First Officer PC

[erhershman]

In my upcoming episode, my single PC is the First Officer, and he has the responsibilty (assigned by the captain) of finding the crewmember who is passing information to the Romulans. THe spy in the end turns out to be the captain himself! If the PC does well enough, I am planning to have Starfleet make him the captain of the ship... if he does well enough in the episode. My player is sometimes a bit indecisive... so I'm not sure how he would do if I put him in the big chair.

Does anyone have any ideas about "tests" I could put in that episode to put the PC through to test his leadership skills and see
if he is ready for captain?

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The road goes ever ever on,
Over rock and under tree.
And I must follow if I can.
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way,
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

[ghosty]

We've used this test scenario several times to separate the boys from the true commanding officers.

It begins as a routine mission to bring relief supplies to a colony devestated by plauge/natural disaster/whatever, sufficie to say casualties are heavy more than 5,000 people are dying.

Enroute the ship receives a distress call from a cruise ship caught in the event horizon of a black hole. Remind the CO at this point that ships in distress do take precedence (and there are no ships in the vicinity to take over either mission).

The cruise ship has suffered damage. Its shields are coming up and down in random patterns, communications are out and its engines are dying. It's within minutes of being sucked in with 500 passengers and crew. The ship's tractor beams are not strong enough to pull the cruise ship free and in fact should give out at a critical moment. (The solution is dangerous and needs fancy piloting) but then you must separate the boys from the captains.

The idea is to see if the PC can complete both missions at the same time. It'll test his flexibility and his decisiveness.

Call this one BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE. Try it. It beats the Kobayashi Maru.

[Evan van Eyk]

Why not use a holonovel as test? As you do not need an 'official' test by Starfleet, but only for game purpose, you could e.g. use something like the holonovel's Bashir and Miles used ( the Alamo ) where the character commands a troop of soldiers.
Or a pirate holonovel, where the PC commands a ship ( pirate or not ) and has to fullfil his role as captain to bring his crew through some dangers. That could be a funny adventure and give you the chance to see how well he perfroms as Captain.


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"I am a great one for rushing in where angels fear to tread." - Cpt. Kirk, Star Trek VI


www.farrealms.de

[Capt. Scott Taylor]

The time I put my PCs in control of the ship as a test, it showed which player deserved the "big chair" and which ones didn't.

While at Earth doing a routine Refit, the PCs were selected to take a ship fresh out of Repair Dock for a test drive. Into the game, they came upon a ship giving a distress call, being attacked by renegade forces. (This was an alt. future timeline the PCs were in, and put them against a Sovereign-class and a Defiant-class.) Piloting their own Sovereign, the PCs took causlities and lots of damage, but still managed to save the day. Shortly there after, I promoted the PC character that stepped up and took control during the operation to the Captain's chair. She did quite well and eventually helped repair the timeline, throwing everyone back to their original spots. Self-sacrifice, calm-resolve, and brass balls can make for a great captain.

But if you have any doubts about the Commander, keep him right where he is. I'd say that he's not ready.

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=========================
Captain Scott Taylor
U.S.S. Guardian
NCC-1738-B
"No, no! I'm chaos. He's Mayhem!"
http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/startrekgamersstation

[reimero]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Capt. Scott Taylor:
But if you have any doubts about the Commander, keep him right where he is. I'd say that he's not ready.
</font>

Conversely, from a character-development standpoint, it can be interesting to thrust a character into command prematurely and see how they react. I'm sure the Trek universe had several captains who were put in the big chair before they were ready out of sheer necessity. A player who knows he or she is not ready or capable of handling it will turn down the promotion. Sometimes, adversity makes a player even better.

Just my $0.02 worth.

[Polanski]

Well, in the group that I GM I have 6 players, an assistant GM and GM (me).
Now I must say that I am reluctant to trust any of the players with the big chair and even with the XO chair at the moment.
Oh they know their stuff but it gets tricky when on the away mission where the future of the UFP is at stake they decide to go gun-ho!

The trick is that sooner or later they will have to take the responsibility, but until then the captain and the first officer (player respecivly by GM and co-GM) are there to shield them.

Sure some of you say a power trip or something like that, but you would be surprised how the loyalty towards the command crew can grow and roleplayed.
Just the other day I had a lieutanant of RRT assault two prisoners (crewmen) who made an attempt on Captain's life.
The Captain being ex-RRT came out of it with a bleeding nose and a big bruise on the face, as she can look after herself, and RRT lieutenant (without me needing to invoke RRT Code of Honour) decided to have a friendly chat with the two crewmen who did it. Results? Bruises and broken noses and RRT lieutanant arrested by security officer after departamental jurisdiction argument.

After that session I had the player playing that lieutanant stoping by to personally thank me for yet another great episode. I did not needed to put an army of Borg or The Very Scary and Evil Aliens to make him love the session.

So as it goes being lieutenant (all my players are as they have started from ground up) is not that bad...

Now the thing that I like to point out is that I enourage players to play an imperfect characters by doing it myself. The Captain ... is actually an acting captain with the rank of commander.
She had plenty of command experience but not in such dangerous situation that crew have been facing for some time ad to make it more interesting her XO is a science officer and third in command is StarFleet Marines Colonel. (most senior officers died during the incident that placed the players and the ship in current situation)

The Point I am trying to make is that I will not hesitate to give a character twice as much experience if they are capable to role-play a good failure or can show that the all time low morale and the danger of the situation reflects upon them and their character...

Make it real ...
As what makes us real are both our successes and failures.

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Commander A.Polanski
Acting Captain of USS Avatar


[This message has been edited by Polanski (edited 09-25-2001).]