It’s eight years since Modiphius first published their Star Trek Adventures role-playing game (RPG) so this second edition certainly hasn’t been rushed out. It streamlines aspects of the first edition but it doesn’t just bin them: if you have the first edition rules, and certainly if you invested in Modiphius' impressive Borg Cube box set, you’ll still be able to make use of most of what you’ve got and adapt it to play the second edition. Star Trek Adventures second edition is published in book form but the Starter Set we’re featuring in this Board’s Eye View is an even more streamlined jumping off point for anyone coming new to this RPG, with the very accessible core rulebook condensed into less than 50 pages, along with a campaign book of missions and a bunch of large reference cards to move the game along.
First edition Star Trek Adventures was focused on the period represented by Star Trek Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Star Trek Voyager. The second edition Starter Set takes us back to the 23rd Century of original Star Trek and Star Trek Strange New Worlds as its primary setting but it’s still easily adaptable to play with 24th Century ships and crew. Second edition dispenses with the d6 ‘challenge’ dice; from now on, you use d20 for all rolls. Note tho’ that you’ll still be rolling multiple dice because you still want wherever possible to amass multiple successes so that you score ‘momentum’ that you can later use to mitigate subsequent failed rolls. The Starter Set box comes with five d20 dice, which is the maximum you’re ever allowed to roll.
As in most other RPGs, the starting point for any players is to create their characters. You can play as any race in the Star Trek universe but you’ll probably want to keep in canon and restrict yourself to known members of the United Federation of Planets. Your character will have stats allocated to each of six attributes (Control, Daring, Fitness, Insight, Presence and Reason) and six specialties/departments (Command, Conn, Engineering, Medicine, Science and Security). Again tho’, the Starter Set streamlines this by coming with a selection of pre-generated Starfleet characters that between them cover all of a starship’s departments and a healthy selection of human, Vulcan, Andorian, Betazoid, Trill and Tellarite races to role-play. You can have a lot of fun role-playing a belligerent Tellarite! Your starship has departments that mirror those of personnel but with systems (Comms, Computers, Engines, Sensors, Structure and Weapons) in place of the attributes, and this Starter Set comes with pre-generated Constitution-class starship (the same class of ship as the original USS Enterprise).
The actual adventures (missions) are structured like Star Trek episodes, with three acts broken down into discrete scenes. These successfully mirror the pace and feel of the TV series. You’ll need tho’ someone to take charge as your crew’s Games Master (GM), setting each scene. For every task, the GM will tell the players its difficulty level (ie: how many successes are required) and which attribute/systems and department stats are used. For a success, you’ll need to roll equal to or lower than those two combined stats; and you’ll always roll at least two d20. And, as you might expect, there are various modifiers that can increase or decrease the prospect of success, and crew members can assist each other, adding dice to the pool.
As veterans of Dungeons & Dragons (Hasbro) will attest, it’s great to have weighty volumes of lore and data to underpin your universe but those hefty tomes can seem oppressive to anyone coming new to the table. This Starter Set comes with three missions in the box but your adventures don’t end there: Modiphius have published a growing series of further missions, all available as free digital downloads.
If you’re a Trekkie, you’ll love Star Trek Adventures and you’ll very quickly slip into role. But even for those less familiar with the franchise, the Star Trek Adventures Starter Set is a great way of getting into RPGs because it’s a very straightforward and accessible system and pretty much every task and challenge feels logical. Spock would approve.