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In my G: Star Trek campaign the player characters are now behind enemy lines in Romulan Space.  They are basically doing a deep strike mission on Romulus itself. Thinkof it as like the Doolittle Raid - but with two Starfleet Ships and a Klinbgon warship ally.

The cliffhanger of my last game session they had just come out of warp and their navigators told them that they were 'short' of Romulus itself by 6 parsecs. They can still do the planned raid - it will just be delayed by a day or two.

 HOWEVER......
The star system they warped into is unknown to them and their science officers said sensors show a Romulan installation in the system.

My three choices for that 'installation':

1) A military base - maybe, training base, supply depot, or a shipyard

2) Scientific Research Outpost - Romulan scientists at work. (On something strange perhaps?)

3) POW Camp - Prisoner camp filled with Federation and Starfleet prisoners looking to escape....and a way home.

I'm still debating which way to go and our next game session is next Tuesday night the 27th.


- Ed C.

Good stuff. RPGs are boring if there isn't anything to think about. I like grey situations a lot.

If it is a military base worth hitting, make it look like a sweet target, but inform them that if they hit it the difficulty of the main strike will go through the roof.

If it is a prison, let them rescue the prisoners and manage it without being detected, but some of them are dying and need medical attention. Now the PCs have to choose between saving their people or finishing the raid. The klingons will be PISSED if they cancel the raid to support people that should have died fighting, threatening the alliance itself.

If you put scientists there, eh, that's like the military one. Scientists or raid, but not both. If they try both, don't hesitate to blow them up.

Have it be a prison camp, but largely filled with Romulan political dissidents.

OOPs!!

I forgot a major detail that may influence your answers - the Starfleet ship the players are on has a cloaking device - a captured Romulan cloaking device that they've managed to keep working for 3 or 4 months now. (Starfleet had THREE of these devices, one caused the exposive destruction of a shipo. The remaining two are being used by the Cochise and the Hood )

SO, both they and the two ships with them can cloak and stay cloaked while they are in this star system.

The ships involved are:
The Saladin-class destroyer USS COCHISE
 The Cochise is the ship that the players command.

The Constitution-class Heavy Cruiser USS HOOD
Commanding Officer: Captain L.T. Stone
First Officer: Banjamin Finney

The K't'inga class Klingon 'Warbird' IKC ramvaj
Commanding Officer: Captain Krog
First Officar: Koz

Yes...it is the 2250s, there is a war with the Romulans going on and the Klingons have signed a temporary alliance treaty with the Federation to defeat the Romulans.


- Ed C.

I'd definitely play up the conflict with the Klingons.  Have the base be both a scientific outpost and a prison camp, with Federation prisoners being studied.

If the players attempt to free the prisoners, they may succeed, but they will have to abandon the raid, the Klingons won't like that.

Maybe the players have to bribe the Klingons with the research data attained by the Romulans (which could give the Klingons an edge in the next Fed/Klin conflict) in order to free the prisoners.

Quote from: daniel_ream;480679Have it be a prison camp, but largely filled with Romulan political dissidents.

Quote from: CRKrueger;480699I'd definitely play up the conflict with the Klingons.  Have the base be both a scientific outpost and a prison camp, with Federation prisoners being studied.

If the players attempt to free the prisoners, they may succeed, but they will have to abandon the raid, the Klingons won't like that.

Maybe the players have to bribe the Klingons with the research data attained by the Romulans (which could give the Klingons an edge in the next Fed/Klin conflict) in order to free the prisoners.

these are great ideas...

Surely the obvious thing to do would be to make it a prison stuffed with Klingon prisoners.
Ideally make the leader of the Klingon prisoners a coward who surrended his vessel rather than commit the usual kamikazi Klingon action.
The Klingons will want to kill the prisoners becuase they are cowards, the Federation guys will want to rescue them and will be directly set in contrast with their allies.

I say roll 1D6 and divide by two to decide

EDIT: Although I like a scientific research outpost where they are conducting experiments on live subjects, trying to make superhumans (or super-romulans), but the experiment goes wrong and it turns into survival horror a la "Alien".

Even better if they are experimenting on Federation and/or Klingon prisoners, and the Feds with their oh so enlightened morality and ethics have to decide if they should kill the subjects or try to save them.

Quote from: Koltar;480680OOPs!!

I forgot a major detail that may influence your answers - the Starfleet ship the playewrs are on has a cloaking device - a stolen Romulan cloaking device that they've managed to keep working for 3 or 4 months now.

SO, both they and the two ships with them can cloak and stay cloaked while they are in this star system.

The ships involved are:
The Saladin-class destroyer USS COCHISE
 The Cochise is the ship that the players command.

The Constitution-class Heavy Cruiser USS HOOD
Captain: L.T. Stone
First Officer: Banjamin Finney

The K't'inga class Klingon 'Warbird' IKC ramvaj
Captain: Krog
First Officar: Koz

Yes...it is the 2250s, there is a war with the Romulans going on and the Klingons have signed a temporary alliance treaty with the Federation to defeat the Romulans.


- Ed C.

I haven't even watched Star Trek in about fifteen years and that sounds way too much fun. I may have just discovered I'm a closet trekkie.

I like the scientific outpost and the prison.

OK. Wait. It's a scientific outpost sponsored by rogue elements of the Romulan Senate to push for war/topple the current government, change course in history. They torture Romulan dissidents and Federation prisoners to study some strange phenomenon nearby that reacts to these horrible, debased acts, and they want to control it and harness it to use as a weapon of sorts, if they can. It might be a form of alien life they do not understand, a specific type of wormhole that reacts to emotions and feelings, a combination of both, or anything else you want. When the phenomenon gets in contact with you ... it changes you. Maybe some prisoners who have been "touched" are quarantined. Maybe there's been an outbreak, and the station is now an empty shell, a husk, a graveyard the PCs might study to find out the truth about their enemies... or maybe it's still very much active, and the PCs can save at least some of the prisoners to learn more about the political forces at play in the Romulan Senate...

Ben,

 All of that is an interesting take on it. The only hitch I can see is that this a time period where The Federation and Starfleet does'nt really know a lot about Romulan internal politics.

The last conflict with the Romulans was in the 2160s - around 90- years ago. Until the recent set of attacks by Nero and his ship from the future - Starfleet and the Romulans had pretty much kept on their respective sides of the border.


- Ed C.

Quote from: Koltar;480783Ben,

 All of that is an interesting take on it. The only hitch I can see is that this a time period where The Federation and Starfleet does'nt really know a lot about Romulan internal politics.

- Ed C.

How do you know this Starfleet crew didn't discover the initial information about the Romulan Senate?

Maybe that's why they have some Starfleet prisoners? Because these officers came to know too much, too soon, way too early for the plan of the Romulan bad guys to hatch and allow them to take control of the Senate to wage war on the Federation, or someone else?

The presence of Romulan people amongst the prisoners as well (those Romulans who found out about the Conspiracy and got caught before they could bring it to the authorities or the floor of the Senate) could allow the PCs to understand the dynamics at play.

Wow...a Lieutenant in command of a heavy cruiser....must be a spit-fire, go getter type officer!

I like some of the ideas presented.  My gut would have it be a military base.  You're only 6 parsecs from the Romulan capital.  It would make the most sense.  Then again, the POW installation would be pretty interesting and could present a temptation for the players as to what to do.  

Either case they're faced with the choice of whether to act to inflict extra damage or free prisoners...at the risk of making their overall mission untenable.  Or they could pass up this lovely opportunity to continue on their mission and then you've got plot threads that you can use at a later time.

Imagine the PCs coming back from a mostly successful mission and then find out that the Romulans managed to capture some high-up flag officer and is being held in a "secret facility" approximately 6 parsecs out from the Romulan capital.  Intelligence just learned of his location, as he had been missing for about a month now.  So the players would groan because they had the opportunity to free him before, only they didn't know the importance of the place.  Now, getting in will be even harder because of their already completed mission that hit right at the heart of the Empire.  

Ah, the possibilities abound!

Quote from: Grimace;480968Wow...a Lieutenant in command of a heavy cruiser....must be a spit-fire, go getter type officer!

NO, he's a Captain - the letters 'L' and 'T' are his first inititials. Not his rank. Look more carefully and you will see that there is a period after each letter.

Just like the captain of the Enterprise is J.T. Kirk.


- Ed C.

Quote from: The Traveller;480767I haven't even watched Star Trek in about fifteen years and that sounds way too much fun. I may have just discovered I'm a closet trekkie.

I always try to steer my games to the Fun side of things.

Thank you for saying that.

If you haven't seen the 2009 STAR TREK movie - then I highly recommend it.

My campaign is set ithat universe, or at least my extrapolation of it.  The big advantage of a 'clean slate' STAR TREK background universew is that all the bullshit thats been argued about for decades can now be fixed, ignore, or completely forgotten. One reason is - a lot of that shit hasn't happened yet and may now NEVER happen the way it did in the original timeline.


My players are writing the history  - not 'interfering' with it or 'canon'.
Everything is NEW again.


- Ed C.

I'd go with the POW camp idea - classic "do we continue with the mission or help these poor people" problem, especially with Klings tagging along.

This is the sort of thing that random rolls are for.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;481355This is the sort of thing that random rolls are for.

RPGPundit

Maybe, maybe not.

I was still interested in other people's thoughts - sometimes I get a new take on an idea or brainstorm when discussing stuff like this.

As it is - I'm off work tomorrow and running the game session this is connected to at the store Tuesday night.

IF it is going to be prison camp - then I gotta work up some NPC guards and prisoners.


- Ed C.