Enterprise-Era Game

[Dan Stack]

I'm a little surprised no-one has discussed this since the start of "Enterprise".

Suppose you wanted to run a game concurrent with the TV show "Enterprise". How would you do it, all filled with fear of contradicting the show? I remember FASA's first stab at ST:TNG around the end of season 1 of TNG - a lot of wild speculation... I'm not actually considering such a game, but it does present an interesting exercise in my opinion. (Though heck, if there's some really funky ideas, I'm flighty enough to consider one...)

Personally, I think you'd almost have to do a non-political, exploration game, far away from major civilizations. As for known Trek aliens, I think you'd mainly be using humans, Vulcans, Klingons, and Andorians - any others may be a bit tricky since "Enterprise" may show their first contact.

The ship itself presents a difficulty - do you make it like Enterprise and hope the show doesn't reveal that she's one of a kind. Do you make your own class of ship and give it a funky hull registry - CA-47?

[SIR SIG]

Very interesting topic Dan, especially since know one has tried yet.

As for missions, exploration is the main thing. SInce Enterprise seems to be out the Beta Quad side, send the PC's into the Alpha Quad.

At the moment I think Enterprise is one of a kind. I wouldn't put it past them to have another one building (in secret) to spite the Vulcans though.

New races would be tricky though. You'd have to stick with home made ones and the currently mentioned ones so far.

So start a new game with another older but cool ship that can do say warp 3.5-4.0. And send it off exploring, hook up with Enterpise some time later. And finally give them the second Enterprise class ship to wreak havoc with

[Greg Davis]

Well, as I mentioned in a previous thread, I had given thought to an Enterprise era campaign, but passed for a variety of reasons (the primary of which being that I now have an opportunity to play Trek, while only having to occasionally run, thanks to a friend of mine).

Anyway, my basic idea had been to set a campaign after the launch of the Enterprise, with the crew being on the 2nd "warp 5" ship (though, for the campaign, I was going to call the class of ship 'Archer', after the engineer and engine designer).

Basically, it would have been basic "TOS" Trek...exploration, lots of first contact, wierd phenomena, Klingons...stuff like that.

What I settled for, as a side adventure in the campaign that we're currently playing, was an appearance by the NX-01, which had been pulled through a temporal rift in the Typhon Expanse (ala the USS Bozeman, which occured in the same area). The crew, who were in the Typhon sector, picked up an old-style SOS and responded...only to discover a damaged NX-01.

This occured for a variety of reasons, actually. Mainly, because I happened to be running the first adventure for the campaign, which I happen to be co-narrating, and, based on the previous Trek series openers, there is always a cameo from the current or immediately previous series, so I used the NX-01. Also, the PC ship captain is a decendent of Jonathon Archer, though he admitted that he hadn't expected anything like that to happen.

So, we had a big science adventure, with some Romulans thrown in (since I think that they're behind the whole 'temporal cold war' thing), and everyone seemed to have fun. We got the NX-01 back home, beat up the Romulans (much to the chagrin of a crewman who, when the Romulans showed up, said 'Oh, thank God, it's the Romulans! We're saved!' Needless to say, an 'exploding panel of doom' [tm] took him out after that! ) and "put right what once went wrong"...

All in all, it was pretty cool, if I do say so myself!


Greg

[Sheliak Bob]

Okay dokey! I'd probably avoid using another "Enterprise" class ship until there's some sign that more are being built.
That limits you to either a WF:2 vessel, which makes for a basically "One World" or extended exploration campaign (not necessarily a bad thing, mind you, just not what people are likely to expect from a "Trek" campaign.) OR using someone else's ships!
Best idea I can come up with is either Humans serving with a Vulcan crew on a Vulcan ship, or Human medical personnel who are part of that "Vulcan Medical Exchange Program" who are working with another species. (like, say, The Trill?) Or Phlox's people, once we learn more about them.
Best idea for an extended One World game I can come up with is to have the PC's be from a "Boomer" that is diverted to the Rijel trade planet once Archer and crew discover it. That gives you LOTS of funky aliens to play with, hostile terrain, a DS9/RRR's style of play and avoids most canonical problems. Also gives you an excuse to scrutinize the aliens shown in that pilot episode and flesh out a LOT of species that the show probably won't get around to doing much with. You also have a good opportunity to use Suliban villains and visiting Klingons. Gives you the necessary Trek-flavoring.
Unfortunately, you'd have to use someone else's ship for any significant travelling. Not a problem! Rijel is a trade planet! HIRE an alien free trader! oodles of fun. (I'd run it myself, if I had the TIME! demmit.)

[qerlin]

What Sheliak Bob said.

'course worrying about contradicting the show, IMO, isn't a problem. the show is contradicting the other shows. I just think of it as a kinda 'remake' of TOS.

[Evan van Eyk]

Well why I will not do such a campaign is that i want my campaigns to be more or less canon. As Enterprise is only at its start there would be the danger to contradict things. But actually I am planning sómethign similar, a campaign set in 2180, something quite similar to this challenging era, cause it is like with Enterprise, everything is far more 'primitive' and the like, there are more challenges, the Federation does only exist for not even two decades. ( descriptions of this will you find on my hompage, inlcuding uniforms and ships).

The problem with an Enterprise campaign would be that your characters would need to be on this ships, because it is the only one with a Warp 5 drive, the only vessel able to reach deep space. If not you could create another warp five ship, but there again is the danger of contradiction. Another option would be to simply play Vulcans.
No matter what you do, i think such a campaign would be quite similar to Voyager, because Home is far away and out of reach. And your boldy go where no man has gone before.

[Admiral Wolf]

I have long been planing a series of games based around the Earth-Romulan War.

"Enterprise" has been giving me some more ideas along that line.

Gonna use the old FASA TOS game system I have.

I've already created a Cruiser class and Destroyer class of Earth ships, figure they don't really have much more at this point in history. (the "earth ships...will however not look anything like the Enterprise tho....much more low tech looking.)

The combat system will be down and dirty as the tech would be at this time period...no shields, armored hulls (maybe "polarized" as in Ent) missiles and partical cannons high output Laser's etc etc.

I figured by keeping the PC's deeply involved in the "guts" of the war, they won't have much time to make trouble canon wise.

Plus, they can interact with some of the founding members of the Federation Andor's Tellar's Vulcan's etc etc more then they really do in our "modern day" game.

[Michael Barratt]

Originally posted by Dan Stack
I'm a little surprised no-one has discussed this since the start of "Enterprise".

Uh, yes we have. We discussed whether you'd use the Enterprise as the main ship in the series, or if you'd create a second-gen ship - one where all that Enterprise had learned was integrated a little. Or if you'd run concurrently with the series, and hope for the best.

Warp-3 Engines might be workable, in that you'd have a game-reason for being behind the Enterprise.

The ship itself presents a difficulty - do you make it like Enterprise and hope the show doesn't reveal that she's one of a kind. Do you make your own class of ship and give it a funky hull registry - CA-47?

I'd be voting for the latter - another ship. Maybe it would be a good way to play out the conception of the Starfleet Merchant Marines - now that we've met alien X, let's try to hammer out some trade agreements... After all, we're not quite up to Replicators yet, we've a lot to learn, etc etc.

The Doc