Day 27 Prompt: Hunger
Week 5 Prompt: Emotion
Weekday Prompt: Far to Go
The prompt of “Hunger” is what we’ve been given for Day 27 of the RPGaDAY 2026 Challenge. And I had to wonder how I was going to connect a generic term to a positive post about roleplaying. Then it dawned on me, when you are hungry, you eat. And while eating is a natural biological function, it is also a social opportunity. Every year my Star Trek fan club host the Admiral’s Banquet to celebrate the club’s anniversary and to highlight the member achievements. It’s now a tradition to get together and break bread with members of our Star Trek family.
We’ve seen similar traditions in the show. So today I’d like to talk about some of the traditions seen on the show and how they can be implemented in your Star Trek Adventures campaign. Some of these are food related, some are not. This gives the gamemaster the options to introduce some role-playing opportunities at the table.
The first tradition that came to mind when I saw the prompt hunger is from The Next Generation second season episode “A Matter of Honor”. Commander Riker is transferring to the Klingon Defense Force vessel IKV Pagh as part of an exchange program. He will be serving as the vessel’s executive officer. He participates in the practice of the feast before the transfer to try some Klingon dishes.
If an officer is transferring to a planetary assignment, they could use this feast to learn about the local dishes. I could see an eager young ensign using this feast to learn about the traditional dishes from the home region of his new commanding officer. Confirming what those dishes are (or the favorite dishes) could lead into a B-plot similar to Ensign Sato being assigned to find out what Lt. Reed’s favorite food is in the Enterprise first season episode “Silent Enemy”.
We saw even more food-based rituals when we saw Cadet Uhura attending her first meal at the Captain’s Table in the first season Strange New Worlds episode “Children of the Comet”. Welcoming banquets have been seen in “Journey to Babel” (TOS season 2), “Sins of the Father” (TNG season 3) and more.
Now not all of these traditions require physical sustenance. In the first season Strange New Worlds episode “Spock Amok” we learn about Enterprise Bingo. A list of challenges that lower ranking crewmembers try to accomplish without their superiors catching them in the act. It is very possible that each Starfleet vessel has its own bingo traditions. While there is a list of the Enterprise entries in the link above, here are some possible suggestions for a bingo list.
- Sneaking into a ceremony or banquet that they were not invited to.
- Touching the warp core.
- Find the ‘sweet spot’ on the vessel.
- Make it from Deck 1 to Engineering without using the turbolifts.
- Swim in Cetacean Ops.
- Find the oldest food recipe in the replicator.
- Hide your signature in a space you don’t think anyone will find it.
- Spend one minute alone on the bridge.
- Change the ringtone on a crewmember’s combadge without them noticing.
There is a current naval tradition called “Crossing the Line.” Sailors who travel over the equator transform from Pollywogs to Shellbacks in a ceremony held on the ship. A Shellback is someone who has been accepted by King Neptune. Well, there isn’t really an equator in space, but there is the border between the Alpha and Beta quadrants. This could be called “Crossing the Divide” with an initiation process that marks the crewmembers as “Wayfarers.”
And sometimes new traditions starts on a lone vessel. This could spread to other vessels with transfers and interactions with fellow Starfleet ships. In the Deep Space Nine sixth season episode “Behind the Lines”, there was a crew practice held at the end of a successful mission with the used power cells from the phaser array. Rather than recycling them immediately, the spent power cells became visible reminders of what the crew had endured together.
In your Star Trek Adventures game, look for opportunities for the players to create their own traditions like this for their characters. After each successful cargo haul, the crew has to drink a certain brand of Saurian brandy. What happens if they are getting low on that brand? For each new first-contact, how would the crew want to mark the occasion? The options are endless.
So, are your players hungry for something that makes your sessions actual Star Trek episodes with an “A” plot and a “B” plot? See what traditions you can shuffle into the adventure.
What traditions would you have on your Starfleet vessel? 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 or click on my social media links with any comments.