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I need this so badly in my life. Gonna probably buy all 4 volumes in due time, but I can't wait to start with the TOS one!
Ah. I was confused, I read a news article that said you could play a different era depending on what type insignia was on the cover, i.e. TOS logo = 23rd century stories. While I'm sure you can still play multiple eras, it's nice to know you only have to buy one copy.
Yeah, the news article was inaccurate. The game supports any era of play, any timeline, any series. Just the covers are different.
I got the TOS one. It's just so crazy and yellow. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. I had a small part to play with making it, so I'm biased. I was too busy to read the drafts of everything that came in during the production process, so I saw the whole thing with fresh eyes on release day. The rules (I had nothing to do with them) are so streamlined. And the options for characters? You get virtually EVERYTHING.
Haven't read a choose your own adventure book series since some YA Star Wars Clones Wars books way back in like 2002/3.
I saw on Amazon the interior shots of the book were largely TNG era, how is most of the book presented? I'm ok with any era, but it would bug my OCD tendencies to get the TOS version, and then have all of the interior drawings, etc., be from TNG, so would like the cover chosen to be the one most consistent with the rest of the book.
We cover pretty much every series in the book, from ENT to TOS to DSC to Lower Decks, TNG, DS9, etc. Art for all. The overall layout is series-agnostic and carries a (hopefully) universal Trek feel.
Well, I'm about a month late, and I confess I haven't visited here in a while, so I was quite surprised that this came out. I would have thought algorithms would have made it show up on amazon for me, which is how I came across it...but it's only been just now. Has anyone tried it yet? I've dabbled just a little in solo-rpg type gaming. I spent some time a couple years ago learning the Mythic GM Emulator, played a really fun (but journaling-heavy) Doctor Who solo game, and played/read game-books from the 80's; the ones that are quite a lot like a choose-your-own-adventure. Has anyone played this yet? How does it compare to what I've mentioned above that are in the same vein of solo rpg-ing, if anyone has experience with some of these variations? Edited to Add: I already ordered it, 'cause the game material put out previously has been great, I was just curious about what people think of it while I wait for it to arrive. I was also really surprised and excited to see a Lower Decks campaign guide?! Never got the impression that was in the works (because of weird compartmentalizing right issues with the streaming shows?) but I think that's cool and such a fun idea.
I just did my first playthrough. I have 40+ years of RPG experience, but very little with solo RPGs. Just this, and a couple of small journaling games. So a more experienced player would perhaps have been better able to deal with some of the issues below. I enjoyed it, at least after I felt like I got the hang of it. Before that I was pretty confused about how to progress the story. A couple of things contributed to that. First, I wasn't sure if or how much I was meant to be progressing towards a known outcome. In my playthrough, I rolled a mission of Conspiracy (Official bribed). Was I supposed to have already figured out whodunnit, and push my character and scenes in that direction? But if I'm doing that, why not just write a short story instead? Or was I meant to have this conspiracy reveal itself to me via random rolls as I played through? That seems more game-like, but it's also really hard to make that work. Like, would I need to create a bunch of NPCs, each with plausible motivations, etc., then randomize at the end who the actual bad guy was? (I ended up closer to the former than the latter). Also, I think the game defaulting to having you play the captain is sub-optimal. The sweet spot is probably first officer. As a captain, you are likely delegating most things. You're not the person heading the away mission, you aren't personally firing the main phasers or manning the helm, etc. So your own personal stats, which you spent all that time generating, become less useful. You're just using the ship/department stats over and over. Or else you have to contrive reasons why you as captain are doing all these things yourself. As first officer you'd have a lot more ready-made reasons to be down on the planet, mixing it up with the NPCs directly, etc. The book mentions multiple times that you can play as any sort of officer you want, in any kind of fleet, but it defaults to captain (it's the name of the game!), and I think that's a mistake for a solo Star Trek game. The book could really use an extended example of play. Not just showing you how to roll on the tables and set up the first scene, which the book does fairly well (and which is also covered in blogs and on youtube), but actually walking you through playing an entire act, let's say. There's a lot of advice in the book about how to structure scenes and stories as if you were a screenwriter working on a episode of the show, but this isn't a screenplay, where you control all the dials, and you know where the story is headed at all times. How do you write/play an open-ended story with enough plot structure to keep the action going but without knowing how it will all play out? Or alternatively, how do you make this a game rather than a writing exercise if you know (or at least have an idea about) how things end? The book could also use literally any discussion at all of hand phasers or disruptors or what have you. I know combat is supposed to be abstract, and I definitely do not want rules about phase pistols vs. TNG dustbuster phasers. But I found myself in a situation where I obviously would have just stunned a bad guy, and found that there was nothing in the combat rules in between Kirk-fu and photon torpedoes. As I say, once I was able to get into the swing of things, I enjoyed it, and will definitely try another playthrough. I might demote my captain, though!
How well do these tie into the rest of Star Trek Adventures material? I bought a number of the books a few months ago, but getting a party of people interested enough to playing a Star Trek game has proven difficult... I'd be curious in trying out the solo version, at least so I can familiarize myself with the material.
You can use all of the STA material* with Captain's Log. We intentionally designed it that way. * The only thing that might not port over all that usefully are the Red Alert miniatures combat rules that were released in 2018 or thereabouts. Not needed with CL, though there might be some concepts you could fold into a CL story if you wanted.
I was just coming here to post about needing a solo TOS RPG to play. I'm going to investigate this but I really need any help I can get.
I just got the DS9 version, maybe here at some point we could do a group play based on our rolls and see how it turns out?
I'm guessing there are no digital options for these books? I have The Sciences Division Supplemental Rulebook on my shelf. Can't read more than a page or so at a time, due to getting older.
Hi Bill, if you have the print edition, send a picture of it to support@modiphius.com and they'll email you the PDF for freel PDFs of all the STA products are available on the modiphius.us or modiphius.net webstores. You get the PDF free with any print purchase, no matter where you purchased it.