O texto abaixo saiu na RPG.net e eu achei simplesmente fantástico. O autor discute os problemas de se jogar dentro do universo de Jornada nas Estrelas. Segue também o endereço: <
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=287302>;, é a quinta mensagem.
Star Trek presents several problems. The three key ones are:
Star Trek is Utopian Fiction. It is part of a literary tradition dating back to Thomas More's Utopia, and perhaps further if you want to look at some of what the Greek Philosophers did. The Star Trek setting is not a realistic setting with a viable economy or a well-reasoned socio-political structure. It is an idealized setting that glosses over, rationalizes, or just outright dodges issues and situations that would cause the Federation or Starfleet to break down.
This is a deliberate design choice. One of the halmarks (perhaps THE halmark) of Utopian fiction is an idealized society. The Utopianist undertakes the task of showing us how perfect we could be, as a means to inspire us, not the more difficult task of actually figuring out how we'd engineer a fundamental shift in human nature.
But for gaming, it grates upon the nerves. People want to know how the Federation economy works, why people have jobs at all if the Federation provides for all their needs, and so on. And any answers to those questions eventually break down because in Star Trek, the fundamental nastiness and self-centeredness that define what it is to be human are downplayed in favor of unrealistic levels of forethought, compassion, and enlightenment.
So there are two solutions. 1) Learn to live with it. Play a Utopian game and don't try to make it something it's not. What it is is pretty good, having defined a generation on multiple levels and all. 2) Change it. Fix the problems. But then it's not really Star Trek anymore. Worse yet, you often end up with a sort of anti-Trek where the Federation is an evil, monolithic organization that represses its members and Starfleet is its brute squad.
Trektech is powerful and poorly defined. "If we realign the quantum matter arrays and rerout the nutrino flow through the main deflector dish, we can completely derail the GM's plot!"
There are really two problems here. 1) Power: a Constelation Class vessel could blow up a planet. Transporters make gaming logistics far too easy. Phasers don't do damage. They just stun people or kill them. All of these cause GM headaches. 2) lack of definition. The classic Geordi Solution (used a little less often in classic trek) is to spout technobabble at a problem until it goes away. But since the technobabble is mostly made up, there's no way for players to really do it. Sure, they could make up words, but the words have no meaning. They could roll their Engineering skill, but there's not much of a personal investment. And, unlike the crew of the Enterprise, they'll keep track of anything that works and use it again.
(Incidentally, one of my favorite moments in any Trek episode was when Dr. Crusher was in charge of the ship, and used the fancy-schmancy experimental shields she'd helped a Ferengi scientist get backing for to escape a Borg ship by hiding in a star. I love continuity.)
This, I think, is just something you have to live with. You can focus on old-Trek where about all Scotty could usually do was make the technology do something it was designed to do, only better, or under adverse conditions. But if you want to play in the TNG era, you need to come up with some kind of accomodation with supertech. Maybe a very finite and hard to replinish pool of Drama Point-like points that allow for tech solutions about once every few episodes. Or maybe a system similar to Dramatic Resolution in TORG where the issue isn't "can you do it?" It's "can you do it in time?"
And last, but not least
Starfleet is a military organization, but most PCs in most RPGs would be busted for insubordination so quickly and often that there'd be bunks in the stockade custom-molded to their butts.
(I know, I know, Starfleet isn't really a military organization. They just wear uniforms and have a naval rank structure and train their recruits in combat, and arm them, and use them for military actions. Nothing at all like a military organization, honest)
There are solutions to this. You could follow the shows and go with "despite all logic, the senior officers frequently go into danger rather than sending appropriate personel." If you've managed to turn off your brain for Utopianism and technology, what's one more thing? If you make the Captain more of a homebody, and keep him as an NPC, it's a little easier to let the First Officer take away missions without straining credibility. And it gives the GM a way to subtly keep the game on track. But you've got to be careful with that. Or you could use the model from Prime Directive where the PCs aren't the bridge crew. They're a Special Forces-esque Away Team force.
Or maybe you could play a troupe-style game, a'la Ars Magica. The players each make up a bridge officer, some other major officer like part of Away Team 1, and a handful of "redshirts." (Using "redshirts" here in place of "grogs" from Ars Magica. They don't always have to die) For a given adventure, the GM sets up the situation and the players pick the appropriate characters. So for an away mission, they'd mostly use their Away characters, with someone maybe also running a redshirt or two. During the game, the players might switch PCs from time to time, like if the Away Leader calls the Captain for instructions.
That gives you the opportunity to run big multi-character adventures where something's going on up on the ship, while something else is happening on the planet, jumping from character to character. It also lets you run the occasional "all redshirt" adventure where the Bridge Crew and the big, scary Away Team are all out of action, and the little group of ensigns and noncoms have to save the day.
Now, mind you, I've never actually done any of that. But those are my thoughts based on observation and hypothetical thinking.
David G.
