Roll those dice or those?

I’m not great at maths and so appreciate percentage-based game, you have a 25% chance of Spot Hidden and 75% chance of having a good idea – great! This does mean I ‘miss out’ on other systems but with the correct “Games Master” I’m willing to them a try. So when I had to opportunity to run a Star Trek game for friends I went with 7e Call of Cthulhu just because I knew how flexible the system is to being customised. I also knew that on Roll20, the VTT we use, there is a Cthulhu Icarus character sheet. Being based on the Basic Role-Playing system (BRP) I knew 7e had all that I needed – I would love to see BRP adopt the 7e Call of Cthulhu changes but that’s another tale! I have most variations of Star Trek Role-Playing games that have come out (I even have the Star Gate one!) and haven’t been able to get into the current 2D20 Star Trek Adventures. I also had a new way I wanted to do character creation too so with the spirit of the Traveller RPG in my mind we spent a couple of sessions in character creation.

Welcome to the Academy

I had the end mission for the players in mind already so was able to call upon some Star Trek Deep Space Nine episode stories (Season 4 onwards) to shape the players time at the academy. The cadets arrived having chosen their species but other than some racial bonuses in some no occupation was chosen. Instead, successful dice rolls during role-played events on base-level skills determined how they progressed through the academy in the first couples of years. This coupled with some elective subjects for some pointes spend in science, engineering and command shaped the careers of the ‘Investigators’. But to have a good story and adventure their duties would include bridge skills and teaming up on away missions. As this was the time of the dominion war, a period of quadrant wide conflict, Starfleet was short of officers so crew members once graduated from the academy had to take whatever roles were needed so a Science Officer could take the tactical station during a bridge shift.

Operation New Dawn: Chin’ Toka

I tell you, writing a Star Trek RPG adventure to play ticks all my creative boxes! I started writing in general after watching a terrible episode of Star Trek Enterprise and thought I would love to bring my ideas to screen as show. The next best thing is to create a Star Trek ‘series’ frame work and have friends play characters in that ‘show’ taking the lead roles as we see the mystery unfold. My final frontier was a system known as Chin’Toka, shown in Deep Space 9. This was the site of a number of epic space battles leaving behind so much so that aliens could walk from one end to another! The mission was simple, clean up the mess the war had left behind. But in the shadows conspiracies and murder was afoot not to mention the gods of the local population. After all Star Trek wouldn’t be Star Trek without alien possession and space mysteries! The home ship of the crew was the USS Caliban with a mysterious Captain who been promoted sooner than they should have been. This captain had been a survivor of both major engagement in the Chin’Toka system and carries the fear of being twice blow out of the stars trapped in the flimsy escape pods. Along the way, the captain discovered some of the mysteries of the Chin’Toka system…

Season Two?

I had such a good time running the Star Trek game and I’m happy that my friends had a good time playing in the world. It was touch and go if one character might be killed off a the end of the first season but they pulled through – and I didn’t even have to replace any of their body parts! One epic story decision was made by Roll20 was a fumble on the final dice roll setting up a potential season two – there was a transporter malfunction! This meant that the crew and their friend were transported to the mirror universe! Quite what this means we’re yet to find out as we have many more different games to play before we return to Chin’Toka.