Remembering STAR TREK Roleplaying Games

Lwaxy · Mar 1, 2015

Decipher version, mostly, although recently we rather used FATE (not that big a FATE fan myself, though).

We had one campaign going for years, all in standard episode listing, until half the players moved or had no time anymore.

edemaitre · Mar 1, 2015

I've played all the official Star Trek RPGs, including FASA, Decipher, and LUG, as well as less official ones, such as D20/GURPS Prime Directive and the retro-clone Starships & Spacemen. Like other posters, I've rarely stayed with one system for long. I've been recently running an occasional homebrew scenario: "Star Trek: Restoration" -- https://vortex.obsidianportal.com/adventure-log/star-trek-restoration-episode-4

If you have a group of role-players who like that setting and are willing to take on various roles, the chain of command can make it easier to make decisions as an adventuring party. As always, a good setting, story, and characters are more important than rules set. We'll all miss Leonard Nimoy, and live long and prosper!

collin · Mar 2, 2015

I bought the original FASA boxed set Star Trek RPG when it came out in 1983. I bought many of the adventures and supplements to that game. I ran a Star Trek campaign in college using that system and it went fairly well. I even revisited it briefly close to 20 years ago with some of those same players. Overall I liked the system but it definitely had its flaws. I bought some of the Last Unicorn game books when they came out but I never played using that system.

collin · Mar 2, 2015

Speaking of Star Fleet Battles, I enjoyed the Starship Combat Simulator game that was also put out by FASA Played that game several times, too.

Mirth · Mar 2, 2015

There's also the Microlite20 version: "Where No Man Has Gone Before: ...

http://www2.abillionmonkeys.com:3389/trek/

Will Doyle · Mar 2, 2015

"Decision at Midnight" is my favourite FASA module. In fact, since playing it, it's only module I've ever run for the system. It's that good.

scourger · Mar 2, 2015

I had much fun designing & running Savage Worlds Star Trek Heroclix Tactics. My idea was to integrate Savage Worlds (SW) and Star Trek Heroclix Tactics (ST) with SW characters, especially the heroes, commanding ST ships. Wild cards could affect ship-to-ship combat in simple but dramatic ways, which is fun for players captaining ships in play. It allowed each player character to captain a ship so there was no issue with command authority or all-or-nothing fleet combat in case of a total party kill (TPK). The extras were the hundreds of crew each player had at his disposal to send on away missions. In a nod to Rogue Trader, I made certain game objectives only possible for a command rank officer to achieve on site; which meant that the player character captains had to actually take part in certain away missions personally. Ship-to-ship combat used the click dials of ST ships with the captains able to affect the rolls in that part of the game through the SW benny economy.

I had a lot of fun with it. I set it a post Deep Space Nine (DS9) era with the intention that the heroes would interact with iconic characters from the show in their future and effect a large change in events for the Alpha quadrant. The Last Unicorn Games (LUG) DS9 RPG book was very handy for flavor.

But, my players were most familiar with The Original Series, and the game was short-lived once conflicts started. It was a good lesson in the need for collaborative game building, and I would do it again differently so that we all are on the same page before we play - even at the risk of spoiling some of the surprises in the reveals during play.

I never really got into Star Fleet Battles or Prime Directive but I sampled both and enjoyed reading them.

More recently, I found the Star Wreck RPG for free download: http://rpg.starwreck.com/index.php It has a very interesting engine with character inabilities in which the heroes get worse as they get promoted, but they gain special talents that make them look increasingly able.

Dannyalcatraz · Mar 2, 2015

Gronin said:
As far as Star Fleet Battles is concerned -- I loved that game -- we used to play it all the time. My race of choice was the Kzinti - pseudo-fighters and drones for the win!!

rgard said:
Sabre dance with my D7?

Hydrans, Gorns & Tholians were what I preferred. I have some sneaky-ass victories under my belt.

One thing our group did was use Federation & Empire to do fleet movements, then play out the encounters in SFB.

coriolis · Mar 2, 2015

I never played in a Star Trek RPG -- our group felt more comfortable with fantasy settings --, but I remember leafing through most of a supplement for the Last Unicorn edition at my local gamestore during a rainy afternoon. One of the NPCs struck me as quite memorable: a Vulcan captain who repeatedly enquired as to the emotional status and well-being of his non-Vulcan crew. I always wished a character like that would appear on screen at some point.

Gronin · Mar 2, 2015

Dannyalcatraz said:
Hydrans, Gorns & Tholians were what I preferred. I have some sneaky-ass victories under my belt.

One thing our group did was use Federation & Empire to do fleet movements, then play out the encounters in SFB.

I never did try Federation and Empire but we did have 6 or 7 of us each taking one of the powers and then trying to expand. We had formal written treaties and would move fleets around and then hash out the battles using SFB. As I recall we had one person who would collect the strategic orders and then move the fleets to their new locations. Lots of fun and lots of treachery as alliances were formed and broken.