I am potentially starting a Star Trek 2d20 game. I was thinking of starting at the academy and doing some lower ranks play after that. Of course the speed of play by post means most of the game would likely be at the academy. I was thinking of setting it in 2377 so that they graduate and get assigned by 2381. Does anyone have any suggestions, potential problems, or critiques?

School games are always fun. They are my very favourite RPOL genre.

You need to think about your timeline quite seriously. If you aren't careful a single day at school will take six months IRL. Assuming the game lasts three years, that still just the first week of the academy.

Your alternative is to 'move time on' and do what they do books about schools like Harry Potter. You have 'a few days in this month' then skip to 'a few days in that month'. This needs planning up front, and communication. That way after three years or so, you can get to the end of the first year

Other questions you need to ask yourself

• How much social stuff do you want? Will you have party threads, and shopping threads.
• Is there a 'story' or is it just a sandbox you throw people into?

Well, I was about to say 'who on earth would want to RP being at school?', but apparently there are upsides to that I haven't discovered yet.
IME roleplaying the kind on anarchic, National Lampoons Animal House take on schooling works best in real-time and I'd have thought Forum play would be too slow, but I'd be interested to be proven wrong about that :)


What they said plus :

• ST : The Lower Decks could be pretty cool; everyone's an Ensign with no seniority, unless the XO appoints one character as Team Leader, which they might do on a rotating basis as everyone needs a little command experience, right?
• Also, have you thought about using the Star Trek Online timeline? Its 2410 and basically the Federation is or has recently been at war with : The Klingons, The Borg, The True Way (Rebel Cardassians), The Dominion fleet that got lost in the Wormhole in DS9, The Tal Shair, The Elachi, The Breen, The Orion Syndicate; The Voth, The Undine, The Vaardwaur, The Iconians, The Vorgon, The Sphere Builders, The Tholians, The Tzenkethi, The Hurq, Rebel Klingons, The Mirror Universe Terran Empire, V'Ger, The Mirror Universe Borg Collective and some bloke I met in the canteen called Bernard.

*Breathes*


As you can imagine that gives a fair amount of scope for anyone halfway through training to suddenly be deployed to a supposedly quiet sector just to keep some chairs warm and free up more senior personnel for combat duties.

*Edit : Missed a couple of wars first time.
This message was last edited by the user at 22:14, Fri 05 Jan.

Siran- Thank you for your response. My idea was to have a plot line/adventure and a RP event per semester, so the different scenes can jump through the semester as they progress. And by having the two I hope it allows some freedom while also having a storyline. I do like the idea of party threads and such, I will have to think about it. Like you said I really need to consider pacing. A 12 episode season could be about 12 sessions in person but will obviously take much longer in PbP.

OBorg- School games are not for everyone. I am a player in a superhero high school game. One difference is college vs high school. There are higher expectations and stress and the possibility of washing out, which should also lead to partying harder. Starting off as Ensigns was my other campaign idea but I wanted at least to examine this. As for STO 2410, I am considering it. I do however like filling the gap between Voyager and Lower Decks (the year should put them in Tendi’s and possibly Boimler’s and Rutherford’s class.

Truly the greatest threat that the Federation has ever faced. Along with the decision to refit Riker's ship with high back chairs and the writers of Picard Season Two.

Although now I'm just wondering how many Federation standoffs have been resolved by the Federation captain putting two pencils up his nose, his uniform briefs on his head and convincing his opponents he's crazy and they should do what he says before he starts lobbing his jettisoned warp core at them.


Nerdy jokes aside, I think the concept of an Academy game has potential but you've got to avoid a couple of potential pitfalls if it would work, because you run the risk of coming up against three issues:

 - The first is going to be pleasing and scheduling different player types against one another. For some people, an Academy game is all about hijinks and pranks, for others it's about steamy dorm romances and for others it's about adventures off campus and uncovering mysteries, and that's before you add in the fans who want to play specific character archetypes and races and really lean into the canon.

As such, you probably need to be clear about what's happening when because it's very hard to schedule that sort of a game effectively if you've got some players finishing the school day and clocking off for some Vulcan meditation, while others are farring their ponns, and others are neck deep in uncovering a changeling cell in the depths of the Academy.

 - The second is going to be about pacing more generally, because as Siran points out, a single day could take 6 months IRL, and while some players will have patience, others will potentially want to be out in the stars sooner rather than later and having more of the classic Trek experiences of strange new worlds, new civilisations, and bridges with consoles which go boom about 30 minutes into any given episode to show it's the denoumont. And that can cause some conflict if you're not careful.

 - The third is more specific to a Trek game, because you also need to ask yourself how much drama you're going to get in a Trek game if you're leaning heavily into a Rodenberry-flavour utopian future where everyone is largely pulling from the same direction to graduate - it's not to say that you aren't going to get drama, but there's maybe a question about both how much internal conflict you're going to see which feels natural, and indeed how many plot threads you can pull out from the Academy outside of the 'Wes and not-Parris' flying accident' and the 'there's an elite group of cadets being used to false flag earth' from DS9. And that's before you ask whether it's going to be PG rated or ADULT?


One thing I did try a few years ago was effectively having a small team of recent graduates/final year students being allocated to a small, dead end base on the quiet edge of Federation space and given fairly hum-drum roles as basically customs agents as a punishment for various issues at the Academy (so poor scores, political bias etc.), and where a minor refugee issue quicly spiralled and they had to prove themselves.

That approach or something similar would potentially give you a lot of what you want and limit the amount of work you have to do - the scope is a bit more manageable than 'Earth is in peril' and you can still have the different dynamics in play (the base hijinks, some romance, some conspiracy and some action) and you're both on the edge of Federation space but also having that 'young people finding their way' dynamic which can be good fun.