It has been an ongoing problem for me in STO that the Captain tends to say very little. Part of it always caused the feeling that I was just following my BOFFs orders (not suggestions).
Cryptic has gotten better at it, but there is still much to do. And cut scenes really suck in this regard, because everyone else may be voiced, but your Captain is silent. (Clear advantage here goes to TOR, which started with voice acting from the start.)
"Commenting" on past missions could be exactly one thing to do to give some feeling of control and moral authority back - explaining your choices or critisizing them, and maybe giving different types of rewards based on that.
Unrelated:
In the old Star Trek adventure game "25th Anniversary", there was also always a post-portem talk with the Admiral, that judged the results of the mission. I kinda liked that (though in that case, you are not the one in control. But the idea that the "judgement" was based on decisions you made and how well they agreed with Starfleet Principles was interesting.)
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
I think that the mission "Mind Game" is an excellent example for a moral play in STO. Though the outcome doesn't change whether you try to resist indoctrination or not, it still gives you a lot to think about. How far can you "alter" a person by modern indoctrination techniques? What role do such techniques play when it comes to terrorism, children soldiers in Africa or the Rwandan genocide for example? What role does indoctrination play when it comes to our own soldiers?
This mission is a gem and there should be more like it. And in general there should be more moral decisions in the game. Kill or capture the inmates of facility 4028, kill or capture Hassan, let the Tal'shiar get away with Borg technology or not. The effects of those decisions on the mission are minimal but it gives you a feeling of being in control of your chars actions and to have done "the right thing".
I think there are ways to do just about anything in an MMO if you devs come about it correctly.
If we take STO as an example of making morale decisions. If many episodes had morale decisions or branches in them it could affect your character in the long term.
You could have a decisions or morales stats screen on your character, where your decisions made were recorded and applied morale stats to your character. You could develop the lawful/chaotic/good/evil type system which is basic, or use a more complicated set of attributes that certain decisions add to.
Each NPC would then need to be a real character, instead of bland nothingness they are now. A good character could have a problem with the butcher of (whatever) and possibly reward less, or at least have some atmosphere to their conversation that this is only happening because of orders, lots of possibilities.
Decisions can be permanent (though i'm sure you could pay to reset some) Players firmly entrenched into a morale stance may lose the ability to choose a different path in some situations.
So while I don't think you can make a multi-path MMO about morale directions and branch the game, you can certainly use a confined system to add character to the game without a huge amount of extra work. You can also make a limited amount of content split by those decisions.
IMO, the wrong thing to do it to give your players a choice, then igonre what you just gave them and do whatever you want like what STO does. When that happens I just stop caring.
Comparing STO to TOR is apples and oranges. TOR was developed as a sequel to KOTOR and KOTOR 2 both of which had strong characterization for the player character and the ability to make choices that affect the way the story flowed and the game ended. Regardless of whether it started development as a single player game and was converted to an MMO or not it is KOTOR 3 with MMO elements bolted on.
STO on the other hand was developed based on more traditional MMOs which allowed for varying amounts of character customization but were always light on the PCs characterization relying entirely on the player to bring their character to life...or not. Depended on the player really.
Two completely different design paradigms from a story - and in some ways design - perspective. Comparing one to another the way you are isn't a fair comparison of the strengths of either game. It's just you being disingenuous in the way you're stating which gameplay and storytelling style you prefer.
I can tolerate missions not having branches but I always felt like they should have "talkback" missions where you talk to your superior officers, Temporal Investigations, a counselor/doctor/bartender and get to register your opinion on what's going on, which could influence some kind of progression.
So maybe you have to work with the Kobali or kill/capture a guy and maybe that's necessary from Cryptic's POV that it go a certain way so they can do sequels. But you could register your feelings on it between missions which shapes your captain's development somehow.
A simple option to register an opinion is a remarkably powerful Immersion tool too. And a relatively simple one too use, or to state an attribute of your character, like declaring your faction affiliation or species
( example, I set up a dialogue chain in a foundry mission that allowed the player to register if they are More or less Senior than a Starfleet officer giving a briefing, or an option to point out they are actually a Member of the RR. This of course changed none of the mission objectives in the slightest
BUT it did shift the tone of the briefing in a major way, and in the case of RR gave you new side lines to the conversation)
Comparing STO to TOR is apples and oranges. TOR was developed as a sequel to KOTOR and KOTOR 2 both of which had strong characterization for the player character and the ability to make choices that affect the way the story flowed and the game ended. Regardless of whether it started development as a single player game and was converted to an MMO or not it is KOTOR 3 with MMO elements bolted on.
STO on the other hand was developed based on more traditional MMOs which allowed for varying amounts of character customization but were always light on the PCs characterization relying entirely on the player to bring their character to life...or not. Depended on the player really.
Two completely different design paradigms from a story - and in some ways design - perspective. Comparing one to another the way you are isn't a fair comparison of the strengths of either game. It's just you being disingenuous in the way you're stating which gameplay and storytelling style you prefer.
Indeed
I really enjoy the way that Skyrim and Fallout make thier dialogue chains work, BUT its not something I'd expect in STO because the whole game is built on different foundations
These are the Voyages on the STO forum, the final frontier. Our continuing mission: to explore Pretentious Posts, to seek out new Overreactions and Misinformation , to boldly experience Cynicism like no man has before.......
Hm. What if talkbacks opened new optionals on replay. Since replays are presented as "simulations" do they actually HAVE to fit the game's story?
So I play Divide Et Impera.
Then I go talk to my crew about it. And I (or they) suggest alternative solutions. Then when I REPLAY it (which is technically a simulation), new game story branches emerge.
Maybe you could be waiting for Gaul and kill him in the All That Glitters replay, for example. It doesn't matter if it fits the story because it's a REPLAY.
Actually, I think this would be a good use of ship interiors, just thinking out loud.
The game seems like it can track what your recently completed missions (and duty officer assignments) were.
Now imagine you visit your ship interior for talkbacks on what happened recently for rewards.
Maybe you only get one talkback per mission completion so who you talk to and what you say influences the bonus reward after a mission.
I like this a lot, though rather than primarily conferences with your officers it seems to be it would be a good way to work the 'captain's log' into the game.
After a story mission you'd go to the ready-room, or click a button on the HUD, and navigate a few steps through a specially designed post-mission dialogue tree. The initial bit would be descriptive but you'd get maybe three or four clickthroughs of evaluation. For example:
'We got into a firefight with the Klingons'
> '(1) this troubled me / (2) didn't trouble me..' ---(1)----> ' (A)because i should have found another way where people didn't die / (B) 'it will only prolong the war' / (C) 'their families may want revenge on me and my crew / (D) 'however necessary, taking life will haunt me'
(B)----> 'the sooner the war ends, the less people will die' / 'I don't believe we can win' / ' we should never have waged this war in the first place'
They could use this both to set specific flags (e.g. Your captains political opinions - opposes the admiralty's war policies as a dove or hawk , or in line with them; or feedthroughs for later stories) and also a set of personality stats of some kind, describing a mixture of philosophy and temprament that could inflect dialogue. Morals/politics/self-concern/'concern for crew' as factors maybe.
These flags and stats could then be used for tailored conversation with your crew on your ship (who maybe could have different opinions of their own? Perhaps too complicated...) - so you'd get a different bartender conversation based on your log entry.
I like this a lot, though rather than primarily conferences with your officers it seems to be it would be a good way to work the 'captain's log' into the game.
After a story mission you'd go to the ready-room, or click a button on the HUD, and navigate a few steps through a specially designed post-mission dialogue tree. The initial bit would be descriptive but you'd get maybe three or four clickthroughs of evaluation. For example:
'We got into a firefight with the Klingons'
> '(1) this troubled me / (2) didn't trouble me..' ---(1)----> ' (A)because i should have found another way where people didn't die / (B) 'it will only prolong the war' / (C) 'their families may want revenge on me and my crew / (D) 'however necessary, taking life will haunt me'
(B)----> 'the sooner the war ends, the less people will die' / 'I don't believe we can win' / ' we should never have waged this war in the first place'
They could use this both to set specific flags (e.g. Your captains political opinions - opposes the admiralty's war policies as a dove or hawk , or in line with them; or feedthroughs for later stories) and also a set of personality stats of some kind, describing a mixture of philosophy and temprament that could inflect dialogue. Morals/politics/self-concern/'concern for crew' as factors maybe.
These flags and stats could then be used for tailored conversation with your crew on your ship (who maybe could have different opinions of their own? Perhaps too complicated...) - so you'd get a different bartender conversation based on your log entry.
One thing I played with in Foundry mission authoring was to try to look at the different kinds of captains in Trek as role models for different kinds of answers to dialogues.
So you have a Kirk answer, a Picard answer, a Janeway answer, a Sisko answer. You could take this further and have a Ransom anser, a Dukat answer, a Martok answer, a Tomalak answer.
Currently, the game tends to divide these things into Fed/Klingon/Rom or Hawk/Dove. And maybe that's all missions warrant but I think having real "exemplars" would add a lot. You know, setup almost a D&D style alignment chart with Trek captains of all factions and have our choices even in an out-of-mission sense set our alignment.
I don't think Trek alignments would be Lawful v. Chaotic or Good v. Evil necessarily.
They'd probably be three way chart (represented by a triangle) of, say:
Duty vs. Loyalty (The Good of the Many vs. The Good of the One)
Planning vs. Improvisation (Technique vs. Unexpected results)
Glory vs. Honor (Battle vs Diplomacy but in a broader sense)
Worf, for example, would be Duty, Planning, Honor.
Paris would be Loyalty, Improvisation, Glory. (Kirk would vary; the stereotypical Kirk would be L/I/G like Paris. I'd say TOS Kirk would actually be more Duty, Improvisation, Glory. WoK/SSF Kirk would have respeced to Loyalty, Planning, Honor.)
Sisko would be Loyalty, Improvisation, Honor.
Now... Playing with this some, maybe it would be a binary instead of a spectrum in terms of game mechanics.
So high Planning is an Accuracy and Resistance boost.
High improvisation is a chance to trigger random surprise effects on crit and when health is low, calculated to be of equal value.
Gaining Planning reduces Improvisation. Gaining Improvisation reduces Planning. But maybe you can only get up to a 75%/25% split before it caps out. So it's never fully one versus the other. It's which way do you lean.
And you'd have set unique set bonuses for every possible combination of leanings in the form of an activatable power and new mission options. So by my math, that's 20 activatable powers but you can only have one of the 20.
From there, maybe you create a new STF or sandbox mission with 20 optionals, one for each personality trait.
Then to maybe add a level of incentive, you create a ship reward for completing all the optional accolades, which means teaming with 19 other players.
One thing I played with in Foundry mission authoring was to try to look at the different kinds of captains in Trek as role models for different kinds of answers to dialogues.
So you have a Kirk answer, a Picard answer, a Janeway answer, a Sisko answer. You could take this further and have a Ransom anser, a Dukat answer, a Martok answer, a Tomalak answer.
Currently, the game tends to divide these things into Fed/Klingon/Rom or Hawk/Dove. And maybe that's all missions warrant but I think having real "exemplars" would add a lot. You know, setup almost a D&D style alignment chart with Trek captains of all factions and have our choices even in an out-of-mission sense set our alignment.
I don't think Trek alignments would be Lawful v. Chaotic or Good v. Evil necessarily.
They'd probably be three way chart (represented by a triangle) of, say:
Duty vs. Loyalty (The Good of the Many vs. The Good of the One)
Planning vs. Improvisation (Technique vs. Unexpected results)
Glory vs. Honor (Battle vs Diplomacy but in a broader sense)
Worf, for example, would be Duty, Planning, Honor.
Paris would be Loyalty, Improvisation, Glory. (Kirk would vary; the stereotypical Kirk would be L/I/G like Paris. I'd say TOS Kirk would actually be more Duty, Improvisation, Glory. WoK/SSF Kirk would have respeced to Loyalty, Planning, Honor.)
Sisko would be Loyalty, Improvisation, Honor.
Now... Playing with this some, maybe it would be a binary instead of a spectrum in terms of game mechanics.
So high Planning is an Accuracy and Resistance boost.
High improvisation is a chance to trigger random surprise effects on crit and when health is low, calculated to be of equal value.
Gaining Planning reduces Improvisation. Gaining Improvisation reduces Planning. But maybe you can only get up to a 75%/25% split before it caps out. So it's never fully one versus the other. It's which way do you lean.
And you'd have set unique set bonuses for every possible combination of leanings in the form of an activatable power and new mission options. So by my math, that's 20 activatable powers but you can only have one of the 20.
From there, maybe you create a new STF or sandbox mission with 20 optionals, one for each personality trait.
Then to maybe add a level of incentive, you create a ship reward for completing all the optional accolades, which means teaming with 19 other players.
Just an idea.
Ha, I went away to think about it and started making some notes and, well I can get carried away sometimes.
Ive just read your last post and its more sensible I think. I like the exemplars idea, its a good way of drawing the player in and helping to immerse them in different styles of being a captain.
Anyway, heres what I came up with (I've taken the word 'loyalty' from you though)
Its nice to think you could flesh out your character over time, and it could allow for a kind of consequences for decisions that the original post was getting that - though they would be for the characters soul if you like, rather than necessarily radically branching the story.
So its a matter of devising the right framework of variables to measure this development - something that can reflect a range of configurations but still be believably of the Star Trek universe. Something that in part reflects character introspection (in fact player input) and partly their progress through the world and the various stories they have to work through (in fact provided by the writers).
So, to start at the boring end, Id split the variables between Values, Policy and Politics.
Values would be the basic, foundational attitudes that inform the characters other commitments and will find expression in their concerns; policy would be the way the character has orientated themselves in relation to their universe and society - that is, the structure of their ongoing concerns and their relative intensity; politics would be the present set of perceptions the character has about the pattern of relationships between their faction and the other factions.
VALUES
Lets start with Values. There would be three sliders here: Outlook, Loyalty and Ideal.
Outlook would measure how much of a big picture person the character is, that is how capable or willing they are to suspend their loyalty for the general good.
The Continuum would go from: Universal Particular.
Loyalty would specify the focus of the characters particular commitment insofar as they arent setting that aside for the big picture.
It would be a sliding scale going from big to small. (The different scales will correspond with different sliders in the policy section, and so weight their importance.)
The scale would be:
Universal - An complete indifference to faction in favour of a greater good
Faction - The characters overall faction, the power they fall under, e.g. The United Federation of Planets. Fellow citizens past and future.
Lobby - This is a subset of the population of the faction with a particular complex of political attitudes - a combination of a pattern of politics (see below) and the point on the 'Hawk Dove' slider in the policy section (see below). So, citizens who share the characters political opinions.
Corps - For example, Starfleet or the KDF. Fellow members of the characters organisation.
Cohort - Essentially, your people within the corps - extended beyond crew to include friends, colleagues, the likeminded. Fellow members of the characters organisation who share their political opinions.
Crew - The whole body of people on the character's ship.
Officers - The characters chief officers (the main cast if it was a tv show!)
Personal - The character themselves. (For the egotist basically).
The third slider in values would be a continuum, or perhaps a binary choice, between peace and a faction-specific Ideal. For example:
The Ethics slider is about the boundary between sticking to procedure, or keeping clean hands, versus doing the right thing though transgressing to do so. On its own that continuum is too simplistic I think, so its there to be used with others.
Principles is basically: Prime Directive or no? Perhaps combined with an attitude to expansionism (i.e. pursuing incorporation of new worlds, colonization, or if more militarized playing 'great games' against the other powers).
The Posture slider would combine with the characters Politics (see below) to work out an affinity level for particular lobbies internal to their faction, or weight the emphasis on an affinity.
For example, people who both favour peace with Romulus but war with the Klingons could be a lobby ('Greenpeace, Red-dead!' or something)
A relatively dove-leaning character would have an affinity with that lobby, but because of their dove posture the affinity would work more strongly on matters concerning peace than war. So they dont have much enthusiasm for the klingon war side of that, but would for peace initiatives with the Romulans.
Gearing is about the composition of the organisation (e.g. Starfleet), its structures, the kind of ships seen as needed, asked for and built, et.c.
The Planning Sliders Projection vs. Consolidation is neutral way of saying Offensive vs. Defensive in wartime and Exploration vs. Construction in peacetime. Its about where ships are being deployed and what for, and how many risks are being taken.
The last three are about the kind of leader the character is in the field and in person.
POLITICS
Politics would be the set of variables describing the characters perceptions of the other factions relationships to their faction.
It would be two sliders between the character and each other faction: Trust and Threat.
Trust would reflect the characters view of the reliability of information and communication from that faction, and their dependability to hold to their commitments.
So even at war with them, the Klingons may score relatively high here because of their honour-concept as they are often beings of their word. Conversely, even at peace the character may trust the Romulans little, because they suspect theyre up to something.
Threat would be the character's view of the factions threat to the characters faction. Im not sure whether it should be modified by the loyalty scale choice from above.
Possibly there should be Politics sliders for the characters own faction too.
In that case Threat would measure the characters attitude to the leaderships competence or policy (i.e. theyre doing it wrong), Trust would measure the suspicion theyve been corrupted or subverted (i.e. theyre corrupt or theyre changelings').
I think that would be enough for quite a lot of depth through the course of the game, though itd be very dependent on the artfulness of the writing. Though I suspect itd require an impracticable volume of copy to be written, so perhaps its pretty pie in the sky for that reason, let alone others.
Comments
The game seems like it can track what your recently completed missions (and duty officer assignments) were.
Now imagine you visit your ship interior for talkbacks on what happened recently for rewards.
Maybe you only get one talkback per mission completion so who you talk to and what you say influences the bonus reward after a mission.
Cryptic has gotten better at it, but there is still much to do. And cut scenes really suck in this regard, because everyone else may be voiced, but your Captain is silent. (Clear advantage here goes to TOR, which started with voice acting from the start.)
"Commenting" on past missions could be exactly one thing to do to give some feeling of control and moral authority back - explaining your choices or critisizing them, and maybe giving different types of rewards based on that.
Unrelated:
In the old Star Trek adventure game "25th Anniversary", there was also always a post-portem talk with the Admiral, that judged the results of the mission. I kinda liked that (though in that case, you are not the one in control. But the idea that the "judgement" was based on decisions you made and how well they agreed with Starfleet Principles was interesting.)
This mission is a gem and there should be more like it. And in general there should be more moral decisions in the game. Kill or capture the inmates of facility 4028, kill or capture Hassan, let the Tal'shiar get away with Borg technology or not. The effects of those decisions on the mission are minimal but it gives you a feeling of being in control of your chars actions and to have done "the right thing".
If we take STO as an example of making morale decisions. If many episodes had morale decisions or branches in them it could affect your character in the long term.
You could have a decisions or morales stats screen on your character, where your decisions made were recorded and applied morale stats to your character. You could develop the lawful/chaotic/good/evil type system which is basic, or use a more complicated set of attributes that certain decisions add to.
Each NPC would then need to be a real character, instead of bland nothingness they are now. A good character could have a problem with the butcher of (whatever) and possibly reward less, or at least have some atmosphere to their conversation that this is only happening because of orders, lots of possibilities.
Decisions can be permanent (though i'm sure you could pay to reset some) Players firmly entrenched into a morale stance may lose the ability to choose a different path in some situations.
So while I don't think you can make a multi-path MMO about morale directions and branch the game, you can certainly use a confined system to add character to the game without a huge amount of extra work. You can also make a limited amount of content split by those decisions.
IMO, the wrong thing to do it to give your players a choice, then igonre what you just gave them and do whatever you want like what STO does. When that happens I just stop caring.
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STO on the other hand was developed based on more traditional MMOs which allowed for varying amounts of character customization but were always light on the PCs characterization relying entirely on the player to bring their character to life...or not. Depended on the player really.
Two completely different design paradigms from a story - and in some ways design - perspective. Comparing one to another the way you are isn't a fair comparison of the strengths of either game. It's just you being disingenuous in the way you're stating which gameplay and storytelling style you prefer.
A simple option to register an opinion is a remarkably powerful Immersion tool too. And a relatively simple one too use, or to state an attribute of your character, like declaring your faction affiliation or species
( example, I set up a dialogue chain in a foundry mission that allowed the player to register if they are More or less Senior than a Starfleet officer giving a briefing, or an option to point out they are actually a Member of the RR. This of course changed none of the mission objectives in the slightest
BUT it did shift the tone of the briefing in a major way, and in the case of RR gave you new side lines to the conversation)
Indeed
I really enjoy the way that Skyrim and Fallout make thier dialogue chains work, BUT its not something I'd expect in STO because the whole game is built on different foundations
So I play Divide Et Impera.
Then I go talk to my crew about it. And I (or they) suggest alternative solutions. Then when I REPLAY it (which is technically a simulation), new game story branches emerge.
Maybe you could be waiting for Gaul and kill him in the All That Glitters replay, for example. It doesn't matter if it fits the story because it's a REPLAY.
I like this a lot, though rather than primarily conferences with your officers it seems to be it would be a good way to work the 'captain's log' into the game.
After a story mission you'd go to the ready-room, or click a button on the HUD, and navigate a few steps through a specially designed post-mission dialogue tree. The initial bit would be descriptive but you'd get maybe three or four clickthroughs of evaluation. For example:
'We got into a firefight with the Klingons'
> '(1) this troubled me / (2) didn't trouble me..' ---(1)----> ' (A)because i should have found another way where people didn't die / (B) 'it will only prolong the war' / (C) 'their families may want revenge on me and my crew / (D) 'however necessary, taking life will haunt me'
(B)----> 'the sooner the war ends, the less people will die' / 'I don't believe we can win' / ' we should never have waged this war in the first place'
They could use this both to set specific flags (e.g. Your captains political opinions - opposes the admiralty's war policies as a dove or hawk , or in line with them; or feedthroughs for later stories) and also a set of personality stats of some kind, describing a mixture of philosophy and temprament that could inflect dialogue. Morals/politics/self-concern/'concern for crew' as factors maybe.
These flags and stats could then be used for tailored conversation with your crew on your ship (who maybe could have different opinions of their own? Perhaps too complicated...) - so you'd get a different bartender conversation based on your log entry.
One thing I played with in Foundry mission authoring was to try to look at the different kinds of captains in Trek as role models for different kinds of answers to dialogues.
So you have a Kirk answer, a Picard answer, a Janeway answer, a Sisko answer. You could take this further and have a Ransom anser, a Dukat answer, a Martok answer, a Tomalak answer.
Currently, the game tends to divide these things into Fed/Klingon/Rom or Hawk/Dove. And maybe that's all missions warrant but I think having real "exemplars" would add a lot. You know, setup almost a D&D style alignment chart with Trek captains of all factions and have our choices even in an out-of-mission sense set our alignment.
I don't think Trek alignments would be Lawful v. Chaotic or Good v. Evil necessarily.
They'd probably be three way chart (represented by a triangle) of, say:
Duty vs. Loyalty (The Good of the Many vs. The Good of the One)
Planning vs. Improvisation (Technique vs. Unexpected results)
Glory vs. Honor (Battle vs Diplomacy but in a broader sense)
Worf, for example, would be Duty, Planning, Honor.
Paris would be Loyalty, Improvisation, Glory. (Kirk would vary; the stereotypical Kirk would be L/I/G like Paris. I'd say TOS Kirk would actually be more Duty, Improvisation, Glory. WoK/SSF Kirk would have respeced to Loyalty, Planning, Honor.)
Sisko would be Loyalty, Improvisation, Honor.
Now... Playing with this some, maybe it would be a binary instead of a spectrum in terms of game mechanics.
So high Planning is an Accuracy and Resistance boost.
High improvisation is a chance to trigger random surprise effects on crit and when health is low, calculated to be of equal value.
Gaining Planning reduces Improvisation. Gaining Improvisation reduces Planning. But maybe you can only get up to a 75%/25% split before it caps out. So it's never fully one versus the other. It's which way do you lean.
And you'd have set unique set bonuses for every possible combination of leanings in the form of an activatable power and new mission options. So by my math, that's 20 activatable powers but you can only have one of the 20.
From there, maybe you create a new STF or sandbox mission with 20 optionals, one for each personality trait.
Then to maybe add a level of incentive, you create a ship reward for completing all the optional accolades, which means teaming with 19 other players.
Just an idea.
Ha, I went away to think about it and started making some notes and, well I can get carried away sometimes.
Ive just read your last post and its more sensible I think. I like the exemplars idea, its a good way of drawing the player in and helping to immerse them in different styles of being a captain.
Anyway, heres what I came up with (I've taken the word 'loyalty' from you though)
Its nice to think you could flesh out your character over time, and it could allow for a kind of consequences for decisions that the original post was getting that - though they would be for the characters soul if you like, rather than necessarily radically branching the story.
So its a matter of devising the right framework of variables to measure this development - something that can reflect a range of configurations but still be believably of the Star Trek universe. Something that in part reflects character introspection (in fact player input) and partly their progress through the world and the various stories they have to work through (in fact provided by the writers).
So, to start at the boring end, Id split the variables between Values, Policy and Politics.
Values would be the basic, foundational attitudes that inform the characters other commitments and will find expression in their concerns; policy would be the way the character has orientated themselves in relation to their universe and society - that is, the structure of their ongoing concerns and their relative intensity; politics would be the present set of perceptions the character has about the pattern of relationships between their faction and the other factions.
VALUES
Lets start with Values. There would be three sliders here: Outlook, Loyalty and Ideal.
Outlook would measure how much of a big picture person the character is, that is how capable or willing they are to suspend their loyalty for the general good.
The Continuum would go from: Universal Particular.
Loyalty would specify the focus of the characters particular commitment insofar as they arent setting that aside for the big picture.
It would be a sliding scale going from big to small. (The different scales will correspond with different sliders in the policy section, and so weight their importance.)
The scale would be:
Universal - An complete indifference to faction in favour of a greater good
Faction - The characters overall faction, the power they fall under, e.g. The United Federation of Planets. Fellow citizens past and future.
Lobby - This is a subset of the population of the faction with a particular complex of political attitudes - a combination of a pattern of politics (see below) and the point on the 'Hawk Dove' slider in the policy section (see below). So, citizens who share the characters political opinions.
Corps - For example, Starfleet or the KDF. Fellow members of the characters organisation.
Cohort - Essentially, your people within the corps - extended beyond crew to include friends, colleagues, the likeminded. Fellow members of the characters organisation who share their political opinions.
Crew - The whole body of people on the character's ship.
Officers - The characters chief officers (the main cast if it was a tv show!)
Personal - The character themselves. (For the egotist basically).
The third slider in values would be a continuum, or perhaps a binary choice, between peace and a faction-specific Ideal. For example:
Federation: Peace Security
Klingons: Peace Honour
Romulans: Peace Revanche
I think the best way is to think of this one is as more permanent than policy - a decision to transcend a factional ideal for peace, or not.
POLICY
Next up policy. Theres one policy slider for each size scale:
Ethics (Universal Scale)
Conduct Consequences
Principles (Faction Scale)
Activist Neutrality
Posture (Lobby Scale)
Hawk Dove
Gearing (Corps Scale)
Militarized Civilianized
Strategy / Planning (Cohort Scale)
Projection Consolidation
Management (Crew Scale)
Efficiency Wellbeing
Decisionmaking (Officer Scale)
Reserved Consultative
Command Style (Personal Scale)
Orthodox Inventive/Creative/Maverick
The Ethics slider is about the boundary between sticking to procedure, or keeping clean hands, versus doing the right thing though transgressing to do so. On its own that continuum is too simplistic I think, so its there to be used with others.
Principles is basically: Prime Directive or no? Perhaps combined with an attitude to expansionism (i.e. pursuing incorporation of new worlds, colonization, or if more militarized playing 'great games' against the other powers).
The Posture slider would combine with the characters Politics (see below) to work out an affinity level for particular lobbies internal to their faction, or weight the emphasis on an affinity.
For example, people who both favour peace with Romulus but war with the Klingons could be a lobby ('Greenpeace, Red-dead!' or something)
A relatively dove-leaning character would have an affinity with that lobby, but because of their dove posture the affinity would work more strongly on matters concerning peace than war. So they dont have much enthusiasm for the klingon war side of that, but would for peace initiatives with the Romulans.
Gearing is about the composition of the organisation (e.g. Starfleet), its structures, the kind of ships seen as needed, asked for and built, et.c.
The Planning Sliders Projection vs. Consolidation is neutral way of saying Offensive vs. Defensive in wartime and Exploration vs. Construction in peacetime. Its about where ships are being deployed and what for, and how many risks are being taken.
The last three are about the kind of leader the character is in the field and in person.
POLITICS
Politics would be the set of variables describing the characters perceptions of the other factions relationships to their faction.
It would be two sliders between the character and each other faction: Trust and Threat.
Trust would reflect the characters view of the reliability of information and communication from that faction, and their dependability to hold to their commitments.
So even at war with them, the Klingons may score relatively high here because of their honour-concept as they are often beings of their word. Conversely, even at peace the character may trust the Romulans little, because they suspect theyre up to something.
Threat would be the character's view of the factions threat to the characters faction. Im not sure whether it should be modified by the loyalty scale choice from above.
Possibly there should be Politics sliders for the characters own faction too.
In that case Threat would measure the characters attitude to the leaderships competence or policy (i.e. theyre doing it wrong), Trust would measure the suspicion theyve been corrupted or subverted (i.e. theyre corrupt or theyre changelings').
I think that would be enough for quite a lot of depth through the course of the game, though itd be very dependent on the artfulness of the writing. Though I suspect itd require an impracticable volume of copy to be written, so perhaps its pretty pie in the sky for that reason, let alone others.