Star Trek (movie) made me think of Star Trek RPG... so...

...is there an official Star Trek RPG with updated releases etc?

I did some quick searches and there was a bit too much to wade through so I thought I would drop a line here.

I currently play 4e (run a campaign and play in 3 others). So, during the movie (the second time I watched it - with more friends who had not seen it), I was imagining playing it using the 4e system - 4e didn't seem to me like it would work as well as another (though nothing specific came to mind) but the idea of playing it was starting to sound pretty fun.

So that's it - is there an official Star Trek RPG out there? If not, I'm sure people manage somehow, and if so, how is that done? I'm primarily just curious because the movie made me think of it, but if there was something official out there I might be interested in taking a peek.

Thanks!

Insert broken record - Star Wars Saga, removing the Force/Jedi can work great as any sci-fi campaign. Specifically, the creators of the Saga system even ran a Star Trek Saga game (Rodney's blog talked about it) and said it worked wonders for his group.

It's not official, but it can work wonderfully just changing the fluff. (I would borrow heavily from 4e in use of minions, though)

weem said:

So that's it - is there an official Star Trek RPG out there? If not, I'm sure people manage somehow, and if so, how is that done? I'm primarily just curious because the movie made me think of it, but if there was something official out there I might be interested in taking a peek.

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There have been several; there's nothing recent. I'd like to see WotC pick up the license and use an updated SWSE as the base (there are a small number of 4e conventions that didn't make SWSE -- fixed HPs and standardized attack progressions across all classes, for two), as, like the previous poster said, it's a pretty good generic space opera rule set.

There hasn't been an official Star Trek RPG in a while.

The last one was the Decipher one, and that was about 5 or 6 years ago I think. I never got very into that one.

Before that there was the Last Unicorn Games version (LUGTrek as it's sometimes called). That's my personal favorite. It was made in the late '90's, nothing after Insurrection, and they never got around to anything with Voyager (and Enterprise hadn't been made yet). Getting copies of the core books, especially for the TNG and DS9 core books (they made different core books for TNG, TOS, and DS9) is pretty easy on the used market.

FASA did a Star Trek RPG in the early to late 80's. It's a lot harder to find stuff for, and in terms of "fluff" it's way, way off base from later Trek (some of it's later books were so "out there" that Paramount apparently pulled the license, I have their TNG sourcebook, it was an interesting interpretation of the first season of TNG to say the least).

There is also Prime Directive, the RPG set in the Star Fleet Universe that is a spinoff of Star Trek from the late 70's, where they only used TOS, TAS, and the Franz Joseph Star Fleet Technical Manual as source material and didn't use anything from ST:TMP and beyond. There are GURPS and d20 versions of it, IIRC. I don't know much about it than it exists though.

Personally, if I was going to run Star Trek, I'd convert either Star Wars Saga, or maybe d20 Modern for the task.

Star Trek is my default game and, as has been stated, there have been several incarnations but no official game is currently in print.

My recommendation is Last Unicorn Games' version, aka LUGTrek, which uses a d6 based rules system called the ICON system. The ICON system is, IMHO, the best blend of detail and cinematic feel I've ever seen for the subject. Decipher's version, known as the CODA system, is very D20-like, slightly resembling D&D 3.x but utilizing d6's. I wasn't a fan. Its class-like approach to Starfleet position felt too forced and not nearly as flexible as the Template-Overlay-Packages system in the LUG version.

Check out:

TREK RPG Net
http://www.trek-rpg.net/

Memory ICON
http://www.coldnorth.com/memoryicon/index.htm

and a personal plug for my Star Trek RPG focused blog-
Barking Alien
http://barkingalien.blogspot.com/

Peace and Long Life,
AD
Barking Alien

Over the years, there have been several official and unofficial Star Trek RPGs.

My personal favorite has been the FASA version from the 80's. It's difficult to find material for, but it has a very simple d% system, and it actually does a good job of portraying the 60's show and the early movies as a vibrant, free-wheeling place for adventure. It does get a bit militaristic, which is why Paramount supposedly pulled their license.

I've also played the LUG version and liked it. It came out around the time that DS9 was going off the air, so it's far more "up-to-date" than the FASA version. It's similar to White Wolf's storyteller system, with multiple dice rolled against a target difficulty and a 1-to-5 rating system. The starship combat system was neat, and I've found fan stuff online covering the Enterprise period and other topics once that one went out of print.

I never played the Decipher game, so I can't give you anything useful about that one.

If you're looking to do a one-shot, I'd suggest that you do what others here have suggested... Just rip off Star Wars for the mechanics, file off the serial numbers and come up with a compelling story.

Meanwhile, you can always play Traveller

Betote said:

Meanwhile, you can always play Traveller

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Or you can play any sci-fi RPG and make all the aliens exactly the same as humans but with a little bit of make up on their forehead or face and you have Star Trek and all it's glorious alien races...

drothgery said:

I'd like to see WotC pick up the license...

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WotC did have the licence when Last Unicorn was producing the game (WotC actually bought Last Unicorn).

So what happen? They then got a chance to get the Star Wars Licence and they didn't want to have both properties.

Pravus said:

WotC did have the licence when Last Unicorn was producing the game (WotC actually bought Last Unicorn).

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I thought they bought LUG basically for the licenses, then found out the Star Trek license didn't come with the company for some obscure legal reason.