I've been thinking about running a Trek adventure as my next campaign. What's the best system for that? A specialized Star Trek system? Can it be adequately done in 5e? Or some other generalized sci-fi platform?
I'm especially interested in ship crew and away-team synergy mechanics, where you need the skills of every party member to complete the mission. Less focus on combat, more focus on investigation, puzzle solving, social encounters with new life and new civilizations.
No need for existing settings or published adventures. I can homebrew my own as long as the ruleset is suitable.
Star Trek Adventures is the current licensed Star Trek TTRPG rules system. According to reviews and live play feedback I've seen, it's considered quite good. It has a quick start free PDF to try out before you buy the starter kit or invest in the core rulebooks (it's sourcebooks pretty much covers the canonical Star Trek universe, there's even a Klingon edition of the rules that shifts the point of view of the game to Klingons, I think adding a few Klingon unique mechanics).
I wouldn't adapt Star Trek into 5e because the class mechanics would make no sense. Star Trek Adventures uses a life path generator that follows the character's career up to game start (something that the original Cyberpunk did, that 2020 and CP Red watered down, and in TTRPG goes back to the original Traveller system where characters could die during character creation). It uses the 2d20 system which I believe also runs the current Conan game.
If you wanted to do something different, and really pick up on on the Team Work style play you're talking about, the recent Bounty Hunter game published by How to Be a Great DM guy (I think) I could see being adapted into a Star Trek crew type game. It's diceless and action point oriented, there's a liveplay on Youtube. it feels more Star Warsy , but I could see it being adapted to a Trek game, especially technology problems.
Cool thing about the Trek game, players presumably choose to play key officers on a Starfleet vessel, Command, Tactical, Medical, Engineering etc. It doesn't often make sense to have all of them constantly together so it's presumed players will also be playing support personnel (red shirts) in addition to their primary character. My guess is it encourages cut scenes, I've noticed a few recent games based on tv and movies have been encouraging tables to run their games on TV or cinematic narrative structures (so A plot and B plots etc).
Interesting. I was thinking maybe of running a PBF game where players alternate between solo adventures on shuttlecraft and away missions, and occasionally come together for a shipboard scene where most of the players are on the bridge, but maybe a few are in engineering or a Jeffrey's tube.
I looked at the free content for Star Trek Adventures. I couldn't tell how well it handled shipboard activities. That seems like it would be tough, especially combat, because not everyone can fire the phasers. I imagine a system like the PC game Space Team. One character would be responsible for navigation. Another for engineering / repairs. Another for sensors.
Also, it seems like leveling up your ship should be as important as leveling up your character. I would probably make a lot of "magic items" that enhance ship capabilities, and give them as rewards for missions. Like you discover a new kind of transporter device in ancient alien ruins. Or maybe there are just basic ship upgrades that come with experience and the Federation can install on a visit to a starbase. Maybe even different classes of ships that have different upgrade paths. Science vessel, flagship, bird of prey, warbird, scout, cargo vessel, deep space station.
If you Google "Star Trek Adventures" reviews and "starships" you'll find some pretty deep dives into how they work, mostly approving.
I think leveling up makes some presumptions about how characters would progress through Starfleet. It's more forcing D&D norms into Starfleet than mechanics trying to reflect Star Trek. D&D Mechanics would be super meh in starship battles since it's collaborative effort of command/helm/sensors/tactical/engineering and D&D in my opinion doesn't really do collaborative tasks well. Plus star ship combat in Star Trek, every series, is basically maneuver to a firing solution and fire, repeat, the only thing I've seen close to that in 5e are some third party rules for aerial mounts. Like maybe you could pull in some of the maneuvering that mattered in 3? or 4?e and adapt it for starships?
Basically, besides Star Trek Adventures, Star Trek has been around in one rules system or another in TTRPGs since FASA got the first license in 1983 (I think it's because they also got Star Fleet Battles which I think had been around since the 70s and wanted to branch out into TTRPGs). This slipped my mind when you first posted, but I remembered after I posted that there was in fact a game called Prime Directive, I think licensed after FASA lost theirs. The game was eventually adapted to both GURPS as well as the d20 system and d20 Modern system. So look for reprints of Prime Directive d20 or d20M if you're curious, they can be found in legit places like DriveThruRPG. I will say that a lot of criticism toward Prime Directive d20 was that it introduced a lot of things ... mechanical concepts that overshadowed the feel of the Star Trek universe, like "Prime Teams" and a lot of folks saying the game was basically too much like D&D not enough like Star Trek. Part of me wants to say some of the thematic wonkiness had to do with the license being sorta murky (like it wasn't issued by Paramount, but like the license holder of starship battles game that was unsanctioned Trek or some weirdness like that).
I've been thinking about running a Trek adventure as my next campaign. What's the best system for that? A specialized Star Trek system? Can it be adequately done in 5e? Or some other generalized sci-fi platform?
I'm especially interested in ship crew and away-team synergy mechanics, where you need the skills of every party member to complete the mission. Less focus on combat, more focus on investigation, puzzle solving, social encounters with new life and new civilizations.
No need for existing settings or published adventures. I can homebrew my own as long as the ruleset is suitable.
Star Trek Adventures is the current licensed Star Trek TTRPG rules system. According to reviews and live play feedback I've seen, it's considered quite good. It has a quick start free PDF to try out before you buy the starter kit or invest in the core rulebooks (it's sourcebooks pretty much covers the canonical Star Trek universe, there's even a Klingon edition of the rules that shifts the point of view of the game to Klingons, I think adding a few Klingon unique mechanics).
https://www.modiphius.net/collections/star-trek-adventures
I wouldn't adapt Star Trek into 5e because the class mechanics would make no sense. Star Trek Adventures uses a life path generator that follows the character's career up to game start (something that the original Cyberpunk did, that 2020 and CP Red watered down, and in TTRPG goes back to the original Traveller system where characters could die during character creation). It uses the 2d20 system which I believe also runs the current Conan game.
If you wanted to do something different, and really pick up on on the Team Work style play you're talking about, the recent Bounty Hunter game published by How to Be a Great DM guy (I think) I could see being adapted into a Star Trek crew type game. It's diceless and action point oriented, there's a liveplay on Youtube. it feels more Star Warsy , but I could see it being adapted to a Trek game, especially technology problems.
Cool thing about the Trek game, players presumably choose to play key officers on a Starfleet vessel, Command, Tactical, Medical, Engineering etc. It doesn't often make sense to have all of them constantly together so it's presumed players will also be playing support personnel (red shirts) in addition to their primary character. My guess is it encourages cut scenes, I've noticed a few recent games based on tv and movies have been encouraging tables to run their games on TV or cinematic narrative structures (so A plot and B plots etc).
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Interesting. I was thinking maybe of running a PBF game where players alternate between solo adventures on shuttlecraft and away missions, and occasionally come together for a shipboard scene where most of the players are on the bridge, but maybe a few are in engineering or a Jeffrey's tube.
I looked at the free content for Star Trek Adventures. I couldn't tell how well it handled shipboard activities. That seems like it would be tough, especially combat, because not everyone can fire the phasers. I imagine a system like the PC game Space Team. One character would be responsible for navigation. Another for engineering / repairs. Another for sensors.
Also, it seems like leveling up your ship should be as important as leveling up your character. I would probably make a lot of "magic items" that enhance ship capabilities, and give them as rewards for missions. Like you discover a new kind of transporter device in ancient alien ruins. Or maybe there are just basic ship upgrades that come with experience and the Federation can install on a visit to a starbase. Maybe even different classes of ships that have different upgrade paths. Science vessel, flagship, bird of prey, warbird, scout, cargo vessel, deep space station.
If you Google "Star Trek Adventures" reviews and "starships" you'll find some pretty deep dives into how they work, mostly approving.
I think leveling up makes some presumptions about how characters would progress through Starfleet. It's more forcing D&D norms into Starfleet than mechanics trying to reflect Star Trek. D&D Mechanics would be super meh in starship battles since it's collaborative effort of command/helm/sensors/tactical/engineering and D&D in my opinion doesn't really do collaborative tasks well. Plus star ship combat in Star Trek, every series, is basically maneuver to a firing solution and fire, repeat, the only thing I've seen close to that in 5e are some third party rules for aerial mounts. Like maybe you could pull in some of the maneuvering that mattered in 3? or 4?e and adapt it for starships?
Basically, besides Star Trek Adventures, Star Trek has been around in one rules system or another in TTRPGs since FASA got the first license in 1983 (I think it's because they also got Star Fleet Battles which I think had been around since the 70s and wanted to branch out into TTRPGs). This slipped my mind when you first posted, but I remembered after I posted that there was in fact a game called Prime Directive, I think licensed after FASA lost theirs. The game was eventually adapted to both GURPS as well as the d20 system and d20 Modern system. So look for reprints of Prime Directive d20 or d20M if you're curious, they can be found in legit places like DriveThruRPG. I will say that a lot of criticism toward Prime Directive d20 was that it introduced a lot of things ... mechanical concepts that overshadowed the feel of the Star Trek universe, like "Prime Teams" and a lot of folks saying the game was basically too much like D&D not enough like Star Trek. Part of me wants to say some of the thematic wonkiness had to do with the license being sorta murky (like it wasn't issued by Paramount, but like the license holder of starship battles game that was unsanctioned Trek or some weirdness like that).
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.