Courage Points
The big thing to remember here, is that you must spend Courage Points to get them back. They are supposed to be rare awards.
Courage Points are regained in 4 different ways:
1) Dramatically Appropriate Actions: If a character spends Courage Points to accomplish dramatically appropriate actions, the Narrator can reward him Courage Points at the end of the scene. For example, a Starfleet security officer who spends Courage Points at a critical moment to defuse a hostage situation, circumvent an anti-intrusion system to a top secret Romulan weapons lab, or other actions that moves the plot of the adventure forward can earn back Courage Points. The more impressive or difficult the task the character accomplishes, the more Courage Points are awarded.
Guidelines
Stopping an enemy from performing an undesired action (firing a phaser, for example) 1 point
Stopping an enemy from performing a series of undesired actions (such as preventing an enemy from fleeing the area and rendezvouing with a shuttlecraft) 2 points
Thwarting an enemy's master plan 3-4 points
2) Effective Roleplaying: The Narrator should reward the player by acting in a manner consistent with the character's personality and motivations, allowing them to recover Courage Points. For example, a Ferengi grifter should recieve Courage Points for successfully completing Fast Talk, Charm or Gaming rolls in dramatically important scenes.
3) Heroic Sacrifice: If the character suffers severe injury or extreme personal loss in order to protect or help his comrades, or to farther the group's overall mission.
4) Characters can buy additional Courage Points with experience points. The cost is 5 experience points for 1 Courage Point.
Experience Points
As an example experience points are awarded at the end of a mission. If the characters accomplished the goal(s) of the episode they get 1 to 2 points (depending on the length of the mission longer ones can easily get 5-6 points). If they accomplished the goal in an exemplary and clever fashion add an extra point. Characters that were roleplayed well, get another 1 to 2 experience points. If characters did or accomplished something that was of extraordinary service or benefit to Starfleet or the Federation and its citizens, or which required great personal sacrifice on the characters part get awarded another 1 to 2 points. If the characters triumphed over overwhelming odds or overcame tremendous obstacles then they get another point.
In relation to our game, the shake down cruise is considered one scene/mission, then it is followed up with the Gorn crisis.
Renown Rewards
First, let me explain what each one of the renowns mean:
Initiative covers risk-taking, experimentalism, boldness and a willingness to disobey orders. Characters with high Initiative are seen as mavericks or daredevils.
Aggression covers the willingness to resort to violence or the threat of violence to solve a problem. Characters with high aggression are seen as hotheads and warmongers.
Skill covers personal skill, ability, competence, resourcefulness and similiar traits. "Hands on" engineers like LaForge or Scott, or brilliant tacticians such as Picard possess a high skill renown.
Discipline covers the character's conformity and consideration for the larger group and its rules and restrictions. Repeatedly violating orders for selfish personal gain is usually percieved as negative discipline, although if such a violation results in a success for other as for the group, negative discipline can be tied to positive Initative.
Openness is the willingness to consider and adapt to the views of others, to invite external input, and to be influenced by foreign influence. Negative Openness connotes Xenophobia, chauvinism, or other cultural conservatism.
Renown is used for a couple of different things. Below are examples of how it is used.
1) How Starfleet Officers and other non player characters react to you. Here are a couple of examples below, trying to show what the different renown means.
Say Lt. Commander Winters is taking a vacation on Risa when he meets another engineer there. I check his renown at the bottom of his character sheet. On a successful renown check depending on what discipline the renown is. Since Steven's is mostly skill. "Arent you Lt. Commander Steven Winters of the Ascendant. I heard you speak at the last conference on Delta Thera II about your theories on improvements to the warp core systems." Which might start a character interaction with the NPC if the player wanted to.
Or say, Lt. Commander Hale is being introduced to a Talarian. If his renown is really high in aggresion the Talarian might become afraid of Jonas as the supposed butcher of Talarian III.
With Dr. Crescent, if he had higher renown in Openness, then some of the patients would treat him as a bar tender and tell him all of their problems. An example of this, is that Benson was known for running the race. I treated that as his Aggression and Skill reknown.
There is also a seperate renown for your ship judged on the following terms.
Accomplishment is a general measure of what the ship and crew have accomplished to date.
Force is usually gained when a ship has participated in many battles.
Science describes the ship's scientific exploits and discoveries.
Innovation measures the ship's reputation for design innovation and cutting edge technology.
Here are examples of some well known ships:
USS Enterprise - D
Accomplishment: 46
Force: 15
Science: 19
Innovation:11
Total: 91 (base renown 9)
USS Defiant
Accomplishment: 25
Force: 18
Science: 3
Innovation: 20
Total: 66 (base renown 6)
2) Awards and Commendations: Depending on what happens on a mission, and the player actions.
Say Lt. Commander Hale stops an ambassador from being assassinated on the planet, while the rest of the crew was on the ship. Jonas would wind up getting a large renown award and would probably be getting a award from it. Since Jonas is trained as a security officer, and was in that function when the incident occured. It would be a skill renown award and maybe an award like the Silver Palm with Cluster or the Grankite Order of Tactics.
Other renown such as Initiative. Steven sees a major problem with the warp core injection systems and how they were designed. He spends the next couple of months coming up with a better way of doing it. This would probably be an Initiative and Skill renown award that might earn Steven another award like the Angry Mechanic one he just got on Utopia Planitia.
3) Promotion and Rank: Renown is used to track whether you are offered promotions. Once you buy your rank in character creation, it stays that way until you hit certain marks of renown and skill combined.
As an example to be promoted to a Lt. Commander, you must have a total of 25 renown (15 of it in Starfleet favored aspects of Discipline, Skill and Openness); 3 skill levels in the primary skill of their department, 2 skill levels in at least two other departmental skills, 1 skill level in the primary skill of another department. Any rank above that just gets more expensive.
I will fold some of this onto the Ascendant thread later. Also in the first post of each of the threads, should be links back to the other threads such as OOC, IC, and the Ascendant thread itself.
