me to be the wrong way to go.

Erm... <hops off the soapbox>

[Dan Gurden]

Originally posted by Steele1701
Thanks guys, I like both of those ideas. The crew I am getting ready to start will be on an excelsior class starship. I will put those ideas to good use. Thanks.

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If you love, love with all your heart. If you fight, fight to win. If you must die, die with honor.

That one is particularly simple.


Remember Starfleet is an organisation, with a command structure. Its not actually up to the players when their ship gets upgraded. They can make the suggestions, they can make field modifications...

But they dont get into Spacedock for a full systems upgrade until the admirals orders come through.

have some fum. Make their sector Admiral a jerk, dont be heavy handed, make it a plot point... The more unreasonable the Admiral is the more the players/crew try to shrug him off, which combined with the glorified tails of Greek Gods, Space Amobia and Time Travel merely infuriates the admiral more...

Give them an enemy that they cant fight with weapons, to stretch your players, just enough...