My group has played through several of these, we are running a home campaign not as a part of a living campaign so that’s a factor in my feedback.
First, a lot of them are short, very short (Tug of War was maybe an hour of playtime).
Most importantly, they aren’t episodic enough. While it’s nice to have an over-arcing seasonal story a few too many of the missions revolved entirely around that. This is especially silly for a living campaign where players drop in and out regularly or the episodes get played out of order. Also along that, way too many end in cliffhangers!
There also doesn’t seem to be enough variety in the antagonists. I know the Romulans and Klingons are the closest to the expanse but maybe introduce some more minor powers? In TNG you were always encountering new minor powers like the Talarians, Tamarians, and in TOS you’d get Tholians, Gorn. Maybe introduce some new minor powers for the Expanse? It just gets tiresome always dealing with Romulans, as tiresome as it was getting in the TV show (which is why the Cardassians were created)
I’m just curious, I don’t quite understand this part. I don’t find that players change regularly at all. I have a core group of people, a few extras might pop in on occasion (kind of like Miles O’Brien or Reginald Barclay in TNG), but I suppose if you’re running games at a LGS that could happen. I’m not sure why you’d play episodes out of order, though.
For a living campaign, you should be able to play it easily at an LGS and conventions. So some people are going to be just popping in to try out the game /system. Most of the time you want to run the latest adventures so anyone who’s been playing will get a new experience, but you’ll still have one or two people who have never played and will be lost by all these scenarios that are just part 3 of a 5 part arc.
I’m looking at doing this campaign and I don’t understand this complaint. I’ve read through 6 of the 8 missions so far and I don’t see a lot of crossover between episodes. Do the last two tie them all together?
I see the Orion Syndicate shows up in two, but that’s not really a big tie as their a big organization. Also the Romulans show up in a couple, but again not a big tie as their a big government patrolling near their space.
Did I miss something? Please let me know as I want to make these tie together as much as possible for my group and would prefer they were less episodic.
Having finished reading the living campaign, I can see how the last episode (and only the last episode) is not “episodic enough.” But even then, I disagree. A DM may have to remember (or have kept notes) on who was there when and carefully word things to help them make connections. And if you have a fully new crew that week, they won’t catch the connections, but they can still enjoy the experience.
I don’t see how it’s any different than trying to get into Critical Role. Their episodes always end of cliff hangers and they always draw upon knowledge the audience doesn’t have, but both of those aspect serve to draw viewers in. The fact that this campaign is built on a similar premise, does the same thing…
I, for one, hope they continue the living campaign in a similar manner. I do agree with the OP that new villains would be nice. I’d love to see some content in future books that details new races previously unknown via any of the shows or movies.
At the last SOONERCON (June of 2018) in Oklahoma City, Steve Hanson, our Top Moderator ran an original adventure. Unfortunately, he only ran one, but it was wonderful. What does that have to do with the topic, you ask - well I will tell you. We need more folks to run at conventions to expand the player base. A buddy of mine, who is running STA, and has tried to look at the Continuing material, complains that the adventures are only half ready to play. Missing stats, half explained settings, and often incomplete. I must admit, my friend is a wonderful GM, but he is a little particular. Anyone else run into this?
My group hasn’t changed really over the course of the season. I have used these as the basis for our campaign. Tug of war went nearly four hours for us. Their only complaint has been a lack of variety. over arching idea is cool but they started saying “Bet this is alien tech” That’s my only crit really is mix it up a little more.
I’m not sure how you stretched 3 scenes (that’s literally all there is in Tug of War) to 4 hours. We were especially disappointed in it because it’s kind of a bait and switch from the description. If it weren’t free we’d have wanted a refund for sure. Instead of getting to check out this sublight civilization destroyed itself and learning about their culture and history and such, you get stuck in a thing and then spend three scenes getting yourself unstuck.