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

[Grantypants]

I'm considering a new campaign premise and I'm looking for some advice. I want to run a 5e campaign inspired by Star Trek, but maintaining the general fantasy trappings of D&D. So, no space travel and everything sci-fi works by magic instead of by tech. The various alien cultures can mix and match up fairly well with existing D&D races. Elves and Vulcans are both aloof, long-lived people with pointy ears who had a mostly evil splinter group split off and form its own culture. Ferengi and Kobolds are both short and greedy, especially if you play up the desire to be like dragons and build a hoard of gold(-pressed latinum). How else would you mix and match D&D and Star Trek lore?

(I'm aware that there's a perfectly good Star Trek Adventures RPG, but I don't want to play Star Trek, I want to play in a fantasy setting based on Star Trek.)

What are the key aspects that would make this feel like Star Trek without the sci-fi? These are the ones I've identified so far.
Techno-utopianism. Or here I suppose it would be Arcano-utopianism. But the idea that there is a society where people can set aside their differences and live together in harmony. The crew represents that society in conflicts with the wider world.
Post-capitalism. The crew isn't doing their work to get paid, but because they agree with the ideals of the Federation and have an important job to do.
There is always a nonviolent solution. This is the ideal that gets pushed to the side from time to time. The goal is always to find a peaceful solution, but in practice that doesn't always work out.
The crew are the good guys. Even when they do morally grey things, that weighs heavily on them. There's self-reflection on whether each crew person is being the best person they can be.

What other pros or cons do you see with this plan? I'm going to be upfront with the players about what I'm doing, and I'm going to tell them all this before we even get to Session Zero. That should ensure that I get good players who are interested in this concept and presumably who have seen enough Star Trek for this shortcut to save me time on exposition. And this is just for my home game, so I'm not concerned with copyright status on anything.

 

[payn]

Have you ever looked at Starfinder at all? Might be some good ideas to mine there.

 

[Umbran]

How else would you mix and match D&D and Star Trek lore?

Orcs and Klingons align well, and Hobgoblins with Cardassians.

 

[dave2008]

Dragonborn = Gorn. I've always wanted more Gorn.

 

[dave2008]

I like the idea in general, but I am a little confused by the concept. So before I get more into a response, please make sure I understand this correctly:

You want a Federation / Star Trek style society and adventure, but without spaceships and technology. So...

• No space travel?
• No future/modern tech. D&D tech and magi-tech only?
• The exploration is of the world
• The PCs are the crew of a ship (sea or sky or land) that is exploring the world
• The PCs are "good"
• The PCs are part of social republic that has relative peace and harmony
• You want to replace Star Trek race with D&D races or are you looking for D&D races that are good mechanical fit for Star Trek races?

Is that basically correct?

 

[Grantypants]

I like the idea in general, but I am a little confused by the concept. So before I get more into a response, please make sure I understand this correctly:

You want a Federation / Star Trek style society and adventure, but without spaceships and technology. So...

• No space travel?
• No future/modern tech. D&D tech and magi-tech only?
• The exploration is of the world
• The PCs are the crew of a ship (sea or sky or land) that is exploring the world
• The PCs are "good"
• The PCs are part of social republic that has relative peace and harmony
• You want to replace Star Trek race with D&D races or are you looking for D&D races that are good mechanical fit for Star Trek races?

Is that basically correct?

Yes, that pretty well sums it up. I'm looking for ways to mix and match Star Trek lore with D&D lore and/or game mechanics to create new and interesting combinations.

 

[dave2008]

I like the idea. I don't see any real issues with this concept. A couple of comments:

• People familiar with Star Trek may be a hard time getting used to the arcane replacement of tech. But maybe not.
• A big part of Star Trek (at least for me) is the ship. You need to have a cool ship, sort of a moving home base
• You may want to curate your class list. Keep to Star Trek tropes
  • Captain: not sure - rogue, paladin, other
  • Security: fighter, other?
  • Doctor: cleric
  • Science: wizard
  • Communications: bard, rogue

 

[Kobold Avenger]

A few monsters in D&D could be compared to the Borg, to many Borgs are cyborg-zombies because thematically it can be like a zombie-movie with drones stalking around like in First Contact. But beyond zombies there's often lawful beings like Modrons or Formians which have a hivemind. Many of them though aren't as expansionist as the Borg in Star Trek are. The Clockwork Horrors or Witchlight Marauders from Spelljammer might (though very different in form) be closer to the Borg in how they operate.

The Dominion has three main races with the Jem'hadar, Vorta and Changelings/Founders. It was mostly formed out of the Founders need to ensure the safety of their people by conquering other races. The Founders could be Doppelgangers or they could be more like Mimics as they are essentially oozes in their natural forms. Instead of the Gamma Quadrant they could be from somewhere like Shadowfell instead. Many obviously wouldn't trust beings who could shapeshift like them. So they have a warrior race like the Jem'hadar that worships them and they control with drugs to keep others in line, with the Jem'hadar being like a number of reptilian races in D&D including Lizardfolk, Yuan-Ti or the anti-divine magic Sarkrith. And finally the Vorta could be a race of spellcasters/warlocks or "pureblood" Yuan-Ti who are the overseers to the warriors.

It's being pointed out by some that the Romulan Elnor has a name that translates to "Star Trek" in Sindarin Elvish. He is associated with a group called the Qowat Milat, basically Romluan sword nuns (so likely Monks in D&D), which some have compared to Dune's Bene Gesserit though I think they're ideologically the opposite of them. Dune's BG are all about lying and manipulating, while the QM is about Absolute Candor making generally the opposite of Romulan society which is focused on secrets with things like fake doors to homes being standard and Romulans having secret names they only share with those they love/trust.

 

[Rogerd1]

Dark Matter might be the game for you then, with that entire premise.

 

[Grantypants]

I like the idea. I don't see any real issues with this concept. A couple of comments:

• People familiar with Star Trek may be a hard time getting used to the arcane replacement of tech. But maybe not.
• A big part of Star Trek (at least for me) is the ship. You need to have a cool ship, sort of a moving home base
• You may want to curate your class list. Keep to Star Trek tropes
  • Captain: not sure - rogue, paladin, other
  • Security: fighter, other?
  • Doctor: cleric
  • Science: wizard
  • Communications: bard, rogue

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.

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.