Review: Star Trek: The Next
Generation Role Playing Game
by Christian Moore, Ross Isaacs, Kenneth Hite and Steve Long
Published by Last Unicorn Games
Reviewed by Matthew
Pook
Could 1998 be third time lucky for a Star Trek RPG? It is an important
question for what surely has to be the biggest gaming license to rival that of Star
Wars, because if you have it, it should also be a license to print money! This
last Gen-Con saw the launch of the usual slough of new releases, of which one, Last
Unicorn Games Star Trek: The Next Generation Role Playing Game
had to be one of most highly anticipated. Last Unicorn Games (LUG), are better known for
their Heresy and Dune card games and
the less than well-received Aria system, and so there were fears
that the end product might be disappointing. Even more so, given the short development
time that the game also received. In reviewing this new Star Trek RPG,
there are two essential questions that need to be answered. How closely does it allow the
modeling of the Star Trek setting as shown in the various TV series, and
does it compare with the previous Star Trek RPGs?
Let me establish first what this game is, and is not. It is The Star Trek: The
Next Generation RPG and only that, covering the time of the Star
Trek universe as depicted in the adventures of the Enterprise-D under
the command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard on Star Trek: The Next Generation
(ST:TNG), ignoring the two film appearances to date. The events and
background of Deep Space 9 (DS9) and Voyager
are also ignored and saved for later RPGs. Of course, the first aspect of the game that
the GM or Narrator will dump is this limitation upon the time frame. I would suggest that
the natural inclination is to want to set games in the most up to date Star Trek
universe they see each week on television. Further, it is only the setting and background
you get to play in, not take the parts of the Enterprise-D crew, whose
descriptions and statistics do not appear in the book, instead saved for a later volume.
That said, Spot, Datas cat is given a full description in the section covering the
creation of animals. Very useful... Rather than play the crew, the players create junior
officers only, as the rules for senior and command officers being saved for... you guessed
it, a future supplement. Notice a pattern here? But, I am getting ahead of myself.
The book itself is a pleasingly solid 300 page hardback, weighing almost 3lbs. Inside the
contents are very clearly laid out on nice glossy paper. Color is used throughout, both in
the use of graphics, which emulate those of the series computer consoles, and
photographs. These come from the series, some quite literally from broadcast episodes
which gives them an irritating, slightly fuzzy quality. A little artwork is also used,
which on the whole is quite nice, though tending towards being too dark. In places it is
unnecessarily cartoony, particularly those races which did not appear in ST:TNG,
such as the Orions, which strangely are now all green. Is it me, or did they used to be
blue, apart from the slave woman? The downside to all this quality is the cost of the
book. $35 may sound a lot to pay, so one has to ask if the ST:TNG RPG is
worth the price. Another question to leave until the end...
Inside the contents are broken down into the standard expected chapters and sections,
covering the background and setting, character generation, combat - both personal and
ship-to-ship, how to run the game, starships and technology, aliens, as well as
descriptions of a starting sector (which strangely enough, lead into a forthcoming
supplement) and one adventure. These are fairly comprehensive in that they cover the
basics that are needed to know in order to run the game, but then many of the games
target audience will be fairly knowledgeable anyway. Reading through the history and
setting sections, two things are immediately lacking. One is guide to using Stardates -
sorry, that is not true. The actual guidelines advise the Narrator to make them up as they
go along, and all dates are given in the Western calendar. This strikes me as rather
silly, since the Stardate is a continuing motif in Star Trek and has been
for thirty years. Also, unlike Star Wars, the ST:TNG
universe is a definite place, with political borders and locations known and defined, so
why the hell dont we get a map? Sure, the average Star Trek fan can
go to an encyclopaedia or other source, but should they really have to?
And so to character generation. The game provides three methods, which all build towards a
junior officer with one tour of duty. The simplest way is choosing an archetype and
customizing it with five points. The most complex is starting from scratch with 125 points
and this is also the only way to build a non-Starfleet character, but then why would you
want to? Of course, if you did, it is bound to be covered in a future supplement... In
between is the more interesting method of selecting a racial template and then a
professional overlay to represent their Academy training. The choice of race is limited to
the usual Humans, Vulcans, Andorians, Tellarites, Betazoids and Bolians. Bolians? Yes, the
blue guys with the head ridge in case you need to split them open. This is an odd choice
since the only Bolian character of note in the series was the ships barber. So, no
Bajorans, which will probably disappoint a fair number of fans. Nor do the races from the
animated series get a look in, but then the cartoon has never quite been regarded as
canon.
With this basic template and overlay, the character is put through a life path section,
covering their early life, the Academy and a tour of duty. At each stage a set number of
points can be spent freely or a package of skills, advantages and disadvantages can be
selected. These are fairly interesting, but do steer the character towards being very
professionally orientated, allowing little room for personal interests. Thus if you wanted
your character to play a musical instrument, then this would invariably come at the cost
of a probably more useful professional skill.
The completed character is thus defined by their race and Starfleet training. In game
terms, each character has five attributes: Fitness, Co-ordination, Intellect, Presence and
Psi, which range from one to five, averaging two, although Psi is zero for most races.
Further, each attribute has two Edges, which can be positive or negative, rated no more
than two either way. Fitness has Strength and Vitality, Intellect, Logic and Perception,
and so on. Skills also range from zero to five, and a fairly comprehensive list given.
Many skills are further broken down into specializations, which are rated higher than the
parent skill. Thus a character can be trained in general Space Sciences, but actually
specialized in Astrophysics. The aim is to have the characters able to work throughout a
ship if necessary, as well as their own assigned station. Advantages and Disadvantages add
more definition, some of them from the racial template, whilst others are personal.
Finally, the Renown system rates a characters reputation in a number of areas, such
as Aggression or Skill, and can also be positive or negative. This system works to
generate characters that do feel as if they junior Starfleet officers, that is, bar the
relatively small problems given. Unfortunately, not all of this information is going to
fit on the character sheet provided at the back of the book. It looks great, but is
seriously lacking in space and is colored in blue/grey/mauve shades that defy easy
photocopying...
Now to the game mechanics. This is LUGs trademarked Icon system, and
despite that trademark, is not really that original. Players of Star Wars
or even Task Force Games own Star Trek (actually, Starfleet
Battles, or SFB) RPG, Prime
Directive, will spot similarities. D6s are used throughout, and this greatly
speeds play. For each test, the player rolls a number of dice equal to an attribute,
modified by the appropriate Edge. One die must be a different color - this is the Drama
Die. When a roll is made, only the highest rolling die is used and to this is added the
appropriate skill rating to get a total, which is compared to a target to gauge success.
If a six is rolled on the Drama Die, then it is added to the next highest score on one of
the dice. Dramatic success comes if the total score is six higher than the required
target, whilst Dramatic Failure only results when all of the dice roll one, including the
Drama Die.
Whilst this system is clear, simple and fast, it has one slight flaw. Average starting
skills are two or three, making even moderate rolls less than easy. Targets of more than
nine are difficult to make if only rolling a six on the Drama Die is the only chance.
Characters have Courage Points to spend, and some Advantages give a player more, depending
upon the situation, which improve the total score by one for each spent. To increase the
chance of succeeding at even Challenging tests, I would suggest that for each Courage
Point spent, the player is actually provided with another Drama Die to roll in addition to
the normal one.
To this basic system are added rules for combat, both personal and ship-to-ship. These
work well, and only add a reasonable level of complexity. The starship combat rules
emphasize role-playing in a manner similar to that of FASAs old Star
Trek III game. LUG plans to release ship miniatures, so no doubt they will
give us a more detailed supplement covering starship combat in due time...
The rest of the book provides support material. Primarily this is in the form of a
starting ship, sector and scenario, all set on the Romulan border. As has already been
said, this will lead into a forthcoming supplement. Most of this is useful, and is good
enough to give the novice Narrator a solid start. For the more experienced it will not be
so useful, and this applies to the adventure in particular. Shakedown Cruise
is really aimed at the novice Narrator and player, getting them used to the system.
Unfortunately for more experienced player and Narrator, it is rather a shallow affair and
certainly would never been used as an episode in the series.
There is one final and very irritating problem with the game. Essentially, it is the
coverage or lack there of the Federations allies and enemies that lets the game
down. First off, the Borg are ignored and no details of them are given, which is going to
be a big disappointment to many. Where there are entries for a race, such as the Klingons,
Romulans, Cardassians and Ferengi, they are reasonably well described and a Narrator
should have no difficulty using them in a game. Essentially, what is lacking for each race
are not the description and basic statistics, but the racial advantages, disadvantages and
skills. A practiced referee could go through the list under character generation and
assign the appropriate ones, but fundamentally, he should not have to. Further this
prevents a player from choosing a race other than the ones listed under character
generation, and it hobbles one particular advantage, Mixed Race Heritage, so that you
could not take a character of Klingon/Human parentage, who been brought up as a Klingon,
because no details are given of Klingon cultural advantages, disadvantages and skills. I
am sure that all of these details will be covered in future releases, but this is a
seriously irritating shortcoming, which LUG have no excuse for, except of course, to sell
more books.
This latter point all is well and good, and I have no problem with the idea of LUG wanting
to sell more books, but it is the way in which it is waved so blatantly in your face as
you read through the book that is so irksome. By this I do not mean they are stating in
the text, rather that it comes through in the omissions from the contents. The book ends
with adverts for future releases and an order form, which does not give release dates.
Fine, but so far, only the Narrators Toolkit, which includes a screen, has been
released. I have only glanced at this and was unimpressed by its appearance, being black
and white throughout. I have also been told that the screen is not a great deal of use
either. The one big flaw in the Narrators Toolkit is the scenario, which the game
needs more than it needs sourcebooks. Unfortunately, this scenario is based on a episode
from the first season of ST:TNG, where Q offers Riker the chance to join
him. At its beginning, the Narrator is advised that the scenario should not be played by
anyone who has seen this episode. Duh...! This is a game squarely aimed at Star
Trek fans, so how many will not have seen this episode? In my opinion this has to
be the biggest waste of paper and time I have seen in a RPG product in a long while. I
really would have expected something a lot better than this...
All right, so my comments have been rather scathing these last two paragraphs, is that
what I really think? I have been highlighting the problems because, essentially, they are
little ones. They are not big, but they are irritating and I dont think there is an
excuse for them. In many cases, such as with the races, the lack of information makes the
game just ever so slightly incomplete, such that it grates. Thankfully, due to the
dedication of some fans, there is material out on the Internet (such as TrekRPGNet! -Ed), that I can use
to fill in these gaps. Older gamers will of course go scurrying off to unearth the FASA Star
Trek books for ideas and stuff, and the few supplements for Prime
Directive can be raided for the same purposes.
So what is good about this game? It is well presented and looks great. The rules are
reasonably simple and fast. I know I can run a Star Trek game with these
rules and the characters created do feel like they belong in that setting. It compares
very well with the previous Star Trek RPGs, lacking Prime
Directives overly complex rules and density of text, and FASAs
dullish layout and propensity to take liberties with the Star Trek canon.
There is always the Internet alternative of GURPS Star Trek, but
to be honest, that is just too clunky in its attempt to cover everything, lacking the new
games simplicity and clarity.
Simply put, and despite the problems I have pointed out, this is the best Star
Trek RPG to date. It is expensive and perhaps given its petty deficits, may not
be worth the full value of $35, but it does look like you have spent that amount of money.
Otherwise, it succeeds in targeting both the gamer who is a Star Trek fan
and the Star Trek who is new to gaming, and this should be big market for
LUG. The price tag does mean that this is not going to be an impulse purchase, and if you
are not going to play Star Trek, it probably is not worth that price. For
the gamer who wants to play Star Trek, then this is definitely a good buy
and they should get the mileage from it. Finally, despite what I have said, I do like this
game and think it deserves to do well. As with any game, it will succeed or fail on the
quality of it future releases...