When You Can See the Rails

[neelk]

Or you can have an entirely different premise if you go with Deep Space 9:  You're not the best Starfleet has to offer, but you're good enough, and more to the point you're committed to ideals and connections that nobody else can imitate.  Go change the world.

I gotta admit that I'm stumped what the empowering player goals for TNG or Voyager would be though.  Thoughts?

Elf Sternberg once reshaped my view of what Star Trek TNG is with a single Usenet post:

Once upon a time, I heard "Cheers" described as "time porn."  If pornography is a depiction of what you want but cannot have, then Cheers was "time porn"; it gave people a brief, voyeuristic look at what they want but usually do not have: enough time to sit around in a well-lit "third space" away from the children yakking with their friends.

It was then that I realized that ST:TNG is "office porn."  The Enterprise is upholstered much like modern, traditional office buildings; the crew uniforms are semi-casual and make exception for the ethnic members of the team; the organization of the ship is much less militaristic or civilian naval and much more like a small but mature company.  But it's mostly "office porn" in that the staff meetings, which do happen regularly, are short, to the point, and effective.

[TonyLB]

Heh... I was going to say something pithy about pornography and roleplaying games, but when it comes right down to it the question of living in a world that has elements whose absence we feel keenly in our own lives is a pretty big part of a lot of Simulationist play.

Maybe the Star Trek rules system (which from my fragmentary memory seems massively Sim) is more well suited to the genre than I had originally thought.

So to return (momentarily) to the original post:  When time stopped and the players didn't have any sense of what to do, they should all have immediately retired to the ready room.  Then everyone could make one helpful statement, and ask one insightful question, at the end of which a clear consensual plan would have naturally emerged to be helpfully rubberstamped by the captain.  Yes?

[JamesDJIII]

Tony,

That plan, the one where we all meet up and discuss a plan, might have worked. Er, well, given we (and our ship) were about to be sliced by an alien beam of death, that meeting would have been in the debris of the bridge...

But I think the pattern that emerged in our game was that no matter what we were going to do, the consequences were already established. In other words, we could turn the wheel as hard as liked to the left, but the center rail would keep us moving in a predetermined direction.

Which is why the JellyBelly sorting and consumption began to become more interesting that the game. (At least to myself and the person playing our Captain!)

I'm not a big Star Trek fan. I'll admit it. But I was looking forward to playing in this game. I just think, and this is my point, that things would have gone smoother had the GM simply stated his means ahead of time. Would have saved a lot of confusion and head scratching. The expectation was: here's a problem, come up with a solution, the fun is in the outcome we all generate. The reality was: here's a problem, read these lines, the fun is in the charactertization you provide.

[TonyLB]

Ah.  Gotcha.  So there were actual instances where you tried something, and the GM fought you back to his plot.

I'm still confused about why you didn't know what to do when time stopped... or, rather, why it mattered that you didn't know what to do (if what you did didn't make any difference).

Is that a separate issue, or part of the whole railroading issue?

[JamesDJIII]

Tony,

Let me put it this way: if every indication is that whatever you put forward is going to be ignored, what would YOU do?

In sitting-at-the-edge-of-the-game mode, I turn to the GM and throw up my hands, a pleading look, and say "Well, you've guided us here, now what?"

If we had an agenda that we the players created, then we wouldn't need to ask. The situation would be a continutation of the give-and-take between us and Mr. GM, and our drive towards The Things We Want.

Hope that helps.

[TonyLB]

Oh, wait a second... I get it.

You're not asking for suggestions.  You just want to vent.  I was assuming that you actually wanted to talk about the session itself.  My bad.

In that vein... That sounds like a terrible, horrible, scarring experience.  What an awful GM.  He shouldn't be allowed to GM any more, he'll only end up hurting other brave, helpful players like yourself.

[Ron Edwards]

Hmmmm ... I'm not really liking some of the dialogue here. Tony, you and James need to take it to private message if you both want to continue.

So, James, is there any other aspect of the session follow-up you'd like to chew over?

Best,
Ron

[JamesDJIII]

Ron,

I think this thread, AFAIC, was all done about 7 posts ago.

Tony,

Heck yeah, I'm venting! The big difference (for me) was that now I am venting about how we failed to talk about the game's parameters before hand as much as how the game "failed."

But you know what, I still had fun with my amigos. I felt that the GM was having a bad time - as if he was not running a good game. Had we talked about what was going to happen, I think we ALL would have had a good time.

Ciao!

[Ron Edwards]

All done then, folks. Be happy.

Best,
Ron