My players a determined to put in an early grave

[JonA]

I'm here to rant about the last session of my current Campaign set on the far side of the Galaxy. A bit of guidance would be nice too.

Please remember that my players are used to playing in Cyberpunk and Warhammer universes.

Players:

A Genetic Engineered Doctor (Human) with a somewhat annoying lack of respect for authority - although his skills as a Doctor make up for his shortcomings and has what has got him so far in his career.

A Helmsman (Trill) who loves the thrill of flying, the adventure of risk and has an eye for the ladeeeeez (think Tom Paris crossed with Will Riker)

An Engineer (Tellarite). A somewhat socially awkward engineer but a genius nonetheless.

A Security Chief (Vulcan). Typical Pacifistic Vulcan who views the world through curiousity and benign amusement generated by an aura of smugness that anything they can do he knows he can do better.

Not the most original of players I'll admit.

Session One went swimmingly with the players being assigned to the USS Cortezi. A Size 10 Heavy Explorer with an experimental QSD. They were part of a small task force with the USS Magellan (a Nebula Class) and two Defiant Class tactical support vessels - USS Invincible and the USS Trucelent. After being delayed due to one of the QSD drives being stolen from one of the Defiant ships by some pesky Romulans my gang of intrepid adventurers set off in the other Defiant ship and successfully recovered the QSD core with surprisingly little loss of life. The players then took over to the far side of the galaxy when a problem occured on the last leg and one of the Defiant ships crashed into the back of the Nebula class ship when they came out of the slipstream (destroying the Defiant ship and terminally damaging the Nebula).

Session Two also went very well. They made contact with the a new and (on first impressions anyway) friendly civilisation (The Vau Hegemony) and were invited to one of their more attractive planets nearby. Whilst there some of the crew got in to trouble with the law. Upon investigation by the security officer (in a typical Tuvok style) it appeared two crewmen were missing. After further poking around it transpired that the crewmen were kidnapped and were being setup as fallguys for a planned assassination of the Vau Emperor who happened to be visiting the planet. The group of plucky characters managed to find the crewmen and the Tellarite engineer managed to disarm a 3kg Trilithium bomb at the end and save a large number of lives and the Emperor.

So far so good. The players had managed to find their way in the good graces of an alien civilisation's Emperor and the impress the crew of the good ship Cortez including the Bolian Captain.

But Session Three was brilliant and yet a total disaster at the same time.

I'd hoped that the players were fitting into the Star Trek way of life and were ready for something to test their roleplay abilities. Instead the group split into two. The Tellarite and the Vulcan played it flawlessly. The Trill and the Human went back to their tried and true default setting of playing the game as if it was Cyberpunk and there was not going to be a reasonable outcome. A real no guts no glory approach ensued.

The Cortez and the Trucelent arrived in orbit of a unique planet wandering outside of a solar system. It was unique because it was a massive Gas Giant and second it had two seperate rings and no satellites. The planet also produced a massive Polaron field. The players thought nothing of this and carried on going oh and ah a lot as the studied this planet. The Doctor then began to slowly show signs that he was getting less and less intelligent. At first it was funny, he blamed incompetant staff and a faulty medicial tricorder when he failed to diagnose a small outbreak of the Bolian Flu (the Tellarite got most annoyed when the Doctor sent him his Medical Tricorder for a third diagnostic check. After the doctor (with the help of the Cortez's EMH) established that the Doctor was suffering a regression of the genetic resequencing he'd had done when he was a child due to the seemingly innocuous Polaron radiation. The EMH helped the doctor blag his way through his medical work but after a while it was getting silly and the doctor transferred to the Truculent and locked himself in the sickbay. Concerned by the doctor's more irrascable than normal mood the Captain told the security chief to descretely monitor the doctor and report any unusual activities to him. The Trill (being the doctor's oldest and best friend) followed the security officer to the Trucelent where they confronted the doctor. The doctor managed to blag the Vulcan that he was studying the recent outbreak of Bolian flu in a sterile environment and he couldn't do that on the Cortez. At this point the Doctor recruited the Trill to help him get away from the Polaron radiation. They disabled the crew by causing a false medical emergency and flooded the ship with Anethazine and then locked the crew up. They reported to the Cortez that there was technical problem at which point they warped away at high speed.

What followed was a very un-Star Trek (yet very exciting) game of cat and mouse as the Doctor and Trill tried to escape to a distance of 5 LY. They had a Vulcan security officer crawling through the depths of the ship trying to stop them in typical star trek fashion (masking his life signs, getting his tricorder to emit a Vulcan biosign, destablising the warp core and finally ejecting it). All the while the Doctor and Trill were sabotaging systems left and right and eventually they trapped the Vulcan in the shuttle and launched it into space. The Cortez arrived shortly afterwards and the Tellarite disabled it by setting a Quantorp to the Trucalent's shield frequency and taking out their shield generator. They then tractor beamed the ship and beamed the Doctor and Trill back.

The Doctor (back to normal) and Trill then played it like desperate children who'd got caught stealing from their mother's purse. The Doctor lied and still hid the truth and the Trill went along with everything and stated he now hates the Vulcan and Tellarite. Apparantly they did it for the good of the crew because they were all affected by the Polaron radiation including the ship systems on the Trucalent. The doctor apparantly has a "genetic flaw" which mean his "intelligence functions were diminished" by the Polaron radiation. A whole slew of lies, half truths came out and they felt no guilt or remorse. I basically demoted them, removed their security clearances and for the next 30 days they would be confined to quarters when not on duty. Both of which illicited no reaction.

The problem I'm now faced with is two players corrupted a good adventure idea by failing to play the parts they'd played so well previously and revert back to their usual playing style born of playing Warhammer and Cyberpunk too much. Maybe it was too much to hope for that they all would enjoy the adventure (they all like Star Trek) but the other two players I can't fault.

I fell rather aggreived because I've now got to run a campaign with a fragmented group of players (they all said they want to carry on with the campaign as is btw).

I'm annoyed with myself for trusting some of my players too much and believing that they could roleplay outside of the usual box.

What do I do?

[Assassin]

That will be always the problem.
Not every player will know Star Trek as intimitaly as maybe others and no two people see STar tRek the same way.
The main reason of roleplaying is fun and you said it was fun.
A problem is that there are two groups, the one group being startrekky and the others not.
Silly Behaviour is to be punished as you did. Demoting, court martial action and jail but you should talk to the troublesome players and tell them what your view of the events was and how you disliked their actions.
But the idealistic and often selfless ways of the stories in the tv-series is difficult to embrace for players who tend to search for the most efficient solution.

[Evan van Eyk]

Wait a second before judging the players too hard. Actually I think the fault lies with the Captain, if I got you right and of course the players overreacted, but I think the cause of this is understandable.

I mean imagine you are used to being superior to most other people due to genetic enhancements and due some incident you are not only loosing this improved abilites, but obviously are endangered to suffer permanent neurological damage.

the first thing I would have done is try to emit a field which blocks the radiation, afterwards, if not working, I would have contacted the Captain about the issue and asked for a shuttle to get into safe distance and rendevous with the ship later. However the Captain is obliged to the wellfare of his crew including the doctor, thus if the field harms him he has to make sure to end that threat, even if it means to leave a very interesting planet alone - no scientific phenomenon is worth the health of a crewmember ( see General Orders of Starfleet for reference ).

I would suggest to make part of the next session available for a court martial so that the players can explain their actions and maybe get understood by the others. I think it all started with not telling the truth, which is of course the first duty of a Starfleet Officer and in that case could easily have caused a catastrophe. However I think the Trill is more guilty than the Doc, who obviously was out of his mind. The Trill should have talked him out of that...

What I find more severe is the fact that the characters now hate the others, which is nonsense. I mean they only did their duty to protect the ship from any threats which this time was the pcs themselves.


If you are too uncomfortable with the whole situation and realize that the campaign might have taken permanent damage, you could have come up with a story of " surprise that really did not happen". Maybe it was an aline test of the crew reaction to stress. Maybe it was Q who was making fun of the Genetic Guy, showing him that he is not so superior at all ( hopefully resulting in a confession to the Captain of the Genetic Enhancement ), etc. While I do not like stories where in the end all of the characters' achievements and thus developments are rounded down to zero, it might be a last exit out of an else severly damaged campaign.

[JonA]

Originally posted by Evan van Eyk
Wait a second before judging the players too hard. Actually I think the fault lies with the Captain, if I got you right and of course the players overreacted, but I think the cause of this is understandable. SNIP SNIP SNIPITY SNIP

My fault. I didn't make it clear. In the same way as Dr Bashir the Doctor in my campaign couldn't tell anyone about his Genetic Modification, so the Doctor in my Campaign couldn't tell his Captain for the same reasons. Therefore he couldn't justify to his superiors to move the two ships away from the radiation just because his unnatural and illegal enhancements were being adversely affected.

Still I see what you mean. The Doctor's reaction should've been anticipated because his intellect was reducing by the hour and therefore so was his judgement and he went into panic mode. As for the Trill. The person who plays him is a total Trekkie (got all TNG and building his DS9 collection on DVD). So that just exasperates me even more because of all the players he is the one I expected to play most in the Star Trek vein. I would've hoped that the Trill would've come up with a reasonable and cohesive cover story but he went along on like a little lamb following his intellectually impaired best buddy even though he knew what was going on.

Still I think the one person who made the biggest error in judgement was me, the GM, in throwing the players into a hard core Star Trek style story too soon. Up until a month ago they'd never played Star Trek. They'd only played in worlds of darkness, despair, violence and paranoia (WFRP and Cyberpunk etc). Albeit we've all been roleplaying for nearly 15 years.

Oh well. As Q says "I suppose I only have myself to blame."

[Tobian]

Sounds like a few of my adventures *shudders*

The basic problem here is that the Trill seems to have acted totally out of character. Had the character BEEN Tom paris then yes, helping out a freind would make sense, but not a Starfleet officer.

Actually the one saving grace for the story / campaign is that it is slghtly Voyager-esque. Basically the crew is needed despite what they have done. What i would suggest is that the chief of security conducts an investigation as to what really happened. The Doctors medical scans will be on file and the effects etc can be looked over by another doctor. Now depending on how your Doctor has constructed his back story will depend on what can be brought to light, but a thorough genetic analysis (especially if it is bouyed up from the evidence of what the Doctor himself keyed into and looked for) would reveal what he was... (or maybe that's just because I would be mean!) Then two things would happen. Both officers would be brought up before a tribunal for lying and in the case of the Doctor for what he is as well and be thrown out of Starfleet altogether!

Now ok you're probably going 'how does this help any?' well the point is they are still needed for their skills. if this was in the core of the Federation they would be kicked off the ship, but it isn't, and they are short on crew, so they would then haveall their personal accesses, rights and privelages taken away from them, but they could still take part in the adventures. Then if they are determined to flout Starfleet regulations and the chain of command and basically your game they are in no position to do that.

They can then work to redeem themselves or stay as they are. There are plenty of 'role models' for such patterns in Voyager. Naome Wildman, Seven of Nine, Nelix, Icheb - and manyl of the ex maquis were never in Starfleet and probably never will be but worked allong side the officers as crewmen.

There is always the problem that some players refuse to play 'goody two shoes' Starfleet officers even and especially if they are fans of the series. Perhaps you should simply have them not be them and this gives you and them the scope to pursue expanded lines of roleplay allong darker trek themes. That way they will either have to try to be extra nice and worm their way back in or get very good at being bad and covering their tracks or they will have some excedingly dull adventures from the inside of a Brig!

[Evan van Eyk]

Originally posted by JonA
Therefore he couldn't justify to his superiors to move the two ships away from the radiation just because his unnatural and illegal enhancements were being adversely affected.

OK, that is lack of fanatsy then. He could have easily said that a treatment in his childhood of a neural sickness now causes the trouble - no mentioning of the "real cause" or enhancements would have been neccessary.

However maybe your characters are not yet familiar enough with military structures, after all they played free-lance up to now and in Cyberpunk its basically you who has to watch your back.

Maybe you could throw in a short "alldays" work episode to make them more familiar with Starfleet procedures. Info about that is in the Core Books and e.g. LUGs Players Guide.

I suggest that you put a subplot in one episode with a comparable situation, just vice versa. The player, as department head, is now the CO and has to cope with a personal problem of a crewmember, maybe paranoia, mobbing or whatever. That situation might also escalate in a smaller way so that the character has to take mor disciplining steps, making him understand the Vulcan and Captain as well...

[StyroFoam Man]

This message has been removed on request by the
poster

[pesterfield]

I agree the Doctor could have come up with a better lie. What was the original point of the adventure anyway, what did you expect to happen?

Anyplace that would condemn someone for a transgression they likely had no say in is pretty dark anyway. Besides I never liked it for throwing the baby out with the bathwater when dealing with genetic engineering.

This sounds like my science officer:
We have a data/lore type situation and the science officer has made it clear he either wants both machines destroyed or Asimov's Laws of Robotics programmed into them.

He always carries a phaser, since boarding actions are so easy on a starship.

So the doctor and Trill want to play like real people, bucking the party line, let them. Maybe they can get others onto their side.

[Tobian]

I think the whole genetic engineering ban in Starfleet is part of the Federations general dislike for it. While they do use it frequently for medical (curative) effects they do not want to promote it's use (for designer baby purposes) so the most visible vehicle for that would be to ban it in Starfleet. I think the whole point about Starfleet and the federation as a whole is all about quality of life and preservation of life. If someone is cloned or genetically manipulated, how do you assign rights? Are they then comodities like the jem Hadar are for the Dominion. Do we just want to reduce the crews of Starfleet vessels to robots or constructs. After all the whole point of it would be because WE want to do it. Sending a probe to the moon is very dull, though it yeilds tremendous scientific insights is one thing. Landing on the moon, walking arround in low gravity and having one of the most profound experiences in your life, is something else. if you can create a super construct (like the Jem hadar) then why would Starfleet need to ever send anyone at all, they could just clone crews at will and never leave their desks. Of course the other reason especially in Trek is because they were burned by the Eugenics wars which probably completelly solidified opinion on that.

Julian bashir is a unique individual, as is Data. At the end of the day they are special cases. Humanity as a whole would not be comfortable with the idea that they were redundant, as would most of the other sovereign planets of the Federation!

[pesterfield]

Actually I'm surprised that at least the human part of Starfleet wouldn't embrace genetic engineering.

Vulcans are stronger, have better senses, etc. Betazoids are more telepathic than the normal human. Shouldn't the humans be encouraging genetic engineering in order to keep up?

[Ergi]

Originally posted by Tobian


Julian bashir is a unique individual, as is Data. At the end of the day they are special cases. Humanity as a whole would not be comfortable with the idea that they were redundant, as would most of the other sovereign planets of the Federation!

I don't think it had anything to do with them being special cases. I just don't believe it is Federation policy to punish anybody for what he is (and can't be blamed for). "Please don't move while I set my phaser to disintegrate, but your superior DNA has to be removed from the gene pool."

Pesterfield, you a scaring me!

[Tobian]

Actually yes to be fair that is what I also should have said. The rule appears to be that Starfleet will basically learn to forgive you of it, but you would never get into Starfleet if they knew. Data was a completelly unique entity, so at the end of the day Starfleet was as curious of it as he was of humanity ;-)

I also didn't mention the use of phasers. I think it would have simply been a firm kick out of the door

[Chris Blanchard]

Originally posted by pesterfield
Actually I'm surprised that at least the human part of Starfleet wouldn't embrace genetic engineering.

Vulcans are stronger, have better senses, etc. Betazoids are more telepathic than the normal human. Shouldn't the humans be encouraging genetic engineering in order to keep up?

In my opinion, no. Part of what Star Trek is about is the human experience. Despite the fact that Klingons are tougher to kill, vulcan's can process information faster and betazoids are telepathic, humans survive and thrive in the galaxy. All without genetic modification. How many times have you seen a Star Trek episode where the problem was solved by human inginuity and quick thinking, rather than the special advantages of the other races? That's what the show is about. That's what makes humanity unique in the Trek universe. Genetically engineering humans would take that away, in my opinion.

Chris