Category: Star Trek

Day 31 and the last day of the 2026 #CharacterCreationChallenge. For this character, we are going back to the beginning. On Day 1 of the challenge I made a merchant character for the FASA Star Trek RPG. Some of the feedback from that character encouraged me to follow one of the comments that I had made in that post. “I’m wondering how the Star Trek Adventures 2nd Edition merchant character would roll up? Perhaps I’ll pick that for one of my later characters in this challenge.” Thank you for the encouragement. Another factor that pushed me in this direction was getting a Christmas gift in the mail that my daughter sent me. The STA2e 23rd Century Campaign Guide (review post is half-way complete and will be released soon) which contains some additional rules on creating the Free Trader as a career path option.

Frequent readers of my blog (thank you) will recall that I used the STA2e game as my first entry for the 2025 Character Creation Challenge where I made a Trill Starfleet officer named Keman Les. In that entry I go into detail on the attributes and steps needed to generate a character. So I’m not going to go into as much detail here other than switching books to the 23rd Century Campaign Guide. Also to note, this is a creation challenge and I’m comparing the creation process between the two games. So this isn’t a direct migration of the FASA character to STA2e. However I’ll be using the same name (Kraxx) and species (Edoan) and trying to mach up what I can.

Step One: Species- As mentioned above, Kraxx is an Edoan which isn’t listed in the core rulebook. But it is listed in the new STA2e Species Sourcebook that just went on sale from Modiphius. Since I have purchased it the publisher has already sent me the PDF and I will use it here. And yes, there will be a review when I have the physical book in my hands. I wrote down the attribute adjustments, traits and species ability.

Step Two: Environment- For the FASA merchant character, I had to roll what type of background the character had (disadvantaged, normal or privileged) but not what environment they were raised. I had rolled normal for that system so I looked at the environmental list and eliminated some of the colonies and being raised on the world of another race. I’m going to roll the d20 and if it comes up on one of the options that I crossed out, I’ll just re-roll. It came up as Frontier Colony. That would work as it could be disadvantaged, but would easily fit the normal background. I’m not hoping over to the 23rd Century Campaign Guide (23CCG is how I’m going to abbreviate that from now on) but there are additional options for this step listed on page 8. I added Kraxx’s first value and added to the attribute and department scores.

Step Three: Upbringing- Do I automatically pick Business or Trade and accept it, or one of the other options and then rebel against it? 30 some odd characters ago, I don’t recall what I was thinking when I originally made Kraxx. Since he had a normal upbringing in the FASA game, I’m going to accept the Business or Trade option. Had he been disadvantaged, I probably would have picked something he rebelled against. I added the character updates from this step to my notes.

Step Four: Career Path- Now this is when I’m moving over to the 23CCG book page 12 and selecting Free Trader. There is Civilian (Trader) option listed in the STA2e core rulebook. I compared the two of them together and I can see where some things are similar and some things were changed. I think I like the Free Trader more in the 23CCG book. I wrote down the adjustments and additions to my notes.

Step Five: Experience- Stepping back to the core rulebook I elected to pick this one. Since Kraxx was new to the trading universe, he is going to be a Novice. I added the Value and Talent for the Novice to my notes.

Step Six: Career Events- I would like to note that the 23CCG does have some new Career Events based upon the historical periods of the 23rd century that were quite interesting. There was also some guidelines for the GM to create their Career Events. However, I’ll be randomly rolling from the core book and adjusting them for a non-Starfleet character such as this one. With the FASA STRPG entry the character did start merchant academy, get kicked out and was later re-admitted. So I let the dice decide. (clacking sound on table) I ended up with “Dealt with a plague” and “Lauded by another culture”. I wrote down the adjustments as per these two entries.

Step Seven: Finishing Touches- These are the same as before since I’m still in the core rulebook. I used this time to see if I could match this Kraxx up with the FASA STRPG Kraxx. I did have to wonder about him carrying a phaser. He was trained to use one on the FASA side so I gave him a Type-1 cricket phaser. Since there wasn’t a sheet for merchants (hint, hint) I used the Federation sheet.

Afterthoughts:

In one big way, the STA2e creation system is simpler. Instead of adding 5% here and 8% there to the multitude of skills listed in FASA, they are quickly added to the departments and focuses. While I do like the FASA creation system, it does take a little bit longer to complete. The 23CCG adds some additional stuff for those wishing to play a merchant campaign in STA, I feel that there could (and probably will) be more details added soon. I don’t know if this will be by the fans or the publisher.

When writing things down on the character sheet, I always seem to run out of room in some areas and have too much in others. I noticed that when looking at last year’s entry as well.

Something to note for STA players. The Multi-Tasking talent listed on page 158 of the STA2e core rulebook is different from the Mult-Tasking Edosian species talent in the new Species Sorucebook. When writing down the information on your character sheet, you may want to include the description or source to confirm what your talent abilities are.

Additional Notes:

So this completes my 31 characters in 31 days. For those of you who joined me in reaching this milestone, please email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain dot com, on the Discord server or by your preferred method and I’ll see that you get the award graphic. Thank you for taking this journey with me and congratulations for making it this far. Even if you only got a few characters in before real life got in the way, you should still be proud of yourself. I hope you all had fun with this challenge.

I do have one more bonus character coming up before I write up my after-action report. If you liked this entry, you’ll love the next one as well.

Coming Up Next:

Special Bonus Character

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.

On day 9 of the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge I’m going to use a Star Trek RPG that I haven’t looked at yet. Star Trek Adventures- Captain’s Log by Modiphius. This is a solo RPG book from the makers of Star Trek Adventures. This is actually my first time looking through the PDF, I can see why another STA fan I know liked it. Lots of random charts that could be used in different ways.

Since this book came out before STA2e, is it more like Star Trek Adventures 1st Edition? From what I’ve heard, it’s more slimmed down than STA1e. So let’s take a look at the character creation process that starts on page 91. I’m going to use the Lifepath method for this character.

So the same attributes and disciplines are present in Captain’s Log as they are in STA1e. Control, Daring, Fitness, Insight, Presence and Reason (I explain these a little bit more (using D&D terms) in my STA2e character creation) for the attributes. Command, Conn, Security, Engineering, Science and Medicine for the character’s disciplines. I’ve always liked these in the STA style games because we’ve seen Starfleet officers perform duties outside of their department when the needs arise. I get a starting score of 7 for each attribute and 1 for each discipline. Step one is to select the species for this character. There are die rolls to create a random character which I’m going to use. First, is the era, which came up TNG. Scrolling down to the TNG list, I rolled a Kazon. Wow, I wasn’t expecting that, but let’s roll with it and added the attribute adjustments for the character.

Next step is the Environment, or where the character was raised. I rolled an Isolated Colony. Perhaps this Kazon isn’t like the others? This gave the character his first value which I picked “If I need it, I can do it.” I also picked the attribute and discipline increase from the suggestions for the setting. Also part of this step is the condition which ranged from utopian to total war. Another random roll resulted in Asceticism and Introspection or a simple life not by lack but by choice. What type of Kazon colony was this? Probably one of the factions that fled instead of trying to fight the stronger ones. They must have found a place overlooked by the other factions and tried to keep things simple as to not attract attention to themselves. This also resulted in another value for the character “Keep is simple”, another attribute and discipline increase.

Now we are onto Step Three, the early outlook of the character. How they were raised and educated before they became the person on the character sheet. The random roll for Upbringing resulted in Diplomacy and Politics. Perhaps this character’s parents were the leaders of the faction that founded the isolated colony. Did he accept it or rebel against it? Odds = yes, evens = no. Yes, it is with the roll of a 7. I added the increase to the character’s attributes and disciplines to my notes and selected his first Focus (specialty skill). I picked one that I thought a Kazon might need in a cutthroat political environment. Aspirations is the next sub-step in Step Three. What drives the character. Wait, I read this wrong. I pick one of three options, so I don’t use aspirations since I already used Upbringing (that’s what I get for thinking this was just an off-shoot of STA1e). I’ve already rolled so I’m not going back to change anything. Just to make sure I didn’t screw up, I went back and looked again at Step Two. After the re-read it looks like I did that right. Gah, I’ve got to make sure I’m clear on the steps before proceeding.

Step Four is the Education of the character. Checking to see if I have one path or multiple paths here. There are multiple paths here but there is a random table on which I rolled Diplomatic Training (this is a weird Kazon) which only has two tracks. Diplomatic Corps or Honorary Status, of which I rolled the later. It says that the character had an illustrious career (in doing what?) and was named a diplomat. The parents ran the colony administration as a family business of which the character participated in. When they passed on, the oldest sibling took over the colony, but didn’t want the character around for one reason or another (perhaps this is a plot point for something in the future) so he was sent off to be a representative to another colony. Yea, that’s the ticket. I added the Value of “I’ll take on the burden so my colony doesn’t.” I also added the Attributes, Disciplines and Focuses.

The Career Length is Step Five. There is another random table that I’ll stick with since the randomness has been interesting so far. Is this character a Novice, Experienced or a Veteran, and the d20 says Experienced. Several years in the political game apparently. This results in a Value of which I picked “Planning can help you with the unexpected.”

Step Six gives us two Career Events that has happened to the character. These pivotal moments will give us some additional stats for the sheet. The first randomly rolled event was Lauded by Another Culture. He earned some praise from a non-allied culture and are now considered a friend to them. Talaxians, the are Talaxians in the same neighborhood of space as the Kazon, so he did something that impressed them? What was it? Heck if I know. I think I’ll leave that for a possible flashback scenario. But he now knows some Talaxian traders very well who will help him out. I added the increase to the Attribute and Discipline and gained the focus of Talaxian Culture (as per the book). The second random event was Special Commendation. Again, weird for a Kazon. Sticking with the aliens of the region, a Trabe attack on a Kazon Maje from another sect resulted in the ship being severely damaged and the Character’s survival skills helped save the Maje’s life. However the Trabe despise the Character now. Added again to the three items listed above with the focus being more generic.

The last step includes the Finishing Touches. We get to add one more Value of which I picked “Never trust the Trabe.” I also get to increase two Attributes and two Disciplines by 1. Checking to make sure I had everything the book instructs me to make sure my Attributes all added together come up to 56. And somehow I had one extra, so I’ll just knock one down. Added together all of the Disciplines should total 16, and again I had one extra (where did I screw up at?) so I knocked one down. I was correct on the four Values, but I was short by two focuses (again I don’t know where I screwed up at) so I went back and added the missing two at random. Next came the Assignment and it listed a bunch of Starfleet positions. I don’t know if the civilian positions were overlooked or what, so I just put down Diplomat/Spy. There is no rank for civilians.

I think I’m also supposed to put together the stats for a starship. But considering the lack of time I have right now, I’ll skip this part and come back to it. Especially since he’s not on a Starfleet ship. I dubbed this character Valltex of the Kazon-Pikaar and transferred my notes to the character sheet. While I was adding things, I noticed there was a spot for equipment, so I just jotted down some simple items.

Afterthoughts:

I had actually picked up the PDF on DriveThruRPG with the credits that I had earned there so I could use it in a challenge, but I’ve always had another ST game to use. Well this year I decided that I wasn’t going to wait and for the first time I’ve looked at this book. Why? Well I’m not big on solo roleplaying. Table top gaming has always been a social activity for me. Getting together with friends, eating bad food and telling jokes as we threw the dice. Eventually I’m going to get the dead-tree version of this book, and I was thinking that I was going to use it then. But something told me to make one now, and perhaps it’s because I need to buckle up and try a few different solo games. If I do for Captain’s Log, I’ll make a real Starfleet character.

With my Star Trek RPG focus being on STA2e, I don’t know if I’d do any homebrewing for Captain’s Log. Perhaps I’ll change my mind after I’ve had a chance to go through a solo session or two. I did see how there were some differences from STA1e and building blocks to STA2e.

Additional Notes:

By following the hashtag #CharacterCreationChallenge on Mastodon, I was able to find another blog participating in the challenge. I’ve added Esoteric Renaissance to the list. If I’m missing anyone, please send me the URL.

Coming Up Next:

Tales from the Loop

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.