If you want to have a session where everything’s taken to the extreme, then look no forward than your narrator, Q, to work into your tales of boldly going where no one has gone before. It can be quite rewarding to tell a tale of Q.
I know, this seems like the perfect opportunity to stick it to your players, to turn the First Officer into a badger, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. As much as I’m a fan of turning officers into badgers, I need to remind you that sessions where authority is taken away from the players can be met with resentment, even a sense of “this isn’t fun anymore.”
That’s the last thing you want your players to say.
So, while it’s fun to initially throw the Bridge into chaos, move on to the other brilliant plots I’m known for. How about epic moral choices?
Send the crew through space and time to a planet that’s about to be hit by a meteor. Watch them make plans to stop the big rock. Then tell them if the race survives, they’ll go on to drive the Klingons to extinction. Do you still protect the life on that little planet? How far do the Starfleet values go? To what lengths will a crew go to protect life?
Another great plot involving me involves the quest to learn what it’s like to be human… or mortal, depending on the races on the starship. Get into the player characters’ minds about what it means to be a sentient race with a limited lifespan. For instance, Q might moan about how humans obsess with what will happen to them when they die. As Q, you know exactly what happens, and it isn’t worth making a fuss about. Would sharing that knowledge affect how the crew members live the rest of their lives? Perhaps Q tells them the truth of what happens after death and it completely changes the characters, so much so that they beg Q to make them forget they were ever told.
Balance this plot line with first contact with a race that is one big death cult. They wish to honor the coming of the aliens by sacrificing the Starfleet officers to their gods. How does diplomacy handle this situation?
The Sciences Division Supplemental Rulebook has a couple of other suggestions for Q-centric adventures. What is the background mission happening that Q will hamper? Why does Q blame the crew?
For the first question, I’d write a perfectly normal Star Trek adventure, then complicate it as Q shows up and mucks things up. The indigenous species isn’t spacefaring when met, but Q provides them with spaceships. Their first contact is a Rolling Stones concert. Let the crew piece together the remnants of the Prime Directive after this mission.
For the second question, I like this a lot. Hold the crew accountable for the flaws of all humankind. This can be effective if the crew made a moral flaw in a recent adventure that Q noticed and wants to hold over the characters’ heads. Convincing the Admirals their actions were in accordance with the highest standards of Starfleet is one thing. Convincing the all-knowing Q of the same thing. That’s a different story.
Finally, as much as I hate to admit it, there are other Q’s than me. Remember The Next Generation episode “True Q,” where Amanda Rogers, an intern on the Enterprise, learns that she is Q. I offer to take her away to be with the rest of the continuum. Imagine what this young girl finding herself with godlike powers would be like should she come back into contact with a Starfleet crew.
Enough talking about other Q… shake things up for your crew by having them encounter Q. Make them think about defending or explaining the core principles that makes them a Starfleet officer or simply a human being. Complicate what should be routine missions as Q interferes. Finally, hold the crew accountable for some past act. If they don’t satisfy Q with their response, they will be destroyed.
And they say Social Encounters aren’t entertaining. We’ll talk more about those in the next article.
