Role-playing is, by definition, having fun by pretending to be someone
you aren't, doing things in a world that doesn't exist. The Star Trek
universe is an imaginary world that millions of people would like to visit,
so a role-playing game set in that universe is natural. It is so natural
that five companies have now produced licensed ST RPGs. The latest
is from Decipher, the company that has held the ST
collectible card game license for so long. The first book is
the Player's Guide.
The PG covers four of the five ST TV series (Enterprise
will be covered in future supplements) plus all of the movies to date.
The emphasis is on being Starfleet officers, but the rules include guidelines
and background for every race that has ever been played by a lead actor
in one of the series, including Trills and Cardassians as well as Talaxians
and Ocampas for the Voyager fans. Mixed races are allowed, but
are limited so that half-breeds don't end up with the strongest characteristics
of both races. This plethora of species information means that groups
can play Klingon war bands or Ferengi merchant groups or Vulcan science
teams or any combination of races and objectives that might appeal to
the players more than a traditional campaign as Starfleet officers.
The mechanics of play involve rolling two six-sided dice and modifying
the result by various factors to try and beat a target number. Modifiers
can include shifts for good or bad governing characteristics, skills known,
racial talents, damage taken, technology in use, situational modifiers
and psionic effects. Most of these are tallied on the players' character
sheets, so they are ready at a glance during play, and the others are
on tables in the text. There are skills and tests to cover every action
and interaction in the game, from shooting a phaser to bargaining for
a slave girl to seeking meditative calm.
A faithful take on the Federation
The Player's Guide contains chapters on the history of the four
TV series, as well as descriptions of starships, the Star Trek
galaxy and the Federation itself. There is also a chapter on being a player
in the game. The actual mechanics of play (which will be expanded in the
Narrator's Guide) are contained in a 10-page appendix. The bulk
of the book is devoted to creating characters with chapters detailing
the various races, professions, elite professions, skills and abilities
that are available to characters. There is an amazing variety of characters
possible, and the process of generating one can seem overwhelming.
The key to creating a character, and to the game itself, is not panicking,
and using the character sheet. Despite its busy layout and full-color
printing, the character sheet actually photocopies just fine into black
and white. With the sheet in hand, it is possible to go step by step through
the process of making whatever character the player wants.
Two problems plague ST role-playing games: Who gets to be the
captain and what to do about phasers? For groups playing a traditional
Starfleet campaign, the PG does not improve on the traditional
answer of letting the game master run an NPC captain who issues broad
orders and then gets out of the way. Because of its breadth, however,
the PG does allow for campaigns the characters aren't Starfleet
and there isn't a captain.
Phasers in the game are treated faithfully to the source material. They
can stun people and heat rocks and clear debris. They can also kill people.
Instantly. This is obviously a problem if a player character happens to
get in the way of a power 8 blast. In the shows, most phaser blasts miss,
and that is how it works in the game, too. Hitting is based on rolling
higher than the target's defense, which gets higher as the character gets
better. In addition, player characters have a Courage statistic that really
separates them from the red shirts. After a roll, players can spend a
courage point to adjust the roll. This is a mechanic that produces results
very much in keeping with the shows.
My personal bias is for more freeform play than the "a skill
for everything and everything has a skill" style that the Star
Trek Role-Playing Game: Player's Guide is written in, but that
is just taste. The game is complete and faithful and that is what
is most important in a licensed game. — Eric
