Cowboys and Dinosaurs - Game Prepping Mark II. And Star Trek game

Not knowing how long the Star Trek game will continue (oh, hey, we're playing a Star Trek game!) I've been doing some prep work for the game. We're using the Apex rule set, and as per this previous post I'm working on the gamer "bible". While I won't get into the discussion of too much prep (there are so many opinions out there! But this is fun stuff for me, so regardless if it gets used or not, I enjoy doing it.)

One of the things I struggle with when running games is keeping track of the NPCs. To help with that, I'm adding the NPC stat block to the documentation. An example page is below. 

The theory is I'll have this actually printed out when we play, so I have basically index-card sized info for the NPCs. I still need to add some characterizations and stuff to help me remember how to play them. I have a hard time keeping too much in my head (other than an astonishingly large amount of useless, if interesting, things, such as a baby giraffe can grow up to 6" per day! And they are really cute. But I digress, sidetracked yet again by useless information). 

I don't know if I'll print out the entire PDF before we start the game, but will probably print at least parts of it. I just do better with analog things.

And as I realized after I started this post I had already started a post for this game prep, we will switch to the game in progress.

We're playing a D20 Star Trek game, taking place in TOS timeline. As I really seem to like cats (well, half the internet is cat memes for a reason!) I decided to play a Caitian. I used the on-line character generator and was actually pretty happy with the first one. I took the random rolls rather than picking just to see what would happen. 

And yes, of course I created Cait, the home world, and did a bit of research on them. The only real memory I have of Caitian is from the Animated series, which I've not watched in decades despite having it on DVD. He is chief of security and at 40-something, is a Commander and now 2nd in command of the USS Sherezade, a Miranda class vessel (the game master really likes the Miranda class). 

ship character sheet, not really completed.

He has served in security on a variety of vessels: a Loknar class vessel, a Hermes class (I have the Franz Joseph tech manual, and I really like those. I've had that book since early high school, 40+ years now), the traditional Constitution class for 10 years. Hurt on a diplomatic mission, he stayed at Starbase 11 for a bit, training and rehab, then was on a Soyuz class ship which is a sister class to the Miranda class. Yeah, I do like Star Trek, though I never did get any of the RPGs. For me, while I like the TV shows and movies (though the more recent stuff is...hmmm...not what I'd call Star Trek. More like Marvel's What If series if you ask me. Not that you did of course). Playing in the Star Trek universe has a lot of possibilities (even more canon and fan stuff than Traveller. And yes, I have a lot of Star Trek things). However - it is also pretty limiting I think: what works on TV does not work for an RPG as well. In theory we are pretty restricted to what we can do within Star Fleet protocols. And there is a LOT of dice rolling in this game. While I like to roll dice, it should not control everything. However - my bad dice rolling actually works in the D20 system: you want to roll low! Come to think of it, my low rolling should work for the Fantasy Trip as well. I miss playing that game...

Our first night I managed to safely crash the shuttle, the Johnston. And digging through my toys, I found my old Micromachines: I have most of the Star Trek ones, or did at least when I stopped getting them back in the 90s. The overstock toy store I was getting them went out of business. Not my fault - I was there most weekends buying some toy or another! We rescued the scientists, did not manage to find the plants that would be a cure for some disease of the week (we were slowly being radiated and wanted off Xerxes as soon as possible). Despite the GM's attempts to get us to follow the TV script and save the scientists AND retrieve the plants. Having a logical Vulcan as the captain means living another day is more important than possibly retrieving this plant but dying in the process. Star Fleet spent a lot of time and money to train us. Though the money issue does come up in our game.

And I have all the shirts from when the 1st Star Trek reboot came out. I ate a lot of cereal and got all of them for free....dug out the red shirt so I will be in character when we play! 

And Cait, as I like making up planets...