Sadly, there's a significant segment of D&D players who don't do that now. They're glued to their computers and can't imagine playing it around a table, face-to-face, having to actually pick up a pencil and paper and draw their own maps and roll their own dice. One of my DMs made real props to go along with the game. If we found a scroll, we were handed a real piece of paper, rolled up and tied with a ribbon. No fudging who unrolled or read it - everyone could plainly see when it happened. If we found a potion and wanted to drink it, she had little containers of water with food coloring and we really were expected to drink it. Oh, please. Picard may labor under the delusion that nobody uses money and everybody works for the joy of self-improvement, but even for him, rank has its privileges. Do you really think that if he wanted or needed to use the holodeck badly enough and Wesley was in there, that he wouldn't either order or intimidate Wesley into leaving? Of course I would expect he would be fair about it and not selfishly take over someone else's holodeck time that was booked in advance, unless there was some emergency going on. But don't tell me that rank doesn't get first dibs on the holodeck. Remember the episode when Wesley was in the holodeck, Worf came in, and Wesley said, "I'll leave"? To Worf's credit he gave Wesley permission to stay, but he didn't have to. Fun... until an enemy blows a hole in the side of the ship and it happens to be in the section where you are. Good luck breathing vacuum. How flexible would it be, though? The modules don't begin to cover all the available actions the PCs could take, just the likeliest ones, and those are usually fairly basic - listen, open the door, smash the door down, search the room, talk to whoever/whatever is in the room, fight, steal, cast a spell... That said, taking part in a holographic Dragonlance scenario would be fun, particularly if the music is included (there is sheet music in the modules to go along with the songs and poetry in the novels; I learned how to play some of them, and they are beautiful). When did I say the civilians wouldn't be allowed to use the holodeck? The time would have to be apportioned out among officers, enlisted, civilians, visiting dignitaries, etc. I would think there would probably be a few times a month alloted for "first come, first served" but the only fair thing to do would be to have a booking system where people reserve time in advance. Something I don't recall on TNG was when a holodeck program was considered a community resource, when people could drop in or leave as they wanted (I'm thinking of Sandrine's or Fair Haven in Voyager).
Well, we know rank at least confers some privileges on the ENT-D. For example, lieutenants (and up) get their own room, ranks below have roommates. (this is implied in the lower decks episode). So I wouldn't be too surprised if there were some other privileges tied to rank also, for example wrt the holodeck.
Live action Labyrinth of Madness FTW. Although, I read through that really carefully and the way it's written it's physically impossible, because one of the runes is in the last section that you need to get into the last section.
Those modules don't dictate actions. They present scenarios and the players determine what happens. If I converted a module like B2 Keep on the Borderlands, there is no set direction the players must follow. It's a sandbox. You can do as much or as little as you like. Another one in that mold is L1 The Secret of Bone Hill. It is true that some modules expect that you will take certain actions. However, any DM with even a little experience will tell you that players don't always do what you expect them to do. There are many paths to take.
Thank you; I am perfectly aware that modules don't dictate actions. I'm an old-school D&D player who prefers pencil & paper over computer games, and I know that any reasonably competent DM can deal with players who do unexpected things. My preferred RPG game, however, is Fighting Fantasy. My past several NaNoWriMo projects have involved novelizing gamebooks. It would be a hoot to have a holodeck version of some of those (safeties on, of course; some of those monsters and magic spells are vicious). I specified if he wanted or needed the holodeck badly enough. For instance: If the holodeck is needed to test some simulations to solve a problem, they're not going to wait for Wesley and his school friend to finish a skiing lesson.
I'd think there's as much there to occupy people's time as any other campus type institution. You have your work, your home life, hobbies, & social life. There are social functions & events or parties, 10F's lounge/bar/eatery, health & hobby classes, gymnasium activities, training exercises. People go on dates, take walks, have projects, & get-togethers, not all of which have to take place on the holodeck. Could be the arboretum, or other public areas. Any given night you have multitudes of people performing music in the lounge, plays going on. There's a school & salon on board. Two poker games going on the same night in one episode. Barclay totally went down & taught violin technique in the music school, on the spur of the moment. You can do anything I'm no schematic expert, but I also think the ship has like 16 holodecks, & in the Big Goodbye, one is labeled 4J... which indicates maybe even an A thru G. Plus, I've seen the term holosuite used as well, which means they might have ship's decks devoted to holographic simulators (Holo-decks) upon which there are multiple holosuites? With a thousand people on board, & an undetermined amount of facilities in the home & public areas, I'd think there's plenty to do & plenty of folks to do things with
While any job can be boring, and tedious, off duty would be a blast in the 24th century. Even so, there are plenty of things to occupy one's mind while on duty.