Galaxy of Adventure

The goal of this post is to show my Storybox approach to Adventure Design 'in action' by recounting an old campaign in which I used this method. 

Before I get into it though, I want to say I'm a little surprised by the response to this or lack there of. I was really expecting more views and comments.

Sure, most would be of the 'have you lost your mind' sort of thing, followed by the 'what you describe would never work' variety. Instead...nothing so far.

Hmm. Perhaps people are just nodding their heads in agreement and understanding. Maybe what I am proposing isn't all that strange these days. Have I waited too long and now my off beat way of doing things is just the norm or worse yet...mundane? Good grief. I don't know that I could live that down. 

Please, someone out there read from a boxed text or remind me how 'adventure paths' work. 

To illustrate exactly how the Storybox method works, I will recount one of the first campaigns I can remember where I consciously used this approach. It was a homebrew Star Wars campaign from back in 1985-86. The campaign never received a title but was jokingly referred to for years as the 'Forcepunk' campaign.

The game featured a view of the Star Wars universe from the average citizen of the Galaxy instead of the big heroes and villains of the war between the remnants of the Imperial Empire and the New Republic. It also had a bit of dark humor. 

Now let's break it down Storybox style:

The Premise: A Star Wars campaign focused on a group of misfits trying to survive in the aftermath of the Emperor's death and the fall of the Galactic Empire. The New Republic has been established but things aren't going all that smoothly on the frontier (what we now call The Outer Rim Territories)

The Map*: The map is mostly concerned with Hutt Space and independent worlds beyond the reach of the New Republic and the Imperial Remnants; the latter being small groups of Empire holdovers serving as regional warlords or trying to pretend the Imperials are still in charge.  

 

Star systems noted with a blue star are ones from Star Wars canon. Those with yellow stars are original locations created by me. The PCs were free to travel anywhere they wanted with the limitations of having the Hyperspace Coordinates, time, fuel*, and the like. 

Most of the campaign ended up with the PCs traveling to many worlds but often bouncing back and forth between Gardine**, Tatooine, and ZellZell. They would do jaunts to worlds as far away as Corellia, Mandalore, and Ord Mantell but then head back 'home' to their base of sorts on Gardine. 

Of special note is Kolindoor, identified on the map with a blue ring around the yellow star. This planet was not originally on the map. Its coordinates were obtained by the PCs after a new PC joined and the others helped him obtain it from hidden ruins on Mandalore. 

Conceits: The prevailing themes of the campaign were as follows...

The PCs were bad people ashamed or tired of being bad. They sought redemption. 

They were good at being bad but sort of bad at being good. 

The campaign's take on The Force was that it was much like Karma. 

The Opening:

The campaign opened with the PCs, a group of Gangsters, and a group of Imperials in a firefight on the planet Ord Itani. I made references to a deal, a botched job, a double cross, and a desperate squad of Imperials swooping in to claim the prize. 

Improvised dialogue between the Players/PCs filled in the details. The Gangsters hired the PCs to get Spice from Kessel. Imperials showed up so the PCs dumped their cargo and the Imperials found nothing. The PCs never dumped anything; it was a trick. They reached Ord Itani and gave the Spice to the Gangsters but the Imperials followed the PCs there and demanded the shipment. The Gangster refused to pay the PCs since they brought the Imperials to them. 

Blaster fire and chaos ensued. 

PC party splits up. Three hold off the enemies with blasters, smoke bombs, and some neat tricks using the environment of the jungle spaceport. Two sneak off to the docking bay where their ship is to get it ready to leave. One steals a Speeder Bike and attempts to nab some of the Spice. 

A bit later, the ship flies right over head and picks up the rest of the party. The guy on the Speeder Bike gets one case of Spice and drives the cycle into the PC freighter's cargo hold. One PC manages to get the Imperials and Gangsters shooting each other more than they shoot the PCs. Still and all, two of the PCs are badly wounded. 

Escaping into space, the freighter is soon pursued by Gangster ships and TIE Fighters. The players ask me where they should jump to next. 

This is key. I said, "I don't know. It's your ship. Where do you want to go?"

Absorbing this, the PCs check their Nav Computer to see what's near by and what are these places like. They decide to go to Gardine, an original planet not far from Tatooine. It is independent of the Hutts and a good place to lay low because its largely unpleasant and few want to go there (heheh). The PCs eventually find Gardine so cool they make it their unofficial base of operations. 

Onward:

While they start off as low lives and ne'er do wells (except for the Jedi Wannabe who joins later), the PCs play out the idea that this isn't what they want. In fact, many of them are trying to leave that lifestyle behind and do some good. Others don't know any other way to be. As the campaign progressed, the PCs went from smuggling Spice and taking on underworld bounties to trying to protect alien refugees and turning the Gangsters of Ord Itani in to the New Republic. 

As is the nature of my Storybox philosophy, the PCs would ask around once arriving on a planet and find out the local goings on. One world might be the domain of a interstellar kingpin but also noted for a rare fruit and offering a bounty on illegal poachers. There were always multiple things happening on a given planet. Add to these hooks and leads whatever it was the players were looking to do. 

Thoughts:

I never quite knew what the next game session would bring though and neither did they. Although I had laid out all the current politics and happenings, made notes on each of the planets and their inhabitants, I had no idea which of these would see the light of day until the PCs decided to go there. 

In one session I'll never forget, the PCs find out that their 'change of heart' activities have them wanted by several figures of the Galactic Underworld. One of the bounty hunters after them is rumored to be Boba Fett, even though the PCs had heard Fett died three years ago on Tatooine. 

Anyway, this event was supposed to be part of the living background, a little crumb to be explored at some later point. One of the PCs, the one with the highest bounty on his head, decided the group needed to do something about this right away. With the help of his companions the PC enacted a brilliant plan; he appeared to blow himself up in his landspeeder, left one identifying piece behind, then disguised himself as a different bounty hunter and turned it in to collect the bounty - ON HIMSELF! 

This scenario was the culmination of numerous previous events and pro-actively initiated by a player. I like to believe myself pretty creative but there is no way I saw that coming. Is that going to happen in anyone's pre-written adventure? Is there a way to pencil in room to have that happen? I mean, it's possible but I don't recall a lot of that kind of thing coming up in the Village of Hommlet or Griffin Mountain. Again, it could happen but generally the way most adventures are created and structured there doesn't seem to be room for the kind of pro-active, player driven narratives seen in this more open-ended method. 

For me, this improvisation-with-parameters or perhaps improvisation-with-provided-tools approach works much better than the more traditional version of adventure design. 

With that, I think I will end my analysis of this idea and move on to something else. November is almost upon us and I want to consider what I am going to talk about next month and perhaps beyond...

AD

Barking Alien

*We never actually addressed fuel beyond being out of it or needing to get it. A botched Navigation or other flight based roll could have me saying, "Seems you burned a lot of fuel this trip" or "Your low on fuel after that last jump". Fuel was more of a MacGuffin than a tracked resource. 

**I have mentioned Gardine (pronounced gar-DEEN) before. It is one of my oldest original planets. It is also nearly identical to the planet Nevarro that appears in The Mandalorian streaming series from Disney+. From the ash covered landscape to the lava rivers and the presence of Offworld Jawas it is startling how similar Nevarro and Gardine are. 

Chose Your Own Adventure

Once I have the key components I need for a table-top RPG campaign  - A Premise, A Map, at least one Conceit, and a good portion of the accessible locations Fleshed Out (See the previous post) - it is time to start designing the Adventures for said campaign.

Or it would be if I designed Adventures. 

Wait...wasn't this a series of posts about Adventure Design?

Oh indeed it is but I believe you'll see that I go about things a bit differently than most. 

The point of Fleshing Out the various regions of the game world (or universe or multiverse depending on the game) is so I know who and what is there as well as why they're there and what they would do if PCs decided to visit.

It is especially important to know, for example, that the port master of the unassuming fishing town a few miles North is in on a secret smuggling operation run by local pirates. He doesn't want to get caught and hasn't so far so. I have notes as to why he's doing it and what he'll do to avoid being arrested. Is he the 'fight the PCs type' or a 'cut them in for a deal type'? This is vital because I have no idea whether or not the PCs will interact with him but if they do, I'll be ready. Regardless of what the PCs do I will be able to react appropriately based on the motivation and personality I've given him. 

Hold on...you don't know if the PCs will meet up with this guy at all? Isn't he an Encounter? If that isn't where the Adventure in that town leads, why create so much information on him at all? 

Ah, therein lies the crux of the matter. A Storybox game doesn't lead you anywhere. It follows you as you move through the setting. 

When I run a Storybox game I include lots of (hopefully) curious characters, interesting concepts, and intriguing goings-on and see which of these things the PCs latch on to. Often some of these elements, scattered here and there throughout the setting, have a direct relation to one or more of the PCs, to their goals, or to the goals of the party as a whole. 

I begin the campaign proper with either some [GM generated] event to get the ball rolling or drop a series of potential hooks, revealing some of the occurrences that I know are going on in the world/universe. These hooks will include a few that connect to the PCs' backstories as noted above. I then wait and see what the PCs want to do and which lead they want to follow. 

Other times one of the players/PCs will say something like, "OK gang, we know we need to do/buy/obtain X in order to achieve this thing that we all care about. Maybe we should start out by traveling to Such-and-Such place." Basically, the PCs can generate plot by saying, "We want to do this thing" and then the campaign will pursue that thing until something else comes up. 

What it's really all about is the choices the PCs make and the things that excite them are what generates 'Adventure' and determines the nature of the scenarios. Whoever and whatever the PCs decide to interact with then creates a domino effect of organic connections and logical consequences.

If the PCs learn of a stolen Magic Item and seek to retrieve it, they will likely cross paths with the other characters and organizations that I as Gamemaster know are also after the item. I know how the NPC from whom the item was stolen feels about the item and the PCs for trying to get it back for her. I know where it is or more accurately, where it is likely to be, but that could change based on the actions of the PCs and their antagonists. 

While I am still the GM, the players very much choose their own adventure from a combination of possible options as well as new options they can generate themselves. Also, there is a tendency in these games to see both Big Adventure Goals and smaller personal goals. The PC Superheroes may want to track down all the members of the villainous Legion of Crime but that'll take a while. Between following leads and fighting bad guys Tomorrow Man and Intrepid want to upgrade the defenses of the team headquarters. Visitor and Spellbound visit with a new hero who helped them on their last mission to see if she wants to join the team. These latter subplots - upgrading the base and recruiting a new member - were the PCs'/players' ideas, not mine. 

How do you plan encounters then?

How do you make sure there's enough treasure for the PCs efforts?

How do you manage the 'Challenge Rating' if a bunch of 'low level' PCs up and decide they want to take on an Ancient Dragon. 

Easy...

I don't. I see what happens. 

Treasure isn't a big deal in my games as I've noted before. Wealth isn't the reward the PCs are hoping for in my campaigns more often than not. In the case where this is a monetary or physical reward of some kind that will be figured into whatever they're doing. Ridding the countryside of a terrible monster gains you are reward from the local Duke. Successfully smuggling vital Medical Droid parts to a Rebel Base in the Bontooine System gets you credits from the Rebel Alliance.

Meanwhile, saving the Earth from the menace of Dark Seid or Dr. Doom gets you thanks and praise from Humanity. That's it. It all works itself out by genre. 

If a bunch of novice adventurers travel from their tiny, one-horse village to the Mountain of Endless Despair to battle Mourngoth, The Ebony Dragon of Sadness Over The Departed, then they'll likely die...but maybe not. An infinite number of things could happen along the way. 

Next post I will do a mini-'Campaigns I Have Known' wherein I will recount a campaign a run with this approach and how it worked in play. 

Later,

AD

Barking Alien

 

A Taste For Adventure

For some time now I've wanted to convey my particular approach to Adventure Design in as concise and yet complete a manner as possible. 

I've made attempts to do this in the past and a number of previous posts touch on the subject to varying degrees. Honestly, I don't feel as if I've been able to properly explain what I do very well at all. It is a thing that comes very naturally to me, something I've been doing for over 40 years now and as such I've found it difficult to put it into words in a way others can understand. 

I am going to try and fix that with a short series of entries that I hope will get across the way in which I create adventures for my campaigns.  

Fingers crossed.

Please note that this is my preferred process but not the one I always use. It is best for Open World, Sandbox style campaigns with largely Pro-Active players. It showcases an approach I've nicknamed the 'Storybox' method, which I have discussed before. 

These days I find myself running adventures for my games that are more akin to the type most GMs probably employ: There is a specific thing happening, the PCs are told about it and offered a reward/paid to do a job/called upon by higher authorities or powers to take care of the situation. 

When my Starfleet crew comes upon a planet emitting unusual radiation that could endanger the entire sector...well...that's what's going on. They are Starfleet and they know they have to deal with it. On a meta-level, they understand that dealing with this is the scenario I've set up for that evening (more about this as the series goes on though...).

What I prefer and what made me a very popular GM when I was younger, was a far more open-ended approach...

My campaigns generally began with a Premise and a Map.

The Premise could be something like, 'The PCs are the crew of a starship exploring a region of the galaxy that was once home to an empire of highly advanced aliens. Their artifacts are everywhere.' It could also be something like, 'What does it mean to carry on another hero's legacy?' For the first part of this adventure design series, our Premise is 'A Medieval Fantasy setting wherein the PC Adventurers are Fantasy Foodies traveling across the world to sample and cook culinary delights largely made from Monsters and plants that grow in Dungeons.' *

I'm calling the campaign, 'A Taste For Adventure'.

Swords and Food

Art by navigavi

The game Map created for this campaign covers the lands in and around the city in which the PCs begin the game. The PCs have a wagon and beasts of burden capable of traveling between their starting city and any of the locations on the map they might be interested in investigating. That said, it would take them months to travel to reach the lands beyond the map due to distance, supplies, inclement weather, etc. but it's definitely possible with determination and forethought on the players part. 

Not my best Map.

Fantasy Maps are really hard for me. 

Next I devise a Conceit. In this context a Conceit is a concept that governs the campaign, not unlike a custom made troupe. Often the Conceit has a Player Element and a Gamemaster Element. Players may be informed of one or both of these but usually they will only be aware of the Player Element. It is possible, even likely, that there won't be a need to explicitly point these elements out as the players should catch on to them pretty quickly. 

The Conceit for 'A Taste For Adventure' is that each location on the map is known for a particular kind of food or signature dish (Player Element). Eating the famous and/or rare cuisine or obtaining the ingredients to make it will allows require the PCs to overcome an obstacle or face a conflict.  

For example, the village of Draughtmount hosts an annual Beer and Mead competition as part of their Great Brewmasters Festival. Brewers from all across the land come to show off their drafts and tavern owners and barkeeps place orders for the most popular of the potations. This year, a lack of rain and good barley and hops harvests threatens the festival as few distilleries were able to make enough beer to meet the demand. 

If the PCs traveled to Draughtmoount hoping to lift a pint of Dwarven Roasted Red Stout or Elven Willowwine Ale to their lips, they are going to have to find a way to convince the brewers to part with the liquid treasure for less then a king's ransom. 

Note that some campaigns may feature multiple Conceits. 

Alright, now that we have a Premise, a Map, and a Conceit we can get to the most important part - fleshing out the locations on the map! 

Fleshing Out The Map deals with a lot more than just naming regions and identifying who the mayor of a particular city is. Some of the important things to know about any given point on the map include:

• What is this place known for? What makes it significant in the setting?
• What does it and its people produce? What do they need? What do they want?
• What are its people like? How do they think and why? 
• Who lives there that thinks things need to improve? Who wants more than they have?
• Who lives there that seeks to keep the status quo?
• What's the terrain and weather? How does it effect other details about the location?

In the case of many of these questions, the answers can sometimes be nothing and/or no one. That's fine as it says something about the place as well. What you want is a detailed understanding of each place, its people, key individuals (NPCs) who live/dwell/work there, and why these things are the way they are.

While I don't recommend you go nuts, I will say the more detail you have in this regard the better it will be for the next step in our process. I of course do indeed go nuts.  

Cool. I think we're finally ready to...

Hey Barking Alien! I thought you said this was going to be about Adventure Design! So far this is all about Campaign Design. Tell us how you write adventures!

Oh, I don't write adventures. 

You...What? You don't write adventures?

No. The players do...

To Be Continued,

AD

Barking Alien

*Clearly inspired by my favorite Manga Delicious in Dungeon (aka Dungeon Meshi). 

 

A Day In The Life

Star Trek Day came and went with a few good announcements (an Eaglemoss USS Cerritos model! Woohoo!) and some rather 'Meh' ones. All I can say is thank goodness we have Lower Decks.

On a side note, Friday was The Orville Day, the fourth anniversary of the first airing of The Orville. Season 3 can not come soon enough.

Unfortunately, yesterday was a far more serious and somber day. It marked the 20 year anniversary of a day of great sorrow for what was lost and great hope for the future of Humankind. 

As for what's on my mind right now...

Something I've been wanting to talk about for quite a while is an approach I like take with many of my campaigns which I will refer to as 'A Day In The Life'. 

Do the Player Characters in your Tabletop RPG campaign sleep? By that I mean in the evening, when they're tired. Not to regain lost Hit Points but to rest because, well, people rest. 

Do your PCs and NPCs eat? Do they enjoy it? Do they have hobbies and do they take part in them? How about getting to know the locals, do they do that? Do the locals talk to them? I'm not just talking about contacts and patrons but the guy who runs the local newsstand, the owner of the party's favorite tavern, or the multi-eyed widower down at the starship scrapyard. 

The reason I ask these questions is that these and other (subjectively) mundane activities have regularly been a part of some of my most successful campaigns. I would say elements such as these define a certain style of play that I [generally] strive for. 

Not every campaign needs this of course. I am currently running a Star Trek Adventures campaign wherein I was recently commended for the brevity of my story and encounter sequences. The goal was to make it feel more like an episode of the original Star Trek series. In The Original Series we never saw people go to the bathroom or perform many other trivial tasks that real life requires us to do on a day-to-day basis. We know (or can logically assume) that they did these things but it was only when it was important to staging the episode that we would see them eat, sleep, or the like. 

I have run Star Trek campaigns in the past where things were much less 'TV Show' style and much more 'A Day in The Life'. I often sight this as a key difference between the feel of Star Trek Adventures (This is a TV series) and previous incarnations such as Last Unicorn Games and FASA (you live in this universe). 

Anyway, one reason - perhaps the main reason - to include this approach is to add a dimension to your game that would otherwise require a lot more work. As discussed a long while back in response to something Charles Atkins talked about, giving a world/setting a dynamic feel need not require massive amounts of work and preparation.

You can imply a living, breathing milieu without having to track the movements and habits of every living thing in existence. You do need to know the movements and habits of the PCs and the NPCs they might encounter. You don't need to know exactly how the weather patterns of each season on this planet work year round so much as what the weather is now; right now as the PCs are experiencing it. Add in the element of the PCs and NPCs dealing with the weather in an everyday manner and the climate and conditions become more memorable without you the GM hardly even trying. 

Unfortunately, this is clearly not something a lot of people think about. I did a search on Google Images, Pinterest, and DeviantArt in an attempt to find an image to represent this post and it was nearly impossible to find anything good to showcase mundane activity in a fantastic setting. You do get the classic tavern or spaceport bar scenes but we've all seen that too many times. Any images of Science Fiction characters shopping in a store? How about Fantasy characters cooking a meal? These are scenes we know exist in nearly every work of genre fiction and TRPG campaign but they aren't deemed meaningful enough to depict I suppose. 

Make them meaningful in your games. Give thought to them. 

See how it brings your universe to life.

AD

Barking Alien

The Sinister Superman Sandbox Syndrome

I have a million things to get to but it's been a week from hell and I am just putting down the first thing that popped into my head. Future plans are for a Mekton/Mecha RPG post, some ruminations about The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and of course, more Pokemon AD.

Wow. Whose table-top RPG blog reads like this? Seriously. I am pretty proud to have written that sentence. OK, enough of that. Back to near crippling self doubt...

For now, I wanted to talk about something that occurred to me while reading a recent post by none other than the ever intriguing Noisms. While his train of thought and mine do not always line up, I am always willing to jump on that train of his and take it a few stops just to see where it goes.

This time is goes into an idea about forests and fire-fighting Elves and such but that's not the part that really caught my attention. The part that got me was that he uses, as a point of reference, a post by Zak Smith wherein Zak details what Noism calls the Superman Sandbox Problem. 

Very much worth a read as are most all of Zak's posts. The crux of the matter I want to discuss is that Zak states that in a sandbox style game, the heroic characters are at something of a creative disadvantage.

Hmmm. Perhaps disadvantage isn't the right way to put it. The idea is that a roguish character is more proactive, while a heroic character is more reactive. Therefore, the rogue sets up his or her particular encounters, whereas the hero simply chooses one option or another or blindly bumps into an option that GM has chosen.

Let's say a group of players with roguish PCs decide to - let's use one of Zak's own examples - steal a car from the used car lot, use it in the getaway from a bank robbbery, amd then ditch the car by a church afterwards.

Zak says in his post that if the PCs try to enact this scheme during a game, they basically create that session's adventure. The 'Adventure writes itself' he notes. 

The idea is that this doesn't happen for Superman because...because...wait. Why doesn't it work this way for Superman?

In the same post, Zak gives various possible examples of how a heroic character, Superman in this case, could possibly interact with the sandbox world he's in: As we did for the roguish PCs, let's pick one possible option. For today's session, Superman wants to, umm, ah-ha! He could try to free Mon-El from the Phantom Zone (in the privacy of his own home, I suppose). [In the Fortress of Solitude - ed.]

Here's the difference (according to Zak's post):

"While any of these things may result in a conflict (and thus an adventure), the Superman PC--unlike the rouguish PC--has no idea of what the shape of that conflict will be."

He...um...what? Sorry, I'm not understanding.

How does the rogue in the previous example know, in advance, what kind of security the bank has? How does he know the condition of the car he and his gang have stolen? What if Clark Kent just happens to be in the bank depositing his latest check from the Daily Planet at the time of the robbery? What if the Flash is in town and hears about the car being stolen from the used car lot? What if the used car has a crappy transmission or something else is faulty that causes the car to stall?

Likewise, how does Superman not know he will probably have to face off against villains he and his father trapped in the Phantom Zone when he goes to free Mon-El? Doesn't going to free Mon-El go virtually hand-in-hand with saying, "I feel like getting into a tussle with Quex-Ul, Zaora, and General Zod today"?

Furthermore...

"Superman does not choose to sketch out a violent conflict. The rogue does. Superman chooses from a set of options whose consequences (conflict-wise) are mostly unknown." Zak writes.

I guess...but no more or less so than the rogues. It's a matter of perspective and approach. To further illustrate what I mean, let's look at Zak's scenario for Superman in a Metropolis sandbox and compare/contrast it to similar ones I've used (with some pointers taught to me by my Champions Guru friend Will Corpening)...

Zak posts:

"Ok, so picture this:

A GM somewhere writes out the city of Metropolis and the city of Gotham and the rest of the world of DC Comics in excruciating detail. The train lines, the shopfronts, which hot dog store owners are secretly shark-men, every inch of it. It's all ready to go.

Now here comes a PC playing Superman, into this sandbox.

"So what do you want to do today, Supes?"

"Uh, I guess I'll go on patrol."

Off he flies.

"Do I see any crime?"

"Umm, nope, not much, Metropolis is a fully-functioning independent world going about its business."

"Ok, I keep going. Now do I see any crime?"

Right here at the end is where my view point differs. If Superman's player says he goes on patrol over the city, he doesn't find nothing to do. That's not only boring but it takes away part of the player being proactive. 

If the GM begins by asking the player what he wants to do and then the player tells her, then the GM should, ya'know, do that. Have that happen. Having that result in nothing makes no sense.

What the player is saying here, if they're a proactive player, is that they want to have Superman find street crime in Metropolis. Maybe they're tired of Brainiac and Bizarro and just want to stop some bank robbers in a stolen car.

If the rogues went to steal a car to rob a bank, would you tell them there weren't any cars in the lot? That none of the cars had gas? That the city had no banks? Of course not. The adventure writes itself, right? So why would a superhero deciding to patrol for crime find none?

My buddy Will would often open a Champions session by asking me where my character Starguard was and what he was doing. Here are just a few of the actual answers I gave:

He's in space deflecting a comet from hitting the Earth.

He's near Jupiter rescuing an alien starship caught in the planet's gravity well.

He's at our headquarters helping test our 'Danger Room' style training facility.

He's assisting another hero, trying to save the passengers and crew of a damaged 747. 

If you were the GM, what would you take from this? Will noted that I like to play up Starguard's 'space hero' nature,and that flight is important to me.

Do you think he just said, "OK, you deflect the comet/rescue the ship/save the plane. Now what?"

NO! How boring is that? Also, I as the player am indeed setting up for conflict in a proactive way. Why not take me up on it? If a bunch of thugs can turn a stolen car and a bank robbery into an adventure, why can't I do that with a comet and a bunch of aliens that need rescuing?

In the case of the comet, Will took the opportunity to tie my action into another player's opening game answer. My pal AJ said that his speedster, Pulse, was at New York City's South Street Seaport dealing with his arch-nemesis, the cold war, cold weather cretin General Winter. Apparently GW was using a device to attract the icy, space-born object towards the Earth for villainous purposes.

Pulse and Starguard

On the tail of a comet, as the trail goes cold!

In the instance of the 747, it was my attempt to not only do something classic for a flying hero (always wanted to save a plane Superman style) but also a chance to meet another hero from our world setting who maybe I didn't know. As it turned out, the flight was from New York to Atlanta, Georgia and I got to meet a few of the heroes of the South Eastern United States including Sure Thing (a favorite NPC of mine), Swift, and the high flying, evangelical Messenger.

It's a Sure Thing baby.

I always see gaming as a friendly tug-of-war, a push and pull between two forces, the players and the GM. I throw challenges at them to make them think and act to overcome obstacles, but they - especially proactive players - challenge me to come up with things in response to their ideas.

I don't really plan adventures with proactive players in the mix. I layout the sandbox, plant story ideas and options in the setting (hence my term 'Storybox' for my preferred style of play), and then see what the players have their PCs do.

They may feel like waiting for me to give them something.

"We scan the area. Any anomalous readings?"

"We check the Trouble Alert Monitor. Any crimes going on?"

They may want to pursue something mentioned in the background of the setting.

"If there's nothing pressing, we'd like to check out that planet you mentioned two or three sessions back. The one with the unusual rings. We never got to really look at it and it sounds interesting."

"Is Black Monday still at large? It always bugged me that he escaped. I want to investigate where he may have gone."

They may want to do something unexpected of their own design.

"The other players and I were talking and I think we have a way to upgrade the shjp's Star Drive using a new scientific theory I read about. We're going to dock at a space station and do some upgrades. Let's dock somewhere where we can get high tech parts and maybe find some work should the cost of the upgrades get expensive."

"The team and I talked about it and we're tired of having such poor relations with the Atlanteans. We're going to go on a peace mission to Atlantis, talk to their leader, and hammer out a treaty. Maybe we can help them find and capture that villain Wavemistress while we're in their region. That would really help getting them to see us favorably."

In the end, I agree that the proactive hero is less common than the proactive ne'er-do-well. However, I think that it may be that it's so because we've been trained (and trained ourselves) to think that.

It is also a trope of certain genres that the heroes lives are relatively calm and peaceful until such time as trouble strikes. Makes sense from both an emulation and simulation stand point. At the same time, lots of things happen to Peter Parker; Aunt May falls ill, Pete gets an assignment from or gets in trouble with J. Jonah Jameson, or realizes he's forgotten he had a date with Mary Jane tonight.  

That said, it's your game. There is no reason it has to be that way if you can fit the idea of a proactive benevolent character into the scheme of things without throwing the whole setting out of wack. My assertion is that generally speaking you can. Maybe not all the time, maybe not in every situation, but if the GM makes time for the proactive heroic PC, and the player uses that time in a sensible and entertaining way, well...why not?

AD
Barking Alien

STAR TREK - POLARIS

For this next installment of Campaigns I Have Known, we're going to go to Warp 9, slingshot around the Sun, and travel all the way back to 1983.

This my dear friends is one of my earliest campaigns for one of my favorite games. Based on a suggestion/recommendation by my good buddy WQRobb, here is a campaign classic...

The campaign came about as the result of an impromptu RPG session thrown together because we had a few free periods at school. It was likely the result of some special assembly, or a teacher's union meeting, or some such. Anyway, for whatever reason, my friends and I had the time, we had the freedom, and we decided to get a game together.

This was a fairly common occurrence. Throwing a Star Trek game together I mean. It was our go-to game at the time. We would roll up officers, pick a ship, and head off into the Final Frontier on some crazy, ad-libbed adventure that would pop into my head.

We must've made a dozen crews, named a dozen different Starfleet vessels, and visited a dozen planets that were never seen again.

Mini-rant...Honestly, I can't understand people who play the same character every time they play a game. That, or they reuse old characters again, and again. Sure, we all have favorites. I've reused characters a number of times myself. I do it in Superhero games more than any other genre, and always after years of not using the character. C'mon people, stretch that ol' imagination. Don't be lazy....Mini-rant over.

Where was I? Oh yes...

So in this one instance, just like many before it, the players generated some Star Trek characters, and I prepared for our mission. There were a few things that made this particular outing special as I recall.

• For some reason, most of the players wanted to play Andorian characters.
• We wanted to use lower ranked characters, on a smaller, less powerful ship.
• We set the game in the era of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, instead of TOS.

I had gotten a hold of a fanzine somewhere, and low and behold, there was an original [fan created] ship in there that I really liked. It was labelled a Research/Survey vessel and fit the bill of the kind of ship we were thinking about. I showed it to the group, and it was unanimously voted so strange looking that we just had to use it.

I'll be honest, I don't remember the first session beyond that. I can't for the life of me recall the scenario. I remember we had fun though. We all liked the characters, the vessel, and the speculative science, mystery-solving, 'big idea' nature of the adventure. It was Star Trek as heavily influenced by Space: 1999, and OMNI Magazine.

It was a hit. More so than I had realized.

When the opportunity to run a quick adventure came up again a few weeks later, the group asked if I still had the characters sheets, and stats for the USS Polaris, our vessel. I did. For some reason I not only didn't throw them away, or lose them (as I did so many other one-shot game materials at the time), but I actually left them in a folder in my backpack (or book bag as we used to say).

We ended up playing them again. And again. Before long, we all looked at each other, smiled, nodded, and agreed - this was our new campaign. We couldn't have planned one better ourselves.

 ***

Campaigns I Have Known

Proudly Presents...

STAR TREK - POLARIS

 Pleiades Class Research/Survey Vessel

The vessel first appeared in an article in
the Star Trek fanzine, 'Warp Factor One'
written by Don Corson - Publication Date 1976

Title: STAR TREK - POLARIS

System: Star Trek, The Role Playing Game (FASA), 1st Edition.

Circa: 1983. There were approximately three dozen sessions in this campaign. Early on there was no set schedule, then by the mid-way point it was short 4-5 hour sessions once, or twice a week, and one 8-10 hour Saturday session a month.

Player Base: Our core group consisted of five male players, all about 14 years of age. Other players would pop in and out playing 'guest star'* roles on a fairly regular basis. While no one guest star appeared more then five, or six times, I do recall that one of the last sessions had about 8-9 players. It is possible that ship's Chief Medical Officer may have shown up more than 6 times, but I'm not positive.

This was actually a common dynamic in our games from 1982-1986.

Characters: As noted above, this was a pick up game initially. We had some time to kill, decided to play a Star Trek game, and threw some characters together. Oddly, one guy had been itching to play an Andorian, one always played an Andorian, and then another was like, "Hey, why don't we all play Andorians!" It didn't end up exactly that way, but it was a largely Andorian crew, which was awesome for me since they're my favorite Star Trek species.

Sadly, this is where my memory betrays me. I don't recall any of the PCs' names. I'm so ashamed.

I recall who played what type of character, species, rank, and what their position was aboard the ship. Just no names. It was 33 years ago. Cut me some slack.

Andorian, Male, Commander - Commanding Officer (played by Chris D.)

Our commanding officer was a career Starfleet Officer from a long line of Starfleet, and Andorian Imperial Guard personnel. He hailed from Andor (aka Andoria, Andor Prime, or Epsilon Indi VIII), but largely grew up on flights between his homeworld, and Earth. As such, he is especially good at dealing with other species, particularly Humans.

The Polaris was his first command, but he had spent years on a Miranda Class (called an Anton Class in the old FASA game) that had performed exploration missions near the Klingon border. The commander was not a fan of the Klingons.

Andorian, Male, Lt. Commander - First Officer/Chief Helmsman (played by ?)

(I sadly can't recall who played this character, which is very strange. A true, and slightly scary sign that I'm getting old. Also, that this was a long time ago. How can I not remember who played the First Officer? I remember the character, just not the player. So odd.).

A more disciplined, by-the-book fellow than his Commanding Officer, the First Officer was an excellent military man, having engaged in a number of conflicts while serving on his previous post (a Scout/Destroyer if I recall). His best skills are Starship Weaponry, Shields, and Ship-To-Ship Tactics.

The First Officer grew up on an Andorian colony some distance from Earth, and was unfamiliar with other species prior to attending Starfleet Academy.

Human, Male, Lieutenant  - Chief Science Officer (played by David F.)
 
The only Human being about the USS Polaris, the Chief Science Officer initially experiences quite a bit of resentment, and resistance from his fellow crewmembers. Recommended to the position by the former Andorian, Chief Science Officer, now retired, much of the staff of the Polaris felt the position should be awarded to another Andorian.

Through perseverance, skill, and confidence, the Science Officer turns things around, gaining the friendship, and admiration of his peers, and subordinates alike. He has a possible [off screen] romance with the Asst. Chief Helm Officer (a PC guest star).

Megarite, Male, Lieutenant - Chief Engineer (played by Joe C.)

The other non-Andorian member on the command crew was the ship's Chief Engineer, a Megarite. Megarites are an humanoid, aquatic mammalian species, similar to Terran Whales. They communicate through bellows of varying tones, volumes, and frequencies. While they normally  breathe air, they do have gill-like membranes that can extract oxygen from water for a limited time. His skin was similar to the hide of a Terran rhinoceros.

The Chief Engineer was warm, gregarious, and saw the crew as extended family.

Megarite

Concept Art and Costuming

from Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

Andorian, Male, Chief Petty Officer - Chief of Security (played by Bruce D.)

Our toughest customer in personal combat was no doubt our Chief of Security. Well versed in the use of his fists, feet, swords, phasers, and demolitions, this guy meant serious business.

Hailing from a failed colony world and having something of a checkered past, this guy was given a chance by the Polaris' Commanding Officer and the two are old friends.

Guest Stars Included:

A Female, Andorian, Helmsman - Lt. Junior Grade -  who covered for the First Officer when he was on landing parties. She was identified as the Assistant Chief Helmsman.

Illustration by Adam Cotnam.

Coloring By Adam Dickstein (that's me!)

An Andorian, Male, Shuttlecraft Pilot who also sometimes doubled as a Navigator on the bridge.

Andorian, Male, Doctor - Chief Medical Officer of the USS Polaris. He was a Guest Star, but joined us for a good number of sessions (probably 6, but maybe more). He was often used as an NPC while the player was not around (one of the first times I did that).

While the bridge/command crew only had two non-Andorians, there were a few others onboard. Roughly 5% of the total crew compliment of around 175 crewmembers were not Andorian.

Some other guest stars were:

A Male, Vulcan, Geologist who desperately wanted to be reassigned because of how cold the ship was (we decided Andorian 'room temperature' is considerably lower than Human standards).

A Female, Caitian, Bio-chemist. Also something of a nurse/field medic.

A Male, Zaranite, Engineer specializing in Phaser technology.

Synopsis: There was no real overarching metaplot in this campaign. Instead, I used a very sandbox approach, letting the Commander and crew choose which planets they wanted to study in an area of space not too far from the Organian Treaty Zone, and therefore the Klingon Empire.

Klingons were the main antagonists (one of my rare campaigns that used them much), but other reoccurring opponents included Orion Pirates, the Gorn, and an original species of weird, 'War of the Worlds Martian' type squid things.

Most of the sessions focused on some heady science fiction concept, not unlike the original Star Trek series, but in some ways more like Space: 1999, or Red Dwarf. That is, it was less about the moral, and social issues of the time, and more about exploring scientific theories, and 'What If?'s.

Appendix N: Obviously the original Star Trek television series, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan were the primary influences.

Additionally, a major inspiration for the campaigns' individual adventures came from articles in OMNI Magazine. Various classic Science Fiction novels and short stories, such as those by Robert Heinlein, Larry Niven, Alfred Bester, and others, were also a source of scenario ideas.

Bonus Features:

We really had a great layout for the interior of the USS Polaris. It had an unusual bridge design created by my friend Joe and myself. We mapped out a good portion of the ship including the Sickbay, Shuttle Bay, Engine Room, Mess Hall, and major laboratories.

The ship started with two standard Shuttlecraft but later we modified one into an original design that was more like a mini-scout ship.

I was reading a lot of scientific books, and magazines at the time and this also influenced the type of adventures we had.

The campaign never had a definitive ending. I don't recall what happened to make us change games, but it was probably no more weighty an event than we found a new game we really want to try.

*I'm wondering if I should do a post in the near future on 'Guest Stars', a gaming tool I've been using for years that enables people to drop in, and out of campaigns easily.

Any interest in that? Does anyone else have that as part of their games?

See you again soon!

Oh wait! Happy Leap Day! Hurray for the end of the month of February >_<

Also, Happy Birthday Superman!

AD
Barking Alien