Greetings…I am an ‘Adventures’ noob. I have played many RPGs in the past but am new here. I have a query regarding the idea that - as in the series - not all PC’s are used in a scenario, for instance when a landing party is chosen it may have a couple of PCs and the remainder made up from other crew. For this to work does there not need to be a catalogue of other crew members profiles available so that the players can roleplay these instead of their main characters. As this may happen unplanned I see a difficulty in having to roll up a bunch of minor PCs on the fly if required. Surely it is beneficial to have these already supplied?
Welcome to the game!
Have you looked at the Supporting Characters rules (Core book p 132)? They’re specifically designed for this sort of situation.
A Supporting Character can be generated in about 5 minutes, and starts out less capable than a full PC, but remains available for later use and can effectively “level up” as he or she makes more appearances. I’ve found it creates a level of player investment that you might not see in ready-to-play characters.
While there’s a ship limit on supporting characters in a given scenario, it’s easy to ignore that rule if needed.
While I think of it, there’s also a selection of basic Minor NPCs in the book that can be fleshed out if needed in a real hurry…
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Re: Supporting characters, the Division sourcebooks contain some pre-made example supporting characters (and guidance for use and advancement) as well.
In practice, though, I’ve found that I can hand an index card with the starting scores of a new supporting character, and a blank supporting character sheet, and a player can write them up in a couple of minutes without any trouble.
I actually sketched out some supporting crew members in each department (especially for positions that the players haven’t filled) and gave them the starting supporting character stats. Remember that “Player Characters” are both Main Cast and Supporting Cast characters.
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Thanks, all good help. I also saw that the online character generator can make one in about 5 minutes too. I suppose my real reason for the question was random encounters, specifically if you meet another Federation vessel, or even another landing party - especially if it’s not in the script - it would be nice to be able to consult a table that has 50 odd NPCs that can be seamlessly integrated without any rolling. I do use random encounters a lot and like to have the ability to surprise a group by throwing a group of NPCs at them without having to break for a creation session.
I suppose I could always roll a table of NPC’s for ‘on the fly’ use. Perhaps what I am looking for are ‘tables of many things’ for Star Trek Adventures.
Anyway loving the game at the moment
For a quick npc use the guidelines for ship crews and tweak.
For a example I’m going to make a quick guard type character, who isnt a professional. (Militiaman)
I’m going to use the basic crew for stats, so 8 in relevant attributes (control, daring, fitness) and 1 in relevant disciplines (security, command, medicine)
Maybe the talent constantly watching.
Focus in guard duty, hand phaser.
7 in all other attributes, nil in other disciplines.
Maybe I want to make a experienced doctor. I’m going to use talented as my Base.
Attributes 10 control, reason, insight, rest are at 7.
Disciplines 3, medicine, science.
Adjust command to 2, rest are at 1.
Talent triage, focuses diagnostics, medicine.
Another possibility is to (a) prepare the supporting characters beforehand and/or (b) out-source this to the players.
In my rather complex method of group design™ (I’ve planned to post it for ages and it probably will take me some months until I find time to do so) there’s a section where every Player will generate at least one supporting character their character has some sort of relationship to. In consequence, there will be a pool of pre-generated supporting-characters ready to claim when needed AND they will also be tied into the story (albeit pretty loosely).
Edit: Oh, and there is always ContinuingMissions (that trove of marvellous STA resources of a wordpress-blog).
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Thanks, I like all the answers and they will help me I’m sure. These methods I can use when running pre-generated adventures.
But I think I will be creating a book of NPC’s for when I run unstructured random encounters. Then I know that the players will be surprised as they will have no idea of these NPC stats or abilities - or how they will interact with their characters.