A Nerd Dad’s Review of Star Trek Adventures RPG second edition

In addition to exploring The One Ring RPG (role-playing game) by Free League Publishing, I have explored some of their other titles. But I’ve also branched out to other RPG titles as well. Namely, I have picked up a copy of the 2nd edition core rulebook of the Star Trek Adventures role-playing game by Modiphius. Let’s look at the game and the core rulebook…

The Core Rules

I have never played any Star Trek RPGs before, so I came into this totally blind. The core rulebook is quite large, and covers many details about the Star Trek Universe for brand new Star Trek players, and also includes details that may interest old-school Star Trek nerds too. I liked reading about the different classes of planets (some I didn’t know existed), plus a break down of the different Star Trek eras. The game assumes you can plan any era, not just classic Trek vs. newer Trek. This means you can also play more obscure settings like Star Trek: Enterprise, Excelsior class ships, and so on.

The core rulebook at first glance can be somewhat daunting. I had to step back and spend a few weeks reading through it chapter by chapter, to make sense of the game. The rules are actually pretty simple (more on that below), but there’s a lot of content, each with additional rules and mechanics which can be confusing for a new Gamemaster.

Fortunately, Modiphius also publishes a PDF quickstart guide that distills the game into the most essential elements. This is a great way to “try before you buy”, or when you just need a quick summary of the rules. The core rulebook also has a similar summary at the very beginning of the book, but I failed to notice this until weeks later because I had eagerly jumped ahead to character creation without knowing all the terminology and such. So, if you just want to know the game, maybe start with the free quick start guide first, then get the core rulebook when you are ready.

To its credit, the core rulebook also does have some really nice “checkpoint” pages for when you can’t remember how to do something, and you need a step-by-step guide: how to create characters, starships, contested rolls, etc. These will even guide you to other pages for more details. So, in spite of the huge content, the book is very helpful in pointing to the write direction once you get used to the format.

So, while the book is daunting at first, it’s also pretty fun to read and has lots of great stuff in there.

Let’s discuss mechanics next.

Basic STA Mechanics

Star Trek Adventures, second edition, is apparently a big revamp of 1st edition, and its rules are pretty different than Dungeons and Dragons or other similar games. And yet, the rules are also quite simple.

The game uses a “two d20” mechanic where all rolls and skill checks rely on a pair of d20 dice at minimum. In some cases, you can add more d20’s (5 maximum) for a skill roll, but you never use anything apart from d20 dice.

Unlike D&D and such, you’re not trying to roll higher than a challenge rating, you’re trying to roll under it, based on what your personal attributes are, plus skills with certain ship roles.

For example, my main character a science officer might have a Reason attribute of 9, and Science training rating up to 4. So, 9 + 4 = 13, and if the situation calls for him to use these skills, I will roll two d20’s above, and hope to get 13 or less. Each of the d20’s is separate from one another, they don’t add together. You are trying to see how many d20 dice you can roll for 13 or less. IF both dice roll 13 or less, that’s two successes. If one succeeds (gets 13 or less), and one fails (14 our higher) than it counts as one success. Depending on how challenging the situation is, the Gamemaster might require 2 or more successes.

By the way, opposite of D&D, a natural 1 in STA is a critical success (such a d20 rolled counts as two successes, not one), and a natural 20 is a complication (a failure with additional consequence). Complications affect future challenge rolls in various ways.

Finally, if you get more success dice than needed to pass a particular skill challenge, this gives you more momentum for later rolls, which (among other things) let you buy extra d20s for a particularly challenging skill check. So, if you and your crew are “on a roll”, you’ll quickly build up a momentum (maximum of 6) pool, and then can apply that later during more risky situations.

The Gamemaster does the same through threat. They can build up threat, and use it to buy more dice or other challenges as needed.

That’s basically the game in a nutshell. Quite flexible, and once the mechanics sink in, very flexible.

Character Creation

Creating characters (and starships!) in STA turned out to be quite fun. Unlike most RPGs, where you make one character for yourself, you are making a crew of characters. One is the “primary” character (the one you play most), and others are secondary characters that represent other crew members. This makes sense. If Skon is a science officer, but the scene calls for a security person, you might need to switch to a security officer you made before. The secondary characters are a little more streamlined than your primary character, but you can make as many as you think you might need. My daughter really enjoyed this part, and kept making more and more secondary characters.

As for making a primary character, there is a lot of customization.

Character creation in STA is a layered approach, starting with your species, what kind of upbringing you had, life events, family trade, parents, etc. With each layer, you increment more towards certain training, skills, attributes, etc. There’s many mini skills or “focuses” that let you have extra success d20 rolls (e.g. Astrophysics, Hand to Hand Combat, Ecology, etc), so you can flavor your character more.

Not surprisingly, my primary character was a Vulcan science officer named Skon son of Sevek, but then I also made a Tellarite transport engineer (a la Miles O’Brien) since I was inspired by my recent watch of Star Trek: Enterprise, and my daughter rolled 6 or 7 secondary characters including a Ferengi doctor, etc.

Also, STA isn’t limited to the Federation at all. The same rules and book allow you to make an all-Klingon or Romulan crew among others.

Ship Creation

Similar to creating characters, you can also create your ship. While the game assumes you will make a Federation starship, the rules also include alien vessels: Klingon ships, Romulan ships and so on.

The ships are somewhat like characters too in that they have stats, roles and so on. When doing things with your ship like piloting or combat you’ll role similar mechanics described above, but you use your ship stats plus the appropriate character’s stats.

For the time being, my kids and I made Federation ships. I rolled up a science / research vessel, Constitution class (i.e. the original Enterprise), while my son wanted a newer generation vessel, with more military capabilities. Next time, having been inspired by Diane Duane’s excellent Rinhannsu series, I might roll up a Romulan crew and ship.

Missions and Gameplay

STA plays much like a typical Star Trek episode: you have a mission and various characters in your crew have their own scenes to deal with the mission. You might use your primary character in one scene, but (at your discretion) use a secondary character that’s more suitable in a different scene.

The Gamemaster sets the scene, like any RPG, and answers questions, provides challenges for the crew to overcome. The main difference is that you might switch scenes (on the ship vs. on the planet surface) and different characters might be doing stuff to help the mission.

Also, once the mission is done there is downtime to reflect and for character growth. So, unlike D&D where you slay a goblin and earn XP, instead your character builds up some skills, swaps out skills for others, or changes their personal motto based on learned experiences. So, personal growth in other words.

The Core Rulebook includes a couple intro missions you can try out without a huge commitment, or a longer campaign.

Also, jsut to note, it is possible to fail a mission, and of course there are consequences to the ship and crew if that happens, but it isn’t like you were slain by an elf, the ship will continue on, and that becomes part of your character growth. Of course, your ship can be destroyed, or your character killed during combat, but not all missions are do-or-die missions.

Playing with my Kids

Earlier this year, my kids and I played one of the sample missions in the Core Rulebook, a plague affecting a planet that is also subject to the Prime Directive. I was worried about my kids adjusting to a totally new system, and a different look-and-feel to Dungeons and Dragons, yet to my surprise they really liked it. Once they got the hang of momentum and solving challenges they got hooked.

Plus they really enjoyed having a cast of characters to choose from instead of sticking to just one.

Playing Solo

The idea of playing solo campaigns has interested me ever since I started playing Strider Mode in The One Ring RPG.

Modiphius includes a supplement called The Captain’s Log which includes many extra missions that can be played solo (not to be confused with first edition version). I haven’t really tried solo mode yet, but will likely post about it separately. Also, side note, Modiphius has a number of download resources that are worth looking into.

Conclusion

For a first time experience with a Star Trek RPG, I really liked it. It took some effort to unlearn my past experiences with other RPGs, and I was a bit daunted initially by the size of the Core Rulebook, but once it started to sink in, and I tried out the game, I found the rules pretty intuitive, and the customization options for characters and ships really fun. The mission style format really does feel like a Star Trek episode.

I am eager to play this again, especially now that the campaign guide is available on preorder, and I will probably delve into solo STA more as well.