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dlgrubbs
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# Posted: 26 Jun 2006 02:00
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I post this in the hope it will be benifical to those that wish to start or play in forum RPG games...some of the terms I have coined myself..ie..Holotechnicians for one..:)
I hope it will aid any that have never experience Forum RPG or Chat RPG before in posting and creating their own games and Characters...:)
What are Roleplaying Games?
Chances are, you already know the answer to this one, although everyone my not realize it. After school, when you were young, you''d watch Star Trek on television and then join your friends in the backyard phaser battle. A vacant lot became Vulcan, phantom starships zoomed above you, and your bedroom became the bridge of the Enterprise. With a roleplaying game you do all these things. Now days you do not need the vacant lot or bedroom...just a magic box on the desk.
Roleplaying games resemble a television series in many ways, but more than anything else a good roleplaying session encourges the participants to tell a good story. Rather than reading someone else''s script, you write your own lines and set your own stage directions.
One person takes the role of Narrator, becoming the game''s directior, producer, and set designer. This Holotech, and there could be several holotechnicians...but only one mission advisor...desides what this weeks episode will be about and acts out the roles of hte supporting cast, the guest stars, villians, and extras that the players encounter during the course of the game. The Holotechnician interprets the rules, so that everybody knows what they can and cannot do. did the phaser blast hit its target? Did the shields hold under fire? The Holotechnician will let you know. In a good roleplaying game, there are not winners or losers, everyone wins because everyone has a good time playing.
Unlike a pnp (pen and paper) game, that concentrates more on Character Creation, with stats and templates. Our games concentrate more on story and content. (Until STO we really dont have a way to get accurate stats...as many of us will be using these characters in the game.) The Academy gives us the knowledge, or a brief part of it, and our imaginations do the rest.
There are no winners or losers in a roleplaying game. Holomissions and Crewmissions may be unusual compared to the games you are use to. It does have something in common with decidedly more traditional games, like backgammon or chess. It has rules that govern what you can and cannot do. However, while traditional games are shaped by the rules, this game takes its shape from the stories Players and Holotech tell. The rules are shaped by the ideals of Starfleet and the respect of each for the other. They will allow for the episode to run smoothly and help prevent misunderstandings, that crop up along the way. Sadly no system is perfect. When in doubt, refer to the HoloTechnician after the episode.
Remember that you and your fellow players, collectively are know as the Crew. You will be working together towards a common goal. The academy helps give you some background as to how your characters came to work together during the creation process. If the characters clash or the concepts don''t mesh properly, the whole point of the game, telling stories as a group, becomes secondary to the conflict among the players.
In many ways, the Mission Advisor, or holotech, has the most demanding job in the game. He needs to be able to wear several hats at once and keep each element of an episode, story, supporting cast, rules, descriptions, in constant motion. Its a big job, but once you get the hang of it, it can also be the most rewarding role in the game.
Remember there are no winners or losers in a Roleplaying game. 
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dlgrubbs
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# Posted: 26 Jun 2006 02:01
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A General How To...
As a Holo-Technician, or Mission Advisor, your assignment is to bring to life teh tough choices, swirling politics, and desperated heroism of Crew members. It is a demanding task. You become set designer, art director, Director of photography, Sound effects technician, and story editior, all rolled into one. You set the scene, work out the outline of the story, create and portray the secondary characters when needed, all while building the mood appropriate to the story to suit the actions of the characters.
Your duties as Narrator or Technician fall into two phases: Preparation and play. During preparation, drawing inspiration from a variety of sources, you devise a plotline after carefully considering the nature of the conflict, creating a vibrant cast of characters, and anticipating a number of brilliantly executed scenes. During play, your players turn all of your expectations upside down, go off in an entirely unanticipated direction, and force you to improvise wildly in order to create a compelling episode that seamlessy interweaves your original ideas wtih their all important input.
Im Kidding....a little. and exaggerating the difficulty a lot. Lets break it down into steps.....
Preparation....
Creating the challenge...Players need obsticals to overcome. Smugglers, Conspiriacies, Pirate attacks, alien abductions, low morale, careening comets, robots going haywire.....all of these clasic story hooks deserve a place in your arsenal. They provide opportunities for the Crew members to prove themselves as well as offering players and you a chance for fun.
Missions should present the characters with a problem to be solved or a force to over come a destination to be reached.
Types of Challenges
Stories break down into several basic catagories.
(the simpliest sever as teh basis for most adverture stories)
Man against Man...The Crew faces other characters who want something diametrically opposed to what the Crew wants. They struggle. One side wins, the other side loses. Ideally, good triumphs over evil, if the two sides of the conflict fit those neat little moral packages.(Please Note: in the series the crew struggled against opposing characters that stretched the definitions of ''man,'' ranging from god-like aliens to homiicidally paraniod shapeshifters. This is all and good, since teh nature of humanity is a classic Star Trek Theme worthy of constant revisitation).
Man against Nature...Force the Crew to struggle with impersonal forces. Crew members should from time to time face impersonal hazards, such as dangerous climate conditions, technology failures, desease outbreak, attacks by robotic devices, spatial anomalies, radiation leaks, and so forth.
However impersonal dangers are never as memorable as character conflicts because they are impersonal. When possible, lend them impact by relating them in some way to an internal conflct of the characters.
Moral dilema...The Crew faces a situation that forces them to choose between the mutually exclusive courses of action, each one of which can arguably be seen as the right thing to do. (Note: the suspense derives from the question of which conflicting ideal the crew will ultimately decide to uphole. Although most moral dilemma stories include a secondary conflict or two to sustain interest till the morality play begins).
Inner Struggle...which occurs when a character confronts his own limitations. He may be forced to overcome fear, a prejudice, an incapacity to love, an inability to trust, or some other personal flaw.( Note: in a holomission, innersruggle is more a character involved addition to the plot. This can add much to a Characters postings and help give more depth to the episode).
Mystery...Places the charactes in a conflict with the unknown. They mus solve the problem by discovering the information about a place, event, or person. Think of it as Man against the Unknown. hehe...
Once you''ve got your feet wet as a technician, you can mix and match elements of these basic conflcts. When just starting out, though, you may want to keep it simple at first.
Once you have the hang of it, you can start to get fancy. Use subplots, create a main conflict to be solved by a small group or one crew member to tackle on their own. Relate the plot and subplot thematically. The subplot may serve as a humorous or violent counterpart to the main action.
Remember, these challenges should increase the players enjoyment, not serve merely to fustrate them or prove that the GM can kill their characters whenever he pleases. The idea is not to work against the players but to make sure that everyone has fun and is interested. Take care to balance the chalenge wth the crew capabilities. Too easy obsticales bore groups just as disasterously dificult ones. Let trial and error be your guide as you learn to set difficulty levels.
One of the things I''ve instituted that aid in the randomness of fate...is the fickle finger of fate....most RPers will always play the hero...but all things teach us that no matter how great the hero...fate can make other plans.
the fickle finger of fate is just that...if in conflict or danger...each of the crew within the area of the danger, must pick a number...those that pick the same number I have, then may devise a heroic or impersonal death for their character....(I hope to intitute a poll and the one with the most votes gets the fickle finger of fate award for best death)...remember its a holomission...so the dead appear in the holotech labs....
To aid when a Medical is present I usually choose another number for injury, and treat it the same way...if the crewman picks that number they must relay in postings an injury and get medical attention....this has proved very helpful with the use of medical personel on missions...
Inpiration
Inspiration comes from any number of sources, through movies, novels, songs, and stories to name a few. don''t be afraid to borrow. Take a story from another series or from another television show entirely and fit it to your needs. Melville, Milton, and Shakespeare are classics for a reason, steal from them with pride. Don''t worry to much about cliches either. The idea is the story and the entertainment...the fun....
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dlgrubbs
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# Posted: 26 Jun 2006 02:02
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Telling a story...
When narrating a story, your goal should be to make your game come alive. The Players should be able to "get into" the game, visualizing the locations, characters, and actions in their heads with little or no effort. Here are a few suggestions to make that happen.
Player Input...
Players always enjoy the feeling of contributing to the story instesd of just going along for the ride. When they think up things, possible solutins to mysteries, the significantce of particular clues, plans for defeating the main antagonist, they want those ideas to work. If you stick to your storyline regardless of the quality of the players'' ideas, th player will son get the impression you''re leading them around by the nose.
Show, Dont Tell
Roleplaying games are an exercise in imagination and wonder. No perdefined paths or limitations on character actions exist; theoretically the players'' characters can try anything and go anywhere. It''s all in your head. The story told by the Holo-technician and players together creates an image in each player''s mind of what occurs, much like a book, which leaves the reader to envision the details described by the words.
Therefore, like a good novelist, a good Narrator will do his best to show the players what happens. Allowing them to see it in their own minds'' eyes, rather than simply telling them what happens. The former allows players to participate actively, which gives rise to excitement and interest; the latter forces the players into a passive listening mode.
When you blurt things out all at once, your''re telling. Showing the adventure to the players means slowly providing them with small amounts of information. Showing lets the players explore the scene on their own, so they pick up on more details and remember them better. Control the flow of information, provides only a few facts at a time in response to players'' questions, and you''ll show them the scene instead of just telling them about it, allowing them to interact with it instead of just reacting to it.
Believable NPCs...
Good plots and meaningful scenes form ony a part of the roleplaying game. Encountering believale, intreguing NPCs forms another part. Their believeability can make or break a game session.
The most common mistake tends to create antagonists who are "evil for evil
s sake." These characters revel in their own Sheer Evil, without much thought given to why they are "Evil" or to what it means. Few people think of themselves as "evil" or sinful. They tend to have justifications and explanations for their actions; some even consider themselves heros. In many instances, one man''s "evil" is another man''s "Good"
Pacing...
Before you actually run a game, determine what scenes you need to present to tell the story, their purpose in the overall plotline, and teh order in which they will appear. That way you can concentrate on the details of pasing and presentation instead of plat as you begin your episode.
Pacing refers to the flow of the story, the presentation of the scenes at the appropriate moment. Don''t let a scene linger to long, or rush from one scene to the next. Make sure each scene fulfills its purpose and gives the characters a chance to comment and interact, then move to the next. Proper pacing assures that each scene recieves its intended impact.
Presentation...
Presentation relates closely to pacing, and to the showing, not telling concept mentioned earlier. As Narrator or GM, you are the players only source of information about what is happening in the episode. Even if they have other references to work with, they rely on you to tell them what they need to know.
Proper presentation helps to draw the players into the story. Too many details presented to quickly will only confuse the players and cause them to miss important information. Too few details and they won''t have enough data to proceed properly.
When providing these details, bring all five senses into the discription. Sometimes hearing or smell can tell a character more about a situation that what he sees. The more senses you bring into a discription the more precise a mental picture you will paint for your players.
All this information derives from the Startrek RPGs by Paramount and Unicorn press, DS9, STNG....
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