The Far Trek RPG: TNG?

[Redshirt214]

Has anyone done work to convert Far Trek to the TNG era, and if so could you share what your changes were with me?

Having looked over the rules, I think few changes would be needed to make it compatible with the Next Gen era, there is of course the fluff around the division colors and some of the status of the politics which are different from the TOS days (notably, I'd think that Klingons would have to be a playable Federation race, whilst of course the Klingon Empire still exists there are non-Empire Klingons like Worf out there in the Next Gen era, so there's no reason they couldn't be PCs). Weapons stats could stay the same, since the power of phasers is mostly measured against the relative power of primitive weapons anyways, and TNG actually did have a Type 1 phaser, albeit it wasn't used much.

The biggest change I can think of would be in terms of ship stats. The Miranda class, at least, is stated already and I think that you could get away with one of the endless Regula type Starbases of TNG as a reskining of K7. I'd like to avoid reinventing the wheel, if at all possible, so if someone has stats already for later era ships I'd be interested. I'm also contemplating doing what TNG on a rare occasion did and including armed shuttlecraft, has anyone stated those yet? I envision my players, who would probably be ensigns or something anyways, flying about in shuttles and maybe trading pot shots with a Bird of Prey from time to time...

 

[ThrorII]

Conversion would be pretty easy.

Ship weapon/shield/speed stats can be swapped out almost verbatim (use the Federation class info for Galaxy class, Constitution class info for Excelcior, etc.) As long as the ship info is internally consistent between ships for the era, it works.

Transporters, tricorders, etc. all work basically the same. They can be used as-is.

Class-colors are an easy change (swapping yellow for red).

Skills are the same.

The major issue is creating new NG trope talents. "Ripped Shirt" is a TOS trope, for example, which doesn't have a history in NG.

 

[Redshirt214]

In terms of the trope talents, do you think they could simply be dropped without unbalancing things? I think "Red Shirt", "Ripped Shirt", "Life of Riley", and "Random Redshirt Tables" could be eliminated but other wise not much would have change. I think one might have to leave the Vulcan talents in as, even though of course Vulcans played a more central role in the TOS than TNG, it's not like you couldn't find a Vulcan ensign on the 1701-D if you looked. Does TNG ever show that weird healing trance thing Spock did? I'm pretty sure that only ever appears in the TOS. I suppose one could have additional talents incorporating things like "Cybernetic Enhancements" to simulate the VISOR (which could act as a core stat boost), or something about "Cultural Heritage" to take tropes from Worf et al . Can't think of much else?

 

[Redshirt214]

If I'm reading the rules right, in terms of space combat the only thing that really matter are the speeds, the shield rating, and the weapons right? The rest is basically fluff, though I'm not quite certain if the crew size\breakdown isn't somehow important?

Otherwise, as you said, it seems as simple matter to convert to TNG standards.

 

[ThrorII]

Correct on space combat: Speed, Weapon Ratings, and Shield Ratings are all that matter. It's rules light.

You could drop some of the talents that seem TOS specific. I'd urge you to figure out some NG tropes to replace them with. Talents are one of the things that help distinguish characters and improve them.

 

[ThrorII]

An example of a NG trope might be "Shakespearean Captain" (Picard) or "State the Obvious" (Troi, and sometimes Data).

 

[Redshirt214]

So I'm working on writing up a supplement for Far Trek TNG, and I was thinking of adding a new class to the game, the "Cadet" class, that would allow new players to try out some different roles over the course of a few sessions before deciding on a more permanent class. I've written two versions of the rules, but I need someone else to take a look and tell me which they think is better\less game breaking.

"Cadets, are those crew members who are still finishing their courses at Starfleet Academy (senior cadets are expected to do some space duty before graduation), and haven't picked a division yet. Characters who are Cadets must start the game as Cadets.

1.) Cadets are a special class: they can only choose from the general talents list, since they haven't been fully trained or picked a division to specialize in yet. They can spend 3 XP to graduate and become an Ensign, afterwords they pick a class and progress as normal.

A.) Cadets are a special class: they may choose from any of the class talent lists. They are promoted to Ensign by spending 3 XP, and then can choose any class whilst retaining their previously acquired talent. If Cadets decide to concentrate on acquiring more class talents before promotion, these talents must be in the same class as their initial class talent."

I figured setting the advancement at 3 XP is a good start since the intent is that after three sessions a player would be able to advance to Ensign and choose a permanent class the player having decided what they'd like to do from then on. I'm not sure if making Cadet a more restricted but Tell me, which is a better rule, 1 or A?

 

[ThrorII]

I'd say Rule 1. Otherwise, Cadets are more versatile than standard classes.

 

[Redshirt214]

That was sort of my worry, thanks for the input. I'll have to go with rule #1, then. Thanks for the input. When I'm finally done writing up my supplement, would you be willing to give it a once over?

 

[ThrorII]

Sure.

 

[Redshirt214]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mJyVYfbsULYnfbzTRh3_WIAWjKZNE-8X/view?usp=sharing

For all those who are interested, I now have a supplement covering Far Trek in the TNG era, which Thororll helped me craft! It has several new alien species, new classes for PC's, and new talents to fit the Next Gen theme. For simplicities sake, I focused the adaption on the early TNG era of 2264, so others are welcome to write additional adaptations for later Next Gen or later shows (that probably deserve their own rulesets unto themselves).

 

[Redshirt214]

Hello all! It's been a bit...

My TNG Far Trek game went well, and I'm thinking as a holiday treat doing a one shot set in the Dominion War era.

The tricky bit is, I want to do some ship combat because we never wound up using the ship combat. What I wanted to run a "Little Ships of Dunkirk" inspired thing with Runabouts. I'm not sure exactly how I'd do that, since the original Far Trek didn't ever contemplate anything smaller than a Miranda ever seeing combat. They'd be up against Dominion Big Ships, which I'm going to stat the same as Klingon BoP for laziness and sanity's sake. How should I go about balancing the two, do you guys think? I could just make the Runabout NPC ships, I suppose and have the PC's ship have to protect them?

I'm also contemplating how, or if I ought to try and stat the Defiant? That's the runabout problem, only on the other side of the spectrum. Any thoughts?

 

[Redshirt214]

Update:

I decided to take inspiration from another WW2 battle: the sinking of the HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales. So now, we have a the USS Hood being attacked by Cardasian Obsidian Order Hideki class scouts.

Here's the stats for them:

Hideki class:

Cruise Speed: Warp 6
Emergency Warp: Warp 9
Impulse: 3
Shield Rating: 2
Armament:
4x Disruptor cannons (WR+3)
1x Photon Torpedo (WR+2)

There'll be three of these facing out heroes! And the Hood, having gone through a refit since her last appearance, has received some upgrades:

USS Hood (NCC-2541):

Max Warp: 8
Standard Warp: 6
Impulse: 2
Shield Rating: 3
Phasers: 6 (WR+3)
Photon Torpedoes: 2 (WR+3)

Specifically, she's got slightly better Torpedoes!

After this particular outing, I intend to try out the random generation rules for ships, planets, and adventures to see how well they work, and give that real exploring the unknown feeling. But that is a campaign for the summer, I think.