The role of a Captain in Star Trek role-play is not to face the Wrath of Khan, have trouble with tribbles, out-cheat Ferengi, or seduce Orion women.
Oh sure, they can do all those things, but the Captain’s primary job is to provide their crew with fun and interesting role-play. The Captain may do this directly or have other personnel create missions, but someone must develop these missions. This guide will assist you in doing so.
Most Star Trek role-play is based on completing a mission - the ship and crew have been ordered to complete one or more tasks. Many missions start with something mundane - make a delivery, pick up, survey a new system, take a person from place A to place B, or check on this `thing’. Missions become fun and interesting when the unusual occurs—something that the ship and crew were not planning for—the “twist”.
You should plan for your mission to take 90 - 120 minutes per session. If you anticipate a multi-part mission, plan for natural stopping points where play can be suspended. Then, resume play next time with a minimal briefing to remind the crew of "how we got where we are right now."
Basic Mission Planning
There are five steps to creating a mission:
1. Start with a mission objective—a concise expression of the goal as possible. "Our orders are to deliver X to Y colony," "Our orders are to do a full scientific survey of Z solar system," etc. This is what the crew is doing until the “twist” occurs. At the start of the mission, you will give the crew the mission objective. Where are we going, why are we going there, and what are we going to do when we get there.
2. Add obstacles that *you* know, but your players don't until they happen. "The crates of X are actually predators in stasis, and one gets out," "The anomaly interfering with scans is a pod of space whales, and one's having complications with its pregnancy." Keep events a mystery to the crew as much as possible until those events naturally unfold.
3. Ensure that everyone participating has something specific and plot-critical to do. To keep your crew interested and engaged, make sure they have something useful to do. For example, what medical role play could you assign your medical team instead of “do crew physicals” as busywork? This also requires you to know your crew's capabilities. As the mission author, you must know who you can count on to add to the story content with little guidance and who you need to provide with more specific information to keep things on track.
4. Make sure you can resolve the complication. It doesn't matter *how* your players resolve it, just that they do—which means it has to be possible! If you can think of one or two solutions, your players will be good for those and several more.
5. Assemble your props and supporting material. This may be as simple as some photos, some prepared notecards of details (such as science info on the system you’re arriving at), or possibly building an entire set where the story will take place
Keep An Air of Mystery
When writing a mission, try to keep an air of mystery. You want developments in the story to be a surprise.
I was involved in a mission where the Captain failed to do this. The mission briefing was “we are searching for an experimental ship, and we think it went into a wormhole”. When preparing his props, the Captain had left a picture of a wormhole on the main viewscreen.
Imagine how this might have been different, intending to make things a mystery to be solved by the crew. The mission briefing would have been, “We are searching for a missing ship testing an experimental warp drive. We do not know what happened to it. It last reported to base 12 hours ago from location X Y Z. We need to find the ship, figure out what happened, and, if possible, rescue the ship and crew.”
Another way to increase the mystery is to hand out clues in IM when required during the mission instead of handing out a notecard of “all the things you want the branches to do.”
Using the example of our missing ship, you give crew members clues like this for them to roleplay with.
• Clue to Science: You are detecting verteron particles
• Clue to Science: You are detecting increased neutrino levels
• Clue to Engineering: “A new warp drive, incorrect subspace field geometry, and incorrect intermix could create an unstable wormhole.”
If you give a “full mission” set of hints in a notecard or IM, some of your crew will just dump the whole thing out in chat, often revealing information you can’t possibly know yet.
Plan Necessary Details Out In Advance
If the story requires some detail, create these in advance and provide them to the crew as needed. Never miss a chance to reuse these elements when you can. For example, the ship enters some solar system, and you ask the science officer how many planets there are. Or where the gas giants are. Which planets might be in the habitable zone and have life? It’s unreasonable to expect someone to make this up on the fly in any quick way.
I had an RP experience in which the ship arrived in a solar system, was told it had 7 gas giants, and was asked to list how big each one was, how far it was from the primary, and what its atmosphere was. Some quick googling was in order. Worse, this information was not used in any way by the Captain.
Use Suitable Props To Enhance The Story
Use props, including physical items, photos, and the like, to enhance the experience. This will probably require you to find the items and plan to use them in advance.
➤ Create a library of these props to maximize their reuse.
Asset Reuse
In the above section, a library of assets you can reuse are obvious things like photos of spacecraft, nonplayer NPC characters, and ships. However, the back story and elements you develop to support a mission are also things you can reuse. Planets where there are colonies, moons with mining operations, gas giants, shipping companies, groups who have an issue with the Federation, your ship or some of your personnel. These elements can be pulled out and reused, saving time and adding consistency to your missions.
Follow your own canon
This may seem like an odd one, but your Trek roleplay group likely has its own canon—details you have decided on about your situation. This might include things like the year, whether your ships have capabilities like Quantum Slipstream, the distance you are from Earth, whether you support weapons like tricobalt and transphasic torpedoes, etc. If you have built a starbase, 460 Light Years from Earth, it's not likely your missions will involve visiting Risa on a weekend. You won’t receive a shipment from Earth very often, and getting advice from Starfleet Command will take days.
Have Something For Every Branch To Do
Every branch aboard your ship, station, or on your away team wants to do productive work. Having work to do makes them interested and engaged in the role play. When you create a mission, try to develop plot elements that have work for every branch to accomplish, even if not simultaneously. Maybe your security officers and the medical team won’t have much to do during the “get there” phase, but they will once the away team is on the planet's surface.
Always Have A Solution To The Problem (But Consider Others)
Never create a mission that leaves the crew hanging—“you figure it out!” You may have spent hours or days or weeks polishing your amazing mission. You are giving them an hour or so to solve the problem you have set them. You must always have a solution to the problem, but, you should accept their solution if it seems reasonable. Letting them solve the problem adds to their enjoyment and engagement.
Know Your Crew
Keeping the “target audience” - the crew - in mind when writing missions is critical. During your Star Trek role-play experiences, you will find a tremendous variety in skill levels and knowledge of the people on your crew. You can’t simply focus on the “good ones”. Everyone in your crew has talents and something to contribute. Importantly, they have joined your group because they want to take part, be a part of your community, and have fun.
As the author, you need to know who you can trust to “stay in their lane” and add content to the role-play with little guidance. You must know which people can be trusted to stick to canon, know their branch, and actively contribute to the role play. These are the science branch members who you can give a notecard on the destination system and let them flesh it out with more detail, or the engineer that you can tell to “find a reason for us to drop out of warp” and know they will not say ‘we ran out of space gas.”
The second group is more problematic. This group may not know canon very well and may not know what their branch does, but they want to contribute and be an active and involved part of the role play.
The biggest thing here is to try and avoid the second group “tossing grenades” —inserting nonsensical and inappropriate content into the role play simply for the sake of wanting to take part but not having anything to say. As a mission author, the best thing you can do is give them “something to say” that fits with the story. This likely means a notecard or Instant Message with more details than you would give the first group. Help them be successful. We all started not knowing anything.
Don’t Be In Love With Your Own Missions
When you create a mission, you may believe it's the most amazing thing imaginable. You may have every detail planned out. There is a saying that no plan survives contact with the enemy.
As a mission creator, one of the biggest mistakes is forcing the story to play out a certain way if those details aren’t important.
This is even more important when one of your crew, recognized for their expertise in their branch, tells you that YOUR solution to the problem is no good and can explain why and what alternative solution will work. Your ego should not be the barrier to changing your mission! If the desired outcome of the mission is to complete some task, be prepared to use the crew’s solution. This helps the crew feel more engaged and gives them a sense of accomplishment.
Would It Work On You?
Consider this. Would the plot element you use work if the story was reversed?
* Can they beam a team to YOUR ship without the security system alerting you?
* Can they figure out how to disable YOUR shields remotely?
* If they beam aboard YOUR ship, will they find unlocked computer terminals and access codes lying on people’s desks?
* Can they activate YOUR ship’s self-destruct system?
If you would cry foul if the adversary did it to YOU, you shouldn’t expect to do it to them.
When Possible, Follow Trek Canon
After sixty years of Star Trek, including a half dozen TV series, many movies, graphic novels, regular novels, and other sources, Star Trek has established a massive amount of (sometimes contradictory) canon—the “truth” about all things Trek.
When possible, follow the Trek canon. Many people who participate in these missions KNOW canon. They may know it better than you do! If you are going to do something that contradicts canon, you need to have a reason for it. Why were the “laws of space and time” suspended just this one time for you?
Also, just because something was done one time in canon for one particular ship or situation does not mean it will work for you. What special conditions were met for the ship to do that?
Be Prepared To “Herd” The Crew
A common issue is that the crew working on the problem you have presented them with either lose focus on the problem or dive down rabbit holes that are unrelated to the mission. You may need to whisper to a crew member or the Captain to get the story back on track. Only limited time is available to reach a conclusion or a reasonable stopping point.
While you want to allow your crew flexibility in their problem-solving and roleplay, sometimes it's obvious that they aren’t going in the direction you need them to be moving in. Don’t wait too long to step in!
Follow The Laws Of Physics (And Avoid Magic, Q, And Prayer)
“It looked really cool in the movie” is probably the last reason you should be including it in your mission. Although Star Trek is considered “science fiction,” it’s more accurately described as adventure fiction that happens to take place in space. The writers and creators in the series didn’t worry much about being scientifically accurate, and there were almost never consequences beyond the end of the episode.
Your plot twist is that you have to eject the warp core and detonate it:
1. How are you getting home? (Hint: Not using impulse)
2. How much antimatter does the warp core contain (Hint: not much)
3. How does that explosion propagate through the vacuum of space (Hint: It doesn’t, but Trek and other sci-fi ignore this routinely)
Your Adversaries are not Stupid, Incompetent, or Fools
EEvery crew member you work with, from the Captain down to the newest crewman, has graduated from Starfleet Academy or other educational institutions and knows how to do their job. In canon, we see very few characters who are “completely incompetent.” Idiots are not given command of starships!
Don’t develop a story where your success depends on the Captain and crew of an adversary to be stupid, incompetent, or foolish. Your stories should assume that the other crews are competent and alert.
You may use this in a subtle way. A Captain who is a political appointee and inexperienced/unqualified. A late shift where the duty officer is not fully attentive. A Romulan ship where the Captain has challenged the prior commander but isn’t qualified or experienced. There may be some cultural scenarios - “My honor demands we die stupidly because the humans insulted my dead grandmother!” Jem’Hadar desperate because they have no source of Ketracel White.
But your ongoing story should support these exceptions and not just be a happy coincidence. For example, if your story arc has no reason for Jem’Hadar being in the area, then having them show up desperate for Ketracel White is unlikely. An overarching approach of “Breen/Cardassians/Romulans/Insert Alien Species Here are stupid, so we will win” is a poor one.
Don’t Stereotype the Races
Star Trek has many alien species to choose from, and each of these has its own well-known traits. Klingons like to fight and drink. Romulans are sneaky. Ferengi are greedy and out for profit. Your characters do not have to follow these traits because everyone is an individual and it’s absurd to think everyone from a culture is exactly the same.
Consider Rom, Quark’s brother on DS9, as an example of a non-stereotypical Ferengi who goes on to become Grand Nagus. Consider Nog, another non-typical Ferengi who chooses to join Starfleet and enters the Academy. Have fun with it!
Humans are human (and sometimes aliens are too)
Keep in mind that the personnel (yours or your adversaries) may have problems. Perhaps they drink alcohol excessively or use drugs, or they are distracted and thinking about that girl they met back on Risa. Maybe they have a secret that will hurt their career if exposed, making them vulnerable to blackmail. Perhaps someone tempted them with a sack of gold-pressed latinum to guarantee the shield’s failure or the ship's untimely exit from warp.
Think about how you can leverage your Intel and Security personnel to add these elements. According to Albert Einstein: “Three great forces rule the world: stupidity, fear and greed” Think about how to use them to enhance your mission and provide “the twist”.
Put Realistic Limits on Technology
If you look at the available specifications for things like starship classes, you will see numbers like the maximum range of the sensors is 12 LY or 20 LY or the like. It’s very vague in canon what this means. Does it mean I can identify what planets are in a solar system from 5 LY away? Or can I read the registration number off a Ferengi ship 10 LY away?
Do the sensors have a speed of light limitation? Am I looking at what’s happening near the star now? Or am I looking at what happened 8 minutes ago?
So when you write your mission, think about going with “we can count the planets” and not “we can see what they’re eating for lunch”.
Tell The Crew What They Are Dealing With
The Captain and other crew are relying on the information you feed them to do their jobs. The details drive decisions.
Scenario: A Federation medium cruiser is investigating a nebula. Due to the properties of the nebula, sensor coverage is limited. Five Breen ships uncloak. Judge for yourself which of these reports will help the Captain decide what to do next.
#1 Tactical:Captain, there are five Breen ships in front of us.
#2 Tactical: Captain, there are five Breen ships in front of us. Computer has designated them Tango 1 through 5. Tango 1 and 2 are Chel Boalg class medium cruisers. Tango 3, 4 and 5 are Plesh Brek frigates. Tango 1 and 2 are 12 million kilometers away. Tango 3 and 4 are 6 million kilometers distant. Tango 5 is 2.5 million kilometers away. All tangos are raising shields and moving to intercept us at full impulse.
With the second report, the Captain now knows he’s outgunned at least three to one, that the other ships are likely hostile and going to attack, and that only one is currently in weapons range. This allows the Captain to make a decision and act on it.
This scenario is worth discussing further in the context of “your adversaries are not stupid, incompetent, or fools”. No Breen/Klingon/Romulan commander, knowing his ships are cloaked and unlikely to be detected, will do any such thing. He is going to order his ships into proximity, where they can all fire on the Federation cruiser, uncloak, lock-on weapons, and politely say, “Surrender or die, human scum.” It would be absurd for him to uncloak all of his ships when all but one are out of weapons range.
HHowever, if the enemy immediately destroys the lone Federation cruiser, the mission would be short and not much fun.
A better approach would be to have your sensors detect their impulse engine emissions or maybe a glitch in space behind them, giving the crew a chance to react. Or maybe one of the young Breen Captains has “buck fever” and jumped the gun. As the mission author, you should provide sufficient information in sufficient detail so that when the Captain “discovers” it, they can make those decisions.
Throwing Grenades
Occasionally, you will have a crew member throw a “grenade” into the ongoing role play. A “grenade” is an inappropriate or ill-considered action that may be impossible or out of place and may seriously disrupt the ongoing story.
A crew member who has not been given an active role and has little ability to ad-lib something appropriate and relevant just “makes something up”—throwing a grenade. Sometimes, the grenade simply results from a crew member not following the ongoing story. The grenade's effect may be simple, forcing other crew to ad-lib responses, or it may completely end role play. Imagine a mission where you are tracking an adversary. Your goal is to find out where they are going and who they are meeting with. One of your crew cries out, “Oh no, the shuttle they are on just exploded.”
Grenades are directly related to the mission author's knowledge of the crew's capability. If a crew member is prone to throwing them in—ad-libbing nonsense for the sake of having something to say—make sure you give them something to say. And let them know that ad-libbing plot disruptive role play is not acceptable. I have been involved in missions where the Captain ended the role-play just because of the grenade. In one case, we decided at the end of the role-play that "tonight never happened," and we planned to try again next time.
Finally, we get to - Bad Missions
When reviewing this document, someone suggested inserting some examples of "missions gone wrong." If you are reading this document, you have probably seen some. Sometimes, the “goes wrong” destroys the mission, leaving you nothing to do but pick up the pieces and call it a wrap. The following are some of my favourites:
• Three recently defeated Klingon cruisers were found, and a complete blank was drawn when the question “Where are the crews?” was asked. Between the three ships, this would be 1000 - 1500 personnel.
• The scenario is that three pirate ships have intercepted an enormous robotic ore carrier and forced it out of warp for reasons that are a mystery to the crew (so far). A crew member immediately calls out that the only reason for this is the ship must be full of treasure, with immediate calls for an away mission to find it. The solution to this would have been for the mission author to make sure the science officer had a notecard saying, “When you scan the ship, it's just carrying ore” and then have science repeat this when the suggestion of treasure is made.
• IIn a Sovereign-class ship, during a fight with another ship, an ops officer calls out that a thruster has been hit and is on fire, and the ship is out of control. The helm officer immediately reacts by having problems controlling the ship - while at impulse, when thrusters are not used. In addition, since thrusters don’t use an oxidizer there is nothing to burn, and it wouldn’t burn in the vacuum of space, and a Sovereign class has 34 more thruster quads. This is a great example of two crew members who don’t know Trek canon or understand anything “sciency” but want something to say. This crew seemed unaware that the Sovereign has both regenerative shields and ablative armour.
• A scenario I call the highwayman fallacy. A freighter and escort are travelling at Warp 7 (on the order of 200,000,000 kilometres/second). A pirate leaps out from behind an asteroid to intercept, waving his musket. Tongue in cheek, your money or your life. A ship at Warp 7 is not a trotting horse. The “jump out and intercept” is absurd. This is an example of the scenario not having a credible reason that the freighter dropped out of warp at just the right place for this to work.
• A mission on a Defiant class that ends in combat - with most of the crew not knowing the Defiant’s principal weapon is a Phaser cannon, and the Defiant does not engage as other ships do. The front-firing phaser cannon quickly hammers down the adversary's shields, enabling the use of torpedoes. (See DS9 for examples). This is an example of the mission author not briefing the crew with the knowledge AND the crew, knowing they would be in a Defiant class, not bothering to look anything up.
• This was probably the most ridiculous example I have seen. A Starfleet ship has been sent to intercept an enormous ship that has travelled here from the Andromeda galaxy (2.5 Million LY from the Milky Way) and is determined to take over a Federation colony. The adversary's defeat is because of their complete lack of security on their computer systems. Imagine Jeff Goldbloom with his Apple Powerbook in the movie Independence Day.
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RESOURCES
Querties random mission maker. Not to use on its own but a source of ideas.
Designing Missions for Star Trek – Mephit James Blog. More good ideas.
Sectors Without Number Sector Generator. SectorsWithoutNumber is a tool for populating a sector with systems, bases, etc. if you lack inspiration. It in no way aligns with Star Trek's stellar geography. This tool also has many suggestions for missions built in.
ACTD - Advanced Starship Design Bureau. A good reference for ship info.
Klingon EmpireKlingon Ships
Romulan Star Empire Romulans
Starship Schematic Database All Ship Database
Research/Survey VesselsResearch Vessels
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This document is Free to use. Please do not remove the Author's information.
Star Trek, Star Trek: The Animated Series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Enterprise, and Star Trek: Stange New Worlds are all registered trademarks of Paramount Global and/or Paramount Pictures and/or CBS Broadcasting. I am in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Paramount or CBS.
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