Star Trek Adventures: A Review

Star Trek Adventures is a tabletop roleplaying game from Modiphius Entertainment. It is a fun shared storytelling experience that takes players on adventures within the Star Trek universe. I have played Star Trek Adventures regularly for a few years now. I would like to share with you my thoughts about this tabletop roleplaying game.

Image

Star Trek Adventures Core Rulebooks - Modiphius Entertainment

And So It Begins... 

The evening begins with players sitting around a brown folding card table. On one side the game master sits behind his GM screen. The glow of a tablet illuminates his face a little. The other players sit around the table with their character sheets, dice, and refreshments. 

The player playing Captain Reynolds begins the game. 

Captain Reynolds, USS Dawson: "Captain's log, stardate 76496.2. The USS Dawson is en route to Starbase 24. We are to meet up with a Klingon vessel and exchange supplies. With this being a simple routine mission Starfleet thought it would be a good idea to bring along a complement of cadets from the academy to test them in the field. I’m not sure how I feel about it. They’re untested, and we’re headed to a starbase that is awfully close to both the Klingon and Romulan territories. I do not doubt this Miranda Class can handle herself. It will be very interesting should we come across any trouble."
 

About Star Trek Adventures

Image

Star Trek Adventures is a tabletop roleplaying game. One player takes on the role of the Gamemaster, and the rest of the players take on the role of player characters within the world. A Gamemaster takes the Player Characters through a story in which the Players act as their characters interact. Sometimes these actions may result in a challenge where the players have to roll dice to see if they succeed, or how well they succeed. 

According to Memory Alpha, a Star Trek history record site, Star Trek Adventures was first released in August of 2017. It features Modiphius Entertainments 2D20 system thematically changed to fit the Star Trek Universe.

It’s definitely found a niche audience. People who really enjoy Star Trek and Roleplaying games will enjoy this setting and rules system. Sometimes it is difficult to find local in-person players. My friendly local game store for a very long time had the books but few interested in actually running it. I’ve seen Star Trek Adventures run at Free RPG Day events, Conventions, and game days from time to time. It is not as frequent as other more popular fantasy roleplaying games. There are a few online games that happen. Connecting with the Modiphius discord or many of the Star Trek Adventures fan-driven social media sites is a good way to find games.

It Continues...

Image

The USS Dawson, A Miranda class Starfleet vessel. 

The players sit around the coffee table. The gamemaster puts on some Star Trek ambient music on low. 

Gamemaster: "The USS Dawson approaches the Orion sector near Starbase 24."

Captain Reynolds Player: “Cadet, take us out of warp!” addressing the helmsman.

Gamemaster: I’m going to need Cadet Washburne to roll a Control and Conn roll, please.

(Cadet Washburne’s player rolls 2D20) “A 7, and a 4”.

Gamemaster: “Very well cadet!” The USS Dawson comes out of warp smoothly.

Captain Reynolds Player: “Let's see it! Mainscreen turn on!”

Gamemaster: The viewscreen lights up with the image of Starbase 24. A Klingon Raptor class ship hovers near the station.

Star Trek Adventures -  Story

A brief look at Star Trek Adventures

The Federation Core Book leans heavily into the Next Generation / Deep Space Nine era of Star Trek. They do have several mentions of the Original Series and much of the lore in the core book spans the Federation history.

The Klingon Core Book does a better job of describing the overall history of the Klingon Empire. While it does favor the Next Generation / Deep Space Nine eras, it has a good balance of the overall history through all the eras.

Both core books are handy to have as a player or as just a fan of the lore. The writers did an excellent job bringing the lore together. The Federation Core Book reads pretty rough on the ruleset I’ll admit. It feels like a technical manual more than a tabletop roleplaying game manual. The lore is well presented in both books.

The Era of the adventures you can run in Star Trek Adventures is determined by your Gamemaster. It may take place in one era, such as after the Borg incident in Star Trek First Contact, or it could take place in the J.J. Abrams Kelvin Timeline.

Then there’s Q. If you’ve watched Star Trek you’re familiar with this being. An all-powerful being that appears to harass Picard and crew from time to time. If you have a Gamemaster willing your Star Trek Adventures could start in one era, then with a snap of fingers, you’re now in a completely different era. Is it the same universe, or a parallel one? It’s up to your player character and the Gamemaster to decide how the story plays out. 

Main screen turn on...

Image

The gamemaster consults his notes before continuing. 

Gamemaster: The USS Dawson is now in stationary orbit with Starbase 24.

Captain Reynolds Player: “Comms, Hail the Klingons!”

Gamemaster (There is no comms player at the moment so the Gamemaster takes the role): Rolls some dice “Captain Azik on screen, Sir!”

Gamemaster “The Klingon captain appears on the viewscreen.

Gamemaster (as Captain Azik) “Ah Captain. Welcome to Starbase 24!”

Captain Reynolds Player: “Thank you Captain Azik! Shall we get this cargo transfer started?”

Gamemaster (as Captain Azik): “Indeed, Our crews can sort that out, Might you join me at the station for a drink? I hear they have a new flavor of Raktajino that my helmsman is eager to try.

Captain Reynolds Player: “Sounds good, I’ll buy!” they both laugh!

Gamemaster: The viewscreen turns off.

Captain Reynolds Player: I order the crew to start the transfer of cargo to the Klingon ship. We’ll beam over to the station. I’ll bring Washburne, Cobbson, and radio the Doctor to join us. We head for the transporter pad.

Washburne player: “Oh this will be fun!”

Star Trek Adventures Gameplay

Image

Star Trek Adventures Starter Set

Modiphius Entertainment staff discuss the core mechanics of Star Trek Adventures. 

There are three ways to jump into Star Trek Adventures. The first is grabbing a pregenerated character and seeing how the mechanics and game world work. This is great for new players who are just getting into Star Trek Adventures, or roleplaying with the 2D20 system.

Modiphius has nice starter sets for both the Next Generation Era and Original Series Era that provide great starting points. Their website has a lot of free PDF character packs. You can also find free characters on the Continuing Missions site.

One way to create a character is the lifepath creation. This is your typical character creation. Players will sit down with your Gamemaster, the core rulebook, and desired supplement books. Players begin working their way through the character-creation process. Choosing a species, choosing the character's environment they grew up with, their ranks in Starfleet, elements of their career, and so on. This helps flesh out the character’s backstory through creation giving a decent feel for who they are at the start of the game.

Experienced players of Star Trek Adventures can choose to Creation In Play method of character creation. The player chooses some very basic elements while leaving many of the other details undefined. During play, they begin to reveal their character's details as they come up. This is a challenging way to create a character and I would strongly recommend this for only experienced players.

In Star Trek Adventures character activities are resolved with tasks. These typically require a roll to determine their success. A player begins with 2 twenty-sided dice (2D20). They can purchase up to three max if they wish to spend in-game meta currency.

A Gamemaster sets the stage for the scene. The player chooses to attempt a task. The Gamemaster chooses one of six attributes and one of six disciplines for the chosen task. Experienced players may suggest alternative attributes or disciplines that fit the scene or their character's motivations. Ultimately it’s up to the gamemaster to decide.

With an attribute and a discipline chosen, the two stats are added together. This becomes the target number that the twenty-sided dice need to roll equal to or less than to generate enough success.

A task can have a difficulty of 0 to 5. If a task has a difficulty of 2, that means that the player needs to roll 2 or more successes to succeed at the task.

It happened at a space bar...

The Gamemaster describes the scene. “Captain Reynolds. You find yourself face to face with the one-armed Klingon helmsman of the Yan. He glares down at you. “You spilled my drink!” sounding intimidating. What do you wish to do?

Captain Reynolds: “I would like to try and talk him down peacefully. While a bar fight could be fun, the admirals might not appreciate an incident with the Klingons.”

Gamemaster: “Okay for this task you’ll need to roll a reason and command roll” Needing a difficulty of 2.

Captain Reynolds: “That’s a 4 and a 7. So a target number of 11.” He rolls the dice he gets a 4 and 12.

Gamemaster: “You get 1 success, which is not enough to succeed. The one-armed Klingon stares at you. Trying to understand your diplomatic attempt.” 
 

Image

Star Trek Adventures The Original Series Tricorder Starter Set

In Star Trek Adventures one different element than most role-playing games is the concept of fail forward. In the previous example, Captain Reynolds is in a pickle of a situation. While he did fail the role, it wasn’t a catastrophic failure. The game urges game masters to keep the story going forward adding drama to scenes without going overboard on harsh penalties for poor roles. This goes back to the idea that the gamemaster and the players are telling episodic Star Trek episodes.

Another gameplay element is the concept of ship crews. When you have a large vessel, the players won’t be the only ones on board controlling elements of the ship. When needed these side characters can pop in to help. The game includes rules on how to generate tasks with these extras, and the ship itself.

It seems like a lot to take in and understand the extended contexts with rules, meta currency, and other elements of the game. Star Trek Adventures has several great starter kits and entry-level missions that can welcome players to the rules. I highly recommend trying them out.

Modiphius staff play Star Trek Adventures

Too Calm... 

Gamemaster: As you stare at the Klingon helmsman a disruptor blast rings out. The doorway to the main hall slides open. A human stumbles in with his chest glowing green. He falls to the floor as another shot rings into the bar!

Two green flashes of light and two figures wearing dark uniforms beam into the room. Captain Reynolds, you recognize these uniforms easily. - The gamemaster shows the players a picture.

Captain Reynolds Player Character: “ROMULANS! TAKE COVER!” I’ll take cover. 

Star Trek Adventures - Combat

Image

Combat breaks out

There are several variations of combat in Star Trek Adventure. Social combat is more common in this game due to its style and nature. Going in guns blazing as Federation Officers might be looked down upon by the Prime Directive and Starfleet Command.

Social combat often involves back and forth with intimidation, negotiation, diplomacy, and maybe even a little deception. The outcome is less deadly but can offer an interesting way to progress through the story.

The Klingons do not have a stun setting on their disruptors, so guns blazing might be exactly what is called for. Physical combat involves choosing the weapon, picking the target, declaring a lethal or non-lethal attack, and then attempting a task. Melee is Daring and Security, while Ranged Attack is Control and Security. 

Ship combat is a little trickier. It involves Task Rolls which also include ship rolls as well. There’s a stronger emphasis on distance and rotation in space.

One of the big things to remember about combat is the target number isn’t always based on a chosen difficulty by the GM it can be based on the defense of the opponent or an opposing roll. One player rolls 2 successes on that roll, setting the difficulty to 2. The other player must roll 2 or more successes in order to pass.

Stress and Injuries are the health system of the game. When a player takes damage they take stress. Too much stress and they gain an injury. Too much injury and the character perishes. While it is difficult to have a player character die, it is not uncommon that the dice just have it out for the player.

An unexpected alliance... 

Image

Artist impression of the double asteroid Antiope

Gamemaster: After the fight with the Romulans, they are either dead, transported away, or taken into custody by station security. Medical staff show up at the bar and start administering aid. None of your crew is injured, and the Klingons appear to be fine as well.

Captain Reynolds Player: To Captain Azik “Any idea what they were doing here?”

Gamemaster (as Captain Azik): “I am not sure. We have suspected that there was a Romulan presence nearby but we haven’t been able to confirm. Care for a hunting expedition captain?”

Captain Reynolds: “What did you have in mind?”

Gamemaster (as Captain Azik): “There’s an asteroid field not too far from here. After transferring cargo with you, we were ordered to go check out some strange sensor readings in the asteroid field. It would benefit both the Klingon Empire and the Federation to know what is going on there.

Captain Reynolds: I suspect he is not telling us everything, but he is right. The brass back home would appreciate some intel. “Alright, Captain.” 

Star Trek Adventures -  Quest/Mission System

Modiphius has a large library of adventures ready for players of all experiences and eras. If you set your game in the Original Series, Voyager, Enterprise, Discovery, Picard, or Strange New Worlds era there are adventures for you.

There is a “Continuing Missions” site that has a set of adventures designed for a living campaign set in the Original Series era, and one for the Next Generation era. Played one after the other they make a great overall campaign. They can also be played separately giving you plenty of adventures to be had.

There are compilation books with adventures in them. The Shackleton Expanse book provides a large sourcebook of a campaign to play from. 

Star Trek Adventures - Graphics

Image

One of the things that I cannot boast enough about is the artwork in this game. The books use the LCARS-style layout feel. That’s very similar to the touch screens you see on the consoles in the Next Generation.

Each piece of art in the game is very thematic for what is being presented. There are pictures of ship battles, crew interactions, and other inspiring situations.

One book I would STRONGLY recommend for collectors is the Utopia Planitia book. This is a Federation-focused book that shows off many of the vessels found in Star Trek. They include all the current eras of Star Trek, including some designs from concepts and Star Trek Online. 

Star Trek Adventures was developed by Modiphius Entertainment.

Image

Jim Johnson and his crew have done a really good job building a solid community of Star Trek Adventures fans. They are quick to respond to questions on several Facebook forums and Discord.

The Federation Core Rulebook and some of the early books read more like technical manuals. They can be difficult to sit down and read through. Many reviews have mentioned this. Thankfully they have taken these concerns into advisement and later books addressed many of these issues.

The line developers at Modiphius are really quick to put out content after Star Trek drops a new series. I remember Star Trek Picard hadn’t finished its final season before they had announced a release date for crew packs for the series.

Star Trek Adventures - Price

Video from Modiphius about many of the products they have available for Star Trek Adventures

• The Federation core rulebook is listed on Modiphius’ site for $61.10 physical, and $19.50 for PDF.
• The Klingon Core Rulebook is $65 physical, and $19.50 for PDF.

Modiphius is nice in that if you buy physical books at your friendly local game store or book retailer, you can connect with their customer support to get the PDFs.

There are many supplement books available. All the regions of Star Trek are covered, Alpha Quadrant, Beta Quadrant, Delta Quadrant, and Gamma Quadrant. The different divisions of Starfleet like security, and command have their own books.

There is a large selection of premade adventures in PDF format and full adventure books available. These are nice to have available for gamemasters.

There are era crew packs for the different Star Trek shows. Do you want to play as Captain Sisco? There’s a crew pack for Deep Space Nine. Want to delve into a musical number with the crew of the USS Cerritos. There’s a Lower Decks crew pack available. 

For starting players, I would definitely recommend finding the starter set. Both of these have a great foundation for learning to play the game. There is a Rules Digest that I also recommend picking up and reading. This takes the rules and presents them in a much easier way than the Federation Core Book does.
 

Final Verdict - What are my final thoughts on Star Trek Adventures?

Star Trek Adventures gets a 7 out of 10 from me.

• The art in the core book and the supplement books are definitely a 10 out of 10.
• The writing in the core book and some of the earlier books needed a bit more work. They feel like technical manuals and can be difficult to understand without the help of someone explaining it to players, or videos. Later books like the Klingon Core Book improved upon these concepts based on feedback from the community. So a 5 out of 10.
• Gameplay gets an 8 out of 10 from me. The 2D20 system is balanced between player character tasks, ship tasks, and extra characters.
• Character Creation - 6 out of 10 from me. I like the ways that you can create a character. The lifepath creation and the create-as-you-play methods provide unique perspectives for developing your characters.

But what about... 

Gamemaster: The story of the USS Dawson and its adventures... Well, as they say... 

Image