Posted by Captain Katy Darrah (CMM) in Open Session - April 2023

Posted by Steve Johnson in Open Session - April 2023

Posted by Captain Katy Darrah (CMM) in Open Session - April 2023
Posted by… suppressed (1) by the Post Ghost! 👻
To begin- this is a thread where no idea is too stupid to say and anyone is not just welcome but encouraged to throw out their thoughts for Command.

Based on the most recent reports, and your own experiences, what are your ideas for the club’s future?

-President Sage Pennington

Something I’d like to bring up, in my own research and in metrics from asking, is how niche of search terms one has to use to find STF, and a look at STF as a whole from the greater Trek RPG community.

To get STF to come up, you have to use the term “Star Trek RPG online” any other term, or rearranging of those words, will bring up a lot of other results before you even get close to STF. “Star Trek Online RPG just brings up 80 million results for STO. “Star Trek RPG” brings up the Star Trek Adventures game and on occassion a mention of the old LUG system. “Star Trek text RPG” just brings up the old 1970s game and remakes of it. “Star Trek Text based RPG” brings up some mix of the above results.

Now we have a problem. One combination of popular search terms brings us up, and even then, after at least one other club. This is quite problematic, not just because of that, but also because we use odd terminology compared to the rest of the community. I’ve explained this to Rob on a couple of occassions, but let me lay it out in detail here:

What we refer to as the club is more often referred to as a fleet outside of it. There are a few loose coalitions of games out there too that use the term club, but we’re in a minority. What we refer to as fleets are referred to as Task Forces. FComms are TFCOs (Task Force Commanding Officers) AFComms are TFXOs. All COs are CO/GM combos (This isn’t a hard and fast rule, some games do run with separate GMs) and COs have near absolute authority on their games. What we refer to a ship is called a sim, and is self-contained. The general model is that someone gets website hosting and picks their desired method of play (Play by Nova (self-contained writing software), Play by Forum, play by email, etc) and sets up a roster and game. They are generally then free to recruit anywhere, and take in player both in and outside their fleet/club/etc. Some games even operate completely independently.

Whereas in STF, we’re limited in scope to those within the club and the odd new member we can convince to come in and skip the academy. That’s another thing. In STF we require someone to work their way up through the ranks. And then, when they do reach Captain, they cannot (easily, at least) make their own game/ship. They have to essentially pick from one of those with an opening, if any. Outside the club, I can go to any fleet (or one of the coalitions) and, if I can provide the hosting, create a game there with any concept I may wish. If I want a Mirror Universe game, I can make one. If I want a TNG era game, I can make one. And I can essentially “jump ranks” to Captain.

This obviously presents the problem of inexperienced COs not knowing what they are doing, but that’s also the reason why many games die. And when I apply to a game, I can apply for any open position, just like in STF, and generally while a new player has no say in what rank they come in as, some COs will ask experienced players what they think.

And from asking around, the “work your way up” is what stops a lot of players from applying. They want to be able to come into the club on whichever ship they wish (i.e. if someone liked the concept of the Chernov being the Abrams-verse ship they could join that out of the gate.) in really whatever position might be open on it. They don’t want to have to wait essentially years to reach Captain or even get an XO spot.

Obviously I don’t want to propose changes to STF’s system, I love the system, but these are the comments I hear frequently hear from players outside of the club as to why they don’t want to join.

Katy

Just a quick comment, new members are allowed to join the Chernov and the Ogawa right off the bat. It wouldn’t be that complicated to allow new members to join the Sojourner, Merri or the Sentinel right off the bat either.

As for positions, the PDept does try to place people in their first choice of positions. Same if they request a specific ship. All effort is made to respect special requests when it is possible.

Steve

Fair enough. But my point in that regards–and maybe I didn’t state it well enough even with said example–was that a member can’t approach the CO/XO/GM of a ship and say “I want to join your ship. Here’s my application” they have to apply to the club, and specifically know to request their ship of choice, which, if they don’t already know of the Alt-RPG offerings of the club, isn’t possible when they join.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/535066208094126093/1096086063744831508/image.png This is the ONLY mention of Alt-RPGs on the join form. They receive this information AFTER acceptance. Or, at the very least, after the application is received, which means they can’t request it on the application. Yes, my ads mention the Ogawa and Chernov as options, merely because they do accept new members and at least the Chernov can be a draw for some members, but I (or anyone else for that matter) may neglect to let someone know about it when spreading word-of-mouth.

We also assume they explored the site before wanting to join, which in an of itself is a flawed assumption. If we merely mentioned the available new-member alt RPGs on the join form, instead of what we have now, we might be able to get people to join for those eras. I.e. “We have two alternate RPG areas that accept new members, one is a medical ship, the other is in the Kelvin timeline or “Abramsverse” if you are interested in either please check this box and specify which below” Might have a better rate of getting new members for those ships.

And my point still stands even on position. On the join form you’re limited to the standard 4 departments: security, medical, science, and Engineering. There’s nothing there for the “swing” positions that on games outside the club are considered standard like Flight Control/Helm, Ops, or CNS. So someone who wishes to join as one of those either has to join as something else, or, as someone so graciously put it one time “just give up and go somewhere I can apply for the actual position I want instead of having to jump through hoops to get it.”

New members can’t apply for DH positions, unless they join the club and THEN apply for the opening, whereas outside the club, if I need a CMO, let’s say, I can advertise and have someone apply for it directly. Even if I’ve never heard of the person before. Another person gave me this tidbit at one point “I have to join, THEN I can apply for this position with the CO, and may still not even get it because I’m a nobody and there’s not really anything I can do to prove my ability. Whereas if I join [game outside the club] I may not be known, but I have a reputation with people that can be asked about me, and I have a writing sample I have to provide with the application to prove my ability.”

You see the drastic differences? There’s much more freedom outside the club for a player experienced at playing DHs to come in and play one on a brand new game, vs STF where the opinions of outside people/forces are moot. I can’t just pick some random person off the Star Trek RPG circuit outside of the club and ask them “what do you know of Steve Johnson’s writing ability?” They likely would ask me “Who is that?” Which means that, if I didn’t know your abilities and history in the club, I would likely be more apt to take the player who’s been here longer and who’s abilities I can verify at least inside the club.

I hope I made sense with all of this.

Katy

I’m not arguing on if there are issues with the application process, just pointing out where we do currently address some of the points you have brought up. I’m pretty aware of how things work outside of STF. It’s been a few years, but I’ve played on many simms outside of STF, and run a good handful myself.

The join form should actually be updated, because we haven’t had the practice of assigning people to new ships, and THEN telling them about the alt-rpg’s in my memory. I can say for certain for the last 2.5 years while I’ve been PDir, and before when I was there under Dan, that’s not how it typically works.

For new members wishing to join the main fleet, and click the alt-rpg tab on the join form, they get an e-mail explaining their options and we ask them if they wish to join one before going any further with the application.

For new members wishing to go to the Academy, we don’t do this though. In the current process the Academy requests trumps jumping into an alt-rpg anyways, so they will have the opportunity to learn about them while they are in the Academy.

As for your last point, I’d argue that there are still a few people out there who I have written with in other fleets ha. But you do have a point there. You are essentially talking about “references” on your credentials. We don’t have a network outside of this group when it comes to checking on a persons writing abilities. And our current system is set-up to make it as easy as possible for the new CO’s. New people just show up, minimum recruitment needed. And the join form is set-up to take the least amount of time for the PDept to process applications, so we can get people started ASAP.

I am speaking for when I was PDir, Amdirgol can jump in as PDir and what currently policy is, but if a CO came to me and said I recruited person XYZ, and I want them assigned to my ship as CMO, I would go ahead and assign them as requested.

Could the join form be updated? It’s just a question of how to best do it. But I think the other root cause we have to look at is how CO’s currently recruit people.

Steve