The real problem with WoD Austrailia is that WoD is supposed to be real world bads turned up to 11, and Austriailia is already a giant ‘kill all humans’ zone, so when you turn that up to 11…

@Pavel said in MU Peeves Thread:

Sydney

Ahr naur

@Ashkuri said in MU Peeves Thread:

I feel like this sums up several many MUSH interactions I’ve had with people over the years

I feel attacked and my only logical response is to do another forum coup.

@Gashlycrumb said in Star Trek Games:

secret creepy fascist organisation of time-travelling murder hobos

Section 31 is only fun when it is a dude who thinks it’s real, but it isn’t. Or a try-hard who thinks it’s really cool, Starfleet definitely needs a second, soopar seekrit intelligence arm, and just constantly fails because everyone else makes fun of this dumb thought.

… ahem.

So the ‘when’ is as important as the ‘where’. If you set it after Romulus blows up, and Romulans are kind of migratory, then options open a bit. If you set it after Picard, literally everyone in Starfleet has PTSD for Picard S3 reasons. Picard also feels like it plays things fast and loose with Stardates, so ???

Not terribly important.

(I do realize for the Romulus Nova to be a plot point, the game would be set a decade after the TNG/DS9 crossover bubble, which is more important than Picard fast/loose timey wimey)

Fun dates/basic timeline

2365 - Q Who, Borg meet cute
2369 - Deep Space 9 S1
2370 - TNG finale during December, leads directly into…
2371 - Voyager MIA
2375 - Odo asks Kyra if she would still love him after he becomes an ocean of goo
2379 - Star Trek: Nemesis
2380 - Lower Decks S1
2385 - Martian Shipyards go boom
2387 - Romulus Supernova

Anyway, Deep Space 69 (pun intended, what with all the TS) can be a joint mission base for exploring… somewhere. It could be Romulans just found out about the Supernova, and DS:69 is stationed in a system where another K-type Dwarf Star looked like it was going to Supernova in the past, but abruptly stabilized, and we are here to find out why/if that can save Romulus. Or it could be a hub where people are looking for nearby worlds that could serve as a colony for relocation, with multiple plots around making sure things won’t violate the Prime Directive, sticking it near a modern day Shackleton Expanse, or maybe even near the edge of Klingon space, which gives them a reason to be involved.

Or both! Alternatively, something else. Whomst can say?

Obviously have your different class ships for different missions. Alts are cool, just don’t let one person be the chief engineer on every ship. Maybe even say they can’t have a second engineer unless they have command and science alts, also? Now we’re in the weeds and need more feedback from other players.

The return of Strange New Worlds means we are primed for Trek, go go go go go!

@Aria said in MU Peeves Thread:

@Pavel said in MU Peeves Thread:

I’ve had to turn the auto-convert feature off in Word for when I do my – (that is two hyphens, often converted to a dash of some kind, be it en or em. I never learned the difference.) because it was getting pulled up by the anti-AI checker on my submitted work and it’s easier to just… not deal with that.

Em Dash (—):

Roughly the width of a capital letter M. It’s used to create a break in a sentence, similar to how you’d use parentheses or colons.

En Dash (–):

Roughly the width of a capital letter N. It’s used to connect two words or show a range of numbers.

That’s literally it.

Monospace fonts mean they are indistinguishable, wheeeee.

@Pavel said in Star Trek Games:

staff run the game and set the tone

So we agree that…

@Jennkryst said in Star Trek Games:

This isn’t Trek-specific, it’s literally every MUSH ever.

I’m not saying it’s never been a problem, I’m throwing out ideas to try and prevent it from becoming one, while also pointing at shows to go ‘see? Its viable!’ Ask lower rank people what their IC career goals are, that’s how 1 pips get assigned to bridge duty.

@Faraday said in Star Trek Games:

I know Star Trek isn’t RL, but just for reference/scope, a US aircraft carrier would have ~3000 enlisted crew and ~200 officers.

Memory Alpha lists THE D as having 1,000 people aboard, including family members and so on. Voyager had… a variable number, but lists 141 as the usual compliment. As always, you can scale down because the computer can follow verbal commands, but we also see problems that could easily be handled by a fully coordinated crew just wreck a ship with people only on the bridge.

While 1st/2nd/3rd class crewmen and NCOs exist (can you tell I can’t remember proper titles or rank structure?), you have significantly less need to balloon the crew compliment with people who haven’t gone to the Academy yet… doubly so in Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism where the poors don’t have to sign up for a chance to crawl out of the bottom rung of capitalist hell.

For Voyager’s crew, Memory Alpha lists 60 people with the rank of Crewman, as opposed to an officers rank (this includes Maquis with provisional ranks). So depending on crew size, you could have half or even more being officers. I dunno. I only counted ‘crewman’ on my fingers, I didn’t check civillians or figure out how many if each rank were around. Mlstly because the list includes people whose names are only ever seen on an LCARS.

Also! As a starbase was mentioned, you can consider different ships, different crews of department heads if you go that route, but still give the lower rank folks time to shine, if people want to play them. It all circles back to ‘staff makes plot, or endorses PRPs so other people can ST things for whomever.’

@Pavel said in Star Trek Games:

If you’re playing Crewman A. Nonymous you better not be anywhere besides a jeffreys tube and not getting in the way of the person we especially chose to play Lieutenant Commander Action “Buzz” Heroguy.

Gentle reminder Harry Kim spent 7 years in the Delta Quadrant with a single pip, and while he may have manned the engineering console on the bridge, he was never a department head. He’s an ensign. There were five people on the ship with a lower rank - Nelix, Kes, Seven of Nine, Naomi Wildman, and Miral Paris (and technically the Maquis, but they got whole uniforms and pips to reflect their Maquis ranks, it’s fine).

And he still got up to some wacky shenanigans.

@Faraday said in Star Trek Games:

Stuff has to happen. There have to be stakes.

This isn’t Trek-specific, it’s literally every MUSH ever.

Some players can be those three people on Voyager who never volunteer for any away missions and just do the social rp. Or be a Dabo Girl on DS9. It’s fine.

@Faraday said in Star Trek Games:

Like, say I’m a junior Engineering crewman. What is my RP about?

Hobbies. You’re in a classical quartet or jazz band that puts on shows at the bar… or do a Doctoro Picardo and recreate old opera houses to do… opera. Go fill up the biofilters on the fuck simulator holodeck with your inceedibly inappropriate hologram girlfriend. Build a racing shuttle. Write holonovels. Save humanity by completing a Q test. Do weird yoga. Invent silly sports. Have sex with a ghost. Visit Risa. Have sex with a ghost on Risa in a holodeck. Do unofficial war crimes.

Maybe you’re on duty. Every time an alert happens, system diagnostics are run, go go go! Even when there isnt an alert, you still need to run regular diagnostics to make sure that the ~~ LCARS is properly filled with rocks so there is debris when it dramatically overloads~~ self-sealing steam bolts are properly bolted in place. Go crawl through the Jefferies Tubes to replace the bio-conduit before it catches the flu from alien cheese. Realize it’s the wrong tube when you meet Jeffrey Combs. Get sent on an away mission.

There is a whole chart, for roll d20 to [science] the [device] for [techbobabble].

There are a lot of options out there.

Edit: Yellow in TNG is also where temporal enforcement lives, so be a time cop when you get too many tachyons, or whatever the current wibbly-wobbly technobabble of the week uses.

@Raistlin I wouldn’t make reports mandatory, maybe treat them like Arx Journals? Or scenes can start in media res with a log voice over giving a brief setup (although technically, the log overview means it isnt in media res, but nya, nya I say!)

Questions are mostly ‘Spaaaaaaace Code?!?’ and ‘What rules?’ Star Trek Adventures is the latest and doesn’t have XP progression, more milestone, as Modephius do, so catchup is easy, ‘anyone with X or lower major milestones, gain a major, anyone with more, gain a minor milestone instead’. Admittedly, I haven’t looked at the 2nd edition yet.

@MisterBoring said in Star Trek Games:

really solid story about the primary crew of a starship

Probably a factor. Sure, the Modephius rules include ‘we dont need the doctor for this mission but dont want the player to feel left out… lets roll up a temporary PC called Chief O’Brien to come along’, but a MU will have probably have a person playing that character. (This could be a neat way to fill out a roster, though, so keep roster game in mind. Can also give people having an opportunity to play guest of the week NPCs).

Tangentially important to point out the entire point of Lower Decks is that we don’t focus on the primary crew, and it has given us some of the finest Trek in decades.

Social Combat when?

@Prototart said in What happened, man?:

i don’t believe you

Eldritch Automata is a Post Apocalyptic Strand-Type game where your RP with others helps you build connections you can lean on in times of trouble to help you survive and maybe even succeed.

There is no mechanical difference between ground combat and mech combat, for Metaplot Reasons, but that’s just handwaving. Your mechs are protected from devastating attacks by an Ego Shield, so as you take damage and battles look closer to defeat, you suffer mental trauma because it’s literally chipping away at your Ego. Healing is as much going to the medics as it is seeing a therapist (or, since this is the post apocalypse, trauma dumping on your friends).

You have archetypes that influence how you recover Ego Damage (and also maybe how you can help others heal theirs I forget).

TLDR, Eldritch Automata is Cthulhutech where there are mechanics for you to yell at Shinji to get in the fucking Robot.

@bear_necessities Random guess as No Man’s Sky, but its been years so I only half remember what their version of the ‘feed animal’ interface looks like.

@dvoraen said in I need an adult:

Is this the true Pilk?

It’s only Pilk if you can use it to replace your car’s oil.

@Prototart said in What happened, man?:

I love gay race communism, where are we doing that

Elite Dangerous, we just have to overthrow all of the capitalist systems.

@MisterBoring Well yeah. Cause it actually is dead over there.

Ghost is really upset he hasn’t killed both boards, huh?

@Trashcan said in What happened, man?:

Blaine Lee Pardoe
Pardoe was a writer for BattleTech (released in 1984) but was not its sole creator. He wrote a number of novels for the series but has not done any game work since 2012. The publisher of BattleTech material publicly disowned Pardoe in 2022 due to “online activities which do not align with Catalyst’s publishing vision.”

The Pardoe thing is weird, I half followed it on Twitter at the time. Someone called his stuff dumb and dude tried to nuke them with an expensive legal battle. I didn’t ever figure out how it finished, though. So I assume a non-zero amount of ‘online activities’ include, but are not limited to, trying to sue fans of the IP into oblivion.