The Next Campaign, pt 1

So, I wrapped up my first DnD run, The Ciaren Campaign a few weeks ago. According to feedback, it went really well (note to self: make RPG feedback forms). As it often does, the end of one campaign leads to the beginning of another campaign. “What’s next?”

I’ve got three to four players right now. After talking it over with them, I cut the options down to a Shadowrun series, a Star Wars series, or the realization of a Star Trek series.

Now, Derek wants to run Shadowrun. When I asked what elements of Shadowrun he liked, so as to either narrow down what elements of Shadowrun I had to learn about or what elements of Star Trek or Star Wars I wanted to accentuate, he described Shadowrun to me. It was surprisingly helpful.

Monday's Pitch: Collaborative Star Trek

There is a collaborative board game based on the new Star Trek movie where you try to get a planet to join The Federation while averting a civil war, warding off Klingons, and...doing one more thing that I can't quite remember right now. I imagine it's a lot like Shadows Over Camelot, partially because I just got through playing several rounds of it, but also because it sounds like each of your objectives is analogous to the quests from SOC and you're trying to beat them all before time runs out, though ST: Expeditions[1] as an artificial time limit of 30 turns instead of just being designed to slowly push your head below water until you simply can't breathe anymore (like SOC and Pandemic).

But I was pawning through some cards from the terrible, terrible, terrible Star Trek CCG[2] and I was thinking about how the character development, mission accomplishment, dilemma overcoming, interpersonal relationships, and point-based victory (instead of defeat-based paradigm) is a great way to do Star Trek. Don't get me wrong, the ST CCG was [3], but it failed by being too thick with flavor and not enough with game. It was a game people enjoyed, but it just didn't play well. They had missions right. They had dilemmas right. They had winning with points via accomplishing Star Trek things instead of just destroying stuff. They had skills that drove the system; not just job skills and technical skills, but things like 'youth,' 'empathy,' and 'music'; humanitarian things[4] that made people who they were. Also, barbering[3].