Hmm...one possible idea is (if we decide to start the campaign with the players playing Maquis) is to have them take on the roles of some of these "dangling" characters.

And the site you keep linking to, Ian....it's like a pc/npc generator

Regards,
David R

Quote from: David ROkay is this like a boardgame or something ? ...

It's a light tactical wargame. Here's a brief blurb about it:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/3040.

It is a lot of fun and quick paced. Captured the early Star Trek quite well.

Quote from: David RAnd the site you keep linking to, Ian....it's like a pc/npc generator

Yeah. Memory Alpha really is an impressive site.  I'm particularly impressed that, for a fan-driven Star Trek site, they've managed to screen out the over-enthusiastic gushiness that oozes from  other fan sites.  Very professional from what I've seen.

I need to start digging up some dangling situations for you instead of just characters, don't I?  Ah, well, in the mean time, there's Sito Jaxa, another one of Nick Locarno's disgraced cadet Nova Squadron.  Also another Bajoran cutie, she eventually volunteered for a covert mission to Cardassia and was assumed killed during the mission.  However, there's always the possibility that she was actually taken prisoner and is stewing in a Cardassian prison -- possibly with Tom Riker!  Okay, so she's not dangling as well as the others, but she caught my eye.

!i!

The Prime Directive game (any incarnation) is taken from ADB's Starfleet Battles universe.  If you are really set on getting it, I'd take a good, long gander at either the GURPS version or the d20 version (and don't hold your breath for the d6 version anytime soon).  

While I have the ADB version of Prime Directive, I never played it so I cannot comment on how it works, sorry.

Quote from: DangerThe Prime Directive game (any incarnation) is taken from ADB's Starfleet Battles universe.  If you are really set on getting it, I'd take a good, long gander at either the GURPS version or the d20 version (and don't hold your breath for the d6 version anytime soon).  

While I have the ADB version of Prime Directive, I never played it so I cannot comment on how it works, sorry.

I did some playtests of it way back when, talking about the 1993 ADB dice-pool version. Here's my description from an aged page talking about different versions of Star Trek rules:

QuoteThis is an original game published in 1993, also based on the original series, albeit indirectly. It is licensed by Paramount to use certain Original Series terms. However, the original rights came from before Paramount owned Star Trek, based on the "Star Fleet Technical Manual" of the original series which had an independent copyright. This really wants to be a 20th-century Special Ops marine game, and rather seriously distorts the background to get there. It focusses on elite "Prime Teams" which get beamed down to deal with specific problems.

Like FASA's effort, the background takes the original series and adds to it massively. It is unique in taking a fair amount from the animated series. For example, Niven wrote an animated episode which featured the Kzinti from his "Known Space" books -- thus these are in the PD universe as uneasy allies with the Federation.

Even moreso than the original Trek, the original PD emphasizes antiquated technology. The original series at least had phasers as a potent weapon which invariably downed the target with a single shot, barring only extreme circumstances like high-energy shields or silicon-based lifeforms. In PD they are only marginally better than modern bullets for damage. Also even moreso than the series, it tries to avoid the consequences of having a starship and transporters being on hand for the away team. Whereas the series would usually have a problem for the whole ship to deal with, PD tries to make the ship irrelevant so that the away team had to deal with their objective like an independent ops team.

It uses a dice-pool systems, taking the highest die out of a set of d6's where a 6 indicates an open-ended re-roll. Each task has a distinct "tri-code" indicating the three target numbers needed for minimum, marginal, and complete success.

I wouldn't recommend the old game, though the more recent GURPS version might well be worth checking out.

Quote from: enelson[The Star Trek: Starship Tactical Simulator is] a light tactical wargame. Here's a brief blurb about it:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/3040.

It is a lot of fun and quick paced. Captured the early Star Trek quite well.

Holy cats, yes!  Now I remember.  A friend of mine owned that game.  It was a wealth of information on the 80s-film-era Star Trek universe, as were the supplements. And it was fun to play, too.

!i!

(P.S. Here's a website that supports the game with lots of usable material, even if you go with another game.  Check out "The Fleets", including Cardassian designs.)

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaHoly cats, yes!  Now I remember.  A friend of mine owned that game.  It was a wealth of information on the 80s-film-era Star Trek universe, as were the supplements. And it was fun to play, too.

!i!

It was also included in the Deluxe 2nd Edition boxed set from the mid-eighties.

I always wanted to do a Maquis campaign, but most of the gamers around here have little to no interest in gaming in the Star Trek universe.

Based on the various source materials, what do yu think are the themes of Star Trek ?

Regards,
David R

Quote from: David RBased on the various source materials, what do yu think are the themes of Star Trek ?

Regards,
David R

HOPE


Exploration


Doing the unexpected when you most need to....



Difficult choices that have to be made....


Honoring one's friends and comrades in any kind of ongoing fight or struggle....


Striving to be better than you are at the moment, and discovering that potential....


- Ed C.

Koltar nailed it pretty well.  In a nutshell, hope and exploration -- we're going to make better of ourselves and there's always something new to discover just beyond the horizon.

Later shows got much darker, focusing on the notion that, while your head may be in the clouds, your feet are still in the mud.  In other words, in spite of high, ambitious ideals, there's always someone who hasn't risen to that level of enlightenment, who may want to drag you down.  The Maquis plot line had the whiff of that, with the Federation's best intentions running afoul of the people on the ground who just wanted to be left to their own destiny.

!i!

Yeah - but most of the older Maquis members were still raised in that Federation culture.
What the writers were going for was that maybe the people back home on Earth were losing touch with those on the frontier and how their decisions affect them.

Many times those stories played out like a TREK version of : "I didn't leave my party. my party left me. "

In this case : They weren't betraying the Federation, they felt the Federation had betrayed them.

...and a team up of Ro Laren and "Thomas" Riker would definitely be interesting.

 By-the-way, they showed several Klingons as secondary characters that were certainly part of the Maquis.  (you think I didn't notice that when those seasons were 'live'?)


- Ed C.

Quote from: KoltarWhat the writers were going for was that maybe the people back home on Earth were losing touch with those on the frontier and how their decisions affect them.

Many times those stories played out like a TREK version of : "I didn't leave my party. my party left me. "

In this case : They weren't betraying the Federation, they felt the Federation had betrayed them.

This is exactly what interests me (and my players)

Regards,
David R

Quote from: KoltarWhat the writers were going for was that maybe the people back home on Earth were losing touch with those on the frontier and how their decisions affect them.

And, of course, we all realise what the Bajoran/Cardassian conflict was an analogy for, right?  The clever bit in the writing, though, was that it wasn't always plain who were the Israelis and who were the Palestinians.

!i!

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaAnd, of course, we all realise what the Bajoran/Cardassian conflict was an analogy for, right?  The clever bit in the writing, though, was that it wasn't always plain who were the Israelis and who were the Palestinians.

!i!

That 'messed up' a friend of mine at the time who would overly identify real world events with fictional groups on the show.

 I tried to warn him about that.
 The best-written ones made you think a litle ...but couldn't or shouldn't be overly identified with a real world group.

The first season of DEEP SPACE NINE , he got it in his head that the Bajorans were supposed to be the Palestinians. (big mistake or assumption). Then the episode "Duet" aired , which played out like a TREK version of "The Man in the Glass Booth" with Kira as a parallel to a camp survivor.  He then said "Now, I don't get it, I thought the Bajorans were the Palestinians, now they're supposed to be Jews?" . I tried to explain to him that they were supposed to be similiar to ANY disadvantaged group that was now finding their footing again - throughout history - Kurds, Jews, Palestinians....etc.

During the second season of DS9 , he burst out with: "Vedek Bareil  can't do that - he'll be breaking their vows of celibacy!" .  NOBODY said they were catholic priests, they're just clergy of a fictional alien religion - which apparently is alright with their clerics having romances from time to time. Even my friend's wife had to tell him not to identofy them so closely with catholics.


- Ed C.



(By the way this friend was an Episcopal Reverend...as far as I know, still is one. )

Cardassians are Chinese. Bajor is Tibet. Come on, everything Cardassian is yellow-ish.

Quote from: David RBased on the various source materials, what do yu think are the themes of Star Trek ?

The paramount of the individual. In Star Treks it's not that sometimes the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many, but it's the general rule.

Just look at the TNG crew. All of them had somewhat difficult youths and families. (Tasha is an Orphan, Data has no family at all, Picard struggles with his brother, Riker with his father...) Family in TNG is trouble.

The protagonists have emerged from these pasts and now live on a giant star ship with giant quarters and empty corridors.


(I phrased one chapter of the "The Philosophy of Star Trek" here. The one I found most impressive. It's a thin book but I forgot the author's name.)