Last week I ran a cooperative game of Captain’s Log with 5 players. It was a lot of fun! Here is the session write-up.

In under 3 hours we created characters and played a full 15 scene adventure from start to finish. That was about 8 minutes a scene. Gameplay is faster in coop mode than a normal GM’d game since you have less roleplaying scenes with dialog.

House Rules for Next Time

Starship combat was super-fast, but also left some players without something to do, so I’ve come up with some simple adjustments that I hope will make things more engaging while still keeping the fast-play simplicity of Captain’s Log ruleset.

Missed Rules

Stuff I missed rules-wise in the first game:

  • Forgot to check nat 20s for threat, will do this next time. As a result combat was less lethal since we ignored threat being generated.
  • Didn’t recall how to compine personal attributes and ship systems so house-ruled something on the fly.
  • Didn’t have a reference to the technobabble table, but that would have been useful.

Tables Used

Specific tables we used:

Story Tools

  • Yes/No Probability (p. 254)
  • Generating Mission Types (p. 255)
  • Advantages and Complications (pp. 268 & 269) 

Random Encounters

  • Encounters (p. 270)
  • NPC Names and Planet Names (p. 315 & p. 316)

Ship Combat

  • TOS Era Ships (p. 147)
  • Systems Hit  (p. 308)

Ship Damage (p. 309)