Quote from: James Gillen;5632121. Are you on board with the setting of the campaign?

They were told explicitly that it was going to be Abrams-verse Trek, and what I meant by that.  The h8 just came out at the first session when we started talking in depth about what the campaign was going to be like.

I'm not going to tell them to STFU; they're both good friends who have been part of my gaming group for years.  It was nothing more than one of those minor group dynamic hiccups that normal people don't have trouble with ("Look, if you hate it that much, then forget the whole thing.  I'm not going to run something half the group seems to hate that much. We'll play something else.").

I had to cave in to player power a number of times during my years of constant GMing, but my group was pretty good about it. Every time they told me to stick up my arse and set fire to it, they were ok trying one of my many homebrew lash ups.

I recall them saying no to Starships and Spacemen back in the day, but I insisted, we tried it anyway, and ran into the 'you're all drones following the captains orders or you're court marshalled and locked in the brig' thing, especially when they were used to D&Ds more 'wild west' way of things, with no one pushing their level 17 Fighter about or whatever.

I personally think its one of those themes that doesn't translate well into games, but am happy for others if they prove otherwise.

Quote from: APN;563526I personally think its one of those themes that doesn't translate well into games, but am happy for others if they prove otherwise.

In the politest way possible: Bullshit.

"Boldly exploring the Galaxy!!"  translates just fine into a roleplaying game format.

It might all depend on the players. A lot of the issues seem to be player issues and not 'Is it gameable?' issues.

Most of my current group have either been in the military at one point, or grew up on or near military bases. Its not a requirement - but it kind of helps that they DON'T have issues with military-type chain of command protocol.

In the game itself I often have NPCs gently nudge or remind the player characters about some things (like "Um, Sir you probably don't really want to do that - it might be called a violation of the prisoner's Babel Accord Rights" PLAYER: "Uh yes, thank you Ensign for reminding me of that...")


- Ed c.

Quote from: Koltar;563609In the politest way possible: Bullshit.

"Boldly exploring the Galaxy!!"  translates just fine into a roleplaying game format.

It might all depend on the players. A lot of the issues seem to be player issues and not 'Is it gameable?' issues.

Most of my current group have either been in the military at one point, or grew up on or near military bases. Its not a requirement - but it kind of helps that they DON'T have issues with military-type chain of command protocol.

In the game itself I often have NPCs gently nudge or remind the player characters about some things (like "Um, Sir you probably don't really want to do that - it might be called a violation of the prisoner's Babel Accord Rights" PLAYER: "Uh yes, thank you Ensign for reminding me of that...")


- Ed c.

I'm responding in the politest possible way to you, but won't stoop to denouncing your opinion as bullshit.

When I write 'I personally think its one of those themes that doesn't translate well into games' I speak as someone who GM'd and played Starships and Spacemen, a numbers filed off Star Trek clone. The game played fine, but the setting just didn't gel, regardless of which Original Series episode we used as a base for an adventure.

Quote"Boldly exploring the Galaxy!!" translates just fine into a roleplaying game format.

Yes it does, but we much preferred Star Frontiers, Traveller, Star Wars and home brew games to the Star Trek universe. Thousands of players prefer those games to Star Trek games. There have been enough attempts to turn out decent Trek games, and I've owned a few (FASA, Prime Directive, Last Unicorn Next Generation game, Decipher version) but the biggest problem our group had with all of those wasn't the system, it was the setting. My players didn't want to be limited to following orders and adding the word 'sir' after every sentence.

QuoteMost of my current group have either been in the military at one point, or grew up on or near military bases. Its not a requirement - but it kind of helps that they DON'T have issues with military-type chain of command protocol.

Right there.

I think its weird that someone who follows orders for a living might then also want to play a game where they have to follow a chain of command, but hey, each to their own. If they are die hard trek fans and comfortable with the chain of command thing, good for them. Not everyone is like that.

Another problem with licensed settings is that not everyone is an expert, and some players take the whole thing much too seriously for others. We had that problem with Middle Earth roleplaying (not all players had read the books and it was decades before the films came out) and Star Wars to a lesser extent.

So when you spout off 'In the politest way possible: Bullshit.' don't be so narrow minded. I tried Trek Gaming and GMing, it didn't click with me or the group, and doesn't click for thousands of other Role Players who prefer other sci fi universes.

I like to watch Star Trek films and tv episodes, and play the computer games. For roleplaying fun I look elsewhere.

APN, some people like Military SF, some people can roleplay Military SF, and others can't or won't.  Not that I consider Star Trek a great example of such, but it's the one that most people are familiar with.

JG

Quote from: APN;563666When I write 'I personally think its one of those themes that doesn't translate well into games' I speak as someone who GM'd and played Starships and Spacemen, a numbers filed off Star Trek clone. The game played fine, but the setting just didn't gel, regardless of which Original Series episode we used as a base for an adventure.

It like playing fantasy  vs science fiction, the groups has to want to play it. Star Trek roleplaying isn't any more difficult than any other narrow genre that RPGs address. What need though is the group to adhere to the conventions of the genre which in this case is to be part of a crew.

I personally had great success with up to a half dozen players running Star Trek games. Even manage to run a campaign of Star Trek at one point; the exploratory cruiser Amundsen. Which the players designed themselves by using 1/2 square graph paper, judicious use of parts photocopied from the FASA Enterprise blue prints, and the result photocopied one last time to make the final copy.

What made it work is that the players accepted the command structure and the captain players was smart enough to adopt a consensus command style.

Quote from: estar;564230What made it work is that the players accepted the command structure and the captain players was smart enough to adopt a consensus command style.

That, right there?  That is the money quote.

Player buy-in for the game being played is not only necessary, but crucial in these type of games.

I've had a lot of success with (LUG) Star Trek.  I didn't know about the FASA version until much later and have a particular dislike of the Decipher version.

Our Star Trek - Alliance series was likely our single longest running campaign, spanning close to three years, beginning at the start of The Next Generation and ending at the Battle of Wolf 359 for obvious reasons.

The secret to success for us was rotating the Referee duties.  No-one was obliged to do so but it helped that everyone had at least one crew member to play as well as the opportunity to act as Referee for a story.

While only one of us was a real Trekkie, the rest of us know enough or were happy enough to go along with it.  I do think LUG is too complicated a rules system but it serves well enough and is easy to streamline during play.  We did use the starship combat rules a lot to begin with, but when we lost the player of the Ops Officer we used them far less.

Quote from: Drohem;564242That, right there?  That is the money quote.

Player buy-in for the game being played is not only necessary, but crucial in these type of games.

In terms of "genre simulation" I think TNG was a great example of Picard leading by consensus, whereas the other captains tended to be a bit more closed-off.

JG

Quote from: jeff37923;560238Do not use FASA Star Trek for RPGs, it sucks. Use FASA Star Trek for space combat simulators and that is all.

I still use the FASA Star Trek system it works just fine, simple %d100 based system and I have run a campaign in it since 1985 when it first came out.

Quote from: flyingcircus;564694I still use the FASA Star Trek system it works just fine, simple %d100 based system and I have run a campaign in it since 1985 when it first came out.

The Action Point system was a bit wargamish but that was nothing to us considering how much tabletop and wargaming overlapped back then.

I like how the character's service history was generated, and the fact it used a 1/2 hex with hex wargame style counters. It made using starship deckplan a lot easier than any other scale.

Quote from: estar;564700The Action Point system was a bit wargamish but that was nothing to us considering how much tabletop and wargaming overlapped back then.

Of course this being a game of starship crews, they sorta HAD to overlap.

JG

I have FASA, LUG and Deciphers versions of Star Trek and I have all the books and supplements for each one, I enjoy FASA's still today for it's simplicity and because it was my first Star Trek game but I think LUG's version is still the overall most impressive system, it really seemed to capture the feel of Star Trek to me and I really enjoyed using the system.  The Decipher system is ok but when I use it, I feel like I'm playing LoTR in Space for some reason, they should have just came up with a new system instead of using there LoTR system.