Remembering STAR TREK Roleplaying Games

The first Star Trek game I encountered was Star Trek: The Next Generation which came out in the late 1990s and had a credit list that was something of a Who’s Who list in game design terms. They were all snatched up by WotC when the d20 craze hit, then sacked shortly after before they were then recruited by Decipher for a new game.

The game was fine, and I think fuelled slightly by the demise of GDW (of Traveller fame) a few years before - leaving something of a market for space-faring sci-fi rpgs. The system, based on a simple d6 target system looked a little clunky in places, but worked largely due to the style of gameplay that was encouraged. I liked it, but to be honest, I was never that big into Star Trek as a brand to get that much into it as a game.

As a brand, it shares the dubious distinction of being in and out of RPG licensing deals all the time - a bit like Marvel Superheroes - when a new game comes along every so often with a lot of fanfare, a new system and then disappears shortly after as the company realises it’s too expensive to maintain.

collin said:

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.

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Yeah, I had a deluxe version of the RPG, which came with the combat simulator. You could play it as a hex-and-counter ship combat game, which was fun (I never played SFB, so I've no idea how it compares), or integrate it with the RPG (I never did this, but it looked cool; you could even give each bridge officer a different cardboard control panel for their station; the combined effect of their changes to their "controls" determined how the ship performed).

My memory of the FASA RPG was the excellent (for the time) character creation system, where it got you to generate your PC's career history prior to their current assignment. I guess this was an early example of RPGs getting you to think about your character's back-story as part of the game itself, rather than as an "optional extra".

Koloth said:

We liked to do "Limited Intelligence" scenarios were each side received a sealed envelope that described their ships, bases and victory conditions. Neither side knew at the start what the other side's units or objectives were.

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Dannyalcatraz said:

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

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The diversity and depth of what SFB can do is one of the reasons that it is my favorite game. I think a lot of people miss out on that because of the focus on tournament-style duels.

My group recently finished an extended campaign that started in the Early Years. We used Avalon Hill's old 4x game, Stellar Conquest as the strategic mapboard and secretly, randomly chose empires to play. Fleet movements were represented on the map by anonymous counters, and you didn't who or what you might be facing until they ended up on the same strategic hex. Then it went to a SFB game using limited intel.

We created a set of randomized terrain/circumstances charts for each battle space -- so you could end up fighting in a nebula, near a black hole, with one of the space monsters lurking nearby, or a dozen other possibilities. There was also the chance of a derelict ship from a non-player empire ending up in the battlespace, which gave you something else to fight over, since if you could board it and take it, you could use it in future battles.

We refit the research mechanic of the strategic game so that investments in research simply moved you forward in SFB's timeline of when newer ships became available (year in service).

Mirth said:

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

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

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This is a really fun game that spoofs all the TOS stereotypes. But the best part of it is the awesome paper minis that were created for it.

Morrus said:

That's great for one adventure, but not really something you can repeat.

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Agreed entirely - hence it's place as a story for a convention game only.

A few years ago, I really wanted to try out some Star Trek role-playing, so I bought all of the books made by Decipher, plus a Star Trek atlas. I got my cousin and a friend of ours to try it out. I didn't have a story planned, but I started on a concept while they made characters (one was a security officer, and one was a pilot), and then I improvised the rest.

It started with the standard anomaly in scanner readings from a system which supposedly had no planets, and the star gave signs of being a sort of pulsar. There was also what appeared to only be distorted static but in a pattern which mirrored several known distress signals. Being a Federation ship, of course they investigated.

In system, they discovered an irregular egg-shaped object about half the size of the Galaxy-class El Dorado which served as their vessel. (The runner-up name was the Peter Venkman) The security officer was on the holo-deck, and the pilot was in his quarters when they were called to the ready room. The security officer couldn't get out of the holo-deck as the doors seemed to have been welded shut, but a crew of NPCs managed to cut through. By the time he got to the ready room, computer systems were already having issues, and some of the more sensitive ones were frying.

They discussed several plans, but eventually they were forced to accept the 'Retreat' plan. The crew began repairs, and a couple days later they were ready to go back in to investigate the egg-shaped object when the chief science officer had a disturbing theory based on limited analysis. The star had been firing particles out at a high velocity, and he believed they were phasing in and out, almost like weaving between atoms. They gradually built up everywhere, and computer systems gave early indications due to their sensitivity. That didn't explain the holo-deck door, but it was a start. If that theory was correct, the egg-shaped mass might be a starship which would also explain the distorted distress call. It also meant that they weren't likely to find any survivors, but there was a chance.

We called it there, and we never got back to finish the episode, so even I don't know where it was headed. I do remember that it went well though, and if I can ever find players, I'd be happy to run it again.

I loved the FASA system back in the day. Played a whole lot of that game back in middle and high school using fan conversions to update the TNG Year One Sourcebook to something more current. Great character creation and wonderful supplements but some of the mechanics are a little iffy viewed with modern eyes. I think of probably have about 80% of the FASA stuff.

I have a few of the Last Uncorn books but not many.
I have most of the Decipher Trek stuff and even tried to play it some when I came back from college but the horrible support from Decipher and eventual death of the game soured me on it.
1st edition Prime Dierctive: One of the word RPGs I have ever read.
GURPS Prime Directive: much better than 1st edition, but I wish it was set in the canon trek universe and not the Star Fleet Battles one.
Traveller: Prime Directive: Looking forward to this one but its been delayed years.

Star Fleet Battles: played it in college but It's too complicated to get most poeple to play. Federation Commander is easier...
Call to Arms: Star Fleet: Pretty good but since its in the Star Fleet Battle universe you have to convert stats for almost all canon Trek ships you want to use beyond the Fraz Joseph Tech Manual ships.
Star Trek Assault Wing-interesting take on the Wings of Glory ruleset. I liked it, but strangely not as much as X-wing. That;s probably just a function of available players though.

I loved RPing Trek back in the day and I'm still very fond of the franchise and games but I'm not into it near as much as I used to be. Mostly becuase of the mediocrity of Voyager and Enterprise and the crappiness of Star Trek 09 and Into Darkness.

I played in a great LUG Trek game that I unfortunately had to leave when I moved out of the city. The campaign started on Outpost Zeta 717, which was as important as it sounded. Tucked away in a corner of the quadrant, as much a backwater place as there could be in the Federation. Much of the crew (the PCs, naturally) were misfits or screw-ups in one way or the other, with interesting histories to match. We weren't bad or incompetent or nasty per se, just all "off" compared to the shiny Starfleet norm and ideal.

But funny how little, out of the way places can find intrigue and action when the camera is turned onto them…

For the times I was there, it was an amazing game. It was fun having our crew, during the first gaming session, just start working together because, well, that's what you do when you've been trained as part of Starfleet. We did some Starship combat, we explored nearby planets, hunted Romulans, repaired and investigated things, and endured tense standoffs. And the GM was brilliant, it is one of the few times where she led us all astray and had the entire table of players cheering when she sprung the surprise.* The system worked well enough, and the conceit and trappings of the universe and "crew on a starship/starbase" as a foundation came off like a charm.

That character is one of the ones that lives on in the back of my mind, still running adventures so many years later.

LLAP,

Kannik

* - Our first officer was this complete ditz, always juggling fourteen PADDs and dropping most of them, never putting together a briefing that made any sense, seemingly oblivious, always being chewed out by the captain. Fast forward to where we were being held at phaser-point in an airlock by a gaggle of pirates, all of us players stalling for time and trying to figure something out while the first officer (drunk! after a tour of the mining facility) stumbles about, no one paying her any heed. Without warning, she straightens up, looks at us with a fire in her eyes, yells "Get a move on you lunks!" and pounds the airlock open door and runs out, catching the pirates off guard (and off-helmet). Five seconds of silence and dumfounded faces ensued before the table erupted in cheers. (Followed by many of the PCs scrambling for their own helmets!)

Grainger said:

My memory of the FASA RPG was the excellent (for the time) character creation system, where it got you to generate your PC's career history prior to their current assignment. I guess this was an early example of RPGs getting you to think about your character's back-story as part of the game itself, rather than as an "optional extra".

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Hmmm…..like Traveller, methinks…..the game that essentially invented life path based character generation….

Speaking of Traveller, there has been a longstanding plan to have a Star Fleet Battles setting for the Mongoose Traveller rpg in a similar manner to the d20 and GURPS versions. Mongoose and ADB made a deal for miniatures/rpg ages ago but they’ve yet to get round to the RPG. In the likely event that a new fully published Star Trek RPG is a long way off, this may be a good port of call for many Traveller/Trek fans.

TrippyHippy said:

Hmmm…..like Traveller, methinks…..the game that essentially invented life path based character generation….

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Oh right, I didn't know that - I never played Traveller, so ST RPG was my first exposure to this. It was still ahead of most other RPGs in this respect, if not the first to go into character background mechanically.