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Modiphius
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Throughout Star Trek’s many iterations, there's been a distinct pattern for the challenges faced by the spacefaring protagonists. New worlds, alien cultures, strange creatures, bizarre artifacts, and most importantly, the human condition are all in play. Between all that and Star Trek’s fundamental focus on exploration, it seems like the perfect setting for a tabletop RPG. The newest system to use that respected Sci-Fi history is Modiphius’ Star Trek Adventures.
While drawing mostly from The Next Generation, Star Trek Adventures is immediately identifiable as a book by fans, for fans. Much of the non-rules portions of the books are heavily layered in a mythology rooted in decades of TV programming. Even as a fan, I found the book’s heavy references, largely presented through in-universe text, a little daunting.
Meanwhile the actual rules stand up well in a vacuum. Star Trek Adventures is in the right spot for a licensed RPG, where the source material feels accurately represented without relying to heavily on it. That being said, I would have trouble running this game with players that were anything less than casual Star Trek fans. The game remains true to the high minded, exploration driven ideals of the franchise. It remains so faithful that many RPG players, who’ve likely only played Dungeons & Dragons 5E hack and slash campaigns, would feel very lost, especially if they’ve never seen Star Trek.
That being said, if you are a Star Trek fan and used to games that ask a little more cooperation and engagement from their players, you’re in luck. Star Trek Adventures offers the tools to capture everyone’s favorite utopia-in-peril and gives you a few different ways to approach it. Admittedly, the focus is on playing members of Starfleet, following their adventures through known and unknown space. Beyond the preexisting setting, it’s a game that integrates storytelling and mechanics without favoring one over the other. A hard task, even in the 24th century.
Physical Reality is Consistent with Universal Laws
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Modiphius
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While not quite “rules light,” Star Trek Adventures’ focus on capturing the essence of the show (whatever the era) means that it prioritizes story over rules. The Trait system is the most obvious example of this. Every story relevant entity, whether they be characters, starships, or even planets, has a set of short, pertinent facts attached to them. For example, Spock would have the "Vulcan" Trait and the Enterprise would have the "Federation" Trait. The Game Master rules how a given Trait might affect the difficulty of a Task by breaking them down into "Advantages" and "Complications." The way it turns the facts of a situation into measurable game mechanics feels very setting appropriate.
The arguable crux of the entire game is the Values system. Every major character has between one to three Values, short statements about what drives them and shapes their decisions. Actions that adhere to a value are easier, allowing a player to generate Determination, which can be spent to tilt things in their favor. Conversely, acting contrary to a Value is more difficult. A player can choose to accept a Complication in exchange for Determination, usually by refusing to act against their beliefs, to the detriment of themselves and others. Alternatively, characters can challenge a Value and still receive Determination, though now they must replace it with something more appropriate for their forever changed character.
The Value system is one of the standouts of Star Trek Adventures for a few reasons. Even more so than Traits, it captures the atmosphere of the source material. Star Trek is at its core a morality play, so the characters' beliefs should play an active role in the story. Attaching mechanics to it helps incentivize the players to engage the story in a meaningful way but does so without trivializing characters or the mechanics. Additionally character progression is tied to Values, as Star Trek Adventures wisely eschews traditional experience point systems.
Right Place, Right Time
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| Modiphius |
Rather appropriately, the ghost of White Wolf’s Storyteller System looms over this game. Task resolution is dependent on assembling dice pools and rolling below Target Numbers to generate successes. Target Numbers are determined by combining the relevant Attribute, a character's natural ability, with the appropriate Discipline, representing their training. While there are only a handful of each, both Attributes and Disciplines cover broad categories, though it's still rooted in typical Star Trek activities. Thankfully it avoids most of the issues with the Storytelling system's unwieldy approach by limiting the dice pools to two D20s, though players can use circumstantial modifiers to add up to three additional D20s.
With such a simplistic approach to Tasks, most of the complexity in gameplay comes from the Momentum-Threat economy. Momentum is added to a pool used by the players, generated from any check by the PCs that generates excess successes. Instead of pulling from the Momentum pool, or if it's empty, players can choose to add Threat instead, essentially the GM equivalent of Momentum. Momentum and Threat can be spent to add dice to a check, create advantageous conditions or hamper the opposition.
Values are fully integrated into the game, to the point that every campaign and
even individual adventure will have a Directive, a party shared Value
representing their current objective. Even the most linear RPGs rarely
have the players' goals spelled out so directly, much less turned into
a game mechanic. While Directives keep everyone on tack, they can also
be eliminated and replaced like normal Values. I will say it's a bit
tricky when to figure out when Starfleet orders get thrown out the
window, though considering how often that seems to happen on the Starship Enterprise, it was
clever to turn it into a game mechanic.
This reminds me of the FFG Star Wars Destiny Point system, though more complex and integrated with regular gameplay. While I prefer the simplicity of the Destiny Point system, there's more of a back and forth element to Momentum-Threat in Star Trek Adventures. Making it an unavoidable part of gameplay definitely helps, as well as offering a way to generate Momentum without guaranteeing an equal, negative response. The actions of an individual affecting the many, whether they be good or bad, is also very much in line with the themes of Star Trek.
Starfleet Academy
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Modiphius
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Star Trek has always lived and died by the quality of its cast, so it's logical to see that character creation is the most complex set of mechanics in the game. To simulate the rich careers and storied pasts of the typical Starfleet officer, Star Trek Adventures introduces the Lifepath Creation system. Players first pick a species, though outside of the classics, the offerings are almost exclusively from TNG. From there, a player picks from the options for Environment and Upbringing. In place of a class system, you have the three Starfleet Academy tracks, Command, Operations, and Science.
Interestingly enough, you can choose how experienced the character is. The three dynamic choices show the focus of Star Trek Adventures in crafting fulfilling stories and character arcs rather than mindlessly plodding through levels and skill trees. Lastly, players then generate "Career Events," notable occurrences in their time as a member of Starfleet. Every choice made has direct mechanical effects, eventually producing a complete character. Most of the background material is also left vague enough that players must create story points around each decision they make.
This process is in depth without being overwhelming. It goes beyond simply encouraging players make in depth backgrounds for their characters and instead forces them to by tying it directly to the game mechanics.
There are some more conventional mechanics here too, like Focuses for Discipline and a modest array of talents. While not bad, it contrasts with how satisfying and story-driven the rest of Lifepath Creation feels. It achieves something even White Wolf's games always struggled with, adequately compromising between gameplay and story. Needless to say, the Lifepath Creation system is where Star Trek Adventures best captures the aura of the shows.
Those daunted by the system are provided a "Creation in Play" section that slims the process down to a single page. It's designed explicitly for experienced players and those who want the game itself to define their character, rather than what happens before it. Similarly lightweight is the section for the Supporting Characters, who can be player controlled rather than GM controlled. This definitely shifts a lot of weight off the GMs shoulders. There's also the practical concern of letting the party split up or shift the focus on specific characters without forcing players sit out the game for long stretches.
Making a Name for Yourself
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As mentioned earlier, Star Trek Adventures characters do not receive experience points. Instead, they receive three types of Milestones, representing turning points in their lives, maybe best understood as their "character development." Milestones can be received at the end of a mission where a character played a prominent role. Above that are less regular Spotlight Milestones, which though awarded by the GM must be distributed by player vote. After a certain number of Spotlight Milestones, a character receives an Arc Milestone. As you can guess, the benefits of each one are reflected by how much work they require.
Milestones go beyond just straight stat buffs and require you to redistribute your points in Disciplines and Focuses. Normal and Arc Milestones often have some kind of drawback and represent changing priorities and needs rather than improvement. Only Arc Milestones are straight upgrades. Interestingly, each Milestone can be applied to a supporting character or even the ship. While I think experience point based progression has its place, it does feel increasingly archaic. It also has a tenuous place in more narrative driven games. Star Trek Adventures taking such an abstract and communal approach to character progression is definitely the right call.
I only wish the reputation system, representing a character's standing in Starfleet, took a similar approach. It's serviceable but I feel something as fluid as Milestones would have been a better fit. It fluctuates depending on how well a character adheres to Starfleet's ideals, as well as their mission success. While a lot of thought has been put into it, I think promotions make more sense purely as a narrative device. I also think Directives are a more dynamic way of representing when the party has pleased or defied Starfleet.
The Seed of Violence
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Modiphius
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Perhaps in conflict with more purist readings of Star Trek, interpersonal combat gets a lot of emphasis. Thankfully, it isn't at the expense of the more cerebral approaches to problem solving. The "Conflict" chapter leads with Social Conflicts. These mechanics are intentionally left free form, though there are some good guidelines and fun mechanics. Particularly notable is how Deception can be used to impose false Complications on a character
Despite the good effort put into Social Conflict, it does feel like phaser shootouts won out against diplomacy. I'm not particularly bothered by this, firstly because the mechanics favor constructing coherent arguments over just meeting target numbers. Secondly, the interpersonal combat remains faithful to the spirit of the show and takes a broad approach.
The actual rules are fairly simple. The weapons have abstract ranges, so the battleground is broken down to general Zones, referred to be as being roughly the size of a room in a starship. Environmental effects, including cover, are often restricted to a single Zone. Anyone within that area benefits (or suffers) from that.
The actual combat is as quick and messily resolved as it tends to be in the TV shows. In place of wounds and detailed critical hits, damage that goes through armor, natural Resistance, and other defenses is subtracted from Stress. The amount and severity of damage is dependent on the result rolled with the six-sided Effect Dice. Again, like the Storyteller System, after stress come abstract wound states.
Characters are fairly fragile in Star Trek Adventures. A single injury will knock them out of a fight and anything worse than that requires immediate medical attention, assuming they weren't just vaporized. This is totally in line with how nasty phasers are and gives Medical Officers PCs plenty to do.
Overall, combat is fairly simple, with the array of basic actions you expect from most mainstream RPGs. The Momentum-Threat economy does feature prominently and serves as the only real source of complexity. Momentum can be spent by characters to increase damage, prevent injury and give them additional actions per turn. NPCs can do the same with Threats, though the GM also has the option of using the pool to call in reinforcements and improve an adversary's equipment. Overall, Star Trek Adventures avoids getting bogged down in numbers without reducing things to a boring back and forth. More importantly, it captures the simple, abrupt fights the franchise rarely departs from.
What Does God Need with a Starship?
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By contrast, the rules for starships get the attention one would expect. Starship profiles mirror those for characters. The profiles are slit between six Systems, representing the ship's facilities and construction, and six Departments, which encompass the true heart of the ship, it's crew. And like characters, a starship's profile can be used to accomplish tasks, like scanning a planet's surface or firing proton torpedoes. Profiles are provided for the main ships of each major installment, though the NX-01 is noticeably absent. The other offerings are almost exclusively from the TNG era.
For the party's ship, there are mechanics for refits and mission specific modifications to help lend the vessel as much personality as the players themselves. It doesn't come close to the breadth of the Lifepath Creation System but it's better than nothing.
Starship combat functions similarly to regular combat, though the scale of space battles isn't lost in the simplicity. During a naval duel, each of the characters manning a position on the bridge gets a turn, as they perform their duties with the relevant facilities. This ensures most players have something to do, though depending on how you approach the role of Captain it might just turn into one player giving orders to the rest of the party.
In contrast with the crew, starships are far more durable and there's a lot more granularity to how they take damage. Each hit will strike an individual sub system. Between shields and defenses, space combat can go on for a while, especially since a ship can be reduced to a flaming wreck but it won't be truly out of the fight until the Warp Core is breached. The GM is advised to use a far less detailed chart for NPC ships. Even then, if you want the drawn out yet vicious battles of Wrath of Khan, you can choose stick to the damage charts.
Strange New Worlds
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Modiphius
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Plenty of mechanics are designed to capture the sense of discovery that's at the heart of Star Trek. Some are more effective than others but at the very least, a GM isn't left entirely to their own devices when coming up with unknowns for the players to explore. A guide is provided for Star Trek's approach to planet classification and other stellar bodies, along with rules to represent and generate them randomly. These are a little thin but are still preferable to the bare bones rules provided for coming up with aliens, whether they be intelligent or otherwise.
A whole section is dedicated to the hard to quantify, at times literal Deus Ex Machinas encountered by various Starfleet personnel over the years. I was particularly happy to see rules for the Planet Killer from TOS. There are also stat blocks for some of the most iconic creatures and aliens. Along with some generic Starfleet profiles, every major "enemy" faction gets at least a couple of entries. Some very stripped down player character rules for non-Starfleet aliens also show up. Naturally, each species' iconic vessels also make an appearance.
Less conventional and more surprising are the rules provided for less "Exploration" based discovery. Mechanics are provided for a teknobabble influenced Scientific Method. One interesting bit is how the hypothesis is formed by every player throwing out ideas, the player doing the researching rules picking 3 to 5, and the GM tells them if the right one is in that group. It may very well be the most novel mechanic to come out of Star Trek Adventures, while also hitting off the franchise's two major themes, discovery and collaboration.
There are similar mechanics for developing prototype technology, though it's less abstract than the Scientific Method rules. Breakthroughs can be made through hard work and ingenuity but there will always be a mechanical drawback to fresh-from-the-replicator prototypes.
Fire up the Replicators
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Modiphius
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For all the emphasis technology gets in Star Trek, in both the shows and the RPG it often plays an almost passive role. It primarily exists to enables the story, rather than being the center of it (of course, with exceptions). The weapon section creates a few general categories and mostly leaves it at that. There's not much focus on distinguishing models or even era of phasers and other weapons. Even the famous Bat'leth is consigned to be a "Heavy Blade." Considering that, it's strange that Jem'Hadar and Andorian weapons get distinct profiles.
But as with personal combat, no Trek story should get too caught up in endless weapon permutations. The brief guide given to representing each of generation of the setting is more concerned with saying what was widely available at the time, rather than getting into mechanical differences.
The other iconic Star Trek gadgets make a showing, though it's a small gear section. Few objects have tangible mechanical benefits, aside from making tasks possible (i.e. using a tricorder to contact the Enterprise). The system for acquiring items is very sensible, in line with Star Trek's vision of a post-capitalist paradise. Anything the players know their characters will need for a mission is provided. When the need for something arises, Momentum can be spent to acquire the item, representing crew members retrieving or replicating what they need. A lot of things can motivate a Star Trek Adventures campaign but it won't be loot. As Picard famously says "People are no longer obsessed with the accumulation of things."
Accessing...
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Modiphius
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As I mentioned before, Star Trek Adventures is both made for and written by dedicated Star Trek fans. An exhaustive history of the setting isn't provided so much as alluded to, through in universe letters, communiques, and manifestos written by minor characters. The Next Generation receives the lion share of the focus, with Deep Space Nine as a close second. The Original Series makes a decent showing and enough is provided to run a campaign set when James Tiberius Kirk explored the stars. Enterprise and Voyager get the occasional scrap, though due to its premise it's very difficult to incorporate the former.
Thankfully, there's more than just impenetrable fan lingo and decades of lore. Sections are dedicated to the organization, function, and values of the United Federation of Planets. Game Masters and players are reminded who they're working for and what that means when they execute their duties. Vital concepts like the Prime Directive and rival powers are also adequately explained. Star Trek Adventures does seem to be angling for a metaplot, with their own corner of the Beta Quadrant carved out with the Shackleton Expanse.
I'll admit nothing quite caught my eye, much less gave me reason to set a game around whatever Modiphius has planned. To their credit they picked the perfect time period, the later seasons of TNG and the early season of DS9. Late enough to have all sorts of adversaries to choose from, namely the Dominion and the Maquis, but set before they become more complicated to use in a story.
On Screen!
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Modiphius
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Licensed RPGs are a well established part of the medium at this point but few commit to their setting the way Star Trek Adventures does. Beyond the in-universe snippets scattered throughout the book, the overall layout has been patterned off of the computer readouts seen throughout the Enterprise-D. It's visually appealing and certainly adds to the immersion factor. For the PDF edition, I will say the white text on a dark background can be difficult to read in long sittings.
While I overall like the layout, important rules will be tucked away in corners or otherwise placed in strange areas. This is a books where the Game Master section is a disorganized collection of storytelling advice, clarification of certain mechanics, and rules that should have ended up somewhere else. Unfortunately, this seems to be the standard for most modern RPG books, to the point that Star Trek Adventures is still more readable than many modern books I've picked up.
The stellar presentation does make the rest of the art feel like even more of a letdown. There's a wide range of artists and the visual style of Star Trek is mostly intact. A few pieces do capture the adventurous, collaborative spirit of Roddenberry's vision. Unfortunately most of the art is far too militant for the setting. Most of the art features a full blown phaser shootout or ship's bridge in chaos. Even if this was for a Star Trek wargame, I'd say it was still completely inappropriate for the setting.
Beyond all that, a lot of the art has an uncanny valley effect. Something just feels a little off in many of the pieces, whether it be the strained facial expressions or awkward poses. The introduction of some very disruptive, out of place alien designs doesn't help matters. As much as some people might complain that Star Trek's aliens look too much like humans slathered in makeup, that's still the visual language of the franchise. Star Trek Adventures gets a lot right in a setting that's difficult to do justice but the art is one place Modiphius dropped the ball.
The Final Frontier
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Modiphius
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I've often seen Star Trek Adventures criticized as being too combat oriented to do the veteran Sci-Fi universe justice. It's easy to see why, as beyond the art, the very disappointing beginner adventure opens with the player characters whipping their phasers out at the first sign of trouble. The text even says this is to teach the players the combat system, giving it priority over anything else.
While I think that emphasis hinders the game in some ways, overall Star Trek Adventures is one of the better licensed games I've come across. It captures the spirit of the setting and does so with a good amount of style. The game doesn't feel like another system reskinned and keeps the spirit of Trek at the forefront. There's a strong enough ruleset and some inventive mechanics to assure readers that they're not just banking on the brand name.
Star Trek Adventures isn't exactly inventing the warp drive but it's more than up for the task at hand. It might not be a revolutionary RPG but it has a competent understanding of what Star Trek is and uses that to give GMs and players what they need to enter the great unknown.
