I’ve seen multiple times on the Star Trek Adventures’s forum the revelation that players do not want to play Counselors. There may be a stigma of being associated with mental health. However, such characters as Fresh Cut Grass from Critical Role shows a pro-mental health advisor can be a boon to a team. Likewise, I’ve seen instances where the Chief Medical Officer doesn’t have much to do during sessions where there aren’t diseases or when the crew don’t sustain serious injuries.
For such Disciplines as Counselor, Chief Medical Officer and Conn Officer, a good GM will look beyond the Discipline of the character to mine goodies for plot hooks.
For instance, Jeremiah plays the Klingon Chief Medical Officer in my game. As with many Star Trek Adventures campaigns, there isn’t a constant need for patching up characters or curing diseases. What the character also has is a species, focuses, and Values. By examining these character choices we can add elements to the plot to keep characters who otherwise would have background roles take the forefront.
In my adventure Every Day is a Winding Space Lane, the crew is perplexed by musical clues broadcast from satellites. It just so happens one of my pregens, Sidney Moxley, the Science Officer, has a focus in musical history. She gladly steps to the forefront to solve the musical riddles.
For Jeremiah, his character is a Klingon. We’re playing a game in the Shackleton Expanse during the period when the Klingon Empire pulled out of the Khitomer Accords. Relationships between the Federation and Klingon are shaky at best. In my recent plot, the Federation is working with the Romulans to forge an alliance in preface to a Borg invasion of the Romulan Empire. As part of this peace, the Romulans ask Starfleet to join them in a retaliatory strike against a Klingon dry dock as payback for an assassination attempt on one of their Senators.
This situation would challenge the Klingon character’s loyalties between serving the Federation and being a Klingon citizen. I pushed this by having a member of the Klingon High Council secretly contact the character, saying he anticipates a retaliatory strike from the Romulans and he wishes for the Klingon doctor to stop the Federation’s involvement.
Does the doctor tell the Captain? What happens if the Romulans intercept this transmission? Does the doctor take steps to sabotaging the mission?
This takes the character from an otherwise background role and puts the spotlight on him.
Find problems where no one on the team is exactly an expert. All the characters are capable and highly trained. They should all be capable of stepping into a task which doesn’t fall in their duty description. Perhaps the main Conn officer is on an away mission. An enemy ship attacks the crew’s vessel. Which of the crew members has the best stats for taking the Conn? Even Wesley Crusher took the Conn from time to time.
By focusing on a character’s species, focuses and values, as well as their stats, they can be brought from having a more passive role to being an active storyteller in the current session.
