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Message: <blockquote data-quote="aramis erak" data-source="post: 9727768" data-attributes="member: 6779310">I'll note that Star Trek, despite the "Forehead Aliens", really does imply several significant differences, and the games have tried to reflect that. FASA STRPG, the Vulcans were rather impressive, but they weren't that fun to play, because everyone knew you had to play a stuck up mind-reading snob. (This was Pre TNG, timewise) Note that ability scores don't impact skills in FASA.LUG, the modifiers were pretty potent, because the ability score ranges were so narrow to begin with, but it's also important to note that they're mostly sub-attributes being modified, and the rare maximum attribute change (Vulcan's Fitness starts at 2 like most others; the tellarites have the unusual starting of Fitness 3... and both Tellarites and Vulcans can get to 6... but thanks to the Strength+1 edge, a Vulcan at 6 is better than a tellarite at 6 in the strength affected fields. Klingons, like Tellarites, are Fitness 3 (max 6), but with Vitality 2 instead of the vulcan Strength +1. And the Klingons also take it in the shorts on logic; Their int is actually wider (2 base, 6 max), but the Logic -2 edge is impairing research...STA has pretty stiff modifiers, a +2 and a +1, or in a few, 3×+1 on a 4-12 scale for attributes (humans 6-10). PD1 sets your starting attributes by species. 3 is typical. But some species start at 6 or 7, and several have 1's. In PD1, LUG, and STA, the attributes have major capability impact. but they also include decent lore synopses, and STA and PD1 both have special abilities of note, too. It's also worth noting that the  species in PD1 are not from the broader Star Trek setting; only those from TOS and TAS, and not even all of the TAS ones, are in PD1.Ability Scores encoding huge effects on skills, it really does shape player behavior in a point build system, and only FASA and Heritage (and the Japanese Enterprise) plus the modern fan done oness are using random ability scores. I'll note as well: STA is thriving despite there being a trio of Prime Directive games,  two very good free Trek RPGs (WNMHGB, Far Trek), two commercial Trek-Likes available (Starships & Spacemen 1e and 2e), and fan ports to a dozen other systems. The thing that makes it work is that Trek is so very popular, and there's loads of beta cannon, that the ASIs for species are well supported; Humans are, typically, middle of the road at everything.</blockquote>

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