Greetings,

I mentioned in that other thread the idea of posting My thoughts on hos to run a Fun and Good "Star Trek" story as an RPG Campaign.

Here we go....not in any particular order, just as I think of them:

I choose the 23rd century instead of the 24th century these days - because there is less of the 'magic tech' issues, also less idealism politics muddying up things. That time period isw more aqbout the exploring and there are mysteries out there.

Do Not make the players stress about the 'tech' - if they are familiar with episodes of the show then the gist of it should be enough

The players should be the department heads of the ship, preferably a Starfleet ship. One of the players should be the Captain or commanding officer, one of the other players should be the first officer. As a rule or guideline it doesn't work out well when the GM plays either the Captain or First officer as an 'NPC' - the players should be the decision makers.

Give each player at least 5 to 12 NPC descriptions of just 'who' is in their department, include brief personality descriptions. Yeah, that might seem loike a bit of work - but it payts off in the long run in the role playing.

The Missions may be given by Starfleet Command, but the players Do have autonomy in how they interpret their orders ...and discretion when encountering unexpected situations.

Also, connected with that I often have the Brass give my ship's command crew a mission involving choices - for exampole they were tasked to putting a top to an Orion Pirate ship in the area and they could choose which starflert ships were part of the task frce and what their tactics and big plan was going to be.  They couldnt use 'all the ships' - but they did have a cjoice in the number and which ones.

There are often choices.

Its a Hopeful and optimistic universe.

It works best not to do the usual stereotypes, tropes, and jokes associated with "Star Trek" - the humor will come from the players within the game situations.

We are going for what we hink of as better writing, casting, and stuff like that - while using the visual aestheticvs of "Star Trek".

More deails as I think of them...

Any Questions?

- Ed C.

Which Star Trek?  Cuz if its next generation the Captain doesn't go on the away missions. 

I dunno.  Might work though.  Interesting to see.

I would maybe base it around "Red shirts."  Might allow for a bit more creativity and avoid the problem of someone pulling rank.

The 2260s.

My current campaign is set halfway between "SNW" and "TOS"....

Lots of adventure and exploring is possible....

- Ed C.

Heh I was gonna ask the same thing, what part of the 23rd century.

I'm partial to the 2280s. Movie era aesthetic with the Excelsior still in the "holy shit, what is THAT monster" stages.

What ship class do you prefer for the PCs?

Quote from: Thornhammer on December 21, 2023, 11:13:32 PM

I'm partial to the 2280s. Movie era aesthetic with the Excelsior still in the "holy shit, what is THAT monster" stages.

What ship class do you prefer for the PCs?

The problem with the 2280s for me is that FASA did a bit of overkill with that era when they had the license. I know it was contemporary with when they were publishing their game books - but a few more set in TOS era would have been nice.
I am stil looking for an affordable copy of the one set on a space station, think it was called "The Vanishing Point" - because it would be easily adaptable to the group I sam running right now.

- Ed C.

Best Star Trek campaign I had was set in the immediate aftermath (I believe it was initially three months after the armistice) of the Dominion War (at that time the furthest along in the timeline we had) aboard an Intrepid-class (the USS Challenger) assigned to contact, evaluate, and assistant the worlds of the former Demilitarized Zone however possible.

Resources were stretched thin by the war (basically the only ship available to handle a mission to contact and assist several dozen lost colonies with no reliable resupply) and the crew were practically raw recruits out of the accelerated training programs used to keep up with the manpower needs of the Dominion War.

Also in play was tension between the more militant wing who wanted to maintain vigilance after the war (represented on ship by a contingent of marines and their PC CO distinct from the ship's security team) and those wanting to return to peaceful exploration and a third factor that simply for purely therapeutic reasons given the relatively low risk of the assignment was to include families aboard the ship (and the PTSD elements of surviving a war where Starfleet lost nearly half its ships and everyone had lost scores of friends and family were also present in several PCs).

In addition to the officer PCs (captain, security, medical, engineering, marine CO... NPC first officer who would keep things running while the Captain was off ship), one player opted to play a Cardassian liason from its provisional government just for added fun.

They got up to all sorts trying to help the colonies recover including a murder investigation, a hijacking, a chain of deals bargain with Pakleds to obtain industrial replicators (while not canonical, in game it was established that replicators require certain components that can't be replicated) that had fallen into short supply, dealing with Cardassian officers turned warlords, infiltrating pirates being fronted by the Breen to get around the surrender treaty, having to protect a Ferengi shipyard (being leased to the Federation as part of the hardliners' rapid rearmament plans... also where all the 'missing' industrial replicators had gone), war games as the OpFor for new recruits using the new hybrid Federation ships coming out of the Ferengi yards, and uncovering an ancient race that had been locked away in the Badlands by the Preservers and were accidentally released by the Jem'Hadar.

Maps?

I use what I call the "Big Map" that was in the back of the Star Trek Charts book 10 years ago. It is mostly 'canon' as they are still using a vrsion of it both n "Star Trek Picard" and "Star Trek Discovery". Oh yeah "Strange New Worlds" also uses the gist of thatmap. It is the same one that the Okudas, Doug Drexler, Rick Sterbach, and Geoffrey Mandel used in artwork for the shows.


Warp Speed? Travel times?

Years ago aa aquantance worked out the formula table in XML so I could plug in any disctance in light years and get how many days and hours it would take to travel the distance involved.
That 'Bihg Map' has a scale on it that has 1 inch equaling 10 light years. Aversion of that is also inside a recent MODIPHIUS game book.

Q: What 'is 'canon' in my games ?
A: Only stuff actually seen on screen and referred to by characters in dialogue.
This also means I will NEVER use any references to 'Starfleet Battles' or FASA stuff - all of that is hopelessly out of date and sometimes very misguided in tone.

- Ed C.

Two more things -
1) NO Time Travel scenarios - just too much headache to manage in a typical game session...

2) No 'God-like' beings - prefer to leave that to the TV show versions and the players won't really havea way to defeat them.

- Ed C.

A non-player captain can work. Most of the captains we see are either by the book tight asses (I played one of those once, drove the GM nuts) or psychos.  Such an npc captain puts it on the players to work around the captain to get the job done and thus the captain doesn't take away player agency, acting rather, as a foil or interesting obstacle.

You really have to be tight with your cannon.  Otherwise you'll have me making a Gorn Star Fleet captain who's specialty is barking orders.  There's a lot of problematic characters you probably shouldn't allow on cannonical grounds.  That being said if the GM is handing out pregens, making the Vulcan a Romulan infiltrator could be fun.

You also have to watch out for the diehard fan who's got every technical manual and source book ever written and read all the novels ever published.  Again, defining the range of cannon for your game is really important.  TOS and original crew movies only for example, does away with holodecks, transporter buffer hijinks, and the Borg.

Quote from: David Johansen on February 07, 2024, 01:27:45 AM

You also have to watch out for the diehard fan who's got every technical manual and source book ever written and read all the novels ever published.  Again, defining the range of cannon for your game is really important.  TOS and original crew movies only for example, does away with holodecks, transporter buffer hijinks, and the Borg.

Thats easy for me - most of my friends and aquaintances already recognize that I KNOW the "Star Trek" canon better than they do.

Easy way to do that is to tell the players hat you are doing it strictly by 'canon' - which means that only thiongs seen onscreen or said in dialogue are valid references.

The majority of all those paperback novels are NOT 'canon' (and never will be).

My current campaign takes place halfway between "Strange New Worlds" and "TOS" in the year 2262.  So its the classic look uniforms and ships - but with those spiffy field jackets seen in episodes of "SNW".

- Ed C.

When I set a game campaign in the "Star Trek" universe it eill always be as close as possible to the best version of what we have seen on the screen. No snarky or campy joke stuff.

- Ed C.

You are not playing real Star Trek unless you have a session where you include a Gilbert & Sullivan style musical.

In my group the one who plays the Captain of the ship has been in three Rock bands locally, he is a regular performaer at the Ohio Renaissance Festival, and he just joined a band that does Pagan Viking music. He does have a regular job - he works at a local major Hospital.

Often, in the game sessions one or two of us will do a song lyric as a bad pun on the in-game situation - just that there happens to be a real musician amongst us.

Thank you Jeff 37923 - you made me smile.

-Ed C.

Quote from: Koltar on February 18, 2024, 08:04:55 PM
In my group the one who plays the Captain of the ship has been in three Rock bands locally, he is a regular performaer at the Ohio Renaissance Festival, and he just joined a band that does Pagan Viking music. He does have a regular job - he works at a local major Hospital.

Often, in the game sessions one or two of us will do a song lyric as a bad pun on the in-game situation - just that there happens to be a real musician amongst us.

Thank you Jeff 37923 - you made me smile.

-Ed C.

Videos of these game sessions would be more watchable than Critical Role.

Quote from: Chris24601 on December 22, 2023, 01:27:52 PM
Best Star Trek campaign I had was set in the immediate aftermath (I believe it was initially three months after the armistice) of the Dominion War (at that time the furthest along in the timeline we had) aboard an Intrepid-class (the USS Challenger) assigned to contact, evaluate, and assistant the worlds of the former Demilitarized Zone however possible.

Resources were stretched thin by the war (basically the only ship available to handle a mission to contact and assist several dozen lost colonies with no reliable resupply) and the crew were practically raw recruits out of the accelerated training programs used to keep up with the manpower needs of the Dominion War.

Also in play was tension between the more militant wing who wanted to maintain vigilance after the war (represented on ship by a contingent of marines and their PC CO distinct from the ship's security team) and those wanting to return to peaceful exploration and a third factor that simply for purely therapeutic reasons given the relatively low risk of the assignment was to include families aboard the ship (and the PTSD elements of surviving a war where Starfleet lost nearly half its ships and everyone had lost scores of friends and family were also present in several PCs).

In addition to the officer PCs (captain, security, medical, engineering, marine CO... NPC first officer who would keep things running while the Captain was off ship), one player opted to play a Cardassian liason from its provisional government just for added fun.

They got up to all sorts trying to help the colonies recover including a murder investigation, a hijacking, a chain of deals bargain with Pakleds to obtain industrial replicators (while not canonical, in game it was established that replicators require certain components that can't be replicated) that had fallen into short supply, dealing with Cardassian officers turned warlords, infiltrating pirates being fronted by the Breen to get around the surrender treaty, having to protect a Ferengi shipyard (being leased to the Federation as part of the hardliners' rapid rearmament plans... also where all the 'missing' industrial replicators had gone), war games as the OpFor for new recruits using the new hybrid Federation ships coming out of the Ferengi yards, and uncovering an ancient race that had been locked away in the Badlands by the Preservers and were accidentally released by the Jem'Hadar.

This honestly sounds awesome as all get out... But then Deep Space Nine is my favorite of all the Treks.