Moving Forward in Reverse!: Star Trek RPG (Last Unicorn Games)

Last week, we examined the Star Trek RPG as presented by Decipher Inc. I spoke at great length about how that game came to be, and hopefully, you remember that for this week. If you don’t, it’s cool. You can just get a refresher here. Did you get all that? Sweet! Now let’s take a look at the predecessor to that game, the Star Trek RPG made by Last Unicorn Games, heretofore called LUG.

As I mentioned, LUG got the Star Trek license around 1997, and produced books from 98 to about 2000. They made 16 books during that span, and I gotta say, their offering is pretty sweet. But before we jump into all of that mess, let’s look at the core mechanics briefly. Much like the Coda System that Decipher used, the LUG system uses  2d6 to resolve action rolls during game play. Unlike the Coda System, the LUG system does not rely heavily on such rolls during you character creation. In fact, the LUG system is a ton simpler than the Coda system. See, unlike Coda, where story was a focus, but structure was maybe a little too rigid, LUG decided to take a more esoteric approach to their system. So instead of a rule for everything, there were looser guidelines, and instead of rolling everything out using dice, they took the approach of using templates to create, overlays, and various advancement options in order to build and customized characters. Decipher did this up to a point, but somehow managed to make things more difficult in the process. Another distinct and crucial way in which these two systems differ is in how material was organized as it was being published. Decipher took a more austere approach as they just made very general rules books that could work with whatever setting a group wanted to play. LUG’s approach was… more complicated, but definitely in a good way.

You may notice a bit of theme trending with the books shown. This is the number one difference between LUG’s system and Decipher’s. LUG broke their system down by show. And these aren’t paltry books. They run about 250+ pages a book. Also, the ones pictured above are just the core books. There were also convenient Player’s Guides that expanded character creation rules, and options; offered players new to the universe some background on the settings as they applied to each show; and new rules for Game Masters to pull from should they want to shake up the gameplay a bit. Also, there were Narrator’s Toolkits, which provided insights on how to structure campaigns, and capture the feel of each show. There were three of these three book sets for Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and The Original Series. A set for Voyager was schedules, but Paramount pulled the license just before the books went to print. Now you might be thinking that printing the core rules in multiple books would be redundant, and to an extent, you’re really not wrong. Now that we live in a truly digital age where one can find such things easily, cheaply, and quickly, it’s not as necessary. But, imagine walking into your local game store and seeing a line up of Star Trek gaming books. You find the one from the show that you like the best, and decide to take a chance on this new product. You’d be pretty bummed if you realized after the fact that you then had to go pick up another book just so you could start playing this new game. So it wasn’t as unnecessary back in the day. Also, each core book and its accompanying Player’s Guide came packed to the rafters with new character templates, overlays, and advancement options that further allowed players to customize their avatar. What I’m saying is, these books managed to be really useful whether you were new to the game, or had been playing for a while.

Remember I mentioned that there were 16 books printed for this system in just 18 months. Yeah… Let’s talk about that a little bit. So there were only ever the three core books published, which is a bit of a bummer because I would have loved to see what LUG was going to bless us with upon releasing the Voyager material. But beyond the core books, there were what felt like a wealth of supplements available for this system. I don’t quite own them all, but I do own a fair bit of them, and they. Are. AWESOME! One thing I typically like to complain about when it come to modern RPGs is the lack of box sets. There was a golden era when one could go their local game store, browse a vast selection of RPGs from all different source, and pick up box sets for their favorite systems. Typically, these box sets were reserved for setting material. The box set model allowed companies to print thorough, but segregated material for their new sandboxes. Usually, there was a book for the GM. This book had really in depth information on the layout of the setting, the major locations, the major political players, as well as new rules that may be needed to properly run a game within that setting. Then there was a book for the rest of the players that covered quite a bit of this information, but usually in less depth. These books also tended to include new species, and class information from which players could pull so that they could more fully immerse themselves in these unique settings. Beyond that, there were usually maps! If I’m being totally honest with everyone, I’m a bit of a map whore. I love maps of settings. The first thing I look at when I get a new setting anything is the map. I just get a thrill from the cartography of fictional locations.

LUG was only able to do a couple of box sets while they held the Trek license, but these two are amazing! We’ll start with the one that lives up to expectation, and that’s the Starfleet Academy box set. This is more or less a setting box set, and a darn good one at that. The thing that’s especially fun about this box set is very little is ever mentioned in the canon about the Academy. We get a few insights from time-to-time through Wesley “I’m-a-Mary-Sue” Crusher, and “I-Made-Higher-Rank-than-Harry-Kim” Nog, but these glimpses are fleeting, and brief. They leave you wanting for more, but due to the nature of the shows, they’re not really able to deliver. This Academy box set fills in a bunch of gaps for anyone wanting to explore this setting in their games. The information is pretty extensive too. There’s a history of the Academy, a layout of San Francisco that highlights some of the more popular dives, and breakdown of the Academy curriculum. There are also maps of the Academy grounds, as well as the Sol system. There are illustrations of uniforms by era, and my favorite, there’s an Academy diploma! I’ve played a handful of campaigns using this box set, and I’ve been impressed by it each time.

Don’t let the big “Setting” on the front of that box fool you. This box set was a slightly different animal than a mere ‘setting’. Yes, it provides information about the Romulan Empire setting, but saying that is like saying that Wrath of Khan provides information about the death of Spock. That description doesn’t really do the thing a lot of service. Once again, LUG was delving into an area of Trek lore that hadn’t been explored very extensively during the shows, despite Romulans showing up in every show to that point. We learned a bit more about the Romulan Empire in Nemesis, sure, but that film came out three years after this box set. And this set does so much to flesh out the Romulans as both a political institution, and a culture. I’ve read through this one quite a bit as I just find the information fascinating. LUG does a great job integrating what has been established about the Romulans, and then building around all of that in a way that feels organic, and fresh. There are the requisite maps of the Empire, and the Romulan system in particular. There’s a history of the Romulan people, and there’s a pretty thorough breakdown of the Romulan political structure. I know it’s not canon, but I can see this supplement providing direction for those working on the shows back in the day because it fits so well with the established mythology.

The rest of the supplemental books do not cease to deliver the same kind of thorough quality that one finds in those boxed sets, and there are some really interesting tid bits of universe building materials available. There’s one book that adds time travel and alternate universe game play to the mix. There’s another that covers espionage and covert operations. Yet another gives an extensive breakdown of the Andorians. Another that gives the Vulcans the RPG treatment. There’s also a supplement for playing traders, and rogues in the Star Trek universe. There’s a book that gives information on ships, and also how to make your own ships. There’s even a book on how to incorporate holodeck adventures into your campaign. Once again, for as little time as LUG had to develop their property, they did an admirable job.

In all, this system offered a lot, and potentially demanded very little. It was simple enough for players of any experience level to pick up and play. It offered a ton of setting fluff to really bring games to life for the players, and it did it in such a way that nothing ever seemed particularly prohibitive. Everything about this system is a treat to experience, especially since in offered such in depth storytelling options for narrators and players alike. It’s relatively cheap to purchase from various sources these days, and I can’t recommend it enough! If you’ve got a gaming itch that you need scratched, this system could totally do the job. Stick around because next week, we’ll be looking at where Star Trek roleplaying games started! Stay tuned!

Getting Our Game On!: Decipher Star Trek RPG

Last week, we looked at Decipher Inc’s groundbreaking attempt to take the traditional mechanics of a RPG, and put them into a card game. This week we’re going to look at what happens when the same company decides to make an actual RPG. From 2002-2004, Decipher released six books under the Star Trek license. I call them Decipher Trek, but many call them Coda Trek after the system that Decipher created to run the game, the Coda System. Whatever you called it, it’s a fascinating chapter in the history of licensed Star Trek gaming and it definitely deserves a look!

But first, a rather lengthy history! In the 80s Star Trek RPGs were simple in that there was only one company handling the development, FASA. FASA held a license until 1989, when they flew too close to the sun, and started stepping in areas of development that Paramount didn’t like. It was at that point that Paramount pulled the license, and Star Trek RPGs went on hiatus. It was nearly a decade before Star Trek found another home in the pencil and paper RPG sector via Last Unicorn Games, or LUG as most people refer to them. That license lasted about a year before interference from Paramount once again left the world without a Star Trek based game of imagination. The point to this brief historical recounting is heading somewhere, I promise.

LUG bought the license for Trek around 1997, and released their first book, a core book for The Next Generation in 1998. Subsequently, LUG released 14 more books, and a limited line of miniatures in around eighteen months. That’s ludicrous! Once, again, it speaks to the commercial viability of Trek back in this era. Anyway, right around the end of ‘97, Wizards of the Coast, who make Dungeons and Dragons now, had recently acquired TSR, the company that originally made D&D. It was at this point that they started developing what would become the third edition of the world’s most recognizable RPG. *Understand that what follows is mostly theory that happens to fit the facts. I think that this period of gaming history saw WotC greedy for RPG properties. Between 1997, and 2000, they acquired D&D, West End Games, which netted them the license for a Star Wars RPG, and LUG, which probably should have netted them a license to develop a Star Trek RPG. However, Paramount plays by their own rules so when LUG got absorbed into WotC, Paramount simply shopped the license around, and settled on Decipher to develop the next iteration of Star Trek RPG. It made sense since Decipher was already making the Star Trek CCG.

Rumor has it that staff from LUG who had been brought on to Wizards had already been tweaking the rules system for the LUG game so that WotC could release a new version of the game. However, once Decipher got the license, many of those employees jumped ship, and went over to Decipher to develop. What all of this culminates into is a system that’s a disturbing hybrid of the LUG system, and WotC’s D&D third edition. That’s a really long way to explain that, but the more you know, right? The team at Decipher spent probably over a year developing Coda Trek, and for the most part, it pays off. However, as we’ll see, there are some glaring deficiencies.

The LUG system was a great system in its own right. It used character templates, and overlays to generate characters that, for the most part, were multi-faceted, and well-rounded. The character creation aspect was easy enough, and didn’t take terribly long. We’ll discuss all of this at length next week, but suffice it to say for now that LUG made a really good system that focused on great storytelling. By contrast, the Coda system was, well, not quite as good. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a really fun system to play, and once you get the hang of it, it’s not too bad, but here’s the thing: LUG had a great system. Having to tweak that great system in order to avoid IP litigation resulted in a system that was heavy on mechanics, and also pretty clunky. It’s about the only system that I play that I need a character generation guide in order to play.

Wow, we’re not off to a good start on a system that I claim to enjoy tremendously, are we? Starting at the basics, the Coda system that this game uses runs off of a 2d6 mechanic. So any skill or combat checks that need to be made use 2d6 plus any skill modifiers in order to do so. It’s a pretty straightforward mechanic, and I really can’t complain. Alright, in the positives category, there are only six books, well, eight if we count the PDF books, and a Narrator’s Screen that were published in the two years that decipher was making their game.

Pictured here for your convenience!

A lot gets accomplished in these eight books. Some are more effective than others, but it does make our look at the game somewhat succinct. There’s a Player’s Guide, because obviously there is. There’s a Narrator’s guide. These are the essential core books for the game. Pretty much anything one could need to know in order to play are in these books.  There’s a creature guide, an alien guide, a starship guide, and for some reason, a Starfleet Operations Manual. In PDF form, we also have a world guide, and a mirror universe handbook.

Starting from the beginning, the Player’s Handbook is a pretty useful resource. However, I don’t feel like the information is laid out as well as it could be. I find myself constantly flipping back and forth between pages trying to find information that I need. However, what the book lacks in organization, it more than makes up for in its index. The indexes of these books are fantastic! They will help you find everything, and you’re going to need it because as I said before, the layout of the books leaves a lot to be desired. There’s also an issue of the character sheets:

And this is just one page!

There’s a lot there, but I’ve found that there are skills mentioned in the books that aren’t present on the sheet. This can be a little frustrating as there aren’t a ton of empty spaces to write skills into. The broad strokes information does attempt to walk you through character creation in a pretty logical way. It doesn’t mesh with how I build characters so that might be why I don’t like it as much, but at least an attempt was made. By necessity, there are a lot of tables, especially where weapons are involved. When you have a universe that used variable strength particle weapons, it almost becomes necessary to table out damage amounts at various settings. The tables are easy to read, and I can’t complain.

I’m not going to lie, I very rarely even open the Narrator’s Guide. I’ve had some instances where specific situations have required me to look up a particular rule, but for the most part, I’ve found most of the information I’ve needed as Narrator in the Player’s Guide. I’m not knocking this. Wizards uses a fairly similar setup these days. I just feel like things become extraneous here because some of the information that you use out of the Narrator’s Guide is rehashed in so many other books. But, if all you had when the game first came out was the Player’s Guide, and the Narrator’s Guide, then you’d have all of the info you could ever need. I do really like that this book talks about how Star Trek should feel as you’re running it in different eras. Each show got a short write up about what type of action drove that show, and how to incorporate that feel into your games to that, in theory, you could run several different campaigns in several different eras and have them feel much different from one another. I also have to give kudos to Decipher for trying to slip Star Trek: Enterprise into the material with such short notice. Enterprise had barely been on the air for one season before these books came out so even though the info is sparse, I was glad to see they made an attempt to cover that era. Also, there’s a lot of really helpful information on how to structure campaigns in order to keep things fresh. And of course, combat rules. So I suppose that there actually is a lot in this book that’s both exclusive and extremely helpful.

Alright, after this, I promise we’re into the home stretch. I can gloss over the other books and sum everything up because the rest are just straightforward things, but let’s talk about the book that I thought was the least useful book that Decipher released, the Starfleet Operations Manual. I’m not going to lie, I only really cracked this tome open just this morning in order to do ‘research’, but HOLY CRAP YOU GUYS! All I can say is this:

Just all of that! This is a prime situation where the name is totally misleading. I thought that this was a book to teach noobs all about Starfleet in universe. It turns out that all of the complaints that I had about holes in the system with the Player’s Guide, and the Narrator’s Guide are totally examined and improved in this magnificent bit of mana from Almighty! It was a legitimate epiphany moment for me! It seriously had me all like:

I just can’t say enough! Feel like your choices in character advancement were limited in the Player’s Guide? Starfleet Operations Manual. Pining for more races to explore and play that were left out of the Player’s Guide? Starfleet Operations Manual! Still fuzzy about how certain skills work in context of both the game overall, and playing a Starfleet officer in particular? Starfleet Operations Manual, SUCKER! I’m not exaggerating when I say that pretty much everything that I felt was missing from the other two volumes is covered in this one. It’s almost like Decipher was in a mad dash to get a product out, and knowing that the product was flawed, decided to follow that product up with this fix so that players and GMs alike could have a better handle on their game. It’s a really short book by comparison, clocking in at a meager 90 pages, but everything is covered in it, at least as far as playing a Starfleet character is concerned. There are revised, and new improvement paths, explanations of the various fleets that comprise Starfleet overall, and what each does, as well as where. There are new pieces of equipment, and better explanations of how old ones work. There are starship templates that show how all of the cool ships work within the game mechanics. I’m going to officially retract my previous allusion that some of the books were weak, this might be the most comprehensive book in the series. After this, everything else in this series is just going to seem mundane! Oh well, let’s press briefly on anyway…

The last three volumes are fairly self explanatory. The Aliens book expands the offering of playable races by giving summaries of new and old races, as well as mechanical information for playing one of these races. The Starships book gives expanded information on various starships within the Star Trek universe, how they work within the game, and also how to make your own should you have the need. The Creatures guide gives the Narrator a bunch of freaky deakies to throw at their group while said group is planetside. The Worlds PDF is also pretty utilitarian. It provides data on various known worlds within the Star Trek realm, and tells the Narrator all of the various ways that an unsuspecting player could die while exploring these worlds. It also provides information on how to build custom worlds so that a Narrator can easily shake things up during the course of a campaign. The Through A Glass Darkly mirror universe guide is probably the one that I find the most interesting and tantalizing. The Mirror Universe in Star Trek is an interesting look at what happens when all of those noble ideals that Roddenberry held so dear get rejected, and man allows his carnal passions to govern his actions. This book gives players and Narrators all of the tools they need to play in this savage and unforgiving facet of Star Trek lore. It’s pretty sweet.

With all eight of these releases, Decipher actually managed to make a fairly complete game. I can only imagine that had they had a chance to develop the property further, there might have been some adventure modules, some more setting fluff, and maybe even some Enterprise specific material to really get games into that era. But as it stands, this system is pretty complete as it is. And as with the card game, this game has managed to maintain its core following well after it’s demise. One can visit this site right now and get all sorts of goodies to further enrich your game play. The site offers new species that weren’t covered in the official publications, adventure modules, and starship builds for those who desire a change.

As far as systems go, I really can’t complain too much about this one. The character creation is probably the most prohibitive part of this system, and once you get past that, and the missing skills on the character sheet, it’s a pretty easy system. It offers a lot of possibilities, and a lot of fun for players. I know I’ve had plenty of dramatic and rewarding adventures playing in this system and I can’t recommend it enough! Stick around because next week, we’re going to look the predecessor to this RPG system, the Last Unicorn Games system! We’ll see what made the two similar and what made the two different!

All About Gaming: Star Trek The Customizable Card Game

Let’s face it, the 90s were a wonderful time if you happened to be a Star Trek fan and a gamer. Over the next few weeks as we lead up to the release of the new Star Trek Adventures RPG game, we’re going to look at some of what has come before, and how those things have shaped what we’re getting presently. To kick all of that off, I want to start by looking at Decipher’s Star Trek CCG, a game that is as convoluted as it is fun to play. The game was produced from 1994 to 2007 so it had a pretty long run. However, constant rules updates, and a lackluster second edition coupled with CBS pulling the license ultimately laid this interesting game to rest.

The basic premise of the game is to incorporate the elements that make Star Trek unique into a card game. To do this, the rules set, and the gameplay are designed to reflect that goal. The game is primarily for two players, but there are unofficial rules for adding more. In a two player game, players actually have two decks. One is for building a deck from which they’ll play during regular game play, and the other is called the seed deck. This deck consists of location cards, artifact cards, dilemma cards, doorway cards, and station cards. Basically, anything that is going to need to be in play throughout the game that serves as the foundation of the game. Each player takes turns seeding things as a space line is created, and dilemmas/artifacts are secretly seeded under mission location cards.

Once everything is completely set up, it looks more or less like the picture above. As you can see, there are ships involve. Obviously. Each ship, and each personnel card that’s used during the regular play have stats associated with them, and look a lot like this:

In my opinion, this is where this game is extremely unique. Not only did the designers attempt to capture the Star Trek spirit with their game, they also incorporated gameplay elements that are more closely related to your standard RPG. You’ll notice that Captain Kirk has the attributes of Integrity, Cunning, and Strength. He also has a laundry list of unique skills from which to pull. Every character follows this same pattern, and these skills and attributes play a large role in the game. See, the win conditions are either accumulate 100 points first by solving missions and dilemmas, or be the last to run out of cards in your draw deck. Hence, each mission has a point value, and list of requirements necessary to solve it. The player, therefore, would take their crew to the mission of their choosing, and attempt the mission by committing personnel to that mission. If there are dilemmas beneath the mission, (graciously seeded by your opponent), the the crew have to solve those as well. This can be problematic as a player may not have the skills necessary to solve a particular dilemma. In this case, the entire crew become stopped, and cannot move again until the dilemma is solved.

Star Trek as a mythology has a ton of things going on, and a lot of different races playing in its sandbox, and Decipher didn’t skimp on including these various races in the game. The interesting thing is that they tried to maintain the flavor of each race, or affiliation, as they’re actually called. So Klingons have a lot of strength, and honor is a skill that most possess, where Romulans have high cunning, and you’ll find a lot of treachery. This further affects gameplay as not every mission can be attempted by every affiliation. Furthermore, not every mission location can be seeded on the same space line. Using Delta Quadrant locations, one has to be playing a person who is also playing Delta Quadrant cards in their deck. This applies to personnel and ships as well. Also, as a Federation player, you can’t be the aggressor in a combat maneuver. Of course, there are cards that can change all of this, but it does add some extra depth to the strategy behind the game.

At the time that Decipher lost their license, Star Trek had been around for 40 years. That doesn’t seem quite as long now, but that’s still a lot of material to cover, and Decipher did an incredible job in the attempt. There were 17 sets in just the First Edition. There were also numerous promotional released as well. There were a further 14 sets released for the Second Edition, bringing the total to 31 full sets. That doesn’t seem like much, but bear in mind that this was a card game that was only in production for 13 years. Magic: The Gathering, and Pokemon may have more material to choose from, but they’ve been around longer, and they’re not working within the confines of a licensed property so it’s pretty amazing to see what one company could do with these unique limitations. Equally as interesting is what some companies failed to do in trying to mimic the Star Trek CCG. Google customizable card games, and you’ll see a huge list of games that were coming out around the same time that just didn’t last. It really says a lot about the staying power of Star Trek, and it speaks to the passion of the fans at the time.

We’re 10 years removed from the cancellation of the game so where does that leave us? Well, getting back to that staying power, there is a Continuing Committee that has taken it upon themselves to organize an underground community of players. They organize games for events, provide a forum for fans to meet one another online, or IRL, and even create unofficial expansions that can be used in friendly play. They’ve also been working to remove some of the complicated fat from the First Edition of the game to make it more easily playable. As of this writing, we’re ten years in and still going strong.

The Star Trek CCG was a game ahead of its time if you ask me. It took a concept that was radical and untried, and put it to the test, and quite successfully. It really went to the final frontier of card gaming. I never got too into the Second Edition, but played the First Edition from the very beginning, and I remember having hours of fun as I worked to out maneuver my opponent. The great thing about this particular game is that since it’s so old, many of the cards are pretty inexpensive. The later releases were not printed in huge runs, and those can fetch a mint, but the older sets tend to be pretty cheap. Being as it’s summer, this might be a good hobby to try and get into with friends, or family. It does have a pretty steep learning curve for beginners, but once you pick it up, it’s pretty straightforward, and if there’s something you don’t quite understand beyond the core rules, just ignore them. It was an oddity in its time, and monument to the passions of Trekkie gamers the world over, give this one a good college try, and stay tuned to next week! We’ll be taking a look at Decipher’s other Star Trek game!