Category: Star Trek (Page 1 of 4)

I recently ran another game of Star Trek using my custom version of the Fate RPG rules. It was great fun! One thing I like about Fate is how easy it is to teach new players. One thing I like about Star Trek is that adventures lend themselves to being very episodic. You can have ‘planet-of-the-week’ adventures and get right into the action by reading a Captain’s Log and having the NPC captain order you down to a planet to solve a problem or investigate an enigma. Having a large starship with three different shifts of the crew means you can have numerous characters on the ship and play the game West Marches style.

So I plan to polish up the setting (the U.S.S. Xerxes, a Saladin Class starship) and my house rules, pregens, and other tools. This will be my go-to one-shot or pickup game going forward, and I’m looking forward to it.

I’ve been experimenting with icons for use in my upcoming Star Trek RPG hack. Right now I’m leaning towards Battlestar Galactica DRADIS-style icons, which I think works really well.

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Here’s the draft of the warp mechanics I plan to use in my upcoming home-brew D6 based Star Trek RPG.

First off, I’ll use a sector map that works much like the Traveller RPG, using hexes (although you could just as easily use squares if you prefer). Each hex (or square) is one parsec across and would have at most one star system (although most hexes are empty space).

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I’m working on a homebrew variant of the Where No Man Has Gone Before Star Trek RPG rules. I’ve spent a few hundred dollars on the Star Trek Adventures RPG, but in running this game a few times (as well as Conan, another 2d20 game from Modiphius), I’ve gotten a bit frustrated by the rules. Or, to be more precise, the rules organization. Here is one quote I found on a forum that sums up my frustration pretty well (emphasis below is mine):

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Here is my proposal on podcast naming conventions.

Seasons and Episodes have 2 digit numbers and we abbreviate them for the podcast feed but spell out ‘Season 01 Episode 06’ in blog posts and other contexts.

Each season has ‘Specials’ which are bonus games we play opportunistically at ShinnCons and what-not. These are not tied to the main campaign, but are in the same universe during the approximate same time as the main campaign. We use secondary characters or pregens. We can release as part of the normal season release schedule, or hide behind a Patreon paywall.

The convention is therefore:

<Season #>-<Episode # OR ‘Special’> <Game System><Optional Campaign Name> – <Adventure Name><Adventure Part #>

Over time the podcast feed would look something like this:

S01-E01 STA Vanguard – Signals Part 1
S01-E02 STA Vanguard – Signals Part 2
S01-E03 STA Vanguard – Signals Part 3
S01-E04 STA Vanguard – Signals Part 4
S01-E05 STA Vanguard – The Edge of Eternity Part 1
S01-E06 STA Vanguard – The Edge of Eternity Part 2
S01-E07 STA Vanguard – The Edge of Eternity Part 3
S01-E08 STA Vanguard – The Edge of Eternity Part 4
S01-E09 STA Vanguard – The Edge of Eternity Part 5
S01-E10 STA Vanguard – The Edge of Eternity Part 6
S01 (Special) STA Vanguard – The Orion Syndicate Part 1
S01 (Special) STA Vanguard – The Orion Syndicate Part 2
S01 (Special) STA Vanguard – The Orion Syndicate Part 3
S01-E11 STA Vanguard – A Plague of Arias Part 1
S01-E12 STA Vanguard – A Plague of Arias Part 2
S01-E13 STA Vanguard – A Plague of Arias Part 3
S01-E14 STA Vanguard – A Plague of Arias Part 4
…
S08-E01 John Carter of Mars – Swords of Mars Part 1
S08-E02 John Carter of Mars – Swords of Mars Part 2
…
S11-E01 AiME Mirkwood – The Darkening of Mirkwood Part 1
S11-E02 AiME Mirkwood – The Darkening of Mirkwood Part 2

We can discuss in person but thought I’d memorialize this as a blog post.