"Focus" Episodes - a character development idea

[Scott M. Macek]

I've been toying with the idea of doing what I refer to as "focus" episodes. What constitutes a focus episode (in my somewhat deluded mind) is that the episode focuses on one or two characters and their experiences. Here's my thought: We've seen in every series this type of episode where the life of one character is altered or shaped with none of the other major players involved. The other players in the group would each be given an NPC to play and interact with the one character and lead him to the end of the episode.

Examples (please note that the names of the episodes elude me in most cases): The episode where Kirk lost his memory and became Kirok. NPCs: Miramanee and the other tribe members. The episode of next Gen when Picard experienced life with the Reskians (sp?). NPCs: The rest of Picard's family and colleagues. The episode where O'Brien "lives" 25 years in prison. NPCs: Prison guards and other prisoners. The episode where Harry Kim is asked to captain a mission aboard the ship of another species. NPCs: The crew of the other vessel.

One of the things I love about Star Trek is the character development episodes and I want to know the opinion of others on the board here about some ideas:

1) Would players in your group be interested in playing other characters for a session or two so one player can have a chance in the spotlight (noting that eac h player would get their chance in the spotlight some time in the future themselves).

2) Does anyone out there think that their group would not be able to play characters they haven't made themselves?

These are questions that I find myself faced with. I'm having enough of a difficulty finding players to play, but it's even more difficult to write adventures where everyone has something to do without making every episode epic in some way (hard to do every episode!)

Anyway, I'm just trying to work through some writer's block and thought maybe some input would help. Thanks in advance!

[USS Kochanski]

Well, The last episode i ran was just such an episode. Along the way, my crew picked up a Ferengi holoprogram/novel merchant (with a penchant for golf). He was put through a test in the last episode, where he was given command of a ship to investigate a temporal anomaly, and the other three had npc ensigns. The ship was an experimental design, with a temporal reset button (a large red button to return the ship to the space and time it belonged to) The anomaly swallowed the ship, and it appeared in unknown space. After some short investigation, the planet they found had lifesigns, of a cybernetic nature, but no warp capabilities or space technology. The point was to see how he'd act when presented with a prime directive dilemma. Either follow the directive, or have a chance to strike the Borg before they became the Borg. Once he chose to follow the prime directive, and pushed the large red button, a voice came on and said "Computer, end program. The test is over" He was left standing on the holodeck of the starbase from which he had departed from the "mission."

Only one of the other three players had issue with running an npc, and thats mainly because i didnt have a chance to talk to him before hand. As for their ability to play the characters, since they knew ahead of time, they were able to play the charecters quite well. The vulcan engineer tried to sabotage the ship (romulan infiltrator?), The centauran science officer recommended dropping asteroids on the planet, burning the atmosphere off, warping the ship into the planet....And the human ops officer was sort of a balance of those two. All of which added to the testing of the newly inducted ferengi crewmember.

Also, the idea of finding the protoborg i believe i found on the adventure seeds thread.

He passed his test.

edit: incuted is not a word.

edit: apparently Holograph is logos non grata

[Owen E Oulton]

"Along the way, my crew picked up a Ferengi holograph merchant"

Huh? He sold hand-written documents? Sure you don't mean hologram?

[USS Kochanski]

I actually edited it down from holographic, trying to take away the implication he himself was a 'Child of Photons'

[Owen E Oulton]

How 'bout "holoprogram merchant" or "holonovel merchant?"

[USS Kochanski]

sure, that would work, if i had thought of it..

[Capt. K. Vaughn]

It depends on the individual players in question. I have had players take on specialty rolls in the past to spotlight one character or another with great success.

There are also players I've had who I would never try this with. Though they can "play" the character they would not take it as seriously and that would take away from what was trying to be accomplished.

If, one talks to the players as a group beforehand though I know about 98% of the players I've had would agree to do this and then it would just be a matter of time to take those aside to talk about their roles when each of the episodes comes up. I've done this in the past and we've had a lot of fun but it requires work and the spotlighted character usually knows shortly into the episode that they're being highlighted but I've yet to have that take away from the game.

Regards,
CKV.