Has anyone played any of the Star Trek Role-playing games?

[Luther Sloan]

In 1998, Decipher Inc. came out with a Next Generation Roleplaying game. Which was then followed up by a Deep Space Nine game, Original Series book, and a general Trek-verse version (that consists of two books). Well, at the time of their releases I picked up each of these books and have played the TNG roleplaying game with a couple of my buddies before the release of Insurrection in theaters. It was a pretty cool campaign and we had a pretty decent time. Although most of my paper and dice rolling adventures pretty much consisted of Battletech, and Call of Cthulhu. Well, to make a long story short: I pretty much stopped playing roleplaying games after this Trek game. However, some day: I would like to get back to the old days of playing roleplaying games again, though. And I definitely would love to take another crack at bringing out the dice again within the Trek-verse.

Anyways, enough about me. Whether you have played any of the Star Trek roleplaying games or not, please vote and tell us your experience or what you think about Trek's roleplaying games.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

~J.

 

[Luther Sloan]

Wow. No thoughts or opinions? I must be from a different breed from another generation.

 

[StarryEyed]

I'm curious about them but I have never played. I haven't roll-played since AD&D back in 1989.

 

[iguana_tonante]

I've played it quite often (ok, not really a lot, but still more than a few times). It's quite fun on the narrative side and the character creation is very well done.

I would advice for it, especially if you are a first-timer in the RPG. It's fast and easy, and I like that. I will add something tomorrow, as it's very late here.

 

[Vonstadt]

lol I played the very first edition of FASA's in 1983 i think it was. Bought the second edition and even tried the Prime Directive offshoot as source material for the FASA game.

I played Last Unicorn's series of games mostly set during the Dominion War and the peace just after, so i used all of the core books and their materials. Since we kept the game going we bought the Decipher ones for source material.

I prefered LUG's version though FASA really had ship to ship combat down pat, everyone had something to do during a fight.

I recently stopped RP table top as well with life we all eventually drifted away due to family or jobs. I have fond memories and its nice to occasionally stretch the old rp legs in STO.

I would reccomend the LUG version for a beginner, there are still a lot of source material online for it too. FASA and Decipher were fun too by the way

Vons

 

[Joel_Kirk]

I had the TOS role-playing game back in the late 80s/early 90s (the one with Kirk, Spock, and McCoy on the box)....as well as one of the Star Fleet Battles.

 

[Luther Sloan]

Well, I was a narrator or games-master (i.e. keeper) for Call of Cthulhu role playing for at least 6-8 years. Before that I dabbled as a player a little in Star Frontiers, Gamma World, Marvel Superheroes and Dungeons and Dragons.

After all that: I then created one really cool campaign for my friends for the TNG roleplaying game. The problem I noticed was that no one liked being bossed around by a Captain or someone higher in rank than them. Usually, everyone likes doing their own thing (even if it is as a collective group decision) in an adventure. Nobody wants to be told what to do. Even if it is from a Higher Ranking Non Player character that I created.

So after the game: I came to the conclusion that something needed to be done to resolve this issue in order for the players to truly enjoy themselves in a Trek campaign.

Well, recently I came up with a solution for role playing within the Trek-verse. I now believe that in order to have a truly successful and fun Star Trek campaign, you need to make sure that every player is of the same rank and that no Non Player Characters (that I create) push or drag the players along like puppets through out the entire adventure.

Well, if your interested: I came up with a few possibilities for role playing for your characters within the Trek-verse. Your players can be...

1. The Orion Syndicate

2. Section 31

3. A Civilian or Prison Crew that took over a Starfleet starship

4. The Maquis

5. Independent Rebels within the Temporal Cold War

6. Parallel Universe of popular pre-existing characters but they are not a part of a command structure within Starfleet onboard the ship or station

7. Captains of their own Starships within a fleet (where crews are controlled by the Narrator)

8. A group of Xindi bounty hunters

9. Independent leaders on a self sustaining space station that has no clear chain of command.

10. New Genetically engineered soldiers that get developed in another parallel universe.

 

[Vonstadt]

We solved our issue of the higher rank thing, by having all of the player characters start out as fellow grads from the academy, each choosing a seperate specialty running a 'lower decks' feel to the game with the Capt and Department heads being NPC's. Then as the game progressed they grew in rank to eventually become Department heads themselves with the Captian remaining an npc.

Went for several years and we never had an issue

Vons

 

[Luther Sloan]

Yeah, if your players are used to role playing in such a manner. That's cool. I just remember whenever I narrated for Call of Cthulhu: that most of the fun came from my friends (the player characters) actually calling the shots or making their own decisions within a campaign. Sure there was a certain scenario I presented to them. But they were not forced into solving that scenario from some Captain or high ranking officer. They made their own conclusions and decisions on who to trust or listen to. Which made things a lot more interesting and fun (which was rewarding for both me and them).

In other words: they felt like they were contributing to the story, rather than being controlled by it.

Then again, if they weren't used to playing with an independent (i.e. footloose and fancy free) type perspective. I suppose they wouldn't know the difference.

However, again. That's cool they didn't have any problems with that type of role playing style.

 

[Nathan_Heller]

Over the years I have run the FASA, Last Unicorn, and the Decipher Versions.

 

[Arix]

For the past 8-9 months I've been playing a fortnightly D&D campaign with some friends from college, our teacher is the DM, and its heaps of fun.

I have copies of the Trek RPG core books and have read a bit about them, but unfortunately I don't really have any Trekkie friends, so I don't have anyone who'd be interested in playing with me - but hopefully that'll change in the future.

 

[Pauln6]

I was interested in seeing how the new Thousand Suns RPG could be used for Trek. The problem that I found in the past was that my players are used to playing D&D, which involves meting out summary justice to other species and they really struggled with a game where killing was rather discouraged.

I decided that I'd prefer to go with a grittier world with murkier Federation politics and started to stitch together a Trek/B5 hybrid focusing on the key races in each. You can develop quite a varied political landscape in this way with plenty of scope. I went for the TMP era because I liked the look of the tech and the guest aliens in that movie were a bit more unusual than earlier and later incarnations.

I knocked up some character sheets and worked out some stats for the characters from TMP, bought some character figurines from Ebay, but never got much further.

 

[iguana_tonante]

Okay, a bit late but I'm back.

I've mostly played with the Last Unicorn game, and I've found it a lot of fun. As I've said, I like their character creation, which is both flexible enough to create almost every character imaginable, and at the same time they are very much in line with what you would expect from characters in the show.

In fact, my favourite element of the game was that adventures and campaigns were built to resemble episodes and season arcs, adding to the sensation of playing your own Star Trek series, and not just a game in the Star Trek universe. I think this kind of "narrative" approach is very satisfying for people that are Star Trek fans first and role-players second.

Sourcebooks were good, especially the one about Andorians: awesome stuff, and some of it got used on Enterprise as well. It is a shame that many of the planned books never saw the light of the day.

Gameplay is fast and easy, with a very mild learning curve. Rules are easy to understand and to use. As Vonstadt said, I would recommend it to beginners.

As for the managing of players and hierarchy, actually we went against the advices of the game and started with fully developed characters acting as head of departments, including the captain. Sure, nobody likes to be bossed around, but we recognized it was part of the game and accepted it. Maybe it helped that we were all grown adults (even if playing a RPG ), from college age up. Sometimes people went against orders: sometimes they get away from it with a slap on the wrist (in fact, on screen Starfleet has been notorious in forgiving unorthodox but successful behaviours in their officers), or they accepted full responsibilities for their actions. We even played inquiry commissions and martial courts, which just added to the fun because they were a big part of the show anyway.

We even played a game where the ship was used as an experiment of species integration years before the Titan came out with the concept.

However, my largest experience with Star Trek RPGs was with a home-brewed system we developed in years ago. It's a highly flexible system that could be used for virtually every setting, from a very fast-on-its-feet game to a very thorough managing of starship combat. In fact, we ended up using much of the FASA sourcebooks because our game master loves the stuff, even if I never actually played the FASA game.

I never played the Decipher game as well, so I cannot comment on that.

 

[Nardpuncher]

I never played it but I liked the FASA design for their ships that I bought the Starfleet and Klingon ship recognition manuals and the TNG supplement book.

 

[Luther Sloan]

I never did an extensive starship battle sequence (with strategy involved) when I did my one TNG campaign with my friends (using Decipher).

However, I have played Battletech for many many years from FASA and loved it. So if I were to play any of the Star Trek the role playing games again: I would definitely consider using FASA rules for starship combat situations and Decipher for the character side of things.

I think that would be a really cool combination.

So thanks guys!

 

[Luther Sloan]

Oh, and in addition to my return to "Star Trek the role playing game": I think I am leaning in creating a role playing series based on a mix between Deep Space Nine and Voyager. It would be a parallel universe where Sisko, his wife, son, and other DS9 crew members are all a part of the Maquis with no real rank (either due to the situation or the fact that it is a parallel universe). However, Sisko, his wife, and possibly Kira would primarily lead the ship on a natural basis because they were the ones who had helped overtake the few 10-25 remaining Starfleet crew members that were left on board the ship from the Caretaker incident.

Janeway and the majority of her crew somehow end up dying at the hands of this version of the Caretaker and or later by the Vidians (when traveling by shuttle craft) within this universe. The only core Voyager members that would be on board the ship (within this series) would be Harry, Paris, the Holographic Doctor, and eventually Seven of Nine (after enough role playing adventures have past to reach Borg space within the game).

The Narrator would inform his players that the popular crew members they would be playing would be a mix from their own unique family lines (thus why they would think and react totally different than the characters in the Prime Trek Universe). So if a player is a bit of a shoot first and ask questions later type of person within the game and he plays Bashir, he or she would physically be put into Bashir's family blood line or history that would influence his genetic make up within this universe. So the player could pick and choose which character traits he/she would like to emulate within the game or they could just simply be themselves (as that character).

Also, if Sisko and the others survive before they reach Borg space. I think a sacrifice is needed at this point within the game. Either by choice of the characters, dice roll, or some other means. In other words, Sisko should either...

1. Lose his wife to the Borg or
2. Make a deal with the Profits (that could cost him his own life or the life of someone else he loves at some point)

Anyways, if you think this RPG concept series is cool. Please feel free to take it obviously. I am sure it would be a lot of fun to play for many of you out there who are into role playing.

 

[Nathan_Heller]

I have also played "Prime Directive" that was based in Task Force Games' "Star Fleet Battles."

 

[Luther Sloan]

Prime Directive has a pretty cool looking cover, if you ask me.

Side Note:

However, the funny thing is that the Captain (in the above cover) sort of looks like Joe Flanigan (i.e. John Sheppard) on Stargate: Atlantis.

 

[Nathan_Heller]

Prime Directive has a pretty cool looking cover, if you ask me.

Side Note:

However, the funny thing is that the Captain (in the above cover) sort of looks like Joe Flanigan (i.e. John Sheppard) on Stargate: Atlantis.

That is a great cover, but I had the books that didn't have a connection with GURP's.