Star Trek: Valiant (Inactive)

Game Master tumbler

Gameplay .

Dotting to find this thread later! I’ll make a character when I see what Valen wants, but I’m thinking of going Veteran officer to balance Cunningham’s inexperience.

Dotting.

Dot.

Captain Adam Reeves, reporting for duty.

T'karra reporting for duty.

Captain’s Log, stardate 8410.5— The ship is on course to planet Dourap IV, near the Klingon border.
Velkath, the Tellarite colony there, has had an outbreak of d’kar fever, a highly contagious viral infection.
The disease is still in its early phases, and no fatalities have been reported. We have been tasked by
Starbase 24 to transport an emergency medical team and their supplies to the colony, and provide any
assistance they might need. We are traveling at warp factor six; our ETA is approximately eighteen hours.

The year is 2285. The events of Wrath of Khan and The Search for Spock have occurred, though much of the information about Genesis is still classified. The Enterprise was destroyed in an attack by Commander Kruge of the Klingon Empire. Tensions with the Klingons run high.

Spoilers are for anyone to read. Just spoilered them to conserve space.

The medical team is composed of civilians, out of deference to the wishes of the colonial administration.
It consists of twenty-six people: six doctors, ten nurses, and ten orderlies. They’ll coordinate with local
physicians, distribute the drug as needed, and tend to isolated colonists in outlying areas. They’re in
Sickbay with the ship’s medical crew, coordinating treatment plans with each other for when they ship
reaches Dourap IV.

The mission is currently under control, with all of you at your duty stations.

Just to get things rolling, it might be good for the Captain to request routine status reports from division heads. Give everyone a chance to get their space-legs under them and get a feel for bridge chatter.

Momentum: 0 Threat 5

Kreskin settles into the science station. A milk run? It’ll be good to start out with something easy while they’re still gelling as a crew.

Thoss sits at the Helmsman station monitoring the ship's status closely, as essentially this was the Valiant shakedown cruise. Still he could feel the throbbing of the engines as the ship propelled herself through subspace.

A fine ship...worthy of the name Valiant.

Knowing the ship would be passing near Klingon space he spent his spare moment reviewing the last known reported location of Klingon ships on the other side of the Neutral Zone.

I wish we had some more time to test the weapons upgrades...I feel the Klingons are ready to test us here...We need to be prepared he thinks as he glances back at the Captain.

Captain Adam Reeves is sitting in the command chair, signing a few documents presented to him on a datapad by Yeoman T'rel. He returns the stylus to pad and hands it to the young Vulcan, thanking her.

As she exits the bridge, Reeves surveys the attitude of the command crew and wonders how much delay this mission of mercy will inject into the ship's scheduled exploration. He is proud of his people and their professionalism, but he knows they're not yet a true team. That would require a tempering by experience, and Reeves hoped that experience would always be of the non-lethal kind.

"Mister Kreskin," he said, addressing Valiant's First Officer. "While the Medical Teams are on the planet, I want to put our time here to good use. Let's run those emergency shuttle recovery drills we discussed. Put them on the schedule for tomorrow morning. And tell Flight Ops I want to see them shave five seconds off their time."

"But first, let's see how Valiant is doing today. All Divisions, report." The captain looks around the room, waiting for his command officers to respond.

Five seconds off their time, Captain? They’ve been getting slower each drill! he grumbles as he adds the drill to the schedule. Sensors and comms reporting. All systems nominal. He mutters under his breath Could have sprung for the high resolution scanner, but noooo. “Fast weapons” they said. Good luck getting a lock if we can’t tell the difference between a bird of prey and an unusually pointy meteor.

"Helm reports all systems green Captain. We are proceeding on course at Warp 6 and will arrive at Dourap IV in 17.9 hours," he reports in a crisp tone. Glancing at his sensor board he adds, "No ships on long range sensors Captain. Looks like clear sailing."

Unless the Klingons have one of those cloaked vessels out there...

Lance turns to Thoss. Commander th'Chiaqi, in a characteristic bout of optimism the good captain thinks your flight crew can do an emergency shuttle drill five seconds faster than your all-time record. I contend that your all-time best was a fluke and you’ll have your slowest time yet. Let’s make a deal. If you can’t come in less than five seconds slower than your top score, I run the next drill?

Thoss' eyes flash in eagerness at the proverbed challenge, "It's a deal Commander! I promise I will make you...eat those words! And when I beat my best time I say I am allowed to return that favor."

engineering reporting sir, all systems operational and
At their standard positions. New engines are holding up well sir.T'Karra says plainly from her station at the bridge. She would be in engineering but knew that setting a bridge example was important.

Sure thing Thoss. If, and that’s a biiig if, you beat your time, you can calibrate the sensor array to your...”standards” for one week.

It’s a point of contention between the two around how the sensor array is best utilized: planetary scans (the right way) or navigational scans (the wrong way). Each method had an ideal calibration and Kreskin held the array configuration under an iron fist.

Abruptly, alarm klaxons begin blaring, the ship lurches violently from side to side, and the normal starfield in the forward viewer changes to a swirling tunnel of red-orange bands of energy. Your ship has fallen into a wormhole. Something has clearly gone very wrong.

Wormhole clip from TMP

The ship careens through the crimson walls of the wormhole, helm nearly out of control. Though unusual, this situation is not unheard of. It is a situation you are trained for.

Stabilizing the ship requires a Daring or Control +Conn Task with a Difficulty of 3. The ship assists with Engines+Conn(12).

Attempts to take the ship out of warp by the helm control fail. Engineering must take the engines off-line in order to collapse the warp field and return the ship to regular space. The helm cannot control the warp engines. This is a Control+Engineering task with a difficulty of 3.The ship cannot assist because you are working against the ship.

So you describe your actions and dialogue, and make the checks required. These are pretty difficult, so they may fail the first time.

T-t-this isssssn’t wha-t-t-t I had in mind tttttttttto mot-t-tviattttte the crew ttttto launch emergency crew fastttttter Lance can barely speak due to the turbulence.

Since this is the first set of rolls I've seen in this new game, I have some questions. Can multiple characters contribute to each roll? Can one character contribute to multiple rolls?

Can the captain reasonably contribute to either task?

"Hhhheeeeelmmmm... Bbbring usss aaaboutttt." says Reeves, seemingly in slow motion, gripping the arms of his command chair.

"Tttt'karra...taaaake engiiiiines offffffliiiine!"

Holding off on rolls for GM to respond.

"It's a bet Kreskin, and one you will lear---" Thoss responds to the First Officer before being interrupted by the warning klaxons.

Wormhole! I have to make sure the ship maintains its current heading and direction else we'll be torn apart! I only have thrusters here sooo... His fingers fly over his panel nearly as fast as his thoughts here, trying to keep Valiant on its current heading.

"Yyyyyyeeeeesssss Sssiiiirrrrr.....brrriiinnnggginnnggg hhhhherrrr aaabbbooouuutttt...."

Daring + Conn: 2d20 ⇒ (20, 8) = 28 Zero Successes, 1 Complication

To his dismay he finds even the maneuvering thrusters have lost power to them.

"Caaapttttain, I have no hhhhheeelllmmmm ccooonntrolllll!"

This is getting off to a great start....

Thoss, your daring plus conn is 15, so the 8 is one success. You also get assist die (1d20) from the ship's Conn+Engines (12). Also, don't forget about buying extra dice by adding to the GM's threat pool. Because you took "Bold: Conn" buying an extra die with threat ALSO lets you reroll a die, like that evil 20 lurking in our pool

Keep it steady, Thoss!

Assist: Control+command 12: 1d20 ⇒ 5

Ok, now we're at 2 successes! Hopefully the ship comes through

Captain: You can assist by rolling 1 die based around one of your attributes that'd make sense for helping steering the ship, you can create an advantage (difficulty 2, but gives us some kind of bonus) or you can do your special command rule "Direct" which says

DIRECT: The CO provides clear, concise orders. Choose one other officer currently on the bridge; that officer attempts a single Task, determined by the CO. The CO assists this Task using the Command skill. This action may be used once per scene by each character who has access to it.
(That's what I just did for my assist with Thoss, because it wouldn't make sense for me to do anything else that'd help keep the ship from crashing. T'Kara could use some clear guidance from her captain, though...)

You can also do this move if you just want to generate us some momentum. If you add 1 to the threat pool to buy an extra die for your rally move, you can reroll it (because you have Bold: Command):

RALLY: The CO inspires and coordinates the crew, attempting a Presence + Command Task with a Difficulty of 0; this Task is specifically to generate Momentum, either to use straight away or to save for the group.
(I'll probably do this next turn if there's nothing sciencey for me to do before then. It's the benefits of having an XO on deck)

can we walk me through the rules on rolling command + engineering I would appreciate it

OK thanks Lance! Still trying to learn these rules he he. I will go ahead and buy the extra die with threat here.

Engine Assist + Bold (Conn): 2d20 ⇒ (12, 11) = 23

"Thanks, just not used to this new layout..." He mutters as his training takes over, rerouting auxiliary power through the main bypass panel.

Momentum: 1 Threat 6

Sure thing! So first off it's control (attribute) + engineering (domain). In your case, you have a control of 12 and an engineering of 5. That's 17 total. That's...that's really good. That means you roll 2d20 and get a success for each die that shows 17 or lower. Buuuut, you need 3 successes and you're only rolling two dice. You can get extra success in a few ways.

OK thanks Lance! Still trying to learn these rules he he. I will go ahead and buy the extra die with threat here.

[dice=Engine Assist + Bold (Conn)]2d20

Awesome! We're now at 4 successes for a difficulty of three. That means we're actually at 1 momentum, 6 threat.

Also we don't crash and die.

@GM SuperTumbler can Samuel assist the piloting check?

Chief of Security Lt. Junior Grade Kerensky was about to give his report to the Captain when the worm hole threw the bridge and no doubt the entire ship into disarray. With no targets to fend off but the bizarre phenomenon young Mister Kerensky tries to plot a course that would help Commander th'Chiaqis... their helmsman had vastly more experience than him but he doubted the older officer would object to any help right now.

The ship easily glides through space T'Karra feels a momentary shimmer on the deck and starts to call out right before it hits then too late as the gravitronic coils lock and the faster then light travel Yanks them into a worm hole.

ennnnginn...es locked, attempting to tu..rrrrn off

T'Karra bounces hard and yanks down on the warp engine controls

Add 1 threat:

control + engine: 3d20 ⇒ (19, 14, 18) = 51

reroll: 1d20 ⇒ 10

dice hate me

Piloting is fine. We passed with one to spare. We need help with shutting our engines off

dice hate me

You got two successes. Captain might score a third!

”Mister T’Karra! “ says the captain, shouting in an attempt to be heard, while simultaneously gripping the chair arms to keep from being thrown from the chair. ”Emergency Power Down! Release the Primary Power Couplings and route auxiliary power to the Maneuvering Drives!”

This being a risky but swift solution, Reeves buys 1 point of Threat to acquire an additional die roll to assist T’Karra.

Direct+Command: 2d20 ⇒ (9, 1) = 10

Ooh! No need to re-roll that! 3 Successes. C’mon, T’Karra, succeed and get us some Momentum!

Ooh! No need to re-roll that! 3 Successes. C’mon, T’Karra, succeed and get us some Momentum!

She did! Her TN for the roll is 17(!!!). She rolled a 14 and a 10. That's five successes on a 3 difficulty roll. Giving us a success and two momentum to bank

Thanks Kreskin for all the rules help. I was proctoring finals this morning and out of reach. The only thing I would ask is that as often as possible you guys state the Momentum and Threat numbers at the end of a post where you change them. It just makes helps to keep those resources top of mind for everyone. In a face to face game they would be counters on the table that everyone could see. I wasn't planning on getting into the nuances of assisting and such things, but since you guys worked it out that's perfect.

I just want to point out a few things about the rules that affect this situation. 1. This is a Task that was facing Success at Cost. This is a weird rule for those of us used to playing Pathfinder or similar games. Some Tasks can't be failed, it is just a matter of whether they can be achieved without creating a problem. Obviously, in a Star Trek story, we are unlikely to destroy the ship or stay in a wormhole forever in the first episode. So you succeeded, which is great, but if you had failed you would have succeeded but just borked up the Engines or power systems more or something. Also, make sure you work your focuses. There are usually a lot of ways to flavor your solution, so flavoring it in a way that ties into a Focus give you a chance to get extra successes.

I'm going to bank that Complication from the 20 upthread into Threat, raising threat by 1.

Momentum 3 Threat 7

No problem! Point of order, Thoss spent a point of threat to get an extra die, and as part of that got to reroll his 20, so there's no complication to worry about. That said, threat favors the bold. Everyone but me added a point of threat to their rolls, so we added 3 points of threat total.

I'm going to dump a lot of information into spoilers here and you guys can dialogue the reveal of information.

T'Karra forces the gravitronic coils to manually reset, shutting down the warp plasma distribution and depriving the engines of power. The forceful reset causes power to rush through the rest of the ship. Consoles and conduits explode, disrupting power throughout the ship. Over the course of a further 90 seconds, the warp field collapses, leaving the Valiant drifting through space.

T'Karra jumps back as the ship stabilized and the engineering console sparks and explodes in a shower of electricity and smelling of ozone. Superficial burns to her arm and uniform as she slaps the smouldering uniform until it goes out. T'Karra runs across deck going for the tube and seeing it works she calls out and rides down to engineering calling out before it closes Captain, engines down going to engineering

Thoss struggles back into his seat, thankful he did't break anything except his pride.

That was a fun ride...

Glancing at the panel readouts only confirmed his fears, "Captain, propulsion and guidance systems are offline. Attempting to determine our current position..."

Breathing a sigh of relief sensors are still online he scans the starfield for the nearest navigational beacon. "Sensors are functional...give me a moment to determine our current position..."

GM ST: Do I need to make a roll here?

T'Karra makes it to Engineering just fine, as the turbolift has its own backup power, the doors, not so much. Rather than the typical hiss of opening doors, she hears a clunk as the doors pop open only a few inches. Even so, three inches is enough for smoke to pour into the turbolift. Engineering on her beautiful new ship is quite of mess. But of course, it would be illogical to be distraught by the situation.

Perfect th'Chiaquis. I didn't want to lead you by the nose on that with a spoiler, but where are you?

So you can roll 2d20 to get under your Reason+Conn assisted by Ships Sensors+Science (13 on the Valiant Sheet)

Reason + Conn + Ship Assist: 3d20 ⇒ (16, 13, 5) = 34 Three Successes total due to Focus.

Thoss manages to get a fix upon their position...then immediately mutters a curse in Andorian under his breath. "Captain, I have a fix on our position." He responds in a calm voice, bringing up their position upon the main viewscreen. "We are traveling at warp 0.9 with currently no way to decelerate, straight toward the Neutral Zone. I estimate we will cross the border into Klingon space in 2.9 hours unless we find a way to slow down."

Momentum 5 (?), Threat 7.

Damn straight the sensors are working! You know why? Because they're calibrated for short range scanning and thus aren't vulnerable to rogue taychons Mr! th'Chiaqis! And see, they work fine for long range work. You're able to tell that we're...uh...heading right toward certain doom

If they could get engines back in two hours or less, they'd be fine...but assuming they couldn't...what else would get them to slow, stop or change directions?

reason+science=15: 2d20 ⇒ (3, 13) = 16
Computer+Science=10: 1d10 ⇒ 10
3 successes on what I'm assuming is a diff 0 science roll. I'm going to pour two of the momentum into questions and because of my talent, that lets me ask three questions total

Just as a note, as soon as we finish this scene we'll be moving to a new scene that has a series of parallel challenges happening with the clock counting down. Challenges require multiple Tasks and will take time.

1. The ship is currently drifting off axis toward the Neutral Zone. The pilot would have to locate the center of mass of the ship and make a very difficult maneuver to push it. Also, the ship would not be designed for that, so damage would be likely. Do shuttles of this era have tractor beams? I'm not sure. In any case, it would be a Challenge consisting of taking off from the ship, engineering to find the best location to push, then piloting check to push very carefully. That last would be a Task of Difficulty 4 or 5, depending on what else is fixed by then.

2. At the speeds you are moving, venting gases isn't going to make an appreciable difference.

3. Tractor beam is part of the weapons systems that are down.

Captain, my specialty in in living things, but my rudimentary grasp of physics suggests we should probably fix the engines ASAP. If there’s a tricky science solution, I can’t think of it.

Reeves looked around the bridge, assessing his crew. Unfortunately, none of them had as much experience in Engineering as he did, but he suspected that his engineer was going to need some help. I can't leave the bridge, but I can help get us Helm Control, at least.

"I agree, Lance. Give me a full sensor sweep. If we're not going anywhere fast, I want to know what's out here with us."

He adds in a lower voice just meant for the two of them "And thank goodness we still have Waste Reclamation working. Not like last time."

"Lieutenant Junior Grade Kerensky. Introductions later. Time for some on-the-job training." He points to the recently-vacated Engineering station. "Man the Engineering console and back up Commander T'Karra down in Main Engineering."

The captain stood up, moving around to the front of the helm pylon. "Thoss, I'm going to open up the auxiliary panel and try to re-route the working channels to Helm Control. Start a short-form diagnostic so I can see what's not working."

Reeves has an engineering background. He'll use that to help recover Helm Control and Propulsion.

I have the Focuses "Inspiration" and "Lead By Example". Not sure if those'd help here.

Helm Repair Assist (Direct) Command+Engineering 14: 1d20 ⇒ 5

That's either 1 or 2 successes, depending on whether one of his focuses apply.

Momentum 7, Threat 7

In order to find out what happened to the engines, Commander Kreskin should review the sensor logs.

This is a Reason+Science Task with a Difficulty of 1 that takes 1 5 minute interval. Assisted by the ship Science+Engineering

Reeves Lead by Example certainly applies.

Captain Reeves finds that numerous engine control relays have been destroyed by the power overload. Repairing them will be time consuming and arduous.

Repairing propulsion control is a Difficulty 3 Fitness+Engineering Task that will take 60 minutes. The ship cannot assist with this Task.

As soon as we get Science Officer and Engineer tasks completed, I'll give you a complete list of Challenges that need to be completed. Once you have all of the tasks, you can choose to give two of them to the crew and they will automatically succeed.

Lance cracks his knuckles and returns the captain’s tone Do you remember Thoss’ reaction? ‘What’s that bucket for? Surely you can’t be serious’” he chuckles and gets to work.

Reason+science=15: 2d20 ⇒ (14, 2) = 16
Ship aid, assuming you mean “sensors” and engineering, 13 : 1d20 ⇒ 7
3 successes. Banking 2 momentum

Momentum 9, threat 7

He triggers the comm to engineering. T’karra, that wasn’t a naturally occurring wormhole. It was brought about by a warp field imbalance. You won’t be able to start her up until you fix that and the clock is ticking!

T'Karra tries to pull the door open knowing that the ship is her instrument door open: 2d20 ⇒ (17, 2) = 19

Once the door opens she will give command status report and damage report! moving across to access the warp engines to see what it will take to get at least thrusters up.

warp engines: 2d20 ⇒ (15, 14) = 29

Engineer Kosman turns to T'Karra, shining his light directly into her eyes as he responds, "Commander, the shutdown flooded the EPS conduits. Power systems are blown out all over the ship. The warp engines are still online, but they are barely connected to anything."

T'Karra takes matters into her own hands, pouring through the logs. She finds that the warp field imbalance was caused by a faulty plasma injector about halfway along the starboard nacelle. This is a huge problem as it requires that an engineering crew go inside to fix it.

Much info forthcoming.

captain, the plasma injectors are blown on the starboard nacelle, it's going to be sending crew in life support suits up the nacelle in Jeffrey tubes after a certain point. We could attempt ship to ship beaming or shuttle but neither are optimal.

Countdown Clock: 2:50:33

This next scene consists of several Challenges. A Challenge is really just a set of Tasks that have to be completed in a sequence. A successful Task here has a duration of two Intervals, but two Momentum can reduce this to one Interval. Intervals will all be in multiples of 5 minutes. These Tasks all use the Success at Cost rules, and each Complication suffered on a Task adds a single Interval to the duration instead of their normal effect. While a character is performing or assisting a Task, they cannot attempt or assist any other Tasks – they’re too busy. You may choose up to three Tasks to delegate to the crew; a Task delegated in this way is automatically successful, but takes a number of Intervals to complete equal to the Task’s Difficulty– even the most proficient crew requires proper leadership to work at full efficiency.

There is a lot to do here and the way it is laid out is kind of complicated. I'm trying to cope with the fact that you are supposed to know what the challenges and Difficulties are while not giving away the entire narrative and making it manageable. I'm sure that it will actually be really confusing with the rules being new and everything. Please ask questions and we'll work it out. I'm loving what we have going on so far. I'm also trying to lay it all out because that is what it would be like for a competent Starfleet crew.

Spreadsheet of all of the many problems and how they might get solved.

As XO, once “per scene” I can assist using control + command. Is each challenge one scene, is this whole segment one scene? I can’t help but notice that nothing on that list is about science, but I can help with secondary command talents. I just need to know how MUCH I can help.

Lance pulls Reeves aside. Adam, you’re a capible leader AND a talented engineer. All I’ll be good for tonight is barking orders. Let me worry about staff assignments and watching the timer. I know you’re itching to get below deck and crank around.

Is Engine repair 2 contingent on engine repair 1 or can we start 2 while the pylon cools?