Star Trek RPG Planning help

[Wednesday Boy]

The power is some thing that can rather easily be destroyed or taken from them.

That's a fair point. It's good to focus the campaign around the PCs instead of an object.

...and you've got trouble you really aren't ready to handle.

...but I would love that campaign because it throws you in situations that you are difficult to navigate. Some factions would be trying to take your ship by force, other factions would be acting like allies only to take your ship clandestinely, others could be manipulating you to help them, and others might be out to destroy you so no others could have you. The myriad of motivations towards the ship and approaches to achieving their goals creates a web around that PCs that I think is rich for plots. Maybe I bear a striking resemblance to Mr. Vorkosigan!

 

[Janx]

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.

I'm certain you were cramming too much into the setup (both time travel and mirror universe). I'm not a big fan of the Gilligan's Island setup either, which Voyager and your "stuck with romulans in another quadrant" idea pretty much replicates. Castaway settings pretty much wreck any player's ambitions that were based on being in the original setting (which is why they are often viewed as bait-n-switch campaigns).

Personally, if I play Trek, I want to play Trek-like stories, for which Voyager was annoyinging deviated from. That means being in an area where we can explore strange new worlds, while not being so far away that we can't get involved with some Star Fleet shenanigans.

I think your core idea of being in a one-off-from-Canon Trek universe could be fun. It's more like the new Star Trek series, where we know (or don't know) that something has changed, but there's no way to change it back. Instead, things are the same, but different.

 

[Umbran]

...but I would love that campaign because it throws you in situations that you are difficult to navigate. Some factions would be trying to take your ship by force, other factions would be acting like allies only to take your ship clandestinely, others could be manipulating you to help them, and others might be out to destroy you so no others could have you.

Yes. All true. But a GM can create difficult situations whenever. This is less like throwing you into them and more like it submerging you and holding your head under....

The myriad of motivations towards the ship and approaches to achieving their goals creates a web around that PCs that I think is rich for plots. Maybe I bear a striking resemblance to Mr. Vorkosigan!

Miles Vorkosigan gets to go home and sleep safe between adventures. There are entire quiet years between books in his series. And still, the effects of trauma and stress become obvious on the character. Now, make it that he *can't* go home. There is no safe harbor, anywhere. No rest. No relief. No respite. No shore leave. The bad guys all have more support than you, all know the local situation better than you....

Now, that's entirely a game folks can play. But, having thought of it, it comes off rather more in the dark vein of Battlestar Galactica than it comes across as Star Trek. Trek, ultimately, is about optimism.

 

[Stormonu]

Though the actual gameplay is horrid, this game, Shattered Universe has some cool ideas you can outright steal or riff off for the mirror universe (it is worth watching the cutscenes of this game on youtube)

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Shattered_Universe

 

[Wednesday Boy]

Yes. All true. But a GM can create difficult situations whenever. This is less like throwing you into them and more like it submerging you and holding your head under....

Miles Vorkosigan gets to go home and sleep safe between adventures. There are entire quiet years between books in his series. And still, the effects of trauma and stress become obvious on the character. Now, make it that he *can't* go home. There is no safe harbor, anywhere. No rest. No relief. No respite. No shore leave. The bad guys all have more support than you, all know the local situation better than you....

Now, that's entirely a game folks can play. But, having thought of it, it comes off rather more in the dark vein of Battlestar Galactica than it comes across as Star Trek. Trek, ultimately, is about optimism.

What I had in mind was certainly something more like Battlestar Galactica than the Walking Dead. But I think we just have different impression of how oppressive a plot such as this would be. I trust that my GMs would present the players with a challenging political
and military web to navigate through without drowning them.

 

[Umbran]

What I had in mind was certainly something more like Battlestar Galactica than the Walking Dead.

I am not sure there's really much difference. But then, I think that BSG had an unrealistically low suicide rate.