I’m going to run a new adventure soon which splits the main characters up into an A and B Plot. The A plot will basically be a shared telepathic dream where characters will explore the past of one character, somewhat similar to the DS9 episode Things Past.
This will leave one character in the B plot. And both plots cannot interact with one another at all. So how do I involve the other characters in the B plot? Would this be a proper use of Crew Support?
I would say yes, however the ship only has Crew Support of 3. So how would you handle this? I’m thinking of allowing players to buy additional Crew Support with Momentum. Or would you simply give them free Crew Support so that they can participate?
Why not have it based while at dock at a space station so they can choose between the station and ship personnel or just use the fact that your plot created the situation and give them the extra for free to represent that there are always more crew unless you are in a shuttle
I did similar with assuming that the crew support was like a named character max and anything after that was generic. Remember that crew can gain stuff through play even if they are not pc’s based on actions and decisions of players when it comes to milestones and the like
It appears that I have misunderstood the whole Crew Support mechanic. I’ve re-read the chapter again and I’ll attempt to summarize. Let’s assume my ship has a Crew Support of 3.
The maximum number of new Supporting Characters that can introduced in the adventure is 3
Players can use any number of the previously established Supporting Characters
So Crew Support is actually not that limiting as I initially thought. It only limits how many new Supporting Characters can be introduced.
Shran, here’s the quote in the core rulebook, page 134 under CREATING A SUPPORTING CHARACTER.
A group of Players will have a maximum number of Supporting Characters that can be used during a single adventure; this number is the Crew Support of the group’s ship (Crew Support is described in full in Chapter 9: Home Among The Stars). During an adventure, Players may choose to introduce one or more Supporting Characters at the start of any scene, either creating those characters anew or choosing from amongst previously-created Supporting Characters. The total number of Supporting Characters introduced during the adventure cannot exceed the Crew Support.
Note that previously-created Supporting Characters do not count against this number until they are introduced in play, and during a prolonged campaign a group may create many Supporting Characters, not all of whom will appear in every session.
With a group of 5 or more, who frequently separate into multiple “teams”, I found exceeding Crew Support Maximum to be a regular occurrence. I found the best medium for my game was to not count freshly introduced Crew Support (“red shirts”) when introduced to play. Once that previously introduced Crew Support is called upon again, and they’ve gotten their first piece of development, then it counts toward Crew Support.
IN any case, do whatever feels right for your game. I found a lane that works for my group.
@Dytrrnikl So technically, Redshirts do count against the Crew Support, but as a house rule you don’t count them until they are used a second time. That definitely makes sense.
Our ship has 3 Crew Support and we have 3 Player Characters that are unavailable, so I can introduce 3 Supporting Characters in the adventure. So it actually works out perfectly.
In the beginning, I erroneously thought you had to spend 1 point of Crew Support per Supporting Character per Scene.
We have a small group that uses Supporting Characters a lot, but normally it would be Scale 4, for 4 characters. I added one through a GM controlled character with Supervisor, as an exception.
