Beyond the Rainbow

As mentioned in some emails, I have concerns that the campaign flavor might be difficult in that sometimes the Heroes would be flying their ship and sometimes doing planetside stuff.

Even being a Star Trek fan, I have to say that the idea of the Captain going on every mission seems a little odd to me.

Model 1 Idea

With that in mind, I had something in mind like having everyone make multiple Heroes. A ship’s crew type, an away team type, and a Marine type. It is possible that some character concepts would be used across more than one of those. For example, the Ship’s Security Officer might also be a Marine and go on Away team missions. Likewise, a Medic could be both Ship’s Doctor and part of away team missions (and possibly the Marine medic). It seems less likely that the Ship’s Chief Engineer would be on Marine combat missions though.

I would also ensure that say, the person who plays the Ship’s Captain, is not also the person who plays the Marine Lieutenant, so that different players get to lead in different situations. Besides, if anyone ever wants to mutiny, having the Marine Lt willing to overthrow the Captain might be impossible if they are the same player, hahaha.

Model 2 Idea

As an alternate campaign model, we could have the basic ship functions, including Captain, performed by NPCs so that the overall direction is handled by NPCs, and the PCs are the away team and/or Marine types. Possibly an away team consisting of a multi-disciplinary group that includes a couple security/Marine types?

In this model, the play would focus almost completely around landings and such, with the possibility of ship or planet based adventures as appropriate.