40K Friday - End of the Summer

School starts next week here. Red moved into a new apartment and has been working a lot while Blaster has had band summer practices 5 days a week so we've played zero games this month, Because of Red's move I've been moving the painting table into his old room and trying to organize paints, tools, and the miniatures themselves a little better so I've not done much painting recently either. I'm still focused on the Eldar, with occasional side trips to the Chaos Marines when I want a change of scenery. I still think I will have the spirit host, the all-reaper aspect host, and the dire avenger host all finished this year. That's the core of my force for now. I just need to buckle down and get some work done on them.

That latest box set looks like it could be fun. I am not very likely to spend over 100$ on Harlies and specialist marines but it's not a terrible start for someone looking for a second army.

Rumors of an 8th edition continue to bubble. Latest I've seen is here. I think the edition changes 2-3 years apart are ridiculous but that seems to be the direction they are going. Ah well.

Campaigns I Haven't Run: Ptolus

I was going to do this one next week to space them out a bit but it does tie in with yesterday's post so why not do them back to back?

I picked up Ptolus years ago. Not right when it released but not too long after. I thought it looked like a setup for a cool campaign, it was a really nice product as far as presentation and content, and it was the incubator for 3E D&D in a big way and I wanted to see what my group could do with it.

To date, I've run zero sessions in it.

I still feel the same way about it - I just haven't made it the top priority that it needs to be in order to get it on the schedule.

• I picked it up when we were still playing 3E. We were already in a campaign and I wasn't going to quit in the middle to start a new game. 
• When we went to 4th I had a certain campaign in mind and that's what I ran. 
• When we went to Pathfinder it was to run a specific adventure path. I'm still running this and there's not a ton of room for other ongoing games with the same group.

So Ptolus has always been in that category of "things I'd like to run next" but it's never been the obvious choice.  I have several games like that.

The attractions here are similar to those with Waterdeep: big city, literally built for D&D and all of the assumptions that the D&D rules imply about a world, and tons of supporting material. This campaign specifically calls out, assumes, and drives the "city is the adventure" approach and that's what I am looking for.

In contrast to Waterdeep there is a lack of a) game history, b) major NPC's, and c) all of the other distractions of the Forgotten Realms setting. In short: There hasn't been a 50 book novel series written about Ptolus so there's less clutter/baggage to worry about, if you/re one to worry about such things.  For me, the main effect of this is that it's a lot less "known" to my players so there's a lot more exploration to do and fewer assumptions walking in. Waterdeep does have the history and fame (infamy?) and that can be a plus, but it has its downside too and that's where Ptolus can step in front. 

Rules-wise it is built for 3E but it is still an interesting enough place that I would not feel bound to any particular set of rules. Pathfinder is the obvious choice but I could see running it with anything from that to 5th edition to 4th to Savage Worlds. If it was one of the 3E versions I'd likely add in Arcana Evolved classes and options too since they're form the same author at the same time. There's a big bad guy at the top of that spike that would serve as a worthy opponent to even an epic level 4E party. There's enough going on that I think you could run an ongoing campaign for years without feeling constrained regardless of system. Heck, with some of the weird technology that you can find in some of the material I think it would work pretty well with the Dungeon Crawl Classics game.

Again, the map is inspirational for me - heck the whole book is inspirational! There are tons of notes on local color, the flavor of each neighborhood, smaller maps of buildings and neighborhoods - it's just really well done. Plus it's organized in a way to make it fairly easy to use in play- well, I suspect it is. As I mentioned, I haven't tried it yet. 

In general I don't buy RPG books to sit on the shelf. I know that's a thing with some people and I won't say I'm immune to the collector mentality, but typically I buy books that I think I will use and I've run at least a try-out session of most of the games I own. With Ptolus I thought it looked cool before I owned it and once I started reading it the wheels started turning almost instantly. The big constraint is time of course. I expect the city by the spire will continue to percolate in that upper part of the ocean of "what we could play" until one of these days it snaps into place and we finally roll some dice in the streets of the city.   

Campaigns I Haven't Run: Waterdeep

I've run quite a few campaigns across different systems, genres, settings, and time periods and I've talked about a lot of them here. Over the past week I've been cleaning up the library and the wheels start turning whenever I start going back through the books in depth. Because of that I thought I would post a little bit about some of the campaigns I haven't run but would like to, and why. First up: Waterdeep!

One of the first FR supplements after the box

It's the big city of the Forgotten Realms; the Greyhawk; the Lankhmar; the New York! It's a big, busy, potentially dangerous place. It's always been one of the more detailed areas of the Realms because it's one of the regions where Ed Greenwood actually ran games. It sits on top of a megadungeon, the infamous "Undermountain". It has intrigue with all of the guilds and with the rulers of the city being masked with secret identities - an interesting approach to local government.

I thought this was a pretty solid one-volume rundown of the city

It's also been the subject of focused supporting material in multiple editions of the game from the original module type booklet up above to the boxed sets of 2nd Edition to the hardcover book of 3rd edition. There's certainly no lack of material to explore. Beyond the books there is of course plenty of online material as well.

The maps are insane! This could easily cover a wall of a room.

Maps are an inspirational thing with me and they reach Ridiculous Level with the City System box. Seeing a good map makes me want to go exploring. Above ground ...

These could cover the other wall of the game room

...and below! I think most people are aware of the massive poster maps of the dungeon levels for Undermountain as well.  They're pretty cool and inspirational again for the sheer size and scope, especially of what you could do.

If you don't feel like Undermountain there are always the ... well, you know.

I've never really run a fantasy big city game but looking back through these books and boxes really flips the switch. You could run it as a total sandbox as there's all kinds of space, power groups, smaller dungeons, the mega dungeon - there's no real limit here. I can also see plenty of plots to flesh out and use as the spine of an ongoing campaign. Long term goals for old-school characters in a D&D game might include carving out a barony in the wilderness somewhere - here you could aim to become one of the lords of Waterdeep instead!

Now it is the Realms so there's plenty of gods and powerful NPC's running around and Waterseep tends to be an area of focus for big events but so are big cities in fiction and in the real world so a lot of the trappings of the Realms that some see as a negative make a ton of sense here, moreso than most places  - it's the big leagues! If you can make it here you can make it anywhere! I'd say it's a feature not a bug.

The main thing to keep in mind is that despite the history and popularity of the area quite a bit of it is only broadly described. There's plenty of room to carve out a neighborhood or three of your own design. Your players will get to know familiar NPC's, organizations, leaders, enemies, and eventually be experts on the region.

I also think it would be a great area to try running multiple simultaneous campaigns - one group might be mainly focused on Undermountain while another gets involved in politics. There are a ton of other options and they're all in a small enough area that the opportunities for crossovers are numerous.

There's also a lot of interesting stuff near the city so if your players get tired of urban adventures they can head outside for a special two-part episode in the High Forest or the Serpent Hills. That said my main focus would be the city itself. Kind of the opposite of the West Marches Mantra - here the adventure is in the city. Outside is where new characters and new threats come from, but it's not where you go adventuring.

So while I've never run or played in this kind of game It looks like a lot of fun to run and play.  A lot of my focus in recent years has been in shorter, limited campaigns like the Savage Worlds plot points or the Pathfinder Adventure paths. This is one of those long term no particular end in sight type of games I have not run in quite a while. It's on the short list for the next D&D type campaign I run.

Meme-tatsic Monday

Stuff You Don't Need to Actually Run a Game - Deadlands Edition

I saw something online and it immediately called out to me as a nifty item to have for my Deadlands stuff:

Short of a bloody handprint I don't think there's anything else you could add to make that more Deadlands. I've been fiddling around with the game for close to 20 years now and I have no plans to give it up so I figured I could afford to go sideways instead of getting more books.

My second thought was "ok how can I use it?" - or really, "how can I justify buying it right now"? I do have some cards I plan to use only for Deadlands, and I was looking at some dice for it and I was going to get a new dice bag for those and, well ...

There's plenty of room in ti for some cards and a dice bag.

I showed the Texas Star deck in a prior post but the 1800 deck is new.

I really like that look. That's my main deck for Deadlands now.

Dicebags: I've only used a few over the years - for the longest time my D&D dice traveled in an index card file box  - but I thought a leather/rawhide//buckskin look fit this game pretty well and it's big enough to hold quite a few dice. The best thing about it is that if it gets dirty/sweaty/grimy over the years it only looks that much more appropriate!

Dice: I co-opted the orange and yellow dice from my pile of Marvel Heroic dice, then added in the copper-colored set. The color choices are a nod to all of those blazing orange and yellow covers and boxes sitting behind me when I run the game. When I think "Deadlands" those are the colors associated with it in my head.

Yeah - that.

Originally I had thought I would keep bennies in the box too but bennies for Deadlands are poker chips and they live in a cowboy hat (lower right in the pic above). We throw it out on the table and use as the fate pot for the game. So no chips in the box.

So that's my little detour into useless gaming crap that you really do not need. I justify it all in the name of "atmosphere" and ... because I just like it. I suspect my teenage self would have looked at it and said "sure, that's cool and all - does it mean you've bought all the games then?" Well no, let's not get silly. I probably could have bought another game book or three instead of getting the box, the cards, the bag, and the dice. Sometimes though it's about making the games you already have better in some way other than more books. Sometimes it's just because it's cool.

Mid-Week Media: Suicide Squad

I went in with low expectations as a) I don't really like the concept that much of trying to turn supervillains into sort-of heroes as a pop-culture thing and b) I haven't seen anything terribly interesting in the trailers yet. Oh it's colorful! Oh it's got Harley Quinn! - yeah yeah. I wasn't pushing to see it in the theater but the kids wanted to so we went.

The opening hour or so is decent. I won't say great but I had some interest in seeing what they would do. The second half is something you've probably seen in a bunch of other movies. Parts of it looked a lot like Escape From New York, and most every post-apocalyptic city/zombie/scruffy team-up movie out there. There's a heavy focus on Will Smith and on Harley and the rest of the team is pretty thin. Why is Captain Boomerang there? He has about 5 lines in the whole movie and does very little - could have been an easy cut.

The team concept is pretty flawed here too. "What if the next Superman flies down and tears the roof off of the White House?' is the question that's asked. The answer is that Waller is building a team to handle that scenario - except they couldn't! Harley? Please. Croc? No. Boomerang? Lol. Diablo? Lasts about 3 seconds. Deadshot? Maybe if he is given a glowy green bullet - otherwise no. This is your anti-superman plan?  

These guys just don't come across as "evil". They're supposed to be bad guys, the "worst of the worst" - but we don't see much of that. It mostly happened offscreen, prior to this movie, and we're just supposed to assume they're awful.

• Deadshot actually kills someone - for money! On screen! Did we mention the target is a mob informant so he's a badguy too? They talk about him killing a bunch of people but that's the only one we see. Then we get beaten over the head with the existence of his daughter and how he wants to change. Not exactly hardcore. Plus it's Will Smith! How bad a guy can you make him? It would take a lot of extra story work and it just doesn't happen here. 
• Harley isn't shown doing anything particularly bad before- the Joker does a little but not her! Screwed up, sure, but where's the evil?
• Croc - well he's ugly so he's clearly evil right? 
• Captain Boomerang - he robs banks - execute him! He may kill people while doing it but they don't really emphasize that in the film. The thing that gets mentioned is how many banks he has robbed. You know, we don't hand out death sentences for that - did these people read any comic books?
• Diablo - he did do something bad and he regrets it to the point of shutting down. He does deserve to be on the team and he accepts it. He's also the only one with actual superpowers (depending on how you want to count croc) and he is the badass of the team at key points of the story and with more angst than Will Smith. He feels more like he should be in an X-Men movie. I liked his part of the story.
• Katana?! Why is she in this movie? She joins late and does little. Another unneeded character. 

There's just not enough "anti" in these anti-heroes. There's no unrepentant evil here. It's a shattering weakness: you want to make a super-movie about the bad guys, but you haven't established as all that bad before you're trying to turn them into heroes! When Anakin ignites his saber in a room full of Jedi kindergartners that tells you something about his character. Only Diablo has anything close to that here. Heck Amanda Waller comes out of the movie as more of a "villain" than any of the people on the team and while that may be a somewhat intended outcome this dirty half-dozen needed to be dirtier to drive that home. 

The tone jumps around too - there are some funny moments, then things get all serious but not in a way that makes any sense. Inevitable Marvel comparison: this is something Marvel consistently gets right, using humor to relieve dramatic tension, then jumping into an action scene. The DC movies are still struggling with this. The music jumps around too, like a DJ that can't make up his mind what to do next.

Extra Points

The Joker: He seems more menacing than anyone actually on the team, in a gang leader kind of way, ala The Sopranos or Breaking Bad. He doesn't seem like a world-threatening supervillain. And no, he's not in it enough to push Ledger into obscurity. The actor seems fine but considering this is the 5th Joker we've seen that's given a memorable performance (Romero-Nicholson-Hamil-Ledger-Leto) I'm wondering if maybe the crazy un-Batman is truly that difficult to portray. 

Enchantress: She's sort of on the team and I suppose she would be the anti-superman measure if it came to that, but she gets very little development beyond a 2-minute origin story. There was nothing particularly memorable about her or her alter-ego. She's as generic as it gets. 

Harley Quinn: A lot of the energy of the movie revolves around Harley. I only know the character from Batman The Animated Series and she was pretty memorable there. I am happy to say that she comes across really well here. I'm not sure that "crazy, criminal. hot girl" is all that tough to play either but Margot Robbie does it well. If you're mainly interested in seeing more of her let me direct your attention to Wolf of Wall Street.

The Finale
It's a little bit of a letdown, for two reasons:

First, The "brother" that shows up seems pretty powerful. I'd say he's the most powerful thing in the movie. he destroys tanks, soldiers, aircraft - pretty much everything he runs into. the he gets taken out by a demo charge. Not a nuke. Not a mystically-enhanced-mumbo-jumbo-powered magic bomb. Just a bomb someone brought along to blow holes in buildings and streets. It's a big moment in the movie but once I thought about it the whole thing seemed very anti-climactic.

Second, The "sister" that is the main enemy of the film is close to someone on the team and I really thought would play into the finish. it doesn't, really. I thought it would force some kind of difficult choice on one of the characters but that wasn't really the focus. Instead, like a bad RPG session, one of the other characters picks up a different character's signature weapon and uses that to finish off the opposition. It's not quite to the same level, but if Iron Man picked up Thor's hammer and Cap's shield to take out a villain it just wouldn't be right.

I mean honestly, who would do such a thing?

Suggestions

I hate to offer criticism without some advice on how it could be better, even on a movie, so here are a few thoughts of mine:

• Let Diablo kill the "brother" - seriously! Let the effort burn him out and kill him but let him do it instead of a bomb. 
• If you want a certain character to kill the main enemy then give them a reasonable means to do so before the final scene. It's not like the enemy was a secret or a surprise! You'd think they would have come up with some specific means to handle them.
• Make your bad guys bad! Show us! Don't print out a police record on the screen! Don't make them perpetrators of crimes something that wouldn't get a life sentence! Make them bad!
• Let's see we want the Joker in the movie but we don't actually want him to be part of the team ... why? Why not make him the leader? I think there's a much better movie lurking out there where the Joker leads a team of super-criminals against something worse, instead of generic elite-military guy.
• Quit short-circuiting your own storytelling! How much better would this movie be if the villains had all appeared in a small role in a prior movie? Maybe a Batman movie? Maybe even as part of a montage where Batman goes to war on the lesser villains before taking on bigger fish like the Joker or Ras Al Ghul? 

Anyway that's how I felt about the movie and what I thought about ti afterwards. I went in with low expectations, I didn't hate it, I was just disappointed and thought it could have been a lot better.

Yeah, that too...

Gen Con 2016 and the new Trek RPG

It seems to be a continuing trend these last few years - big stuff doesn't get announced at Gen Con anymore. There are playtesting opportunities for new games that were announced prior to the con, but it doesn't seem like it's the place where the news drops anymore. Maybe that's better, but it does feel  different than "the old days". I think there are several reasons:

• The internet, particularly the social media networks, is the primary channel for gaming news so there's no need to wait to announce stuff on a particular day. Back when magazines still were big players it made sense but nowadays ... once any legal/licensing issues have been cleared and you have a release plan/schedule you might as well get it out there.
• WOTC and Paizo have their own conventions that seem to have usurped the top dog position from Gen Con. It may be bigger, but it's not theirs. The pattern seems to be announce and playtest at their own con first, then playtest at Gen Con, PAX, etc. 
• Crowdfunding is such a big deal now for a everyone below Paizo & WOTC & maybe FFG that "new stuff" gets announced every month as the funding campaigns start up. A lot of games have gone to an entirely online process for announcing the upcoming campaign, funding it, playtesting it, and releasing it. They are largely independent of cons other than as some in-person playtesting opportunities. They are also largely independent of game stores, at least until the physical products are created.   

I'm not especially wistful for the old way of doing it. I just know that Gen Con updates used to be full of  new game/new supplement announcements  and that just does not seem to be the case at all any more. 

That does not look like Kurt Russell at all! 

Second, not-particularly-Gen-Con-related issue (but it was available at Gen Con): What do you do when they release a game with a subject you like but it's based on a system you don't? I love Big Trouble in Little China far more than I probably should. It was the first DVD I bought when I bought a DVD player (a long time ago) and I typically re-watch it  at least once a year. I'd love to see more gaming stuff for it if it's well done and fun but I really do not care for any of the Legendary card games that I have been exposed to. I'll look at some reviews online and see once more about it comes out but my initial kneejerk reaction is "pass". 

I was worried that I might be getting the same  treatment with Modiphus new Star Trek RPG. I've read an earlier version of the preview rules for Mutant Chronicles and I am reading them for Conan now too in light of the Trek announcement, and I am more optimistic about how this system works as a Star Trek game.

The basic system is roll under a target number based on your stat + skill (typical stats are 6-12, 8 is human average):

The "Difficulty" is rated as 1-5 which is the number of successes needed to succeed at the task.

OK, that seems simple enough.

• Rolling 2d20 is clearly similar to the Wild Die for Savage Worlds, an attempt to mitigate the swinginess of a single die resolution mechanic. That seems fine. I love it in that game so it's an attractive feature to me.
• I'm going to need a little more clarity as to what "skill expertise" is supposed to mean vs. "skill focus" - the examples in the quickstart rules doesn't cover it well enough for me to get a good feel for it. Could someone have say a 5 in Expertise but only say a 1in Focus? What would that represent? How about the inverse? What would that mean?
• The roll-under approach ... sure it works for Runequest and GURPS  and Hero but it seems really counter-intuitive for a new game to me these days. It feels like it inherently limits the range of possibilities to some degree and while that's probably OK for Conan, a game like Trek that includes tremendously wide power level differences between individuals, tech, and starships I wonder if it will be more of a problem. Aside from that one concern it seems fairly intuitive. 
• The complications detail seems to cover some of the oddball result options from things like FFG's Star Wars funky dice mechanics. I like what I see there. But what about extra successes?

Sample uses for Momentum - part of a larger chart

I actually think that Momentum Pool mechanic fits Star Trek way better than it does Conan. Conan's companions tend to be few in number, not especially trustworthy, and not long for this world. Trek on the other hand ... this screams "Star Trek" to me. 

OK - so far this looks pretty good? Any other concerns?

So it's like fate points/force points/bennies? What's not to like?

This is where it gets a little weird for me. The GM has never needed "points" to activate special abilities or environmental effects - that's just what the GM does! Seizing the initiative, re-rolling dice, switching the damage from an attack from the villain to a minion - sure, those are "point usage" type things. Marvel Heroic in particular has a very dynamic back and forth between villain actions, player actions, and a growing or shrinking Doom Pool (it's named that in that game too) but it is typically a bonus/modifier type thing, not an enabler/disabler of actions. It also has a nifty mechanic where once it reaches a certain size the GM can end a scene automatically. that might be worth considering for a Trek game too. 

Anyway, those are my initial thoughts after reading through the rules we have. I would encourage anyone else out there who is interested to check them out as they are free downloads and fairly substantial at 50+ pages. The game is supposed to release next summer but there's no reason we can't knock it around some prior to that.

Meme-tastic Monday

40K-ish Friday: How I fell out of love with Star Trek Attack Wing

So back when we first got this game I was pretty excited. It played fairly fast, felt like Trek, and we had quite a bit of fun with it. The base game + a few more ships played better than the X-Wing basic set, probably because each ship has a little more personality than the fighters in X-wing.

As time went on though, I lost interest in it. Why? Well, there are two main reasons:

First, the ships have mediocre paint jobs and are not in scale. This wasn't a problem with the starter set so much but it gets weird when the Defiant is bigger than the Excelsior. The D-7 is as big as the Vorcha, the Bird of Prey is bigger (!) and the TOS Romulan Warbird is bigger than the TOS Enterprise! It goes beyond "loose" when it comes to scale and slides fully into "dumb".

I'd like to think I'm not that shallow but one of the major attractions to a miniatures game is the visual appeal and when it looks wrong it hurts. Plus these are designs I've been staring at for over 40 years in some cases and there's a near instantaneous "that looks wrong" thing that kicks in when models of them are not done right or not done well. The miniatures themselves are not really bad - there are some amazing repaints that demonstrate that the basic models are decent individually - but the scale thing really hurts my ability to enjoy the game.

I'm sure a lot of people don't care - I didn't either at first - but it's really turned into a problem that damages the game for me, and yes, the existence of that "other game" that is doing it right does have an impact. In X-Wing the ships are all in scale with each other, from A-Wing to Millennium Falcon to Tantive IV and they're all painted really well and they were that way from the start! Given that the price points for the games are about the same it's clear to me that the Trek game could be handled quite a bit better than they have been.

The Second major issue for me is this:

• Star Trek Attack Wing launched in August 2013 and is releasing Wave 25 this month.  
• X-Wing Miniatures launched in August 2012 and is on Wave 9

There was a Wave zero for launch, then 4 ships per wave through the 4th, then 3 ships after that, so Trek is probably over 90 ships now. Plus some of these are repaints. Plus there are many tournament prize ships that are repainted versions of existing ships with unique cards that are not available in stores and that may take the total over 100. It's a lot to keep up with and I don't think it's playtested and balanced as well as X-Wing which is important in a popular tournament game.  

X-Wing has 4 ships per wave plus some repaints in separate packages and the big ships and has a little over 40 ships so far altogether. X-Wing doesn't doesn't do prize ships - they give away cards with alternate art, medals, special dice, and special templates. Things that are cool but not mechanically different than what everyone can purchase.

The prize ship thing is particularly irritating - want the Enterprise-A? Its a prize ship! Same thing for the nifty borg-assimilated versions of the Galaxy, Bird of Prey, etc. Stuff like that is a huge turn off as I have no interest in playing in store tournaments but the only other way to get those ships is to wait for them to show up on eBay and pay 3 or more times the price for a normal ship. A repaint alone wouldn't bother me but the cards which include the unique ship, some unique crew, and maybe some other types of cards as well turn it into a different ship in the game, not just a different-looking ship. 

Compare this to X-Wing where anyone can pick up any ship in the game in any store but they still manage to give away unique items that let other people know you've won some games. 

Now WizKids has done some good things - the oversized Borg cube and the large Deep Space Nine model are very cool. The gameplay is solid. There are quite a few more factions to choose from than in X-Wing because that's just how the setting breaks down for each one and I'd say that's an advantage for Trek. 

But the game still looks rough, especially next to a game of X-Wing.

I don't hate it - I really like it, that's why I want them to do better! What I would love to see is some kind of a reboot with an announcement that they're going to re-launch the game with every ship in-scale and with X-Wing quality paint jobs. I know there are repaints of some older ships coming out and some of those do look better but I'm not a fan of silver on the federation ships. Heck, I'd just be happy with the scale fix and I'd handle the paint upgrades myself if I thought it was worth it.  

... and that's about all I have to say on the topic.

Building a Star Trek Adventure

So I feel like DoD had a great core concept and then lost its way.  We can build a new adventure using some of those same concepts and make it even better. One notable change from the original idea: I am resetting this to the Next Generation era to enable some specific things I like and want to do with this scenario. Let's start with the core:

• We have an inhabited planet threatened by a natural disaster.
• This disaster is not something we can alter with a reversed polarity tachyon beam. It's going to happen. The point of the adventure is dealing with the event and the consequences, not stopping it. Right now I'm thinking the star may be going nova.
• This disaster is a short-notice event. We have days or weeks of notice, not months or years. This keeps the tension up. I'm thinking maybe two weeks from the kickoff.
• The Federation is going to evacuate the population of the planet - because that's what the Federation does.
• The population is not technologically advanced and has been under a no-contact policy due to the Prime Directive. That is being waived now in light of the looming extinction of the species. There was some debate within the Federation Council but the decision has been made. 
• A rag-tag fleet of all available ships is being assembled at the nearest starbase. The PC's will lead this fleet to the target system. It will probably not be adequate to save 100% of the population but it is the best they can do within the time available.
• I'm sketching out that the players are running a Galaxy class. There's at least a Nebula class available too, maybe an Excelsior, probably an Olympic class and an Oberth class too. It's really up to the GM as to how they want to compose the fleet to emphasize the scale and importance of the operation.
• I'm going to go off-canon here and assume that large scale disasters are something that happen more frequently as your area of controlled space grows larger. I'm also going to assume that the enlightened Star Fleet of the 24th century is going to have planned for such things and that each starbase keeps some "Evacuation Ships" on some kind of low-level readiness at all time. 
• Modern cruise ships can carry 2-3000 passengers on average while largest can carry 5-6000 so I don't think it's unreasonable to think that a 24th century purpose-built rescue ship could carry 10,000 passengers in tight but livable conditions. Something Nebula/Excelsior sized - Size Class 7 in LUG Trek terms.
• In a disaster scenario speed is important so these can't be slugs. I think a cruising speed of warp 6 with a max of warp 8 is pretty reasonable. The ships of the fleet typically top out at warp 9.xx so this is hardly cutting edge.
• That said I'd have them steer like drunken whales at sublight speeds - they're built for passenger capacity and warp capability, not racing or combat.
• Lots of 20-man transporter pads and lots of shuttlecraft or else they need to be able to land on a planet.
• Finally, let's say there are ten of these ships available at the starbase.
• The refugees will be delivered to the starbase temporarily. Finding a suitable homeworld could be the focus of a sequel adventure. Especially if the best world is inside Romulan or Tholian space ...

OK, probably not the Dreadnought but the rest are good

Being called upon to lead a fleet of roughly 15 ships on a heroic rescue mission should make the players and their characters feel pretty good. Let them enjoy that moment as the entire fleet gets underway and goes to warp speed with appropriate whooshing sounds. It's a pretty big deal.

***The baseline assumption for this adventure is that the players begin at the starbase, lead the fleet to the system, make contact with the locals, inform them of the danger, rescue as many of them as possible, then evacuate the system before the event.***

While that would be somewhat interesting we can do a lot better - we need to decide on the complicating factors.

• Complication Zero: The population has strong spiritual beliefs and not everyone wants to leave. There is a prophecy about a time of "ascending" and many sects consider the news that the sun is about to explode the beginning of that time. 
• These sects - the ones who want to stay put - will vary in  their reactions. 
• Some will graciously thank the rescuers as heralds of the change. 
• Others will see them as heathen interlopers interfering in the holiest event in the history of the race and may become hostile rather quickly. If things start to drag go ahead and send in some assassins to give your security teams something to enjoy amidst all the talking. 
• As the event approaches, the more fanatical sects may start attacking the heretical fools who are trying to escape the planet to the point that the player characters may feel the need to provide significant security. This is the most likely source of personal combat in this adventure so if your players are looking for that let it develop. 
• Other sects, in a somewhat more literal interpretation, believe that the Federation fleet is the means of "ascension" and are ready to leave their world behind - enthusiastically so. These believers will view the rescuers as higher beings come to enlighten the lesser life forms that live here. Cue the counselor!
• A small group is completely unconcerned about the religious implications and just want to live. They provide the panicky hysterics as they beg, plead, and threaten to be evacuated first. They're not evil, they're just scared. Should be a very different set of conversations than the prior group.

Let this unfold for a couple of days. The players can negotiate, threaten, bribe, call a mass-meeting, impose some kind of evacuation plan, let the locals decide who leaves first - it's a fluid situation so let your players drive the agenda based on how they interpret their mission and how they perceive the different local sects. Likely problems to solve:

• Who gets evacuated first? The old? The young? By lottery? By location? 
• Are the rescue ships going to make one trip or is the starbase close enough that a kind of warp speed bucket brigade makes sense, with a continuous flow of ships departing as they fill up, returning when they are empty?
• Are the normal starfleet ships hauling passengers too or are they on watch? The Galaxy, Olympic, and Oberth ships might stay in system while the Nebula and Excelsior haul a few thousand more passengers out and provide an escort at the same time.
• How much effort will you put in to trying to convince some of the uninterested sects? Do you have enough capacity to evacuate all of them anyway? 
• How can you save more people? Let your players really strain themselves here as it is the point of the whole operation. Let them use their knowledge of Star Trek, spew technobabble, any contacts they have, and favors they can call in - anything. Saving a hundred thousand beings is really the minimum here given the transport capacity available. Can they double that? Can they save 500,000? A million? Reward creative thinking at the table in-universe with promotions and medals. 

• Complication #1 - An Orion freighter arrives somewhat quietly on Day 2 after the initial contact and lands on the surface
• This ship is captained by the most jovial Orion captain your players have ever met. I envision him being played by John Schuck  channeling some of his Klingon Ambassador role in the TOS movies, some of his Draal role from Babylon 5, and a sprinkling of Cyrano Jones from Trouble With Tribbles. He's a loud friendly guy. He says they came as soon as they got word and they want to help in any way they can. They just need to make some repairs on the ground first. Let's say they land in the largest/capital city.
• The Orion crew immediately begins offering exotic food ("the Earthers call it pop-corn") and trinkets to the natives to enjoy their last few days before ascension in exchange for precious metals and cultural art objects. After all, this culture is about to become extinct just as it becomes open to offworld contact. There is serious money to be made here and if the locals think it's a fair deal, who is the Federation to judge?
• The next day another Orion ship arrives. Then another. Then one leaves. If questioned, the Orion captain, in full Draal voice, answers 'He's going to get more parts'.
• It becomes evident pretty quickly that something suspicious is going on but Captain Drall (see what I'm doing there?) always comes across as a somewhat put-upon guy who really wants to help and admits to nothing untoward. 
• These Orions are not suicidal mercenaries - they're here to trade. They don't pull disruptors on Federation crewmen just for dropping by, they don't start massacring locals, and they don't try to sabotage the fleet while twirling their mustaches. They are about as straightforward as it gets for an Orion merchant operation. The players could certainly run them off if that's what they want to do but they are not a threat to the operation. 
• The goal of this set of events is 
• to inject a little humor into the otherwise pretty serious situation
• to give the PC's someone else to talk to
• to let security/intelligence types have something interesting to do while the diplomats try to talk some sense into the natives
• future NPC hook!

• Complication #2 -  An optional side quest:  Day 3 a Klingon bird of prey decloaks in orbit causing a bit of a panic in the rescue fleet. 
• The Klingons are a small party looking for signs of an old exploration ship that was led by a legendary warrior and lost long ago. They have tracked the path of the ship to this planet and though surprised by the presence of a Federation fleet they have no quarrel and simply wish to search for clues on the planet. The coming nova fits perfectly with some prophecy they have about finding the legend so they are are very excited about what's going on. 
• The commander of the ship is an older, cannier Klingon warrior, not a hot-blooded battleth-swinger. Think someone more like General Martok from DS9. In my mind he is best played by Brian Blessed in a slightly subdued manner who then goes full Vultan in our big finale - if called upon to do so! 
• The signature scene here is "Klingons in a library" 
• They are looking for historical records from 100+ years ago in a culture where data storage is still "books". Let's assume this is in the capital/largest city on the planet.
• I figure as the end of the world approaches, people are going to walk off of their jobs. This means shops and factories and farms become increasingly empty as world spreads and the end draws near. This also means there are no librarians or professor-types to help them so picture a team of Klingons set up with translators and library computers desperately trying to figure out the local language and filing system as the clock ticks down. 
• I picture lots of swearing in the background, angry shouts as books and cabinets are thrown across the room, and dak'tahg's thrown into walls as frustrated Klingon battle-scholars engage in glorious and challenging research. Give your players a reason to call them a few times - "Gah! (clang) Captain, why do you interrupt us?! (crash) MUCH SHOUTING IN KLINGON TO SOMEONE OFFSCREEN - Time grows short and we have many volumes to scan! (slam)"
• Don't tell the players what the Klingons are looking for. It doesn't matter. It's a secret. That's the Klingons' mission, not your players'. If the players want to help let the warriors ask them if they have seen/heard of/scanned for some random unrelated things - a ruin shaped like a battleth/a tower made of red stone/a legend of a talking tree. Keep it mysterious, At some point, they're probably successful and make preparations to leave to continue on their quest. Plus I have no idea what it is right now and it only matters if we come back to them sometime in the future. Wait until you have a good idea for what a group of Klingons might be looking for that might require aid from the Federation and then have them show up again.
• This could be simple background color or it could become a big side mission of the crew depending on how much interest the players take in it.It's also a nice hook for a future adventure as a distress call from someone you know is a lot more interesting than one from a stranger. Or, if this is too much to have going on at once, just drop the idea and leave the Klingons for another time.

• Complication #3 - About 5-6 days after First Contact a Ferengi Marauder arrives in-system and begins offering transport out of the system for a price. 
• The Ferengi see this as a real money-making opportunity. They begin by broadcasting their offer on the same frequency as local radio.
• The captain is greedy but clever and not a complete coward. He's willing to take some risks as this is a once-in-a-lifetime to collect the wealth of an entire population.
• Ferengi "consultants" beam down and appeal to the more well-off natives, touting their personalized luxury evacuation packages. 
• This could very likely upset whatever system the players have put in place to determine evacuation priority. "No thanks, we're going with those guys"
•  If challenged they claim to simply be offering a service and begin spreading rumors that the Federation fleet cannot hold everyone who wants to leave. This should force some interesting conversations and confrontations between the natives, the Feds, and the "entrepreneurs". 
• If attacked in space it would certainly be in-character for them to run and not return but it might be more fun if they come back with two more marauders (3 total now) and announce that they intend to honor their previous bargains and offer a discounted rate to new applicants. This also livens things up for the finale. I'd say let it play out based on how your players deal with them. 
• They are not connected with the Orions or the Klingons or anyone else in the system. No conspiracies here.
• If one of the PC's has a background tie to the Ferengi then naturally he should be the captain of one of the ships. Familiarity, tension, the personal touch - all of these just add to the rich stew we're mixing here.
• There's a chance for some humor in this but there's also a chance for some good old fashioned moral debates as well - who's to say the Ferengi are wrong here? Plus they are helping to get even more people off of the planet - people who clearly want to leave.

If you're running this across multiple sessions this is probably the best place to stop if you haven't already. The rescue operation should be in full swing, there have been some unexpected complications but it looks manageable with some work. Starfleet should be pretty pleased with things assuming your players didn't start shooting everything in sight.

There is a fair amount going on but I've tried to keep the three "outsider" elements fairly simple to make it easier to run. Beyond the size of the fleet conveying the importance of the operation, the presence of multiple alien groups with their own agendas helps emphasize that the player characters are in the middle of a very important situation.  I would suggest keeping a separate piece of paper or notepad file for each faction and keeping notes on how the players interact with each faction as you play. The Klingons and Orions land in the same location while the Ferengi mostly stay in orbit so there is a chance the aliens on the ground might cross paths if you want to go that route.

Remember that there's no wrong answer here. There's no set way this has to go. The star is going to explode and that's about the only absolute.  If the PC's blast the Klingons as soon as they decloak well, at least the tactical officer got to have some fun. Your players may figure out a way to combine all of these elements and save everyone who wants to be saved. They're tricky like that. If so, awesone! Everybody wins, drinks all around! The concept I'm working with is "here's an interesting, complicated, dangerous situation that your PC's are thrown into - let's see what happens" not "here's a detailed plot to follow to tell a particular story - make sure your players follow it". There's a story to be told here but it's driven by your players - their actions and decisions could make them heroes, villains, scapegoats, or legends.

The Big Complication: 

A few days after first contact, and after the Orions are discovered, the optional Klingons arrive, and the Ferengi begin auctioning off lifeboat seats,  three borg cubes warp into orbit, spacing themselves at equidistant points around the planet. Instead of attacking they announce that they offer everyone on the planet the chance to join the borg. They beam down a focal point, like Locutus or the Queen, to make a personal offer to the inhabitants. One of the "ascension" sects on the planet immediately declares that THIS is the true path of ascension and agrees to join the borg. Another ascension sect - one of those rescued by the Federation - begins to question their decision and requests a meeting between their leaders, the borg, and the Federation to make a decision. 

I am assuming that borg transporters and assimilation facilities are much faster than the other races and that those cubes have room for a lot of new borg drones. Far more room than all of the other ships in the system combined.

This should complicate the lives of the player characters more than enough to make for a memorable adventure. How do the players react to a)the arrival of the borg, b) the strange approach of the borg - voluntary assimilation? and c) having to debate the merits of joining the Federation of Planets vs assimilation with a bunch of primitive aliens who have no prior knowledge of either group. Also:

• What do the Ferengi do? 
• What do the Klingons do? 
• What do the Orions do?
• What does Starfleet do?  Do they allow the borg to become stronger by assimilating potentially millions of new borg?
• Prime Directive? What if people want to be assimilated by the borg? It is saving lives that might not otherwise be saved, and they are making their own choice. If the UFP is willing to let the locals choose to die in a stellar catastrophe shouldn't they be willing to let them be assimilated if that is their choice?

As the initial group of refugees is assimilated the borg start sending down minor focal point characters created from the natives to convince others they need to join, just to up the pressure. 

Direct combat against the borg is not an option - or is it? If your players really want a huge fight then maybe the Klingons could be convinced to call in their house fleet, the Ferengi could be bargained into calling in their own reinforcements, the Orions could call in some "friends", and Starfleet sends in a bunch of Akira/Steamrunner/Defiant reinforcements and a massive space battle fires up on the eve of the star going nova. It's not my first choice for a resolution but if that's what your players want then give it to them! 

If you think this is likely it might make more sense to reduce the borg down to one cube as I made it three to ensure combat was not the first response. Perhaps once the fight begins it launches a sphere that continues assimilation operations - not all of them voluntary -over the planet while the fight goes on, giving a more interesting situation than  a straight-up fight. Maybe it goes for the rescue ships, assimilating the crew who then cause the rescue ships to warp out for later assimilation of the passengers - calling for a rescue mission within a rescue mission!

Without a fight, you could easily end up with an uncomfortably tense situation of refugees streaming onto the Federation rescue fleet, the Ferengi, a few onto the Orion ships, and a bunch onto the borg ships as the star stutters and staggers to its end.

Finale!
Eventually, we have to have our nova. I would keep this uncertain until a few hours before. You can ratchet up tension by noting increased instability in the star without sticking a number on it until you're ready. It could go from 'we have days" at the beginning to "we have hours" when you're ready to up the pressure.  Give the players a final window of definite time - maybe 3-4 hours - and let them scramble to make any final evacuations or pleas to the people. Then let nature take center stage for a few minutes.

• Here's a video that might work (I am open to additional suggestions if anyone has a good one). 
• Boston's "The Launch" is an instrumental piece would make a good soundtrack if you can time it right and if you don't mind some guitar in your Trek finale.

Let your players think about what they've accomplished, all the souls they rescued. Maybe they get caught up in the number they failed to save - that's OK too. Maybe they develop a lasting hostility towards Ferengi or the Borg (well - a more personal hostility now). That's ok too - heck it's one of the reasons we play the game, right? To see characters change because of the experiences they have had. Other outcomes:

• They're probably famous
• They might be up for promotions. 
• They might be up for court-martial proceedings. 
• They probably made some new allies and/or enemies among the NPC's. 
• They may have fought the Borg in a grand alliance
• They may have died to the last man trying to hold off a Borg assault as their crew is assimilated all around them. Hey, not every story has a happy ending.

So - this is the general flow of the adventure. I have notes on the local aliens as far as how I would present them and some additional side plot options I will share in a separate post. 

I need a name for this thing too. Right now "Operation Starlift" is the leader in the clubhouse but it feels a little generic.  Feel free to share some ideas if you like this thing we're creating.