Changing the Guard

I just spent several minutes with a player, debating whether to put the teleport platform on the bridge deck or somewhere else. Actually, I was really just debating it with myself, thinking through the arguments out loud, while he waited for me to decide so he could update the deck plans.

Hold on, let me back up a step.

I was going to base the players' star ship on a Gazelle class close escort from an old Traveller game supplement. One of my players spent hours scanning the published deck plans, cleaning them up, and changing them according to my random whims. Then, last week, with around ten days to go before the new Game, I changed my mind. A close escort is too small, I needed to use the Broadsword class mercenary cruiser from a different Traveller supplement. The same player has spent hours scanning and cleaning up the deck plans, and of course I am making sweeping changes as things occur to me. So far, out of eight decks, I'm happy with our redesigned layout of just two of them. Five days to go before the Game...

Hold on, we're still in the middle of the story. Let me back up another step.

The Game that began with Strikeforce all those years ago has spent the last several years leaping between different time periods as I fill in the history of the entire universe. I have been slowly wrapping up the last six months of adventures set in World War Two, with the plan of setting the next six-month (or so) segment in outer space.

This was supposed to be easy, for three reasons.

(1) Every new era I play, I use a different set of rules; something that is appropriate to the era and style of Game I'm running. For the space era, I was going to go back to the Golden Heroes rules, which I used for the very first Game session thirty-odd years ago. The rules are simple, beautifully suit the super-hero genre (whether on Earth or in space), and we had spent so long playing them the first time round that it shouldn't take any effort to re-learn them.

(2) I also have to do a certain amount of research for each era (some more than others, depending on how "real" I want the Game to be), and this is a pretty big time sink (not to mention all the books I end up buying). By using a space-based science fiction setting, I don't need research. I can just make it all up.

(3) Finally, I have to actually create the setting: build the world, create characters to be friends and antagonists for the players, and seed enough plots to keep the Game running for six months. This should also have been easy this time around, as a lot of the work had already been done when Strikeforce encountered alien invaders (see for example the Crossfire storyline). So I was just going to re-use a lot of that.

So, not much work to do, right? I just need to throw together some simple plotlines.

And maybe create some planets.

Ok, lots of planets.

And new villains.

And make the political situation more nuanced.

Spreadsheet of travel time between planets, with a complicated algorithm for how warp speed works.

Don't forget the deck plans for the players' starship.

I've just read a scientific report on Betelgeuse going supernova, and I'm sure I can work that into a plot.

Collect character backgrounds from the players, and make notes on how to use or abuse those backgrounds for future story threads.

Have mental breakdown while reading some of the ridiculous ideas the players have come up with.

Spend several hours reading a submission from one player who is writing an entire novel to explain his character's background.

Ok, everything is done.

No, I just thought of a new set of villains. I'll need extra plot threads to tie them into.

Hold on, I hate these deck plans. Can we use a Broadsword class cruiser instead? Only change this, and this, and this. Invent a completely new scale for the deck plans because it's the wrong size. And add the teleport booth here. Wait, just leave it with me, I'll draw the new layout on graph paper. It will be fine, I've got five days and everything else is done.

OH MY GOD I'VE ONLY GOT FIVE DAYS AND NOTHING IS READY