May 9, 2267: Finney's Bar, San Francisco, Earth
A group of senior cadets meet each other for drinks at Finney's, just a few blocks off of the campus of Star Fleet Academy. Tomorrow is the big day and all of the seniors are enjoying a bit of fun before tackling their cadet cruise. After several hours, nearly all of the cadets have either had enough or have decided to move on to other bars. Midshipmen O'Reilly and James, and Cadet Belk have lingered. They overhear three Orions at the bar, making disparaging remarks about Star Fleet in general, and Academy cadets specifically.
Eventually, one of the Orions makes a comment about O'Reilly's ears. She stands up, the Orions stand up, and Midshipman James and Cadet Belk stand up. As the Orions approach, Cadet Belk picks up a bar stool and hurls it at an Orion trying to flank the cadets. The stool sails over the Orion's head and crashes into a pool table, knocking the eight-ball off the table. O'Reilly picks up a barstool and jumps on top of the cadet's table, and Midshipman James meets the flanking Orion with a punch.
The flanking Orion ends up wildly missing a punch and lands on the floor. O'Reilly jumps on top of him and, with Belk's help, begins to hog-tie him with her belt. Midshipman James then gets kicked in the knee by one of the other approaching Orions, hyper-extending it. Belk and James end up side by side right before James is grappled and brought to the ground. Blows are traded and soon the cadets incapacitate the rest of the Orions. The last one is finally dropped by a well placed kick to the groin.
The shore police arrive just as the cadets subdue the Orions. They seem to note that nothing is out of order and depart. The cadets involved return to the dormitory with the hope that this will not be discovered by the Academy faculty.
May 10, 2267: San Francisco, Earth
Finney's Tavern Invoice #34454-23
Customer: Greshon Kerak:
- 2 Barstools, Aluminun - 155 credits
- 1 Pool Table Refinishing - 232 credits
- 1 Bar Table - 275 credits
- 2 bottles of The Glenlivet 18 - 440 credits
1,102 Federation Credits Paid by Capt. Gia, Orion Free Trader B'klet
Stardate 57130
The next morning, the cadets report to their assignments aboard the USS Suffolk NCC-914. The Suffolk is a Texas-class light cruiser and is used by Star Fleet exclusively as a cadet training vessel. After listening to a brief speech by Captain Wilson, they depart. Midshipman O'Reilly is assigned to the sensor banks and reports to the second shift duty officer, Ensign Willis. Midshipman James is assigned to the second shift crew manning the starboard phaser bank. Cadet Belk is assigned to the Sick Bay with the other doctoral candidate on second shift.
Captain Wilson relays to the crew and cadets the details of thier mission for this cruise. They are to proceed towards the Orion border and negotiate a contract for the Academy mess hall with an Orion food company at a station two weeks away. The Captain also mentions a trip to the Klingon Border. This excites some of the cadets, but the crew just smiles. It would take many months at warp to reach the Klingon border, so this was clearly a joke (a famous character trait of Captain Wilson).
Towards the end of their first day of cruise, the Suffolk drops out of warp. Ensign Willis, Midshipmen James and O'Reilly, and Marine Cadet Belk are ordered to report to the transporter room. When they arrive, they are briefed that they are to beam to the surface of a listening post and retrieve data tapes. They must wear vacc suits as the transporter beam will not be able to penetrate the asteroid. The away team beams to the surface of the asteroid. Unfortunately, Midshipman James is stricken with motion sickness upon the sudden change in gravity and loses his dinner within his vacc suit. The away team finds the door and proceeds down a shaft into the heart of the asteroid. Willis retrieves several taps from a computer console. He the receives a call on his communicator and is ordered to return to the Suffolk immediately and instructs the cadets to remain behind.
Soon after Ensign Willis leaves, power to the post is cut, leaving the cadets in pitch darkness and low gravity. Cadet Belk manages to grasp Midshipman O'Reilly as she floats towards the center of the room. As they investigate the situation, O'Reilly calls to the Suffolk and is told to standby. Belk and James discover a corridor out of the room and hear whispers. Curious about what is going on, they stealthily move up the dark hallway towards a humming noise. Midshipman James readily identifies this as the hum of a defensive phaser in standby mode. They discretely disable the door to the phaser room and slip inside. Just then, Belk's communicator beeps. The lights come on and standing before them is Captain Wilson, flanked by security.
Captain Wilson reveals that he has brought the cadets here because he was concerned about the fight with the Orions. He does not want anything to interfere with their mission and wants to make sure that the cadets are not harboring any prejudice towards Orions in general. The cadets affirm that they just want to serve Star Fleet and are team players. In classic Grant Wilson style, he wryly suggests that the cadets use teamwork to return to the Suffolk... and beams out.
The cadets appraise the situation and decide to lash themselves together to make a coordinated space-jump to the Suffolk. They swallow their fear and make the 2,000 meter jump. As they float through space and get tangled, they have time to reflect upon what being a team means. They successfully impact the ship and make their way to an airlock. Once there they are greeted by some of the crew and cadets with applause, and a few pats on the back and then report back to their duty stations.
Welcome to the fleet, Cadets.
Captain's Log USS Suffolk, Stardate 57130.6
Location: Sector 2908, Outside Sol
Captain Grant Wilson recording:
"Our first day in space for this, my final cadet cruise, was uneventful. We are making our way towards Verax Station in sector 2910 near the border with the Orion enclave. Our destination is currently 200 parsecs out and Warp 7 should get us there in about 2 weeks.
We stopped by listening post 2908-12J and retrieved the backups of the monitoring records for Star Fleet Intelligence. The away team performed their duties as expected. We even managed to get a little bit of free-space jump training in for a few cadets.
The ship is in good shape, and the crew ready. The cadets seem anxious and excited as they usually are on the first few days. Some of them will be disappointed when they realize that space travel isn't always like it is on the holovids, and takes time. Time that gets filled with the routine of duty. I will miss the fresh faces and excitement, but the Suffolk is old and so am I. Our time is ending, and these kids' time is beginning. All is as it should be."
End of recording.
Game & Progression Notes:
This was the kick-off session of a GURPS Prime Directive campaign set in year 157 of the Star Fleet Universe timeline. This puts the events here concurrent with the first season of Star Trek. The players for this game session were James, Heather, and Marlin. I was the GM. James is playing Rick Belk, a male Human Marine officer on the medical track. Heather is playing Waltera O'Reilly, a half-Vulcan officer on the communications specialist track. Marlin is playing Midshipman William James, a weapons specialist with Scottish ancestry.
Sector numbers correspond with the main Federation & Empire Map. Per the Warp Speed in SFU document, it takes quite some time (and a significant mount of fuel) to travel across the Federation at normal speeds. I mentioned the Klingon border to the players, but in reality (well not reality-reality but unreality-reality) it would take them forever to get there, at least in terms of a month long cadet cruise.
My son (3 yrs.) was present at the beginning of the session and he helped us roll dice. My wife graciously returned from her errands in time to make sure that my boy wasn't too much of a distraction.
While preparing for the three-hour session, most of my time was spent creating characters for my players based upon their descriptions. I did some outlining of the next three sessions, but I ran out of time to firm up the details of the next two sessions. I have my work cut out for me. I did manage to get through the two encounters I had planned for this session. I also have some extra material around in case the cruise progresses faster than anticipated.
I also intend to do a little bit of inter-session role-playing through email, though this will not be necessary for the development of the main story. If any takes place, I will try to chronicle it here.
I decided that the first adventure should have some combat. This way I could introduce the players to GURPS combat (which can be time consuming). To that end, I decided to print out the excellent GURPS Combat Cards and made some counters to track what each combatant was doing. This worked out rather well and sped up the combat compared to previous GURPS games. Combat took place on my Chessex 1" hex grid map and it did its job very well as usual. I did not brush up on my unarmed combat rules before the session, so some of it turned into roll and shout. I'll work on speeding up combat but it was not too bad. Savage Worlds is still faster, but GURPS was so much easier to describe to the players.
The second encounter aboard the listening post was supposed to put the players off guard. Exploration and mystery are a staple of role-playing games and I wanted to see how the players would react to the unknown and see if the players would play their characters rather than game the game. I once ran a session where one of the players shot an NPC that was doing nothing but running away in fear. Though - to be fair - it WAS a zombie apocalypse game and the players didn't know if it was going to be fast zombies or slow zombies.
I think all of us have played games where the players do what they think is expected of them rather than what realistic characters should do. I've seen players do absolutely insane things with their characters. A line from an RPG book comes to mind: "I wade through the pool of writhing zombie arms." Seriously? If no one in their right mind would do an action, don't try to convince me that your character would unless your character is bat-shit crazy. This encounter was to feel the players out and whether the game was going to be played or if the characters were going to be role-played. They played their characters and I couldn't be more thrilled. These guys are probably going to give my old Austin group a run for their money.
Had it gone the other way, I would have an opportunity to adjust the encounters for future games towards the "gamers gonna game" end of the spectrum. Luckily for me, GURPS, even though it has lots of rules, does a good job of providing enough crunch for the "gamers gonna game" set and enough character detail for the "players gonna play" set. It appears that this group is going to be happy to focus on things like character development and exploration of military science fiction instead of point gains and loot acquisition.
During the session, each character was played well. They each earned three character points and, due to their experiences, will start off their careers upon graduation with an extra Seniority point. Seniority, Professional Reputation, and Heroic Reputation are special awards covered in GURPS Prime Directive.
That's about all the notes (and time) I have for this session. Thanks for reading!
No comments:
Post a Comment