D&D General Stealing Star Trek lore for my D&D Campaign

[dave2008]

I think you're right about the ship being a big part of the overall Star Trek vibe, but that raises a problem. 5e doesn't really support ship-to-ship combat very well, especially as the ships get bigger and bigger. How to solve that problem?
What if the base was a city, or at least a very large wizard's tower? The party beams out to wherever they're going, has their adventure, then beams back home.

Less ship to ship, but I personally like the idea of a mobile base. I mean most star trek action happened between people on planet or on another ship/space station. Not as much (though some) ship to ship combat.

And, IIRC, there are some decent ship to ship rules for 5e out there.

I'm hesitant to curate the class list, just because I like to see party roles emerge in play. Obviously, there's limits to that. The doctor should probably have healing magic and so on, but I think any class could be captain.

Captain is definitely on of those that could be any class; but a Marshall/Warlord type would be great at it.

 

[Grantypants]

A few monsters in D&D could be compared to the Borg...

My thought was to make the Borg into an undead army. You can preserve the assimilationist aspect of the Borg, plus the horror of seeing your assimilated former allies turn against you.

For the Dominion, I started with Changelings as, well, Changelings. They have a fae connection in D&D, so why not continue that and make Firbolgs their Jem'Hadar? Vorta could be Half-Elves, which is less of a stretch than it sounds. Half-Elves are said to be excellent ambassadors, but otherwise don't have an identity of their own. Similarly, Vorta are clones who are excellent ambassadors for the Dominion. Throw out the mixed-heritage history and they fit quite well.

Romulans are too close to Drow for me to choose anything else, but I could cram in some more plot hooks if I change things a bit. What if the Elf/Drow schism isn't ancient history, but an ongoing societal split between those who choose logic and those who choose emotions?

 

[Jer]

Exploration.

I think you're right about the ship being a big part of the overall Star Trek vibe, but that raises a problem. 5e doesn't really support ship-to-ship combat very well, especially as the ships get bigger and bigger. How to solve that problem?

Star Trek ship-to-ship combat is almost non-existent when you watch the shows - usually it's a few photon torpedoes, some phaser blasts exchanged, and that's about it - there are very few epsiodes where ship-to-ship combat is even very dramatic beyond "we canna take another hit to our shields captain" right before Scotty figures out how they can take another hit to their shields. When you need a dramatic combat it's almost always hand-to-hand combat (at least in the ones that aren't TNG - TNG didn't have the stunt coordinators to do dramatic combat).

I think you could do a flying ship around that model fairly well. I personally think that "exploration" is a huge part of what makes Star Trek Star Trek.

 

[Rogerd1]

I believe Esper Genesis had a good ship-to-ship combat.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

You aren't the first with that idea.

Playable Species

startrekd20.fandom.com

You should warn players XPs reward will be higher if they find solutions without violence, at least with sentient beings.

 

[Stormonu]

The mobile base will work, though an airship or even a sailing vessel would work as well. You can then do as little or as much base/ship combat as you want.

Sounds like the group will primarily be an Away Team, that could free up the base/vessel to be under NPC control dealing with that bureaucracy.

Personally, I'd go with elves as Vulcans; "Spock" would be a half-elf and allows you to use Drow stats for a Romulan race.
Hobgoblins and other goblinoids fit well as Klingons.
Githyanki might be a fit for Cardassians (perhaps with Githzerai as Bajorans? Or Mind Flayers as Cardassians?), though with a lich-queen they might make better borg analogs (especially if one can be transformed into a Githyanki somehow).
Kobolds or possibly Goblins would make a great replacement for Ferengi.
Lizardfolk are obviously Gorn, though Dragonborn might work as well.
Tabaxi could be used for Caitans or Kzinti.
Dwarves for Tellarites.
Tieflings as Andorians?

Overall, a lot of old Trek is Planets of the Hats, with a race embodying some aspect of humanity that is dialed to 11 to allow for social commentary about that aspect. Often, it was only later Trek (such as Deep Space Nine) that started to flesh out alien civilizations beyond a caricature. A lot of Trek is morality plays/quandaries and if not their resolution but shining a light on some social injustice or moral quandary ("Let That be Your Last Battlefield", "Measure of a man", "The City on the Edge of Forever", and "The Wounded" being ones that stand out to me).

 

[aco175]

I can picture an actual sailing ship to fit all the crew and travel around the known cities or out into the island chains to meet new peoples. I could see a caravan doing this as well. Maybe there are trade routes that they follow with the PCs acting as an away team. Something more random like a Baba Yaga Hut thing where the adventuring guild travels around looking for work

 

[toucanbuzz]

Probably not helpful, but I snipe whatever I can from movies and literature to make my gaming world come alive. My upcoming Dragonlance 5E dwarves aren't going to have scottish accents. Their earthly language is harsh, great for opera, and sounds like Klingon.

Otherwise, does a Sigil (Planescape) or Spelljammer atmosphere help, where you have connected planes with your various Star Trek factions, and to navigate to those other places, you can take a ship through the ether, or try your luck at a central "hub" (e.g. Deep Space 9 feel)?

If you're simply going for the politics, largely go with it all as in the shows and there's little adjustment needed. It doesn't take much for you to craft a map with a "neutral" zone and so on.

 

[Grantypants]

Kalashtar are a perfect combination of Betazoids and Trill. They've got the telepathy and psionic power of Betazoids plus the symbiont/host dynamic of Trill.

You could use Warforged to represent the various androids, holograms, robots, synthetics, computers, etc, but Warforged come with too much steampunk baggage. There's not an official 5e update, but I'd really like to see the Shardmind in that role, especially if you lean into the Shardmind as sentient parts of the ship.

There are a bunch of races that could fill the Kelpian niche as vaguely aquatic species in a predator-prey dynamic with another intelligent species. Sahuagin, Grung, Locatha, Yuan-ti. Lots of options. Ba'ul are probably aboleths though.

 

[Voadam]

I've had a player play her half-orc as coming from a specific Orc culture as Klingon based so her office secretary would shout "Stovokor!" whether she was facing undead or University bureaucracy.

It works really well as an Orc characterization hook.

I have played around in my 5e Iron Gods campaign with the concept of having the actual backstory of elves be that they are the descendants of Vulcans who crash landed on the planet ten thousand years ago on the mile long colony ship buried in Golarion's Numeria.