Four D&D Tips from Star Trek TNG’s 12th Worst Episode
The episode is entitled “Too Short a Season” and originally aired on February 8th, 1988, as Season 1, Episode 16. The Enterprise is called to take an elderly Starfleet admiral to a planet to resolve a hostage crisis. Once the admiral is onboard, he begins to rapidly de-age, kicking off an investigation into the tangled web of lies the admiral has lived with for years.
The story has shades of the TOS episode “A Private Little War,” though Kirk’s situation was different. The admiral’s wife, Anne, refers to him watching a “tape,” which is quaint by today’s standards. There appears to be a blooper at the 2 minute and 9 second mark—Patrick Stewart does something odd with his mouth as he enters the turbolift. Michael Pataki, who plays Karnas in the episode, also portrayed the Klingon who taunted Scotty and Chekov in “The Trouble with Tribbles.”
We get a bit of poetry when Admiral Jameson is dying—his wife reminds him her hair is now gray, and he responds, “I see only the gold,” which is quite nice. Geordi and Troi use their abilities, thank goodness. Director Rob Bowman criticized the script for being a “sit-and-tell,” though he said it was a “solid” episode. Many have criticized the old age makeup, but for something done in less than a week, it looks fine enough. The worst thing about this episode is that it plants the seeds for traitor admirals, which became one of the worst tropes in later seasons, the TNG movies, and sadly continues to this day with the new Star Trek shows. Why?
Dungeon Master Tip Number One: Logical Problems
It turns out Admiral Jameson made a devil’s bargain 45 years in the past. He solved a hostage crisis by giving weapons to both the hostage takers and their enemies, leading to decades of war. He also lied on official reports to make it seem like he was the great hero. During the episode, he confesses this to Captain Picard, which creates a logical problem within the story. Once the admiral confesses to a crime, it seems like enough grounds for Picard to relieve him of duty. However, Picard still follows his orders. As dungeon masters, here’s where we can cut ourselves some slack. If great TV shows and movies can have logic problems, so can our games. If something is cool but doesn’t make a ton of sense, go with it. If the audience of a show or movie is hooked, they don’t care about logical problems. If our players are having fun, they aren’t going to care about a few slips in logic here and there.
Dungeon Master Tip Number Two: Hostage Situations
The main MacGuffin of this episode is the hostage crisis, which was heavily influenced by the real-life Iran–Contra affair going on at the time. Karnas, the planetary governor, calls for Jameson’s help resolving a hostage situation, but it turns out Karnas himself has taken the hostages. It was a pretext for him being able to take revenge on the admiral. We can use hostage situations in our D&D games. Our players have watched and read about hostage situations all their lives. This is their chance to free hostages, which makes people feel like heroes.
Dungeon Master Tip Number Three: Youth Drug
Admiral Jameson OD’s on a youth drug he was given by an alien culture. He was driven by the desire to be young and strong for the rematch with Karnas. De-aging or the Fountain of Youth is a great myth or trope to play with in our games. Whether it’s the character de-aging or some other situation, it’s tons of fun. Plus, the drive to find the fountain of youth is always a great motivator to launch quests.
Dungeon Master Tip Number Four: NPC Focused
“Too Short a Season” focuses on Admiral Jameson, his wife, and Karnas, nearly excluding the main characters. I’ve criticized TNG episodes for focusing on guest stars and not the main cast before, and it can be a serious danger for DMs to introduce darling NPCs. But if we are going to do it, keep this in mind: the admiral de-ages because it wouldn’t work for one of the main cast to do so. If we need important NPCs, they should fulfill a role our player characters can’t. The rich merchant looking for the fountain of youth will probably not be a PC. Restrict their screen time, as it were, so the PCs can be the main actors in the story. Use NPCs when needed, but remember the PCs need to solve mysteries and have hero moments.
Four D&D tips from Star Trek TNG’s 12th worst episode.
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