Playing Star Trek in RPG systems

#21

I’ve only seen that the FASA Trek game had a reasonable amount of success and was reviewed well. From my experience with games of that era (things like “Swordbearer” come to mind) I bet it’s a bit rules heavy in petty ways. It feels like the AD&D influence was pretty pervasive back then – though perhaps I’m being unfair to Gygax who explicitly rejects simulation [not the Forge version] in the DMG, but then he also constantly adds fiddly rules for things like disease transmission.

One thing I like about pre-AD&D rulesets and a lot of the contemporary ones that fall into the rules-light category (both in the post-OSR and indie/story scene) is an acceptance that mechanical detail and complexity come at a cost of player mental space/attention and so too much emphasis on mechanical fidelity, specifics or constant appeals to randomness can detract from the game a fair bit.

While I don’t think Mothership would work well for the tone of the Original Series, Next Gen or Even DS-9 I suspect it might be a sci-fi system that folks interested in indie/story play would like. It lacks a narrative bent, but it’s clean and simple and the rules have an intentionality and utility that make it do what it says – which is admittedly to run the movie “Alien” and similar sci-horror scenarios.

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#22

It could be nostalgia for me, too, but I have nothing but happy memories of both playing and running FASA Star Trek — and, for that matter, FASA’s Doctor Who, which ran using the same system.

It wasn’t perfect and it might not have felt mechanics light, but it wasn’t an overly complex game to play — again, that might just be down to faded recollection. I do have all but one of the supplements and adventures for the original game, so it clearly had an impact on me.

I can also thoroughly recommend Task Force Games Prime Directive, which was an interesting take on the Starfleet Battles Univerise — as near as you might get to Star Trek without being actually Star Trek.

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#23

Archives of the Sky feels like what I want from a good Star Trek episode. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/257723

Ben Robbins’s InSpace hack of Inspectres works really well for a space mystery story as well.

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#24

I would also suggest the existing Star Trek Adventures because it does seem to hit all the right notes and feels like Trek. That being said, you may want to look into Infinite Galaxies. A PbtA space RPG “Role Playing in a Bright Future”.

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#25

I had found a PBTA hack in development for just this, called Strange New Worlds.

It’s got some stuff I like, but also some stuff I don’t like, but it’s also not a fully finished game.

#26

I know my problem, with myself, when playing in star trek is…I’m not as smart as the writers of the tv shows I love, and then half the time, anytime there is a threat (on TNG on the Enterprise), it’s just been dealt with before the threat arises.

Like when Matt Frewer tried to kidnap Data back to the past, but the ships computer had already disabled the phaser he had in his hand.

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