Why no official game?

[innerdude]

• RPGs in general are highly self-selective.
• Science fiction is the second most popular genre for RPGs, but still a distant second from fantasy.
• Star Trek is a somewhat specialized science fiction universe. Even if someone is a fan of sci-fi generally, he or she may not care for Star Trek. My wife is a perfect example, she loves Star Wars and Chronicles of Riddick, but couldn't care less about "classic" Star Trek. And to be honest, she's probably the exact type of person the new J.J. Abrams movies were targeting for their audience (she really liked both of the new Trek movies).

Even for me, someone who enjoys all of Star Trek's encompassing genre, is intimately familiar with Star Trek's most popular incarnation (The Next Generation), and loves RPGs, I personally don't have a burning affinity to roleplay in that universe. And now this thread has got me thinking why.......

An issue I just thought of now is that compared to other sci-fi sub-genres, Trek is firmly regimented into its core conceit of "hop on a starship, go exploring." It doesn't lend itself to playing edge-of-the-galaxy smugglers.......or becoming involved in deep seated galactic political issues......or fighting a rebellion against a galactic empire......

Another train of thought---the whole concept of transporters/"beaming up" makes a lot of difficult tactical situations an "easy out." Get into trouble? It's okay, you just beam out of the situation! How many adventure hooks in Star Trek are absolutely contingent on the inability of the crew to simply beam out of trouble? Lots. And lots. And lots. It's basically the equivalent of giving level 0 D&D characters free access to an at will, world-wide Teleport spell.

Then throw in the technology gobbledy-gook factor mentioned by Umbran, where solutions to problems often seem to be Deus Ex Dilithium Crystallia (really, how many ways do dilithium crystals play a factor in saving the universe?).....and yeah, it really would take a specifically-designed RPG system to pull it together.

 

[Morrus]

It's always struck me as odd that fantasy is so much more popular as an RPG, but sci-fi rules the movie roost.

 

[billd91]

It's always struck me as odd that fantasy is so much more popular as an RPG, but sci-fi rules the movie roost.

I think some of it may stem from innerdude's gobbledy-gook factor. Fantasy has its different sub-genres, but not many of them explain things in the movies with any kind of consistency. So it's very easy to paper over with things being "magic".

Sci-fi is derived with the conceit that there's a consistency - a "science" behind the "fiction" - that underlies the story. Much of what ends up on screen ends up being science fantasy anyway and any difference in explanation is handled by the writers if it's handled at all. But in an RPG, that burden falls more on the gaming group (whether GMs or players). To feel sufficiently sci-fi, we have to spew the gobbledy-gook about tachyon emissions, wormholes, stargates, blah blah blah. And that's a heavier burden, I think, than most fantasy.

 

[Umbran]

An issue I just thought of now is that compared to other sci-fi sub-genres, Trek is firmly regimented into its core conceit of "hop on a starship, go exploring." It doesn't lend itself to playing edge-of-the-galaxy smugglers.......or becoming involved in deep seated galactic political issues......or fighting a rebellion against a galactic empire......

I'm re-watching ST: DS9 (with my wife, for whom it is a first pass). And, while I can agree that in people's minds the above may be true, the series did a fine job of much of the above, while still clearly remaining Trek.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

An issue I just thought of now is that compared to other sci-fi sub-genres, Trek is firmly regimented into its core conceit of "hop on a starship, go exploring." It doesn't lend itself to playing edge-of-the-galaxy smugglers.......or becoming involved in deep seated galactic political issues......or fighting a rebellion against a galactic empire......

In short, Star Trek is a galaxy of unexplored potential because of the absolute inability to EXCLUDE the involvement of Star Fleet in any narrative for the setting. It's a setting with interesting technology and political situations, but there is absolutely no exploration of what that world looks like from ANY point of view except that of a Star Fleet crewman. Where are the stories that are STRICTLY about colonies or Federation member planets, or interplanetary merchants that DON'T have Star Fleet stomping through the plot with spiked size 13's?

 

[Koloth]

I'm interested. I imagine I'm not special or unique. Star Trek Into Darkness made nearly half a billion dollars, so it certainly has an audience. Much more obscure stuff gets RPGs all the time. Nah, it's not about lack of interest.

And I think this is why there is little interest at Paramount in a ST-RPG reboot. They can make 10s or 100s of millions in profit from one movie. They might make 10s or 100s of thousands from a RPG license. This is why WOTC/Hasbro keeps trying to make a GOOD D&D movie. The profits from one good movie would likely exceed their profits from the last several years of D&D publishing.

 

[innerdude]

In short, Star Trek is a galaxy of unexplored potential because of the absolute inability to EXCLUDE the involvement of Star Fleet in any narrative for the setting. It's a setting with interesting technology and political situations, but there is absolutely no exploration of what that world looks like from ANY point of view except that of a Star Fleet crewman. Where are the stories that are STRICTLY about colonies or Federation member planets, or interplanetary merchants that DON'T have Star Fleet stomping through the plot with spiked size 13's?

While I agree with you, @Umbran, that you CAN tell stories outside of the core Trek "space exploration" narrative, @Man in the Funny Hat nails it on the head here.

There's no reason to play a Star Trek RPG if you're not interested in playing from the perspective of Starfleet. It's the "raison d'etre" of the entire Trek paradigm.

And that paradigm follows a very specific narrative format. And maybe it's a matter of personal taste, but to me if you're not interested in following that format, there's not much value in a Trek RPG. A less narrowly focused system works much better for "Smugglers & Spaceships."

And I think for me, this probably encapsulates why I don't have a burning desire to play a Trek RPG. The paradigm for challenge resolution for "Starfleet exploration" stories simply doesn't mesh with the vast majority of "traditional" RPG roots.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Real sci-fi is hard (hard sci-fi, that is). Most sci-fi is just fi; it's fantasy in space, pretending to be science-based but actually not. Star Trek may pretend to be all sciency with its gobbeldey-gook explanations where Star Wars makes due with a hand wave (pre-midicholrians, anyway) but that doesn't make it any less science fantasy than Star Wars. Trek is just trying to pretend it is something other than what it is.

Doesn't make any of it any less fun, mind you -- but I find the Sci-FI vs. Fantasy debates (like Trek vs Wars) both endlessly fascinating and equally useless.

 

[Umbran]

There's no reason to play a Star Trek RPG if you're not interested in playing from the perspective of Starfleet. It's the "raison d'etre" of the entire Trek paradigm.

Did you watch DS9? Major Kira, Odo, Quark, and Garak - all major players in the show, but not a one of them in Starfleet. They interact with Starfleet on a regular basis, yes, but that is by no means the show's only perspective. Much of the value in the series, in fact, is stepping outside the all-Starfleet all-the-time view.

You may find it silly to use a Trek game if you aren't intending to have any Starfleet involvement. But, to many folks, playing a Star Wars game with no Jedi PCs seems similarly silly - after all, the movies and TV shows are set solidly surrounding the story of the Jedi. They are the similar raison d'etre of the Star Wars saga.

 

[aramis erak]

Maybe the answer lies in the track record of other licensed games. While there are still plenty out there, how well are they really doing? The recent Marvel one barely seemed to get off the ground before that license was gone. At least one LotR license RPG fizzled out. Star Wars, probably the most evergreen of licenses, rapidly cycled through 3 systems, the license was allowed to lapse, and is now on a 4th incarnation in 15 years. The DC license with Green Ronin was over pretty quickly (though I would say it was well-managed). Are licenses really as attractive now as they once were?

Note that the license pull for Marvel happened almost immediately before the announcement of the sale of Marvel to Disney... and there were also approval issues. The designer, Cam Banks, is still peeved to the point he won't discuss it publicly. MWP's president has stated it wasn't a sales issue - it sold faster than anything else they've done - and that it wasn't MWP's fault.

The LOTR by Decipher fizzled (at the same time as their ST one) due to financial difficulties. Plus, simply put, Decipher had covered all the mechanical bases pretty well, but had opted for NO adventure content in their ST line (despite it having sold well enough for LUG), and very little for their LOTR. They had 2 years left on their license when they produced their last books for the ST RPG. But they were also going down the tubes financially, due to embezzlement by the CFO. Their multiple line failures was due to finances. And to be blunt, they were NOT a good RPG company, period... they were a CCG company who managed to get a chance to outbid the RPG holder because the licensor wanted to consolidate both into one license.

Firefly sells well enough - MWP puts out a product every 2-6 months or so.

Dr Who is the #1 seller for Cubicle 7. The One Ring is also a strong seller. Both are a couple years old.

Green Ronin seems to be doing well enough with DragonAge. Decent system, reasonably well supported. (3 boxes and counting, several adventures.)

DC and Marvel both have the issue that the license includes nasty bits of continuity checking with some of the most poorly delineated canons out there. ISTR that GR's DCU RPG was licensed just BEFORE the New 52 was announced. And recall hearing much annoyance that they weren't allowed to update for the new 52... And a license for an older canon than the current one is often not grounds for commercial success.