Boldly Go: Star Trek hack

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Boldly Go: Star Trek hack
« on: July 10, 2012, 09:43:46 AM »
Ok so I posted some of this in a free form, stream of consciousness on Twitter a few months ago while rewatching Enterprise and then started fleshing it out over on G+ last week. This is no where near complete and I'm still pondering a lot of this. The base setting is the flag ship of the Confederation, sent out to make contact with new races of the Eastern Arm in an attempt to help unify this area of space. The main struggle here is in deciding what races' resources are worth getting involved in their private issues for. This is basically Star Trek in the generation between Enterprise and TOS with the serial numbers still legible through the rough scraping I've given them.

Things I'm happy with:
Every move feels like something that would be in an episode of Star Trek.
The setting places players in a situation where they have people that are relying on them without being able to provide much support. (I'm thinking about adding in a Liason Officer, a basic move, and a Captain's move that will help reinforce this dynamic)
The emphasis on exploration and discovery.

Things I'm not happy with:
Some of the moves have cruft left over in them from where I stole them from that don't add to the flavor but I'm not sure how they can be replaced yet.
I'm still working out what the fundamental scarcity is. I feel like trust and loyalty are the obvious ones but how do I reflect that?

Things that are obviously missing:
Ship moves, crew moves (I'll probably base those close to what I've done with the Medical Crew), and moves that deal with the fundamental scarcity whatever that ends up being.
Principles and GM moves. (I'm going to try and tackle those next)

I'm sure there are things I am forgetting, things that will become obvious as I fill in the obvious needs and tweek what I'm not happy with. I'm posting this here because this is the quickest way to get to the smartest minds on hacking AW. What I'm looking for is advice on things I've listed that are obvious problems, hints at what might be problems that I haven't pointed out, and ideas for how to better fulfill my goals here. What I'm not looking for is canon arguments, suggestions on better eras or settings, and heated debates about which series is the best. If it will help, feel free to declare your allegiance to the best ST series in the first line of your first response so we all know where you stand and then leave it at that.

So here is what I've got:

Basic Moves:
Set for Stun: When you fire a phaser set on stun, roll with Cool. On a 10+ you achieve your goal without harming anyone, on a 7-9 you do more damage than expected, on a miss you hit someone or something you didn't mean to.

Get Out of There: When you run for your life roll with Sharp. On a 10+ hold 3, on a 7-9 hold 2, on a miss hold 1. You may use your hold, 1-for-1 to do the following:
  •Live to fight another day.
  •Loose your perusers, for now.
  •Do Harm to your perusers or their vehicle.
  •You are able to determine what they want that will make them stop chasing you forever.
  •You don't loose anyone or anything important in your escape.

Take Cover: When you do something under fire, or dig in to endure fire, roll with Hard. On a 10+, you do it. On a 7–9, you flinch, hesitate, or stall: the MC can offer you a worse outcome, a hard bargain, or an ugly choice.

Aaaagh: When you suffer harm in the heat of battle, you may either increase your Pain or do one of the following.
• You lose your footing.
• You lose your grip on whatever you’re holding.
• You lose track of someone or something you’re attending to.
• You miss noticing something important.
• You are captured, infected, or knocked unconscious.
Each Pain you have adds -1 to every roll you make.


Security Chief: hard, sharp
Set to Kill: When you fire a phaser set to kill, roll with Hard. On a 10+ you kill or destroy what you intended, on a 7-9 things go crazy and someone or something else gets killed, on a miss your target survives and the situation is worse.

Assess the Situation: When you read a charged situation, roll with Sharp. On a hit, you can ask the MC questions. Whenever you act on one of the MC’s answers, take +1. On a 10+, ask 3. On a 7–9, ask 1:
• where’s my best escape route / way in / way past?
• which enemy is most vulnerable to me?
• which enemy is the biggest threat?
• what should I be on the lookout for?
• what’s my enemy’s true position?
• who’s in control here?

Science Officer: weird
What is it: When you encounter a new alien life-form, roll with Weird. On a 10+, all 3. On a 7-9, choose 1.
  •You are able to communicate with it in some form, tell us how.
  •You discover one of the being's basic needs.
  •You do not offend it in any way.
On a miss, the being makes an aggressive move towards you, your ship, your crew, or all three.

Watch This: When you study a piece of alien technology, roll with Weird. On a 10+, ask 3. On a 7–9, ask 1:
• what species handled this last?
• what species made this?
• has there been weapons fire near this recently?
• what data was recorded by this?
• what has been done most recently with this, or to this?
• what’s wrong with this, and how might I fix it?
On a miss, the item was trapped and makes an aggressive move towards you, your ship, your crew, or all three.

Captain: hot
On Confederated Authority: When you try to take secure your hold on something, roll with Hot. On a hit, choose options. On a 10+, choose 3. On a 7–9, choose 2:
• you take definite hold of it
• you suffer little harm
• you inflict terrible harm
• you impress, dismay or frighten your enemy

I'm a Starship Captain: When you try to seduce or manipulate someone, tell them what you want and roll with Hot. For NPCs: on a hit, they ask you to promise something first, and do it if you promise. On a 10+, whether you keep your promise is up to you, later. On a 7–9, they need some concrete assurance right now. For PCs: on a 10+, both. On a 7–9, choose 1:
• if they do it, they mark experience
• if they refuse, it’s acting under fire What they do then is up to them.

Councilor: sharp
How Does That Make You Feel: When you read a person, roll with Sharp. On a 10+, hold 3. On a 7–9, hold 1. While you’re interacting with them, spend your hold to ask their player questions, 1 for 1:
• is your character telling the truth?
• what’s your character really feeling?
• what does your character intend to do?
• what does your character wish I’d do?
• how could I get your character to __?


Negotiator: When you enter into diplomatic relations with a non-Confederation species, roll with Sharp. On a 10+ hold 3, on a 7-9 hold 1. While negotiating with them you may spend your hold 1-for-1 to:
• Discover a recent event that happened.

• You befriend a useful alien.


• Discover some local resourse that might help the Confederation.

• Not entangled or tricked into involving yourself in issues that might embarrass the Confederation.

• You manage not to offend anyone.

• Discern some secret that they are trying to keep.

On a miss you offend them all enough that they declare war against the Confederation.


Medical Officer: cool,
Infirmary : You get an infirmary, a workspace with life support, hydro-spray drugs, and advanced scanning equipment. Anyone who spends a day in you or your crew's care in the infirmary removes one Pain. When you go into your infirmary and dedicate yourself to making someone better, or to getting to the bottom of some medical mystery, decide what and tell the MC. the MC will tell you “sure, no problem,
but…” and then 1 to 4 of the following:
• it’s going to take hours/days/weeks/months of work;
• first you’ll have to get/fix/figure out ___;
• you’re going to need ___ to help you with it;
• it’s going to require rare alien items or equipment;
• the best you’ll be able to do is to get them stable or rule out one possibility;
• it’s going to mean exposing yourself (plus colleagues) to
serious danger;
• it’s going to take several/dozens/hundreds of tries;
• you’re going to have to take ___ apart to do it.

Healing Touch: When you use your medical scanner to heal someone of their Pain roll with Cool. On a 10+ You heal them of one Pain or two Pain if they treat both as though you had rolled a 7-9. On a 7-9 you heal them of one Pain and they gain an Insecurity that they don't already have. On a miss you don't manage to heal any of their Pain and they gain an Insecurity.

Medical Crew: You have a crew two assistants that can be sent out to deal with medical emergencies or left on the ship to deal with those in your care. If you send them on an away mission roll with Cool. On a 10+ they do what you sent them to do, no problem. On a 7-9 choose if they get the job done or if they come back alive. On a miss they fail on their mission and don't make it back.


Thanks for taking the time to read this and hopefully make a comment.
J.B.

EDIT: Here is what I've come up with for Principles.

Principles:
Fill the galaxy with the weird, the dangerous, and the wonderful. 
Ask provocative questions and build on the answers.
Make the aliens seem human. 
Be a fan of the players’ characters.
Treat the crew like red shirts. 
Sometimes, disclaim decision-making.
Loyalty to the Confederation is always based on what the Confederation can do for them. 
Address yourself to the characters, not the players.
Make your move, but misdirect.
Peace always comes at someone else's expense.
Make your move, but never speak its name.
Always leap to the worst possible interpretation. 
Give everyone a life.
« Last Edit: July 10, 2012, 03:24:24 PM by JBMannon »

Re: Boldly Go: Star Trek hack
« Reply #1 on: July 10, 2012, 07:43:56 PM »
I love it, and will comment in more detail later. At the moment, I wonder whether it's +strange rather than +weird.

"Its continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds ..."

Re: Boldly Go: Star Trek hack
« Reply #2 on: July 10, 2012, 08:04:40 PM »
That makes a ton of sense.

Re: Boldly Go: Star Trek hack
« Reply #3 on: July 11, 2012, 05:52:14 AM »
Some other brief thoughts:

- I'm really looking forward to seeing the ship moves. I haven't checked out Apocalypse Galactica yet, but I assume the ship is going to be an important part of the game, defined like a hardhold or something?

- It might be cool when a team beams down to a planet if you give them an 'Away Team' handout. In my head, it's a little something that gives them two or three redshirts to deploy on investigating phenomena, and maybe a couple of extra 'Away Team' moves.

- This is sort-of Next Gen, but maybe you could have a First Officer, and then emphasise the divide between the Captain (stays on the bridge, deals with the big picture / strategic side of encounters) and the First Officer (a captain in training; leads Away Teams; is expected to prove themselves by consistently exercising good judgement).

- The 'Watch This' move is pretty good. As I read it, I felt the "What species handled this last?" question was a little odd, and that it was covered more by this: "What has been done most recently with this, or to this?" ... However, maybe the source of my oddness is that the first question gives a little too much away? Maybe a rephrasing like this "What clue is there to what species handled this last?" gives characters a little bit more incentive to investigate.

Re: Boldly Go: Star Trek hack
« Reply #4 on: July 11, 2012, 08:08:05 PM »
Oh, and you talked about Fundamental Scarcities in your first post.

I was wondering: in very broad terms, how do you see the GM prepping for play? Is a session focused around exploring a planet / phenomenon / artifact? How would that work?

(Also, in case it's not clear, I think this is a very cool idea!)

Re: Boldly Go: Star Trek hack
« Reply #5 on: July 11, 2012, 09:35:44 PM »
I'm going to try to build the ship like it's own playbook and then distribute the moves as best they make sense. I think Ship might be a stat that takes up for Hx in this setting. That makes sense when ship moves are taking the place of sex moves in a way. 

I've been looking at AG for ideas as well but there is a lot about survival going on there that doesn't make sense in a post-scarcity setting. I'm still mining there though. It has helped some even if most of it is "nope, don't want that". 

I'm handling each officer's crew as a gang. They can act for you on the ground but risk dying or you can go down and risk yourself while leaving whatever you were doing to your crew (meaning nothing gets done). The Captain has the officers as her crew and can do any action she can do through them as long as there is open communication. 

I'm not sure about the specific first officer slot. That typically goes to the highest ranking officer aboard ship not to a dedicated individual. I am thinking about rank moves. The Captain would have the ship playbook so no special move. The First Officer could definitely have a "But your the Captain" move that allows him to go in her place. The Ensign should have something like, "Get outta the way!" that allows her to save a crewman by taking on Pain. 

I'll take a look at "Watch This", it is somewhere between reading a sitch and a savyhead opening his mind to the maelstrom. 

The basic mode of play is for the GM to drop in something that requires action whenever there is a lull. This could be things like orders, distress calls, anomalies, or attacks. This could be at the start of every session if you manage to wrap things up or scattered haphazardly if things get weird and messy. 

Re: Boldly Go: Star Trek hack
« Reply #6 on: July 13, 2012, 08:50:41 AM »
This is an interesting idea! Here are some random thoughts.

What do you think about making "stun" a kind of harm? Analogous to s-harm or psi-harm, and it just knocks someone unconscious? If you did that, then "set phasers to stun" is just establishing harm, and the PCs can incorporate it into other moves as needed. It also gives the MC a convenient way to use it against the players.

Why is "Read a charged situation" limited to the Security Chief? The source material provides plenty of examples of everyone getting a turn to figure things out. (And I think the source material shows the Security Chief isn't necessarily any better at it than anyone else.)

At first blush, I like making the Science Officer a Weird-based character. I can't help but notice that neither of your science characters (Science and Medical) are Sharp-based. I would think at least Medical would be, no? What do you think is the main difference between a Star Trek Medical Officer and an AW Angel?

I'm not sure I'm feeling the Hot-based moves. I mean, frankly, I'm not sure Star Trek has anything like "Hot" in the universe at all. I mean, many of the characters are sexy, but that's not what they do, you know? It's not how they get things done. In Star Trek, when characters get what they want, they get it through the force of the stronger argument, or through brute force, or trickery. (Federation officers usually go through those in order, bad guys usually go the other way.)

Heck, even when the protagonists in Star Trek seduce someone, it's almost never for an ulterior motive, and it's never because they're particularly sexy. It's usually because sex in the Star Trek universe is always depicted as a human tenderness. What I'm saying is, I think maybe Star Trek probably has "special moves", but not a "seduce" move.

It seems to me the Captains of Star Trek are HARD. Not in the biker gang way, not in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer way, but definitely in the "aggressive, strong-willed, emotionally strong" take-no-shit kind of way that the AW stat partly encompasses. Tough, like. Bold, you might say. Captains often go toe-to-toe in melee with Klingons and whatnot; Picard got stabbed through the heart by a Nausicaan twice his size in a bar brawl, right?

It might be worthwhile to reflect on what virtues the characters have that enable them to win the day in the source material. That might be a better guide for stats! Being compassionate and reasonable is typically way more important than being sexy or even subtle, right? So I might take "Hot" out altogether, or even replace everything with something like Bold, Shrewd, Wise. I'd have basic moves like Act Under Fire (Bold), Seize By Force (Bold), Read a Sitch (Shrewd), Read a Person (Shrewd or Wise? Could go either way), Offer Reasons (Wise; the persuading move, instead of "seduce or manipulate").

Maybe some of this helps you, or jostles something loose? I hope so!

Re: Boldly Go: Star Trek hack
« Reply #7 on: July 13, 2012, 09:41:31 PM »

Harm, or Pain in this hack, works a bit differently. There is no countdown to death, rather you keep getting negatives to your rolls the more Pain you have. On top of that, Pain is something you choose to take on rather than an inevitable thing. 

I gave Read a Charged Situation to the SC for two reasons. First to make it clear that getting yourself into a charged situation without the proper personnel is a bad idea.  Second, to push the Security Chief to jump into charged situations. 

Both the Weird and the Hot thing will be fixed once I have a better handle on what to call them. The best replacement for Weird I've heard is Strange and I like your suggestion of Bold for Hot. In fact, using Bold for the Captain makes me a lot happier with her. 

I think I need to take a look again at some of the Companions moves as well if I remember right there are some gems in there. 

Re: Boldly Go: Star Trek hack
« Reply #8 on: July 14, 2012, 11:24:59 PM »
When you enter a new sector of space, roll +scan. On a 10+, hold 3; on a 7-9, hold 1. Spend each point of hold to ask the MC what your long-range sensors can detect.

MC, say what your prep demands or select from the following list:
- an astronomical phenomenon
- an unusual reading
- the location of a resource
- a habitable planet
- evidence of technology


(Also, "But you're the Captain!" seems like awesome, near-universally applicable leverage in a seduce/manipulate/persuade type move.)

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Chroma

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Re: Boldly Go: Star Trek hack
« Reply #9 on: July 15, 2012, 11:27:41 AM »
I'm still working out what the fundamental scarcity is. I feel like trust and loyalty are the obvious ones but how do I reflect that?

For "fundamental scarcities" to propel threats/fronts look at the kinds of threats that come up in the shows.  Many can be grouped into categories like:

Hubris - "We can save them without breaking the Prime Directive."
War - "The Klingons attacked the Denarra colony! We must strike back!"
Corruption - "I assure you Section 31's actions are fully sanctioned..."
Assimilation - "Resistance is futile."
Mystery - "It's life, sir, but not as we know it."

Still trying to think of three more to make it a nice eight like AW... *laugh*
"If you get shot enough times, your body will actually build up immunity to bullets. The real trick lies in surviving the first dozen or so..."
-- Pope Nag, RPG.net - UNKNOWN ARMIES

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Chroma

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Re: Boldly Go: Star Trek hack
« Reply #10 on: July 15, 2012, 11:31:31 AM »
Both the Weird and the Hot thing will be fixed once I have a better handle on what to call them. The best replacement for Weird I've heard is Strange and I like your suggestion of Bold for Hot. In fact, using Bold for the Captain makes me a lot happier with her. 
I think for a Hot-like stat you could have something like "Passion" or "Emotion" with another stat like "Reason" as the Sharp/Smarts thing...

"Bold" would seem to cover some aspects of both Hard and Hot as I don't believe the stats have to map directly from AW, but may have different aspects they cover in a space/exploration setting.
"If you get shot enough times, your body will actually build up immunity to bullets. The real trick lies in surviving the first dozen or so..."
-- Pope Nag, RPG.net - UNKNOWN ARMIES

Re: Boldly Go: Star Trek hack
« Reply #11 on: July 18, 2012, 07:29:28 PM »
Several of your 7-9 results look like misses to me. Like "Set to Kill":
on a 7-9 things go crazy and someone or something else gets killed

That's really brutal for a partial success! Maybe that's what you want, but it struck me as odd.

Re: Boldly Go: Star Trek hack
« Reply #12 on: July 19, 2012, 08:09:15 AM »
Chroma, I really like the Fronts/Threats that you have mentioned here. They seem to flow with the idea that the two scarcities that I'm working with are Trust and Loyalty.

John, All of the 7-9 results have an implied, "you get what you want but" in them that I forget to write in because I'm an idiot.

Everybody, until I can get this game to the table I'm likely not going to be adding much more. I need to see what works with what I have and figure out what direction I want to go with the things that aren't there yet. Thats my way of saying, if your interested in playing, lets work something out.