Post by Gilvan Blight on Jun 7, 2011 19:37:17 GMT -5
Quickly: Surprisingly excellent system based on it's age. Some flaws though that appear to be fixed with 2nd edition.
Summary:
Years ago my first real roleplaying experience was with the Windsor Gaming Society. This was a club at the University of Windsor that met every Saturday from noon until Midnight. Back in my WGS days I remember watching with Awe a particular RPG. The GM would show up an hour ahead of time and rearrange Vanier lounge so that it looked like the Bridge of the Enterprise. There was a Captains Chairs, chairs placed for the Helmsman and Navigator, a podium for the Science officer, a chair for the Communication officer and a huge blackboard on which the GM would draw the main view screen. The game would always start with the playing of the traditional Star Trek theme. The game they were playing was FASA Star Trek.
Memories of their sessions have stuck with me to this day (more then 20 years later) and I've always wanted to play in that world with that game. The problem was that the game has long been out of print. Enter eBay and some discretionary funding and I was able to pick up an unpunched copy of the 1st Edition Star Trek RPG by FASA. I devoured the books in under a week and immediately set up a Single Session Sunday event to try it out. That event happened a week ago Sunday.
What's in the box?
The 1st Edition FASA Star Trek boxed set looks pretty typical for it's time. It's that standard Avalon Hill bookcase sized box with a beautiful hand drawn cover featuring Kirk and Spock with the Enterprise in the background. The back features shots of whats in the game with quite a few shots from the show. Inside there is a slew of stuff. Two books, one being the rulebook and the other being half mission book and half ship recognition manual for the Enterprise and the Klingon D7 Cruiser. There is a huge fold out hex based star map. A set of counters showing various crew members, aliens, ships and counters used during ship combat. Two old school D20s, in two different colours with 1-10 on them twice (sadly my set did not include these). There is a booklet of sheets used for ship to ship combat. Lastly are two huge sets of deck plans. These have a 1/4" grid on them and show The Enterprise and a Klingon D7 deck by deck. They are huge and take up the majority of the box.
The Rule Book
The rule book is well laid out and is done in a 3 colour format being mostly black and white with some blue accents. Interspersed through the book are screen shots from the show. There are is also the nice line art of various bits of technology, ship recognition plans, uniforms, etc. For it's age it's a really nice looking book, much better then most other RPGs of the time. The rules are broken down into sections, first introducing you to the game, and what a game is. It then gets into a ton of sample characters from the show. You have the entire enterprise bridge crew and some of their more famous enemies and friends. This is followed by rules for character generation. From there it goes into skill and personal combat. This is followed by equipment, medicine, disease, healing and weapons. Two sections on the types of adventures is next, which includes a system for random determination of a society and planets. The Federation is then detailed with a 'historical update' that tells you the state of the Federation at the period the game is set. A section on ship based systems is next followed by the star ship combat system. The last section has one page or GM Tips followed by some designer notes. There really isn't a GM section besides this, which I found very odd and quite an ommision.
Character Creation
Character generation uses a life path system that reminded me of Traveller. You start off generating your stats randomly. Strength, Endurance, Intellect, Dexterity and Charisma are determined by 4D10+40. Luck and Psionic potential are determined by a straight d100 roll. These are all modified by race. The races included in this game are Humans, Vulcans, Andorians, Caitians, Edoans and Tellarites. I personally didn't know the Caitians or Edoans, I was told by one of my players that they were featured in the animated series (something I've now added to my to-watch list). Except for minor stat modifications most of the races are identical rule wise. Vulcans are the exception with a full two pages devoted to their psichic abilities like the Mind Meld and Nerve Pinch.
Once you have determined your race and statistics you start on the life path. This starts with you getting some skills that you picked up before joining Star Fleet. You get skills from two categories Educational Background and Personal Development. Each skill picked gets 1D10+5 points in it. Next characters enter Star Fleet, here they get a bunch points in a specific set of skills. After this they player chooses a specific specialization (Engineering, Science, Security, Medical, etc) and get a set of skills based on that specialization. They also get some discretionary skill picks based on their INT stat. For discretionary skills they get to add 1d10 to each skill picked. Characters next go on a Cadet Cruise, this is their final test. A roll is made to see what branch of Star Fleet they are assigned to and then make a roll to see if they pass. If they do not pass they go on another cruise. More skills are gained. You can stop here if you wish, but the game generally assumes your characters will be commanding officers. If that is the case then you go to Command School, get more set skills and pick some discretionary skills. After Command school you roll up your post-graduation experience. Each character will have served 1d10/2 terms of service before getting to the point where you start playing the character. Each of these terms lasts a random number of years and occur on a random ship type. Each term of course generates more skill rolls. By the end of the process you have a character who is already an expert in their field and can start quite old.
Personal Combat
FASA Star Trek uses a tactical combat system using a 1/2 in grid. The game comes with Chits to use for the good and bad guys and recommends picking up FASA miniatures to replace these. Combat is Action Point based. Each turn each character gets a specific number of Action Points (based on the DEX stat). Each action costs a set number of points. Examples include, Moving Orthogonally - 1, Moving Orthoganally while Dodging 2, Using a piece of Tech 1, Firing a Phaser 1, making a melee attack All but you must have at least 3, etc. An interesting addition this are the rules for opportunity actions. Almost half of the actions can be used as opportunity actions, meaning you can use them on someone else's turn in reaction to something they did. This makes for a very tactical system with people saving points to be able to react on the opponents turn. Damage is taken off of a character/NPC END stat. Fitting for the series, combat is very deadly. One phaser shot on stun will take out most characters and aliens and a shot with a phaster on disintegrate will instantly kill anything. The LUC stat can be used to turn a hit into a graze and at least reduce the lethality a bit. There are rules for playing in encounter mode at other scales at well, which can be used to simulate overland movement at pretty much any scale (from a city block to a planet).
Starship Combat
Ship to Ship combat in Star Trek is a unique mix of roleplaying and tactical boardgame. Each command position has a role to play in space combat and each position gets a panel they use to play this role. The panels are sheets and chits given to each player. The Captain gives orders (vague enough so that the other players still get to make choices). The Engineer has to decide how to split up the ships power each turn. The Navigator controls the Deflector Shields. The Helmsman steers the ship and moves it's counter on the included Hex Map. He is also responsible for firing weapons (only on the Captain's orders). The Science Officer is responsible for establishing sensor lock and tracks damage done to the ship. Lastly the Communications officer tracks on ship casualties. Added to these 'console roles' there is all the usual roleplaying and skill checks you would expect from a Star Trek Game. The Communications officer trying to open hailing frequences, the Science officer trying to determine the make of the enemy ship, the Engineer trying to get extra power out of the Warp Drive, etc.
Skills
The skills in this game are pretty typical of a Sci-Fi game. They include a good number of science skills, which I found very befitting of the setting. There are lots of technical skills as well. For most technological items there are two skills, one for using the tech and one for fixing it (e.g. Computer Operation and Computer Tech). Unfortunately skill checks are poorly explained in the rules. They call any of these checks Saving Throws and they are made by rolling D100 under a target number. The problem is that the rules don't really explain what this target number is all of the time. The personal combat system has skills averaged with stats, the starship combat system has you rolling straight skill rolls. Examples in the book swap from being skill averaged with stats, to just stats to just skills. I've since found out that this is all pretty much up to GM determination and can include just a skill, just a stat, or the average of any two (including skill and skill).
The Adventure Book
The adventure book contains three sample adventures that all seem like they could be played in a session or two. I ran through the first one Ghosts of Conscience and found it to be an excellent and memorable module. The second module was written to be played with the crew of the Enterprise. This disappointed me somewhat but I think fans of the series would enjoy Again, Troublsome Tribbles that brings back some rather memorable Star Trek characters. The final module, In the Presence of My Enemies has the group start as prisoners stuck on a Klingon ship trying to escape. All are well written but very vague. These aren't the kind of modules with 'read aloud' boxes that walk you through step by step. This are more summaries of things going on and things that can happen and leave a lot up to the GM. The second half of this book goes though the Enterprise and a Klingon D7 cruiser deck by deck with short descriptions of each area. This is meant to be used with the two sets of deck plans that come with the box.
As usual there is only so much I can fit in one review. So if there's anything you wanted to know about 1st edition Star Trek, ask away.
The Good
The best part about this game was the fun we had playing it. The one session I ran of this game was one of the most fun and memorable rpg sessions I have run in a long time. I think the setting had a lot to do with it, but the rules really helped. Character generation was a lot of fun and really let people get a feel for their character before starting play. The D100 system used is very easy to pick up and I think that let us focus on the setting and characters and not mechanics. Except for some confusion over what target numbers to use for saving throws the system faded to the background rather well during roleplaying and exploration.
I personally really liked the personal combat rules. The Action Point system brought back fond memories of games like Breach and X-Com and the Opportunity Actions made me think of Space Hulk. I found it worked really well in practice as well with all combats we did running quickly for such a tactical system. I also liked the way roleplaying and tactical combat were mixed in the Starship combat system. I think the one scene we did as a space battle probably had more in combat roleplaying than I have seen in an RPG to date.
The Bad
While I did like both combat systems I still have no idea why they were so different. In addition the mechanics in the combat system are the opposite of the skill check mechanics. During a skill check you look at your target number, then roll and then apply modifiers to your die roll. In this type of saving throw a -10 is a good thing. Once you get to combat, you add all modifiers to your target number and then roll. In this case a -10 is a bad thing. This caused no end of confusion during play and we ended up resorting to "+10 good" or "+15 bad". It actually felt to me like the roleplaying skill and exploration rules were written by one designer, the personal combat system by another designer and the starship combat system written by a third. I would have most definitely preferred a unified system and saw no reason why personal combat couldn't be done on a hex grid just like Star Ship Combat.
The Ugly
The only part I found ugly about this game was trying to figure out, as a GM what the players should be rolling for. All the way through the book it talks about how having a 10 in a skill means you are good enough to do most things with it. So a 10 in shuttlecraft pilot meant you could fly the shuttlecraft and land it on a planet with no problem. It notes that a 20 is very skilled and a 30 is an expert. Yet the system is based on rolling D100 and getting under your skill. Which means that when things aren't perfect and there is some chance of failure the expert fails 70% of the time?!? I totally understand why the 10 rule is there, so you aren't rolling for everything and can focus on the roleplaying aspect of the game. I'm pretty sure you could run an entire session of this without a die roll. The problem is that most of the examples in the game show players rolling for things fairly often and the included module included quite a few mandatory die rolls. Added to this was my confusion over what exactly we should be using for target numbers. I pretty much explain that above so won't repeat it here.
Overall
So I finally got to try a system I have wanted to try for years. It's an old one and I wasn't expecting much. I was completely surprised by how solid and fun this system is. Actually now I find myself wondering why I waited so long. I did find out that a second edition of the game was released less then a year later and that it included fixes for quite a few of the questions I had. I think the fact that I've already bought the Deluxe Second Edition of FASA Star Trek is a good indication of how much fun I had with this system. The only thing that stops me from telling all of you to go out and buy this off eBay right now, is the fact that the Second Edition came out so soon after the first and that nearly all published material out there is for this second edition. So should all of you rush out and buy the Second Edition? I'll let you know once my copy shows up and I run it the next Sunday
Summary:
Years ago my first real roleplaying experience was with the Windsor Gaming Society. This was a club at the University of Windsor that met every Saturday from noon until Midnight. Back in my WGS days I remember watching with Awe a particular RPG. The GM would show up an hour ahead of time and rearrange Vanier lounge so that it looked like the Bridge of the Enterprise. There was a Captains Chairs, chairs placed for the Helmsman and Navigator, a podium for the Science officer, a chair for the Communication officer and a huge blackboard on which the GM would draw the main view screen. The game would always start with the playing of the traditional Star Trek theme. The game they were playing was FASA Star Trek.
Memories of their sessions have stuck with me to this day (more then 20 years later) and I've always wanted to play in that world with that game. The problem was that the game has long been out of print. Enter eBay and some discretionary funding and I was able to pick up an unpunched copy of the 1st Edition Star Trek RPG by FASA. I devoured the books in under a week and immediately set up a Single Session Sunday event to try it out. That event happened a week ago Sunday.
What's in the box?
The 1st Edition FASA Star Trek boxed set looks pretty typical for it's time. It's that standard Avalon Hill bookcase sized box with a beautiful hand drawn cover featuring Kirk and Spock with the Enterprise in the background. The back features shots of whats in the game with quite a few shots from the show. Inside there is a slew of stuff. Two books, one being the rulebook and the other being half mission book and half ship recognition manual for the Enterprise and the Klingon D7 Cruiser. There is a huge fold out hex based star map. A set of counters showing various crew members, aliens, ships and counters used during ship combat. Two old school D20s, in two different colours with 1-10 on them twice (sadly my set did not include these). There is a booklet of sheets used for ship to ship combat. Lastly are two huge sets of deck plans. These have a 1/4" grid on them and show The Enterprise and a Klingon D7 deck by deck. They are huge and take up the majority of the box.
The Rule Book
The rule book is well laid out and is done in a 3 colour format being mostly black and white with some blue accents. Interspersed through the book are screen shots from the show. There are is also the nice line art of various bits of technology, ship recognition plans, uniforms, etc. For it's age it's a really nice looking book, much better then most other RPGs of the time. The rules are broken down into sections, first introducing you to the game, and what a game is. It then gets into a ton of sample characters from the show. You have the entire enterprise bridge crew and some of their more famous enemies and friends. This is followed by rules for character generation. From there it goes into skill and personal combat. This is followed by equipment, medicine, disease, healing and weapons. Two sections on the types of adventures is next, which includes a system for random determination of a society and planets. The Federation is then detailed with a 'historical update' that tells you the state of the Federation at the period the game is set. A section on ship based systems is next followed by the star ship combat system. The last section has one page or GM Tips followed by some designer notes. There really isn't a GM section besides this, which I found very odd and quite an ommision.
Character Creation
Character generation uses a life path system that reminded me of Traveller. You start off generating your stats randomly. Strength, Endurance, Intellect, Dexterity and Charisma are determined by 4D10+40. Luck and Psionic potential are determined by a straight d100 roll. These are all modified by race. The races included in this game are Humans, Vulcans, Andorians, Caitians, Edoans and Tellarites. I personally didn't know the Caitians or Edoans, I was told by one of my players that they were featured in the animated series (something I've now added to my to-watch list). Except for minor stat modifications most of the races are identical rule wise. Vulcans are the exception with a full two pages devoted to their psichic abilities like the Mind Meld and Nerve Pinch.
Once you have determined your race and statistics you start on the life path. This starts with you getting some skills that you picked up before joining Star Fleet. You get skills from two categories Educational Background and Personal Development. Each skill picked gets 1D10+5 points in it. Next characters enter Star Fleet, here they get a bunch points in a specific set of skills. After this they player chooses a specific specialization (Engineering, Science, Security, Medical, etc) and get a set of skills based on that specialization. They also get some discretionary skill picks based on their INT stat. For discretionary skills they get to add 1d10 to each skill picked. Characters next go on a Cadet Cruise, this is their final test. A roll is made to see what branch of Star Fleet they are assigned to and then make a roll to see if they pass. If they do not pass they go on another cruise. More skills are gained. You can stop here if you wish, but the game generally assumes your characters will be commanding officers. If that is the case then you go to Command School, get more set skills and pick some discretionary skills. After Command school you roll up your post-graduation experience. Each character will have served 1d10/2 terms of service before getting to the point where you start playing the character. Each of these terms lasts a random number of years and occur on a random ship type. Each term of course generates more skill rolls. By the end of the process you have a character who is already an expert in their field and can start quite old.
Personal Combat
FASA Star Trek uses a tactical combat system using a 1/2 in grid. The game comes with Chits to use for the good and bad guys and recommends picking up FASA miniatures to replace these. Combat is Action Point based. Each turn each character gets a specific number of Action Points (based on the DEX stat). Each action costs a set number of points. Examples include, Moving Orthogonally - 1, Moving Orthoganally while Dodging 2, Using a piece of Tech 1, Firing a Phaser 1, making a melee attack All but you must have at least 3, etc. An interesting addition this are the rules for opportunity actions. Almost half of the actions can be used as opportunity actions, meaning you can use them on someone else's turn in reaction to something they did. This makes for a very tactical system with people saving points to be able to react on the opponents turn. Damage is taken off of a character/NPC END stat. Fitting for the series, combat is very deadly. One phaser shot on stun will take out most characters and aliens and a shot with a phaster on disintegrate will instantly kill anything. The LUC stat can be used to turn a hit into a graze and at least reduce the lethality a bit. There are rules for playing in encounter mode at other scales at well, which can be used to simulate overland movement at pretty much any scale (from a city block to a planet).
Starship Combat
Ship to Ship combat in Star Trek is a unique mix of roleplaying and tactical boardgame. Each command position has a role to play in space combat and each position gets a panel they use to play this role. The panels are sheets and chits given to each player. The Captain gives orders (vague enough so that the other players still get to make choices). The Engineer has to decide how to split up the ships power each turn. The Navigator controls the Deflector Shields. The Helmsman steers the ship and moves it's counter on the included Hex Map. He is also responsible for firing weapons (only on the Captain's orders). The Science Officer is responsible for establishing sensor lock and tracks damage done to the ship. Lastly the Communications officer tracks on ship casualties. Added to these 'console roles' there is all the usual roleplaying and skill checks you would expect from a Star Trek Game. The Communications officer trying to open hailing frequences, the Science officer trying to determine the make of the enemy ship, the Engineer trying to get extra power out of the Warp Drive, etc.
Skills
The skills in this game are pretty typical of a Sci-Fi game. They include a good number of science skills, which I found very befitting of the setting. There are lots of technical skills as well. For most technological items there are two skills, one for using the tech and one for fixing it (e.g. Computer Operation and Computer Tech). Unfortunately skill checks are poorly explained in the rules. They call any of these checks Saving Throws and they are made by rolling D100 under a target number. The problem is that the rules don't really explain what this target number is all of the time. The personal combat system has skills averaged with stats, the starship combat system has you rolling straight skill rolls. Examples in the book swap from being skill averaged with stats, to just stats to just skills. I've since found out that this is all pretty much up to GM determination and can include just a skill, just a stat, or the average of any two (including skill and skill).
The Adventure Book
The adventure book contains three sample adventures that all seem like they could be played in a session or two. I ran through the first one Ghosts of Conscience and found it to be an excellent and memorable module. The second module was written to be played with the crew of the Enterprise. This disappointed me somewhat but I think fans of the series would enjoy Again, Troublsome Tribbles that brings back some rather memorable Star Trek characters. The final module, In the Presence of My Enemies has the group start as prisoners stuck on a Klingon ship trying to escape. All are well written but very vague. These aren't the kind of modules with 'read aloud' boxes that walk you through step by step. This are more summaries of things going on and things that can happen and leave a lot up to the GM. The second half of this book goes though the Enterprise and a Klingon D7 cruiser deck by deck with short descriptions of each area. This is meant to be used with the two sets of deck plans that come with the box.
As usual there is only so much I can fit in one review. So if there's anything you wanted to know about 1st edition Star Trek, ask away.
The Good
The best part about this game was the fun we had playing it. The one session I ran of this game was one of the most fun and memorable rpg sessions I have run in a long time. I think the setting had a lot to do with it, but the rules really helped. Character generation was a lot of fun and really let people get a feel for their character before starting play. The D100 system used is very easy to pick up and I think that let us focus on the setting and characters and not mechanics. Except for some confusion over what target numbers to use for saving throws the system faded to the background rather well during roleplaying and exploration.
I personally really liked the personal combat rules. The Action Point system brought back fond memories of games like Breach and X-Com and the Opportunity Actions made me think of Space Hulk. I found it worked really well in practice as well with all combats we did running quickly for such a tactical system. I also liked the way roleplaying and tactical combat were mixed in the Starship combat system. I think the one scene we did as a space battle probably had more in combat roleplaying than I have seen in an RPG to date.
The Bad
While I did like both combat systems I still have no idea why they were so different. In addition the mechanics in the combat system are the opposite of the skill check mechanics. During a skill check you look at your target number, then roll and then apply modifiers to your die roll. In this type of saving throw a -10 is a good thing. Once you get to combat, you add all modifiers to your target number and then roll. In this case a -10 is a bad thing. This caused no end of confusion during play and we ended up resorting to "+10 good" or "+15 bad". It actually felt to me like the roleplaying skill and exploration rules were written by one designer, the personal combat system by another designer and the starship combat system written by a third. I would have most definitely preferred a unified system and saw no reason why personal combat couldn't be done on a hex grid just like Star Ship Combat.
The Ugly
The only part I found ugly about this game was trying to figure out, as a GM what the players should be rolling for. All the way through the book it talks about how having a 10 in a skill means you are good enough to do most things with it. So a 10 in shuttlecraft pilot meant you could fly the shuttlecraft and land it on a planet with no problem. It notes that a 20 is very skilled and a 30 is an expert. Yet the system is based on rolling D100 and getting under your skill. Which means that when things aren't perfect and there is some chance of failure the expert fails 70% of the time?!? I totally understand why the 10 rule is there, so you aren't rolling for everything and can focus on the roleplaying aspect of the game. I'm pretty sure you could run an entire session of this without a die roll. The problem is that most of the examples in the game show players rolling for things fairly often and the included module included quite a few mandatory die rolls. Added to this was my confusion over what exactly we should be using for target numbers. I pretty much explain that above so won't repeat it here.
Overall
So I finally got to try a system I have wanted to try for years. It's an old one and I wasn't expecting much. I was completely surprised by how solid and fun this system is. Actually now I find myself wondering why I waited so long. I did find out that a second edition of the game was released less then a year later and that it included fixes for quite a few of the questions I had. I think the fact that I've already bought the Deluxe Second Edition of FASA Star Trek is a good indication of how much fun I had with this system. The only thing that stops me from telling all of you to go out and buy this off eBay right now, is the fact that the Second Edition came out so soon after the first and that nearly all published material out there is for this second edition. So should all of you rush out and buy the Second Edition? I'll let you know once my copy shows up and I run it the next Sunday