Posted in: Conventions, Friends, Role Playing Games, Star Trek

RPGaDAY2024 Day 13: Evocative Environments

The topic for Day 13 of the RPGaDAY 2024 Challenge is Evocative Environments. I pull up a search engine and learn that Evocative means “To bring an especially emotional response.” So a good memory of an RPG environment that comes to my mind?

I think I’m going to talk about the physical (and not-so-physical) environments that I’ve played in the past. For myself, one of the biggest reasons I want to participate in this hobby is the friendships that I make with my fellow players. Obviously a good gaming environment will enhance the joy of the games we play.

Private Environments: Gaming at my house or the house of a friend. In my humble opinion, this is the best option for gaming. Either myself or someone I know very well is in charge of the room, the times available, what can be brought in for food, etc. This is the one that I find most relaxing, especially if I’m the person doing the hosting. At the previous house we lived in we had a near-perfect setup for a gaming area. The new house that I moved into several years ago isn’t quite there yet, not without attempts from my wife and I. I’d love to get back into a position where we could host a monthly or every-other-week game again. I did host a game when I introduced my daughter’s 5E playing friends to an OSR game.

Public Environments: Back in the 90’s I know that a group or two tried to game at an all night diner. However they tend to frown on you if you stay for more than a couple of hours without ordering a ton of food. We quickly learned that this wasn’t a solution to our gaming location needs. Then and now I’ve gamed in local gaming stores. There have been quite a few over the years that realized that bringing in gamers help drive sales. However if the store gets popular, it can lead to another layer of scheduling issues. Sometimes you can bring in your own food, sometimes you cannot. It would depend upon the store ownership. This isn’t a bad option, but may have it’s own set of challenges. Playing at a park is also a major challenge as well. Especially as more gaming environments are needing electricity for laptops and tablets. I know I’ve tried them in the past and we didn’t continue with that option.

Online Environments: I’ve tried and attempted a few online campaigns. I’ve mentioned a previous Starfinder campaign that I did with friends. While the system was OK, gaming with friends was great, but I will never use Fantasy Grounds again as the program sucked to high heaven. Later I was in a Far Trek campaign over Roll20. Being browser-based program it ran 1000% better than the Fantasy Grounds disaster. In both games we used Discord as our method of in and out-of game communication. As I mentioned on my Day 2 RPGaDAY2024 entry I was going to be in a Castles and Crusades campaign that was just about to start on The Foundry VTT, but the Castle Keeper had to cancel after too many scheduling issues came up. I was looking forward to both the C&C system and learning about The Foundry. While in-person gaming is my first choice when sitting down to play, I won’t turn down an online game as long as it’s not on Fantasy Grounds and if we have a good session zero to learn about the (hopefully) new gaming friends that I’m going to play with.

Convention Environments: I’ve become an addict to playing at my local SaltCON gaming convention. Not only am I playing, but I even broke my “no volunteering” rule that I had originally set up for this con and started running games for them. I also like the fact that I’ve been able to network with local (and sometimes not local) members of the gaming community. There are a couple of other smaller gaming conventions in the state, but they are not as close as SaltCON. So I hope to try them out sometime soon, even if it’s only for one day. A con two counties away had a booth at an earlier SaltCON, but there was no one there the entire weekend for me to inquire with. GenCon just ended and I’ve been reading the online reports from attendees. It would be nice for me to attend this event, and perhaps someday it may happen. But right now it looks like I’ll have to put it in the same category as attending a DragonCon other big-ticket events, nice to think about, but logistically not reachable at this time.

What is the most ideal environment for you to game in? Did I miss an environment that I didn’t mention above? Tell me about it. This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.

Posted in: Role Playing Games, Star Trek

RPGaDay2023 Day 24: Complex/Simple RPG you play

Day 24 of the #RPGaDAY2023 Challenge and the topic is “Complex/Simple RPG you play”. I’m probably in the same boat as a lot of gamers. I want to play, but getting things scheduled and set up (aka real life) is getting in the way.

Recently I have played a few rounds of Far Trek through the Roll20 website. Far Trek is a fan made Star Trek RPG that was created using the Microlite D20 rule set. Take your standard D20 rules and boil them down even more (no feats, simplified skills, etc.) I found it an easy read, easy character creation and easy to run. I’ve even been considering some homebrewing for this system. And if you are looking for a simplistic good Star Trek game, the PDF is free.

Character Creation Challenge Day 13

What Complex or Simple RPG do you enjoy playing? Tell me about it. This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.

Posted in: Role Playing Games, Star Trek

RPGaDay2023 Day 21: Favorite Licensed RPG

So, Favorite Licensed RPG is the topic for Day 21 of the #RPGaDAY2023 Challenge. I’ll give you three guesses and the first two don’t count.

Various Star Trek RPG books

I have sections of this website already dedicated to the FASA Star Trek game. I’ve started a LUG Star Trek section and plan to create sections for Decipher Star Trek and Modiphius Star Trek Adventures.

Not only am I collecting any of the Star Trek licensed RPGs, but I’ve been gathering the unofficial ones as well. Some of these are games where the IP elements have been filed off, but the game is clearly Star Trek. One example of this is Starships & Spacemen 2nd Edition. Far Trek and Where No Man Has Gone Before are fan created games based off of the Original Star Trek series. Star Trek Alpha Quadrant is a fan-made game based off of the Cepheus Engine. I haven’t had a chance to try STAQ yet, but I may in a future Character Creation Challenge.

What is your favorite licensed RPG? Tell me about it. This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.

Posted in: Dungeons and Dragons, Role Playing Games, Star Trek

RPGaDAY 2022 catch up #4

You can find my past RPGaDAY2022 catch up posts here in Part One, Part Two and Part Three. Another busy week in another busy month in another busy summer has come and gone. Again I’ve been very grateful to the family members who came to help out with our summer projects. With how things have been things are starting to look up. I can’t wait to get this cast off of my foot so I can start doing normal things again. I’ve been enjoying reading the #RPGaDAY2022 posts that I’ve come across. It makes me wish that I could get a bunch of friends around a table to actually game. When some of these time-sink projects are done, I may be a step closer to actually hosting again. Until then, here are my RPGaDAY2022 entries for days 22-28.

Day 22: Who is your current character?

This is Dr. R’imr, the Caitian Lieutenant CMO of the Saladin Class USS Acrux. This is in an online Far Trek game that is being run on the Roll20 virtual tabletop website. So far none of the other players have noticed that the character name came from Red Dwarf.

Day 23: What situation is your character currently in?

We were sent to find out why a colony was not responding to Starfleet. When we arrived we discovered Klingons on the scene who were looking for a weapon. What’s really interesting is that the adventure was written by my friend Roger Taylor and adapted to Far Trek. I’ve been on my honor to not pull up the adventure and look at the notes.

Day 24: When did you start playing this character?

At the beginning of 2022. If we are lucky we get a chance to play once a month. Even then, I’ve had to miss a few sessions due to real life getting in the way. Yes the eternal struggle of gaming.

Day 25: Where has that character been?

Boldly going. Oh, more specific than that. The colony is named Tannos IV with “Madsen’s Hope” being the main colony population center.

Day 26: What does your character do what they do?

R’imr studied medicine and joined Starfleet to get away from the homeworld of Cait. He didn’t feel like he was making a difference there so he decided to leave and offer his services to Starfleet. He loves dispensing wisdom when he uses his catchphrase “Now listen to your doctor when he says…”.

Day 27: How has your character changed?

I’m still exploring this. As I noticed changes, I’ll try to report them here.

Day 28: Style Sunday: Roll 1d8+1, tag that many friends with your favorite RPG cover art.

Well once again I can’t really tag anyone in this format. So here is my favorite cover art.

Posted in: Character Creation Challenge, Role Playing Games, Star Trek

Character Creation Challenge Day 13: Far Trek

Character Creation Challenge Day 13

The Far Trek Role Playing Game is a fan-created system based off of the Microlite inspired “Where No Man Has Gone Before 2.0” game. As someone who loves Star Trek and is inspired by the creativity of other fans, this game interested me greatly. I wanted to see how they had put this together as everyone seems to put their own spin on the game. I was lucky to be able to purchase the book seen in the photo at one of the few limited time no-profit to the author print runs. Unfortunately he has stopped the sales of all printed projects and updates to the website, but left the site up for anyone who wished to download a PDF copy of the rules at no cost.

The game is using the Three D system composing of 3d6 die rolls when determining if an action failed or succeeded. Attributes can add modifiers to the roll. Far Trek primarily focuses on the 5-Year mission era of the USS Enterprise, NCC-1701 seen in Star Trek: The Original Series. There is some cross over into The Animated Series and the early movies, but fans of the other Star Trek series will not find their favorite races and ships represented here. However there are guidelines for converting FASA materials over to Far Trek as well as details on creating your own races. The game is a virtual sandbox. One final note before creating Tav, my Tellarite Engineer, there is an active message board for fans of Classic Trek games at Old School Trek. They talk about Far Trek, WNMHGB, FASA and other Star Trek RPGs.

Characters in Far Trek have four attributes which are pretty self explanatory. Strength (ST), Dexterity (DX), Intelligence (IQ) and Charisma (CA). Players roll 3d6 and compare the sum to a chart which tells you the Attribute Value. This value is what you will use on your various test rolls. Each race has pluses and minuses to the Attribute Values that you apply for your final score. Tav ended up with the following Attribute Values. ST: +2, DX: +1, IQ: 0, CA: 0. The base movement (MA) for characters is 50 feet in a five second turn and you add 10 feet for every DX modifier. So my Tellarite’s MA is 60.

An interesting tidbit about the Far Trek system, there are no hit points. Unless it’s dramatic, the main characters cannot die. They can be knocked unconscious, but they won’t be dead. If you are hit in combat your character must pass a Static Test by rolling 3d6+ ST bonus to beat a target number (which raises each time you are hit in combat). Armor (natural or worn) can be added to this test roll. The game makes note that this rule does not apply to expendable crew members (uh… what color of shirt am I wearing?) or the cinematic vanquishing of foes.

I like the fact that the character classes in Far Trek are Gold Shirts (Command, Helmsman, Navigators, etc.), Blue Shirts (Medical & Sciences) or Red Shirts (Communications, Engineering & Security). There is also an expansion that adds Green Shirts (Marines), Merchants, Special Citizens (Diplomats and the like), and even creation rules for Klingon and Romulan characters if you fancy a campaign in those empires. As I mentioned before, Tav will be an Engineer. This gives me access to the General Skills and the Red Shirt Skills. I have eight points to assign to a skill with no skill having more than 2 points. Skill points only give me a bonus when rolling a test using that skill. Tav can still operate the ship sensors, he just won’t have a bonus when makes the test roll. I picked the skills I thought a good Starfleet engineer would need.

Characters in Far Trek also get two Talents. These can either be class specific or from a general pool. I chuckled when I saw that Catch Phrase was one of the talents (“Damn it Jim, I’m a Doctor not a…”). I selected Jury Rig and Worried Engineer which I felt were needed for an engineer on a starship. I also marked down that I had 1 Fate Point which I could use to alter certain rolls or results at certain times in the game. Lt. Commander Tav was ready to fulfill his duties on the Saladin-class destroyer USS Nelson NCC-546. The character sheet is posted below.

Tav character sheet

Afterthoughts:

When I first read the rule about characters not dying, it made me raise an eyebrow. Would players take advantage of the fact that their character wouldn’t die and play a little recklessly? But on the other hand, I’ve seen some players be too cautious because they didn’t want their character to die. I think this rule could work with a good Referee. Other than that one thing, the system seemed simple and straight forward. I could very easily see myself playing this system. But I’d probably want to expand it to include material from the other Star Trek series.

I couldn’t find any other character sheets for this game. They all had multiple characters on them. If I was to participate in a campaign with this system, I’d probably create a different character sheet that met the needs of the game.

Additional Notes:

I was able to track down another blog of a gamer participating in the Character Creation Challenge. It has been added to the list of links on the CCC site. I am still looking for more. If I don’t have your site linked, please email me Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com.

Coming Up Next:

Star Wars by West End Games

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