Just in time for the 40th anniversary of Star Trek, an episode about the history of Star Trek licensed RPGs. We go through the early Star Trek games, discuss the two different licensed Star Trek universes out there, and talk about our own memories of playing some of these RPGs. What happens when your GM is playing a serious game but the players are playing a wacky game? Find out …
Star Trek: Adventure Gaming In The Final Frontier
FASA’s Star Trek: The Role Playing Game
Last Unicorn Games’ Star Trek Roleplaying Game
Decipher’s Star Trek RPG
Amarillo Design Bureau’s Prime Directive RPG (formerly owned by Task Force Games)
Download the 64 Kbps MP3 now!
I really enjoyed the show. Got me motivated to try it out. The FASA character generation sounds a lot like traveller (I think you could actually kill yourself in character generation!).
How would you compare the mechanics of the systems? Did one system work better than another? Which played the best? I guess the main question is, if you were going to recommend just one system, which would it be?
Thanks for the great show,
Steve
Nice to have you guys back again.
I played the FASA version in college and we had a good time with it. But, it has not seen the light of day since graduation day.
Great show!
Excellent show, guys!
Fun episode.
The thought occured to me that Ed’s all captains Trek approach might work well as a long distance play-by-video-conference/iChat/whatever-tech-solution-floats-your-boat. Trek is full of talking heads yacking over video displays. It actually might add to the Trekness flavor and make it easy play with folks from all over the country.
Heck, with the new iChat in the next Mac OS, you could a have a full animated bridge behind you with blinking lights and a cute yeoman with a mini skirt and a clip board.
My 2 cents.
-Dan
“He stayed at his post when the other trainees a’ ran.” – Scotty, grieving over the death of his nephew at the hands of Ricardo Montalban.
Could it be possible that Scotty said: “He stayed at his post with the other trainee from Iran”???
Re: Which system to use?
OK, here comes my completely personal and subjective opinion.–
Use the LUGTrek system rather than the FASATrek system. It’s cleaner and easier, IMO.
LUGTrek has a type of character creation similar to FASATrek, but I didn’t find it very detailed or interesting. I think the very best of both worlds would be adding an expanded character creation system (using FASATrek’s system) bolted on to the actual play system of LUGTrek.
I’m not overly fond of the LUGTrek ship system, but that’s more because I like my ship battles tactical rather than RPG.
So, LUGTrek:TOS + (adapted FASATrek character creation) for the win.
Oh man! I just had a better name for the late 70s, early 80s early Star Trek RPG:
V&V: Vulcans and Vixens.
That is all.
-N
I call dibs on the character name: “Captain Rip Tunic”.
Great show! If I remember correctly, Jonathan was the admiral and we were all captains. In addition to having a spitoon installed on the bridge, he also walked with a ham bone cane.
Yes, I remember Ed’s games well. They were like Tleilaxu plots: almost impossible to survive unless you find that one tiny loophole.
-Scott
Your finally back!
And I lost my ipod!!!
I will be buyng a new one promptly, gotta listen to you guys on the move, its the ony way.
Hope u have a few more out when i finally get it
Me too!
[/embarassed grin]
You said that the animated series “…stole an entire plotline and characters from a Larry Niven story,” but didn’t Larry actually WRITE that particular animated series episode???
Larry Niven is credited as writing “The Slaver Weapon”.
BTW, I took my ST: RPG character far too seriously, amidst so many players who, uh, … didn’t? Except for Nate, I think he took his ST character nearly as seriously as I did. And what did it get them, Nate’s was killed and mine was dismembered. Just goes to show, you want to come out on top in an Ed campaign? Come up with a gonzo character concept…
I thought Ed’s campaign’s were about dying with a little fun and dignity.
Oh yeah: I was a captain in one of Ed’s games. I succeeded in getting everyone killed and destroying an Excelsior class starship.
Ed’s campaigns had opening credits music of Carmina Burana by Orff and closing credits music of the Benny Hill theme song.
For those attending GenCon SoCal in November, a friend of mine will be running four Star Trek role-playing events (utilizing Eden’s Unisystem). I believe one of the events is already filled with pre-reges, but there are openings in the others. Just search the catalog for “Star Trek” and you should find the games.
Hey guys, rad that you did a new podcast. I’ve been having Adam and Nate withdrawals for weeks.
You guys should do a show about all the superhero games out there like the old Marvel FASERIP game, Mutants and Masterminds and the like.
re: Tleilaxu plots.
Points to Scott for most obscure, yet compellingly cool SciFi reference. Scott, your Reference skill is assuredly +5 by now.
re: Slaver weapon.
OK so I’m an idiot. It doesn’t change the fact that Niven just turned in his own previously published story plot as an episode of a show. It’d be like having a ST episode where they destroy a Death Star via an exhaust port, crediting G. Lucas.
re: Superhero RPG podcast.
That is an excellent idea, and will be added to the already mountanous pile of show topics we have yet to get to. Thanks! and keep up the great suggestions!
I want points!! Can I have snarky points?
So have you guys heard about Star Fleet Battlestations?
Oh yes … I’m eagerly awaiting Star Fleet Battlestations. It should be a lot of fun.
–Adam
Any idea when the next episode is coming out?
I want no points….
I want pod casts though….
Got my ipod back.
Listened to the episode.
Great as always. Hurry up
Please … must have new pod cast … forget show prep, organization … just record, talk, and post … I can’t go hold on much longer … mayday …
-Rick
Monterey, CA
The last episode was back in September
Now, two months later here we are in November
Oh when, oh when will we hear show fourteen
By the end of this week? Yeah, that would be keen!!!
COME BACK ROLL 2D6!!!
Although it is against policy to preannounce episodes of the much-lauded Roll 2D6 podcast, I can tell you the episode is “in the can,” “edited,” and will be up “real soon now.”
Thanks for sticking with us through this excessively long storm of Real Life events.
Nate, your words are like the first droplets of rain from an impending monsoon…
-Rick
Monterey, CA
A footnote for LUGTrek:
Ironically, LUG lost the STAR TREK liscence because of their sucess rather than their failure.
In addition to the rather sucessful RPG, LUG also published a line of ‘collectable disk games’ called RED ALERT, that simulated starship combat in the STAR TREK universe. This being the late 90’s/early 00’s, people were still pumping out CCG’s and the like water from a well in the desert, and by all accounts RED ALERT was doing very well, as was the RPG liscence.
Around this time, there was a big shakeup of the liscenees of the other major mainstream SF property, STAR WARS. Decipher had lost the Collectable Card Game liscence for SW to Wizards of the Coast. The problem for fans of LUG’s RPG and ‘collectable disk’ products was that right around the same time, WOTC had bought LUG. I was a regular on the trekrpg.net message boards (at that time the main source for info about LUG’s ST games), and the speculation was that WOTC had bought LUG with the intention of taking the mechanics of DISK WARS and coming out with their own STAR WARS ‘collectable disk’ game, but that because of Decipher’s CCG liscence was broadly enough worded to include games with CCG-like mechanics, LUG’s liscence for DISK WARS was not communitive to WOTC. WOTC, in turn, lost the STAR TREK RPG liscence to Decipher (who, at the time, had zero RPG experience, and to this day ISTR that STAR TREK is their sole RPG property, and its been as moribund as the franchise on the whole in this century), released the in-development DUNE RPG as a limited edition, never did anything with DISK WARS and in the end WOTC’s purchase of LUG was ultimately senseless since the only long-term effect of it was to solidify Decipher’s hold on STAR TREK gaming.
On a personal note: the death of LUG was also the end of my personal desire to do any STAR TREK related gaming: the LUG system was simple and straighforward as I recall, and though I was a bit put off by their insistance of coming out with seperate (but compatible) games for the various series, but despite the monetary cost for compleatists, it was probably the best way to go to best simulate the varying feels of the TV shows. I don’t recall anything about the Decipher system (though I think I do own the core rulebook somewhere).
Love the podcast, and after hearing this ep I wanted to share my little bit of trivia with you all.