Trek TOS Hero: Kirk

[Barwickian]

The game went pretty well from my perspective. I used David Okum's wonderful TOS paper minis. I ended up with 5 players, who ran Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Uhura and Sulu (sorry, Scotty and Chekov).

 

The game was set around the time of season 2, a year or so after the Organian Peace Treaty. The Enterprise was sent to accompany Ambassador Salik (a Dubai in-joke - Salik is the name of Dubai's toll system and I couldn't resist the gag) to represent the Federation as the border planet Mimora decided whether to ally with them or the Klingon Empire.

 

Roleplaying moments as the Mimoran technocrats questioned officers about the benefits of joining the Federation, and praised the wise idea behind the Prime Directive - after all, technological prowess is power, and it's wise not to share it so you keep control...

 

Naturally things weren't that simple, and shortly after the Klingon delegaton arrived, one of the Mimoran technocrats showed up dead. Kirk offereed his officers' services, and McCoy established not only that the technocrat had been shot by a Federation phaser, but that it was an older model of phaser.

 

Players pulled blinders. They managed to neutralise the Klngon delegation, persuaded the Mimorans to allow the Enterprise to thoroughly scan the station, inviting a Mimoran security team to observe the scanning procedures (and impress them with the UFP's technology). Then a second Mimoran corpse was found, shot by an up-to-date Klingon disruptor (another great Forensic Medicine roll from McCoy).

 

My initial notes called for a confrontation between the Klingons and the Enterprise bridge crew - ideally a trial by combat between a batleth-armed Klingon and a rapier-wielding Sulu. It never happened. The players cottoned on to the heavy-handed plot device and rightly suspected someone in the Mimoran delegation.

 

My initial notes called for the Mimoran vice-president to be the villain, but we were running out of time and he really hadn't featured too heavily in the game so far. When the Enterprise scans revealed the shielded area of the station, they invited the Mimoran security chief to lead them in a physical investigation, and he made an obvious villain.

 

So he persuaded the Enterprise crew, armed with hand phasers, to lead the way, then ambushed them. MCoy, a laser pistol to his head, managed to wriggle free and disarm the villain. Uhura caught a laser blast and was injured and stunned. Kirk and Sulu hammered all three Mimorans with wide-angle stuns, Spock ran forward and caught the security chief with a neck pinch and Kirk called on the others to surrender.

 

Game wrapped up on time. The only thing they didn''t have time to uncover was how the Mimorans had managed to get hold of the UFP and Klingon weapons; one Harcourt Fenton Mudd.

 

Two of the players had played Champions years ago. One of the others was an experienced gamer but new to Hero, and was very interested in finding out more.

 

Re the additional character notes - all good. You're right, Spock should have higher STR and perhaps I should drop Kirk's deduction to proficiency.

 

Shane's compact 6e export template was absolutely perfect for this. An absolute gem. All the information needed, none of the information not needed. I tinkered with font sizes and portraits in Word, and presto. I really like the addition of the To hit roll next to OCV - that really makes explaining how Hero System combat works much simpler to new players.

 

I think it's become my new favourite export file.

[wcw43921]

Good Job.  Way to represent HERO!            

[LordGhee]

How to get Shane's export file?

[docdoom77]

How to get Shane's export file?

(adopts Scruffy, the Janitor's voice) "Second"

[Nadrakas]

(adopts Scruffy, the Janitor's voice) "Second"

Thirded...please. 

[Greywind]

Uhura should have fan dancing as a skill.

[docdoom77]

Uhura should have fan dancing as a skill.

Lol. That made me look over Uhura  (who does have singing and dancing).  She really shouldn't be fluent in Klingon.  In The Undiscovered Country, it was made clear she had no knowledge of Klingon and had to look everything up in a book.  No big really, but there it is.  No back to this export file....

[Barwickian]

Shane's export file is listed as "RTF - Compact 6E (SH)" in the HD export formats online library. SH stands for Shane Harsch, not Star Hero.

[docdoom77]

Cool. Thanks

[Michael Hopcroft]

Graduates of Starfleet Academy get massive quantities of training, but realistically the academy could never produce enough officers for an entire fleet (neither does Annapolis). People who enlist with high college degrees (M.D's, PhD's, most Masters-level) automatically become officers in real-world militaries, so that ought to apply here. (In TOS, I sincerely doubt that Dr. McCoy would have gone to the Academy -- though why he joined Starfleet in the first place might be a bit of a mystery.) There are officer training schools that enable talented enlisted men to be "called up from the ranks" and become officers -- who might be regarded more lightly originally than Academy graduates, but are usually intelligent and capable and have as good a chance as anyone else of becoming Captains. For doctors and scientists, Starfleet will actively be seeking as many qualified people as they can find who are willing to endure the rigors and risks of service in Starfleet.

 

The enlisted crews and related Federation forces are likely to be a volunteer force, with a lot of candidates. If you don't have the skill or luck to get into college, and can meet the physical and mental-health requirements, you can probably enlist. Only in an extreme emergency (a long-term threat that could render the entire Federation utterly extinct) would anyone even imagine conscription on that sort of scale -- if it is even possible.

[Greywind]

McCoy signed up because after his divorce, space was the only place left for him.

[L. Marcus]

The wife took the planet, he kept his bones.

[WarpCrab1]

Thus, that is why Kirk always called the doctor "Bones". 

[Michael Hopcroft]

Thus, that is why Kirk always called the doctor "Bones". 

I always thought "Bones" was short for "Sawbones", an old Navy term for the ship's surgeon (for whom amputating crushed or shot-off limbs was a major part of his job description). 

[WarpCrab1]

That could have been the case in the original TV series. It sounds like something Roddenberry would write into their history. However, in the 2009 movie, the doctor mentioned that his ex-wife took everything but his bones. After that statement, Kirk immediately started calling him Bones.

[Michael Hopcroft]

That could have been the case in the original TV series. It sounds like something Roddenberry would write into their history. However, in the 2009 movie, the doctor mentioned that his ex-wife took everything but his bones. After that statement, Kirk immediately started calling him Bones.

The less I think about the reboot the happier I am. Abrams largely re-imagined Star Trek as an action-adventure series that lacks the original's imagination and audacity. Abrams would never commission an episode that combined bureaucratic satire, slapstick comedy, and farce where Kirk becomes increasingly frazzled in a situation that rapidly becomes weirder and more desperate, after commissioning another episode that is a nerve-wracking duel to the deatgh with a unknowable, brilliant, ruthless and implacable enemy.

 

And the most annoying thing was the way he re-imagined Kirk. I know I'm supposed to accept the movies on their own terms, but I still have a lot of trouble with a Kirk that young commanding a core of officers that is on the whole much older and more experienced than he is. Kirk in the TV series may have been young for a starship captain, but he was experienced and had earned the grudging respect of Starfleet. As I frequently say, command may be awarded but respect and loyalty are earned, and Kirk had earned the loyalty of his core of officers to the extend that when they had to choose between Kirk and their own careers in Starfleet they chose Kirk.

[WarpCrab1]

Abrams made very little effort to hid the fact that he had no interest in Star Trek prior to being offered the franchise. So, it did not surprise me that he would make some changes to the characters and their history. Which is probably one of the reasons he went with the time-travel story to reboot there backgrounds.