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2d20ReviewsStar Trek

Star Trek Adventures – Quick Look

If you haven’t had a chance to check out Star Trek Adventures, I finally got a chance to do a dive into this game’s Core Rulebook. Here’s a quick look at the game for you to read which might help you with deciding if you want to pick it up.

A Little History

In the past we’ve seen releases of Star Trek roleplaying games from FASA (1980s), Last Unicorn (late 1990s), and Decipher (early 2000s). Fans had to wait for more than a decade to get a new Star Trek roleplaying game, so there was lots of excitement when it was announced that Star Trek Adventures from Modiphius Entertainment would be released summer 2017.

Overview

“Starfleet Needs a New Crew”

Star Trek Adventures is a tabletop RPG that let’s your table play as a group Starfleet personnel in any time period from the various TV shows, including the original series (TOS), The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise. If you are fan of the J.J. Abrams reboot or Discovery, I’m sure you could run those as well without much extra effort.

The game is best at letting players act as classic officers on the bridge of a starship going exploring the galaxy and going on away missions, but the game can handle personnel on a starbase and other scenarios around Starfleet. Your duties may take you to the edges of known space, or to Federation colonies in need, to the borders of neighbouring galactic powers or into the eye of interstellar phenomena. Your ship and your crew epitomize the best Starfleet and the United Federation of Planets has to offer, and you are needed more than ever.

From the Publisher…

Welcome to your new assignment, Captain. Your continuing mission, to explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations, to bodly go where no one has gone before…

Star Trek Adventures takes you to the Final Frontier of the Galaxy, where new discoveries await keen explorers of Starfleet. Your duties may take you to the edges of known space, or to Federation colonies in need, to the borders of neighbouring galactic powers or into the eye of interstellar phenomena. Your ship and your crew epitomise the best Starfleet and the United Federation of Planets has to offer, and you are needed more than ever.

A new threat looms from across the Gamma Quadrant, as it is confirmed by Commander Sisko and his crew that the Dominion, led by the Founders, represent a significant threat to the Alpha Quadrant. Tension is already high in the region of Bajor and Deep Space 9, as the Maquis continue to act against the Cardassian-Federation peace treaty, with Captain Janeway and the crew of the U.S.S. Voyager preparing for their mission in the Badlands. It is a volatile time for the Federation and new crews have never been in higher demand.

  • Create your own Star Trek stories of discovery and adventure on the Final Frontier with 368 pages of content (check out the sample spreads in the images). Full colour hardback, features a matt laminate cover with reading ribbon.
  • Complete 2d20 game system from Modiphius Entertainment adapted for Star Trek Adventures, used in Mutant Chronicles, Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of, John Carter of Mars and the Infinity RPG.
  • An extensive exploration of the United Federation of Planets and its galactic neighbours in the Alpha, Beta and Gamma Quadrants.
  • Guidelines for Gamemasters old and new, on how to run an adventure of exploration and discovery for the crew of a Federation starship.
  • A full catalogue of aliens and antagonists including Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians, the Borg and the Dominion.
  • Brought to you by a team of expert Star Trek writers including writers from previous editions of Star Trek roleplaying games and other gaming talent.
  • Personal logs and intercepted communications by Starfleet Intelligence provide a new perspective on Star Trek and its events.

 

What The Book Contains

What a core rulebook spends its page count on can usually signal what’s important about a game. Star Trek Adventures uses its 360 pages as follows:

  • Setting introduction (~60 pages);
  • Basic Rules (~20 pages);
  • Character Creation (~50 pages);
  • Exploration and the Cosmos (~20 pages);
  • Conflicts (~20 pages),
  • Technology and Gear (~20 pages);
  • Ships: including ship creation and alien ships (~70 pages);
  • GM Advice (~40 pages);
  • Aliens and Adversaries (~35 pages); i
  • Introductory Mission (~10 pages). The introductory mission serves as more of an explicitly learn-to-play experience than the standard RPG core book fare, with the mission specifically laid out to successively introduce more complex mechanical concepts.

Check out the free quickstart guide or grab a copy of the core rulebook in book or PDF format from Modiphius Entertainment.

The Collectors Edition also comes with a folded map of the Alpha & Beta Quadrants, but might be a little steep for most people’s budget.

Other Books

A Quick Look at Accessories

There are tons of accessories out already. Here is a look at the dice and miniatures, but you can also purchase official deck tiles, gamemaster screens, posterss. tokens, and free character sheets.

While Star Trek can be played with d20 and d6 dice you already own, they offer sets of custom dice, from Q-Workshop, to run their 2d20 system. Each set comes with:

  • 3 twenty-sided dice in 3 different colors: command division red, security division yellow or science division blue
  • 4 six-sided dice with the Starfleet insignia on the ‘1’ face
  •  for use as Combat Dice with the 2d20 system, featuring damage symbols on the 1 and 2 faces, and the Starfleet insignia on the 5 and 6 faces, representing Effects.

 

There’s plenty of 32mm scale miniatures to choose from, from the various shows that are already out or soon to be released.

 

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of the book in PDF format from the publisher.