Tag: FASA

What? Aren’t you burned out on making characters after January? Well, yes. But before I take a break (and start my final preparations for all the one-shots that I’m running at SaltCON in March) I have one more bonus entry for the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge. Jack Photon’s Fantaversary Revision House Rules 4.0 (for the 40th anniversary of the original release of the FASA Star Trek Roleplaying Game).

Jack was kind enough to send me some physical proofs of his massive project to make a “4.0” version of the FASA Star Trek RPG as a love letter to that game. Why 4.0? Well, besides being the 40th anniversary (which was in 2023 actually) this is the “fourth iteration of the game”. The first edition was published by FASA in 1983. Then, in 1985 FASA, released a second edition of the game which is the version I primarily played with my friends. When the internet connected fans of the game about 15-20 years ago, enough fans got together to make an unofficial “third edition” to polish up the game a little bit. It also allowed fans to introduce stats for various races seen in the other Star Trek series such as The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise.

When I was making characters for the 2025 Character Creation Challenge, Jack had asked me if I would be interested in making a character using his system since I already had the prototype books. I said yes at the time, and over the course of the sucky year that 2025 was, I forgot. Luckily, Jack reminded me about half-way through the 2026 Challenge, so I added it as a bonus entry (which I’ve done before in past challenges). Sorry Jack, I’m still human (at least I think so).

Now, I’ve made several characters using the FASA Star Trek system before including a Starfleet Officer, a Starfleet Intelligence Officer and the Merchant Trader made earlier this year. However, I’ve never made a First Edition FASA character (hmmm…. 2027? I better write things down so I don’t forget this time). In my correspondence with Jack he informed me that his version was primarily based upon the first edition which he had enjoyed more. So this will be a new experience for me.

Ok, I’ve printed out the character sheet and found the Officer Generation rules and it looks pretty similar to the FASA entries I mentioned above. Roll 3d10+40 for each attribute of STR, END, INT, DEX, CHA and COOL (oh BTW, that last attribute is new in this version). For the LUC and PSI stats it is still just a percentile roll. There is a note here that magnanimous GMs may allow re-rolls of 1s or 2s. There is a random chart of basic alien races to choose or roll a d10 for (dice clatter on table) and this guy is a Human (hey, that’s what the dice came up with). I adjusted the PSI score as the only racial adjustment. And finally on attributes there is a conditional bonus points option of rolling percentile, divide by two and round down. As a human, he can’t raise his PSI score, but the others can be raised as I see fit. I made my choices and wrote them down in my notes.

Before we joined Starfleet Academy, the character already had some education. There is a list of skills for Personal Development and Formal Education. I divide the INT score by 10 and could choose that number from each list rolling a d10 for the score. As this character entered the academy there are some automatic skill scores that he would have learned and I added them to my notes.

Now I’m told that Starfleet maintains three specialized training schools for select candidates if the minimum requirements are met. He just barely missed out on the Contact Team. Nor did qualify for Command School. So I think I just automatically roll over to one of the Service Branches (Command, Sciences or Services) and I choose a major in that branch (the departments we usually see in TOS) and I think I’m going to make this guy an Engineer. I wrote down the stats listed for that major.

The Cadet Cruise. I remember this from making many different FASA Star Trek RPG characters back in the day. Roll percentage dice and add some different modifiers from LUC and INT. And this yet-to-be-named character was sent to a Starbase. Rolling the dice to see how he did and he passed. Did he get noticed (again dice clattering on table) and he got a Commendation which turned into a Minor Award (Silver Palms if I read that part correctly). And now this guy is an Ensign.

As an ensign fresh out of the academy I could start playing him now and watch him grow. But I wanted to at least get one term under his belt. Let’s see if we can get him up to the rank of Lieutenant. But the dice say only one term so perhaps we can make Lt. (j.g.). Starbase duty again for 3 years? Well that’s how the dice came up. Average efficiency rating so I just rolled the extra skill experiences.

Heh, Chapter 5 is called Life’s Lil’ Details. Age and starting cred, terms of active duty, family history, homeworld, etc. Wow, there is a lot to take in. Some of it I didn’t understand so I kind of muddled through it. His homeworld was being shipwrecked for one year? Besides a backstory did that get me anything? What if I already had a character concept in mind? I think I skipped most of this and just came up with a name and transferred my notes to the character sheet. As I transfered this information over, I noticed some additional derived attributes such as Foolies (aka Bluff or avoid being Blulffed), Perception, Focus and two types of Perseverance (mental and physical). Luckily there were some quick mathematical formulas to follow.

Afterthoughts:

There were some in-jokes like the Herbert Department. Also Jack pulled in information for his version of the game from different sources including different magazine articles about the FASA Star Trek RPG. It was quite interesting to see.

There is a TON of character options in here. Non-Commissioned officer, civilian who went through college, etc. I really could have used the quick-guide that was present in the FASA STA RPG 2nd Edition. Was I supposed to roll on the friends and romance tables? I can see where a lot of work went into this labor of love. I don’t think I’ll ever get a chance to play it.

Additional Notes:

I’ve had quite a few of you reach out to me stating that you’ve made 31 characters in 31 days. I’ve sent the reward graphic, lovingly made by my commissioned artist, that is starting to appear in the wild. If you haven’t received yours yet, please email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain dot Com (or buzz me on one of the socials if we follow each other) and I’ll make sure to get it out to you.

Coming Up Next:

After-Action Report

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.

And welcome to new year and Day 1 of the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge. After much soul searching I decided to return to an old favorite, the Star Trek Role Playing Game. In the first challenge I made a Starfleet character and in 2023 I created a Starfleet Intelligence character. FASA released quite a few books for additional character types and I decided to use the Trader Captain’s and Merchant Princes. I had never made a merchant for this system as all of our games in the 90’s were Starfleet based.

As with all FASA Star Trek systems, they provided a Character Generation Short Form. This is found on page 126. So let’s begin. Step one, create attributes. Strength, Endurance, Intellect, Dexterity, Charisma, Luck and Psionic Potential. The last two are a straight up percentage roll. The others are 4D10+30. Then add the racial modifiers to the attributes. So, I don’t think I’ve made an Edoan yet, so I’ll make one now.

Step two is the Character Background. We are rolling a 1D10 to see what three possible background options come up between Privileged, Normal and Disadvantaged. This yet to be named character came up as Normal.

The background skills are determined in step three. The number of skills are INT/10 rounded down. With my INT of 65 I get to pick 6 of them and roll a 1D10 to come up with the starting score. I picked the six skills.

Step four is the Advancement Lane. Where did the character get some education from? After a D10 roll he went to the Merchant Academy. So onto step five I added the skills that came from attending the Merchant Academy. This included the Outside Electives. In the Mid-Program Evaluation, the character was approved for specialty training, so I selected Helm/Navigation to focus on.

Step six is the Apprenticeship Program. Again a lot of skills scores were added or updated. On the Mid-Program evaluation he must have done something bad because no further education was allowed. The character now has to enter the base-level labor program which is step seven.

So if I’m reading this correctly, the character gets a year of unspecialized labor (hopefully flying a ship). For this first year he gets 10 unspecialized and 1 specialized skill at 1d10 that I pick. Then we get to roll on the opportunities table and add some modifiers. He didn’t get an apprenticeship, but he did get specialized labor which was another round of 1D10 to different skills. After the second year I rolled again and he barely made it into the Apprenticeship program. That he was forced out of, so do I just go to next step that I didn’t do in step six? It seems like I’m kinda in a loop. I’m going to guess I’m back in step 6-D (each step had a series of sub-steps) and continue from there.

I don’t see this character going to Command Training School, so I think I skip step 8. On step 9 is the Trading Experience and Skills. I roll 2D10 to see the number of years served. Wow, just to be a regular crewmember on a merchant ship still takes years (more for CO/XO or the equivalent of a Department Chief). If I did this correctly, he served 11 years as a navigator on a merchant vessel. That adds to some skills, but he’s still not at a chief level. Perhaps he’s just on the cusp? Anyway, I added the skills listed in this step.

Technically that was the last step. But when I moved everything from my notes to the sheet, I noticed it didn’t have the combat skills, equipment or anything else. I went back through the book (including the original rulebooks) and found the information. I guess they were expecting experienced RPG players to find these items. Here is the character sheet for my Edoan trader named Kraxx.

Afterthoughts:

There were some printing errors in the short form, I seriously doubt that a character would gain a skill addition of zero. Why even put it in the book with limited space. I’ll have to look back though my collections and notes to see if there was ever an errata for this book.

I think I can see why I never played in a FASA Star Trek merchant campaign. Of course, everyone wanted to play Starfleet officers when we were playing Star Trek. If we wanted to just play merchants, we could have played Traveller or Star Frontiers instead. But now that I’ve made this character, 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.

Additional Notes:

I’ve already had a ton of people contact me about making sure their blogs were posted on the 2026 #Character Creation Challenge list. If I’m missing your participating blog, or message board, please let me know and I’ll get it added. I’ve been enjoying the entries that I’ve read so far.

Coming Up Next:

Rivers of London

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.

When FASA was publishing the various supplements for their Star Trek Role Playing Game line, one of the books was Star Fleet Intelligence. This allowed game masters to set up espionage campaigns for players. To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Star Trek Role Playing Game by FASA, I thought that I would submit an entry into the Character Creation Challenge by creating a Star Fleet intelligence agent. An in honor of my recently departed friend who cut his Star Trek RPG teeth on the FASA game, I’m going to name him Taylor, Roger Taylor.

One of the things that FASA did very well was create the character generation short form. I used this form quite a few times when generating FASA Star Trek characters. For the Star Fleet Intelligence Manual, this form is found on page 92 of the Agent’s Orientation Sourcebook. This version is slightly different than that found in the core rulebooks as it is geared towards creating an intelligence character.

Step one is to generate the attributes. For STRength, ENDurance, INTellect, DEXterity and CHArisma you roll 3D10 and add 40. For LUCk and PSIonic Potential it’s a straight percentile roll (D100). The only racial modifiers for humans is -30 to PSI. There are also bonus points (D100/2 rounding down). Final results are STR 57, END 55, INT 68, DEX 60, CHA 53, LUC 55 and PSI 07.

There are a large number of skills generated through the next several steps. These include Step 2: pre-academy skills (what you did before you attended Star Fleet Academy). Step 3: Academy Skills (what you learned at the academy). Step 4: Intelligence Branch School. Step 5: Cadet Cruise (how many cruises did you take? What did you learn on that cruise?) Step 6: Intelligence Command School and finally post-academy experience (how many tours has your character been on?). The last step is to determine the character age.

Roger gets six skills from his days before the academy. These are generated by rolling a D10 and half are taken from the educational background and the other half come from the personal development. I selected the skills I thought Roger would have. Added his academy skills. For his branch school, I selected the Field Operations and added those skills.

For his cadet cruise, I rolled the Operations Forces Subdivision. The result of this cadet cruise was Passed assigned as Ensign (barely missed getting passed with honors). I then added his intelligence command school skills on step 6.

With the post-academy experience, Roger ended up with three tours. I rolled an 85 which resulted in Starfleet Military Operations Command which lasted for 4 years and he earned an officer efficiency report of as expected. His second tour was with the Field Operations Department/Operating Forces Sector (he was studying for Klingon) which lasted for two years and he earned an officer efficiency report of excellent. For his last tour we rolled at Technical Department for the Klingon department which lasted one year and earned an officer efficiency report of outstanding. There were some skills advancements from the post-academy experience, which I wrote down.

Roger’s final age at the end of the process is 33 and he has the rank of Lieutenant. I’m pretending that the GM is going to set us up for a Klingon mission with the Klingon Field Operations division. I looked up what his SECLAR (security clearance) would be. Along with his combat and heal rates.

Afterthoughts:

I loved the image of the starship Claymore that was seen on the covers of these books. I always wondered what the long protruding wing was below the warp engine? Is it a solar sail? Is it a special scanner? Since I’ve never been able to find out I may have to sit down and homebrew this ship for multiple systems.

I had flashbacks to all of the times I was adding to this skill and to that skill. I can understand Roger’s comment about Star Trek Adventures having streamlined all of that for the player in creation. But I love how all of the different percentages on the skills make each character unique. I forgot how small the text was in the character creation short form.

Additional Notes:

I had a few people respond in regards to the Serenity character posted yesterday. One person recalled how they had been able to break the system by having a character gaining the capability to cause massive amounts of damage in bare hand combat. Another person responded that they were more than willing to run a game if I could get a group together. I’ll have to ask around to see if anyone is interested.

Coming Up Next:

Against the Darkmaster

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.