Arena

What a weekend! Spent Saturday with my girlfriend checking out Century of the Child, an awesome and quite moving exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art here in New York City.

With many of the regular kids being on vacation with their families, my Sunday class was small and so I ran a one shot of Superheroes based on a very simplified Icons. Chicken Man, The Turbo Turtle, Lady Wind, and The Unseen Knight managed to thwart the villainous activities of Assault N' Battery, Mister Mist, Thunderwoman, Dr. Dragon, and their leader, The Water Wizard, before the nefarious fiends could rob the 1st National Super City Bank. It was a blast!

Before we get started with today's post, I wanted to send out some birthday wishes to two very different gents who've influenced our hobby, our collective culture, as well as me personally (albeit to different extents).

First, a Happy, Creepy, Thoroughly Mad and Incomprehensible Birthday to H. P. Lovecraft! Your essays and insight were as weird as your fiction and certainly not always pleasant.

Second, but by no means lesser, a Happy Birthday to The Great Bird of The Galaxy, Gene Roddenberry, for creating the 'Wagon Train to the Stars' that is the focus of my posts this month, before this and for many posts to come.

OK, down to business...and business is a' boomin'!

***

In my previous post I talked about the consideration that each beginning Star Trek PC and many of their opponents walk around with the equivalent firepower of a high level D&D wizard.

Accepted as a true statement on the nature of armed, ranged combat in the Star Trek universe, how do you enable your PCs to get into fights with each session seeing at least one of them vaporized? Well...tricky question.

First off, is seeing PCs disintegrated fairly often OK with you and your players? If it is and you are running a more old school mentality game, let the dice fall where they may and don't worry about it.

If on the other hand you want the PCs, like the main characters on a Star Trek TV series, to have a bit more longevity, you may want to consider my alternate approaches.

The Corbomite Maneuver

The threat of Phaser use is nearly as effective as Phaser use itself. That is, don't be afraid to brandish the weapon, be afraid to fire it.

Patterns of Force

When conflict is inevitable but you don't want to resort to atomizing everyone in sight, what are your options?

Well, looking to Star Trek, we see a surprising large amount of hand-to-hand and melee combat for a setting focused on the 22nd-through-24th centuries. Unusual ionospheres, mysterious radiation and ancient alien dampening field technology can really play havok with state-of-the-art Starfleet weaponry. Luckily, every Starfleet officer is well versed in the deadly art of Trek-Fu! Don't forget to karate chop your opponent on the back of the neck after he doubles over from your elbow to his stomach.

When trying to blend in with primitive natives on a planet you are surveying, it's not a good idea to draw attention to yourself by using an alien weapon on a local, even if he is attacking you. If the standard weaponry of the world/region you are in is a tonfa-like baton with one sharp end, well, make sure you have one of those. You know what they say, "When on 892-IV...".

Finally, Starfleet officers are often captured by locals and enemies species alike and relieved of their gear. If the PCs can escape and knock out some guards, they would do well to grab their captors' swords or nunchucks or sonic blasters or whatever those guys are using.

Day of The Dove

Of course not every encounter has to begin and end with violent conflict. Yes, yes, I know, 'just the exciting ones' right? I think Gene may have been overly optimistic about our chances...

In conclusion, I love a good Star Trek fight and believe it or not I have seen my fair share of Phaser battles as well. Just be sure not to use any one approach or response too often or too many of the same types one after the other. Infinite diversity isn't just for Vulcans. Sometimes it's for infinite combinations, like a quick left jab following a powerful right cross.

AD
Barking Alien

Spectre of The Gun

I can think of very few RPGs or RPG settings where a starting player character has, as his standard method of attack, a weapon that can instantaneously remove his opponent from the face of existence. I would further note that few games and/or settings see starting player characters facing off against relatively commonly encountered opponents with the same capacity.

Star Trek is one such RPG setting.



Each player character in a Star Trek RPG, unless otherwise instructed or prohibited not to, carries as their common sidearm a cell phone sized energy emitter that causes targets, once hit, to vanish. It is a 'go away' gun. Someone is hit, they 'go away' permanently.

This is, in no uncertain terms, really, really powerful. I know the various officially licensed and even some of the less than official Star Trek systems give detailed charts to determine the damage of a Phaser on different settings but really it all boils down to 4 'Conditions...

Stun Setting - You are hit, you are unconscious.
Heat Setting - Used to heat up rocks or weld or burn through doors.
Kill - You are hit, you are dead.
Disintegrate - You are hit, you glow briefly, you go away.

Now this isn't just the good guys we're talking about. This is the basic firearm of the setting. The Klingons, the Romulans, the Gorn, all of them have weapons that turn you into vapor in seconds.

This presents players and their characters with a very different combat dynamic than they are used to in most other games. It may take one or two sword swings to fell an Orc, a couple of rounds to take out a spy and a superhero will blast his opponent with heat vision and lay down a few 10 ton punches before the fellow is merely knocked out.

That is not what is going on here. This is one successful hit, one enemy gone. This is like real life combat where one bullet can kill a person.




So what is Adam getting at with this post? Simple. Armed combat in the Star Trek universe is quite unusual from what you may have encountered in other games. There are numerous ways to handle it but, in my opinion, only one overarching way that keeps the feel of Star Trek.

Perhaps the most common and easiest way to handle the power of a Phaser, Disruptor or similar weapon is to depower it. Assume, as often they seem to do in post-TOS Star Trek, that the default setting on the weapon is similar to a Blaster, simply a beam of light that hurts and nothing more. This is done without much fuss or muss by altering the amount of damage caused on the aforementioned charts most Star Trek RPGs love to give us. This will ensure longer firefights and a kind of action movie approach to Phaser combat.

Another way to handle it is to limit the charges on the weapon. The idea is that the Stun setting draws much less power from a Phaser or Disruptor's power cell but a Disintegrate setting draws quite a lot. There is some precedent for this in the show, although it's never clearly stated how many shots will drain a Phaser.

My last suggestion is both the most Star Trek-like and yet perhaps the hardest to convey to most gamers. This final idea is one of theme. Star Trek is essentially 'Wagon Train to the Stars' and the firing of a Phaser is like a Cowboy drawing his gun or even, a Samurai in a Kurosawa film drawing forth his katana. You do not draw your weapon unless you are prepared to fire it and you do not fire it unless you are prepared to kill somebody.

This respect for the weapon and what it can do often leads my players to set for Stun much more often than Kill or Disintegrate. Enemies need not die if you don't have to kill them in a Star Trek setting. Not every opponent need be vaporized. Disintegrated opponents don't reveal their plans or tell you how to deactivate the world-destroying alien satellite. No renegade starship captain or mad scientist was rehabilitated or stood trial for their crimes in the form of vapor.

At the same time, it always Starfleet officers to walk around with a bit of a swagger. Much like the old west, these are individuals who may not want to wipe you off the face of Gamma Arcturus V but they will if they have to. A Starfleet officer has to do what a Starfleet officer has to do...

More on combat in the Star Trek universe and what it means to gaming there coming up in...

The Arena.

AD
Barking Alien

And The Children Shall Lead Them

I wanted to take a quick break from the Star Trek entries to catch you all up on some updates of other things going on here at Barkley's Den.

My Champions campaign is ending, with the first of the 'two-parter' finale already completed last Saturday. We are skipping this coming Saturday as my friend and player Ray will be attending GenCon. And I am not jealous at all. Nope. Not one bit. I...oops. Seem to have broken my third stress ball.

In all honesty I am happy to see this campaign end, before it got to the point where I was really disliking it. I went back and read my accounts of the early part of the campaign and then compared those posts to the ones related to the latter half and you can clearly see...things changed. I think I will hold off from Superhero gaming for a bit, at least with the current group dynamic. It's a shame. I am still a huge fan of Supers games and this one had so much coolness that I didn't get to.

My amazing girlfriend Jenn (no, seriously, she is amazing. I am amazed.) has agreed to give gaming a try. The introductory game of choice? Faery's Tale Deluxe! Didn't I tell you she's amazing?

***

The main focus of today's post is an update on the RPG/Storytelling class summer program I continue to teach on Sundays in Brooklyn.

For this particular summer session, I wanted to focus on something a bit more light-hearted and humorous but more importantly, to teach the kids about cooperation and teamwork. Now it has been working...for the most part...but I am up against the mentality of 3rd-to-6th graders, some of whom are related. Having trouble with your cousin outside of the game means you don't want to help him in the game.

One lad in particular has a tendency to be a bit troublesome and self-centered, although strangely enough, he didn't act that way at all when he was a Starship Captain in a Starships & Spacemen one-shot I did with the kids a ways back. There he was fantastic,. letting each person voice their opinion, taking everything into account and going with the choice that best solved the problem at hand and benefitted the crew and ship as a whole.

It took some time, I had to get all 'tough teacher' on him, followed up with extra homework and then a little one-on-one conversation but I did finally find out what the issue really was. He was indeed having issues with his cousin (another player/student in the class). In the end, I think we worked out an understanding, even if everything may not be completely squared away.

I don't know that I will never see the same bad behavior again but I honestly believe he'll think about it before doing something in the game that hurts his allies (who are, in truth, his friends) or stops the game from being fun. He's a good kid, one of my favorites but like all of us at his age, he's got a lot to learn about life and growing up. Luckily he's got time.

I think I really like this teaching thing. Who knew? I sure didn't. I despised school. But then again, none of my teachers used RPGs to try to teach us stuff.

I'd love to get back to that Starships & Spacemen idea with this class. Not only would it be fun but I wonder if I could make each planet a mini-lesson on a different subject. Ooh. Wonder if that would work with my regular gaming group. They could use it...

***

Also, I wanted to acknowledge a few happenings, both joyous and sorrowful, that have occurred within the last month or so.

GenCon is this week! AHHH! I cannot go (weep) but my good buddy Ray will be. I am going to try for next year. If my business is as slow next year as it is this year it should be no problem to get the time off.

Congratulations NASA on the successful landing of the Curiosity Rover on the surface of Mars. Nice work ladies and gentlemen.

While our brains were placing robot explorers on the red planet, our athletes were taking the gold on the green and pleasant isle of England. Kudos to our Olympic participants.

We may be a gun-toting nation of rich people treading on poor people's backs, without money, jobs or a decent health plan but we really do kick ass at the cool, fun stuff don't we? Boo-yah!

On a more serious note...

Rest in peace Joe Kubert, father, teacher and comic book artist and pioneer. The man who taught me nothing's ever easy in Easy.*

Well, looking forward to the weekend! Another session with the kids, a game with my girl and hopefully cool news from the floor of GenCon. In the meantime, more Star Trek RPG talk is on the way!

AD
Barking Alien

*From the classic DC war comic 'Sgt. Rock and The Easy Company'

Is There In Truth No Beauty?

Commenter Jayson called this one for sure. I came up with the title of this post simultaneously with that of the previous post, 'Who Mourns For Adonais?'. I don't mind telling you all I'm having quite of a bit of fun going all Tangent Comics on these old Star Trek episode titles.

Now, we've sort of established that most people want to have an attractive character or, if less concerned about Human appearances and concepts of attractiveness, a character with good stats or cool abilities. This is a bit of the old school D&D mentality creeping into our Star Trek but it must be said that for the majority of players that is the starting point that leads to them liking their character, caring about it and giving it personality. This last part is the element I am most interested in for the purpose of this post.

If looks aren't a factor, what is? Bonuses to attributes and perhaps special abilities. After that, do we have an interesting alien? In my opinion no but we do have something to work with.

Matt Celis made the following comments on the subject of aliens in Star Trek...

Possibly in response to my query,

"Why is it, with tons of undeveloped and cool looking aliens in the Federation to make your own, does everybody and their brother want to come up with some crazy backstory so they can play a Klingon Starfleet Officer. Geez."

"Probably because most aliens in Star Trek are exceptionally boring: what weird ridges will they have on their heads to make them nonhuman?"

He also wrote...

"I think it's also, in Star Trek, a factor that many alien races are seldom seen and have no real background or character except for Vulcans, Klingons, and Romulans. Most are just weird face attachments to make them nonhuman, but nothing more."

Ah! This is where the development of a cool alien PC in Star Trek begins.



My good friend Allen, who I have mentioned here before, is, in my humble opinion, the absolute master of playing in depth, well developed, extraterrestrial freaks.

Allen can correct me if I'm wrong, but whenever the opportunity arises to play in a setting with non-human, allied/friendly species (at least in Science Fiction), my good buddy jumps at the chance to take an obscure alien and turn it into a PC species every bit as developed as Vulcans, Andorians or Klingons. In the process, he gets to add to the game's world building by coming up with specifics on the biology of his chosen alien as well as its environment and culture (and in most cases these elements influence each other to some extent).

Given the nature, length and breadth of Star Trek, anyone with the above mindset is in luck, as strange and barely fleshed out aliens abound in the background of many scenes. While I too grew very weary of the bumpy-head-of-the-week alien, there are many interesting and underdeveloped aliens just waiting for an enterprising (heh) and creative player to make them their own.

I, and a good number of people I've played Star Trek over the years, see the large number of seldom seen aliens with little to no canon background as a blessing rather than a curse, an opportunity rather than a flaw. How can I create an alien race that fits into the Star Trek universe and yet still make something original? I know! I can take that odd metallic looking dude from the bar scene in Star Trek III, or perhaps his female companion with the strange brow ridge, and completely design their peoples' whole deal from the ground up.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. As such, there is in truth beauty, anywhere you choose to see it.

AD
Barking Alien

Who Mourns For Adonais?

"No one wants to be ugly."


This statement, simple, straightforward and general though it may be, can pretty much be held as a basic truism. While what constitutes beauty and ugliness may vary from culture to culture, it is the culture of role playing gamers I am concerned with here.

I have heard the above phrase uttered and paraphrased numerous times in my life but the last time was by my good buddy Dave, who was referring to World of Warcraft and other Massive Multiplayer Online RPGs.

In those games, the bulk of the player community (which is young and male regardless of the total demographic which includes many women and older players of both genders), prefers to play which ever side has the Humans, Elves, Dwarves and other traditional 'Good Guy' races of Fantasy. World of Warcraft is a particularly interesting example of this, since the story behind the game has the Alliance (Initially made up of Humans, Elves, Dwarves and Gnomes and generally thought of as the good guys) being real a**holes, while the Horde (the bad guys - Orcs, Trolls, the Undead and the Minotaur-like Tauren) are very honorable and spiritual in many ways.

The Alliance PCs outnumber the Horde PCs by quite a bit on many servers. Why? Well, mainly 'cause people want to play the 'heroes'. But...according to the plot of the game, the Alliance aren't necessarily the heroes. Each side has done both right and wrong by the world, themselves and each other. Maybe it's because people, being Human, want to play Humans. It's easier. Logical reason if there ever was one...for table top RPGs but not necessarily MMOs. Could the reason be...

"No one wants to be ugly." No one wants their character, their avatar, the representation of themselves in their fantasy world to be less than amazingly handsome or beautiful?

You see pretty much the same attitude in table top games. Most players I've encountered play Humans and Elves, with a lesser number as Dwarves and Halflings and finally Gnomes and Half-Orcs. Dwarves get away with being more on the ugly side since they are also tough and sometimes portrayed as humorous. Few want to be Gnomes who aren't as cute and "Aw shucks" as Halflings.

In Science Fiction, especially Star Trek, the camp is really divided. Most people I have spoken to on the subject say the same thing, their campaign crews are largely Human with a smattering of Vulcans, Andorians and the occasional Orion (you'd be surprised how many women I've met and known who want to be Green Orion Women is a Star Trek game - more on that another time - but it does fit my hypothesis - people want to play what they believe to be attractive characters).

Now, this statement is a generalization. Of course people, men and women, younger players and experience veterans, play strange and even ugly looking characters. Usually it's because that species has some cool ability or interesting background. Klingons are popular with many Star Trek fans but (and I apologize to the Klingon contingent waiting just off my port bow) they really aren't very good looking.

Now my players, at least those I have had very successful games with in the past, have been very different. Eager to get into the head and other body parts ("Eh?" - I mean explore the exobiology of... - "Eh?!" - Quit it will you!) of an alien species and culture, we see our fair share of real weirdies.

While Andorians are my favorite Star Trek alien, I myself have played a Kazarite (the last alien in the image at top going left to right). The first of the aliens in the image above, the Chelarian or Rigellian Chelon has been played by a number of players in my games (people just like turtles I guess) and my good, and very much missed friend, Allen is especially adapt at playing bizarre and obsure Star Trek species such as the three armed, three legged Edoans (now renamed the Triexians) and the squid-like Xelatian.

So what do you think? How much does the aesthetics of a species play a part. Rather, how Human does a species need to be for you to want to play it? Does it matter? Why does it matter? Is it purely ego? After all, how many people out there are getting their PCs involved in romantic relationships with the opposite sex (or heck, the same sex...or heck, the sexless exchange of spore pods...)?

More on aliens coming up...

AD
Barking Alien