Pre-Con Prepping
1 Nov 2017 to 14 February 2018: I came up with my game ideas, “The Last Spire” and “Starship Repo!”. Not surprisingly more pressing issues had to be dealt with first. Still I was able to work on both games. Thankfully, they shared the same setting.
My wife, Ruth, has suggested on previous occasions that I should have all the characters printed before the con. Hah! I got better this year. I had to reprint two PCs on D-Day due to typographical errors.
GMing At DunDraCon
I don’t go to game cons outside of the Bay Area. This has turned out fine for me. There are two local game cons in the Bay Area that have decent staffs. As a matter of fact, both conventions share staff members.
DunDraCon has the long tradition of providing private rooms for independent GMs. RPG tournaments run by group like the Adventurers Club share rooms with several games run at once.
I understand from various sources that, outside of my home area, private rooms for RPGs don’t exist.
My games have 6 players. One needs to at least six hours to get credit for free entry to the con.
The Star Fleet Universe
Both of my games used the Star Fleet Universe setting. SFU is based on classic Star Trek. It was created by the people at the Amarillo Design Bureau which produces Star Fleet Battles, Federation Commander, a line of starship miniatures, and other products. One of which is GURPS Prime Directive. ADB has an agreement with Paramount, the corporate owner of Star Trek which allows the SFU to exist as long as SFU doesn’t contain references to Star Trek characters, and no creative products produced by Paramount since 1979. That means that the Klingons look like the Fu Manchu clones in the original series, nor are they the warrior society as seen from Star Trek: The Motion Picture onward. Yes, can forget the Next Generation Universe.
The Last Spire
The Federation Starship USS Exeter, NCC-1706, relaunched and decontaminated after it’s entire crew had been killed by a deadly virus. Shakedown is now complete and the crew Boldly Goes.
Well, not entirely.
I had six players. The PCs were the Bridge crew. Sensors pick up a odd object in space. It is a copper-hulled spaceship. The crew is dead. Plotting the reverse course of this oddity, the Exeter’s science officer and navigator were able to figure out where it came from.
Starship Repo!
This was my first attempt in running a Prime Directive game in PCs weren’t in Star Fleet. For the most part they were ex-Star Fleet. They were based on characters in the game I have been running with friends of mine.
I had 5 players. One did join later, but, the another player had to leave. The Plot was to repossess a Burke-class Frigate owned by a minor power that was violating the agreement with the Federation on how they were going to use it.
Conclusion
In short, both games ended with player characters accomplishing the mission. The reason I am leaving out the details, mainly because I don’t remember most of them. Next time, I will either take notes, or even record the game.
Curious GURPS 