Star Trek RPG Planning help

[Sparx MacGyver]

Well, it's time to start planning my campaign. I'm going to be using the CODA Trek by Decipher, as that's the one I have. I do tend to play my games (Star Wars or Star Trek or otherwise) in an 'alternate universe'. It keeps things simple in case my players decide to kill off main characters before they can do what they're supposed to, or otherwise muck up the timeline as we know it.


With that in mind, I'm sort of fumbling for ideas. I did think about making them fresh faced kids out of the academy, stuck on an older ship in the middle of some war nobody wanted.


It's 2385, the Federation has been drawn into another war with [insert bad guys here]. I've considered many of the classic bad guys: Dominion, Breen, Jem'Hadar, Borg, Species 8472, and Rolulans. None seem truly fitting, save for maybe the Romulans.


From here, I'm thinking of placing them in a Miranda class. Perhaps the war sin't going as well, and so some older ships, a first run Miranda is brought out of mothballs. She's old, just getting a basic repair job and barely running at minimal crew, almost a skeleton crew, the USS Atlantis NCC-1865 is showing multiple hull patches through her haphazard paint job.


While escorting (i.e. trying to run after a battle) the USS Saratoga (NCC-1887-B, Sovereign class) who is heavily damaged, USS Reliant (NCC-1864-A, Miranda class, pre-refit), USS Brattain (NCC-21166, Miranda class) USS Alamo (NCC-1836, Miranda class, pre-refit), they are attacked by 3 Romulan ships, 2 destroyers and a battleship (class names will be looked up later). The small convoy begins a mad dash to flee, returning fire as best they can. The Saratoga is unable to warp due to damage, and a torpedo from the battleship causes the warp core to breach, causing damage to both the Brattain and Atlantis, who attempt to escape through a wormhole, which opens a good distance in front of them. Both ships arrive on the other side relatively unharmed, though they are unable to ascertain the fate of the Alamo or Reliant. When sensors do come online, the chronometer reads that they are now in the year 2155, and they are the most powerful ships around. Although the crew doesn't know it, they are in the mirror universe, and as luck would have it, are about to be found out. The Brattain would be damaged beyond what the two crews could repair without a station, though this will only be found after they fend off their first set of attackers.
I'm thinking of having the Brattain decide to go hide behind a moon/nebula, while the Atlantis goes to seek help/supplies/etc. Eventually, if/when the players return for the Brattain, they will find it missing.

Starting off, they will have no way of repairing major damage, or refueling, or rearming. Hopefully they think tactfully. This is about all I've got so far, most this info unknown to the players. What do you guys think? Where would you take it form here? What would you change? Is my idea to much?

Any help ya'all can give would be appreciated.

 

[Umbran]

Miranda-class starships are from an age where starships could go for a couple of years of normal operation (including combat) without refueling. So, if you want refueling to be an issue, you probably need to state up front that their ships are short on gas. And any Trek fan should be able to think of the "Bussard ramjet" trick to suck hydrogen out of interstellar space for fuel (since that appears in canon).

When sensors do come online, the chronometer reads that they are now in the year 2155, and they are the most powerful ships around.

Not as much more powerful as you may think, at least by canon.

In TOS episode "The Tholian Web", a Kirk-era Constitution class warship disappears, apparently destroyed. In the ST:Enterprise episode "In a Mirror Darkly", that ship appears in the Mirror Universe, is stolen from the Tholians by Captain Archer, who is then poisoned by his communications officer (Hoshi Sato), who intends to use it to take over the Terran Empire. The program does not say whether she succeeds. This all transpires in January 2155.

So, for a while, the PCs are flying around broken, but badassed, ships. But, eventually, there's the Defiant to consider...

Now, Miranda-class vessels are maybe 35 years ahead of the Constitution-class in terms of tech. But they are only science/supply vessels, while the Constitution is a heavy cruiser, specifically designed for big fights. If the PCs aren't in fighting trim, and the Defiant is, they probably don't stand much of a chance, toe-to-toe.

This also opens up the possibility for the PCs to be walking into Sato's campain to take over the Empire...

 

[Sparx MacGyver]

You bring up some good points. I admit my 'Trek Lore' isn't as strong as it used to be, and I think I got some info crossed, but you also brought up something I had already considered. Granted, the Constitution may be a bit older, the fact that she is built for battle versus the Miranda should prove a good challenge, especially if there is only one Miranda. But aside form that, I'm just not sure what to do, or where I could take the players. I know much of it relies on their decisions.

 

[scourger]

My brief (but brilliant) Star Trek game taught me a few things. First, what I think of as Star Trek may not be what my players think of as Star Trek. To put it shortly, I was running a post-DS9 game but they were playing a TOS game. Make sure you all speak the same ST lingo. In your game, it sounds like the framework is a protracted war with the Romulans. So, keep it focused to that. Everyone should be able to understand it whether you picture Romulans as TOS or TNG foes.

Second is a problem common to many sci-fi games. Having all the PCs on the same ship is problematic. If the ship is destroyed, so are all the characters. That makes it difficult to put the ship in real danger. It is also boring for all the other players when the pilot is flying, and the pilot may the key to surviving whatever put the ship in peril. My solution was to make each PC a captain of a ship. In your set-up, it sounds as if there are plenty of ships to go around; so putting a PC in command of each should not be an issue. You could even make them much smaller ships so that there aren't hundreds or thousands of crew to contend with. They could still be junior officers - perhaps thrust into command positions by the fortunes of war.

Why the Mirror Universe? It sounds like a lot of set up to get them somewhere that may still be familiar. Another quadrant or universe may be better to let them be resource-starved (or at least resource-conscious) explorers searching for a way home. Then, they can encounter all sorts of weird & unfamiliar stuff on the way.

An interesting twist might be to make them the surviving junior officers of both fleets: Federation & Romulan. Maybe someone has to take over a Romulan ship & crew to make it work so all can get home. Perhaps the Romulans have to be integrated into the Federation crews to help work the surviving vessels. Either way, there is plenty of tension & drama that could unfold. My game was headed for a similar twist before we called it, and I thought it would have been a good way to salvage some of the decisions that were made.

 

[Umbran]

But aside form that, I'm just not sure what to do, or where I could take the players. I know much of it relies on their decisions.

Well, let us put together some thoughts...

Your characters come from 2385. By that point, the Federation has seen enough time travel for Starfleet to have protocols about it (the "Temporal Prime Directive"), and they know a few ways to willfully enact it (thanks, Spock!). And they've had several swaps back and forth between the universes (it happened once to Kirk, and then another five times on DS9) so the methods of making the transition will be known to the Federation, but classified - it might be in their computers, accessible to a captain in encrypted files that only an excellent scientist or engineer would be able to actually use....

The usual Star Trek time travel plot goes: 1)find out you've traveled back in time. 2) See some danger to your timeline, interact with the past in some way that preserves the future you know. 3) Return to the future.

The usual Mirror Universe plot goes: 1) Get sucked over into the mirror universe. 2) see how changed the people you know there are. 3) Find your way home.

Not at all dissimilar, really. They know they've traveled in time. And, in the time they've showed up the Terran Empire already exists, so they'll find that out soon enough.

Unless you tell the players outright, "this campaign is going to take place in the past of the Mirror Universe," you should expect your PCs to have the general goal of getting home, altering as little as possible in the process. They will have the expectation that getting home is possible, as they always do that in Trek time travel and Mirror Universe stories. If they are upstanding Starfleet officers, they will die rather than allow their advanced technology pollute the timeline, and they'll also die rather than let the Terran Empire get their technology - there have been enough interactions with the MU barbarians that the PCs can (and really *should*) fear what people from the Mirror Universe can and might do if given technological boosts. Lingering with this juicy tech poorly guarded really isn't an option for them.

By normal considerations, you can expect them to hide, and look for a way home. If they discover the Defiant is there, then they may decide that they are duty-bound to capture or destroy her, and then return home. Your basic tool to move them around is the ability to go home - the places you can take them are limited basically to wherever you can plausibly put the promise of getting the heck out of Dodge.

Note, though - the Terran Empire's only contact with the normal universe at this time is the Defiant. The Terran Empire does not know how to send the PCs home. The PCs won't know this though - so folks in the Empire can lead them around by the nose for a while. But eventually the way home will be found either in their own data banks, or with the Tholians.

If the PCs aren't upstanding Starfleet officers, well, then bets are off. I'd expect them to decide to either attempt to take over or destroy the Terran Empire (never mind that, in canon, the fall of the Terran Empire is not at all a good thing).

 

[Janx]

Umbran raises a good point. You're going to route the players to a bad place. the default assumed behavior should be that they will try to get home.


You are going to have some expected game/bait-n-switch arguments if you handle this wrong.

When you initially said 'like to run trek campaigns in alternate timelines", I assumed you meant that the game and PCs start and end in completely seperate but similar to Trek universes. Rather than moving PCs from one canon universe to another.

 

[Sparx MacGyver]

When I apply the term 'alternate universe', I mean to say what if the players end up inadvertently killing Kirk before he takes command of the Enterprise. However, upon reading your comments I think instead of time travel, or at least minus the mirror universe, I think I'll place them out in another quadrant. And I do kind of like that Romulan/Federation forced cohesion idea. I think with ya'alls input, I will rework this a bit.

 

[Umbran]

Yah. I only later considered that any major change to the history of the Mirror Universe theoretically can impact Kirk*. Kirk is personally responsible for saving several planets, and Earth specifically, several times over. No good Federation officer is going to want to change Kirk's timeline, and so would want to leave the earlier Mirror Universe alone unless he had proof someone else was trying to change its history...

All in all, best not to go there...



*Like, say, by making the Mirror-Enterprise not be there for the initial transporter accident, such that it just kills Kirk outright.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

Personally I love the "getting thrown into the Mirror Universe and suddenly being the most powerful ship around" plot. The juxtaposition of being essentially a non-player in the regular universe to being extremely powerful and coveted in the Mirror Universe is wonderful.

How aware of Star Trek trivia are you players? And how strict are they about sticking to canon? I enjoy Star Trek. I watched most of Voyager and The Next Generation, I saw the Original Series movies but not many episodes, and I watched the last season or two of DS9. But I don't know ship specs and I'm not passionate about staying true to the canon. (Primarily because I don't know the canon well.) If your players are more like me, the points that Umbran raises probably wouldn't be something that they will be aware of or concerned about.

 

[Umbran]

Personally I love the "getting thrown into the Mirror Universe and suddenly being the most powerful ship around" plot. The juxtaposition of being essentially a non-player in the regular universe to being extremely powerful and coveted in the Mirror Universe is wonderful.

It is interesting, and perhaps good for an hour of TV, but...

In a role playing game, this is rather like a "give 1st level characters the powerful artifact" structure. The power *isn't* the PCs. The power is some thing that can rather easily be destroyed or taken from them. Yeah, it makes you feel all BMOC for a bit, but then everyone figures out you're a sham, and goes gunning for you, and you've got trouble you really aren't ready to handle.

I'm all for a challenge, but I'm not for setting up PCs to fail.

Thus - Do not try this plot unless your PCs bear a striking resemblance to Miles Vorkosigan.