TOS Klingon campaign

[c57d]

A few years ago I prompted a discussion both here and on Trek BBS about what a strictly TOS Klingon campaign would look like. Using "Errand of Mercy", "Trouble with Tribbles" & "Day of the Dove" as my source material.
These show a more sympathetic side to them, although also warlike, amoral, fanatically pragmatic and driven to suceed.
And, far, far more Human than we could expect (thank you Starcruiser for your excellent thoughts around this!).
I have wanted, for ages, to write up a campaign background, which has unfortunately stalled several times due to RL. But now I have finallly started.
So far I have written up Klingon history (such as it isn't!) and society.
Also a list of Branch skills (for the FASA game)
I next plan to create and write up PC & NPC creation rules for three servant races (one simple primitive warlike race who is only too pleased to fight as Marines for the "Sky Gods", and two more high tech intelligent ones who fill roles which are a bit beneath Klingon dignity, but are needed - Medical, Sciences, Engineering etc).
Then a Users Manual for the D7 (which is what the PC's ship will be).
Anyway, enough for now - I will update as I go.

[Jack Photon]

Congrats on getting the rust out of the ol' gears. I know the feeling!

My only notion would be that Mara as Chief Sci, to me, conveyed a certain passion for her work as viewed in the statement on there being poor worlds in the empire. She, presumably entered sciences to help find solutions. Similarly, Scotty says the Klingons could be involved in scientific research on Neural. Going to TAS, it is "Klingon scientists" who create the Glommer.

While we never specifically saw a Klingon engineer as such (maybe TAS, Time Trap, sort of...), I never got the feeling that certain tasks were beneath any of them -whereas folks like the Troyians are clearly caste-based with engineering being for menials and warriors at the top. I never got a caste or strata vibe from Klingons. Personally, I'd be more likely to infer strata from the Romulans given their Imperial Rome leanings, Praetors, Centurions, duty, honorable suicide in defeat and such. Klingons with their USSR atmosphere pull the strengths from commoners and well born to achieve the best for the empire. Philosophically, anyways.

Look forward to your future notes and best wishes on success!

[blackbat242]

Just remember... FASA Klingons are the Klingons of John M. Ford's The Final Reflection.

[c57d]

Totally agree. JMF's Final Reflection and FASA's co-written Klingon supplement are my favourite of alltime Star Trek books. I wrote and GM'd a two year campaign with them back in the day.
However (deep breath) I no longer find them as true to a purely TOS Klingon campaign as I once did. Still a great take on Klingons, but no longer ticking all the boxes for me.
I can't even put it into words, but it just doesn't feel right for my purposes.
I am by no means trying to criticise their creative talent, but am just writing another version for an inhouse campaign.
Heresy probaby, and Ymmv

[Jack Photon]

My only familiarity with Ford's work is thru FASA, having never read the book.

Similarly, we never had access to Klingons back-when, so I am entirely new to them 40yrs later as I attempt to reconcile 1st/2nd edition klingons as squared with TOS. Even so, I suspect Ford went with movie klingons and not TV? For pure TOS mind-set, the movies must be regarded as ancillary reference, drawing from as needed to plug holes.

[c57d]

Sept 23, 2023 3:11:41 GMT -5 Jack Photon said:

My only familiarity with Ford's work is thru FASA, having never read the book.

Similarly, we never had access to Klingons back-when, so I am entirely new to them 40yrs later as I attempt to reconcile 1st/2nd edition klingons as squared with TOS. Even so, I suspect Ford went with movie klingons and not TV? For pure TOS mind-set, the movies must be regarded as ancillary reference, drawing from as needed to plug holes.

Totally agree.
In my mind the big divide is around order.
TOS Klingons are ordered, disciplined,and stoic. Society is built around surveillance, duty, building the Empire, the individual is just one tiny cog in the whole monolithic mechanism.
TMP onward Klingons are, increasingly all about using intersocietal violence to gain personal position, power and honour. And I do think that TFR can certainly be interpreted in this way.
Also, just look at the Klingon scene at the start of TMP. You are facing a AU wide highly advanced entity, what do you do - fire torpedos at it? Really?
TOS Klingons would be investigating and calling ahead to warn the nearest base and colony worlds.
TMP (onward) Klingons are too stupid to build and maintain a viable empire. TOS Klingons are too intelligent not to build and maintain a viable empire
As I stated, up thread, this is no criticism of FASA Klingons, or TFR, both of which I hold in the highest regard. It is just another way, arising from my personal interpretation of the source material.

[Jack Photon]

I was never happy that the Klingons stole/were given so much of the Romulan qualities going into the movies and TNG.

TOS Klingons are savage, opportunistic, cruel, "Four thousand throats may be cut in one night by a running man."  They enslave "entire planets in forced labor camps" per Kirk, Errand while executing leaders and thinkers and mass-executions as retribution.  

Mara is likely the victim of reverse-propaganda when she warns of the Federation's "atrocities; their death camps; They will torture us for our scientific and military information." 

Klingons are poor. They are desperate. Klingons take what they can by might and revel in the glory of battle, win or lose, live or die per Capella's klingon and Kor.  Klingons are subversive, turning friend against friend such as on planet Neural.

TOS Romulans speak to power plays, political posturing, the Roman angle yields them the honor that the TNG Klingons grabbed (while TNG Romulans became snidely more than anything with apparent infighting all over the place going into the movies).

It's a melange, though. Tony Todd's Klingon, the bar fighting, TNG drinking scenes and such feel very TOS Klingon. Rowdy bruisers bashing beers pumping up for battle. Here again though my mind casts to soviet-era real world references even as far back as Battleship Potemkin (the movie, not the starship). I could easily see Tarkovsky's Solaris done with Klingons. That'd even be a good solo PC game or small group of 2 or 3 PCs.

I don't think Solaris would work for Romulans. Romulans would get confounded and angry I think. It's the Romulans who would torpedo the V'Ger cloud!

As to those TNG bar room klingon scenes, I would not see any Romulans like any of that -despite the Romulan fire that burns deep in each of their warrior hearts. For Romulans back then I went Rome and Japan. I think a lot of folks got the Samurai vibe from Lenard and Linville. 

The quiet dignity of stoicism in the face of pain belongs to the Romulans while Klingons are more practical -in sofar as they believe the weak should die and only the strong should live; organizing planets into slave labor, etc.  "And I saw fear in the Klingons eye." I don't think you'd see fear in a Romulan's eye.

While Mirror Mirror is not an exact match for Klingons, I think the overall policy shown is, especially regarding the Halkans and Lt Kyle and Chekov.  "Terror must be maintained or the Empire is doomed."  Indeed, we see the portable agonizer used on Chekov in Dove and the full agonizer booth in Mirror. Poor bastard chekov is in both universes!  I would here posit that the Agony booth is standard issue on the likes of a TOS D-7, if not for internal discipline but also captives.

As to Mirror's destroy and dominate policy, as soon as one race realizes they can resist, more will.  Klingons require total media propaganda all the time, total domination and control.  

Planetary bombardment would be the klingon courtesy call right before the ground assaults. "We will level your planet and take what we want.  That is destruction."

Klingons are definitely on the lawful evil side of things.  Terran Empire has descended into Chaotic Evil.  Romulans are maybe on the Neutral Evil side, prizing personal advancement within the lawful state as Decius's secret transmission jeopardizes the mission.  Orions are going to be on the evil side.  Gorn may be genuinely neutral given their lizard mindset.  Eat or be eaten, there is no dessert. Tholians may be on similar wavelengths there.  That leaves the Federation as the Paladins, bringing good to all through a strong bureaucracy.  Paladins is wrong for the religious conviction unless that be inferred as 'religiously devoted' to their mission of bringing common good to all.

But we were talking Klingons...

[blackbat242]

Sept 23, 2023 3:11:41 GMT -5 Jack Photon said:

My only familiarity with Ford's work is thru FASA, having never read the book.

Similarly, we never had access to Klingons back-when, so I am entirely new to them 40yrs later as I attempt to reconcile 1st/2nd edition klingons as squared with TOS. Even so, I suspect Ford went with movie klingons and not TV? For pure TOS mind-set, the movies must be regarded as ancillary reference, drawing from as needed to plug holes.

In the book the main protagonist is a Klingon-human hybrid... as are many in the Klingon fleet... so very TOS.

The book does a credible explanation of how the hybridization is done (at the same time explaining how Spock was "made", as the Klingons use captured Vulcan scientists (with the telepathic center in their brain surgically damaged to "disarm" them) for their scientific knowledge of gene-splicing).

[Falconer]

I absolutely love TFR, but the one aspect of Ford’s Klingons which really doesn’t work for me is the concept of Human Fusions. The general idea of fusion science worked brilliantly in the novel. But if you envision a campaign centered on TOS-style Klingons, it doesn’t mesh. The TOS Klingons obviously do not think of themselves as second-class Klingons, and they certainly don’t identify as part human.

Now obviously you can tell your group you are running a TOS-based game and you want to keep all the assumptions of the campaign within that paradigm. I found that worked just fine… except with Klingons. There we ran into a bit of a snag because some players had consumed a lot of TNG and carried a lot of assumptions about Klingon behavior and society. For example, one TNG-loving player assumed that any Klingon who had survived capture or surrender would be absolutely disgraced, and that assumption colored how he approached an NPC in a scenario.

If I were going to do it all over again, I would just say that the Klingon Empire is a star empire inhabited, naturally, by multiple species (just like the UFP), with TOS Klingons originating from one planet and TNG Klingons originating from another. One fan publication called them Kazh and Kahless, which I like. But I would probably call the ridged Klingons’ homeworld Kronos, since the whole point is to keep TNG lore intact and, as it were, quarantined off. (Of course, a planet can have multiple names.)

The beauty of this approach is that you can still have your pure “Kazh Klingons” campaign without having to juggle any TNG lore, but if any TNG lore does happen to come up, you can just good-humoredly say, “Oh yes, well that’s true for Kahless Klingons,” and move on without having a whole beef about it.

[Falconer]

Sept 23, 2023 9:00:13 GMT -5 blackbat242 said:

In the book the main protagonist is a Klingon-human hybrid... as are many in the Klingon fleet... so very TOS.

I don’t think that’s true, by the way, despite the cover art. Krenn is definitely described as a full Imperial (ridged) Klingon. I’ve read the novel carefully many times, and I’m actually not sure there are any Klingon-Human Fusions in the story at all.

[Jack Photon]

Great conversation!

Here's Roddenberry talking with Sarek about Spock's conception.
youtu.be/rpHAUcVC9qk?si=98c6ZQHveWRnoF_5&t=908

About 15:00 in if the link doesn't take you to that time.

Personnally, I take this as canon despite not being in the show itself. 

[c57d]

Sept 23, 2023 11:24:15 GMT -5 Falconer said:

Sept 23, 2023 9:00:13 GMT -5 blackbat242 said:

In the book the main protagonist is a Klingon-human hybrid... as are many in the Klingon fleet... so very TOS.

I don’t think that’s true, by the way, despite the cover art. Krenn is definitely described as a full Imperial (ridged) Klingon. I’ve read the novel carefully many times, and I’m actually not sure there are any Klingon-Human Fusions in the story at all.

I have read TFR about six times and the only (strongly implied) Klingon Human Fusion is Krenns girlfriend/communications officer. The scene involving McCoy's grandfather seems to pretty directly hint at this.

[Falconer]

They never quite state it but I gathered she was a Klingon-Orion Fusion.

Darn it, now I gotta read it again.

[Jack Photon]

Klingon characteristics I left out of my previous post are crafty, undermining and cunning. We see that while operating under the Organian terms, Klingons will provoke diplomatic situations through petty means ala' K-7 while also infiltrating a spy into the highest levels of UFP bureaucracy to poison the grain supply -potentially killing millions of people.

Arne Darvin shows no remorse in that; those millions of innocent people surviving haunted Arne for decades; so spent every day seeking means to ensure their deaths, finally attempting time travel per DS9.  That to me demonstrates is the Klingon mind; no amount of inflicted death is too great, no 'enemy' is too low to let live. Granted, they likely allow various escapees to spread the news that klingons are on the scene.  "I'll teach you what killing means!"

Kor is more than sanguine on the use of torture as well as the mind sifter, casually stating he'll have Spock dissected.

While I mentioned turning friend against friend on Neural, they also have the cunning to surreptitiously control a world's destiny through steady and slow introduction of harmful technologies. That the Organians wouldn't see through such an obvious ploy is naive thinking on the Klingons part, but also demonstrates the supposed withdrawal of Organian interest after awhile -having stepped in and wagged the finger once was enough. 

While brute force take-overs are/were likely standard ala' Organia, Klingons also likely interact with some planets ala' the Mirror Halkans and clearly are savvy enough to go subtle as on Neural as needed.

[blackbat242]

Sept 23, 2023 16:02:44 GMT -5 c57d said:

Sept 23, 2023 11:24:15 GMT -5 Falconer said:

I don’t think that’s true, by the way, despite the cover art. Krenn is definitely described as a full Imperial (ridged) Klingon. I’ve read the novel carefully many times, and I’m actually not sure there are any Klingon-Human Fusions in the story at all.

I have read TFR about six times and the only (strongly implied) Klingon Human Fusion is Krenns girlfriend/communications officer. The scene involving McCoy's grandfather seems to pretty directly hint at this.

Sept 23, 2023 17:06:13 GMT -5 Falconer said:

They never quite state it but I gathered she was a Klingon-Orion Fusion.

Darn it, now I gotta read it again.

Huh.

I need to re-read it (4th time) then also, I always got that Krenn was a fusion that had been adopted by an "Imperial" Klingon.

I thought that the crew of the ship that went to Earth was carefully selected to have no visible "Imperial Race" Klingons, to keep them secret from the Federation.