Hey, everyone. I have started a podcast! We will play and review EVERY Star Trek tabletop RPG adventure ever published.
Trek RPG Module Reviews Podcast
- Thread starter Falconer
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Hey, everyone. I have started a podcast! We will play and review EVERY Star Trek tabletop RPG adventure ever published.
Episode 3 is live! Here we have started to get into the FASA modules. This was a GREAT one. https://www.rpgpopclub.com/podcast.html
Episode 6 is live! We played the scenario from the Japanese Enterprise RPG - very old school and very fun! And this one of my favorite podcasts that we have done. https://www.rpgpopclub.com/podcast.html
I started getting into it after it was out of print and I don't have everything (only got the three core rule books, the TNG player's guide, and the time travel book, plus the Spacedock PDFs, as much of the excerpts from unpublished books as I could find online, and a wide selection of fan PDFs). The couple failed campaigns I tried to run were stuff I invented myself, so I never actually saw any of the pre-written scenarios. I tend to prefer writing my own stuff, anyways (although I do get that adventure modules can be really good -- the FFG Star Wars RPG pre-made adventures are must-buys, if you can get them). Still need to track down more stuff if I can find it.
Will be interesting to hear how other people find it holds up, after a couple new generations of the game franchise have been added to the line and the background fluff has become extremely overwritten by new shows. (Also have been starting to collect the current Star Trek Adventures stuff, but not finding it clicking with me as well.)
Cool! Well, I project we should get into the LUG material at about episode #70. 
There are roughly 50 Star Trek scenarios from the 1980s and another 20 from the 1990s. So we will be spending comparatively very little time with LUG. And I prefer to go through chronologically, mainly because I do like to keep my head immersed in the contemporary “background fluff” as you call it. I am looking forward to the LUG material, though. It looks as if they were barred from using any of the earlier FASA or even tech fandom (Star Trek Maps, etc.) fluff, and that forced them to be very inventive. I have a few of the books, and I really like the aesthetics; very clean and elegant.
There are roughly 50 Star Trek scenarios from the 1980s and another 20 from the 1990s. So we will be spending comparatively very little time with LUG. And I prefer to go through chronologically, mainly because I do like to keep my head immersed in the contemporary “background fluff” as you call it. I am looking forward to the LUG material, though. It looks as if they were barred from using any of the earlier FASA or even tech fandom (Star Trek Maps, etc.) fluff, and that forced them to be very inventive. I have a few of the books, and I really like the aesthetics; very clean and elegant.
Heeeere’s Episode 7! We took a little reprise from our usual format of reviewing scenarios, and just flew around space a bit, using the excellent Starships & Spacemen rules. Charted stars and planets, encountered aliens and clouds and space buoys, great fun! Probably our most Star Trekish adventure yet! https://www.rpgpopclub.com/podcast.html
Cool! Well, I project we should get into the LUG material at about episode #70.
Sure.
Yeah, even if some of the pre-TOS stuff has become outdated, I do very much like the history they came up with. When I've used the game, I've tried to reconcile it with subsequent canon as much as possible. The only mechanical stuff that's really can't be salvaged completely are the original aliens invented for the game, the Centaurans and the Axanari (since ENT had their own take on Axanar and the Centauran's backstory is very iffy in terms of Alpha Centauri always being referred to in regards to being a human colony and whatnot). Huge fan of the Centaurans, so I do always fudge them as best I can.
Oh yeah, Occam’s Razor would suggest that Alpha Centauri is a Cochrane-era earth human settlement, but Rule of Cool gives us ancient Greeks (Star Trek Maps) or ancient Egyptians (? LUG “Nyrian Pyramids”) transplanted by space gods. I have read everything I could about Alpha Centauri, and most of it is from LUG/Decipher. Very flavorful and detailed info about their planet, which I love. But I like the Greek idea, too, and I like the matriarchal society suggested by Prime Directive (Task Force Games/Starfleet Universe). I have a Centauran character in my campaign (she’ll come in in episode 15).
I think the pyramids were from the Decipher material (although Decipher was basically LUG 2.0 in terms of background and LUG did have the idea that Centaurans were a human offshoot that evolved into a distinct species). I can't prove it, but I strongly suspect that the idea of alien species that looked like humans from Alpha Centauri came from the old Space Flight Chronology's depicting Cochrane as an alien from that region, which a few other novels and stuff built on (e.g. Prime Directive the prose story).
Gonna do the Star Fleet Universe stuff in the podcast?
Which system?
(When I very briefly ran a TOS-era RPG with LUG, I had Centauran NPC as the ship's doctor, borrowing the pre-made character template. Rough backstory was that her family had an unorthodox history by their culture's standards as serving in the MACOs -- this was before Star Trek Beyond established that the MACOs had been disbanded when the Federation was founded -- and that she was the black sheep military brat who walked away from that to join Starfleet to the family's ire. She was also written to have an impulsive personality, which had been a sore point for her fitting into the LUG Centauran culture's of valuing careful consideration. However, the campaign folded long before I could get much use of her or flesh out much more of anything.)
Yep! There are six or seven Prime Directive (PD1) scenarios that I know which were published in the period 1993-95. So basically they are the last thing we run before we get to LUG. (I say ‘basically’ because there is still a trickle of scenarios for the FASA RPG throughout the 90s.) I’ve been in contact with authors Mark Costello and Timothy Olsen; I asked them if they were trying to write Trek-like scenarios or non-Trek-like, and the answer was definitely the former. So, stay tuned and we’ll let you know how they did!
Unsure about the later GURPS/D20 stuff, but if you know of any good scenarios (or if they come out with any in the future), we’d be happy to review them!
We’re using a homebrew mix of some lite, old school rules. Chiefly, character rules are from Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier (1978) and ship rules are from Starships & Spacemen (1978).
Episode 8 is live! We played the The Vanished, somewhat famously the first standalone Star Trek adventure module. www.rpgpopclub.com/podcast.html
Interesting. Haven't had a chance to listen yet; are you treating each one as a fresh start or are you revising them to all fit together into a continuous narrative from scenario to scenario?
Cool.
Not really familiar with either system. I know that the current RPG had that free Kobayshi Maru scenario they released online alongside other free stuff (like the tribble PC stats) and many of the LUG books had little episode seeds (the time travel book was great about that). I know that there are fan-written scenarios floating around (Memory Icon, Where No Man Has Gone Before D20, Far Trek), but haven't seen any for GURPS/D20.
Haven't played those, but I do tend to like lighter rules then more complex ones.
Well, the throughline is the characters and the ship(s), which grow (or die), advance, change, develop in-jokes and such (probably moreso than in the show), but each scenario is more or less standalone, like an episode of the show would be.
Episode 9 is live! We revisit the Horta planet with a murder mystery in Witness for the Defense. We had all the girls on as guests for this one. www.rpgpopclub.com/podcast.html
Episode 10 is live! In Denial of Destiny, the crew must rescue the natives of a doomed planet — but what if this would be against their beliefs? They must combat Orion pirates in space. And they must fight to regain control of their hijacked starship! www.rpgpopclub.com/podcast.html
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