FASA's Star Trek RPG

[MENTION=19651]TGryph[/MENTION], your post made me want to start building a front-end for the FASA Starship Tactical Combat simulator, and I tumbled across this game called Artemis...I think I'm gonna buy it and invite a few friends over. The demo was cool.

The old FASA ST game was great fun, and the best of the Star Trek RPGs, in my opinion. We never had any fancy set-up, but did usually have the players sitting where they'd be on the bridge. Made for fun times!

I was in middle school when I was introduced to the wider world of RPG's. I had played and only knew of DnD (Basic and Expert sets) and then I think Traveller was the second game. Then Star Trek the RPG. I remember being in the library at school and seeing the sheets with the tracks but I'm not sure if I played or not. I do recall going home with a character sheet, he was a Vulcan, probably in science, but that's about as much as I remember. I do think I wanted to play again, or at least learn more about the system, but we then moved to DnD and I was introduced to the idea of Monty Haulism. And meson cannons on mercenary cruisers.

Well, thanks. I now have a need to re-acquire this RPG. eBay...here I come!

First *real* session tonight. It'll be a bit railroady, but it's kind of an "teach them how to play" session.

I plan to have them on a Keith class V scount ship, seconded to Starfleet Intelligence on counter-smuggling operations. They'll investigate an aboandoned space station and find some Orion smugglers there. After a battle on the station, an Orion ship will emerge from behind the planet and try to flee at which point they will no doubt beam back to the ship and give pursuit using the Command & Control rules from the Starship Tactical Combat Simulator. There will be a hitch, though - some systems won't be functioning. Some skill rolls will determine they have a saboteur on board, and while some of the players pilot the ship into combat, the others will be racing around the ship trying to catch the saboteurs. Once they've done that, systems will be restored, and the starship fight will be roughly equal (slightly in favour of the players). They'll capture or destroy the vessel. At the end of the session, though, a Klingon ship will decloak near the space station and warp off. Suspicious!

I have an idea of them at some point in the future needing to man a crippled Constitution class starship (as their scout won't be a match for an opponent). The Constitution class ship will have been at a repair dock for a while, not really getting much repairs. It's abandoned (thought here will be a short adventure on baord when they first board it). They'll use the crippled ship to try to fight a couple of Klingon ships. It'll be fun having that powerful ship, but it being crippled.

Then they'll be going undercover in The Triangle, having to buy/build their own ship and investigate what the Klingons are up to.

Morrus said:

I have an idea of them at some point in the future needing to man a crippled Constitution class starship (as their scout won't be a match for an opponent). The Constitution class ship will have been at a repair dock for a while, not really getting much repairs. It's abandoned (thought here will be a short adventure on baord when they first board it). They'll use the crippled ship to try to fight a couple of Klingon ships. It'll be fun having that powerful ship, but it being crippled.

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A good STAR TREK-ism is to give them some time to assess the ship and prioritize specific kinds of repairs they want to make: For example, they might need to make a decision between warp drive and shields or phasers. Or they might spend time making Photon Torpedoes usable, but they only have a finite number in supply. This will put them in a position of having to pre-plan the battle ala the Picard Maneuver or Riker's Best of Both Worlds attack routines or.... something from the original series?

Also: I know other GMs feel differently about this, but my personal opinion is that you can't railroad players in session prep, only at the table. You can come up with a super complex/specific/scripted scenario, but as long as you give your players the freedom to blow it all up and do something crazy/unexpected and adapt accordingly, it's not a railroad scenario.

Something I just remembered (and Murphy's Rules pointed out), the health rules are screwed up. The better your health score (whatever its called, been a looong time since I played), the worse you are at making Saves! You might want to look at that and fix it. I don't think it was addressed here, but I'm not going to bother looking through 4 pages of posts again to find out.

If anyone is interested, I have two sets of the Star Trek RPG 2nd edition rules (the same as in Morrus's pictures above) that I don't need, as I have the first and second edition deluxe boxed sets I could be talked out of them for a reasonable offer (including potential trades).

e-mail me at allensh1 AT chartermi DOT net

Allen

Ed_Laprade said:

Something I just remembered (and Murphy's Rules pointed out), the health rules are screwed up. The better your health score (whatever its called, been a looong time since I played), the worse you are at making Saves! You might want to look at that and fix it. I don't think it was addressed here, but I'm not going to bother looking through 4 pages of posts again to find out.

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Hmmm? I don't think that's right - a save is rolling under your score.

So, after-action report.

The players IMMEDIATELY split the party, beaming half down to the space station while half ran the starship combat. So I was running two encounters with unfamiliar rules at the same time!

I think I'm going to change the ground combat rules quite a lot. I don't like them - they look find on paper, but they're too fiddly. I might make Dex/10 a movement rate, and just allow a move and an action each round.