I never had the chance to play the Last Unicorn Games Star Trek Roleplaying Game. When the game was first published I was going through a turbulent time in my life. Luckily, there was a lot of books available when I was able to get back into collecting and reading. But this was after the Decipher Star Trek Roleplaying Game had been released so I was able to find the books quickly and cheaply. However I think I may be missing a few books from the collection.
A couple of notes about the game. I liked the fact that the game designers gave a tip-of-the-hat to the creators of the FASA Star Trek Role Playing Game in the credits. I thought that was a classy move. There was also a disclaimer at the front of the book that sometimes the game writers had to take some liberties with the Star Trek universe in order to fill in while remaining faithful to the franchise. All game designers had to take this step and there was some conflict between previous publishers and certain elements at the studio. A subject for a future blog post later. But this disclaimer attempted to avoid any pitfalls encountered from those earlier conflicts.
Last Unicorn Games was able to published a large number of books before the company was bought out (which resulted in the end of the run). They had a core game book for The Next Generation (the first publication), The Original Series and Deep Space Nine. From what I recall, there were plans for a Voyager and Enterprise core game book before the company ceased to be. Each one of these core books added a little bit more to the game universe for GMs and players. Because of this opportunity, I thought that my Day 17 entry into the Character Creation Challenge would be a Bajoran smuggler using the DS9 book.
Avo Tarnis was a member of the Bajoran Resistance during the Cardassian occupation. Like most Bajorans he celebrated when the Cardassians finally withdrew. He was suspicious of the Federation offering to help, but he had no ill will towards them. Tarnis joined the Bajoran Militia when it was first formed, but bowed out after a year of service finding it too strict. Uncertain what do to next, an old-member of his resistance cell recruited him to help with some “discreet supply runs” like they use to do during the occupation. Tarnis saw this as a chance to get badly needed goods to those suffering on his home planet while waiting for the bureaucracy of the Provisional Government and the Federation to finally get something done. So now he is a pilot on the freighter “Renoth’s Call.”
For quick play, the book provides a series of pre-generated characters that you can tweak or you can go through the character creation process. For Tarnis, I elected to follow the process. The three parts of the character was the attributes & edges, advantages & disadvantages and skills. Each step of the process would add values to one or ore of these three parts. Attributes was your typical selections that you would find in most RPGs. Edges was add-ons to the Attributes. Fitness (with edges of Strength and Vitality), Coordination (Dexterity and Reaction), Intellect (Logic and Perception), Presence (Willpower and Empathy) and Psi (Range and Focus).
The first steps was to select a template (i.e. the species). I wrote down the various elements for a typical Bajoran. Not surprising they had a disadvantage of Species Enemy (Cardiassian). Of the skills I could selected, I figured that Athletics-Running and Medical Science-General Medicine would fit. Resistance members would constantly be on the move and you would always need to help out in patching someone up after a raid.
The next steps was the overlay which is the character’s profession. There is a Pirate/Smuggler overlay that I was able to take some stats from. Afterwards I selected my character’s background. This was a little confusing. I knew I was going to have Tarnis grow up in a refugee camp. The RAW talked about spending development points to purchase such a package, however I couldn’t find anything on how many development points you started out with. I was finally able to track the information down (you took a package or spent the points ala-carte).
Then you added the finishing touches to the character. Courage points was easy to calculate. If I understood the Renown details correctly, I placed one point in the Skill aspect. The Wound Levels came out at 2. There was a section in the book about equipment, but nothing about obtaining these items. The game must assume that the players are part of an organized fleet. I know there is a Rogues supplement out there, it probably has more information for independent groups. So I considered the character done. Here is the character sheet.
Afterthoughts:
The organization of the DS9 book could have been slightly clearer. I was jumping from section to section looking for information and using bookmarks to remember where I was. The index didn’t point me in the direction to answer a basic question (how may development points do I start out with) which was a little frustrating. I was able to finally track down details, but I had to pull out one of the other core books to find it.
I wonder how the system played out. It’s been a while since I gave any of the core books a read through. But from what I recall, I thought it made sense at the time.
Additional Notes:
Thank you again to those who have been using my DriveThruRPG links to order PDF copies of the games.
Coming Up Next:
The Doctor Who Role Playing Game by FASA