I'm a believer in GM-controlled campaigns. What I mean by GM-controlled is a role-playing game campaign where the GM drives the adventures and pacing. The players tend to do more reacting, but can initiate their own plots, which the GM has to incorporate into his planning. Because the Game Master presents the world to the players and controls everything but the players, it is the GM's ultimate responsibility to make sure the game runs smoothly and is entertaining.

Last Saturday's GURPS session was an unmitigated disaster as the GM (myself) stumbled through the whole adventure and let the players get themselves into an intractable position. In restrospect there were a couple of big mistakes that set up the rest of the debacle, and mostly we can go back and see that I did not prepare enough for the adventure. I was a bit too loose and confident that I could play it by ear for I had the plot laid out and the setting ready.

Laziness, that's what did it. I really didn't stop to think about the possible player actions and what I would do in each case. I only thought about the main plot: they'll wander around, maybe meet the OTTO team, maybe meet Khan; stay hidden until they decide what to do, then spoil Khan's plan and/or the OTTO team's plan. For some reason it didn't occur to me to walk through the part where the players decide on a stand up fight without knowing the odds. In retrospect it should have been expected.

The first mistake was forgetting the time period. The adventure was set during The Wrath of Khan. So when the characters found a terminal, it should have had buttons and switches, not a smooth glass pane. Luckily I had already decided that there was no power to most of the levels (other than lighting) so they couldn't get the terminal working.

But then they went up another level, to shuttle bay storage. And here I made two mistakes. I was a bit bored so I decide to have a shuttle sitting all by itself in the room. Great, not the characters swarmed over it like a bunch of ants. But of course they wanted to power it, and since it had its own power supply I thought it'd be reasonable to power the controls.

I had still forgotten the time period so the shuttle controls were much too easy to use. The Next Generation terminals are a marvel of UI design, and even a child can use them, so it didn't take them long to get the communications working. A Star Trek II era control layout would probably have stymied them. Oh well, so they don't hear any chatter on the channels. Go to scanners, not only that but do a full sensor scan, which is certain to be picked up by the Reliant.

So they find some people wandering about the space station. Then they decide to contact them, just to make sure and remove all shadow of a doubt that they're loose on the station. Of course you shouldn't be on the station, but don't worry we'll send a man to fetch you and your men, Lieutenant Mendoza. While they're arguing about whether to actually wait or not, the bad guys get some men to sorround them and capture them. Luckily they spot them on the scanners and after a furious firefight manage to defeat the first probe.

So now we've established that there are bad guys shooting at them. Hey, let's take an hour to give everyone first aid. Don't worry, the scanners will warn us of any approaching bad guys. I couldn't just leave them unmolested, not after they had managed to kill several of Khan's superior race. The next attack was signaled by the beaming in of two squads, with assault cannons to disable the shuttle that Chris had persistently decided he could fly (which I foolishly let him, and gave the shuttle phasers to boot -- what the heck was I thinking?).

After hinting strongly that they should run, as there was still an escape hole. They ignored me and chose to fight, even after the shuttle had been shot down by GM fiat. What was I to do? They were in very real danger of getting killed, so I had everyone make a Health check and the ones who made it lived but were captured. Luckily everyone made the roll. After that I stopped the session because I needed time to think of a way out for them.