And while we're at it . . .
Today I had a look a the miniatures available for a new re-launch of the Star Trek RPG. I'm happy with our FATE based system, but the figures are SWEET. And since I would REALLY like an excuse to buy some of those Klingons . . . .
I was thinking of a possible direction for the NEXT campaign. Probably over a year away, but you can't get planning too early!
Here's the off-beat suggestion:
--Begin Blurb--
Episode 3: The Games are Afoot
The Klingon Empire and the Federation are at peace again. A shaky, not-entirely-trusting kind of peace, but at least nobody's actively shooting at each other.
As a show of good faith, this year's All-Galaxy Fleet Games are to be held at Q'onos (for any non-Trekkies reading, this is the Klingon Homeworld).
In this event, held once per decade, fleets from all over the Galaxy are coming to complete. The Cardassians, the Bajorans, Starfleet (with a combined team and also teams playing as Vulcans, Humans, Bolians, Tellarites, whatever) have sent teams. Even the Romulans have managed to scrape together enough people from the rubble of their homeworlds to field a team for most events.
Although the Tamworth is a beaten up old tub, she has a record that's nearly a century old. She may be outgunned, but she's never been outrun over the short-course Impulse Sprint - and her Engineering team are continually upgrading the Impulse engines to keep it that way. She will compete once again in the Starship division of the Games. The Crew are all pretty excited!
But soon excitement will be the last thing on their minds as the crew of the Tamworth find themselves fighting to clear the name of the Chief Conn officer, who the Klingons have accused of a murder he did not commit- and with the finals of the starship just days away, they don't have long to do it!
The Return of Usenko's Star Trek Adventure Game (TM)!
Moderator: Moderators for English X Forum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_in_the_FoldUsenko wrote:....But soon excitement will be the last thing on their minds as the crew of the Tamworth find themselves fighting to clear the name of the Chief Conn officer, who the Klingons have accused of a murder he did not commit- and with the finals of the starship just days away, they don't have long to do it!
I loved this episode. It wasn't so much for the story, which was also excellent, but it was for the "gotcha" moment and turning the idea of a simple "whodunnit" on its head, introducing a "fantastic" element in the non-corporeal alien that may have even been "Jack the Ripper." It was friggin awesome!
Side-note: I created a fantasy rpg character (Powers & Perils, a frpg I played alongside of playing D&D, from time to time) named "Re'gek" which was based on this idea. Translated to D&D, he became "Red Jack," a sadistic, evil, little bartard... the quiet "murder you in your sleep just 'cause i feel like it" sort. A really evil little man. It wasn't easy to play him as i kinda don't like that sort of thing. BUT, it always makes for a good story! Red Jack is the guy you don't want to know. You don't want him in your adventuring party. He's the guy that slits open the bellies of puppies just to hear their last whimper. He's the guy that sneaks into the tent of the princess your group just rescued so he can gag her and dig out her eyeballs with a rusty spoon. If you want someone murdered, tortured, eaten, or to have disgusting, unsettling things done to, things that would make Poe and Lovecraft say "Damn, that's disgusting", then you tell Red Jack to do it... IF he feels like it, that is. He might think it's a great idea, but decide he wants to do it now, instead of waiting, and since you're the closest object around...Disgusting little man, who probably really isn't human.
So, anyway, while TOS episodes are wonderful, everyone knows 'em. I'm sure you can recite line-by-line alongside the actors for a bunch of TOS episodes, just like some of your players can. The trick is, of course, making this "episode" different.
With a contest that has rules, what's the worst thing that can happen? Somebody cheats, of course.
The highest stakes are life and death. Well, kinda... Actually, the highest stakes are what you make them out to be. Constructed properly, any story you're telling about "high stakes" drama can focus on just about anything, provided you build it up to actually be the highest stakes in that story. In college/university - exploitation movies, where the drama of student's lives is acted out, the highest stakes are an "exam" score or "graduation" or "successful romance in a new, complicated, world of adolescent transition into adulthood." Or... whatever.
You can make taking out the garbage, successfully, to be the most important thing in a character's life, more important than even their own life.
What's the "highest stakes" for a Klingon?
Honor.
So, we have humans, with the highest stakes most often being life and death, and the Klingons, being completely being honor-driven, and a contest, with cheating being the most dramatic, stake-inducing, risk.
See the story, yet?
But, it's just a race! A Klingon can even admire cheating, a little bit, but this is something that is bound by "rules" that have to be followed in order to retain honor. Even so, Klingon's admire resourcefulness and devious thinking, just so long as the results aren't underhanded or dishonorable. Personal sacrifice is a plus, too.
What I'm thinking - There will be a race. Somehow, a Klingon is murdered. The reason for this is that Klingon's death will somehow give their ship an advantage. But, more importantly, there's a greater plot involved that meshes well with the outcome of the race, so the motivation isn't just "to win the race" but something larger, more worthy of such a sacrifice. The Klingon's death might be arranged to purposefully implicate the crewmember OR that may be only incidental and the accusation and possible trial is only a red-herring that you've engineered to bring the players into the story. "Hey, look guys, I found a body!" "You must be the murderer!"
I'm not sure which I like best, either the purposeful implication/framing of the crewmember as murderer or the incidental involvement which leads to the accusation of murder. In either case, the murder only acts to reveal the larger plot - "We came here to participate in a race, we ended up getting involved in a giant plot to steal Q's left sock in order to open a portal to Hell so a demon could return home in order to bring it's lover a sandwich... made of human souls!"
Yeah, that probably wouldn't work. But, you get the idea.
OK, so...
1) What are the "rules" of the race. They'll have to be given to the players so they can plan for them, sort of like a "rules within rules" guide for them to construct their strategy. For instance, let's say you have ten rules that must be followed with the goal to get the ship from x to y in the fastest time. Within those rules, the players can assign particular crew, other players, to make "skill checks" in order to give them a bonus for that phase of the race. They'll plan out what each one will do, based upon their traits. They may have a point pool that has to expended, placing additional restrictions upon them. (They can't just have one player continuously making "stamina checks" in order for them to win a footrace.)
The course comes into play, as well, as needed, in order to bring to bear the talents of all the player's characters. Want to get a player to participate, but they're only a scan-tech? Asteroids on the course! Need "Medical" to get involved? The race will last thirty hours. (The history behind the race is much like that of the "Marathon." An ancient Klingon ship raced back home to warn the Klingon homeworld of an impending attack or to spread the news of a victory. The ship's comms were destroyed, but its crew stayed awake for days in order to complete their mission. Once completed, the chief engineer collapsed and died.) So, medications to keep the crew alert are not allowed, but medical monitoring is and the medical officer is allowed to give medications to ailing crew within a strict limit. Skillchecks are conducted in which the penalty for failure is the collapse of that crewmember. etc..
2) What is a sufficient reason for a Klingon to sacrifice their life for "honor" that could also involve this race? It doesn't have to specifically involve the goal of the race, such as winning it. But, for whatever reason, this Klingon's death is tied to the involvement of the crew being in the race, either directly or just incidentally. He could be a crewmember of a competing ship and that's why the character is implicated in his death. Or, he could be not immediately associated with the race, but it's found out later that he was. Or, he could have nothing at all to do with it, but it's discovered that he is involved in some other plot and the accusation of the crewmember was only incidental to his actual involvement.
3) How can the stakes be raised even higher?
A bomb is found on the ship and the only way to prevent it from killing everyone is for the ship to win the race? (Upping the stakes, but by increasing the importance of the original goal, which is always tasty if done right.) Or, the ship isn't allowed comms during the race and their comms system must be disabled (Key components are removed.) Warp engines are disabled as well. (matter-antimatter converter/whatever is removed) "Race officials" are present to observe, but they have no comms, either. (They can be used to interact with in order to further the plot while the ship is racing to the finish.) However, in the middle of the race, the crew finally figures out that the entire Klingon council, which is present at the "finish line" will be assassinated. Unfortunately, this will occur about five hours before they could arrive at the finish line, no matter how hard they push their engines. In order to save the council, they'd have to do the impossible - Beat the record by an unheard of margin!
Could success actually mean failure? An unwinnable situation that presents the crew with a dilemma - If they succeed, they fail, since their victory will ultimately mean bad things will happen or some other "loss" will occur. Victory means they will be accused of cheating and that means the Klingons will declare war against the Federation...etc. So, to "win", in that scenario, they must "lose." However, if they lose... someone will die. An assassination attempt was made upon one of the crew by a race official/observer who was not all that he appeared to be.. The crewmember will not survive if the ship doesn't win the race (Time element), since the only medical facilities capable of saving their life are at the station at the end of the race. In order to save their life, they have to win, but if they win, they'll really lose, but if they don't win, someone will die, which means they ultimately lose, anyway...
Or, maybe there really is a bomb on board? It was activated when the dilithium injectors were removed and all dilitium was removed from the ship. In order to diffuse the bomb, dilithium must be inserted into an injector again. But, in order to get their injector back, they have to get to the finish line. The bomb is due to go off about five hours before they could possibly finish the race, even with record-setting time. And, if they win, and save their own lives in the process, the Klingons will accuse them of cheating and go to war with the Federation. If they lose, they all die... The bomb is part of a device that is meant to be found in their ship's wreckage. It will be then claimed that the device was being used by them in order to cheat.
4) What sort of experiences do you want the players to have? What sort of new things do you want them to discover and interact with? What Klingon-things do you want them to experience?
You're reading a story about a ship that crashlands on an alien planet. In order for the survivors to be rescued, they must make it to a lone observation outpost their people have established. However, in order to do that, they must traverse thousands of kilometers of hostile wilderness. And, in order to do that, they must get help from hostile aliens who's primary interest is killing them...
As the reader, what do you expect to encounter in this story? Well, you're going to look forward to experiencing this planet, the survival elements the characters encounter in its wilderness and the new flora and fauna that are interesting and unique from your own experience or even what you could imagine for yourself. And, you're also really looking forward to learning about these hostile aliens, learning what their culture is like, learning how they're dangerous and how they could help the stranded survivors. How are the survivors going to convince the aliens to help them while the aliens are gnawing on their legs?
However, the writer sucks. So, instead of all the juicy new bits, you get aliens that aren't "alien", a hostile environment full of vegetarian fauna, flora that is not described in the least, a long walk in the park instead of a hostile journey and absolutely nothing new for you, as the reader, to experience in what is supposed to be the "survival on an alien world" experience you expected, but turned out to be a story that could have just as well have taken place on Earth in the present day, maybe with a kindergarten class on a field-trip to a petting zoo...
So, you've got Klingons. The players are going to expect to become intimately familiar with Klingon culture in some ways, or at least some aspects of it. They're going to expect to have to manipulate it or work within its cultural rulesets in order to achieve their goal. Maybe they're excited about learning about Klingon combat rituals and trying out their skills with the batleth <sp>? Or, maybe they all want to be sailors on shore-leave and experience the wonders, and personal pains, of Klingon mating rituals?
In any event, you've got to steep the players in Klingon culture. It's something they'll expect, unless they've been intimately involved in it before. And, if that's the case, then you need new Klingon cultural bits for them to explore, learn about and to manipulate or work within in order to achieve their goals.
In conclusion - Whatever it is, it isn't going to be what the players expect. The "win scenario" they're working towards will either not really be what they think it is or it will end up being a seemingly impossible conundrum they'll have to figure out for themselves. Win the game and lose their own souls or lose the game and their own lives?
"Honor" is an important Klingon theme, so it'll have to be everywhere, as well. They'll expect that. The TNG series did a lot with Klingon politics, so they may expect that, too. The Murder is important, but whether or not the crewmember was purposefully framed or only incidentally charged is even more revealing. Plots within plots...PS - Or, maybe the crewmember really did murder someone?
PPS - The alien entity infusing the ship is a sort of "cheat." In an honor-driven moment, inspired by all the honor he sees around him, pressured by the humbling feeling of seeing so much honor flowing from all these honorable Klingon race officials, after reading Horatio Hornblower stories for a week, straight, over and over, in an award-winning intimate moment in which he gives a soliloquy worthy of Othello, the Captain orders the entity to not interfere at all, not one little bit, not even a smidgen, in the ship's performance during the race. Of course, this will appear to be a fatal mistake, since the only thing that they had which could have possibly be used by them to win the race, or save their own lives, has been taken away from them by a hasty decision, made with the best intentions... My ex-wife always said, "The road to Hell is paved with the best intentions."
Wow, i really post quite often on O.T. these days...
OK, how's this plot:
The crew's ship is eligible to participate in the Impulse Drive Race event, due to past victories, long ago. It has a "buy."
But, it has been decades since it was considered "modern" and things have changed a bit. Sure, ships get refitted, but you can only polish an old shoe so much, no matter how comfy it is. Starfleet would like the ship to enter the race, for nostalgia reasons and because the competitor is a descendant of the same captain that was the ship's adversary in the past. Both the Feds and Klingons would like to see those exciting races re-run.
But, the Feds have their doubts, so they want the ship to race a "qualifying run." Their sparring partner is going to be Captain Jerkweed, the biggest jerk in the galaxy, only second to the guy that invented "childproof caps" which aren't really "childproof", just a gimmick to sell more blood-pressure medicine...
OK, Captain Jerkweed is just there to give the players some flavor experiences, for them to have fun with and for them to enjoy beating in the race. Ship's Impulse engines are calibrated to match each other and the players get a dry-run practice at "how to race at Impulse speeds."
"Fair Impulse Racing Rules"
1) All dilithium crystals are removed from all ships using them or engines are otherwise brought offline. Without warp crystals to properly focus the power for the warp field, there's no point in turning them on anyway. That doesn't mean they can't be powered up, though, it just means that doing so is a bad idea.
2) Comms systems are disabled so that the ship can't receive FTL information about their competitor during the race.
3) All shuttles have their warp engines and comm systems disabled as well.
4) All weapons are locked out, just in case someone is a sore loser...
5) Ship's sensors are limited to passive scans, only, simulating the same conditions that the Klingon Heroes, who are the inspiration for this "Marathon" faced.
6) During the three-day race, the crew is not allowed to sleep. Medical attention can be provided in life-threatening situations, but any crewmember that can't stay awake without medical stimulants will be disqualified from participating. Again, part of the history. (Coffee and other natural, foodborn, substances are fine, but must be approved. I don't know what a bunch of Klingons hyped up on Klingon-coffee would be like after three days... )
7) The crew can plot their course however they wish, just so long as it ends at the finish line. (Plotting a course to one of the nearby Klingon worlds or outposts would probably end up with them being greeted with very large explosions, a bright lite at the end of a tunnel, and then Saint Peter asking them questions about what they did that one time when they thought nobody was watching...)
8 ) They can use any of the ship's systems available to them, within certain rules, just so long as they don't attempt to increase the maximum output of their calibrated Impulse drive units. They can, for instance, try to use their shields in inventive ways, maybe try to use a tractor beam to get a bit more speed by pulling on nearby asteroids, use passive sensors (telescopes?) to plot hair-raising close-calls of planets in order to gain a bit more momentum from gravitational assists, etc.. (Think of it like a present day regatta. Characterize it like that to your players.)
9) Cheating will be met with phaser-blasts or boiling oil, whichever comes first. (The players are warned by the Feds, telling them the history of this event is taken very seriously by the Klingons.)
10) Whatever additional rules you want to use that cause discomfort and panic among your players...
The cultural history of the Impulse-Drive Marathon - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marathon
Basically, this. A revered Klingon ship that was at a battle rushes to the Klingon homeworld to tell its people of their victory. It was a primitive ship, of course, and the Klingons have been in space a very long time. It had limited technolgy and that is reflected in the restrictions placed upon modern-day competitors. Once the ship arrived and informed the Klingon Empire that the fleet had been victorious over their hated enemy, several of the ship's crew, including the Captain and Engineer, died due to exhaustion. This is the inspiration behind this specific Impulse Marathon and it is a very revered event in Klingon culture.
(If the Impulse Marathon is a normal games event, then this is the version the Klingons have insisted on. Tney want it to be a re-enactment of this heroic tale and they, themselves, run this sort of race in their own games. This was agreed to by the Feds, since they're looking to encourage cooperation and peace, the lousy milksops... )
Returning to our story:
The players win and are scheduled to compete. Captain Jerkweed can be brought back at your convenience whenever you need a professional, paid, "Captain Jerkweed" antagonist for the players to groan about.
Meanwhile, back at the tribble ranch...
A Klingon of a disgraced house hatches a plan. In order to get revenge against the house that revealed his to be a traitor, he is going to assassinate their "rising star", the captain of the Klingon ship and the player's ultimate competitor. But, he also wants to doom the Klingon Empire. He feels that they are cowards for seeking peace with the Federation and that justifies his house's traitorous ways, long ago. Some Klingons sympathetic to this may actually look more favorably on his house's actions in the past, even though that house is now shunned.
His plan is simple: (Well, not-so-simple...)
The player's ship will be boarded by Klingon race-inspectors as well as Federation reps using two Klingon shuttles. They, along with a Fed delegation, will inspect and calibrate the Impulse engines so that the race is fair. There will be a ceremony on-board, to welcome all, and to toast the cooperative, peaceful, efforts of both sides.
The Klingon, let's call him "Dippy teh Swuft"... or just "Dippy," will take the place of one of the Klingon shuttle pilots (he'll murder the one scheduled to fly that day) and will sneak on-board using that means. (The players can't prevent this) He will install three mechanisms:
Control Module - Uses a unique, alien (Something other than Klingon, maybe Romulan) device that will act as a timer/control module for the other devices. Locate it someplace really weird. It has a special directional transmitter that lines up with receiving modules, so it's difficult to detect, if not impossible.
Power-coupling Device 1 - Tied into a life-support power-reserve node, designed to slowly siphon off power to life-support systems and to cut the main power coupling for life-support regulator nodes. Critical system, probably heavily redundant on newer ships, not so much redundancy for the player's old ship...
Power-coupling Device 2 - Time for Jeffries-tube adventure! Ladder-climbing skill check... The device is connected to warp-engine power distribution node. It is designed to disrupt power distribution if warp-engines are activated, producing an imbalance that will tear the ship apart. Even if warp engines aren't used, the device is set to activate the power node, even if the main control module is deactivated, and will produce an overdrive situation, either propelling the ship into another dimension from which they can't escape or... sending them all into Heaven... 50/50
The saboteur is more easily able to get access to these areas by impersonating a race official, when other officials aren't necessarily around or paying attention. Nobody cares what a taxi-driver does when he's not driving.
He also has help!
One of the race officials is in league with Dippy. His house is sympathetic to the House of Swuft... They also want war and a change in the Council. He helps Dippy infiltrate the delegation as the "pilot." He also is a true official and one of his duties is to make sure that certain systems, which could be abused, are "locked out" at the time of the race. To manage this, the race has decreed that these systems will have a lock-out code assigned and can only be activated in case of emergency. Each system has a code that is only known to one race official. This particular spy's role is to oversee the lock-out of the ship's comm systems, so they can't be used to receive FTL message updates on the competitor's position, speed, status, etc.
The thing is, this guy is the one that will, indeed, be killed by one of the crew (players).
Dippy has a "Stage Two" part of his plan. He has a Federation Photon Torpedo detonator. After he leaves the player's ship, piloting the shuttle as expected, he will take the Federation delegation to the Klingon ship. There, he will place the torpedo detonator as well as a timing/control module in the Klingon ship. It is set to blow after a set time or when it gets within "camera range" of the "finish line."
Since he is the "pilot" of the second Klingon shuttle, he will stay on-board and die along with the ship. (Two shuttles were necessary, one on each of the competitor's ship, for mass balancing.) His hope is to confront the Klingon captain, in the final moment, regale him with his dastardly plan so he can witness the dismay on the captain's face, and then push the button to destroy them all, just as the ship gets within camera range, so it's on "national television" when it occurs. When the Federation device is discovered, the officials will think that the players sabotaged the drive system of their competition, a dishonorable act, and the Klingon council, fueled by "Hawk" members, will be forced to resume hostilities... "for Honor's sake" and in reprisal for the desecration of the somewhat sacred, culturally significant, "Marathon" race.
Meanwhile, back on the ship, the race has started. During the course of the player's actions in trying to compete effectively, rolling dice, making skill checks, carrying out their plan, something doesn't go as planned... A power fluctuation is detected.
Crewman X's specialty is this system. (Best if it's where you've hidden one of the devices). He is assigned to carry out the task of debugging the system to get it back into peak performance. (Make this seem routine and just another chance for a player to interact with the Klingons. The Klingon asks him mundane questions while they're in the turbolift, comments on how wimpy the Feds are and how glorious the Klingon Empire is, etc.) He's tired, since everyone has been working without sleep, and goes to check on the system. However, one of the officials looks nervous... He states that an official must accompany any mechanical repairs of this nature and he volunteers, even if it's not his specialty. After all, the race obserers/officials are tired too, and then agree to let him monitor things.
When the crewman/player and Klingon accomplice get there, the Klingon knows the crewman is about to discover the device. He attacks, roll for initiative, "You're stuck in the Jeffries Tube with an angry Klingon. He has a Klingon Ceremonial Dagger and is well-versed in its use and you have a tricorder and a spanner and it's been three years since you attended the Academy class "How to defend yourself in confined spaces armed only with a spanner wrench and soiled pants 101."
The player wins, of course, and kills the Klingon. YAY! But, he's the only witness to the attack. On top of that, the Klingon, in his dying moments, told the player that they were all going to die and that the Empire would once more be restored to its inevitable path to glory...
The race officials freak out. They demand communication with their embassy. The trouble is... the dead Klingon "official" was the one in charge of the communications lock-out codes and he was the only one with the lock-out codes for the comms system. Dead Klingons are not effective speakers, so there's no way to activate the comms system and even the shuttle comms systems were locked out, as well.
The race officials freak out, again. They hatch a "cunning plan." Obviously, the Fed captain/player isn't going to hold a trial in the middle of the race. But, this is a sacrilegious offence, desecrating the sanctity of "The Marathon" and, if what they suspect is true, it's outright murder! They believe that the dead official was about to uncover "cheating" by the players. Later, their suspicions are confirmed when a alien device of unknown manufacture is located during the investigation. The players, of course, deny knowledge of it and, since it's alien, nobody is quite sure what it does yet. The race officials believe it's a power diverter, designed to enhance Impulse engine perforance after the race was underway. They're not far from the truth. As of now, that appears to be what it is, until it is investigated further by the players. (will take awhile. removing it will obviously result in "Bad Things" happening, like an antimatter cascade/breach)
Klingons are Klingons - Cooks and bakers, are all warriors first. So, their "cunning plan" is straightfoward-Klingon- Hit it with a hammer. They're going to take over the ship. How? They will either attack the ship's secondary bridge (Battle Bridge) or take control of the ship's engine room. They are armed, after all, and if they need more weapons, they'll break into the Security offices and take them.
They demand that the ship stop and that they are allowed to either leave in the shuttle (It's booby-trapped too, Dippy thought of everything) or the players use whatever double-secret means they have of establishing communications. (There is no double-secret means, but the Klingons think there is)
At this time, it's discovered that the device which was found, or other devices that were found, will not only prevent warp engagement, resulting in explosions if tried, but will also detonate if the Impulse engines are powered down. And, it's apparent that no matter what, supposedly, the players do, the devices will cause the ship to asspload all over the place before they can reach the finish-line.
But, no matter how much sense is talked to them, the Klingons demand a trial. Since the players aren't going to allow that sort of thing and there's no time for such a distraction, there is only one solution - Trial by combat!
Yes, one of your players gets to get into an honor battle with a Klingon using the batleth-thingie! What fun!
If he wins, the Klingons will agree to listen to the players and to accept the evidence of sabotage as well as to work with them in implementing a solution. (They are, after all, also skilled engineers assigned because of their skills.) If the players lose, they are supposed to agree to stop the ship and to undertake whatever is necessary to contact the appropriate authorities. Oh, and the offending player will, incidentally, be killed, even if he doesn't die during combat. Got a blank character sheet ready? Probably will need one...
So, what happens now?
If the players lose, they're dead. Unless, of course, they wish to renege on their deal. If they do that, the Klingons will attempt to override controls, sabotage engines, do whatever it takes including blowing up the ship...
If they win, then their lives will be extended a little bit longer.
a) They will discover the other devices, all will eventually agree they are the result of sabotage, but none agree on who did it, yet.
b) The dead Klingons personal effects are examined, routinely., in preparation for stowing. The players obviously want to examine them in detail. There's a few arguments, but eventually they're allowed to, under observation of course. A coded data-chip is discovered. With the Klingon's help, the players discover detailed plans for their ship and the locations where the devices are connected to their systems. There's a personal manifesto in the form of a message from Dippy to this undercover spy in which he blabs about his cunning plan and the glory his house will be returned to, as well as the rest of the Empire, when the Feds are revealed, through trickery, as the devious little milksops they are! He is resolved to die with honor on the competing ship, relishing his chance to redeem his house at the expense of the life of his most hated enemy's proudest son... Damning evidence, to be sure. But, even the spy didn't know that the plan was to destroy the player's ship as well! The devices are unmistakably set to blow everything to smithereens, anyway. It seems Dippy was quite willing to sacrifice the lives of his sympathizers.
c) One of the race officials is inspired by all of this. Yes, it's devious and probably dishonorable, but who cares about "Federation Honor?" If Dippy is successful, he'll be seen as valiantly restoring his house's honor through personal sacrifice and returning the Empire to it's destiny! There will be war and war is fun! People who don't like war are not fun! "Death to the pansy do-gooders! Up the Empire!" He goes on a rampage, trying to convince his fellow Klingons on board to take up the cause. Some might, some might not and decide to side with the players - That's up to you as this is just one of many possible "complicating factors" during this mission.
d) There is only one solution - Somehow, the players must win the race before the devices assppload and before Klingon ship can reach the finish line. This is their only chance! If they can do this, they can get to the finish line and can force race officials to assign a warp-capable ship to intercept their competitor and to warn them of their impending doom.
To do this, and to warn the ship in time, they have to disable the devices. These are alien devices designed to go "boom" if they're tampered with. Every single skillset available to the players will be used to accomplish this - EVERY_SINGLE_ONE. Figure it out. These are alien, so they don't have to make sense. If your joker character's joke skill needs to be implemented, and it does, then he has to use it to calm down a tired tech who is over-anxious.
They are allowed two mistakes, one for each of two devices. (Only two strikes allowed.) Make these happen.. High drama! They screw up, twice, and are on their nail-biting third try for the last device when they finally succeed.
Great! That part is over, all is well...
BUT, if they haven't figured it out by now, the Klingons tell them that if the other ship blows up and if Dippy was as ingenious in his preparation as he had been with their ship, then it's obvious he's going to make it look like the Feds have something to do with the sabotage. Given the state of affairs and the emphatic opinion of many Klingons, as well as a lot of hawkish Council members, the Council may very well declare a renewal to hostilities. At the very least, there will be blood before this is over and the relationship between Feds and Klingons could be irreparably damaged.
The crew now has to win a race to save the lives of their competition, who are known to be honorable, rising stars of a new "cooperative movement" between Feds and Empire, and to prevent general war!
If they lose, bad things happen. If they win, well they just get to be declared the winners and might get a commendation from Starfleet for their inventiveness and bravery. But, of course, no stuffy desk-bound Fed Admiral is going to believe the Klingons would all go to war over some tragic, but small, accident during a stooopid race, right?
The players should be forced to spend a long time tweaking systems, modifying rolls, getting inventive in using the gravitational pull of nearby systems/planets, maybe even using their shields as a sort of "solar sail" to catch some solar winds from another nearby system or even recalibrated shields that will surf on the magnetic field bubbles nearby... IOW - They do not get a chance to rest until the race is over. Everything happens "bam-bam-bam-bam", one crisis after another. They have to draw heavily on their previous plans during all of this in order to succeed. Players doing double-duty in bomb-diffusion and racing skills are going to be worn out and... that's what is intended.
As always, just my ramblings. Maybe food for thought or poop for the bowl, your choice.
OK, how's this plot:
The crew's ship is eligible to participate in the Impulse Drive Race event, due to past victories, long ago. It has a "buy."
But, it has been decades since it was considered "modern" and things have changed a bit. Sure, ships get refitted, but you can only polish an old shoe so much, no matter how comfy it is. Starfleet would like the ship to enter the race, for nostalgia reasons and because the competitor is a descendant of the same captain that was the ship's adversary in the past. Both the Feds and Klingons would like to see those exciting races re-run.
But, the Feds have their doubts, so they want the ship to race a "qualifying run." Their sparring partner is going to be Captain Jerkweed, the biggest jerk in the galaxy, only second to the guy that invented "childproof caps" which aren't really "childproof", just a gimmick to sell more blood-pressure medicine...
OK, Captain Jerkweed is just there to give the players some flavor experiences, for them to have fun with and for them to enjoy beating in the race. Ship's Impulse engines are calibrated to match each other and the players get a dry-run practice at "how to race at Impulse speeds."
"Fair Impulse Racing Rules"
1) All dilithium crystals are removed from all ships using them or engines are otherwise brought offline. Without warp crystals to properly focus the power for the warp field, there's no point in turning them on anyway. That doesn't mean they can't be powered up, though, it just means that doing so is a bad idea.
2) Comms systems are disabled so that the ship can't receive FTL information about their competitor during the race.
3) All shuttles have their warp engines and comm systems disabled as well.
4) All weapons are locked out, just in case someone is a sore loser...
5) Ship's sensors are limited to passive scans, only, simulating the same conditions that the Klingon Heroes, who are the inspiration for this "Marathon" faced.
6) During the three-day race, the crew is not allowed to sleep. Medical attention can be provided in life-threatening situations, but any crewmember that can't stay awake without medical stimulants will be disqualified from participating. Again, part of the history. (Coffee and other natural, foodborn, substances are fine, but must be approved. I don't know what a bunch of Klingons hyped up on Klingon-coffee would be like after three days... )
7) The crew can plot their course however they wish, just so long as it ends at the finish line. (Plotting a course to one of the nearby Klingon worlds or outposts would probably end up with them being greeted with very large explosions, a bright lite at the end of a tunnel, and then Saint Peter asking them questions about what they did that one time when they thought nobody was watching...)
8 ) They can use any of the ship's systems available to them, within certain rules, just so long as they don't attempt to increase the maximum output of their calibrated Impulse drive units. They can, for instance, try to use their shields in inventive ways, maybe try to use a tractor beam to get a bit more speed by pulling on nearby asteroids, use passive sensors (telescopes?) to plot hair-raising close-calls of planets in order to gain a bit more momentum from gravitational assists, etc.. (Think of it like a present day regatta. Characterize it like that to your players.)
9) Cheating will be met with phaser-blasts or boiling oil, whichever comes first. (The players are warned by the Feds, telling them the history of this event is taken very seriously by the Klingons.)
10) Whatever additional rules you want to use that cause discomfort and panic among your players...
The cultural history of the Impulse-Drive Marathon - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marathon
Basically, this. A revered Klingon ship that was at a battle rushes to the Klingon homeworld to tell its people of their victory. It was a primitive ship, of course, and the Klingons have been in space a very long time. It had limited technolgy and that is reflected in the restrictions placed upon modern-day competitors. Once the ship arrived and informed the Klingon Empire that the fleet had been victorious over their hated enemy, several of the ship's crew, including the Captain and Engineer, died due to exhaustion. This is the inspiration behind this specific Impulse Marathon and it is a very revered event in Klingon culture.
(If the Impulse Marathon is a normal games event, then this is the version the Klingons have insisted on. Tney want it to be a re-enactment of this heroic tale and they, themselves, run this sort of race in their own games. This was agreed to by the Feds, since they're looking to encourage cooperation and peace, the lousy milksops...
)Returning to our story:
The players win and are scheduled to compete. Captain Jerkweed can be brought back at your convenience whenever you need a professional, paid, "Captain Jerkweed" antagonist for the players to groan about.
Meanwhile, back at the tribble ranch...
A Klingon of a disgraced house hatches a plan. In order to get revenge against the house that revealed his to be a traitor, he is going to assassinate their "rising star", the captain of the Klingon ship and the player's ultimate competitor. But, he also wants to doom the Klingon Empire. He feels that they are cowards for seeking peace with the Federation and that justifies his house's traitorous ways, long ago. Some Klingons sympathetic to this may actually look more favorably on his house's actions in the past, even though that house is now shunned.
His plan is simple: (Well, not-so-simple...)
The player's ship will be boarded by Klingon race-inspectors as well as Federation reps using two Klingon shuttles. They, along with a Fed delegation, will inspect and calibrate the Impulse engines so that the race is fair. There will be a ceremony on-board, to welcome all, and to toast the cooperative, peaceful, efforts of both sides.
The Klingon, let's call him "Dippy teh Swuft"... or just "Dippy," will take the place of one of the Klingon shuttle pilots (he'll murder the one scheduled to fly that day) and will sneak on-board using that means. (The players can't prevent this) He will install three mechanisms:
Control Module - Uses a unique, alien (Something other than Klingon, maybe Romulan) device that will act as a timer/control module for the other devices. Locate it someplace really weird. It has a special directional transmitter that lines up with receiving modules, so it's difficult to detect, if not impossible.
Power-coupling Device 1 - Tied into a life-support power-reserve node, designed to slowly siphon off power to life-support systems and to cut the main power coupling for life-support regulator nodes. Critical system, probably heavily redundant on newer ships, not so much redundancy for the player's old ship...
Power-coupling Device 2 - Time for Jeffries-tube adventure! Ladder-climbing skill check... The device is connected to warp-engine power distribution node. It is designed to disrupt power distribution if warp-engines are activated, producing an imbalance that will tear the ship apart. Even if warp engines aren't used, the device is set to activate the power node, even if the main control module is deactivated, and will produce an overdrive situation, either propelling the ship into another dimension from which they can't escape or... sending them all into Heaven... 50/50
The saboteur is more easily able to get access to these areas by impersonating a race official, when other officials aren't necessarily around or paying attention. Nobody cares what a taxi-driver does when he's not driving.
He also has help!
One of the race officials is in league with Dippy. His house is sympathetic to the House of Swuft... They also want war and a change in the Council. He helps Dippy infiltrate the delegation as the "pilot." He also is a true official and one of his duties is to make sure that certain systems, which could be abused, are "locked out" at the time of the race. To manage this, the race has decreed that these systems will have a lock-out code assigned and can only be activated in case of emergency. Each system has a code that is only known to one race official. This particular spy's role is to oversee the lock-out of the ship's comm systems, so they can't be used to receive FTL message updates on the competitor's position, speed, status, etc.
The thing is, this guy is the one that will, indeed, be killed by one of the crew (players).
Dippy has a "Stage Two" part of his plan. He has a Federation Photon Torpedo detonator. After he leaves the player's ship, piloting the shuttle as expected, he will take the Federation delegation to the Klingon ship. There, he will place the torpedo detonator as well as a timing/control module in the Klingon ship. It is set to blow after a set time or when it gets within "camera range" of the "finish line."
Since he is the "pilot" of the second Klingon shuttle, he will stay on-board and die along with the ship. (Two shuttles were necessary, one on each of the competitor's ship, for mass balancing.) His hope is to confront the Klingon captain, in the final moment, regale him with his dastardly plan so he can witness the dismay on the captain's face, and then push the button to destroy them all, just as the ship gets within camera range, so it's on "national television" when it occurs. When the Federation device is discovered, the officials will think that the players sabotaged the drive system of their competition, a dishonorable act, and the Klingon council, fueled by "Hawk" members, will be forced to resume hostilities... "for Honor's sake" and in reprisal for the desecration of the somewhat sacred, culturally significant, "Marathon" race.
Meanwhile, back on the ship, the race has started. During the course of the player's actions in trying to compete effectively, rolling dice, making skill checks, carrying out their plan, something doesn't go as planned... A power fluctuation is detected.
Crewman X's specialty is this system. (Best if it's where you've hidden one of the devices). He is assigned to carry out the task of debugging the system to get it back into peak performance. (Make this seem routine and just another chance for a player to interact with the Klingons. The Klingon asks him mundane questions while they're in the turbolift, comments on how wimpy the Feds are and how glorious the Klingon Empire is, etc.) He's tired, since everyone has been working without sleep, and goes to check on the system. However, one of the officials looks nervous... He states that an official must accompany any mechanical repairs of this nature and he volunteers, even if it's not his specialty. After all, the race obserers/officials are tired too, and then agree to let him monitor things.
When the crewman/player and Klingon accomplice get there, the Klingon knows the crewman is about to discover the device. He attacks, roll for initiative, "You're stuck in the Jeffries Tube with an angry Klingon. He has a Klingon Ceremonial Dagger and is well-versed in its use and you have a tricorder and a spanner and it's been three years since you attended the Academy class "How to defend yourself in confined spaces armed only with a spanner wrench and soiled pants 101."
The player wins, of course, and kills the Klingon. YAY! But, he's the only witness to the attack. On top of that, the Klingon, in his dying moments, told the player that they were all going to die and that the Empire would once more be restored to its inevitable path to glory...
The race officials freak out. They demand communication with their embassy. The trouble is... the dead Klingon "official" was the one in charge of the communications lock-out codes and he was the only one with the lock-out codes for the comms system. Dead Klingons are not effective speakers, so there's no way to activate the comms system and even the shuttle comms systems were locked out, as well.
The race officials freak out, again. They hatch a "cunning plan." Obviously, the Fed captain/player isn't going to hold a trial in the middle of the race. But, this is a sacrilegious offence, desecrating the sanctity of "The Marathon" and, if what they suspect is true, it's outright murder! They believe that the dead official was about to uncover "cheating" by the players. Later, their suspicions are confirmed when a alien device of unknown manufacture is located during the investigation. The players, of course, deny knowledge of it and, since it's alien, nobody is quite sure what it does yet. The race officials believe it's a power diverter, designed to enhance Impulse engine perforance after the race was underway. They're not far from the truth. As of now, that appears to be what it is, until it is investigated further by the players. (will take awhile. removing it will obviously result in "Bad Things" happening, like an antimatter cascade/breach)
Klingons are Klingons - Cooks and bakers, are all warriors first. So, their "cunning plan" is straightfoward-Klingon- Hit it with a hammer. They're going to take over the ship. How? They will either attack the ship's secondary bridge (Battle Bridge) or take control of the ship's engine room. They are armed, after all, and if they need more weapons, they'll break into the Security offices and take them.
They demand that the ship stop and that they are allowed to either leave in the shuttle (It's booby-trapped too, Dippy thought of everything) or the players use whatever double-secret means they have of establishing communications. (There is no double-secret means, but the Klingons think there is)
At this time, it's discovered that the device which was found, or other devices that were found, will not only prevent warp engagement, resulting in explosions if tried, but will also detonate if the Impulse engines are powered down. And, it's apparent that no matter what, supposedly, the players do, the devices will cause the ship to asspload all over the place before they can reach the finish-line.
But, no matter how much sense is talked to them, the Klingons demand a trial. Since the players aren't going to allow that sort of thing and there's no time for such a distraction, there is only one solution - Trial by combat!
Yes, one of your players gets to get into an honor battle with a Klingon using the batleth-thingie! What fun!
If he wins, the Klingons will agree to listen to the players and to accept the evidence of sabotage as well as to work with them in implementing a solution. (They are, after all, also skilled engineers assigned because of their skills.) If the players lose, they are supposed to agree to stop the ship and to undertake whatever is necessary to contact the appropriate authorities. Oh, and the offending player will, incidentally, be killed, even if he doesn't die during combat. Got a blank character sheet ready? Probably will need one...
So, what happens now?
If the players lose, they're dead. Unless, of course, they wish to renege on their deal. If they do that, the Klingons will attempt to override controls, sabotage engines, do whatever it takes including blowing up the ship...
If they win, then their lives will be extended a little bit longer.
a) They will discover the other devices, all will eventually agree they are the result of sabotage, but none agree on who did it, yet.
b) The dead Klingons personal effects are examined, routinely., in preparation for stowing. The players obviously want to examine them in detail. There's a few arguments, but eventually they're allowed to, under observation of course. A coded data-chip is discovered. With the Klingon's help, the players discover detailed plans for their ship and the locations where the devices are connected to their systems. There's a personal manifesto in the form of a message from Dippy to this undercover spy in which he blabs about his cunning plan and the glory his house will be returned to, as well as the rest of the Empire, when the Feds are revealed, through trickery, as the devious little milksops they are! He is resolved to die with honor on the competing ship, relishing his chance to redeem his house at the expense of the life of his most hated enemy's proudest son... Damning evidence, to be sure. But, even the spy didn't know that the plan was to destroy the player's ship as well! The devices are unmistakably set to blow everything to smithereens, anyway. It seems Dippy was quite willing to sacrifice the lives of his sympathizers.
c) One of the race officials is inspired by all of this. Yes, it's devious and probably dishonorable, but who cares about "Federation Honor?" If Dippy is successful, he'll be seen as valiantly restoring his house's honor through personal sacrifice and returning the Empire to it's destiny! There will be war and war is fun! People who don't like war are not fun! "Death to the pansy do-gooders! Up the Empire!" He goes on a rampage, trying to convince his fellow Klingons on board to take up the cause. Some might, some might not and decide to side with the players - That's up to you as this is just one of many possible "complicating factors" during this mission.
d) There is only one solution - Somehow, the players must win the race before the devices assppload and before Klingon ship can reach the finish line. This is their only chance! If they can do this, they can get to the finish line and can force race officials to assign a warp-capable ship to intercept their competitor and to warn them of their impending doom.
To do this, and to warn the ship in time, they have to disable the devices. These are alien devices designed to go "boom" if they're tampered with. Every single skillset available to the players will be used to accomplish this - EVERY_SINGLE_ONE. Figure it out. These are alien, so they don't have to make sense. If your joker character's joke skill needs to be implemented, and it does, then he has to use it to calm down a tired tech who is over-anxious.
They are allowed two mistakes, one for each of two devices. (Only two strikes allowed.) Make these happen.. High drama! They screw up, twice, and are on their nail-biting third try for the last device when they finally succeed.
Great! That part is over, all is well...
BUT, if they haven't figured it out by now, the Klingons tell them that if the other ship blows up and if Dippy was as ingenious in his preparation as he had been with their ship, then it's obvious he's going to make it look like the Feds have something to do with the sabotage. Given the state of affairs and the emphatic opinion of many Klingons, as well as a lot of hawkish Council members, the Council may very well declare a renewal to hostilities. At the very least, there will be blood before this is over and the relationship between Feds and Klingons could be irreparably damaged.
The crew now has to win a race to save the lives of their competition, who are known to be honorable, rising stars of a new "cooperative movement" between Feds and Empire, and to prevent general war!
If they lose, bad things happen. If they win, well they just get to be declared the winners and might get a commendation from Starfleet for their inventiveness and bravery. But, of course, no stuffy desk-bound Fed Admiral is going to believe the Klingons would all go to war over some tragic, but small, accident during a stooopid race, right?
The players should be forced to spend a long time tweaking systems, modifying rolls, getting inventive in using the gravitational pull of nearby systems/planets, maybe even using their shields as a sort of "solar sail" to catch some solar winds from another nearby system or even recalibrated shields that will surf on the magnetic field bubbles nearby... IOW - They do not get a chance to rest until the race is over. Everything happens "bam-bam-bam-bam", one crisis after another. They have to draw heavily on their previous plans during all of this in order to succeed. Players doing double-duty in bomb-diffusion and racing skills are going to be worn out and... that's what is intended.
As always, just my ramblings. Maybe food for thought or poop for the bowl, your choice.
You know, it seems like EVERY FREAKIN' TIME I come up with a story, you seem to be able to take its bare bones and turn it into a living, breathing creature with large teeth and the ability to snort fire.
(Not complaining, mind - it makes my job easier with this! Thanks for your ghost-writing. )
Anways, later on tonight I shall put up some pics of the alien monster creatures. They look pretty good, especially the dragonoids . . .
This does mean that with the effort I have put into them, I'd really rather that the PCs actually encounter them.
As things stand, the encounter (cut-down version) is:
* Away team fight minor monsters[1] (and possibly mid-range monsters). Then either:
a) Monsters overpower team and drag them into the cell.
b) Away team win, monsters grab the Tamarians and drag them into the cell, forcing the away team to break in and rescue them.
* Away team find themselves in the cells, needing to rescue any prisoners, including one who's being experimented on like it's a bad horror movie.
* In the process they find the stuff they need to contact the ship in the junk room.
* They escape and try to find a hidey hole.
* They then have to somehow get to the pattern enhancers to get aboard the ship. At the Pattern enhancers they will come face to face with the Epic Monsters (aka dragons).
I'm thinking the PCs should only come up against one dragon unless the bout drags on (heh). If they stuff around, I can punish them by throwing another dragon at them.
But I ALSO have these two invisible hellhounds. I think it seels like it'd be a bit too much dealing with them AS WELL AS the dragons; can you spot somewhere that could work?
(I'm happy to do a bit of re-working of the story structure if necessary).
[1] Last week's session ended here, in mid fight with the minor monsters.
(Not complaining, mind - it makes my job easier with this! Thanks for your ghost-writing.
)Anways, later on tonight I shall put up some pics of the alien monster creatures. They look pretty good, especially the dragonoids . . .
This does mean that with the effort I have put into them, I'd really rather that the PCs actually encounter them.
As things stand, the encounter (cut-down version) is:
* Away team fight minor monsters[1] (and possibly mid-range monsters). Then either:
a) Monsters overpower team and drag them into the cell.
b) Away team win, monsters grab the Tamarians and drag them into the cell, forcing the away team to break in and rescue them.
* Away team find themselves in the cells, needing to rescue any prisoners, including one who's being experimented on like it's a bad horror movie.
* In the process they find the stuff they need to contact the ship in the junk room.
* They escape and try to find a hidey hole.
* They then have to somehow get to the pattern enhancers to get aboard the ship. At the Pattern enhancers they will come face to face with the Epic Monsters (aka dragons).
I'm thinking the PCs should only come up against one dragon unless the bout drags on (heh). If they stuff around, I can punish them by throwing another dragon at them.
But I ALSO have these two invisible hellhounds. I think it seels like it'd be a bit too much dealing with them AS WELL AS the dragons; can you spot somewhere that could work?
(I'm happy to do a bit of re-working of the story structure if necessary).
[1] Last week's session ended here, in mid fight with the minor monsters.
Morkonan wrote:What really happened isn't as exciting. Putin flexed his left thigh during his morning ride on a flying bear, right after beating fifty Judo blackbelts, which he does upon rising every morning. (Not that Putin sleeps, it's just that he doesn't want to make others feel inadequate.)
And here they are, folks . .
The defensive creatures, brought to you by my own personal sweatshop of child labour!
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd28 ... 0small.jpg
And, with rather more care in their painting (but no more enthusiasm), here are the bosses!
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd28 ... 0small.jpg
{Images posted directly to the forums should not be greater than 640x480 or 100kb, oversize image now linked - Terre}
The defensive creatures, brought to you by my own personal sweatshop of child labour!
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd28 ... 0small.jpg
And, with rather more care in their painting (but no more enthusiasm), here are the bosses!
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd28 ... 0small.jpg
{Images posted directly to the forums should not be greater than 640x480 or 100kb, oversize image now linked - Terre}
Morkonan wrote:What really happened isn't as exciting. Putin flexed his left thigh during his morning ride on a flying bear, right after beating fifty Judo blackbelts, which he does upon rising every morning. (Not that Putin sleeps, it's just that he doesn't want to make others feel inadequate.)
Thanks! I'm just enjoying myself with some purpose-driven imagination.Usenko wrote:You know, it seems like EVERY FREAKIN' TIME I come up with a story, you seem to be able to take its bare bones and turn it into a living, breathing creature with large teeth and the ability to snort fire.
You know this is the easy part, right? Ideas flow like water. For some, they're the air you breathe. The hard work comes when it's time to take all these ideas and make them work to tell a story worth experiencing.
That's your job.
I'm just enjoying some of the fun bits. I wouldn't take control out of their hands, here. That's fine for furthering the story. (Well, not great, but it is a way to get player's where they need to be and such.)...a) Monsters overpower team and drag them into the cell.
Being captured as a result of losing combat could reduce the threat of future combats. They might think that they'll just be captured again if they lose. You want them to think they'll be dead if they lose, given the monsters they're facing.
If one sort of monster was the type that always captured instead of killed, then you could keep the threat of loss very real when other sorts of monsters were involved.
Your call, but I'd only capture them if they weren't able to figure out where they needed to go, what they needed to do, couldn't figure out the necessary bits of the story, etc..
How do lions hunt?b) Away team win, monsters grab the Tamarians and drag them into the cell, forcing the away team to break in and rescue them.
Typically, there will be chasers that are very visible to the prey. They scatter the heard, focus on one, and with the help of their pack mates, they drive it towards the stalker, waiting in the tall grass.
If possible, have the players be driven into the caves by increasing threats and the presence of overwhelming threat. (Maybe your dragon-beast?)
Being trapped in a closet with an invisible dog-beast is an unsettling thought...* Away team find themselves in the cells, needing to rescue any prisoners, including one who's being experimented on like it's a bad horror movie.
* In the process they find the stuff they need to contact the ship in the junk room.
* They escape and try to find a hidey hole.
* They then have to somehow get to the pattern enhancers to get aboard the ship. At the Pattern enhancers they will come face to face with the Epic Monsters (aka dragons).
I'm thinking the PCs should only come up against one dragon unless the bout drags on (heh). If they stuff around, I can punish them by throwing another dragon at them.
But I ALSO have these two invisible hellhounds. I think it seels like it'd be a bit too much dealing with them AS WELL AS the dragons; can you spot somewhere that could work?
(I'm happy to do a bit of re-working of the story structure if necessary).
[1] Last week's session ended here, in mid fight with the minor monsters.
Out of the frying pan, into the fire - The big nasty dragons chase them into the caves. "Wow, look at all this cool junk! I wonder what it does. Oh, look, now we have invisible dog-monsters and someone turned off the lights... "
Do they have flashlights? If not, too bad. And, if they do, it won't matter, since the beasts are invisible anyway.
That'd be a really sweet dirty trick!
There are no lights in the caves and cells. Instead, the "jailers" are invisible dog-beasts that don't need light in the visible spectrum. Your players are forced into a labyrinth of dark caves. They're attacked! They rummage around for a flashlight or cobble one together. (Don't cut them any slack, here. If they can only make torches, that's the light that they get! (Torches suck for light... you're effectively "night blind" when you're holding a torch in the dark, unless you hold ot way above your head, risking embers dropping and catching your hair on fire.)
Give them a "knife in the dark" adventure in the caves and as they're exploring the cells. Eventually, they'll discover that having a steady light source doesn't do them much good, since the beasts are practically invisible...
That is a very good example of applying the principle of "How can I make this situation worse" to your story.
Nice!Usenko wrote:And here they are, folks . .
The defensive creatures, brought to you by my own personal sweatshop of child labour!
The privileges of being a parent - Free menial labor!
Just a note: There's a plastic putty stuff available at hobby and craft stores that activates when stressed. (Heat/friction while you're manipulating it.) It hardens after a bit and can be sanded/cut/drilled and painted. It's useful for things like this - You could put extra appendages on the figs, extra bits of body, fins, eyes, whatever. Glue the bits on and paint them and then they're truly "alien."
There's also a type that can be baked to cure. It has a longer work-time, so it's much better for small, detailed, work.
Now you're going to have to think of more adventures, just so you can take your kids "monster hunting" for new figures. Damn, I bet that's a blast!
Last night I thought of something.
You mentioned an idea before of the ship managing to somehow Space-Wedgie themselves into being out of phase with reality. I must have had too much cheese the other night, because I started thinking . . how about folding that in, AND adding a mirror-universe like subplot to my Klingon Olympiad storyline!
To whit . . .
* The Tamworth comes to participate in the SpaceLympics.
* By miracles and duct tape, the engineers managed to upgrade the engines to the point where they win the heat for their division (which I grant you might be the "Underpowered Antique Starships Which Should Have Been Pensioned Off and Damn Well Would Have Been Except For The Borg Incident" division, but whatever. ). But during the heat something went bung, so they have to go down to the planet to get the spares they need to repair it.
* When they're on the planet, they get caught up in a murder mystery.
* As part of trying to solve the murder mystery, the crew inadvertently manage to get themselves and the ship out of phase.
* When they get the ship back into phase, it's not immediately apparent, but they've managed to get themselves into the WRONG phase - where instead of being a moderately peaceful ally most of the time, the Klingons are a slave species. They discover that this world isn't a fun one, because what the Federation needs to be to enact this is nasty (this is not "THE" mirror universe, but characters might see a similarity in some areas).
* They work out that time is still passing in their Prime universe, and the only way they can get back in time for their final (and incidentally get out of the crapsack universe) is to rely on a weird gadget concocted by a Klingon scientist . . who winds up being from their universe as well. In fact, he happens to be the murder victim - he'd faked his death to avoid a gambling debt, but the new universe he'd escaped into turned out to be an own goal!
* They get back, just in time for the final. Which . . for the first time in over a century, the Tamworth loses (because the same part they've just replaced goes bung in the final as well!!!!!!).
The tone would be "Not taking itself too seriously", obviously. After the last two episodes, something light-hearted is indicated.
(Note: On Wednesday night we didn't play - three PCs were off sick. Welcome to Flu Season in Sydney . .
You mentioned an idea before of the ship managing to somehow Space-Wedgie themselves into being out of phase with reality. I must have had too much cheese the other night, because I started thinking . . how about folding that in, AND adding a mirror-universe like subplot to my Klingon Olympiad storyline!
To whit . . .
* The Tamworth comes to participate in the SpaceLympics.
* By miracles and duct tape, the engineers managed to upgrade the engines to the point where they win the heat for their division (which I grant you might be the "Underpowered Antique Starships Which Should Have Been Pensioned Off and Damn Well Would Have Been Except For The Borg Incident" division, but whatever.
). But during the heat something went bung, so they have to go down to the planet to get the spares they need to repair it. * When they're on the planet, they get caught up in a murder mystery.
* As part of trying to solve the murder mystery, the crew inadvertently manage to get themselves and the ship out of phase.
* When they get the ship back into phase, it's not immediately apparent, but they've managed to get themselves into the WRONG phase - where instead of being a moderately peaceful ally most of the time, the Klingons are a slave species. They discover that this world isn't a fun one, because what the Federation needs to be to enact this is nasty (this is not "THE" mirror universe, but characters might see a similarity in some areas).
* They work out that time is still passing in their Prime universe, and the only way they can get back in time for their final (and incidentally get out of the crapsack universe) is to rely on a weird gadget concocted by a Klingon scientist . . who winds up being from their universe as well. In fact, he happens to be the murder victim - he'd faked his death to avoid a gambling debt, but the new universe he'd escaped into turned out to be an own goal!
* They get back, just in time for the final. Which . . for the first time in over a century, the Tamworth loses (because the same part they've just replaced goes bung in the final as well!!!!!!).
The tone would be "Not taking itself too seriously", obviously. After the last two episodes, something light-hearted is indicated.
(Note: On Wednesday night we didn't play - three PCs were off sick. Welcome to Flu Season in Sydney . .
Morkonan wrote:What really happened isn't as exciting. Putin flexed his left thigh during his morning ride on a flying bear, right after beating fifty Judo blackbelts, which he does upon rising every morning. (Not that Putin sleeps, it's just that he doesn't want to make others feel inadequate.)
Interesting. But, it may be better to save that one or rewrite it into a different adventure and use it for your next one, instead of the Spacelympics theme.
The reason is that there might be too much going on. It's not that they couldn't handle it, it's that there's so many possibilities you may not be able to focus the themes enough for it to be "really good/fun."
So, for instance, if you want to have a "fun" mission, that alternate reality thing would probably be a great setup. It's wasted on the Spacelympics thing, though, since that has more serious overtones and some high drama stuffs.
BTW - The story idea is good and I don't think you have to have an alternate universe to make it work. Murder mysteries are "cool" and with some sci-fi doodads, you make them complicated as all heck. Remember how Asimov would wind entire shorts around the perturbations of just three "laws?" Genius. Grab a few "three sci-fi stuffs" and you're off macremaying <SP> (I don't know if I have ever spelt "macreme'ing" and am not gonna look it up, just on principle) a complex sci-fi murder mystery.
Side note: Oooooh... devilish idea for a serious mission with altnernate universes - Turn the players into Romulans in a alternate universe close to the Prime. But, Romulans occupy most of Fed territory. Players learn history of Fed/Romulan war. Hear a bunch of names of great Romulan commanders, see statues, get involved deep into your vision of Romulan society, have to maneuver it to escape using classic Romulan skullduggery, backstabbing, assassination and politics, get back to Prime, limp to a port at a trade station for repairs, meet a Romulan ambassador stationed there who's name is the same as the famous commander in alternate universe that practically wiped out the Federation single-handedly... fade to black.
<cracks comedy fingers>
1) Crew get distress call. Find alien shuttle with some weird little alien guy named... Mahi Mah. He "needs a few things." Feel like taking your crew into the X Universe?
2) Down the rabbit hole - While on an alien planet doing a routine survey analysis, the crew come upon a short, fluffy, intelligent alien. It's cute, it's cuddly, it's about a meter tall, is very a very roundish, fluffy, thing, it has... big pointy teeth... "Lookit th' bones!"
The alien pulls a decidedly unfluffy weapon from its utility vest, shoots a "Red Shirt" and jumps into a hole in the ground. When followed, the hole leads to a alien spaceship that was either buried here or has been here for a very, very, long time. (Doesn't have to have alternate universe, but can work it in)
The spaceship is actually a machine to travel between universes. It's cobbled together piece of crap, but it works. They find bits and pieces of what appear to be other intelligent species. Strange tech, dark corridors, duct-tape, etc.. Then, the doors close and "whoosh".. something happens.
The players catch glimpses of the fat fluffy bartard running through the maze of the ship. Finally, they think they've cornered him, draw their weapons and... phzzzt.. nothing. Their weapons are disabled! RUSH HIM! Well, that was stoopid. They run across the deck, only to discover that it's sort of "glowy." "Glowy" in sci-fi means "dangerous or strange." Luckily, this is of the strange variety of glowy deck-thing. Unluckily, they're now not in Kansas anymore...
They find themselves transported to what appears to be a cobbled together platform in the middle of an alien forest. On an alien planet. Populated by giant fluffy bunny rabbit people. Or, if you prefer, short fat fluffy people with long ears. Oh, and it's an alternate alien universe and some extra travel pay will be coming their way, so they have that to look forward to if they ever make it back.
When they arrive in an alternate universe, they're greeted by a very shocked, fat, fluffy, bunny persons. I'm sure they're very upset about the whole thing, but there's nothing for it, really - It's a one-way platform. The fat, fluffy, bunny person doesn't even know where they came from. It was expecting a shipment of artwork. The players are escorted, calmly, to the "Head of the Family."
They meet the Head of the Family, who is a very fat, very fluffy, bunny person. There, they meet more fluffy bunny people who only seem mildly surprised to see them. Apparently, the FBPs can speak at least 87 different languages, as well as several dialects, so communication isn't an issue. These are extremely intelligent FBPs. If any of the crew are wounded, they're cared for. The FBPs calmly listen to the player's story and then promptly refuse to believe them... They're intelligent, of course, just not very willing to admit that unusual, unplanned, unscheduled things happen. Everything has a schedule! (They all wear timepieces...)
Eventually, they're convinced. But, it's all highly irregular as "people" shouldn't be transported across universes. "It must have been a mistake." The players learn that the FBPs send out traders to other universes. In their own universe, there doesn't appear to be anyone else. But, they love their home planet so much that they won't leave it, even with all their powerful technology. So, they send out traders to bring back tradestuffs. Only rarely, if ever, do any representative species visit them. (They seem to be a rather isolationist species, no matter all their trade.)
Their society is very simple, it seems. This family, comprised of 98 individuals of various ages, lives in a primarily agrarian lifestyle. They work the fields, tend their vegetables and have a very few livestock for "milk", which has some sort of semi-hallucinogenic effect on them. They "sponsor" one trader, another relative, who sends back interesting tidbits of tech, art, etc, that they either trade at their local market or send to their University, depending upon how valuable it is. It's how they support themselves and how their lives are enriched by contact, albeit limited, with alien species.
Their society is similarly simple and is guided by two principles - The more affluent you are, the fatter and fluffier you are. The more politically powerful you are, the more stuffs you have. But, it's not easy to tell which comes first, really. Fat, fluffy, bunny-people seem to always be well-regarded and affluent and they also seem to be the most powerful with the mostest stuffs... But, their society seems stable enough, at least from the impression this family gives the players.
Well, this is all a horrendous amount of bull@$%@...
You see, the FBPs don't "love their planet." It's their prison. They're not "traders." They're trying to figure out how to escape into another universe. The problem is that there are just so gosh-darn many of them, that they usually don't even find habitable ones. And, when they do, there's another slight, tiny, little problem - It turns them mad. They have not found a universe yet where the experimental subject, an unfortunate FBP picked by a lottery which is usually "randomized" according to how not-fat or not-fluffy one is, can survive more than a few weeks before going totally bonkers.
The "ships" are cobbled together pieces of arcane tech. The FBPs are fiendishly clever and make all sorts of ingenious devices, but they guard them closely. Every FBP "family" is it's own clan, all centered around the fattest, fluffiest, richest FBP there is. Most only have a few gadgets that work and about fifty that "sort of work." (Whatever crazy thing you want them to be able to do, from "complete inversion of the target" to "it makes poop noises better than any other poop-noise maker thing", your choice.) While tech is advanced, it's very sparsely distributed. Families feud over even the simplest bits of tech. They will murder a member of another family for something as simple as an advanced nail file. They're ruthless little buggers.
And, here's the catch - See, they've been imprisoned on this planet for eons. Nobody really remembers why or who by. But, there's a barrier around the planet that prevents all extra-atmospheric travel. Indeed, atmospheric travel is also limited. After awhile, the FBPs stopped trying to fly around, since that only makes one a nice target for some other family's uber-anti-flying weapon.
If there's a sadistic, despicable, disgusting thing one being can do to another, these fluffy bunny-people engage in it as a social past-time. Anyone outside of their own family is "fair game." There are only two times that murder can't be expected - Trading and Mating. Families will honor a trade meeting and, by necessity, the exchange of fertile members is also honored as a peaceable interaction. Once accepted into a family, that FBP is treated just like any other member of that family and its loyalty is unquestionable.
The FBPs treat the players very well, even graciously. They truly seem pleased to have them as their guests. They give them their own rooms in a nice, strangely empty, building. They invite them to their feasts and feed them very well, too. They calm the players and tell them that their trading partner will certainly be back, with his ship, within the week and they'll have everything straightened out, "We're very sorry for any inconvenience you've had. Have another pastry, they're delicious!"
"Delicious."
You see, there's something else. The planet's not a bad one, but these little buggers have been living here for eons. Well, longer than that, really. We're talking "geological time" here. (They really pissed someone off!) And, they've worked this land over and over and over... And, they're smart, but only so many things will grow well and developing new crops takes cooperation and, well, you see... With all these vegetables and no real fauna to speak of... Yeah, they're cannibals. One of the "trade goods" that their experimental subject-traders is supposed to send back, in order to qualify for a return trip, is livestock. That the livestock can think, speak and argue about what's for dinner isn't something that they see as an ethical problem.
The missing crew-member is being taken to a rival family for a trade. It seems the host family is out of a suitable garnish for a dinner comprising of several senior Federation officers who just happened to drop by.
Will they escape? Will they get to go to dinner, the hard way? When will that little fat, fluffy, bartard that got them in this mess show up? How, exactly, do you defend yourself against an army of angry, fat, fluffy, extremely intelligent aliens who only enjoy killing you slightly more than killing each other?
3) Thinking on that, will stick much closer to your original outline, just had to get #2 out of my brain.
The reason is that there might be too much going on. It's not that they couldn't handle it, it's that there's so many possibilities you may not be able to focus the themes enough for it to be "really good/fun."
So, for instance, if you want to have a "fun" mission, that alternate reality thing would probably be a great setup. It's wasted on the Spacelympics thing, though, since that has more serious overtones and some high drama stuffs.
BTW - The story idea is good and I don't think you have to have an alternate universe to make it work. Murder mysteries are "cool" and with some sci-fi doodads, you make them complicated as all heck. Remember how Asimov would wind entire shorts around the perturbations of just three "laws?" Genius. Grab a few "three sci-fi stuffs" and you're off macremaying <SP> (I don't know if I have ever spelt "macreme'ing" and am not gonna look it up, just on principle) a complex sci-fi murder mystery.
Side note: Oooooh... devilish idea for a serious mission with altnernate universes - Turn the players into Romulans in a alternate universe close to the Prime. But, Romulans occupy most of Fed territory. Players learn history of Fed/Romulan war. Hear a bunch of names of great Romulan commanders, see statues, get involved deep into your vision of Romulan society, have to maneuver it to escape using classic Romulan skullduggery, backstabbing, assassination and politics, get back to Prime, limp to a port at a trade station for repairs, meet a Romulan ambassador stationed there who's name is the same as the famous commander in alternate universe that practically wiped out the Federation single-handedly... fade to black.
<cracks comedy fingers>
1) Crew get distress call. Find alien shuttle with some weird little alien guy named... Mahi Mah. He "needs a few things."
Feel like taking your crew into the X Universe?2) Down the rabbit hole - While on an alien planet doing a routine survey analysis, the crew come upon a short, fluffy, intelligent alien. It's cute, it's cuddly, it's about a meter tall, is very a very roundish, fluffy, thing, it has... big pointy teeth... "Lookit th' bones!"
The alien pulls a decidedly unfluffy weapon from its utility vest, shoots a "Red Shirt" and jumps into a hole in the ground. When followed, the hole leads to a alien spaceship that was either buried here or has been here for a very, very, long time. (Doesn't have to have alternate universe, but can work it in)
The spaceship is actually a machine to travel between universes. It's cobbled together piece of crap, but it works. They find bits and pieces of what appear to be other intelligent species. Strange tech, dark corridors, duct-tape, etc.. Then, the doors close and "whoosh".. something happens.
The players catch glimpses of the fat fluffy bartard running through the maze of the ship. Finally, they think they've cornered him, draw their weapons and... phzzzt.. nothing. Their weapons are disabled! RUSH HIM! Well, that was stoopid. They run across the deck, only to discover that it's sort of "glowy." "Glowy" in sci-fi means "dangerous or strange." Luckily, this is of the strange variety of glowy deck-thing. Unluckily, they're now not in Kansas anymore...
They find themselves transported to what appears to be a cobbled together platform in the middle of an alien forest. On an alien planet. Populated by giant fluffy bunny rabbit people. Or, if you prefer, short fat fluffy people with long ears. Oh, and it's an alternate alien universe and some extra travel pay will be coming their way, so they have that to look forward to if they ever make it back.
When they arrive in an alternate universe, they're greeted by a very shocked, fat, fluffy, bunny persons. I'm sure they're very upset about the whole thing, but there's nothing for it, really - It's a one-way platform. The fat, fluffy, bunny person doesn't even know where they came from. It was expecting a shipment of artwork. The players are escorted, calmly, to the "Head of the Family."
They meet the Head of the Family, who is a very fat, very fluffy, bunny person. There, they meet more fluffy bunny people who only seem mildly surprised to see them. Apparently, the FBPs can speak at least 87 different languages, as well as several dialects, so communication isn't an issue. These are extremely intelligent FBPs. If any of the crew are wounded, they're cared for. The FBPs calmly listen to the player's story and then promptly refuse to believe them... They're intelligent, of course, just not very willing to admit that unusual, unplanned, unscheduled things happen. Everything has a schedule! (They all wear timepieces...)
Eventually, they're convinced. But, it's all highly irregular as "people" shouldn't be transported across universes. "It must have been a mistake." The players learn that the FBPs send out traders to other universes. In their own universe, there doesn't appear to be anyone else. But, they love their home planet so much that they won't leave it, even with all their powerful technology. So, they send out traders to bring back tradestuffs. Only rarely, if ever, do any representative species visit them. (They seem to be a rather isolationist species, no matter all their trade.)
Their society is very simple, it seems. This family, comprised of 98 individuals of various ages, lives in a primarily agrarian lifestyle. They work the fields, tend their vegetables and have a very few livestock for "milk", which has some sort of semi-hallucinogenic effect on them. They "sponsor" one trader, another relative, who sends back interesting tidbits of tech, art, etc, that they either trade at their local market or send to their University, depending upon how valuable it is. It's how they support themselves and how their lives are enriched by contact, albeit limited, with alien species.
Their society is similarly simple and is guided by two principles - The more affluent you are, the fatter and fluffier you are. The more politically powerful you are, the more stuffs you have. But, it's not easy to tell which comes first, really. Fat, fluffy, bunny-people seem to always be well-regarded and affluent and they also seem to be the most powerful with the mostest stuffs... But, their society seems stable enough, at least from the impression this family gives the players.
Well, this is all a horrendous amount of bull@$%@...
You see, the FBPs don't "love their planet." It's their prison. They're not "traders." They're trying to figure out how to escape into another universe. The problem is that there are just so gosh-darn many of them, that they usually don't even find habitable ones. And, when they do, there's another slight, tiny, little problem - It turns them mad. They have not found a universe yet where the experimental subject, an unfortunate FBP picked by a lottery which is usually "randomized" according to how not-fat or not-fluffy one is, can survive more than a few weeks before going totally bonkers.
The "ships" are cobbled together pieces of arcane tech. The FBPs are fiendishly clever and make all sorts of ingenious devices, but they guard them closely. Every FBP "family" is it's own clan, all centered around the fattest, fluffiest, richest FBP there is. Most only have a few gadgets that work and about fifty that "sort of work." (Whatever crazy thing you want them to be able to do, from "complete inversion of the target" to "it makes poop noises better than any other poop-noise maker thing", your choice.) While tech is advanced, it's very sparsely distributed. Families feud over even the simplest bits of tech. They will murder a member of another family for something as simple as an advanced nail file. They're ruthless little buggers.
And, here's the catch - See, they've been imprisoned on this planet for eons. Nobody really remembers why or who by. But, there's a barrier around the planet that prevents all extra-atmospheric travel. Indeed, atmospheric travel is also limited. After awhile, the FBPs stopped trying to fly around, since that only makes one a nice target for some other family's uber-anti-flying weapon.
If there's a sadistic, despicable, disgusting thing one being can do to another, these fluffy bunny-people engage in it as a social past-time. Anyone outside of their own family is "fair game." There are only two times that murder can't be expected - Trading and Mating. Families will honor a trade meeting and, by necessity, the exchange of fertile members is also honored as a peaceable interaction. Once accepted into a family, that FBP is treated just like any other member of that family and its loyalty is unquestionable.
The FBPs treat the players very well, even graciously. They truly seem pleased to have them as their guests. They give them their own rooms in a nice, strangely empty, building. They invite them to their feasts and feed them very well, too. They calm the players and tell them that their trading partner will certainly be back, with his ship, within the week and they'll have everything straightened out, "We're very sorry for any inconvenience you've had. Have another pastry, they're delicious!"
"Delicious."
You see, there's something else. The planet's not a bad one, but these little buggers have been living here for eons. Well, longer than that, really. We're talking "geological time" here. (They really pissed someone off!) And, they've worked this land over and over and over... And, they're smart, but only so many things will grow well and developing new crops takes cooperation and, well, you see... With all these vegetables and no real fauna to speak of... Yeah, they're cannibals. One of the "trade goods" that their experimental subject-traders is supposed to send back, in order to qualify for a return trip, is livestock. That the livestock can think, speak and argue about what's for dinner isn't something that they see as an ethical problem.
The missing crew-member is being taken to a rival family for a trade. It seems the host family is out of a suitable garnish for a dinner comprising of several senior Federation officers who just happened to drop by.
Will they escape? Will they get to go to dinner, the hard way? When will that little fat, fluffy, bartard that got them in this mess show up? How, exactly, do you defend yourself against an army of angry, fat, fluffy, extremely intelligent aliens who only enjoy killing you slightly more than killing each other?
3) Thinking on that, will stick much closer to your original outline, just had to get #2 out of my brain.
Usenko wrote:* The Tamworth comes to participate in the SpaceLympics.
* By miracles and duct tape, the engineers managed to upgrade the engines to the point where they win the heat for their division (which I grant you might be the "Underpowered Antique Starships Which Should Have Been Pensioned Off and Damn Well Would Have Been Except For The Borg Incident" division, but whatever.
* When they're on the planet, they get caught up in a murder mystery....
OK, I think I have something, but it's not exactly "comedy." And, that's OK, since there's already a framework in place (the Race) you can add some comedy somewhere, later. A celebration on the Klingon homeworld/somewhere would be a nice backdrop for that, perhaps.
ANYWAY, I was trying to weave in a gameplay mechanic that is a bunch of fun (for you, but will keep your players up at night) and the whole "other dimension/out-of-phase" thing as well as a "murder mystery." Which, is a tall order.
However, the more I thought about it, the more I thought it might be funnerer just to terrify your players, instead. Since "torture" is kind of frowned on these days and killing people gets boring after awhile, how about this:
#3:
Your players are preparing for the race. They run a trial heat against a Federation ship, just like I proposed in an earlier post. (Introduce Captain Asshat/etc.)
They won't be able to "supercharge" their engines, per se', but they can, during the competition, regulate various feeder valves, fields, and other nifty sci-fi stuffs using pure skill. (Your Engineer is going to be busy.) There's a trial run of this during this trial heat.
Well, they're going to bork it up, as expected. Something breaks, of course, but who's fault is it?
First - The setup:
You explain to the players that the Spacelympic race is really going to be a race. It's not just some canned adventure, it's really up to them to win or lose using not only their skill as players, but the skills of their characters AND... a second character. Why the second character? Well, it's to give them several things to manage at once, testing their game ability and their deftness at handling multiple situations that will arise during the mission.
This is all a load of B.S. The only reason they each have an auxillary character is to be able to kill characters they're attached to and to threaten them by doing so. Sure, you'll have them doing multiple tasks out of their main character's scope of knowledge using the secondary character during the race(s), but that is not the primary reason they're playing them. They're playing them so they can be afraid.
Their secondary character, which is a normal crewmember, has a short backstory. Flesh it out. It doesn't matter what it is, just so long as it isn't too dramatic or doesn't make them hate the character. Home planet, where they went to school, sibling's name(s), parents, date of enlistment/acceptance into the Academy, tours of duty and ship, sex, age, phsyical desription and then one sentence this character might say to someone else. Make them funny, acerbic, boring, angry, whatever. (To give them an idea of the character's personality.)
Age and sex is important. Randomize them a little bit. Have fun creating a new character for each to play. You will tell the players to roll a dice and then, "hidden", you will act like you pick a name depending upon that roll. You can actually do that, if you wish, but if you come up with an excellent character to match one of your players the do that. Whenever "random" is not fun, then it's not going to be "random."
Specialty - Each of these characters has an MOS that will be used during the race. Astrogation, engineering, sensor tech, whatever. The important bit here is that the player's own character doesn't have those talents or whatever talents you come up with. Sure, a janitor could be important if you made him so. Any talents you give these characters can be justified - All you have to do is to justify them. During the race, the players will get a synopsis of what that other character is presented with, they'll make a choice based on their player-knowledge and then they will "roll for success." They will NEVER know if that roll succeeded - That's up to you and your judgement of what is funnerer at the time.
OK, all that's set up. They do a test heat against Capt. Asshat and the UFP Starship Exetereliant or whatever. They will blow some conduit somewhere, either caused by a player character failure or one of these psuedo-NPCs failing a roll. (The latter would be great, since it would help solidify the impact that these characters are supposed to have on the players.)
The go to a planet, station, moon and get some repairs. Maybe Capt. Asshat has to tow them? If so, good, they can star learning to hate him to set up a later mission or something.
All's well, they get repairs, get drunk in the bar or whatever Fed Officers do and head off to the real races. At this point, you tell them that it's a good idea to practice. They've repaired their engines and you tell them it's "safe" to practice. (You won't let them blow out their engines again.) Get them nice and relaxed, having fun trying to make the best time in a run.
AFTER they leave the station where they were repaired - At "night" or one time during a typical ship-day, each player will roll two rolls, clearly telling you which dice-roll is "for them" and which is for their secondary character. Of course, you don't tell them why. They don't need to know, it's just for you, 'cause you've got all this stuff going on and you need to know what their roll would be... Tell them rolling high or low doesn't matter. The results of any roll, even matching rolls, will be different for every character they roll for. It's "built in" that way, because of.. stuff.
You will also roll a "handfull" of the same dice once per game-day. If they ask, tell 'em it's none of their business... But, it should eventually be obvious even for the dimmest of players - You're rolling for other crewmember-npcs.
Eventually, you look furtively back and forth across your hidden junk on the desk, shuffle some papers, and then get a weird look on your face.
One of the secondary characters "didn't make the roll." As soon as it might be time for the player to interact with that character or that character showing up dead to work might be noticed by someone, you take the pseudo-npc's sheet away from the assigned player and then inform the group that,
"Crewman ____ is dead."
There's no apparent cause. There's no obvious wound. They were killed when they were alone and there are no witnesses. Scans detect nothing unusual. The crewman is dead. An autopsy reveals nothing. In fact, there's no reason that this person should have died and no cause of death can be noted. They're just "dead."
Your players are on the way to an important thing. Important things demand promptness. Plus, a crewman dying on a Federation starship isn't unusual, depending upon which Star Trek series you like the most. The Captain is expected to deal with these things, from time to time, so "going back" would certainly net him a reprimand.
They continue on, less one psuedo-npc.
Just before they arrive at their destination, after their last "practice" round, you announce that you are rewarding them special "Race Points." They can use these points to do things, whatever things make sense in your system. Modify a skillcheck roll, redo a roll, boost a system, whatever. The point is that they got a reward for their efforts they can expect to use during the real race. This represents "training" and you congratulate them. (It actually just represents points and the idea of "limits" of things they can influence the way they want to... 'cause the rest of stuff is up to the dice-gods.)
Award the points based on the player's performance up to this point, rewarding them for good ideas, skillchecks, roleplaying, etc. IOW - They'll probably each have slightly different point-pools to spend on race-activities, later.
OK, the rest of the stuff with the race happens like in the other post, however, there's a change.
1) Remember, every "night" or at some other time during the day, and only once per day, that any of the characters, including the psuedo-npc, is alone, there will be a dice roll... and the clacking of a bunch of "npc dice-rolls" for other crew.
2) The Klingon observers board, but there are also some Federation observers on board, as well. The race starts, etc. (The sabotage storyline is optional, here. But, if you don't use it, some things, like the Klingons freaking out, will still be there.)
3) During the early course of the race, one of the players doesn't make their roll... They can spend a special "point" or whatever to be allowed to re-roll that failing roll, since this is a true "player character" and not the other one. Or, if they prefer, they can simply hand over their character sheet and choose to play the psuedo-npc character they've been playing. (I'm sure they'll spend the point. Stress that it's "no joke" and their character is dead if they don't.)
When they re-roll, they make it. But, you tell them that they will be subject to another roll before the end of the day. They'll make that one, too. A MIRACLE!
4) OK, so they've got another dead and no clues. Random_NPC_Crewmemeber is dead. (Not one that they're playing.) Same stuff - nothing.
5) The Klingon Observers are a bit concerned... A few hours later, one of them is dead. (Magic mysterious dice-roll, do your thing!)
6) There are three dead people on the ship and they're not talking. The ship is in the middle of a very important race. The Klingons are getting pissed. One of them swears a blood-oath and has to be restrained. Who he was going to try to get revenge on isn't the point, he's just upset.
7) The Klingons will not allow them to stop the ship during this historically and culturally important race. They will not give them the comms codes, either.
8 ) Blinky, blinky, there's a light on the comms console. It's a priority message from the planet/starbase/whatever they docked at to repair. It's priority "Urgent." But, they can't receive it - It's cached in their comms system and scrambled unless they can get the code.
9) Persuasion +100. One of your players has to try to pursuade the Klingons to at least let them listen to the message. They succeed. If they fail abysmally, start a ruckus/fight/whatever. But, eventually, they get the code. The Klingons are pissed, but concerned about the murders, and allow this one passive reception of a message. They'll screen it first, of course.
10) Keep in mind that you'll still have the players and their psuedo-npcs making skill checks and decisions relevant to "racing." They'll still get passive sensor updates for opportunities, like getting a grav assist from a rogue planet/asteroid or taking advantage of a new shield configuration to spread their shield out to take advantage of the magnetic bubbles of a nearby start system. (Play some Beach-Boys music. I suggest "Surfin Safari." "Wipe-out" would be good for a failed skill check during this.)
11) The message concerns a series of murders on the planet/station/whatever. Officials had been engaged in a manhunt for a few weeks, with several people waking up dead during that time, almost like clockwork every day. (Larger population means more opportunity for failed "rolls.") But, now the murders have stopped and they are warning the ship that they believe they have a stowaway that is particularly unpleasant.
12) They'll have a heart-to-heart with the Klingons, I'm sure. But, the Klingons will not stand idly by while they insult their culture. Yes, murders are bad, but dishonoring this race is worse! The Klingons only concession is that they will do what they can to assist any investigation, as long as it does not interfere with their duties as Observers. IF your players refuse and attempt to turn the ship around, stop the race, force communications, lock up the Klingons are anything like that, the Klingons will attempt to take over the auxillary bridge (battle bridge or secondary bridge or some other sensitive, defensible, place) as outlined in the earlier post.
If the players attempt to reason with the Federation Observers on board, they will get a serious talking-to about how important this race is for Fed-Klingon relations and how seriously the Klingons view this race. It's no joke to the Klingons and any deviation from plan will result in a bad hit to relations. However, the Fed Observers will, if this continues, agree that "life and limb" is more important and they will demand that the Klingons allow the players to forfeit the race... The Klingons will fight that, of course, however you wish. But, if it does become necessary, this is one way the players can quit the race. (They could sabotage their own ship, too, but that would be very, very bad for them if they were discovered doing that by any Observers.)
13) The murderer: Here's where you make the decision - You can either go with a creature that exists in a neighboring dimension and that can somehow "kill" someone in that dimension and have that person die in the Prime or you can have a "shapeshifter" that can assume the guise of any crewmember.... even player-characters.
I prefer the latter, setting up a sort of "The Thing" vibe among your players. But, if you want the alternate universe in this module, then go for it and I'll try to offer what tailored input I can.
(Other details after decision)
14) The hunt: Eventually, they're going to figure out it's not some "stowaway" in the conventional sense. I'm sure they'll conduct some sort of search. This is where things get a bit weird...
a) Once they have declared they are going to "search for a stowaway" or "the murderer", and not before, whenever they encounter a crewmember or group of any people, you ask them to roll whatever they would normally roll for some sort of "Perception" check. (This is meaningless, but it sets the tone.)
b) Eventually, they're all going to get together as characters to discuss this. And, when they do, either in one big group or among smaller groups (If they have been assigned different shifts) you make them roll... a perception check.
One of the players will succeed one of these Perception checks in a "Big Way." You hand that player a note that reads "There's something not quite right about xxxx." And, the fun thing is that "xxxx" can be a player character.
Of course, it should be, at least once or twice! Each note you end up handing someone is going to have information about things that character notices about someone their Perception check "succeeded" with. But, space it out a bit so it is still unexpected.c) One of the first few NPCs that got "Percepted" by one of the players wakes up dead. Well, this time, make it two crewmembers, just for giggles, no other reason than to show that predictable things are boring.
d) One crewmember goes missing, but its later found in bits after having apparently fallen into some big nasty machine that can make bits out of people.
See where I'm going with this? After awhile, it's going to feel as if they're constantly at risk of failing the mission, the Klingons are going to start a darn war on the ship, anyone could die at any time and one of the players might be the killer in disguise.
Now, this may take awhile to set up properly. If so, then extend the number of time-parts that the race will last. Allow the player-characters to sleep only once every three days or something, just to keep the stress up and for you to roll "stress rolls" or shave a few points off an ability score so it makes it harder for them to maximize their efforts at fiddling with the engine feeds, shields, passive sensors, whatever.
Stress is key. Fear is key. Fun will be had, for sure, but dice-rolls will start to not be part of "fun" after awhile. That's intended, but if it gets to be too much, allow them some leeway by giving them one "Absolute success" token they can spend during the mission. That way, there's at least one Big Bad Thing they can avoid as a team. (They'll probably save it until the end, like potions in Skyrim... But, if they do, they'll have a hell of a lot of fun spending it to leap across the finish line ahead of the other ship!)
How will they catch the killer, win the race, etc? That depends on where you want to go with it. Either it will involve an extra-dimensional killer or something more akin to "The Thing." It'll probably be good to give them a false clue or three, depending on your choice. If you want extra-dimensional, then you make it seem like "The Thing." And, if you choose to go with "The Thing", you start giving clues that it may be something that could phase-shift.
Sound interesting? Too much?
I meant to report last fortnight on how we went, but LIFE and all that. . .
Anyway . .
The guys enjoyed things enormously. However, the battle with the defensive creatures took longer than expected. Instead of being captured and dragged into the cave, the PCs saw the cave and tried to use it to escape!
They couldn't open the door. I hinted that there were sensors that (after a HIGHLY successful science scan) appeared similar to taste-buds, and one of the guys said "Well, the right chemical stimulus should do it. Let's see, what do we have . . Is anyone bleeding?"
Naturally I thought that this was great, so I rewarded them with an open door. The creatures stopped attacking, leading one of the team to say "Uh . . guys, we're getting herded in here!" But the others ignored him and piled in.
By freak chance (heh, yeah, right! ) the first room they ended up in was the cell . . . and sure enough, the atmosphere was replaced with sleepy-bye gas, and they went out like lights!
When they awoke, they were sans weapons and tools, so some ingenuity was required. I noted that they needed to get out, and one of the guys said "Well, blood worked before, so . . " and immediately dropped his dacks and urinated on the door. Such a hilarious moment! And if I hadn't allowed that to work, I'd be the evil GM from hell. And besides, I was itching to let them see the other things I'd cooked up! (I justified it by saying that whoever had created this cell, they'd not designed it with humanoids in mind).
So . . off they went. They rescued their colleagues, coming face to face with invisible monsters. And then they ended up in the room of discarded technology - whereupon the Ops officer informed us that he needed to go, or he'd miss the bus, and that was it for the session!
Now . . we have a wee bit of a problem.
The problem is that I have about 4 sessions of stuff, but I now have 2 sessions. We really need to bring this thing to a conclusion, and it should be satisfying.
So . .
I was thinking that next session the PCs should basically cobble together some kind of communicator and transport to the ship (i.e. miss out on all the other planet-bound business). And the ship should be unable to warp away (too much Hyperonic radiation?), and the process of swooping in and grabbing the away team should damage the ship somewhat. So whilst they repair it, they get herded into a cave in an asteroid, where they meet the derelict.
I was thinking that rather than some kind of telepathy, I could involve the Tamarians here. After a bit of searching, the crew finds some strange devices that appear to fit into a notch in the "dashboard" of the derelict starship. And the face of the mummified captain comes up on the screen, describing the situation . . . only the universal translator can't cope!
But suddenly a Tamarian's brow furrows . . . and he makes some adjustments with his tricorder. And out comes recognisable speech. But even then the speech doesn't make sense to the PCs. It's seemingly random words. . . .
(break between sessions . . .)
. . . But the Tamarian is excited - he understands! But in order to find the way out of the predicament, he must somehow get the message through to the crew. And it's going to require the tamarians desperately trying to describe in metaphor, and the PCs scratching their heads to understand.
As the PCs desperately try to make sense of the derelict pilot's last message, the forces of the PSC have discovered where they are. Just like you would not offer quarter to a virus, but you would merely exterminate it, the PSC ships are bombarding the asteroid where the Derelict (and the Tamworth, and the PCs) are hiding.
At the last possible moment, the final words are translated. The ancient pilot had discovered the way to escape the PSC (though he/she lacked the resources to actually do it). It is to . . .
. . . I dunno, something involving the personal sacrifice of the Tamarian Captain?
So in conclusion . . taking some of the key elements you and I have created and putting them into a hurriedly-finishing narrative!
Anyway . .
The guys enjoyed things enormously. However, the battle with the defensive creatures took longer than expected. Instead of being captured and dragged into the cave, the PCs saw the cave and tried to use it to escape!
They couldn't open the door. I hinted that there were sensors that (after a HIGHLY successful science scan) appeared similar to taste-buds, and one of the guys said "Well, the right chemical stimulus should do it. Let's see, what do we have . . Is anyone bleeding?"
Naturally I thought that this was great, so I rewarded them with an open door. The creatures stopped attacking, leading one of the team to say "Uh . . guys, we're getting herded in here!" But the others ignored him and piled in.
By freak chance (heh, yeah, right!
) the first room they ended up in was the cell . . . and sure enough, the atmosphere was replaced with sleepy-bye gas, and they went out like lights!When they awoke, they were sans weapons and tools, so some ingenuity was required. I noted that they needed to get out, and one of the guys said "Well, blood worked before, so . . " and immediately dropped his dacks and urinated on the door. Such a hilarious moment! And if I hadn't allowed that to work, I'd be the evil GM from hell. And besides, I was itching to let them see the other things I'd cooked up!
(I justified it by saying that whoever had created this cell, they'd not designed it with humanoids in mind). So . . off they went. They rescued their colleagues, coming face to face with invisible monsters. And then they ended up in the room of discarded technology - whereupon the Ops officer informed us that he needed to go, or he'd miss the bus, and that was it for the session!
Now . . we have a wee bit of a problem.
The problem is that I have about 4 sessions of stuff, but I now have 2 sessions. We really need to bring this thing to a conclusion, and it should be satisfying.
So . .
I was thinking that next session the PCs should basically cobble together some kind of communicator and transport to the ship (i.e. miss out on all the other planet-bound business). And the ship should be unable to warp away (too much Hyperonic radiation?), and the process of swooping in and grabbing the away team should damage the ship somewhat. So whilst they repair it, they get herded into a cave in an asteroid, where they meet the derelict.
I was thinking that rather than some kind of telepathy, I could involve the Tamarians here. After a bit of searching, the crew finds some strange devices that appear to fit into a notch in the "dashboard" of the derelict starship. And the face of the mummified captain comes up on the screen, describing the situation . . . only the universal translator can't cope!
But suddenly a Tamarian's brow furrows . . . and he makes some adjustments with his tricorder. And out comes recognisable speech. But even then the speech doesn't make sense to the PCs. It's seemingly random words. . . .
(break between sessions . . .)
. . . But the Tamarian is excited - he understands! But in order to find the way out of the predicament, he must somehow get the message through to the crew. And it's going to require the tamarians desperately trying to describe in metaphor, and the PCs scratching their heads to understand.
As the PCs desperately try to make sense of the derelict pilot's last message, the forces of the PSC have discovered where they are. Just like you would not offer quarter to a virus, but you would merely exterminate it, the PSC ships are bombarding the asteroid where the Derelict (and the Tamworth, and the PCs) are hiding.
At the last possible moment, the final words are translated. The ancient pilot had discovered the way to escape the PSC (though he/she lacked the resources to actually do it). It is to . . .
. . . I dunno, something involving the personal sacrifice of the Tamarian Captain?
So in conclusion . . taking some of the key elements you and I have created and putting them into a hurriedly-finishing narrative!
Morkonan wrote:What really happened isn't as exciting. Putin flexed his left thigh during his morning ride on a flying bear, right after beating fifty Judo blackbelts, which he does upon rising every morning. (Not that Putin sleeps, it's just that he doesn't want to make others feel inadequate.)
Last night was AMAZING! 
The PCs were in the junk room. I had given it some thought, and since we're running low on time, I figured they'd need a little structure. So I outlined for them that they needed to get into contact with the Tamworth and get back there, but they were under extreme time pressure (cue arbitrary time limit theme, but nobody noticed. ).
I basically saw 4 options:
* Create some kind of transceiver to contact the ship. This was called "ET Phone home".
* Build a ground vehicle (a tank, basically) to get to the beam-out zone where the pattern enhancers were. This was called "Kelly's Revenge" [a nod to Kelly's Heroes, a movie much beloved of the crew].
* Build a shuttle to get back to the ship. This was called "Flight of the Phoenix."
* Make some kind of device to beam through the radiation to the ship. This was called "StarGate."
I steered them in these direction by pointedly noting that the junk pile contained a Starfleet comm badge, the chassis of some weird ground vehicle. a transporter pad and most of the hull of an ancient shuttle!
In one of those amazing Omniscient GM moments, as the guys discussed what they wanted to do (eventually settling on the transceiver and the ground vehicle), I handed them a card with the parts they needed to find on it (a little treknobabble there too!).
This led to some really good role playing - each one would roll dice on a "notice" roll, and would be told "Yes, you found it." One player commented that this was too easy, and he was right - if the "Notice" roll went badly, the result was "Succeed with penalty." The character had actually found a defective part, and of course the defect would become clear at an awkward moment! I'd also arranged in advance what the complication would be, and what skill would be needed to solve it. Again this led to some good RPing moments.
As the construction continued, one player asked if the vehicle was big enough for all of them. I said that the chassis was large, and could hold them all (albeit in an open-topped configuration). Another player chuckled and said "Well, unless this planet has somehow evolved brachiating predators that can come at us from above, we're fine!" I had to hide a smirk, because I knew what was coming next . . .
As the makeshift tank was completed, one character noted that the door wasn't responding to any attempts to open it. In what would have to have been the highlight of the night, one of the players found the A-Team theme on his phone, and played it loudly as he said "We gun the engines and PLUNGE STRAIGHT THROUGH THE DOOR!"
The "tank" then encountered a dragon-like creature! A few minutes of scrambling ensued, with the driver character driving like the blazes to escape and the tactical officer firing the only serviceable weapon (a hand phaser with an unknown number of shots) at the creature. The creature managed to melt one of the wheels on the tank; one more hit like this and they were done for. Then with a spectacular once-in-a-lifetime roll, the tactical officer hit the dragon between the eyes, and it crashed to the ground. They were able to reach the Pattern enhancers[1]!
The process of getting the away team onboard was suitably frenetic. And worse was to follow - as the Captain ordered "Warp 9, ENGAGE!" the engine finally sputtered and died. Oh no - it would take at least a Level 3 diagnostic (4 hours!) to take the warp engines offline and recalibrate them! To make matters worse, two Constructors (which the PCs have re-named "Space Potatoes of Doom") appeared.
Someone came up with the idea of setting a probe to emit hyperonic radiation, and I accepted that as a suitable distraction. It was enough time for the crew to find a suitable hollow in an asteroid, so the Captain ordered the Conn officer to take her in (backwards, so that we can get out in a hurry!).
In probably the funniest moment of the night, whilst the Tactical officer had had a once-in-a-lifetime GREAT roll to take out the dragon, the Conn Officer had a once-in-a-lifetime AWFUL roll to put the ship into the hollow. And he had no aspects to help him out[2]! Since it was more a funny moment than actual jeopardy, I declared that the Tamworth had ignominiously crunched into the walls. . .
It was then that the characters noticed the beacon from (you guessed it!) the derelict ship. Preparing the previous day, I had suddenly realised two things about the derelict's crew:
1) There was a race that had been mentioned in a TNG episode as being part of an eons-old war that we currently knew nothing about. These could easily be Menthars, from the Menthar/Promellian war referenced in Booby trap. This was an easy way to tie into the mythology without restricting my creativity - I mentioned that (in absence of any other information) Menthar ships were only known from Promellian documents and videos, and there was no known information about the appearance and language of this species. I provided the conceit that the derelict matched some of the known images of Menthar ships.
2) Since I didn't need to provide a picture, there was no reason for these creatures to be humanoid. So I based their appearance on the Pierson's Puppeteers found in Larry Niven's known-space series, albeit quadrupedal and with beaks rather than the finger-like mouthparts.
So the characters boarded the derelict (the Transporters wouldn't work, but one player commented that simply jetting across in environment suits would be fine, since the two ships were so close together . . "No thanks to the Conn officer!" he grinned. ).
After a lot of exploring (and with the bus time rapidly approaching!) the PCs managed to get power to the ship. The screen flickered to life, and after a few minutes of the Universal Translator getting a sense of the language, the first intelligible words of this ancient astronaut in millennia were uttered. . .
“[Insectoid animal] in a silk web. Srigartiz and G’firig in the besieged castle. R’gell’s army.”
As the PCs groaned "His language works like the Tamarians'!" the episode came to its end!!!!
A damn good time was had by all.
Now all I have to do is to tie all this together into a satisfying conclusion, in one episode . . . No pressure!
[1] Obviously this involved some GM cheating. The big hit would have grievously wounded the creature, but it was a big dragon after all, and would easily have had the hitpoints to survive it! So there were three reasons I went with it:
a) We aren't going to see a roll like that for some time, so it should be rewarded.
b) The A-Team theme was still blasting, and somehow a ridiculous feat of miraculous aiming seemed to be absolutely appropriate in the setting!
c) I was looking nervously at the clock - we had about an hour before at least one player had to get on his bus (the construction business having taken WAY longer than I was expecting), and I wanted to get to our endpoint before then!
[2] This player, a great friend of mine, has stolidly refused to put together aspects for his character. I thought this was a suitable moment for punishment.
The PCs were in the junk room. I had given it some thought, and since we're running low on time, I figured they'd need a little structure. So I outlined for them that they needed to get into contact with the Tamworth and get back there, but they were under extreme time pressure (cue arbitrary time limit theme, but nobody noticed.
). I basically saw 4 options:
* Create some kind of transceiver to contact the ship. This was called "ET Phone home".
* Build a ground vehicle (a tank, basically) to get to the beam-out zone where the pattern enhancers were. This was called "Kelly's Revenge" [a nod to Kelly's Heroes, a movie much beloved of the crew].
* Build a shuttle to get back to the ship. This was called "Flight of the Phoenix."
* Make some kind of device to beam through the radiation to the ship. This was called "StarGate."
I steered them in these direction by pointedly noting that the junk pile contained a Starfleet comm badge, the chassis of some weird ground vehicle. a transporter pad and most of the hull of an ancient shuttle!
In one of those amazing Omniscient GM moments, as the guys discussed what they wanted to do (eventually settling on the transceiver and the ground vehicle), I handed them a card with the parts they needed to find on it (a little treknobabble there too!).
This led to some really good role playing - each one would roll dice on a "notice" roll, and would be told "Yes, you found it." One player commented that this was too easy, and he was right - if the "Notice" roll went badly, the result was "Succeed with penalty." The character had actually found a defective part, and of course the defect would become clear at an awkward moment! I'd also arranged in advance what the complication would be, and what skill would be needed to solve it. Again this led to some good RPing moments.
As the construction continued, one player asked if the vehicle was big enough for all of them. I said that the chassis was large, and could hold them all (albeit in an open-topped configuration). Another player chuckled and said "Well, unless this planet has somehow evolved brachiating predators that can come at us from above, we're fine!" I had to hide a smirk, because I knew what was coming next . . .
As the makeshift tank was completed, one character noted that the door wasn't responding to any attempts to open it. In what would have to have been the highlight of the night, one of the players found the A-Team theme on his phone, and played it loudly as he said "We gun the engines and PLUNGE STRAIGHT THROUGH THE DOOR!"
The "tank" then encountered a dragon-like creature! A few minutes of scrambling ensued, with the driver character driving like the blazes to escape and the tactical officer firing the only serviceable weapon (a hand phaser with an unknown number of shots) at the creature. The creature managed to melt one of the wheels on the tank; one more hit like this and they were done for. Then with a spectacular once-in-a-lifetime roll, the tactical officer hit the dragon between the eyes, and it crashed to the ground. They were able to reach the Pattern enhancers[1]!
The process of getting the away team onboard was suitably frenetic. And worse was to follow - as the Captain ordered "Warp 9, ENGAGE!" the engine finally sputtered and died. Oh no - it would take at least a Level 3 diagnostic (4 hours!) to take the warp engines offline and recalibrate them! To make matters worse, two Constructors (which the PCs have re-named "Space Potatoes of Doom") appeared.
Someone came up with the idea of setting a probe to emit hyperonic radiation, and I accepted that as a suitable distraction. It was enough time for the crew to find a suitable hollow in an asteroid, so the Captain ordered the Conn officer to take her in (backwards, so that we can get out in a hurry!).
In probably the funniest moment of the night, whilst the Tactical officer had had a once-in-a-lifetime GREAT roll to take out the dragon, the Conn Officer had a once-in-a-lifetime AWFUL roll to put the ship into the hollow. And he had no aspects to help him out[2]! Since it was more a funny moment than actual jeopardy, I declared that the Tamworth had ignominiously crunched into the walls. . .
It was then that the characters noticed the beacon from (you guessed it!) the derelict ship. Preparing the previous day, I had suddenly realised two things about the derelict's crew:
1) There was a race that had been mentioned in a TNG episode as being part of an eons-old war that we currently knew nothing about. These could easily be Menthars, from the Menthar/Promellian war referenced in Booby trap. This was an easy way to tie into the mythology without restricting my creativity - I mentioned that (in absence of any other information) Menthar ships were only known from Promellian documents and videos, and there was no known information about the appearance and language of this species. I provided the conceit that the derelict matched some of the known images of Menthar ships.
2) Since I didn't need to provide a picture, there was no reason for these creatures to be humanoid. So I based their appearance on the Pierson's Puppeteers found in Larry Niven's known-space series, albeit quadrupedal and with beaks rather than the finger-like mouthparts.
So the characters boarded the derelict (the Transporters wouldn't work, but one player commented that simply jetting across in environment suits would be fine, since the two ships were so close together . . "No thanks to the Conn officer!" he grinned.
). After a lot of exploring (and with the bus time rapidly approaching!) the PCs managed to get power to the ship. The screen flickered to life, and after a few minutes of the Universal Translator getting a sense of the language, the first intelligible words of this ancient astronaut in millennia were uttered. . .
“[Insectoid animal] in a silk web. Srigartiz and G’firig in the besieged castle. R’gell’s army.”
As the PCs groaned "His language works like the Tamarians'!" the episode came to its end!!!!
A damn good time was had by all.
Now all I have to do is to tie all this together into a satisfying conclusion, in one episode . . . No pressure!
[1] Obviously this involved some GM cheating. The big hit would have grievously wounded the creature, but it was a big dragon after all, and would easily have had the hitpoints to survive it! So there were three reasons I went with it:
a) We aren't going to see a roll like that for some time, so it should be rewarded.
b) The A-Team theme was still blasting, and somehow a ridiculous feat of miraculous aiming seemed to be absolutely appropriate in the setting!
c) I was looking nervously at the clock - we had about an hour before at least one player had to get on his bus (the construction business having taken WAY longer than I was expecting), and I wanted to get to our endpoint before then!
[2] This player, a great friend of mine, has stolidly refused to put together aspects for his character. I thought this was a suitable moment for punishment.
Morkonan wrote:What really happened isn't as exciting. Putin flexed his left thigh during his morning ride on a flying bear, right after beating fifty Judo blackbelts, which he does upon rising every morning. (Not that Putin sleeps, it's just that he doesn't want to make others feel inadequate.)
Awesome stuff! I loved every bit of that and I too had images of "Flight of the Phoenix" (original), but also appreciate the industrious rebellion of "Kelly's Heroes."Usenko wrote:Last night was AMAZING!
This kind of focused sharing of "fun" is what it's all about.
Great job on the "dragon kill." That's what those moments are for. It's not about some cold modeling of an alternate reality that people make themselves part of, for a short time. That's like some weird pachinko machine, where it really doesn't matter what you do, the balls are going to fall where they will... Where's the fun in that? Yes, we do have to accept certain things, like most dice-rolls, but we can be slaved to them - Roleplaying is a human game, not a game of dice.
As a GM, anything randomly generated behind one's screen that isn't fun or doesn't add to the experience... didn't happen.Outstanding work! And, the proof is in your player's enjoyment. If they enjoyed the experience, then you did good. No matter my suggestions and ramblings, designed just to inspire, that's why it's you that's really doing the heavy-lifting!
Loved the "Space Potatoes of Doom." Friggin hilarious...
Also enjoyed the "The Booby Trap" reference. I didn't like a lot of TNG episodes, but I really enjoyed that one. "The Puppeteers" reference imagery was good, as well.And, this is the sort of rollercoaster situation that you can now take advantage of...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z18vJwmxFFY
They had a great time, a lot of laughs and some tense moments, but there's still that underlying confidence that provides stable ground from which to laugh. It's not the nervous laughter of the doomed, but the belly-laugh of the secure.
It's a nice setup for some tactical rug-pulling for your next session. They'll come into the room, sit down, ready to laugh at each other's hilarious hijinks, get into the session making jokes, and then... That's when you start ramping up the risk, increasing the pucker-factor, by revealing the truly dangerous waters they've been swimming in. Ignorance is bliss, right? But, instead of the jovial relaxation of another hours-long joke-making session, it's time for that cold, skin-crawling, hair-raising revelation that they're "not in Kansas, anymore."
It's "fun" to be scared in a secure environment where one can afford to imagine such risks. People often live their lives chasing after such stimulation. But, to have it revealed to you that the roller-coaster you've had so much fun with has the possibility of being the most murderous contraption at the amusement park - Well, that just made the ride that much more enjoyable in ways only that sort of threat can accomplish.
I look forward to your friends have a great time and laughing themselves silly, just as much as look forward to your friends screaming their heads off in "fear!"
I've been trying to figure out how to bring this all together.
A few thoughts:
* The logs from the Menthars are only of use in determining what has happened. The Tamarians can only get the barest sense of what is happening (and the Feds can't even make THAT much out of them). So they're stuck, until . . .
* . . . Ensign Lar, who we've already established as being a bit telepathic, finds a piece of technology which turns out to be the Menthar equivalent of a Vulcan Katric Ark. It's not exactly a ghost of the alien; more an imprint, some kind of psychic remains. Somehow Ensign Lar recognises the significance of the object, and offers to become a conduit.
* Ensign Lar now has a limited connection to the Menthar. He has access to a few feelings and thoughts, but mainly the thoughts that were on zher mind just before zhe died. In addition, those thoughts are entirely connected with the language. However, he is now understandable to the Tamarians, who can now at least put the Menthar's message into metaphors that the Feds can eventually interpret.
* Meanwhile the engineers are working on the Warp Drive. It's harder than expected. They have to solve another set of puzzles to get the Warp drive into operation (Note to self: Devise some entertaining puzzles).
* The long-dead Menthar gives the crew the key to the message - that the planet is indeed a computer. And they will learn that the way things worked for them was that the computer "digitised" one of them (like the insects "digitised" the doctor!), and pursued and ultimately destroyed the remainder of the crew, considering them a virus. However, when the crew ask "So how do we get out?" the Menthar responds with a sad "I don't know, we never did . . . "
* Now the warp engines are back on line. The ship eases its way out of the asteroid. But the radiation simply makes warp impossible - they have to leave the Asteroid field before they can warp away.
* When they try to get through the Asteroid Field, the crew are confronted with two Potatoes of Doom plus the SWEET POTATO OF DESTRUCTION (Dreadnaught). They must fight this.
* THey may be able to destroy one or both of the constructors, but the Dreadnaught is simply too powerful.
And HERE is where I'm stuck. I know that the next thing that should happen should be the Tamarian Captain making a brave sacrifice, but I'm not sure what.
I can't help thinking that some kind of meaningful communication with the Space computer is part of the answer - not "We get what eachother are" type communication (You've shown me this isn't desirable), but maybe "If I allow you to digitise me, will you allow the rest of the crew to get away?"
I WANT the Captain to speak to the crew at the climactic moment - IN ENGLISH. The last thing he does is to understand how the Feds speak!
Can you help me? Can you untwist this saga? Again, it has to finish this Wednesday night . . .
A few thoughts:
* The logs from the Menthars are only of use in determining what has happened. The Tamarians can only get the barest sense of what is happening (and the Feds can't even make THAT much out of them). So they're stuck, until . . .
* . . . Ensign Lar, who we've already established as being a bit telepathic, finds a piece of technology which turns out to be the Menthar equivalent of a Vulcan Katric Ark. It's not exactly a ghost of the alien; more an imprint, some kind of psychic remains. Somehow Ensign Lar recognises the significance of the object, and offers to become a conduit.
* Ensign Lar now has a limited connection to the Menthar. He has access to a few feelings and thoughts, but mainly the thoughts that were on zher mind just before zhe died. In addition, those thoughts are entirely connected with the language. However, he is now understandable to the Tamarians, who can now at least put the Menthar's message into metaphors that the Feds can eventually interpret.
* Meanwhile the engineers are working on the Warp Drive. It's harder than expected. They have to solve another set of puzzles to get the Warp drive into operation (Note to self: Devise some entertaining puzzles).
* The long-dead Menthar gives the crew the key to the message - that the planet is indeed a computer. And they will learn that the way things worked for them was that the computer "digitised" one of them (like the insects "digitised" the doctor!), and pursued and ultimately destroyed the remainder of the crew, considering them a virus. However, when the crew ask "So how do we get out?" the Menthar responds with a sad "I don't know, we never did . . . "
* Now the warp engines are back on line. The ship eases its way out of the asteroid. But the radiation simply makes warp impossible - they have to leave the Asteroid field before they can warp away.
* When they try to get through the Asteroid Field, the crew are confronted with two Potatoes of Doom plus the SWEET POTATO OF DESTRUCTION (Dreadnaught). They must fight this.
* THey may be able to destroy one or both of the constructors, but the Dreadnaught is simply too powerful.
And HERE is where I'm stuck. I know that the next thing that should happen should be the Tamarian Captain making a brave sacrifice, but I'm not sure what.
I can't help thinking that some kind of meaningful communication with the Space computer is part of the answer - not "We get what eachother are" type communication (You've shown me this isn't desirable), but maybe "If I allow you to digitise me, will you allow the rest of the crew to get away?"
I WANT the Captain to speak to the crew at the climactic moment - IN ENGLISH. The last thing he does is to understand how the Feds speak!
Can you help me? Can you untwist this saga? Again, it has to finish this Wednesday night . . .
Morkonan wrote:What really happened isn't as exciting. Putin flexed his left thigh during his morning ride on a flying bear, right after beating fifty Judo blackbelts, which he does upon rising every morning. (Not that Putin sleeps, it's just that he doesn't want to make others feel inadequate.)
Until they figure it out for themselves. (Of course I'll elaborate.Usenko wrote:I've been trying to figure out how to bring this all together.
A few thoughts:
* The logs from the Menthars are only of use in determining what has happened. The Tamarians can only get the barest sense of what is happening (and the Feds can't even make THAT much out of them). So they're stuck, until . . .
)OK, this can be a good mechanism, but one for "clues" they couldn't possible get, otherwise.* . . . Ensign Lar, who we've already established as being a bit telepathic, finds a piece of technology which turns out to be the Menthar equivalent of a Vulcan Katric Ark. It's not exactly a ghost of the alien; more an imprint, some kind of psychic remains. Somehow Ensign Lar recognises the significance of the object, and offers to become a conduit.
Good. Make it "personal." It's an intimate connection with an alien entity. He feels its needs, wants, and desires. He feels its desperation at the end. He feels its anger, its outrage, its hatred, its now single-minded drive, the only thing that has kept it tied to this place, the one thing that eventually trapped it. More..* Ensign Lar now has a limited connection to the Menthar. He has access to a few feelings and thoughts, but mainly the thoughts that were on zher mind just before zhe died. In addition, those thoughts are entirely connected with the language. However, he is now understandable to the Tamarians, who can now at least put the Menthar's message into metaphors that the Feds can eventually interpret.
Got a Rubik's Cube?* Meanwhile the engineers are working on the Warp Drive. It's harder than expected. They have to solve another set of puzzles to get the Warp drive into operation (Note to self: Devise some entertaining puzzles).
Horeshoe puzzles? Tri-D chess set? Jenga! (A Jenga tower would be cool and the players would have to pull out xx pieces or something. Since it gets progressively more difficult as time goes by, it seems like it'd be a really cool simulation.) Or, it will insist on things that can only be associated with a computer.* The long-dead Menthar gives the crew the key to the message - that the planet is indeed a computer.
Imprisonment. Rage. Hatred. Revenge.* THey may be able to destroy one or both of the constructors, but the Dreadnaught is simply too powerful.
Oh yes... This is gonna be good!
No, you're fine. This is gonna be good.And HERE is where I'm stuck. I know that the next thing that should happen should be the Tamarian Captain making a brave sacrifice, but I'm not sure what.
No. Yes. What you're going to have is a "sort of communication." What's the important part of "communication?" Understanding, comprehension, a deeper knowledge, perhaps of motivations, mores, a glimpse of someone's true self.I can't help thinking that some kind of meaningful communication with the Space computer is part of the answer - not "We get what eachother are" type communication (You've shown me this isn't desirable), but maybe "If I allow you to digitise me, will you allow the rest of the crew to get away?"
Emotion is the spice of life. Good, bad, whatever, it's what makes us human and it's one of the strongest qualities of the original Star Trek. It was everywhere and it wasn't complicated crap. It was never nuanced, hidden in the folds of some complex "alien" relationships. It was raw and you're going to touch it! Dis gonna be gud...
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No problem, we got this thing!I WANT the Captain to speak to the crew at the climactic moment - IN ENGLISH. The last thing he does is to understand how the Feds speak!
Can you help me? Can you untwist this saga? Again, it has to finish this Wednesday night . . .
OK, you'll have to pencil in a few details, but here's how this thing works:
The alien spirit thingie, henceforth referred to as "the alien" - Here's what happened. The alien was the crewmember responsible for the alien ship's computer systems. He's the equivalent of whatever the Fed has as the "tech" that does all the "hands on" work with the inner-workings of the ship's computer. This is important - You have to set that up. IF you don't have a player who's classification is exactly that, so the players can understand what this alien was primarily concerned with, then you have to invent it. (Checkov's Shotgun) So, for instance, if you can't give the players an exact job description based upon their own jobs, then what you do is have one of the player's with whatever supervisory role they have in this regard receive a communication from a crewmember with such a similar job that it's an unmistakable corellary for what this alien did on board its own ship when they finally get to communicate with it.
ie: "Sir, Senior Systems Comp-Tech Anderson reports that five logic circuits have been completely fried in the last incident. He's attempting to re-route logic pathways, but he's having to reprogram AI routines and that will take xx hours. He's already been working for twenty hours straight, could you possibly help him out or assign another systems analyst to assist him?"
OK, he's a basement-loving-technogeek with an obsessive interest that lives his life on a computer screen and that's the picture you're painting. Why? Because what you tell the player(s) about this minor incident, shoved into all the other crap they're having to repair, will directly effect how they view "the alien" when it's revealed. And, they will know everything they need to know about the sort of personality and interests this alien had just by that short little blurb about their own comp-tech-analyst.
The alien had the same job, so it must be just like Comp-Tech-Analyst-Geek Anderson, right?
So, the alien discovered something while the ship was falling down around him and his crew. He "figured it all out." His senior officers wouldn't listen to him and thought he was just geeking out over nothing and that made him angrily redouble his efforts to find proof.
Well, he found it... He delved too greedily and too deep.
In his zeal to prove that he was right, that the entire system was one giant computer, he exposed the ship's computer to it. It "hacked" the ship, or started to. There were no independent physical systems it could use and, as we have seen, this computer is really big on using physical sorts of things for all sorts of calculations.In absence of taking over a service-bot, it created a "construct" as you suggest; A simulation of this alien, since that is what it first encountered that was remotely like some sort of "bot." The alien desperately tried to stop the simulation, but that simulation, using the alien ship's far more advanced systems, killed the entire crew and disabled the ship, itself. At the last, it killed the alien, but not before he became so obsessed, so enraged, that he left some sort of psychic impression or, ghost, if you will, but one that was intimately tied with the last remnants of the simulation, now bereft of any direction from the System Computer and easily subverted to act as a "host" for this psychic ghostie alien. (I like the ghostie idea of this, but if you don't, you can easily make the simulation of such an exact copy of the alien that it copied his rage, his anger, everything of any emotional quality he had. Either way, treat it as "a ghost."
OK, so the psychic player gets this. Or, rather, does the same thing the alien did and somehow "exposes himself" to being a conduit for this alien thing. He's doing something that requires intense concentration, delves too greedily, too deep, and whamo - He's got a direct person-to-alien call to an obsessed alien spirit.
This spirit has two major themes:
1) "What's the answer? What's the question? Input, input, input, where is it, what is it? IO IO IO IO, that's the rules! What are the rules, why are there rules? WHAT IS THE QUESTION?" etc.. It's almost unbearable, this alien's obsession. It keeps along these lines, but only as far as is necessary for you to communicate, finally, that this alien isn't talking about its own ship's computer systems, it's talking about the entire planetary system. Things like "It's looking for an answer! AN ANSWER AN ANSWER!" and "TERRORS! THEY BUILT IT! THEY BUILT IT! THE POWER!"
IF they still can't "get it", the psychic player, with ques from his connection with this alien entity, uncovers a diagram stored in what appears to be the alien's personal log.
This is the fun bit of creativity for you - You get to draw out the system. Use "Paint" or whatever you have access to so you can make this final visual aid. An aid that requires interpretation, but is obvious. Make it simple "line art." Ideally, if you have a Flow Chart program (IIRC, Office should still have that in it, but I haven't used it in a long time and I used a separate program for that, normally) then that would be the most wonderful, most striking "reveal" you could to in order to nail this idea firmly into the player's heads.
Here's a symbol chart and their definitions: Flowchart defs. Take a line-art map of the solar system, show the routes of the data-packets (small asteroids in sequences representing a sort of binary/trinary? code heading to a destination point), show the planets that feed information into the main CPU (decision point, the main terrestrial planet) paste a bunch of overlapping things "on" the diagram of that planet, showing that it "does lots of stuffs" and then connect various planets, large asteroids and the like, with lines that go back and forth all over the place. BUT, the obvious outlier in all of this diagram is that there is one major flow all to one point - The non-rotational (sort of important) black hole orbiting offset of the ecliptic, quite a distance out.
With that complex diagram overlayed on a simple representation of the entire solar-system, the players couldn't help but to finally understand wtf is going on, here.
Also, make it obvious that there are various copies of this stored in the alien's personal log, many of them obvious as failed attempts to describe the system. Hundreds of them... Some with bold, aggressive, writing on them, some "scratched out", angrily, it appears... This alien was obsessed with trying to diagram this system and with trying to understand it.
2) Imprisonment, anger, rage... a desire for revenge. This alien entity, or its simulacrum, has been "imprisoned" here for thousands of years. A part of it, the part that was first created by the System Computer, may even feel abandoned. After all, it's now "conscious" with the addition of this alien spirit, so that feeling would be natural, right? But, no matter what, the player knows one thing - The alien is consumed with a desire for revenge, revenge against its tormentor and revenge against the thing that drove it into obsession, an obsession that eventually trapped it and, perhaps, finally drew it into madness..
OK, alien set up, final "clue" set up, if your players have just been too darn dense so far
and the stage is set for your "Heroic Sacrifice" as well as solving your final "Irresistible Force Meets Immovable Object Problem." Now we get to the Captain's Sacrifice, Redemption of the Alien Spirit, Destruction of the Death Star Potato!
At this stage, a number of things will have happened and will be understood by the players.
1) The alien entity, its obsession, its desire for revenge, its previous impotence and frustration at not being able to get revenge, since it was trapped in a low-power state for thousands of years, and something you have mentioned earlier - The affinity that the Tamarians and this alien species have with similar language construction.
2) A terrible battle is taking place or is about to take place. The players now see these space-potatos as something like an "anti-virus." Whatever their purpose, and they may have had clues from the "diagram" you handed them (space-potato=anti-virus/firewall), they know now that the system has decided to send a really, really, nasty anti-virus packet against them. They're going to get ddos'ed, permanently... They're ready to fight, as much as they can be, but the big potato is going to destroy them and there's no way out.
The Tamarin Captain expresses his resolution to die. He is ready, despite the players insisting that they want to live. The Tamarin captain waxes eloquently about the fullness of his life, the things he has seen, his experiences, his love for his crew, the players as his newfound friends, his confidence that Tamarins and Feds can learn much from each other and can work peacefully together, etc... blah blah.
He is also very interested in this "alien" entity. He questions the psychic crewmember about it, constantly. His interest is, supposedly, because their languages are so similar. He seems to be asking questions about its culture, its society, what it felt, what it may still feel, etc.. Obviously, a language like the Tamarin's requires a great deal of empathy. Tamarins have to understand, at least in part, what the other speaker is feeling, what they know, what their motivations may be and how they have interpreted shared events so that new allegories about these events can be fully understood.
This is, after all, why the Federation wanted a joint-mission with the Tamarins and why the Tamarins, themselves, felt it was important. "Mutual understanding" between both species was always the goal. The crew had to eventually empathize with the Tamarins, and they in turn, before the two different cultures could work together, peacefully.
The Tamarin Captain's interest in what this entity "feels" is your denouement for the Player's final, true, mission goals being realized. Even if they die, they succeeded in accomplishing the underlying meaning behind their true mission.
Tamarins are naturally empathic, at least with their own people. Or... people that think like they do.
Now, it's your choice -
You see, because Tamarins share similar languages, because they "think" in similar ways, a Tamarin is an excellent analogue for "the alien's mind." Because of that, the Tamarin Captain will willingly act as the new "host" for this alien presence, finally empowering it to enact its revenge upon the thing that imprisoned it, so many thousands of years ago...
On his own, the Tamarin Captain sneaks into the alien ship and "makes a bargain with Death" by allowing himself to act as the "new simulacrum" for the alien. He contacts the crew, under great strain, and tells them that he is now the host of the alien, and is barely able to control its anger. But, there is now a way to give this thing peace, which is really what he wants to do, and to save the ship, which is also what he wants to do.
Because either the alien ship is so small or because the Tamarin Captain has made his way to a sort of "escape pod", the player's ship can use a Tractor Beam to tug the Tamarind and his "passenger entity" along. And, that's part of the plan.
The Plan: Somehow, the players will have to fight their way through the two space-potatoes. They will have to destroy or disable them. They think that this "might" be possible, but it will be an "iffy thing" at best. The real threat is the giant Death-Star-Potato and they have no way to deal with that. BUT, the Tamarin Captain, thanks to the quarrelsome, vengeful, alien-computer-tech-specialist, can deal with it!
If they can get the Tamarin Captain, in the remnants of that old alien ship (ideally) or in the alien escape pod, close enough, the alien entity, through the body of the Tamarind Captain, will be able to hack into the systems of the DS-Potato and take control of it. (Doing so is still doom for the alien entity and the Tamarin Captain, as the latter will be destroyed in the final confrontation and the former will end up destroyed as well.)
So, the player's successfully manage to jury-rig their tractor beam to drag along the Tamarin Captain in hopes of getting close enough so he can hack the DSP. They fight past the two other potatoes, having to ensure their tractored passenger wasn't destroyed in the process, and finally get in range of the DSP. Except... they need to get the Tamarin closer. Closer... Closer...
"It was always to be this way."
You see, the Tamarin Captain, through his tortured link to the alien entity, knew that just "getting closer" to the DSP wouldn't be enough. The alien entity had to make contact with the DSP. This tortured alien soul... had to touch the face of its creator.
As he gets closer, the pain becomes greater and his struggle to contain the raging, vengeful, alien entity becomes almost unbearable. (Roll dice along the way, telling the players that the Tamarin is fighting to retain control for long enough, until he gets within "range" of the DSP.)
The DPS is shooting "ZOMGZ @$%@$%-OFF LAZOR MK-XV's" at the players all the way. They take some nasty hits, lose systems, manage to understand that it doesn't matter if they do any damage, since they really can't hurt this thing, it only matters that they get the Tamarin Captain what they think is "close enough."
The Tamarin Captain gives his "final speech", under obvious duress from the alien entity. As the speech progresses, there are moments when it's obvious that the rage from the alien entity is beginning to take over. The desire for vengeance is interspersed with an eloquent rendition of whatever speech you wish to give.
"Faster, faster, faster...":The Tamarin Captain urges them to build up speed. He starts to lose control and more and more of the alien entity is beginning to come through. This is dangerous, since the entity is obviously insane and nobody knows what it will do if it gains full control of the Tamarin.
Finally, the Tamarin Captain orders the players to bank hard, away from the DSP, while disengaging the tractor beam. This will propel the Tamarin right into the DSP's hull, killing him instantly. But, it's then that he assures them it's the only way - He's always known that the alien entity must have physical contact with the DSP in order to overwhelm its systems and to hack its way into its controls.
Once the alien entity has control of the DSP, and you can play this out a bit, getting the players to roll fake rolls at several "hacking" stages, like "finding an open port, slipping through a firewall, searching for a critical system that is vulnerable, picking one of several systems to target, failing and moving to a different system, finally getting through and weaseling its way into the main CPU logic, etc.. "
Once that happens, the players are home-free. The alien-entity will go on a rampage, destroying the nearest System Computer asset and then moving on, becoming the "fart in the elevator" that the Computer can not ignore.
Of course, no tale would be complete without "bigger, better, and more dangerous - "JAWS 8: The Revenge of the Even Scarier Shark."
The Computer System unleashes "real power" now. Not this namby-pamby crap with "space potatoes." The players detect awe-inspiring disturbances in the system's star. It's power, but a frightening abuse of it at a scale they wouldn't have otherwise thought imaginable.
The system's star... blinks ... and the valiant, but insane, alien entity along with its hijacked Death-Star-Potato, rampaging around, is instantly vaporized by the full power of the system's star turned against it.
It's a sort of "Big-Badda-Boom" finale.
Afterwords, the system appears to return to normal. Whatever controlling intelligence that was awakened has finally gone back to its nap and the system daydreams on, sending little packets of processed info, meaning who-knows-what to who-knows-who, into their final repository, inside a small black hole on the outskirts of the system.
The players can now limp home. Or, if they wish, they can tool around the system and hope it doesn't wake up again... I think they'll choose the former, don't you?
So, how's that? Does it wind up all the balls of string? Does it give you "the moments" you were looking for? Enough emotional bits, here and there, to give you a nice setup for "the speech" and for some interesting emotional elements with "the alien" and its situation? A suitable way to overcome a seemingly impossible foe with a valiant sacrifice?
If, in my enthusiasm, I've missed anything, let me know and I'll straighten it out.
A parting line, if I may be so presumptuous:
As the Tamarind Captain rushes headlong into a squishy fate against the hull of the DSP, the subject of "why" might come up.
Either the players will ask the NPC why he is sacrificing himself or he, himself, will tell them. If the latter, which is probably the way it will go, then..
"For Tamarind and Federation at <system name>."
Hearken back to "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra", there. It's a good flourish to cap off the theme of the mission and to note its success.
Just a thought and I had to come back and post it.
As the Tamarind Captain rushes headlong into a squishy fate against the hull of the DSP, the subject of "why" might come up.
Either the players will ask the NPC why he is sacrificing himself or he, himself, will tell them. If the latter, which is probably the way it will go, then..
"For Tamarind and Federation at <system name>."
Hearken back to "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra", there. It's a good flourish to cap off the theme of the mission and to note its success.
Just a thought and I had to come back and post it.
THAT'S IT!
When the Tarmian Captain is on his way to the heroic sacrifice, one of the Tamarians laments "Hamlet! Holding Yorick's Skull!"
Hopefully one of the PCs will pick it up and say something like "I'd also like to know why."
And then he drops his one liner - "For Tama and the Federation at Zeta Tau IV."
It's perfect - it's a phrase that works in both languages!
When the Tarmian Captain is on his way to the heroic sacrifice, one of the Tamarians laments "Hamlet! Holding Yorick's Skull!"
Hopefully one of the PCs will pick it up and say something like "I'd also like to know why."
And then he drops his one liner - "For Tama and the Federation at Zeta Tau IV."
It's perfect - it's a phrase that works in both languages!
Morkonan wrote:What really happened isn't as exciting. Putin flexed his left thigh during his morning ride on a flying bear, right after beating fifty Judo blackbelts, which he does upon rising every morning. (Not that Putin sleeps, it's just that he doesn't want to make others feel inadequate.)
It's your version of "And they lived happily ever after."Usenko wrote:...It's perfect - it's a phrase that works in both languages!
It might make it even more personal, and be a bit closer to the original inspiration, if he, instead, says "For <shipname> and <shipname> at <systemname>." I'm not sure. Roll it around on your tongue, see how deep it strikes a chord. Whichever phrase is most capable of creating the most emotional impact on your players, judged by how it effects you, is the one you should go with.
On the creative process:
Over the course of several of these discussions, you might notice a few different themes that I seem to get "stuck on." So, in some topics where suggestions have been offered, they may appear to gravitate towards certain sorts of ideas, sometimes repetitively, applying them to different situations with abandon.
When you think of something that would be "cool", you naturally want it in your "story", right? So, you chase that idea and keep trying to grab that square peg and force it into whatever hole appears. If there isn't one, you engineer one and see if it fits. Eventually, after many sessions of trial and error, it finds its place. And, delightfully, it's not always a place you've prepared for it, but one that evolves and presents itself, on its own.
Stories aren't usually developed in a linear fashion. They can be, of course, but they're a lot like movies. Bits and pieces come together that don't obey a particular timeline. While creating a story, a great idea for something that develops later can come to light and insist that it be included. So, what do you do? You start creating the scaffolding to support that great idea and you lead your story in its direction.
When constructing a story, the ending should come first. (In my opinion.) Why? Well, why leave the ending up to chance or, as some say, "wherever the story takes me?" Sure, some stories evolve on their own and take their creators for a delightful ride. There's nothing wrong with that, really, but it's certainly a heck of a lot easier to get where you want to go if you already know where it is that you're going.
Artificial Intelligence is a scary thing.
The galaxy is filled with stuff that is more powerful than anything one can imagine. We're not naturally equipped to understand power any further than a spear-point.
A last desperate battle. Especially one that "pops" with beat after beat.
(One of the best examples of this sort of thing, for this setting, can be found in some of Tom Clancy's books, especially "Red Storm Rising" and "The Hunt for Red October." If you haven't read either, read Red Storm Rising to get a taste of how "battle" themes should be applied to your Star Trek play sessions, in my opinion.)
Revelation of the truth in a startling manner, but without giving it to the players on a platter. (They have to work for it and/or it has to seem as if the revelation evolves naturally in the story.)
The forlorn remains of an ancient explorer one can empathize with and that foreshadows the possible fate of the players, should they fail. (HAD to be in it, somewhere, else what's the point? We know the players won't "fail", so they have to experience that possibility in other ways, right?)
The preservation of the enigma as a natural force, one that is too mysterious to understand, one that is aloof and above mere mortal concerns, and one that may, or may not, be benevolent. Ultimately, this "force" retains its power over the story and in the future, as part of the player's recollection of the setting they're in, because it remains untouchable and mysterious. (Not showing the full body of the monster means the monster remains just that much more malevolent and terrifying.)
An entity, a ghost, an alien spirit, something truly alien in so many ways, but one that the players can empathize or identify with. Another purpose, besides the foreshadowing above, is to introduce even more of an air of mystery and wonder, partly supernatural, to flavor the experience. And, it raises questions that can't be answered, not for any value of a particular answer, but for the precise value of the question, itself.
Every player is "the most important player" at some time. Ideally, by the end, every player contributes something to the group's success that only they could have brought.
Certainly, these were constant themes behind many of my suggestions. They were bones that I insisted on chewing.
And, with collaborative effort, they've come together nicely with your own to create a good experience and a good story. It has a good beginning, a good middle and a great "blockbuster" ending, don't you think?Nicely done!
Oh, and it's not finished... The hard part is now left up to you. You have to actually make it work!
Reminder: Get that graphic done or printed out, just in case you need it. If you had more time, a great way to present it would be with two clear-sheet overlays, the sort of things that used to be used with overhead projectors. I suggest this old-tech only because it's "tangible" and you can put it in the player's hands so they can "feel it." Eventually, they'd turn them every-which-way and finally figure out that if they turned them a specific way and put them on top of each other, the diagram of the system would match up with specific points/processes on the flow-chart. The act of doing so, itself, is similar to "unlocking" secrets in that they figure out a "puzzle" they've been handed. Printing out overlays used to be easy, back in the day. It's even easier, today, with a home printer and custom overlay stock from an office-supply store. Just a thought, since these pages could represent separate "journal entries" in the alien's personal log that the empathic player discovers. You could even print out "gibberish" that has been scratched out/scrawled over, so the players immediately understand these are "cast off" thoughts from a mind that may have been slowly breaking apart...