ftp.ee.pdx.edu/2014.02.ftp.ee.pdx.edu.tar/ftp.ee.pdx.edu/pub/frp/stories/startrek/adv1/intro1

Text File | 1994-09-10 | 12KB | 244 lines

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                           Star Trek: Play by E-Mail
                              The Forbidden Years
                               Campaign Write-up
===============================================================================
                                 Introduction
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              Copyright 1993 Jim Vassilakos / All Rights Reserved
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How It All Started
------------------

Back in February of '92, I, like many other readers of rec.games.frp, saw an
article asking for players for a new PBeM [Play By (electronic) Mail] game. Now
many of you may ask, "What is play-by-email?" It's a form of roleplaying.
Unlike the traditional face-to-face games, the players send their characters'
actions to the GM via email, who then responds with the outcome... again via
email. The obvious disadvantages are the slowness of pace and the lack of the
"social facet" so integral to traditional roleplaying. The advantage, however,
which so few PBeMs seem to seize, is the possibility for constructing a
written, shared story from the email correspondence which drives the game.

This in an important feature that deserves some elaboration. It seems to me, in
many of the face-to-face games that I GM, that having a written record of what
happens would be wonderful. The sort of novels a person could write from such a
record would be hopelessly convoluted, but they'd be strangely terrific all the
same, mainly for one reason... the novel would be a product of shared,
collaborating imaginations. The work of a single writer, no matter brilliant,
would have a difficult time competing with this strange form of synergy. Of
course, the work of a single writer would be easier to follow. It would be
tighter. But it would lack the ingredient of cooperative story-telling that
makes roleplaying games so much fun. And this (IMHO) is precisely why
roleplaying has such magic for us. It is why, very often, some of the best
stories we are ever told are those we tell ourselves, with our friends at our
side, rolling dice, hamming it up, and sacrificing live pizza to the GM. For us
roleplayers, these are great stories, in part, because we participate in the
telling, but they are also great because they incorporate that elusive aspect
of synergy which naturally invites the collective imagination to unfold.

Of course, I had no such pretensions when I first signed on. I was feeling as
green as anybody on the face of the planet. I didn't really know what to do or
what to expect. But that all soon changed. Tony Hayes was running the game, and
I think what initially impressed me most was the amount of work he was putting
in. It seemed like every time I received an email from him, it was well over a
hundred lines. However, his task was an easier one than it might have been
otherwise.

As I may have neglected to mention, the game was centered in the universe of
Star Trek, conceived by Gene Roddenberry, codified by FASA, and copyrighted by
Paramount Pictures. It is, without much doubt, the most popular science fiction
setting in the world. The reason? Three television series, six movies, a
cartoon series, a bookcase of novels, a roleplaying game, a couple technical
manuals, and innumerable bits of mass-marketed paraphernalia (coffee cups,
t-shirts, model starships, posters, etc, etc, ad nauseam, etc).

As you can imagine, getting warm to the game was easy. I already knew what Star
Fleet was. I came prepared with a ready knowledge of the difference between
"warp" and "impulse" drives. I knew what Klingons and Vulcans looked like, how
they were supposed to act (and with FASA's help, the reasons why). Unlike other
email games, many of which might suffer from a lack of player knowledge as to
the basic setting, the Star Trek game had no such difficulty, and despite my
lack of experience with PBeMs, I soon found myself playing a luscious female
Deltan commander with a tatoo of a unicorn on her ankle and a score on the
battle tactics examination which would send shivers up the spine of any pirate
in the sector. In short, I was having lotsa fun. And I think it showed.

Tony continued the game for a little over a year when he finally got burned-out
on the workload and told me in late April of '93 that either I could take over
the job of GMing, or the game would die a swift and meaningless death (and just
at the fun part, too). Well, I took him up on his offer, and found that GMing
these things is even more fun than playing in them.

What I will be posting to the net is a campaign write-up of this game which I
have organized for electronic distribution. The write-up is in a story-like
format, and so should be fairly readable for anybody who is interested in
seeing the goings-on of this particular PBeM. The write-up is especially meant
for those who are interested in play-by-email, either as players or
gamemasters. Granted, this is just one example of such a game. But if it serves
as incentive for other PBeM-GameMasters to post their own campaigns to the net,
then this whole project will have been well worth the effort.


Contents
--------

At the time of this writing, the party has just concluded their first
adventure, which consists of the following sections.

     Episode      Date      Title                       Size
     -------------------------------------------------------
     Prologue #1            Boarding Maneuvers           37k
     Prologue #2            Getting down to Business     35k
     Prologue #3            Lost in Space                19k
     Prologue #4            Reflections                  23k
     Prologue #5            A Matter of Precedent        32k
     Turn #1      5/13/93   The Initiation               14k
     Turn #2      5/20/93   A Place Called Hell          16k
     Turn #3      5/27/93   Hit & Run                    14k
     Turn #4      6/01/93   Investigations               56k
     Turn #5      6/10/93   Borg & Blobby                37k
     Turn #6      6/11/93   Out of the Frying Pan...     12k
     Turn #7      6/15/93   Bimbos-1, Borgs-0            27k
     Turn #8      7/03/93   The Great Escape             47k
     Turn #9      7/12/93   Midnight Massacre            32k
     Turn #10     7/19/93   Side-By-Side                 34k
     Turn #11     7/28/93   The Great Conspiracy         33k

The events detailed in the five prologue episodes were played-out between
February of '92 and April of '93, a period totaling some fifteen months. Tony
Hayes was GMing during this stretch, and I was playing Commander Nienna
Elineva. I wrote-up the prologues in July of '93 after the adventure had
concluded, using the old emails, some imagination, and my own fractured memory
to re-construct the events of that first year.


Credits
-------

Administrators:

GM & Write-up guy: Jim Vassilakos ([e-mail])
Founder & Former GM: Tony Hayes ([e-mail])

Cast of Characters:

Captain Jenifer LeBonk (Human)
Captain, USS Excalibur
Joe Leitsch ([e-mail])

Commander Nienna Elineva (Deltan)
First Officer, USS Excalibur
Interim Captain, USS Phobos
Jim Vassilakos ([e-mail])

Lt. Cmdr. Jimmy-Joe Hawkins (Human)
Chief Engineer, USS Excalibur
Michael McAleese ([e-mail])

Lt. Cmdr. Oein tr'Remas (Romulan)
Helmsman and Science Officer, USS Excalibur
Jeremy Lakatos ([e-mail])

Lt. Cmdr. Jacob O'Neil (Human)
Chief Medical Officer, USS Excalibur
Interim CMO, USS Phobos
Mark Hammel ([e-mail])

Lt. Talkarn Andranna Kaylan (Andorian)
Navigator, USS Excalibur
Brannon Boren ([e-mail])

Lt. Theodore "Gunner" Bellasario (Human)
Chief of Security, USS Excalibur
Interim Security Chief, USS Phobos
Alan Ward ([e-mail])

Lt. T'lar (Vulcan)
Helmsman, USS Phobos
Ronnie Simonds ([e-mail])

2nd Lt. Tsandzia arul Morchainte (Calainian)
Astrophysics Specialist, USS Phobos
Brian Chrisman ([e-mail])

Ensign Tyran Arloch (Human)
Artificial Sentience Specialist, USS Phobos
Steve Hyatt ([e-mail])


Time & Place
------------

When I started GMing the game, I began using a terran-centric system for
stardates which I applied to all the old material when writing up the
prologues. The stardates look like CC/YYMM.DD/HHMM.SS where CC is the century
field, YY stands for years, the first MM is for months, DD for days, HH for
hours, the 2nd MM for minutes, and SS for seconds. In this standard form the
stardate 22/6003.16/1800.00 (which could be abbreviated to 6003.16 at 1800
hours) would equate to March 16, 2260 at 6pm.

The pbem begins in the year 2260, well after the Star Trek I-VI movies, but
well before _The Next Generation_ television series, a period of time which
both Paramount and FASA have carefully chosen to sidestep, perhaps due to the
less than idyllic nature of this stretch of Federation history (hence entitled
"The Forbidden Years"). Our story begins in the vicinity of Starbase 75, a
powerful deep-space fortress of the Federation situated near the Romulan
neutral zone.


A Note on the Copyright
-----------------------

One thing to keep in mind is that since the PBeM is the product of lots of
different imaginations interacting, any attempt to copyright this write-up is
bound to be somewhat tenuous. Add to this the fact that Paramount already holds
the copyright to significant aspects of the Star Trek universe, and you've got
a pretty fuzzy picture regarding ownership rights.

I'm not a lawyer. I don't even play one on TV. But the reason for the copyright
is this. Many online and fanzine publications won't accept stuff unless they
have a clear idea that it's okay to publish it... that they won't get sued by
doing so. If you tell them they have to contact in upwards of ten different
people just to get an okay, then they're not even going to try. I know. I used
to run an online fanzine, _The Guildsman_, and while I wasn't a stickler for
following the letter of the law, I took pains to make sure I had permission in
writing from every significant net-contribution, and that in all cases I at
least gave credit where credit was due. It may sound dumb, but CYA often is. Is
it worth it? Just ask WotC.

For this reason, I'm hording the supposed rights where I know they'll be
readily accessible (with me and, concerning the prologues, with Tony) should
the impetus to publish (particularly in a paper-medium) ever mysteriously
arise. For those of you who want to archive, electronically distribute, and
otherwise pass copies along to your friends... feel free. Just don't try to
claim yourself as the writer or do anything else which is obviously immoral. I
put lots of work into these write-ups, and Tony, as GM of the prologues, put in
his share too. I can testify to that. As for the players, they each contributed
to varying degrees, but nothing goes into the write-up that the GM doesn't
rubber stamp and invariably screw around with in advance. As in traditional
RPGs, game-reality in the PBeM is that which is perceived and accepted by the
GM. So if it ain't in the write-up, then don't worry about it. It probably
never happened anyhow. :-)


                      _   /|        Jim Vassilakos
                      \`o_O'        [e-mail]
                        ( )         [e-mail]
                         U          Riverside, California

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 This Star Trek PBeM is archived on ftp.cs.pdx.edu in pub/frp/stories/startrek
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