I have a question for the GMs of Star Trek games. How do keep it feeling like Star Trek when all of the tools are there within the setting to go gonzo? Going gonzo quickly is exactly what I have seen happening in every Trek game in which I have played or lurked -- which is admittedly no more than half a dozen.

The technology available to characters in this setting is basically godlike.
A small number of moderately competent characters, like anyone who has graduated Star Fleet Academy, could apply canon technologies and a little cleverness to bring any empire in the galaxy to its knees within days. Teleporter technology alone can be used to render starships obsolete for interstellar travel, stealth bomb planets, clone oneself infinitely, repair any bodily damage (including death), and preserve oneself in status for centuries at a time.

In the shows, characters don't become gods simply because the writers don't have them decide to do it. That works for a show in which the audience brings a certain level of verisimilitude. In roleplay, players rarely have the sense of restraint, and if they are playing in character well, they really shouldn't have that sense of restraint.

I think the GMs aren't being creative enough if they allow that stuff, and even if they did, they aren't being creative enough if that level of power is preventing any real roleplay.

For example, teleporters lack the range and accuracy to cross interstellar distances, and a full quantum state pattern can't be copied, nor even stored for any major length of time, in fact a full quantum pattern can only be stored for a few minutes or hours before the pattern buffer overloads/overheats. Trying to heal someone using that technology doesn't work because a person is teleported at the quantum level, but the ability to make adjustments to matter in the pattern buffer is limited and can only be done with filter programs as the pattern goes from the buffer to the pad, meaning it is easier to filter something like certain bacteria, or perhaps toxins [with a certain error percentage], but not adjustments to the pattern on a scale such as healing a gash in the leg which would require the ability to store and copy a pattern anyway.

Problem solved, except the stealth bombing, but then again, sensors seem to be able to detect weapons activation easy enough, so activation of the weapons prior to teleportation would alert the planet, and while the first wave might get through, follow up waves would be blocked rather easily (shields and similar interference blocks teleporters).

Now I certainly haven't seen every star trek episode ever, but what I have seen either is known as stated above or at least fails to contradict the above.
This message was last edited by the user at 11:51, Fri 16 Oct 2015.

Because if that's how players are, then your in the Mirror Universe. Hoshi Sato did it, after getting rid of Archer who planned it.

Transporters have a range of only a couple of thousand miles and can not go further than a ship in orbit. Transporters have a tendency to malfunction when used in close quarters, they also are also blocked by too much mass and rarely used to beam deep inside underground facilities. Ever notice after beam in SF types walk a lot.

You can use transporters to bomb planets, of course but making with the phasers and photon torpedoes is more efficient. Of course you have to invoke General Order 24.

"We killed thousands, and they still came." Not even massed phasers could stop a Banzai charge by the Yangs. Players who slaughter eventually go click.

GM as necessary must set players up.  Captured by primitives the phasers and comms go first, same with mid-tech, current tech hi-tech there are dampening fields for a change of pace.

Another limiter is di-lithium crystals. They run everything, supply can't keep up with demand else wise ships would have spares.

Lastly that is why the Feds invented Section 31. It eliminates threats to the Federation. These players you describe would qualify. Feds were dedicated to the UFP, those few who went beyond the pale i.e. Ransom, Tracy had noble motives, if not methods.

The best Star Trek episodes were never about whether or not you COULD use brute-force technology to solve a problem, they were about whether or not you SHOULD.

The entire spine of the Star Trek brand of sci-fi is the idea that technology and power need to be tempered with wisdom, restraint, and well-developed, evolved morals. The whole point of the Federation is that they could easily turn militaristic and rule the galaxy, but they don't. Because it's not the right thing to do.

And so you have things like the Prime Directive, which prevents them from using all their wonderful toys to exploit developing cultures BUT also means that they're not allowed to use them prevent a developing culture from starving to death, or being wiped out by the flu, or destroyed by a stronger developing culture.

That's where the conflicts in Star Trek should be. Moral conflict. Personal conflict. Emotional conflict. How you cope when you got into Starfleet to protect children, but the principles of Starfleet tell you to let several thousand children be slaughtered because Prime Directive? What happens when someone on your ship needs [thing] to survive but the civilization controlling that resource won't give it up? You have guns. Lots of guns. Do you take it? Do you steal it?

How many people need to die on a matter of principal before the right thing to do becomes the wrong thing to do?

tl;dr - Star Trek is about morals, not tech. Centre conflicts on the characters' ethical codes, their personalities, and places where they clash with the status quo. When you have to make real ethical choices about who you are as a person, all the tech in the world won't matter.

In reply to truemane (msg # 4):

Well said.

I have been thinking about this some more over the last month's time. I strongly appreciate truemane, StevenCabral, and DarkLightHitomi for their answers. I have reached some conclusions.

Let me preface this next part briefly. I still stick by my original observation that the default technology level in Star Trek makes the characters godlike. Those examples which I listed for applications of transporter technology were all applications which actually appeared in either a television show or else in a movie -- every one of them is canon. A player who actually used some creativity would be able to go above and beyond these applications. That's just the transporters; don't get me started on warp technology or replicators.

The basic lesson that I get from the answers above is that I shouldn't be thinking in terms of what the characters CAN do but what they WOULD do. If a player wants to use a transporter in a campaign-breaking trick like making a hundred copies of himself, the gamemaster should be saying to that player, "That is not what a Star Fleet officer would do. When solve your problems logically, you are roleplaying badly."

That is kind of a jackass thing for the GM to say, but it is also completely true. You guys are correct. Acting within the limitations of the culture which is Star Fleet is as much a part of the game as tribbles and tri-corder readings. I have never once told a player, "No, you cannot do that," but if I ever run a Trek game, this is exactly what I will be saying.

OK, so someone decides to duplicate himself 100 times.

In Canon it has occurred twice once to Kirk and dogalien, once to Riker.  The Kirk one was a personality disorder. So if Mr. Clever pulls it off you then advise him is 100 copies are defective. One does nothing but scream, another cry, another scratch another roll on floor and on and on and on.

GM's job is to police things and keep Jackwagons from ruining things. You don't always have to say no, you can just monkey wrench them too depending on the 'violation' they commit. Godlike is hardly Trek except from the shows NPC's, Metrons, Trelane/Q, Thasians, Organians all put a stop to things they didn't like or humiliated the crews to keep their ego's in check.

Replicators can't synthesize certain elements, so if someone wants X, it replicates faulty if at all.

In a decent Trek game Phasers work both ways, PC's can be vaped as easy as a mook. Tracy killed thousands but eventually his phasers drained.

Keep in mind even reboot-Trek can out clever itself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4N15J4ibej8