Why ST:XI is good for ST role playing

[finarvyn]

(Spoiler if you haven't seen the ST:XI movie)

I had an interesting thought about ST:XI. One thing that folks seem to dislike the most is the fact that some of the details of TOS get changed in the movie. All "alternate timeline" issues aside, I think that this is good for role playing.

In a RPG based on an intellectual property (book, movie, computer game, whatever...) one of the biggest issues is always how close to the storyline the RPG plotline should be. If you're plaing in a Star Wars universe, are the players supposed to go rescue the princess and destroy the Death Star, or are they supposed to ignore those plot elements altogether and do their own thing far, far, away from the central action.

If they are encouraged to go far, far away there might be a feeling of disconnect. It's Star Wars, but not really since we might never actually encounter any of the characters we've heard of before.

If they are encouraged to follow the storyline, there might be a feeling of railroading players through a linear adventure. Except that ST:XI shows how this might not be the case at all. The characters are familiar, then suddenly ... BAM! ... the planet Vulcan gets destroyed. Events like this might trouble a viewer of a series or movie, but they add spice to the role playing campaign. If Vulcan is toast, what could be next? Suddenly there aren't any promises that good will triumph over evil, that the players could mess up and things would work out just fine. Maybe we end up with a "Dark Federation" or a galaxy torn apart by war. Maybe other bad things can really mess up a good campaign if the players don't step in and get things done in a hurry. This can be a great thing.

Anyway, that's my thought and just one guy's opinion. ;D

[aramis]

The most important advice I've ever seen in a licensed game is that, from the moment you start the campaign, the timeline is no longer to be enforced if it interrupts the players.

The Second Most Important is to not overdo but neither to leave out the iconic characters. If you're in Kirk's time, Kirk needs to be out there. Tossing in Adm Nogura or Comm. Stocker is a better tie-in than Kirk, except for when Kirk is in Starfleet Operations. Having a PC cleared for duty despite some aberrant personality trait by Adm. McCoy is a fine bit of tie in, as is having studied under Captain Scott at Star Fleet Academy in a missing years game.

No RPG should ever be about replaying the main storyline - players will diverge unless the railroad is hot-n-heavy. (Hence the poor reviews of the Star Frontiers 2001 modules... and the whole of the Dragonlance Modules.)

I've run FASA Trek, Prime Directive 1E, LUG Trek TNG, D-Trek, The Babylon Project, Robotech, TMNT, MERP, James Bond 007, Judge Dredd, MSH/AMSH, Saga Marvel... And those two elements have made a huge success out of most of them. (The rules got in the way badly for Robotech, TMNT, and James Bond.)

[Falconer]

I agree wholeheartedly, guys. I don’t much care for ST:XI the movie, but I think it overall is a GREAT thing. It said, “Don’t worry about being a slave to a ton of Star Trek Universe Canon. Star Trek is a simple story about a Captain, a Vulcan, and a Ship.” (It should also be about exploration rather than explosions, but, never mind.)

I am absolutely a believer in alternate timelines for a RPG. I’ve said before that if I ran a really serious, long-term Middle-earth campaign, it would START with the death of Frodo and Aragorn. You still get to interact with plenty of NPCs, but those two IMO had too much destiny tied around their neck, that in order for the PCs to carve out a central role for themselves, Frodo and Aragorn have got to go.

I have posited one idea on how to do a Star Trek alternate timeline:

Feb 14, 2010 22:56:56 GMT -5 Falconer said:

Yeah, basically. One approach is to pick a point of divergence, say the end of TOS Season 3, and continue the story in a direction in which “anything can happen”. For example, Kirk could die, and “TMP” never “happens”. What I have in mind is going back even further and saying my point of divergence is somewhere in the middle of The Cage. Pike leaves Starfleet and goes off to become the Warlord of Orion; Number One becomes Captain for Enterprise Five Year Mission—which means Kirk never does; she never enters the galactic barrier, so Mitchell never mutates... Something like that. But that’s just an example. It would be up to the players to pick their characters and recast them in new roles.

[aramis]

Frodo and Aragorn don't have to go - you just have to have them do their stuff off-screen. The new Tolkien based RPG puts the game setting in between The Hobbit and LOTR... and from Rivendel to the Iron Mountains.

Bilbo is back in the shire and Elrond still in Rivendell to be potential patrons, Aragorn, Frodo, Merry, Pippin, Fatty, and Sam are kids, and not even until several years, since none of them was over 40 in LOTR, Gandalf is off being Gandalf, Most of the Humans in LOTR aren't even born yet, save maybe Wormtongue and Prince Theoden, and even then, the Humans are all off the map to the East, save for Aragorn (who is born during this time frame and raised off the north of the Map, at least for a while), and the Hobbits are all in the Shire...

It's a 50 year 600x1000mile window... and they can make a difference in that window.

As long as the PC's don't kill any of the few in the setting area (which, you'll note, is all east of Bree and the Shire; those two are off the west edge of the map by a couple days),

[Falconer]

I’m not saying that way of doing it is wrong, just saying there is another way, which allows you to tell big stories without worrying about staying within a proscribed area and timeframe for the sake of maintaining continuity.

FYI, Aragorn is 88 years old in LotR. Frodo is 50.

To bring it back to Trek, I would love to come up with alternate stories involving Khan and his Supermen, for example. You just can’t do that if your hands are tied by Space Seed and The Wrath of Khan.

[aramis]

Mar 5, 2012 1:43:42 GMT -5 Falconer said:

To bring it back to Trek, I would love to come up with alternate stories involving Khan and his Supermen, for example. You just can’t do that if your hands are tied by Space Seed and The Wrath of Khan.

One can easily do such with a second sleeper ship. Perhaps even better, as whichever accents the GM can do will be workable, and Khan wasn't the only genetic modded warrior, but yeah, one can do the alternate route, even without removing Kirk, simply by setting the timeframe pre ST:TWOK and going alternate from there.