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So um.
Since references to "Banned from Argo" flew fast and heavy this weekend and yet nobody ever actually played the song, I went and looked up both lyrics and song. This brings me to the realization that original Trek wasn't good. It was okay. Original Trek had a few inevitable dismal moments and a lot more moments of sheer genius, but for the most part it was an okay show when there was nothing even vaguely like it out there. A little like the way Episodes IV and V stick in memory as completely ridiculously amazing because they were in fact, merely very good and there wasn't anything similar out there.
This brings me to the dweeby exercise of thinking about Star Trek the Old Skool as someone's RPG.
I've already thought about Star Trek II - III as the GM's attempt to run a more coherent story arc after the episodic nature of the group's original campaign. The guy playing Spock has really gotten sick of him and wants to try playing Saavik, but when a run of incredibly crappy dice rolls results in a TPK early in the game, the GM switches from his original plot (Klingons steal a powerful secret terraforming technology) to that having been a test... and Spock's back in the game, with the unwilling player finally managing to kill him off in the climactic battle. Eventually the GM does get to run his story with the Klingons.
I then realized what each of the players were and it's a little embarassing.
Chekov is obviously the die-hard roleplayer. It doesn't matter how badly the character gets beat up or mind controlled as long as it makes a better story and the player gets to rock the accent.
Uhura is the social player. The chance to actually RP is a lot more enticing than anything rules-crunchy.
Sulu is there to blow off steam. Sulu's player can sit through a pretty solid amount of inactivity as long as there's a fight at the end of it.
Spock is, honestly, the group's min-maxxed powergamer. The player's managed to figure out how to balance the point cost just so to get McCoy's skill level, Scotty's ability scores, Kirk's officer rank and hand to hand skills, and as a non-human, and really all he has to do to pay for it all is to buy the character tragic background and psych disadvantage flaws.
Since references to "Banned from Argo" flew fast and heavy this weekend and yet nobody ever actually played the song, I went and looked up both lyrics and song. This brings me to the realization that original Trek wasn't good. It was okay. Original Trek had a few inevitable dismal moments and a lot more moments of sheer genius, but for the most part it was an okay show when there was nothing even vaguely like it out there. A little like the way Episodes IV and V stick in memory as completely ridiculously amazing because they were in fact, merely very good and there wasn't anything similar out there.
This brings me to the dweeby exercise of thinking about Star Trek the Old Skool as someone's RPG.
I've already thought about Star Trek II - III as the GM's attempt to run a more coherent story arc after the episodic nature of the group's original campaign. The guy playing Spock has really gotten sick of him and wants to try playing Saavik, but when a run of incredibly crappy dice rolls results in a TPK early in the game, the GM switches from his original plot (Klingons steal a powerful secret terraforming technology) to that having been a test... and Spock's back in the game, with the unwilling player finally managing to kill him off in the climactic battle. Eventually the GM does get to run his story with the Klingons.
I then realized what each of the players were and it's a little embarassing.
Chekov is obviously the die-hard roleplayer. It doesn't matter how badly the character gets beat up or mind controlled as long as it makes a better story and the player gets to rock the accent.
Uhura is the social player. The chance to actually RP is a lot more enticing than anything rules-crunchy.
Sulu is there to blow off steam. Sulu's player can sit through a pretty solid amount of inactivity as long as there's a fight at the end of it.
Spock is, honestly, the group's min-maxxed powergamer. The player's managed to figure out how to balance the point cost just so to get McCoy's skill level, Scotty's ability scores, Kirk's officer rank and hand to hand skills, and as a non-human, and really all he has to do to pay for it all is to buy the character tragic background and psych disadvantage flaws.