Solo Trek - Which Era?

[Mithras]

Looking forward to the Prime Directive next year. But I can't wait! I have a great desire to run a solo trading game now that my current gaming group has broken up. And the familiarity of the Trek universe makes the solo gaming easier and in some ways more enjoyable.

I want to engage in the classic Traveller cargo transport or trade activities, etc, with encounter tables and what not, NPC reaction tables to recreate crew interactions. I have the following resources I'm planning to link together to help, can you think of any more?

1) Most of Deceipher Trek in PDF form for all the setting details.
2) Traveller for all the rules.
3) Thousand Suns for creating a Star Trek Sector (20ly cube with 6-10 earth-type worlds; 10x that number of stars)
4) Mythic GM for helping with events
5) Fan sites full of wonderful deckplans for many ships and many eras!
6) My own USS High Guard: http://zozer.weebly.com/uploads/3/4/3/3/3433372/uss_high_guard.pdf, for creating Starfleet personnel. If I go with the TOS I would use Dreaming Badger's wonderful Mongoose supplement called: Roleplaying in the UFP for MGT (https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=20273372de129cbd&sc=documents&id=20273372DE129CBD!856#)

I initially considered speculative trade. Although with warp 9.99999 communications any trade deals might be done prior to departure, or en route, rather than on arrival. Though for ease of play, the standard, sell for what you can get it upon arrival, might be more viable. Of course Starfleet don't engage in speculative trade ... but they do run cargo and transport ships, including the Miranda (version of the Reliant) and the Nebula. I'm not too bothered about space combat at all. I like to focus on NPC interactions amongst the crew.

Which era though? Love the TOS uniforms, but hate the 'sets'; love the Movie uniforms and sets, but TNG is by far most familiar to me, even though I hate all the fitted carpets and potted plants approach! Must decide today....

 

[barnest2]

TNG era. I just prefer the setting. But make sure you break down the rubbish about perfect society and show all the grimy little corners nobody likes to mention...
Also, the genocide. :lol:

 

[AdrianH]

That's DS9, then. Same era, even some of the same characters, but with grittier society and a nastier side to the Federation. And this version of Trek does have money, which is rather useful for a trading game.

Note that Prime Directive will not cover any of this for licence reasons. It's limited to the Starfleet Battles universe, which is based on TOS.

 

[Rick]

Might I ask the question - why? I have almost the whole range of the LUG Trek books on hardcopy and several of the Decipher ones on PDF - if I was running a TNG game I would be using them solely as I think the rules are well done. On the other hand, I'm looking forward to Trav PD as a completely different system - the SFU isn't Trek, it isn't really Traveller - it'll be something very new and very shiny! If you're looking to do a 'prequel game' using TNG background and Traveller rules, PD is not going to fit in well with that. Best thing to do might be to look for a copy of the GURPS or D20 PD pdf and learn the background from that, then fit the Traveller campaign to that, then when the PD Traveller does come out, it should fit in well!

Sorry, rant over!

 

[Jak Nazryth]

Several years ago, my TREK fanatic friend and I came up with an idea for a new fan-based "Show" after "Enterprise" got canned. But it was based on a non-starfleet story with a decidedly darker side of a universal society that imposes "utopia" on everyone.. In fact, it was a palpable anti-starfleet feel, with an ex-patriot as the captain on a "Firefly" type vessel who hated starfleet. The main character has a huge chip on his shoulder when it comes to Starfleet and is convinced that there is something subtlety sinister about Starfleet as a political/social orginazation.

Call it railing against the perfect plastic utopia set up by Star Trek.

Anyway, we "invented" more Gorn to explain the difference between the original Gorn and the "Raptor" Gorn from Enterprise. I came up with the idea that Gorn were a strict cast race, (Kinda like Dryone) but with obvious differences in appearance. The original Gorn was "Worker Cast", very strong, very tough, but very slow. The new Gorn on Enterprise was "Warrior Cast" strong and fast. I came up with at least 2 more casts "Leader" and "Technical" with a group of other ideas. These Gorn were more "human" looking with shorter snouts, but still lizard like (enough for actors with prosthetic "snouts" that could still act, talk, a move about with relative ease.
Anyway, this crew had a Gorn Engineer from the Tech cast. The ship had "borrowed" plasma torpedo tech from the Gorns. (This was a smaller version of gorn weapons from the starfleet battles strategy game)
The idea was a crew on a 200ish ton trader converted from an advanced scout (about the size of a bird-of-prey) but NOT Klingon design. The crew is a loose collection of ex-patriots, board nobles, run-aways, and other non-conformists scratching a living on the fringes of Starfleet, avoid if possible any and all starfleet ships. The 3-4 year fan based "really bad home movie" idea would explore the ex-starfleet officer slowly pealing back and revealing a dark side of the starfleet "machine".
The working title was going to be "Star Trek - Freelancer"
With this new system coming out, it might be fun to reanimate my old idea in game form. 8)

 

[Rick]

With this new system coming out, it might be fun to reanimate my old idea in game form.

Excellent idea - the big problem with the tv and movie franchise rpg's is that if you try to publish material that takes it away from what has been shown on the screen, the franchise holders get nervous and want to bring it back a little bit. I think they'd be very happy if we played the named character's crew on the named ship and recreated episodes from the series or films. Personally I love the idea that we'll be able to take the Trav PD into uncharted waters and push back the boundaries of what has gone before. I can't wait!! :lol:

 

[Merxiless]

What is MYTHIC GM, some kind of RPG supplement? Never heard of it.

 

[Mithras]

What is MYTHIC GM, some kind of RPG supplement? Never heard of it.

Yes, its a GM tool for adjudicating through a cleverly designed randomized system his games. He or actually players using it without a GM use it as a decision maker and ideas machine. Its good for groups without a GM, but even better for solo play ... I can't give you a link cos I'm on the ipod, but its on rpg.now.

 

[SSWarlock]

Mythic GM Emulator
http://www.mythic.wordpr.com/page14/page9/page9.html

I hadn't heard of this before. I admit to being intrigued from a solo play point of view.

 

[GypsyComet]

the SFU isn't Trek, it isn't really Traveller - it'll be something very new and very shiny!

I would disagree on those points. SFU *is* Trek, but it is Kirk's Trek, never Picard's. The Klingons are polite but implacable, the Romulans are inscrutable, and both have other enemies.

For all that Traveller is commonly viewed as closer to Star Wars than Star Trek, it can handle Trek quite easily.

The shiny part I agree with.

 

[Rick]

the SFU isn't Trek, it isn't really Traveller - it'll be something very new and very shiny!

I would disagree on those points. SFU *is* Trek, but it is Kirk's Trek, never Picard's. The Klingons are polite but implacable, the Romulans are inscrutable, and both have other enemies.

For all that Traveller is commonly viewed as closer to Star Wars than Star Trek, it can handle Trek quite easily.

The shiny part I agree with.

What I meant was that it isn't Trek - it started off in the same place as Kirk's Trek, but it's broken out of that pigeon-hole and gone looking for some new worlds to beat up! :lol: I agree that Traveller can handle the PD/SFU - this is why I'm so looking forward to it. With the exploration and wide-open nature of Traveller and the background and races of PD/SFU, I think it's going to be extremely good! Like I said - just can't wait!! :lol: