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FaustianSlip
2012-12-10, 07:53 AM
So I'm relatively new to the whole tabletop RPG thing; I got started earlier this year when some friends from work started a group. Most of them (though not all) played D&D in junior high and high school and are very familiar with the system and what makes a good game. I spent most of my formative years playing Star Trek PBeM games and CCGs, so the D&D thing is new to me. I was never a huge fantasy person, so I sometimes feel like I'm at a little bit of a loss, because I'm not as familiar with that world, if that makes sense, so it sometimes makes it harder for me to actually roleplay.

Anyway, several of us are relatively die-hard Trekkers, and there has been a lot of conversation about trying to do a D&D-style, Trek-centered game. Our DM found Prime Directive (http://www.starfleetgames.com/prime/pd-gurps.htm), which has been ordered and should come in the mail relatively soon, and it looks like another player and I will be sharing DM duties. I'm a total neophyte as far as the gaming system part of this equation goes, but I feel like story-wise, I'm back in my element again.

So my questions: for any of you who are Trek-inclined, what kind of stuff would you like to see in this game? I think we're going to end up doing a later-DS9/First Contact-era 'verse, just because the political situation would lend itself to some cool story lines and both the other guy working on the story and I are DS9 fans, but that's still a lot of universe out there. Secondly, for anyone here familiar with GURPS, what are your thoughts on it? We currently play a d20 game, but our current DM thought that GURPS would be better suited to a Star Trek game because it allows for more futuristic mechanics. I have very little to compare it to, though, so any advice in that regard would be great.

Water_Bear
2012-12-10, 10:05 AM
It'll be tough to do that with a system which looks to be built for TOS, and possibly old enough to have most of it's information torpedoed by canon. Klingon "Imperial Paladins?" The hell?

Personally, for a Trek game I'd ditch GURPS and go for a system which captures the very cinematic way logic works in the shows and how crazy Treknobabble can get. Prime Time Adventures and FATE are my top two picks, but anything rules-light with an emphasis on awesome over logical would work. GURPS means that your PCs are going to die like Redshirts unless there's a specific "character shield" rule in play.

As for the time period? I like the Dominion War, it's got the scale to handle a lot of different kinds of adventures all over the place while still having a tight theme. Doing an alternate Voyager, maybe being on Ransom's ship instead of Janeway's, would be cool just for the Borg being regular features. Or of course, you could always be the Saratoga's command staff in any era and just get the **** kicked out of you every week. All fun options.

Jeraa
2012-12-10, 11:16 AM
It'll be tough to do that with a system which looks to be built for TOS, and possibly old enough to have most of it's information torpedoed by canon. Klingon "Imperial Paladins?" The hell?

The universe used in the Prime Directive rpgs isn't the same as the one shown in the television shows and movies. Its based on the original series but develops along a different line after that. Klingons don't have ridged foreheads (and never did), and come from Klinshai, not Qo'nos. No bat'leths, and the familiar bird-of-prey ship doesn't exist. The Kzinti (from the Known Space series) exist in the setting.

Anything that happens or is revealed after the original series or animated series may or may not fit into the universe used by Prime Directive.

The Imperial Paladins are agents hand-picked by the emperor for their loyalty and ability to accomplish orders. Its also their Federation name, who drew from their own background to name them. The Klingons don't call them paladins.

LibraryOgre
2012-12-10, 01:57 PM
I would, as always, suggest d6 Space as a mechanical basis. It's simple, adaptable, and free from Drivethru RPG.

Greylond
2012-12-10, 04:30 PM
Nah, the best, IMO, rpg for Star Trek is the old FASA Star Trek RPG. I never played Prime Directive but the people who tried it that I talked to while it was out didn't like it. I played and GM'ed FASA Star Trek back in the late 80's and early 90's. The "Alternate" ST universe that the others are talking about was developed for FASA ST. It is long out of print but you can sometimes find it floating around.

Morithias
2012-12-10, 06:26 PM
If I ever joined a star trek campaign, this is what I would do.

http://ffn.nodwick.com/?p=428

Yarr! Space Pirates! Hand over yee green skinned space babes or yer planets be taking a blast from me doomsday weapon!

(Btw, it took me 30 minutes to find that comic, shows how obsessive I am)

Greylond
2012-12-10, 06:40 PM
Heh, one of the FASA ST games that I played kinda went that way. I played the Security Chief and I ended up standing Watch next to the Captain's Chair on the bridge with a phaser rifle... ;)

We eventually just decided that the game was actually taking place in the ST Alternate Universe where the Federation was Evil... :)

TheThan
2012-12-10, 11:58 PM
I’d run it much like firefly. You’re the crew of a tramp freighter flying around the alpha quadrant trying to earn a living and keep flying.

Course, you know, space pirates are pretty cool as well.

Hopeless
2012-12-11, 07:24 AM
It really depends on what you, your dm and your fellow players want to play.

I'd go Traveller well at least in a month of two you'll have an actual Star Trek setting book released to go with that system (hopefully sooner as it'll war with the urge to buy the star wars edge of the empire beginner's box set!).

So;

1) Classic series: Use the high guard supplement use the aslan as base stats for the klingons unless said book I mentioned above you get hold of, maybe use the Zhodani for the romulaans and vulcans but let the romulaans use the psi stat as their dump stat whilst Vulcans need to make sur etheir Psi stat is at least a 6 so they can use their contact telepathy and nerve pinch (Melee/Unarmed special ability?).
2)TNG: High Guard again
3)Deep Space Nine: I'd go general purpose traveller
4) Voyager: Seriously? Still High Guard but throw in Scouts or they'll never find a way back...
Scoundrels would be handy in a pinch.

Overview: Stick with the general Traveller rules and have your players create their characters as normal in a discussion with whoever's running it and each other so they get to start on the same ship.

Zhodani: Can be passed off as Vulcans although their strength and endurance need to be at least an 8 and Psi rating at least a 6 with an extra homeworld skill of Telepathy 0 so a good education of at least an 8 might be advisable.

Aslan: Make them klingons and have a free weapon to replace their claws and an extra homeworld skill of Melee/Weapon

Romulaans can be run as Vulcans but use their Psi Stat as their dump stats so should only very rarely be higher than a 6.

Orions: Standard humans maybe make them green skinned?

Ferengi: Give them a racial talent of Telepathy/Mind Shield at 0 which makes it hard to read them, otherwise as standard please argue but I don't see them involved in Prime Directive.

Hopeless
2012-12-11, 07:33 AM
So my questions: for any of you who are Trek-inclined, what kind of stuff would you like to see in this game? I think we're going to end up doing a later-DS9/First Contact-era 'verse, just because the political situation would lend itself to some cool story lines and both the other guy working on the story and I are DS9 fans, but that's still a lot of universe out there. Secondly, for anyone here familiar with GURPS, what are your thoughts on it? We currently play a d20 game, but our current DM thought that GURPS would be better suited to a Star Trek game because it allows for more futuristic mechanics. I have very little to compare it to, though, so any advice in that regard would be great.

Tried that, didn't get far.
Bought the original, the d20 and gurps never ran it and when a friend ran the gurps version it didn't work out too well but you might have better luck and I hope you do!

What ship will be used?

I've been playing star trek online and I think a smaller ship might work out better, have your players being new recruits who end up in a major battle and due to battle damage are left behind in a remote system.

Your ship needs major repairs and the best place to do that is to find a safe harbour.

The nearby world is in turmoil because of a klingon raid and the deeps space station you docked with is dealing with its own problems and now that you've turned up they turn to your ship for help...

You ship CO is incapacitated and your team has been selected to function as your ship's new bridge crew.

The colony nearby is the only one you have available for shore leave and there's no indication when reinforcements will turn up, the one good sign is that your ship can be easily repaired but the first and only contact you have with Federation command bases you at the deep space station until help arrives and that means your job is to rebuild the station defences, patrol the area keep up diplomatic ties with the nearby colony and deal with the remaining enemy forces working insystem and those heading to finish conquering the system as the Federation forces are too busy elsewhere to help...

What do your players want to do?

Water_Bear
2012-12-11, 09:06 PM
I’d run it much like firefly. You’re the crew of a tramp freighter flying around the alpha quadrant trying to earn a living and keep flying.

Course, you know, space pirates are pretty cool as well.

The problem is that Trek Humans are space communists who have no crime or material wants of any kind (aside from the Maquis), so that kind of rules out traders and pirates. It's actually pretty unclear if there is a way to get off-world without enlisting in Star Fleet, because aside from the Maquis we never really see any civilian ships.

In essence, if you want to have a fun gritty Trek adventure you need to be in the Cardassian DMZ. And have it set after Voyager starts so that you don't risk running into Chakotay and having all the excitement sucked out of your day.

GenericGuy
2012-12-11, 09:50 PM
The problem is that Trek Humans are space communists who have no crime or material wants of any kind (aside from the Maquis), so that kind of rules out traders and pirates. It's actually pretty unclear if there is a way to get off-world without enlisting in Star Fleet, because aside from the Maquis we never really see any civilian ships.

In essence, if you want to have a fun gritty Trek adventure you need to be in the Cardassian DMZ. And have it set after Voyager starts so that you don't risk running into Chakotay and having all the excitement sucked out of your day.

Sisko’s girlfriend (Cassidy) ran an explicitly civilian ship, but then again Starfleet did contract her for dangerous missions (perhaps she never had a real choice in the matter?:smalleek:). Personally I think Section 31 is where all the real action is at in the Federation, the guys who really keep the “utopia” running by any means necessary.

Jeraa
2012-12-11, 10:40 PM
While the Federation may not need many merchants (it does have replicator technology), not everything can be replicated. Thats what makes gold-pressed latinum a valuable commodity. I think dilithium can't be replicated either.

And not everything is replicated. In DS9, Siskos father runs a restaurant back on Earth, and real (non-replicated) food is used, at least for some things. That food has to come from somewhere (most likely Earth, but its mentioned he can get live tube grubs for Nog, and it isn't likely those come from Earth.)

A Cardassian freighter in Deep Space 9 was modified to appear to be carrying refined dilithium by Dukat, so freighters had to be carrying the stuff or the deception wouldn't of worked.

Another episode of DS9 ("The Maquis, part 1") has a Federation merchant being attacked by Cardassians. It was carrying medical supplies (though the Cardassians said it was carrying weapons). So even the Federation, despite having replicators, still needs merchants and transports for something. Klingon freighters are mentioned in other DS9 episodes (one stops by DS9 before heading into the Gamma quadrant, a convoy of them are escorted by the Rotarran in another).

So a trader and pirate campaign should work just fine.

Mando Knight
2012-12-11, 11:00 PM
If I ever joined a star trek campaign, this is what I would do.

http://ffn.nodwick.com/?p=428

Yarr! Space Pirates! Hand over yee green skinned space babes or yer planets be taking a blast from me doomsday weapon!

(Btw, it took me 30 minutes to find that comic, shows how obsessive I am)

...If Enterprise is to be believed, the green skinned space babes (http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Orion) are actually the space pirates (http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Orion_Syndicate), ones that are pulling a long con (as in, the females are actually the bosses, despite often being sold as slave girls... they do so in order to use their pheromones and seductive skills to take over the opposition).

Morithias
2012-12-11, 11:01 PM
...If Enterprise is to be believed, the green skinned space babes (http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Orion) are actually the space pirates (http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Orion_Syndicate), ones that are pulling a long con (as in, the females are actually the bosses, despite often being sold as slave girls... they do so in order to use their pheromones and seductive skills to take over the opposition).

Okay, if this campaign goes off. I am SO playing one of them.

TheThan
2012-12-11, 11:51 PM
The problem is that Trek Humans are space communists who have no crime or material wants of any kind (aside from the Maquis), so that kind of rules out traders and pirates. It's actually pretty unclear if there is a way to get off-world without enlisting in Star Fleet, because aside from the Maquis we never really see any civilian ships.

In essence, if you want to have a fun gritty Trek adventure you need to be in the Cardassian DMZ. And have it set after Voyager starts so that you don't risk running into Chakotay and having all the excitement sucked out of your day.

Oh it could work. Recall Harry Mudd (http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Harcourt_Mudd). Sure he’s a bit more con artist rather than a space cowboy. But he’s still a dashing rogue.

The biggest problem is getting away from starfleet and the federation. I don't think there's a whole lot of information provided on what it's like living outside of the dominion (oh har har) of the federation. But there is some things we can glean from various sources, Sisko's girlfreind, Mudd, the Orions, the Maquis, Captain Okona (http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Thadiun_Okona) etc.

Ravens_cry
2012-12-12, 12:44 AM
Yeah, at the outskirts of the Federation, among the likely many neutral planets within Federation space who have not actually joined it.
Also, they aren't all space communists, even among the more reputable citizens. Take Carter Winston (http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Carter_Winston). He is said to have acquired 'a dozen fortunes', which implies that wealth as a concept still exists.
Yes, this is the animated series and technically not Canon, I think, but no reason not to include it if the material fits the stories you want to tell better.

Jeraa
2012-12-12, 01:23 AM
Yes, this is the animated series and technically not Canon, I think, but no reason not to include it if the material fits the stories you want to tell better.

Actually, Prime Directive is set in the Star Fleet Universe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Fleet_Universe), not the "real" universe that includes TNG, DS9, or Voyager. The original series and the animated series are the only two series that they have a license to use. So the animated series should be considered canon, at least as far as Prime Directive is concerned. (Or at least parts of the animated series.)

Ravens_cry
2012-12-12, 01:44 AM
Allrighty then, then all the more incentive to have space pirates, traders and merchants of savoury and and unsavoury character in a Star Trek game.

Greylond
2012-12-12, 08:33 AM
The FASA Star Trek RPG had non-Federation supplements. Probably the best one, IMO, was Traders Captains and Merchant Princes which set out a whole rule system for creating non-Star Fleet human characters and a trade system for running a "Merchant Ship" campaign. Bundled with it was a Campaign book called The Triangle Campaign which was about a non-aligned area between the Federation, Klingon and Romulan empires.

DigoDragon
2012-12-12, 08:50 AM
So my questions: for any of you who are Trek-inclined, what kind of stuff would you like to see in this game?

One of my players got the d20 version of Prime Directive and when I read through it, I had the idea to run a Trek game in the same vein as Star Control II.

The PCs are cadets serving on an old Starfleet ship due to be decomissioned after this final "tour" around a few systems as a sendoff. Due to a navigational accident the ship ends up several years into the future and the crew learns that a newly discovered alien race passed through the galaxy, destroying the major powers (Federation, Klingon Empire, Romulan Empire, etc). The power vacuum allowed once minor races to become the big powers now and they are at war with each other. The object of the campaign is to re-explore the changed galaxy and reunite the remaining pockets of the Federation to bring peace.

Hopeless
2012-12-12, 11:00 AM
One of my players got the d20 version of Prime Directive and when I read through it, I had the idea to run a Trek game in the same vein as Star Control II.

The PCs are cadets serving on an old Starfleet ship due to be decomissioned after this final "tour" around a few systems as a sendoff. Due to a navigational accident the ship ends up several years into the future and the crew learns that a newly discovered alien race passed through the galaxy, destroying the major powers (Federation, Klingon Empire, Romulan Empire, etc). The power vacuum allowed once minor races to become the big powers now and they are at war with each other. The object of the campaign is to re-explore the changed galaxy and reunite the remaining pockets of the Federation to bring peace.

Out of curiosity what ship was used?

comicshorse
2012-12-12, 07:47 PM
Friend of mine ran a Star Trek game where we were traders with our own battered star ship on the fringes, moving between neutral systems and the Federation,
However to add an extra layer we were actually Star fleet personel on a deep cover mission. Mostly we lived the life of the traders and just made regular reports to Star Fleet intelligence on what we encountered but every know and again we were assigned missions that Star Fleet couldn't be seen to be doing.

Gnoman
2012-12-12, 09:25 PM
For a DS9-era game you'll have to do massive homebrewing. Prime Directive is set in the Star Fleet universe, which diverges from the main Trek canon after TAS, and has liscencing limits even then (they can use all the races and technology, but the characters are out, and the Enterprise only appears in ship lists). However, the different races and military situations are even more convoluted than the DS9 era. Notably, the SFU features a General War in which the Federation, Gorn, Kzinti and Hydrans fought with the Klingons, Romulans, and Lyrans. (Actual alliances varied during the war.)

FaustianSlip
2012-12-13, 12:39 AM
Thanks for all of the thoughts, guys. I'll try and see if I can track down the FASA books, although we've already ordered the Prime Directive stuff, so it won't hurt to at least take a look at it. I assumed that anything DS9-centered would need a lot of homebrewing anyway, because given that there are barely any Trek RPGs, who's really going to publish one that's DS9-centric? I think between myself and the other guys trying to organize this, we should be able to come up with something. My main concern is that while I don't think I'd have any problem coming up with a storyline or three, I'm such a neophyte when it comes to the tabletop RPG side of things that I won't know what the heck I'm doing if we start talking about substituting races and such. Fortunately, my friends have a much stronger RPG background, so we should be able to pool our respective skills. Hopefully.

As far as Prime Directive not being identical to the Trek universe or having the television characters, that in and of itself isn't a dealbreaker, I don't think. We all want to make our own characters, and I think we're more interested in using the Trek universe as the basis for our storyline and RPG as opposed to reenacting stuff from the series. Though in the conversations we've had about homebrew, we have discussed the possibility of picking an episode or an episode arc and using those basic events as a base for spinning off a campaign.

I think space pirates would be completely do-able, actually- a friend has already said that he wants to work in a sketchy Ferengi trader, for instance. And there were a lot of references to civilian transports and traders and such, but I think you tend to lose sight of them because the Trek series emphasis the military environment of Starfleet rather than the civilian world of the Federation and surrounds.

Edited to add that the possible format I was thinking of was less starship-based and more focused on away teams running missions, either on planets or starships/space stations. This would give us more flexibility in terms of swapping people in and out if someone can't make it to play a particular week or drops out or if someone new wants to join, and it would make it more of an adventuring party, I think, than having round after round of rolling to see if your tractor beams work.

Morithias
2012-12-13, 12:40 AM
I really don't care what setting you use. Just so long as I can play an Orion chick. If that's not okay...well it'll still be fun to watch.

DigoDragon
2012-12-13, 09:14 AM
Out of curiosity what ship was used?

I let the players offer their input, and I ultimately went with a Miranda Class (http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Miranda_class) ship which everyone was happy with. The running joke of the game was the "Khan Maneuver", whereas the PCs couldn't destroy an enemy ship, but managed to cripple it's warp capability and then threaten to self-destruct and take them both out.

My players have weird negotiation skills.