Role-Play Reboot!

Hello Everyone!

I have seen a bit of chatter and wanted to let you know that I would be happy to assist in any way that I can to get our RP fleet active again.

I am not familiar with the advanced art of Role-playing myself, but would be very interested in learning and providing the support needed from the fleet leadership to get some things accomplished.

Please respond here so we can all be on the same page, and coordinate efficiently.

Thank you,
=/= Admiral MrIzzy

I would like to participate. I wouldn't even mind DMing (or Qing if we're going to call it that) except that I am way, way, WAY less familiar with the source material than half the people in the fleet.

I think the basic questions we need to get answered to get this off the ground are:

• What's the setting? Are we several starship captains at some sort of meeting, or the bridge officers of a single starship?
• Who's coming up with the story, and how is it presented? We could do "story" sessions with the whole group periodically, plus pickup duo or trio scenes; or handle story events and DM interactions through mail and RP around those events on our own.
• Who's involved, and in what role? Which is what this thread's for. :)

As to that last: If we're all on the same ship, I've got Dara, who I see as an irreverent senior officer in a hard science capacity, and Benton, who would make a fun, somewhat foolhardy junior tactical specialist or conn officer.

I'd say that I'm well-versed in the mechanics of Star Trek, and don't have much interest in RP but am happy to be a go-to reference and even though I've never been a DM or Q'd, I'd be happy to give it a try on a small mission of some sort in the future. I'm full time in school at the moment so dunno when that would be. But, as I said, I'm comfortable in the mech of Star Trek's tech and a pretty good wiz with Memory Alpha too.

I am not familiar with the terms: DM, Q'd. Would anyone like to help a noob out here?

Got it! (and now I get the Q reference, and yes it fits better!)

I know quite a lot about Star Trek lore, terminology and such, but I'm not so good at story telling.

How do these RP events usually occur? planned in advance and people just show up or is there some pre-planning and scripting involved. Are potential participants prompted with key facts or info that will help guide the story?

How long are they?

How often should they occur?

Any info and input is greatly appreciated so I can get the ball rolling on our first RP event of 2012!

I'm in.

If the goal is to make it as Trek-y as possible, here's what I'd do:

1. Posit a starship; the U.S.S. Stonewall, perhaps?
2. Have everyone who wants to participate pick a character to roleplay with and assign that character a rank and a role on the ship. I might say "David Benton, Lieutenant, Conn or Tactical." We would be looking for a decent mix of roles and ranks, so some adjustment might be necessary as we see what other people are picking.
3. Decide how we're going to handle captaincy; maybe have everybody vote on which character or player gets command?
4. Have our Q privately come up with a crisis reminiscent of a Trek episode. It should be a mystery or a puzzle or a moral dilemma; something to be solved by discussion and thinking. The Q will want to have an outline of the situation and at least a few possible solutions mapped out, but be prepared for the unexpected and ready to improvise.
5. The crisis is an event as many of us attend as possible, with no idea what's going to happen beyond a basic brief like "you're traveling through X sector on a mission of Y." This event might take a really long time to finish! Some can be standalone episodes where we encounter and resolve the crisis at the same event; sometimes we can introduce the crisis in one episode but leave it open ended, with players "investigating" afterward through mail with the Q and pickup scenes with each other, and then resolve it by compiling our findings in the next episode. The episodes take lots of work to set up, so they should be fairly infrequent.
6. Between episodes, players hang out in the SFRoleplay channel and do pickup sessions with whoever's handy, either to investigate an open-ended crisis or just develop the crew's characters and relationships.

Hello. I'm involved in several RPs in STO, and would be happy to join in with other Stonewallers. I know several of us are RPers, and there are several ways to proceed. Likely, the single ship/crew is a good idea, depending on how many are involved.

Making sure everyone has something to contribute is the biggest challenge.

My husband and I have a pair of characters (based on an old tabletop game). Mine is an engineer, his is a counselor. He spends much less time in STO than I do, but I know he'd come back to play Kobi (the counselor)

I'm happy to see this effort begin, and will help in any way I can. I run and participate in RP games outside STO, and I'm supernerdy with trek trivia. Next time I see some of my stonewall RP buddies in game I'll direct them here as well!

Found this from back when Doogiegood ran some RP. It has basic positions we can look to fill.
Like I said, my husband's character background is as a counselor, And I'll throw my hat in as an engineer (chief or not, or maybe ops)

Captain:
First officer:
Chief of Operations/Second Officer:
Chief of Security/Tactical Officer:
Chief Science Officer:
Chief Medical Officer:
Cheif Engineer:

Security personnel:
Science station:
Medical Personal:
Counselor:
Engineer:
Helmsman:
Bartender/Chef:
Crewmen:

Before S6, I was playing around in the Foundry trying to set up an interior of a ship along with some maps that could be used for RP, but unfortunately Foundry is down at the moment, so I haven't had a chance to dabble further with that.

I've been active in email RPs (or sims, as we call them) for about 10 years and have run a few of them, so I have some experience in storytelling and setting in that regard.

Getorix's roster layout is what I'm used to as well, so I think that would work great. DoctorDisaster's are also very valid and are good to think about before we decide what to do.

Perhaps, instead of basing it on a ship exclusively, we could base it off Stonewall Starbase and have a ship attached to it that isn't necessarily under the command of a specific person but is commanded as mission require it. Somewhat like the Defiant for DS9. That way if we choose a captain for the RP who isn't available for a session, someone else can easily run the mission. Also, since RP is mostly ground map based (if we're playing as a crew), it gives us greater scope.

The key, I've found, is to be flexible, so that if someone can't be part of the session or new people join, they can easily be fitted into the RP. New people or rotating crew can just come from the base. It should be more important to have fun than to keep everything super strictly in fitting with canon or storylines, in my opinion. We all have different playing styles, after all.

As for characters, it's probably best to stick to your toon's career division if they're an officer, ie. Science = Science/Medical Department, Tactical = Security/Tactical Department, Engineer = Operations/Engineer Department. Civilian positions won't matter as much, obviously. :)

I'd suggest using the Fleet uniform as our RP uniform, but if we choose another one, the extra uniform slot - or "off duty" slot - could be used for that. Since you can basically completely redesign your character in it, it's rather useful. Although, if we want to use off-duty outfits in the RP as well, that might not work. :)

My main character is a Human Male Engineer and my two alts are a Human Female Scientist and an Andorian Male Tactician. So basically I can fit in anywhere, really.

Quote by Bren

Before S6, I was playing around in the Foundry trying to set up an interior of a ship along with some maps that could be used for RP, but unfortunately Foundry is down at the moment, so I haven't had a chance to dabble further with that.

I've been active in email RPs (or sims, as we call them) for about 10 years and have run a few of them, so I have some experience in storytelling and setting in that regard.

Getorix's roster layout is what I'm used to as well, so I think that would work great. DoctorDisaster's are also very valid and are good to think about before we decide what to do.

Perhaps, instead of basing it on a ship exclusively, we could base it off Stonewall Starbase and have a ship attached to it that isn't necessarily under the command of a specific person but is commanded as mission require it. Somewhat like the Defiant for DS9. That way if we choose a captain for the RP who isn't available for a session, someone else can easily run the mission. Also, since RP is mostly ground map based (if we're playing as a crew), it gives us greater scope.

The key, I've found, is to be flexible, so that if someone can't be part of the session or new people join, they can easily be fitted into the RP. New people or rotating crew can just come from the base. It should be more important to have fun than to keep everything super strictly in fitting with canon or storylines, in my opinion. We all have different playing styles, after all.

As for characters, it's probably best to stick to your toon's career division if they're an officer, ie. Science = Science/Medical Department, Tactical = Security/Tactical Department, Engineer = Operations/Engineer Department. Civilian positions won't matter as much, obviously. :)

I'd suggest using the Fleet uniform as our RP uniform, but if we choose another one, the extra uniform slot - or "off duty" slot - could be used for that. Since you can basically completely redesign your character in it, it's rather useful. Although, if we want to use off-duty outfits in the RP as well, that might not work. :)

My main character is a Human Male Engineer and my two alts are a Human Female Scientist and an Andorian Male Tactician. So basically I can fit in anywhere, really.

I love all of the ideas and recommendations you guys have. I think flexibility is key, and I also think that if someone has a science toon they should be able to play tactical or engineer if they want to. As you said, we have costume slots, and it would be very simple to create a uniform that matches whatever field they will be playing as (if we even need to enforce that kind of thing).

I also really like the idea of having it on the starbase and having different ships come and go for the stories. I was speaking with DoctorDisaster the other day and I thought that it would be nice to have two or more "ships" with their own story lines going at one time (each one would have one or two "episodes" a month).

They would mimic the shows in that the Enterprise-D was the ship of TNG and Voyager was the ship of its own show. Having the Fleet base as the central communal mission starting point might be very beneficial as well as helpful for coordination. If we do go down this route will we all need to be within the same fleet to use the fleet starbase? Or can we cross invite from another fleet? I haven't tried that function yet when on the fleet base.

I would like to set up a meeting time for all of us on vent in the next week if possible to lay down some "rules" and expectations.

When is everyone free to do this? Please let me know what time zone you are in when responding.

Thanks!
Admiral MrIzzy

Yeah, I realised after posting that restricting people to Sci/Tac/Eng based on their career would sort of defeat the point of being flexible. Besides, who says a doctor can't deploy a phaser turret? :P

I like the idea of two ships as well. Especially if there are more people interested in RP, there could be two groups, or simply if people are interested in more stories.

Speaking of groups, as far as I know we can invite anyone to our Fleet base. Also, I realised with creating Foundry missions, we'd be limited to team sizes, which are 5 players at most, so it might be best to use public maps for RP that don't have a player number restriction.

Speaking of ships, I toured the Constitution (TOS) and Defiant (Belfast) interiors this morning courtesy of two Fleeties, and they're absolutely gorgeous. What's great about them is they're in much better proportion than the typical ship interiors, and you can actually sit down in most of the chairs...

Problem is if we use those, then we'd need someone one the RP teams with those interiors. I'm not really sure how to get around that, unless we use the standard ship interiors or figure out if multiple teams can use the same Foundry mission (when it's back up, that us).

Well the handy thing about starship interiors is that they are *mostly* all the same, so anything that happens away from the bridge, be that in Ten Forward or engineering or the ready room or wherever, can happen on any individual's ship. This is especially helpful for pickup roleplay, which is something I want to be a core part of the reboot. Also, bridges are bound to ships, not accounts, so if you absolutely must have the official backdrop for bridge scenes but don't want that for your individual play, you can assign it to an alt ships that you switch into for RP.

Next week is a little rough for me because I move into a new apartment next weekend, but if I know in advance, I should be able to set aside Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday evening EST.

Hey everyone, I've role played via social networks (bebo, facebook, myspace) off and on for around 8 years including forums as well. I'd be interested in anything you come up with, please talk with me in-game when you're on!

I'm willing to role play in almost any environment so long as we 'try' and stay true to general canon (adding to it is fine).

Might I suggest we use facebook as a home and post updates here? We can make a group with Group-Chat for say a 'Starbase Stonewall' and those in the fleet (and out of it) can join with their various characters. :lol:


Facebook role play characters:


Emily Cath- http://www.facebook.com/emily.cath.3


Aaron Corinthium-La May- http://www.facebook.com/OrillianandProud

This makes me miss table top role playing :(