Tutorial finally complete, it was time for questing! First order of business: inform the widower of the Bile Hurk’s former first officer that she died in glorious combat…or I’m assuming anyway. If you recall, Kur’P Ud Wakk more or less stumbled into that scene, so the particulars of her death, beyond that the former captain dunnit, were left to speculation. Still, Klingons. I imagine if I told her family that she died like a bitch (like the captain), then the streets would flow with the blood of Klingons.
But I didn’t have the choice anyway. For an RPG, this game doesn’t exactly have a whole lot of decisions built into it. But this is an older game from a time preceding RPG character repercussions, so I had no choice but to be the good guy. Following the GPS embedded into the upper-left corner of my eye, I found this guy and delivered the news (yes, by pressing “A”). Button mashing commenced, because I really didn’t care at all about this guy or his reaction. Kur’P Ud Wakk’s short command career had apparently already made him incredibly callous. I left the Klingon to grieve, which probably meant blood wine…because they’re Klingons and that’s all I’ve ever seen them drink in any of the Star Trek series. Klingons have blood wine, Romulans have Romulan ale (which is illegal in the Federation because of some embargo, like Cuban cigars–this gets mentioned a lot), and the Federation has their non-alcoholic synthesol (although Picard has been known to enjoy some genuine wine from his family’s estate in France). The future of alcohol seems pretty sad I must say. I muse on this while I pour another glass of bourbon from my decanter.
I think Hugh Janus had to do this as well, which seems a little odd. Imagine an enormous Klingon runs up to you and tells you that your wife is dead, all the while someone else stands awkwardly close to your conversation, only to interject the moment you finish talking to tell you that your wife is dead. I’m no Klingon, but that might make me a little violent. To recap, it went something like this:
Kur’P Ud Wakk:
‘Hi, your wife is dead.’
Widower:
‘Uh, okay.’
Hugh Janus:
‘Hi, your wife is dead.’
Widower:
‘…Yeah, okay, I got that.’
Kur’P Ud Wakk and Hugh Janus high-five and shout in celebration, then take of running at full speed, because no one ever walks anywhere in an RPG.
But the Klingon did not get violent, and despite the nature of the quest, we celebrated having successfully completed an objective together. We had figured out game mechanics.
But the quest was not yet completed. For some reason, this objective was lumped in with the next: going to a warehouse, shooting some people, and activating terminals. So we do just that. Kur’P Ud Wakk skillfully balances pressing the right trigger and “A”, dropping foes with his disruptor. Hugh Janus, on the other hand, goes in ineffectually swinging a bat’leth. Kur’P Ud Wakk suspects he was impressed after witnessing his own mad break-dancing moves earlier and wants to show off. I anticipate a bat’leth duel between the two at some point.
On the way out, a bigger baddie shows up, which requires many more pushings of the right trigger. He drops, we leave the warehouse, and then we run around the station for several minutes trying to figure out where to go.
Which brings me to my next point: email! How many RPGs have you completing objectives, but you have to physically return to the quest-giver? And these are futuristic games. We have video conferencing and voice chat, yet when it’s time to send a message back, the player character is apparently incapable of initiating the communication. Like some old geezer who can’t figure out his cell phone and says “Fuck it, I’m just going to go pay this guy a visit. I’ll go jump in my Buick and drive 20 in a 45 while everyone else is trying to get to work on time.”
Eventually, perseverance pays off when we collectively explore the entirety of the compound’s physical space, and successfully complete the objective, thus officially completing our first quest together. I celebrate with a glass of bourbon.
–Simon