To go with my previous post, I’ve just set up a poll in the upper-right of your screen.
Which Star Trek series would you most prefer for a Trek-based RPG?
If you’d like to elaborate on your answer, feel free here in the comments.
29 thoughts on “Trek Poll”
Comments are closed.
I'd like the basic book to cover a core set of rules that handles a wide range of eras. Then specific setting sourcebooks to look at each series in depth. Sort of like the WEG Star Wars game with it's Trilogy Sourcebook, Dark Empire Sourcebook, etc.
I like the Movie Era, since it's the least fleshed out of the eras. It allows for creating the bridge from TOS to TNG and expand on some items that are not addressed in the shows. That's part of the reason we did it with Tales of the Seventh Fleet. There's greater leeway allowed to fit adventures in, although TOS is a close second here. TNG/DS9/VOY has so much going on in such a short period that you're almost railroaded into storylines due to what Starfleet overall has going on.
If I was going to do Trek, I'd want the new movie version.
Sounds funny, but I think the original series lends itself best to an open-end "sandbox" kind of game, where newer series would be more railroady story games. Since I like sandbox (and gonzo), I voted for the original series.
I voted movie era but what would be really cool is a game that spans all eras where you have mini archs set in the time periods that are interconnected. Like the discovery of bajor in TOS, then a treaty and work toward induction to the Fed in the movie era just in time for the war with the Cardassians, emergency relieve and reconstruction in TNG, Dominion war and then onward. ALL with the same vessel name so like the "whatever-a, b, c etc. That would be cool
I voted "Original" because of the sandbox concerns mentioned by Matt, however, I think it would also be good to play games in the slightly post Romulan war era, as there would be way more freedom, and lower powered technology.
I like ghostofmarx's idea, sounds like "The Modala Imperative" that DC comics did which spanned the Movie Era and TNG. It would be incredibly hard to pull off, and the players would have different characters in each era, but if done right it would be really cool.
TOS has the best old-school flavour. It's plot based, like much of the OSR's favourite books and games, rather than character based like much of the later series.
I'd also like to play this TOS RPG as a play-by-post game ran by Joseph. 🙂
You know you want to!
TOS and TAS. It's as rip-roarin' as it is cerebral, there's not a lot of cruft on it (meaning that there's room for non-canonical expansion) and there are miniskirts.
I voted original series, since I agree with Matt that TOS was the most sandbox-y. I don't think tons of setting detail is important to a product, particularly for a setting that's already well-known and well-documented. I also prefer the wide-open frontier feel.
I actually wrote much more on this, narrowing it down to just the first four episodes and the first pilot; I decided to save that for my own blog and not clutter up your comments.
I think each series has enough in common that a Star Trek RPG corebook should be based on all series and than have 'Era Books' come out afterwards detailing series and/or period.
Hopefully the next publisher will be smart and not plan to have the Classic/TOS Movie era book out last so the game is cancelled before that book is published. Stroke of genius – It features the TOS cast so add it to the TOS but or put it out right around the same time.
Sorry, its a pet peave of mine that licensed RPGs seem to always get cancelled right before the book I want comes out.
I voted TNG, though it was rough not to pick DS9. Mostly though, it's just because of a greater familiarity with the source while still leaving enough room (in my opinion) to have some sandbox Star Trekkin' across the universe.
TOS: TO boldly go where no man has gone before
Animated Series: To colorfully go where no man has gone before
TNG: To boldly go a lot of those same places again.
DS9: To boldly stay where you are
Voyager: To accidently go where nobody wanted to go in the first place:
Enterprise: To boldly go where everyone is about to go.
New Movie: To bodly change where everybody was going all that time
OK, can we clarify here? When I read "Movie Era" I think The Motion Picture thru The Undiscovered County. Am I wrong? (Knowing Joe's opinion of the new movie, I highly doubt it.)
I would actually say "Enterprise" Prime. This is the universe that originally happened before the time-travelling aliens from the future were mucking about in the past.
This means redoing the entire Enterprise series from the start. Total freedom to recreate it in your group's imagination. Sure, you know what canon from TOS, TNG, etc that you may be heading for. But, this is a chance for the players to make sure it gets to happen. For example, Capt Archer was so angsty about the Vulcans slowing down Earth's starship project wishing his father could have seen it happen. Maybe in the unaltered Prime version, it's Archer's dad who commands the first starship (whatever you name it). Great big sandbox awaits!
From there, all other era sandboxes will follow.
Mjolnir; yes, that's correct, although I might put ST:TMP in its own era, and leave "Movie Era" as the time when Starfleet was wearing the monster maroons…
Ha! Rotwang. I was wondering if anyone would mention the Animated Series. Starfleet Battles used a lot of TAS material…
I voted for the movie era, because there was still a lot of wiggle room in the canon but some of the details revealed in the movie expanded directly upon the TV series. The original series and movie era, together, felt, to me, the most open to open-ended exploration of the weird things out there in the universe.
TOS gets my vote. Where men were men and women were women, unless they were androids trying to take over the ship!
It's practically the fantasy-era of the Trek universe. Before everything became all touch panels and synthohol.
Or you could average it. Take the midpoint between Enterprise's starting (2151) and the last Trek movie when Spock goes back and the franchise gets rebooted (2387).
That brings you to 2269, right during the third season of TOS.
Ta-da!
Ciao!
GW
One of the things about the Fasa game was the different divisions of Starfleet, and I always thought it would be more interesting to be one of the Colony Patrol traveling and keeping the peace between the different planets of the Federation, the Coast Guard of the UFP.
Not that I don't like other eras and styles of trek, for example, but Trek often focuses on lots of things away from home, and not about the things that happen at home. Even DS9 is all about trouble Elsewhere, and about half the episodes resolve things about other places, not about home.
I just think the greatest thing to explore about the Federation would be.. the federation. Which I realize Enterprise kinda covers, but Enterprise the series sucked. Even if I do like Scott Bacula.
For mass combat & political intrigue I think Ds9 would be what I run. For exploration, TOS obviously. For everything else, TNG. Last time my friends "tried" to play a ST RPG I wanted to play a bartender. I argued every show had one but they wouldn't let me.
I've played and ran a lot of TNG/DS9 era Star Trek (with LUG Trek rules) in the past, but I've been craving some TOS era action lately (and would probably use Decipher Trek this time around). Real TOS, not reboot TOS. 🙂
Mjolnir swung me to the movie era, because the Kirk-era heroes would be in the background and could be mentors and you have a lot of free space to play with, but both Enterprise and TOS/TAS would be great too.
TNG-era on is generally bogged down by too much Rodden-utopia ("We don't use money anymore"), magic tech and general confusion for me to want to try gaming it.
I have to vote Original series since, as other have said, it speaks to the same sense of exploration and discovery as LBB D&D. That said, I prefer TNG as the best Trek era, so a set of rules that allows more flexibility would be pretty cool.
Definitely TOS since I like open ended universes with plenty of room to explore and not too much nailed down into bedrock already, ( and female officers in miniskirts 🙂 ) That series is the most 'sandboxey' to me. I mean, where else can you have a captain ( Pike ) who actually can consider the option of changing careers to become a trader in green Orion slave women? 😀
TOS – Already done in the FASA Star Trek version. Go back to the John M. Ford Klingons from The Final Reflection."
I chose "Other". My preferred era is the pre-TOS Christopher Pike era. When Enterprise was announced I was cautiously optimistic but immediately underwhelmed. But I'd love to play/create stories in the decade before Kirk.
I agree with Deinol. I'm a big, big fan of the New Frontier books, so something that could span the TNG onwards, but not need to be specifically about the Enterprise would be good.
I’ve been accused of romanticizing it, and perhaps I am, but I still find TOS and TAS the most compelling. Even though I like a lot of what came afterwards.
Although, I think I like the idea of scratching off the serial numbers and twisting things in my own way even more. Much like Starships & Spacemen.