What's the best system for doing Star Trek?

fjw70 · Jun 4, 2015

Is it one of the official ones or some other system hack?

innerdude · Jun 4, 2015

I thought about this a bit during the "Why isn't there an official Trek system?" thread. For me it would come down to the the type of game I wanted to run.

If you were wanting to run a character-driven, plot heavy game, I'd absolutely go with Fate. @Umbran has been talking about the Atomic Robo rule system based on Fate, and a lot of what he's described makes it sound like a good fit for this kind of game. Cortex+ would also be a viable alternative if you were willing to "hack" the system (i.e., take the Firefly Cortex+ game and revamp it). I think there's a lot of similarities in the style of gameplay these two systems are trying to accomplish.
For a more "there's a mystery on Planet X and we have to solve it," I'd go with Ashen Stars.
For a more action-oriented, "away team commandos" or "fringe spacers" type of game, I'd go with Savage Worlds + SciFi Companion + Last Parsec campaign setting.
If you want realistic, "hard"-ish sci-fi, go with GURPS + Prime Directive source book.

If I personally made the choice, it would be a tossup between Fate and Ashen Stars.

Umbran · Jun 4, 2015

innerdude said:
I thought about this a bit during the "Why isn't there an official Trek system?" thread. For me it would come down to the the type of game I wanted to run.

If you were wanting to run a character-driven, plot heavy game, I'd absolutely go with Fate. @Umbran has been talking about the Atomic Robo rule system based on Fate, and a lot of what he's described makes it sound like a good fit for this kind of game.

Specifically, if you want to run Trek-style science, Atomic Robo has a subsystem that may serve well. In this system the GM does *not* have to determine beforehand how a piece of tech or science works. The GM presents the visible phenomenon (say, for example, an aggressive herd of giant ants), and the players get to figure out how/why the ants are giant, and what that means in terms of dealing with said phenomena. I don't have the rulebook at hand, and I'd want to double check a detail or two before outlining it. But it gets the whole issue of having coherent science off the GM's plate. The players manage all the pseudoscientific gobbledigook for you, and if you have the right kind of players, they have a lot of fun with it.

Atomic Robo also has a concept of something other than the characteres that can take a hit for the PCs. In AR, it is an organization - players can have the organization they work for take "consequences" for them. This is pretty easily be slipped to it being a ship. If negotation fails, and a fight breaks out, instead of someone getting killed in the fight, the ship can take a consequence "warp drive offline", which has repercussions for the story going forward, without it falling on individuals. Or, you can still have someone specific take the hit in a ship-combat, and have Ensign Monroe zapped and flying across the bridge when an EPS conduit blows out...

Morrus · Jun 4, 2015

I use a thing called Technobabble in N.E.W. You get to generate a random technobabble phrase and use it to solve a problem in a scientific manner.

fjw70 · Jun 4, 2015

Umbran said:
Specifically, if you want to run Trek-style science, Atomic Robo has a subsystem that may serve well. In this system the GM does *not* have to determine beforehand how a piece of tech or science works. The GM presents the visible phenomenon (say, for example, an aggressive herd of giant ants), and the players get to figure out how/why the ants are giant, and what that means in terms of dealing with said phenomena. I don't have the rulebook at hand, and I'd want to double check a detail or two before outlining it. But it gets the whole issue of having coherent science off the GM's plate. The players manage all the pseudoscientific gobbledigook for you, and if you have the right kind of players, they have a lot of fun with it.

Atomic Robo also has a concept of something other than the characteres that can take a hit for the PCs. In AR, it is an organization - players can have the organization they work for take "consequences" for them. This is pretty easily be slipped to it being a ship. If negotation fails, and a fight breaks out, instead of someone getting killed in the fight, the ship can take a consequence "warp drive offline", which has repercussions for the story going forward, without it falling on individuals. Or, you can still have someone specific take the hit in a ship-combat, and have Ensign Monroe zapped and flying across the bridge when an EPS conduit blows out...

Would these science rules be convertible to other systems?

fjw70 · Jun 4, 2015

Morrus said:
I use a thing called Technobabble in N.E.W. You get to generate a random technobabble phrase and use it to solve a problem in a scientific manner.

Also interesting.

aramis erak · Jun 4, 2015

fjw70 said:
Is it one of the official ones or some other system hack?

Depends widely upon one's tastes. My preference is based upon the kinds of Trek games I like to run - military oriented action-adventure. And for that, I prefer Prime Directive 1E.

Hacking Star Wars (d6 or FFG), EABA, Firefly, Leverage, Savage Worlds or Fate Core would all be viable options - as good as any published version. (Personally, I cannot stand Savage Worlds. but it's not a bad choice.)

Note also: the only official ones in print at present are the various Prime Directive versions other than 1E... and no prime directive version covers even the movies, let alone TNG or later series. (Their license doesn't even allow the iconic characters from TOS. It does allow all the TOS hardware and all the material in the SFTM.)

fjw70 · Jun 4, 2015

Thanks for the replies. My thought has always been that any sci-fi system could handle ST fine. IMo there is nothing in ST that couldn't be handled with a wide array of RPGs. Star Wars is different in that the Force can be more difficult with some systems but even that can be done in multiple systems.

I would probably use Star Frontiers. The Knight Hawks expansion isn't too far from ST (e.g. United Planetary Federation instead of United Federation of Planets).

It is interesting to get other perspectives.

Umbran · Jun 4, 2015

fjw70 said:
Would these science rules be convertible to other systems?

In some way, yes. Basically, the players go through a (perhaps mildly competitive) process where they try to determine what's going on. The result is a statement that is considered true in the game world, and can be used for a bonus on die rolls to deal with the situation.

So, you may need to modify the skill process, and determine what that bonus should be in your desired system of choice.

When I am home and have some time to review the details, I'll outline it in more detail.

innerdude · Jun 5, 2015

aramis erak said:
(Personally, I cannot stand Savage Worlds. but it's not a bad choice.)

LOL, ironically I would say the exact same thing about GURPS Prime Directive. I really dislike GURPS as a system, but for the right type of Trek game, it would be a very good choice.

Though having just Googled it, I didn't realize there's a D20 Modern version of Prime Directive as well.......and, well, that's just about the worst idea for a Trek game I can think of. Having had some experience with D20 Modern it's just a bad system to begin with, I don't care what coat of paint you put on it. There's way, way too much D&D detritus attached to that system.

(Also had to step in and defend my beloved Savage Worlds. I'm a huge fan and think it's a fantastic system. But as much as I love it, it wouldn't be my first choice to run a Star Trek game.)