While I’ve been going through old graphics and documents to find items to post on my website, I’ve re-discovered a few things that I thought were kewl enough to share. I decided to post one of them now.
Back in February 2013, just before Star Trek: Into Darkness was released in theaters, we were contacted by Star Magazine asking if someone from Starfleet Command’s Seventh Fleet would be interested in participating in an interview for an up-coming special issue dedicated to the movie. They had sent invitations out to different fans and organizations and they would be selecting the best responses for publication.
Now I’ve been interviewed by local radio and television stations regarding my Star Trek fandom (some of the photos are in my Kewl Stuff online gallery). Podcasts have invited me to join an episode and talk about geeky things. I’ve also been interviewed by local newspapers (I’ll have to find and scan those articles as well). However I had never had a chance to be interviewed by a national publication until this invitation. After some encouragement from my friends, Dennis Hollinger and Richard Henline, I agreed to participate.
The interviewer sent me a series of questions, which I answered as honestly as I could. I sent back my response thinking, it will be kewl if this happens, but I’m not expecting to be published. To my surprise, I was informed in mid-March that my interview had been one of three selected for publication. A high quality photo of me was requested and Star Magazine wanted my address to send me several free issues.
The publisher sent me an image of the cover first, which is the first time I heard that this would be the “Battle of the Star Trek Superfans.” Uh… what? A few days later the issues arrived in the mail. Here is a scan of the covers and the interview.
As you can see from the interviews, I was “battling” the author of the Star Trek: The Visual Dictionary, Raul Ruditis and Anthony Pascale, the editor of the Star Trek news site TrekMovie.com (a site I visit quite regularly for reputable Star Trek information). Not bad company. I would love to be a published author of a Star Trek resource book (I have some ideas in mind) or on a site like TrekMovie. What was interesting is that I wasn’t the only one who didn’t know about the “battle”. At least one of the above gentlemen contacted me by twitter stating “I surrender to you in the battle”. This made me upset because I was going to concede to him. We didn’t want to battle, we just wanted to talk Trek.
I don’t know who else was contacted for possible inclusion in the interview. But I do know that Starfleet Command’s Seventh Fleet beat out one of the larger international fan clubs for publication. I thought that was a nice feather in our cap.
Some of the other questions that were asked, but not published were as follows.
What would you name the next Star Trek film?Star Trek: Infinite Combinations
Do you have a favorite piece of Star Trek memorabilia?I love collecting the Star Trek technical manuals. I have all of the official books and a large variety of fan created items. The amount of creativity into “explaining” how this make-believe tech works is inspiring. A favorite short story I read is where a post-apocalyptic society finds a collection of Star Trek tech manuals. They end up using the books as inspiration to rebuilding their civilization. (This story is “Half the Battle” by Harry Turtledove which was originally published in Stardate Magazine)
If you could give J.J. Abrams some direction about the next movie, what would it be? Less lensflare. If there is not going to be a continuation after the third contractual movie, then the final scenes should be showing the universe reverting back to the prime-universe established in the television series. (At the time, a third movie had been highly speculated, but it didn’t seem like there would be any more Kelvin timeline movies after that one, hopefully we will get one more)
After the issue was released, my mother went out and purchased a copy for her scrapbook. A lot of friends also went out and purchased copies (some even asked me to sign them). Every once in a while, this issue pops up again in the wild. When I see it, I have a sense of pride that this was my first national interview. Thank you to Star Magazine for the opportunity.
So there have been two trends that I’ve noticed on the internet. Yea, these may have been around for a while but I want to talk about them for a second. The evil of click-bait sites and videos and the good of easter egg and behind the scenes videos.
There have been a lot of sites and videos with “Trusted Sources” spreading rumors about some of our favorite franchises and shows. What bugs me is the way they try to sell themselves. Usually with a headline that screams click-bait. These type of sensationalized headlines are a form of social engineering. They want you to react to the video/article and the only way you can do that is by clicking on the link to their site. “Has {insert showrunner name here} been fired at {studio name here}?”, “{Famous person} ruined our favorite franchise, here is the proof.” or “{Famous person} reacts to my video/post/website/outlandish claim.” See how they can practically recycle the headline just by switching out a few details and boom, another click-bait headline. Some of these videos and sites can get to be quite toxic.
Another trend has not been quite as negative, but still very click-baitish. Streaming services have been a gold mine for fans of various franchises. The studios are trying to attract subscribers by taking chances on shows that may not make it onto the over-the-air or cable channels. This has brought us more shows in the Star Trek (I’m looking forward to the Pike series, Strange New Worlds) and Star Wars universe (love The Mandalorian). There is an upcoming series for Battlestar Galactica and it looks like I’m finally going to be able to see Moon Knight on the screen. While this is good, it also gives rise to rumor websites with headlines like “{Character name} series confirmed.” At the rate they are pumping out these “articles” you would think that we would soon see a series focused on Captain John Harriman (would the XO be Commander Ferris Bueller?) for Paramount+ and Disney+ releasing The Star Wars Muppets (actually I’d watch a SW Muppet series, but don’t quote me as a source). These rumors are not as outlandish as the “{show name} canceled immediately due to plummeting ratings.” headlines and I think that’s what makes it a little bit dangerous. Some actors want to return to the roles that made them famous. Others never want to return to the franchises if they don’t have to. But there is a little bit of a toe-hold that these “news sites” to say that a new series is coming soon and you better read about it here. When you listen to these sites, they use the weasel words that you commonly see on those Ancient Alien shows. “Could this be true? It’s possible.” Ugh that bugs me more than it should.
Why are these sites and videos posting these dubious claims? In one word, money. The more clicks a site/video has, the more eyeballs see them. The more eyeballs they get, the more they can sell themselves to advertisers. Technically nothing is stopping them from being the Weekly World News of the internet. So like spam and robo-calls, they continue to be a scourge on the internet.
What can you do about them? Well learn to spot click-bait headlines. If it sounds like it was posted to get an emotion, be suspicious. Look at the source. Most social media posts will give you the domain the article/video is coming from. If it’s not from a source with a good history (for most entertainment news that’s usually Variety, Deadline, Entertainment Weekly, one of the mainstream media companies, etc.) or from the studio itself, then be suspicious. However be careful, there are still rumor news sources that are on TV or in print. If you are suspicious about a headline, then remember that Google is your friend. If a rumor is close to being true, multiple sites will post about it. With the rumor websites there may only be one or two sites posting about the topic. If your Spidey-Senses are going off, don’t click on the link or video. By clicking on them, you are giving them what they really want.
Now, in my humble opinion, there is a really good trend going on right now with some online videos. The “Easter Egg” videos that point out some of the things in the background. Some are very spot-able, some are very hidden (hence the name Easter Eggs). There are some video makers that will freeze-frame certain scenes and translate from the alien languages (if translations exists) to dig up hidden details. I am a big fan of Star Trek and Star Wars so I’ve noticed a lot of these Easter Eggs in Picard, Discovery, Lower Decks and The Mandalorian. So for me the fun was seeing if I had missed anything and if I had spotted stuff the video makers themselves had missed.
Another good thing about these videos are for the series I’ve been enjoying, but I don’t know much about the source material. The latest example has been WandaVision. While I know Marvel’s Spiderman, Captain America, Iron Man, other-mainstreams, etc. I only know very little of the other superheroes that Marvel has in their catalog. I’m more of a DC man myself, but I don’t turn my nose up at the Marvel non-mutant titles (don’t ask me about the mutants now, that will be saved for another blog post). After encouragement from friends, I checked out WandaVision. I found that I enjoyed the writing, the acting and the special effects. But I felt like I was missing something that came from a deep source. So I turned to the same Easter Egg video makers that I had enjoyed before and they expanded my understanding of the WandaVision story line. In the last episode of WandaVision there was a “big reveal” from a bad guy (no spoilers so don’t worry). I felt that this reveal wouldn’t have made a big impact if I hadn’t watched the Easter Egg videos telling me who these characters were. Thus I was “in on the story” when it happened.
While I’m encouraging you to avoid the click-bait sites, I would also encourage you to check out the effort that goes into the Easter Egg videos. Let me know what you think of these videos that have been released.
The fan-made Star Trek RPG called Where No Man Has Gone Before v2.1 is based off of the D20 Microlite20 rules. The Microlite system is basically D20 slimmed down quite a bit so it is a quick system to learn and play. The Far Trek RPG system is based off of WNMHGB with some minor differences. There was also a version 1.0 of the WNMHGB rules that are more inline with the open source D20 system.
For the Character Creation Challenge I’m going to create, Ensign Navin a Deltan Starfleet Medical Officer serving on the Constitution-class USS Deneb, NCC-1826.
The attributes scores are only Strength (STR), Dexterity (DEX), Intelligence (INT) and Charisma (CHA) which are generated by rolling 4d6 and removing the lowest die. Then you record the stat bonuses on the character sheet (score -10 then divided by 2 rounding down). The racial adjustments are made to the the bonuses which are the only thing you use in play. Ensign Navin ended up with the following stats. STR: 14 (0 penalty due to -2 for being Deltan), DEX: 12 (+1), INT: 14 (+2) and CHA: 12 (+3 including the +2 for being Deltan).
Being a Classic Star Trek based RPG, the three classes are Blue Shirt, Red Shirt and Yellow Shirt. The skills are Communication, Engineering, Knowledge, Medicine, Physical and Subterfuge. Each character selects one skill to be their trained skill which will start out at your level +3. All other skills will be half of the character’s level rounded down, plus one. A skill roll is a d20 + skill rank + any stat bonuses (if any) + any situational modifiers.
Starting characters in WNMHGB get to choose two talents. These can be taken from a General list or a list specific to the class. I selected Field Medic and Recollections. Hit Points are the same for all classes STR bonus + 1d6 per level. Armor class is 10 + 1/2 level (rounded down) + DEX bonus. All characters start out with two action points which have a variety of uses to make your character more heroic during a session (or in the case of one of Navin’s talents, heal others). They can be regained by proper roleplaying or other GM decisions or talents.
The section for equipment stated that you shouldn’t be worried about ranges, but it has ranges listed on the character sheet. This confused me and I’d probably homebrew something if I was running a game. I selected the equipment that I felt a members of Starfleet Medical would normally have and considered the character done. Here is a scan of the Character Sheet.
Afterthoughts:
Some of the talents are Vulcan specific (Nerve Pinch) which I felt that the members of that race should have gotten for free. Yea it make the Vulcan characters a little bit more powerful, but they were that way in the show as well.
I thought it was interesting that one of the optional rules was TV Ratings. After each episode the GM would roll a die to see how the show did in the Nielsens. If the results were too low, the TV executives may demand some changes such as a cute sidekick or replace a character or some inane suggestion that upper management usually things will fix things right away. Considering the ratings question with various Star Trek series, this gave me a chuckle.
If given a choice between the light-rules RPGs, I don’t know if I’d play Far Trek or WNMHGB. They both have their strengths and weaknesses. I know that I will be homebrewing for both systems.
Additional Notes:
Apparently some participants in the Character Creation Challenge have also been using the social media hashtag of #31CharacterChallenge as well as #CharacterCreationChallenge. I had not been following the first hashtag so I don’t know how far it reached but you may be able to find some additional entries there.
This system by Goblinoid Games is Spaceships & Spacemen. Think Dungeons & Dragons B/X meets Classic Star Trek with the serial numbers filed off. You are on a starship serving the Galactic Confederation. Your opponents are the Zangid and the Videni instead of the Klingons and the Romulans. Taurans sounds a lot like Vulcans, etc. As a person who collects and studies Star Trek based RPGs (I’m still looking for a physical or PDF copy of Starfleet Voyages) I knew I had to create a character for this system in the Character Creation Challenge.
S&S uses just about the same system as Apes Victorious (that I created a character for yesterday) so this should go pretty quickly. Since I created a Human yesterday, today’s character will be one of the unique races to the game based upon the random ability rolls. They rolled high enough that I was able to select a Gorran (Gorn like lizards) and after adding the ability adjustments I ended up with the following stats. STR: 12, CON: 18, DEX: 9, INT: 9, CHA: 10, PSI: 13.
The skills in S&S are different from Apes Victorious. In AV they were based on a percentage score or a d6 roll depending upon the skill. In S&S the four skills are Combat, Contact, Science and Technical with a d20 roll with a requirement to roll equal or less than your character’s score. The contact skill is used in first contact with alien life form (a form of diplomacy) or the ability to recognize patterns and what is in your surroundings. If I’m reading this correctly, it could be used for perception/spot/listen type skills. Each class has a primary skill, some branches also have a secondary skill. If a skill is not a primary or secondary, it uses the other rating on the chart. The higher your character level, the better the skill roll.
The ages of the character can adjust the ability scores. This character ended up with the age of 22 which is an adult and adds +1 to the STR and PSI scores (umm… why on that last one?) But I didn’t want to go back and re-calculate the stats again so I left them as they were. If I were running a game I’d make sure this was added in early of the character creation or just skip it for the Adult range.
Equipment assigned to a character in this fleet is based upon the branch, sub-class and rank. A player can select items from the equipment list based upon a number generated from his rank plus one. Unit 1/2 equipment is basic and common. The higher the unit, the more unique the items become. Beginning players end up with basic equipment, higher level characters can choose from other distinguished items. Interesting technique. This allowed me to get a beam pistol for my security officer (which I felt was needed) but there was no armor options left that was 1 unit.
It took me a minute to find out how the Defense score worked. Instead of having an Armor Class, your Defense score is an adjustment to the attacker’s Combat Skill roll. Interesting. I wonder how this works in gameplay. This was the last item I need on the character sheet, which is posted below.
Afterthoughts:
Both Starships & Spacemen and Apes Victorious had a lot of psionic abilities. But I’ve never been a psionic player. So I’d probably only really push for this aspect of the game if the race (i.e. Vulcan like abilities) were part of the character.
Going thought the equipment they had a “laser sword” that is only usable by Security or Rigelians. I wonder what influenced this item.
There is an entire section in the rules where the Star Master (GM) can generate an alien race that is humanoid with a strange forehead. It even has 100 random foreheads that the SM can randomly roll for. Some looked quite familiar, while others were a little out there.
I could see myself playing this game to try it out. I also want to make sure I’m familiar enough with this system as I want to homebrew a lot of Star Trek material. Even with this not being an actual Star Trek game, it is close enough for me to want to include it in my collection of Star Trek type games.
Additional Notes:
Yea, tomorrow’s game is also a Star Trek RPG as well. I wanted to make sure I got the Trek games in that I had access to and I had something special for the last game in the 31 day challenge. So we’ve got two of them back-to-back.
The Star Trek Roleplaying Game by Decipher was the first Star Trek RPG that I played with my local Star Trek club. I was even able to GM a few sessions. I had a group of young Ensigns (the player characters) lead by an NPC Lieutenant as the CO, head to a shipyard to recover the USS Crockett for refitting just after the end of the Dominion War. Starfleet needed to pull some older, but still serviceable ships out of mothballs to rebuild the fleet and get back to the primary duty of exploring. Because the PCs got kicked off the station managing the shipyard, the team left with the Crockett before making sure the ship was ready to go. There was a very large nest of Talarian Hook Spiders that woke up from hibernation when the environmentals warmed up. As the crew tried to re-take back the ship, one of the PCs accidentally set the Lieutenant on fire who then fell in the turboshaft that they were traversing through. Luckily he survived despite being very injured. After the players recovered the ship and got to their destination, the poor Lieutenant was placed on a medical leave and eventually retired somewhere far away from the PCs.
For this entry in the Character Creation Challenge, I decided that I would make an Andorian Flight Control Officer serving on the Nebula Class, USS Ulysses NCC-66808. His name would be Ensign Rexun and is is a member of the Athrun keith (clan). Selecting the race and the profession was the first and second part of the character creation process.
The attributes used in this STRPG is Strength, Agility, Intellect, Vitality, Presence and Perception. For the random method roll 2d6 nine times and discard the three lowest results, then assign a score to the attribute. There is also a pic method but I felt like rolling dice today. With the racial modifiers Rexun ended up with the following attributes. STR: 8, AGL: 8, INT: 9, VIT: 8, PRE: 7, PER: 9.
Reaction tests are like savings throws. You select the highest of the attribute modifiers that feed into the four reaction scores. These also in turn generate your Initiative and Defense scores.
This is a skills based system. I’ve been a fan of these types of systems, but I’ll play the “general skills” games as well. I just feel that the skills list makes the character unique, especially when you are homebrewing a character seen in the show or in the expanded universe. These skills are selected by going through several steps including Personal Development (military brat was selected) and Professional Development (I selected Helm/Navigator)
The character creation process rounded out with wound status, courage and renown. There is a chapter on equipment, but it wasn’t part of the creation process listed on pages 20-21. In the RAW Starfleet equipment is assigned as per the mission needs. I considered the character done. Here is the sheet.
Afterthoughts:
Creating this character brought back lots of good memories. Especially with friends from Starfleet Command’s Seventh Fleet. We did some homebrewing in our games and it made me want to homebrew again.
There was a time I had to go find the Players Guide errata. Luckily I had it readily available. The book had a few rough edges while trying to navigate the character creation system. Quite a few bookmarks were used. I remember in the Fleet we had created our own Character Creation Guide to assist members unfamiliar with the game.
Additional Notes:
We are entering the home stretch towards the end of the Character Creation Challenge. Because I’m creating a character and writing a blog post at the same time, it takes quite a bit of coordination and energy. Especially when I have to stop myself from pulling out the other resource books and fan made homebrews after the character is created. I get distracted by the shiny things sometimes.
So this is a licensed Star Trek RPG, kinda. Amarillo Design Bureau has the rights to create a starship tactical game based off of the Star Fleet Technical Manual published by Franz Joseph. This was the first tech book for Star Trek fans that captured a lot of imaginations in the 1970s. It was also a time when licensing for products based off of a canceled television show was loosely defined. The long and short of it is ADB could make games based on the elements of the Tech Manual which includes some classic and animated Star Trek episodes, but they could not cover the other Star Trek series. The game ADB is best known for is Star Fleet Battles. And they added to their universe with additional races and ships not seen in the other series. Some years ago, they added a role playing game based off of the SFB universe they had created called Prime Directive. After a 1st edition, they came out with a “2nd edition” of the game that used GURPS or the D&D D20 engines. Being a fan of the D20 system I had picked up those books from a local game store. Note: I am using the D20 version of the books which have been discontinued by ADB in favor of the D20 Modern (D20M) version of the game. I haven’t had the chance to get my hands on the D20M books to see how they compare with the regular D20 version.
This entry into the Character Creation Challenge will be straight from The Original Series era, but using one of the races seen in the SFB universe. Rigellian Ensign Paran Rei is a member of the Medical Department on the USS Hudson.
The Prime Directive core rulebook shown in the photo above is an “add on” book to the Dungeons and Dragons v3.5 Player’s Handbook. While the PD book gives information on races, classes, equipment, etc., it refers to the 3.5 PHB for rules on character generation, combat, etc. So I’ll be using the same character creation system when I did my D&D v3.5 entry into the Character Creation Challenge.
After rolling 4d6 (and dropping the lowest die) and adding the Rigellian racial stats I ended up with the following attributes. STR: 11, DEX: 10, CON: 13, INT: 13, WIS: 17, CHA: 13. Not bad rolls on this one. Noted down the savings throws, HP, racial feats and abilities and languages.
There were a couple of skills that were unique to the game. I also had to refer to the 3.5 PHB on a few things to make sure I was selecting the appropriate skills for a medical officer. There was also a section on Character Education. For this I selected Starfleet Academy and wrote down the appropriate skills.
I really didn’t select any equipment other than writing down what I thought a standard Starfleet medical officer would have. The RAW had a Purchase DC, but you don’t really purchase anything in Starfleet. Here is the character sheet.
Afterthoughts:
Since I know and understand the 3.5 rules, this build was pretty quick and easy. Prime Directive didn’t throw too many extra rules at me that bogged things down. If I were to run a campaign, I’d probably homebrew a lot to bring in the other races, events, ships, equipment seen in the later shows.
There were a lot of other future reference books mentioned in this rulebook. I’ve picked up the Klingons and Romulans supplement for PD20 and a PD20M supplement. ADB advertised books for the Gorn and Feline Empires (as well as other races), but they have not released them as of yet. I wish that they could finish them up as I’d love to buy them.
Additional Notes:
I’m starting to get into a pattern with the Character Creation Challenge. I prep as much as I can a head of time (taking photos, prepping the outline of the blog entry, character concepts) so that the day of is just die rolling, deciding and writing my thoughts down in the blog. It’s still a bit rough when I’ve got limited time. Normally when making characters you are not under a deadline.
Keep posting your characters. I’m still trying to read them.
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.
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.
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.
I’ve always been a big fans of role playing in the Star Trek universe. It is an iconic series so someone will have at least some basic knowledge of it. Plus another geeky activity that Star Trek & SF fans like to do is compare the characters/ships/equipment for series to series or even franchise to franchise (OK, Worf with a Bat’leth vs Chewbacca with his Bowcaster, who would win?) The statistics in role playing games gave fans a chance to at least put these questions in a frame of reference. So when Star Trek Adventures by Modiphius was announced, I was really intrigued. Yes I know that the Klingon Core Rulebook is shown in the picture, but I’m not planning to make a Klingon character as I’m still reading the book. My FLGS just barely got it in stock and my wife got it for a late Christmas present. I was so excited I just had to have it in the picture for this Character Creation Challenge entry.
Stivon is a male Vulcan Science Officer serving on the USS Tacoma, an Excelsior-Class starship during the 2290’s (around the time of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country). In STA you have six attributes. Control (How the character controls themselves both physically and mentally. Think dexterity plus focused mind), Fitness (Physical strength, health and endurance), Insight (Understanding others people, their feelings, your self-awareness and wisdom), Presence (Charisma and diplomacy basically) and Reason (Logic, learning and observation). Characters also have six Disciplines. These are Command (Leadership skills), Conn (Piloting skills), Engineering (Fix things and build things skills), Security (Shoot and don’t be shot skills), Science (Understanding things around us skills) and Medicine (Fix up character skills). In the game when facing a challenge the GM will tell you to add an Attribute with a Discipline to come up with a target number that you need to roll under. You roll at least 2d20 (or more if you can pull them from a pool) and each roll under your target number counts as a success. Some more difficult tasks may require a certain number of success in order to succeed the task.
Each character starts with 7 in all Attributes and 1 in each Discipline. Then you go through a “Life Path” creation process with opportunities to add to both Attributes and Disciplines until you get the end. Each character will end up with a maximum of 56 points in Attributes and 16 points in Disciplines. You will also end up with some history, Values, Talents and Focuses. The history gives your GM some possible plot points to use in the game later. The Values are something your character believes in represented in a short quote (example: I’ll give Stivon “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”) The Value can be used in gameplay to gain extra dice to roll or other bonuses if applied at the appropriate time. Focuses are specialized skills (such as Cybernetics or Small Craft Piloting, etc.). These give you additional die or other bonuses during play. Talents are items that come naturally to your character through it’s development (such as Mind Meld or Neck Pinch) but may have specific requirements (Vulcan only, etc.). As with Focuses and Talents, they add bonuses to gameplay and flesh out the character.
Stivon was born and raised on the planet Vulcan so he gains the advantages from this environment. While I selected the homeworld for Stivon’s environment, I randomly rolled for the upbringing which resulted in Artistic & Creative. The RAW state that my character could be accepting or rebelling against the upbringing. Stivon’s parents were musicians so in being accepting, he grew up with the logic of how music was created.
Next Stivon entered Starfleet Academy. He wanted to explore more of this universe and was torn between the path he choose and the Vulcan Science Academy. Eventually the opportunity to see music from other cultures was the deciding factor in selecting Starfleet. This resulted in additional values, attributes, disciplines, focuses and talents. I decided that Stivon would be an experienced officer (other than young officer or veteran officer) and added the value and talent from that step.
There are at least two career events that can happen to a Starfleet Officer durring their many tours that are randomly rolled. These can create plot points for the GM to use as well as adding attributes, disciplines and focuses. For my first event, Stivon discovered an artifact from an extinct civilization. While on Rolvath Prime, Stivon discovered a device that allowed two individuals to instantaneously share each other’s history in a matter of seconds. While this gave a young Caitian ensign a vast appreciation of music, Stivon was unnerved by the encounter in experiencing the family history of many siblings. For the second career event, Stivon was mentored. Inspired by the first event I decided that Stivon would seek out a Vulcan officer to help him meditate and calm his mind. He took ten months of leave on Vulcan and studied various techniques to return his mind to normalcy. While he felt confident enough to resume his duties, he now understands Caitian history and culture.
The finishing touches wrapped up Stivon’s stats, stress value, damage bonus, department position and assigned equipment. The character sheet is posted below.
Afterthoughts:
With other entries in the Character Creation Challenge, I only used the primary rulebook to create the character. After creating a Star Trek Adventures character last month for an upcoming campaign I elected to use a fan-made character creation guide just because it was all laid out step-by-step. The STA core rulebook has a lot of good rules in it, spread out in different sections. The character creation guide quickly pointed me directly to the page numbers I needed to see. As I mentioned above, I just picked up the new Klingon core rulebook. I’ve heard that it is better organized (I’ll check that soon). I can say that I’m very happy that the Klingon book design was dark text on white pages. The black pages with white and orange text was very hard on the eyes. The character creation process reminded me a little of the FASA Star Trek system. I think if I create a bunch of new characters the system will make a little bit more sense to me. I’m really interested in creating stats for characters we see in the expanded Star Trek universe.
I almost forgot to mention, technically I was suppose to create two characters for STA for a campaign. A secondary character just in case the session doesn’t call for your primary character. An away team is heading down to the planet to rescue the hostages? Instead of the player with the science officer being bored while his character is stuck on the ship, he just grabs his secondary character that is a lower ranked security officer and continues with the game. I thought this was an excellent idea.
Additional Notes:
I have not discovered any new blogs displaying new characters today. But there is an active hashtag in social media for #CharacterCreationChallenge which has been getting used a lot. There is also a lot of players participating in the challenge on the RPG.net message board.
Star Trek: The Role Playing Game (note the space between role and playing in the name) by FASA was one of the first non-D&D games that I had the opportunity to play. I was introduced to the game at the tail end of it’s run by some friends in high school and I remember eagerly awaiting the latest release of the new books and supplements. Besides my Father’s introduction to Star Trek, the FASA game was one of the biggest influences in my Star Trek fandom. References from the FASA game continue to show up including season two of Star Trek: Discovery and the IDW Star Trek comics in 2020.
The FASA Star Trek Role Playing Game is based on a percentile (D100) system. I liked this type of statistics for a game based off of a franchise because another thing fans like to do is compare characters on the show (or even with other shows). While a lot of D&D characters could have a Strength of 16, it didn’t help much with the comparison side of the coin. Now if character A had a Strength of 55 and another had a Strength of 60, that would be close, but distinguished.
I decided to make a Human security officer named Lt. Bryant Wilson who will be serving in Starfleet during the time portrayed in the Original Series. While FASA had supplements that moved the game into the Star Trek Movies and the early days of The Next Generation, the primary focus was the Original Series with Kirk and Spock.
For the first five attributes of Strength, Endurance, Intelligence, Dexterity and Charisma, the player rolls 3d10 and adds 40 to the roll. The last two attributes, Luck and Psionic Potential, it was a straight percentile roll (D100). For Lt. Wilson I rolled the following stats. STR: 60 (rolled a 10+6+4). END: 60 (10+9+1), INT: 48 (3+3+2), DEX: 62 (10+7+5), CHA: 58 (10+5+3), LUC: 93 (whoa 93 on a percentile roll), PSI: 61 (again a percentile roll). The only racial modifiers for Humans is -30 to PSI which lowered this score to 31. In the RAW you roll another D100 and divide by two (rounding down). This roll was 23, which resulted in 11 bonus points. PSI cannot be increased and I am now allowed to put more than 30 in one attribute (no issue there). Most of my rolls were pretty good so I elected to put 5 points into STR and 4 points into END to help with his stats as a security officer (which brought both attributes up to 65 and 64) and the remaining 2 points going into INT (raising it to 50).
The next step was to pick my pre-academy skills. The number of points allowed was Lt. Wilson’s INT score divided by 10 and rounding down. So a total of 5. There were two categories to select from, Educational and Personal Development. I elected to put 3 points in General Medicine-First Aid (I figured he had to help in some capacity while growing up which may have led to his decision to join security) for Educational. From Personal Development I put 2 points into Streetwise. He had grown up living in a large North American city on the east coast. I randomly selected Baltimore.
At Starfleet Academy there were several skills that were learned as part of the curriculum in order to make a well rounded officer. I won’t list them all since they are in the rules, but I’ve added them to the character sheet. There were a few that I had to select the sub-skills. I selected Language-Orion, Life Sciences-Botany, Physical Sciences-Chemistry, Planetary Sciences-Meteorology, Space Sciences-Astrogation and Space Sciences-Astrophysics. I can select five outside electives at a rating of 10 each. Of these I selected Marksmanship-Archaic Weapon (Archery), Shuttlecraft Pilot, Negotiation/Diplomacy, Sports-Swimming and I added to my Streetwise (now up to 12). In my Advanced Study I get to add stats to the skills I already know. The number of stats I can improve is my INT score (50) divided by 10 (5) and add 5 which means I can roll a 1d10 and add that score to the skills I already know. I elected to add to Marksmanship Modern (rolled a 9, bumping this up to 29), Archery (+1 to 11), Negotiation/Diplomacy (+6 to 16), Computer Operation (+6 to 26), First Aid (+3 to 16), Zero-G Operations (+9 to 19), Federation Law (+7 to 22), Personal Weapons Technology (+10 (nice) to 15), Environmental Suit Operation (+1 to 11) and Personal Combat Unarmed (+4 to 24). I was done with the Academy Skills section.
Now onto the Branch School Skills. Luckily for the Security Branch School curriculum, it was pretty straight forward. Some new skills were added (such as Small Unit Tactics) and several had significant increases (+20 to Marksmanship, Modern) I added these skill points to my character sheet. There were two Outside Electives (any skill gets a 1d10) which I put into Carousing (rolled a 5) and Vehicle Operation-Hovercraft (rolled another 5). There was another round of Advanced Training. I could add a 1d10 to five skills I already knew. The Hovercraft skill got 6 (new total 11), Marksmanship Modern got 9 (new total 58), Small Unit Tactics got a 2 (new total 22), Damage Control Procedures got a 4 (new total 14) and Swimming got a 6 (new total 16). With that the Branch School was done.
Next was Bryant Wilson’s cadet cruise. It was a simple D100 roll with some modifiers for INT and LUC added (or subtracted). I rolled a 25 on the dice. My INT score didn’t alter anything, but since my luck was over 70, I took away 10 from the roll for a final of 15. This was exactly what was needed for a cadet cruise within the Exploration Command on a Constitution class starship. That high LUC really helped out. I marked that on my character sheet. The results of the cadet cruise was another D100 with additional modifiers. I rolled a 71, subtracted 20 for the cruise being on a Constitution Class and subtracted another 10 for the high LUC score for a grand total of 41. This resulted in Bryant Wilson passing his cadet cruise and earning the rank of Ensign. When I saw these results, I decided that Ensign Wilson had taken his cadet cruise on the USS Kongo.
After the cadet cruise, Ensign Wilson was sent to Department Head School which resulted in three things. Several new skills were added/gained (Administration, Computer Operation and Leadership), more Advanced Training. Five skills already known get a 1d10 advancement. These were Negotiation/Diplomacy got a 7 (new total 23), Small Unit Tactics got a 9 (new total 31), Marksmanship-Modern got a 4 (new total 62), Carousing got a 4 (new total 9) and Personal Combat Unarmed got a 5 (new total 49). The last thing earned was a rank advancement to Lieutenant (j.g.).
Next the RAW has Lt. (j.g.) Bryant Wilson going to Command Schools (there are a lot of schools in this game). I can select five skills and take the points listed. Well Starship Combat Strategy Tactics is a huge gain (40 points), Negotiation/Diplomacy is nice (another 10 for a total of 33), 10 more to Leadership (new total 40), Federation Law gets 10 (new total 37) and Federation Culture/History gets 5 (new total 20). Lt. (j.g.) Wilson has now been promoted to Lieutenant.
Now we get to determine the number of tours served. The eventual end goal is to make the character the Chief of Security on a starship. I was instructed to roll a 1d10 and divide by 2 (rounding down). The roll was a 7 resulting in three tours. My high LUC once again came in handing reducing the number of tours by 1. I needed to reach the rank of Lieutenant, so I didn’t need to add a tour for that requirement. However I need to add a tour for becoming a Department Head. The final total of tours needed would be three. If the game was going to be be held on a Constitution-class starship, there would have been one additional tour added. All the tours are determined by a D100 roll with modifiers.
The first tour rolled a 73, high LUC reduced this by 10 to 63. Wilson would be serving in the Merchant Marine Command (I decided he was serving onboard a Starfleet operated freighter known as the USS Whitlock). He must have done a good job because he ha a total Officer Efficiency Report of 15 (25 roll -10 for high LUC) which gave a rating of Excellent. The tour lasted 1 year (1d10 roll resulted in a 2, divided by 2 to get the one year) For serving in the Merchant Marines, I was able to add a 1d10 to either Carousing or Streetwise. I rolled a 4 that was added to Carousing (new total 13).
For the second tour I rolled another D100 and consulted the Tour Assignment Table. My Excellent rating gave me a -10 and my high LUC gave me another -10, so I rolled on the table for -10 to -20 (this way was set up that poor performances would not be rewarded with plumb assignments such as the coveted Constitution-class starships). I rolled a 42 (hey the answer to life, the universe and everything) which resulted in a tour within the Military Operations Command. I decided that Wilson was transferred to the USS Joan of Arc, a Larson class-destroyer. The tour lasted 3 years (1d10 roll resulted in a 7, divided by 2 and rounded down). For an Officer Efficiency Rating I rolled 41, modified by the high LUC to 31 resulting in As Expected.
The third tour rolled an 06 (Wow!) which consulting the table resulted in an assignment to a Constitution-class starship. That’s a feather in the cap for Wilson as he got to serve on the USS Constitution for three years (length roll on a 1d10 was a 7). There he earned an Officer Efficiency Rating of Excellent (roll of 35 minus 10 for the high LUC resulting in an OER of 25). This excellent rating is what probably got him noticed for his in-game assignment as the Chief of Security on the USS El Cid, an Anton-class cruiser.
Now these tours resulted in several skill increases. We already mentioned the Carousing from the Merchant Marine tour listed above. There was a total of seven years in service so one additional 1d10 can be added to skills already known for each two years (3 rolls total). Since at least two years was spent on a Constitution-Class, that adds another roll. High LUC scores again adding two additional rolls. So for the six rolls in total I added the following. Leadership gets a 10 (for a new total of 50). Small Unit Tactics gets a 3 (new total 34). Personal Combat Unarmed gets a 3 (new total 52), Security Procedures gets an 8 (new total 48). Zero-G Operations gets a 2 (new total 21) and Marksmanship-Modern gets a 9 (new total 71).
Lt. Wilson’s age is 33. He was 18 when we started the academy which took 4 years to complete. Half a year for the cadet cruise. 1.5 years for the branch school. A year each for department head school and command school and the three tours took 7 years.
Max Operating Endurance and Current Operating Endurance equals the END score. The Wound Heal Rate for Wilson is a 3 (END divided by 20, rounded down) and the Fatigue Heal Rate is 6 (END divided by 10, rounded down). Action Points came up as a 10 (DEX divided by 10, rounded down then add 4). The To-Hit Mod score is the average of the DEX score with the skill of Modern Marksmanship (62 added to 71 divided by 2 and rounded up = 67). To-Hit HTH (Hand to Hand) score is the average of the DEX (62) score with the skill of Personal Combat-Unarmed (52) which resulted in 57. Bare-hand damage is 1d10+3 due to his STR score of 65. Here is the final character:
Afterthoughts:
While discussing character creation for Star Trek Adventures, a friend stated that he preferred it over FASAs +5 to a skill here and +5 to a skill there. The FASA system was a little bit longer, but I felt that I could see the character forming before my eyes. Character creation would definitely have to be a session zero meeting between players and game master. If I was the GM for new players I’d also give them a little bit of leeway to go back and change some skills. In hindsight I should have given Lt. Wilson a skill in armed combat with sword or some unique weapon. I also like the Trivia catch all skill (even thought I didn’t use it on Wilson).
I also don’t know if I’m going to go into so much creation details on future entries. I need to pace myself if I’m going to make it through the 31 day challenge. I just get inspired to start typing and next thing I know I’m just continuing to type.
Additional Notes:
I’ve decided to start adding links to other blogs and message boards where players are participating in the Character Creation Challenge. I’ve had people ask if they can still participate if they didn’t start on January 1st. The answer yes, just pick up from today and move forward. If I don’t have your location linked, send me the URL. For social media (twitter, facebook, etc.) just use the hashtag of #CharacterCreationChallenge. I can’t link all social media sites, but I know they are coming up under that hashtag.
Also thank you to those who gave feedback to my Character Creation Challenge entry for Day 1. I had to go back and make a few minor corrections. I had been a while since I had created a character in the BECMI system.
