innerdude
Legend
- 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.