USS Carter Season 1 After Action Report
Apr. 29th, 2008 07:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
subplotkudzuBefore I get into the individual Season 2 Episodes, here's the After Action Report on the first season, which can be found as Commander Funk's log here.
This will be the first time the players of the game see how the crooked nannies of my mind work when it comes to translating a plot idea into the reality of a session.
USS Carter Season One, After Action Report
Asha: Captain Demy Sakhet, captain of the USS Carter; Dr. Elissa Mark, chief medical officer.
Stephen: Cmdr J. Roger Funk, first officer and in charge of the tactical station; Lt. T'Prin, Vulcan engineer.
Kristen: Suyira Knox, PhD, Federation-backed anthropologist; Lt. Cmdr Matthias Pelski, science officer.
Jason: Darius Rossad, Betazed ambassador to the Federation; Cadet Bernie Liefson, astrogator.
This game was originally designed as a semi-episodic six part game, but Jason's irregularity made it more episodic and longer. I expanded it to 8 parts, with room for other seasons. The show's theme (exploration) and feel (puzzle solving and diplomacy) remained intact. There are three big puzzles out here, and the first episode of each season should touch on them all: First, what happened to the Terran slowboats of Dr. Knox's theories? Second, what the heck are the Klingons doing out here? Third, what are the origins of the ruins found on many of the sector's planets (as well as the subspace anomalies and the Burning Nebula itself)? Each of these questions is the focus of a season. Season One's focus is the terran slowboats, so there are six of them in eight episodes.
One: The Stars Overhead, the Stones Underfoot
After driving off a Klingon cruiser from the Sagan Observatory, the Carter's mission to explore the Nebula is hindered - they must stay close to Sagan until the Federation destroyer Mowbery arrives to shore up the area's defenses. This close-to-home exploration yields some surprising results: there's the remains of a slowboat drive right underneath Sagan! The life capsule is missing, launched into the Nebula…which leads to another encounter with the Klingons!
This episode was created after my original season plans were laid. We were supposed to begin with Yethma to get all the PCs introduced at once, but then Jason couldn't make the first two months of play. Since I had done a brief starship combat demo of the Carter defending a space station I decided to build from there, and the season was better for it. Introducing the Klingon threat first made their appearance in Yethma less of a shock. The episode's fight revolved around a subspace shear that presaged the rest of the subspace fractures through the season. And their failure to find the Gamma One's life capsule right away made things seem less certain, and gave the series an overarching subplot of Pelski's hammering away on calculations that might locate them.
Two: The Only Tar Who's Ever Jumped Ship From Vanderveken's Crew
The Carter surveys a white dwarf star’s annual orbiting aurora as a side trip from their anthropological survey, only to discover the effect is linked to their mission, it's a slowboat ramfield trapped in a near c orbit! Transport to initiate breaking brings them into conflict with the time-dilated crew, fanatics who believe they are cursed to orbit forever. Can Sakhet save them from themselves?
This too was intended to occur after Yethma, but again Jason couldn't make it so we just went without him. I got the title line from Niven's Protector, and the rest of the episode - a time stuck ship that was illuminated by fire on New Year's Day every year - just fell into place. This was the first time the players out Trek-teched me, but I must admit that using their temporal advantage to transport out the crew (the crew of the Duyfken was at 1/1000th normal speed due to time dilation, so the Carter would jump to warp 1 then decelerate, snagging crewmen with each pass) was pretty clever. No one griped when the Duyfken's captain made it to the shielded engine room, forcing Sakhet to beam over and confront him. I was hoping for a Kirk style punch-out but Asha set the tone for her captain by having Sakhet talk him down.
Three: Yethma (Betazed for First Contact)
The Carter stumbles into the unstable situation between Betazed & Terabia, the former is still governing the latter after Terabia’s surrender a century ago. Terabia admits to being an Earth colony to force Federation involvement, indicating that their occupiers are also Terran, a charge Betazed's theocracy denounces. Can the Carter bring them into the Federation rather than to war?
Finally, Episode One! Integrating new PCs! Cadet Bernie fit in right away, getting a chance to do some fancy piloting and get smitten with Dr. Mark - I was very happy with the tracking shot that took us from the transporter room to sick bay to the bridge and introduced Bernie to every other PC. Rossad was a bigger problem, because I had had more time to prepare than Jason, and that made my charismatic terrorist leader smoother tongued than Jason's ambassador when giving his side of the story. Still, the episode nailed down the Betazed problem, introduced Rossad, his rival Captain Jemma Stadi and his enemy Xenocrates. It also went poorly enough for Rossad that the command staff only let him stay on board because they were ordered to do so - exactly what we wanted - I just hoped the players to be a little more accepting of him. Ah well, room to grow.
Four: Writ in Tooth and Claw
Sensors detect a potential terran settlement orbiting a variable star, but the planet's EM fields blocks transport. Their shuttle damaged, the away team explores terran and native ruins to learn the field is artificial, has expanded to cover the Carter and causes emotional instability in terran life! Dr. Knox's team must deal with transplanted terran predators and the Carter must prevent its own social self destruction, all while on the edge of sanity.
This was a game with a classic Trek idea - very clearly drawn from The Naked Time - that didn't work in practice. The PCs on the planet's surface didn't respond to the loss of control as much as I’d like, with Funk adopting a paranoid 'get the mission done' frenzy that let the player keep the character on task while still being technically 'unstable'. Still, there was skinny dipping by the good doctor, Cadet Bernie claiming to be Captain Leifson, the female crew of the Carter throwing themselves at Rossad and a stampede of elephants. Who could really ask for more? This was the first time I really adopted the 'tour bus' GM mentality (the players accept being driven to an interesting plot, where they get to do whatever they want with a reminder to find a way back to the bus later) but I hadn't formalized it yet. That their solution had Rossad saving the day by telepathically contacting the psychically sensitive alien machines helped mend some fences among the PCs, but that display of power left many more NPCs wary.
This was also the first appearance of the Silicon Empire, remnants of a powerful silicon based life form civilization that once ruled the area. The solar system was engineered - from the world with habitat bands making it look like a dyed Easter egg to all the planets orbits being at the same distance ratios to the sun as quantum shells - and the ruins on the planet included some of the same design as the world that killed the Carter's sister ship, the Carnarvon. In other words, large swaths of this are foreshadowing for Season 3.
Five: The Bifrost Incident
The Carter finds a slowboat colony, this one emulating a North Atlantic sea culture. When the away team beams down they find themselves cut off and the ship frozen in space by the gods of Norse Myth! Comdr. Funk and his away team must sail to Asgard and confront Odin to free their ship – with their own lightning if need be! This one takes several weeks of game time, with a montage of ship building and ocean voyage.
The second classic Trek idea - swiped from Who Mourns for Adonis with a dollop of The Paradise Syndrome - turned into a game session and this one worked perfectly. Asha was in India so I had to remove her PCs from the action; isolating Funk, Rossad and Dr Knox on the planet did the trick. This one contained one of my favorite in character lines (After reaching Asgard Rossad turns on the charm to get the head of the Valkyrie, Ravdna, on their side; upon his return from their, um, discussion, Funk remarks "why Ambassador, you look like you've been ridden hard and put away wet.") some lovely cultural and scientific investigation for Knox to sink her teeth in to by finding the lost slowboat and a solution that involved Funk firing phasers at a god. I'm still not keen on Stephen/Funk's desire to find a tactical/technical solution to all problems, but in this case it worked pretty well
Six: Lysestrata
At the edge of a starless expanse, the Carter discovers the Aristophenes, a tramp freighter once run by an old friend of Captain Sakhet, now a plague ship. When the Carter's crew is infected with the disease that will kill all the men in days and leave the women isolated plague carriers. Dr. Mark must spearhead the research into a cure, while the rest of the crew deals with the issues of their own mortality - and plot the fastest course to medical aid.
Again Jason couldn't make it, and again I had a week to pull together an episode without Rossad. This led to the best character episode of the show, with wonderfully Trekish explorations on morality & mortality. Once again the players accepted some railroading to kick things off (an NPC beamed over the sole survivor on the Aristophenes, thereby infecting the Carter) with good grace - Stephen said later that the moment little Sheila vanished in the transporter beam he knew they were screwed - and then threw themselves whole hog into both angst and tense research. Two of the players present had a male and a female PC, letting them play both sides of the issue. Asha, with 2 female PCs, had the bubbly, sensualist Dr. Mark buried in her work while the straight laced, stiff Captain talked with the lost love of her life, her hair down, promising to give romance another chance. The climax of high speed maneuvering to reach the plague's origin point for a pure sample was a good nail biter as well. If I could have one session like this a season I'd be thrilled.
Seven: Bones of Eden
At the heart of the starless expanse, the Carter finds the spatial anomaly that threw the slowboats so far off course, and learns that it can send ships through time. They must chase one of their guests, late of the Duyfken slowboat from Episode 2, whose returning to 1960's Earth's to stop the birth of Kahn accidentally unmakes the Federation! But what are the moral implications of allowing the Eugenics Wars?
Unfortunately Bones of Eden didn't work as well as I'd hoped in a moral sense, as none of the players raised the specter of allowing the Eugenics Wars. Everyone knew that the Federation was better than humans being unknown in a future of warring Andorians and Vulcans, so they just went about setting things right. The chase through downtown Boston wasn't as tense as I'd hoped either. The episode was redeemed by Dr. Mark's knowledge of Red Sox trivia coming into play and by the quiet chat between Roassad and Dr. Singh in a Harvard Conference room about humanity's potential…with strong undercurrents of sex. Jason & I theorized that if Dr. Knox had not pulled herself away from surveying honest-to-god 20th century specimens to interrupt the discussion then Singh's child would have been a telepath rather than a genetic superman, leading to Psi-Corps rather than the Eugenics wars.
Eight: Clouds and Sand
Lt. Cmdr Pelski's calculations revealed the likely resting place of the life-pod the Carter sought in Episode 1. The Carter re-enters the Burning Nebula to locate it, and while they find the survivors, they also find Klingons making use of a massive silicon empire matter transmuter to create new ships! Captain Sakhet must somehow find and rescue the survivors, frustrate the Klingons and analyze the massively powerful alien artifact… while being outnumbered five to one!
I had originally intended to have Bones of Eden end the season, but the players refusing to abandon the Gamma One necessitated a return to the Burning Nebula. This also gave me a chance to have "That Damned Orion", seen in episodes 1 and 3, return (rescuing Xenocrates from Federation custody and giving him a starship), go another Cosmic Level Silicon Empire device (the matter replicator capable of re-creating whole starships) and finally shoehorn in a melee fight with Klingons (Sakhet wrestling with a Klingon over control of a knife and a phaser). As with the last trip into the nebula everything felt like a submarine movie, and the players’ final plan was both clever and explosive. Since this was the last session I made the bang really big, with them going to warp to outrun pieces of planetary debris. It made a suitably colorful ending for the season while still leaving plot threads for later. I was happy enough, and the players were thrilled.
Subplots in Old Lives, Old Civilizations.
The Old Timers: After Rey and Vandermar came over from the Duyfken in Vanderveken, I spent more time on them, giving them better defined personalities. Most important was showing their relative ability to cope with the new era, where Rey slowly acclimated while Vandermar seemed to quickly adjust but remained more rigid. The players helped, spending screen time finding them jobs and familiarizing them with the tech, so when Vandermar flipped in Bones of Eden, the players quickly guessed what he did, and accepted his ability to do so.
The Subspace Fractures: I had originally intended to have fewer of these, but they were darn helpful in explaining away anything I needed to handwave By the time I got to Bones of Eden the PCs had a pretty good theory of what had caused them (some Silicon Empire event that also created the huge nebula in that area), felt clever for having figured that out and are now on board with any other use I put them to.
The Orions: Finally, we have the Bardek the Orion Tomb Raider and the Orion/Klingon alliance. Bardek is, like the commander of the Klingon project, a great returning villain. I intend to have him much like the Master, just survive anything with no explanation. Anyway, we need evidence that the Klingons and Orions have an alliance in this sector, and that they are trying to destabilize the alpha quadrant to weaken the Federation/Klingon border. So far the PCs just refer to him as That Damned Orion, and only one PC has ever been face to face with him. I'm worried that when he does show up in the flesh Funk'll just vaporize him.
Conclusion
This season worked well all told: I managed to capture a lot of the feel of the original show, though, as I have complained before, there weren't enough fistfights. I'm making changes to the combat rules so they're an attractive option. There also weren't enough lost loves (we did touch on Demy's on again, off again relationship with Captain Benjamin Salihah) so I should put in more next season.
I eventually settled on the Tour Bus method of plotting. The Trek Narrator's Guide has a lot of advice on using the 3 act model that structures TV scripts, but in practice I found that after the 'midpoint' my ability & desire to control things diminished. By then the players had a good idea of the situation while I still had the second pinch and plot turn to keep them on their toes. Trying to figure out a conclusion in advance felt wrong - they had trusted the bus enough to get somewhere fun, but they wanted to find their own solution, not be given one. It's good if I have one on hand if they come up short, but I'll never force it on them.
USS Carter Season One, After Action Report
Asha: Captain Demy Sakhet, captain of the USS Carter; Dr. Elissa Mark, chief medical officer.
Stephen: Cmdr J. Roger Funk, first officer and in charge of the tactical station; Lt. T'Prin, Vulcan engineer.
Kristen: Suyira Knox, PhD, Federation-backed anthropologist; Lt. Cmdr Matthias Pelski, science officer.
Jason: Darius Rossad, Betazed ambassador to the Federation; Cadet Bernie Liefson, astrogator.
This game was originally designed as a semi-episodic six part game, but Jason's irregularity made it more episodic and longer. I expanded it to 8 parts, with room for other seasons. The show's theme (exploration) and feel (puzzle solving and diplomacy) remained intact. There are three big puzzles out here, and the first episode of each season should touch on them all: First, what happened to the Terran slowboats of Dr. Knox's theories? Second, what the heck are the Klingons doing out here? Third, what are the origins of the ruins found on many of the sector's planets (as well as the subspace anomalies and the Burning Nebula itself)? Each of these questions is the focus of a season. Season One's focus is the terran slowboats, so there are six of them in eight episodes.
One: The Stars Overhead, the Stones Underfoot
After driving off a Klingon cruiser from the Sagan Observatory, the Carter's mission to explore the Nebula is hindered - they must stay close to Sagan until the Federation destroyer Mowbery arrives to shore up the area's defenses. This close-to-home exploration yields some surprising results: there's the remains of a slowboat drive right underneath Sagan! The life capsule is missing, launched into the Nebula…which leads to another encounter with the Klingons!
This episode was created after my original season plans were laid. We were supposed to begin with Yethma to get all the PCs introduced at once, but then Jason couldn't make the first two months of play. Since I had done a brief starship combat demo of the Carter defending a space station I decided to build from there, and the season was better for it. Introducing the Klingon threat first made their appearance in Yethma less of a shock. The episode's fight revolved around a subspace shear that presaged the rest of the subspace fractures through the season. And their failure to find the Gamma One's life capsule right away made things seem less certain, and gave the series an overarching subplot of Pelski's hammering away on calculations that might locate them.
Two: The Only Tar Who's Ever Jumped Ship From Vanderveken's Crew
The Carter surveys a white dwarf star’s annual orbiting aurora as a side trip from their anthropological survey, only to discover the effect is linked to their mission, it's a slowboat ramfield trapped in a near c orbit! Transport to initiate breaking brings them into conflict with the time-dilated crew, fanatics who believe they are cursed to orbit forever. Can Sakhet save them from themselves?
This too was intended to occur after Yethma, but again Jason couldn't make it so we just went without him. I got the title line from Niven's Protector, and the rest of the episode - a time stuck ship that was illuminated by fire on New Year's Day every year - just fell into place. This was the first time the players out Trek-teched me, but I must admit that using their temporal advantage to transport out the crew (the crew of the Duyfken was at 1/1000th normal speed due to time dilation, so the Carter would jump to warp 1 then decelerate, snagging crewmen with each pass) was pretty clever. No one griped when the Duyfken's captain made it to the shielded engine room, forcing Sakhet to beam over and confront him. I was hoping for a Kirk style punch-out but Asha set the tone for her captain by having Sakhet talk him down.
Three: Yethma (Betazed for First Contact)
The Carter stumbles into the unstable situation between Betazed & Terabia, the former is still governing the latter after Terabia’s surrender a century ago. Terabia admits to being an Earth colony to force Federation involvement, indicating that their occupiers are also Terran, a charge Betazed's theocracy denounces. Can the Carter bring them into the Federation rather than to war?
Finally, Episode One! Integrating new PCs! Cadet Bernie fit in right away, getting a chance to do some fancy piloting and get smitten with Dr. Mark - I was very happy with the tracking shot that took us from the transporter room to sick bay to the bridge and introduced Bernie to every other PC. Rossad was a bigger problem, because I had had more time to prepare than Jason, and that made my charismatic terrorist leader smoother tongued than Jason's ambassador when giving his side of the story. Still, the episode nailed down the Betazed problem, introduced Rossad, his rival Captain Jemma Stadi and his enemy Xenocrates. It also went poorly enough for Rossad that the command staff only let him stay on board because they were ordered to do so - exactly what we wanted - I just hoped the players to be a little more accepting of him. Ah well, room to grow.
Four: Writ in Tooth and Claw
Sensors detect a potential terran settlement orbiting a variable star, but the planet's EM fields blocks transport. Their shuttle damaged, the away team explores terran and native ruins to learn the field is artificial, has expanded to cover the Carter and causes emotional instability in terran life! Dr. Knox's team must deal with transplanted terran predators and the Carter must prevent its own social self destruction, all while on the edge of sanity.
This was a game with a classic Trek idea - very clearly drawn from The Naked Time - that didn't work in practice. The PCs on the planet's surface didn't respond to the loss of control as much as I’d like, with Funk adopting a paranoid 'get the mission done' frenzy that let the player keep the character on task while still being technically 'unstable'. Still, there was skinny dipping by the good doctor, Cadet Bernie claiming to be Captain Leifson, the female crew of the Carter throwing themselves at Rossad and a stampede of elephants. Who could really ask for more? This was the first time I really adopted the 'tour bus' GM mentality (the players accept being driven to an interesting plot, where they get to do whatever they want with a reminder to find a way back to the bus later) but I hadn't formalized it yet. That their solution had Rossad saving the day by telepathically contacting the psychically sensitive alien machines helped mend some fences among the PCs, but that display of power left many more NPCs wary.
This was also the first appearance of the Silicon Empire, remnants of a powerful silicon based life form civilization that once ruled the area. The solar system was engineered - from the world with habitat bands making it look like a dyed Easter egg to all the planets orbits being at the same distance ratios to the sun as quantum shells - and the ruins on the planet included some of the same design as the world that killed the Carter's sister ship, the Carnarvon. In other words, large swaths of this are foreshadowing for Season 3.
Five: The Bifrost Incident
The Carter finds a slowboat colony, this one emulating a North Atlantic sea culture. When the away team beams down they find themselves cut off and the ship frozen in space by the gods of Norse Myth! Comdr. Funk and his away team must sail to Asgard and confront Odin to free their ship – with their own lightning if need be! This one takes several weeks of game time, with a montage of ship building and ocean voyage.
The second classic Trek idea - swiped from Who Mourns for Adonis with a dollop of The Paradise Syndrome - turned into a game session and this one worked perfectly. Asha was in India so I had to remove her PCs from the action; isolating Funk, Rossad and Dr Knox on the planet did the trick. This one contained one of my favorite in character lines (After reaching Asgard Rossad turns on the charm to get the head of the Valkyrie, Ravdna, on their side; upon his return from their, um, discussion, Funk remarks "why Ambassador, you look like you've been ridden hard and put away wet.") some lovely cultural and scientific investigation for Knox to sink her teeth in to by finding the lost slowboat and a solution that involved Funk firing phasers at a god. I'm still not keen on Stephen/Funk's desire to find a tactical/technical solution to all problems, but in this case it worked pretty well
Six: Lysestrata
At the edge of a starless expanse, the Carter discovers the Aristophenes, a tramp freighter once run by an old friend of Captain Sakhet, now a plague ship. When the Carter's crew is infected with the disease that will kill all the men in days and leave the women isolated plague carriers. Dr. Mark must spearhead the research into a cure, while the rest of the crew deals with the issues of their own mortality - and plot the fastest course to medical aid.
Again Jason couldn't make it, and again I had a week to pull together an episode without Rossad. This led to the best character episode of the show, with wonderfully Trekish explorations on morality & mortality. Once again the players accepted some railroading to kick things off (an NPC beamed over the sole survivor on the Aristophenes, thereby infecting the Carter) with good grace - Stephen said later that the moment little Sheila vanished in the transporter beam he knew they were screwed - and then threw themselves whole hog into both angst and tense research. Two of the players present had a male and a female PC, letting them play both sides of the issue. Asha, with 2 female PCs, had the bubbly, sensualist Dr. Mark buried in her work while the straight laced, stiff Captain talked with the lost love of her life, her hair down, promising to give romance another chance. The climax of high speed maneuvering to reach the plague's origin point for a pure sample was a good nail biter as well. If I could have one session like this a season I'd be thrilled.
Seven: Bones of Eden
At the heart of the starless expanse, the Carter finds the spatial anomaly that threw the slowboats so far off course, and learns that it can send ships through time. They must chase one of their guests, late of the Duyfken slowboat from Episode 2, whose returning to 1960's Earth's to stop the birth of Kahn accidentally unmakes the Federation! But what are the moral implications of allowing the Eugenics Wars?
Unfortunately Bones of Eden didn't work as well as I'd hoped in a moral sense, as none of the players raised the specter of allowing the Eugenics Wars. Everyone knew that the Federation was better than humans being unknown in a future of warring Andorians and Vulcans, so they just went about setting things right. The chase through downtown Boston wasn't as tense as I'd hoped either. The episode was redeemed by Dr. Mark's knowledge of Red Sox trivia coming into play and by the quiet chat between Roassad and Dr. Singh in a Harvard Conference room about humanity's potential…with strong undercurrents of sex. Jason & I theorized that if Dr. Knox had not pulled herself away from surveying honest-to-god 20th century specimens to interrupt the discussion then Singh's child would have been a telepath rather than a genetic superman, leading to Psi-Corps rather than the Eugenics wars.
Eight: Clouds and Sand
Lt. Cmdr Pelski's calculations revealed the likely resting place of the life-pod the Carter sought in Episode 1. The Carter re-enters the Burning Nebula to locate it, and while they find the survivors, they also find Klingons making use of a massive silicon empire matter transmuter to create new ships! Captain Sakhet must somehow find and rescue the survivors, frustrate the Klingons and analyze the massively powerful alien artifact… while being outnumbered five to one!
I had originally intended to have Bones of Eden end the season, but the players refusing to abandon the Gamma One necessitated a return to the Burning Nebula. This also gave me a chance to have "That Damned Orion", seen in episodes 1 and 3, return (rescuing Xenocrates from Federation custody and giving him a starship), go another Cosmic Level Silicon Empire device (the matter replicator capable of re-creating whole starships) and finally shoehorn in a melee fight with Klingons (Sakhet wrestling with a Klingon over control of a knife and a phaser). As with the last trip into the nebula everything felt like a submarine movie, and the players’ final plan was both clever and explosive. Since this was the last session I made the bang really big, with them going to warp to outrun pieces of planetary debris. It made a suitably colorful ending for the season while still leaving plot threads for later. I was happy enough, and the players were thrilled.
Subplots in Old Lives, Old Civilizations.
The Old Timers: After Rey and Vandermar came over from the Duyfken in Vanderveken, I spent more time on them, giving them better defined personalities. Most important was showing their relative ability to cope with the new era, where Rey slowly acclimated while Vandermar seemed to quickly adjust but remained more rigid. The players helped, spending screen time finding them jobs and familiarizing them with the tech, so when Vandermar flipped in Bones of Eden, the players quickly guessed what he did, and accepted his ability to do so.
The Subspace Fractures: I had originally intended to have fewer of these, but they were darn helpful in explaining away anything I needed to handwave By the time I got to Bones of Eden the PCs had a pretty good theory of what had caused them (some Silicon Empire event that also created the huge nebula in that area), felt clever for having figured that out and are now on board with any other use I put them to.
The Orions: Finally, we have the Bardek the Orion Tomb Raider and the Orion/Klingon alliance. Bardek is, like the commander of the Klingon project, a great returning villain. I intend to have him much like the Master, just survive anything with no explanation. Anyway, we need evidence that the Klingons and Orions have an alliance in this sector, and that they are trying to destabilize the alpha quadrant to weaken the Federation/Klingon border. So far the PCs just refer to him as That Damned Orion, and only one PC has ever been face to face with him. I'm worried that when he does show up in the flesh Funk'll just vaporize him.
Conclusion
This season worked well all told: I managed to capture a lot of the feel of the original show, though, as I have complained before, there weren't enough fistfights. I'm making changes to the combat rules so they're an attractive option. There also weren't enough lost loves (we did touch on Demy's on again, off again relationship with Captain Benjamin Salihah) so I should put in more next season.
I eventually settled on the Tour Bus method of plotting. The Trek Narrator's Guide has a lot of advice on using the 3 act model that structures TV scripts, but in practice I found that after the 'midpoint' my ability & desire to control things diminished. By then the players had a good idea of the situation while I still had the second pinch and plot turn to keep them on their toes. Trying to figure out a conclusion in advance felt wrong - they had trusted the bus enough to get somewhere fun, but they wanted to find their own solution, not be given one. It's good if I have one on hand if they come up short, but I'll never force it on them.
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Date: 2008-04-29 01:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-29 01:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-29 06:57 pm (UTC)Thanks for posting.