A NOTE ON GALACTIC MAPPING

The structure of STAR TREK: The Role-Playing Game is episodic in nature, much like the television series itself. Our aim was to capture the flavor of STAR TREK, the television series.

Therefore, as in the series, it really does not matter what happens between adventures.

An adventure situation in STAR TREK truly begins where the "teaser" of the episode begins -at the point a dramatic conflict or confrontation first arises. This may be an encounter with an alien vessel, a call from Star Fleet Command with new orders, an intercepted distress signal, etc. The day-to-day operation of a star vessel really does not matter, except where it affects an adventure situation.

For this reason, we chose not to burden the gamemaster or game players with minutiae about how often a starship must replenish dilithium crystals, or is paid. I n an adventure situation, it simply does not matter. Between adventures, the crew performs duties and enjoys normal recreations "offstage". We'll visit them again when things get exciting.

Even the system for improving characters during a longer campaign series is designed to take advantage of these quiet times without having to carefully chart their length or events. The STAR TREK TV series -and this game -is a window on the exciting part of the STAR TREK universe without the tedium of the long, uneventful days in space.

For this reason, gamemasters are encouraged to prepare each scenario with a short background of what has happened "up till now". That is, start where the decision-making for the players begins. If a mysterious message is intercepted, simply tell the players what it is, where it comes from, and how long it will take to get there from where they start the game. The details are up to you. You must "set the stage" much as the "teaser" of a STAR TREK episode does for the audience.

Suggested devices for starting an adventure are messages from Star Fleet Command and Captain's Log entries (where the captain is a non-player character). Or you can simply say something like this:

GAMEMASTER: Your ship is two days out from Calvery IV, proceeding at Warp 3, on a routine call to deliver a Federation diplomatic pouch and other official greetings. Unexpectedly, your communications officer picks up a faint subspace signal from the direction of that system, calling for Federation assistance. The message is too faint to make out much else, and it is unlikely in this part of space that any other Federation vessel will intercept the signal.

CAPTAIN: Can the communications officer pick up anything else?

GAMEMASTER (to communications officer): Make a standard saving roll on Communications Procedures.

COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER (rolling): I made it! What do I hear?

GAMEMASTER: There's a lot of interference, but by switching antennas you get a bit more. The voice is male and human-sounding. You catch a reference to "the insect plague" and another to "Government House" being "besieged by the horde".

Abruptly, in mid-sentence, the message stops and you pick up no further transmission.

CAPTAIN: That sounds urgent! And we're three days away at Warp 3! How far at Warp 6?

GAMEMASTER: Warp 3 is 27 times lightspeed and Warp 6 is 216 times lightspeed. That's 8 times as fast.

CAPTAIN (consulting pocket calculator): That's.. nine hours or so. (To navigator and helmsman) All right Mr. Devareux, Mr.

Wickes… increase speed to warp 6 on the same course. (Turning to communications officer) Mr. L'rann, send a message to Star Fleet Command detailing the situation and tell them we're on our way.

GAMEMASTER: Just so you'll know, it will take six days at this distance for a message to reach the nearest starbase.

CAPTAIN: So we'll be on our own. Very well. The science officer will consult the library computer for information on the planet. Department heads will meet in the briefing room in thirty minutes for discussion.

SCIENCE OFFICER: Captain, a computer file search on insect life on Calvert IV might be appropriate.

CAPTAIN: So ordered, Commander Levine. (Dropping out of character) Everybody check with the gamemaster on your own departments. I'm going to grab a snack!

By starting an adventure in this manner, much of the hassle of galactic mapping is eliminated. Since where a ship goes and what it does is largely determined by its patrol area and by Star Fleet orders anyway, very little advance planning needs be done by the players involving where the ship will go. The gamemaster should be aware, 11 however, that he must establish distances and times to locations where the adventure will lead the players. If the trail of adventure leads to more than one world, travel times should be established by the gamemaster for best dramatic effect, just as a writer would do for the STAR TREK series!

You will find, as we did, that players really do not miss galactic mapping. Those used to games such as TRAVELLER or SPACE OPERA may find it disconcerting at first, but STAR TREK:

The Role-Playing Game is a decidedly different type of role-playing game and requires a different approach. Once you adjust to it, you'll like it just as well as the detailed planning and mapping in other games.

What can you say about a project that absolutely possesses a design team from the time it is begun? Adventure games come and go, but the chance to do STAR TREK comes along once and once only.

As long-time fans of the series, the Fantasimulations Associates design group started this project with an advantage.

Virtually every piece of STAR TREK research material available was already at our fingertips in our personal libraries. What we didn't have, we were able to borrow from other fans who were as excited about the project as we were ourselves. Thanks in this regard go particularly to Mike Drennan, who loaned us his autographed copy of Bjo Trimble's STAR TREK CONCORDANCE for the duration. Long out of print, this reference work proved invaluable in our research. We put a lot of wear on that copy (and on Greg Poehlein's as well), checking and rechecking references to series episodes. Where the game is accurate, it is largely thanks to Ms. Trimble's exhaustive work. Where the game is not, we take the rap entirely. Being fans ourselves, we were all too aware of the enormous responsibility involved in designing STAR TREK: The Role-Playing Game. Unlike a fictional universe created especially for a game, the work we did had to be consistent with three seasons of television scripts AND with the popular fan wisdom that fills in the gaps in STAR TREK history the series did not show. To add to the problem, the series itself is not internally consistent, leading us time and again to make assumptions based on best guess and common sense.

Of course, since the STAR TREK series left the air, more has been added to that fictional universe than ever existed on the screen. It has been the response of fans that has made the background of STAR TREK so rich and full. Add to those 78 TV episodes 22 animated series episodes, dozens of original professional novels, a dozen or so more "official" STAR TREK publications showing plans, designs, sketches, speculations, histories, etc. and literally showing plans, designs, sketches, speculations, histories, etc. and literally thousands of pieces of fan fiction! The STAR TREK universe is huge and getting bigger all the time.

It would be impossible to coordinate all of this material -much of it incompatible -into a game that would fit into a reasonably sized box at a reasonable price. It was left to us to determine what was the "essential" STAR TREK material, leaving it to gamemasters and players to add whichever specialized material they preferred on their own.

Toward this end we started with some guidelines. Material in the 78 prime-time episodes was accepted as "official" -the true history of the STAR TREK universe around which the game would be based. Even here we ran into a number of inconsistencies, where one episode's assumptions contradicted another's. When this happened, we went with the information that best supported the generally held fan beliefs on the matter.

We agonized over some of these decisions, but in the long run it will be the fans who decide what is and is not STAR TREK for their campaigns. Feel free to change even basic assumptions if it suits you. Don't be offended if we state something as "fact" that does not fit with your personal images. Simply run your campaign

to suit what STAR TREK means to you. It's your campaign, and we are by no means the final arbiters on such matters.

We then decided to accept the animated STAR TREK series where it did not conflict with the live-action episodes. One exception was made to this decision -the inclusion of the Kzinti race from Larry Niven's animated episode The Slater Weapon. The omission is not made out of a dislike for the concept -far from it!

The Kzinti are a marvelously developed truly alien race. But as great fans of Mr. Niven's "Known Space" series of stories, we could not help but feel that it was in that fictional universe that the Kzinti truly belonged. Thus, they do not appear in this work. Those STAR TREK fans who have not been exposed the Kzinti outside of the animated episode The Slaver Weapon are encouraged to try some of Mr. Niven's Known Space fiction, especially the novels which form the capstone for the series, Ringworld and The Ringworld Engineers!

Next, we looked to the fans themselves (ourselves, we should say) for some of the basic assumptions made by fans that have become almost as much a part of the STAR TREK legend as the series episodes themselves. Fan fiction in the STAR TREK universe goes a million different directions. There are any number of "alternate history" STAR TREK's, if you desire. (If you do run an alternate history campaign, we'd be interested to hear about it!) But it's not possible to include material from fan-developed alternate histories in this game package.

What we did include were widely-held fan beliefs about items of general interest. We know, for example, Kirk's exact age from his dialogue in The Deadly Years. But how old is Spock?

McCoy? Uhura? We needed these details, but the series could not provide them. (Often, the series writers couldn't agree themselves.

Early on, McCoy was intended to be older than Kirk. A later STAR TREK director decided, though, that McCoy was Kirk's contemporary -about the same age. This was in connection with cutting the intended appearance of McCoy's daughter Joanna out of the original script for The Way to Eden. We have stuck with the original concept of an older McCoy).

Material exclusively from professionally-published STAR TREK novels and the various books of STAR TREK "non-fiction"

material such as plans and histories has been adopted only when it has become a generally accepted part of the STAR TREK legend, used as official by more than one source. Some of this material is not available to us for use, other parts of it are not consistent with the established STAR TREK universe, and still more of it was judged as being pure speculation that was not an

"official" or accepted part of STAR TREK lore.

Designer's Notes

Designer's Notes Designer's Notes

Designer's Notes

Some of our own speculations herein may contradict certain STAR TREK novels, or ignore changes introduced in those novels.

Gamemasters and players are free to I use or not use this material as they wish, but remind you that much of the material in some STAR TREK novels is considered to be "alternate universe"

material happening in a different "space-time" from the mainstream STAR TREK material. One prominent example is the late James Blish's novel Spock Must Die! In that novel, the Klingon problem is settled once and for all, with the Organians regressing their culture to a pre-space flight level. Yet other authors (and the later STAR TREK movies) have gone ahead with Klingon-centered novels regardless. Whether or not the Klingons are still a threat is up to you -in which universe do you want to set your campaign?

Mentioning the STAR TREK movies brings up another initial assumption we had to make. The setting of this game is the period of time surrounding the TV series missions -the original five-year mission commanded by Captain James T. Kirk. The many changes in the STAR TREK universe between the last animated episode and STAR TREK: The Motion Picture are not considered in the basic game package, though we have gone to great lengths to insure that nothing we establish here is in direct conflict with the films.

If you wish to set your personal adventure world the time period of STAR TREK: The Motion Picture or The Wrath of Khan, by all means do so. At this time, we are not ready to expand into that area, but there's no telling what the future will bring, if the interest exists. Changes for the "future" STAR TREK material is minor and can be handled by the average fan on her/his own.

Inevitably, we found places in the STAR TREK background material where no "official" answers existed for our questions.

When this happened, we were forced to fall back on our own imagination and common sense. Your speculations are as good as ours are in these cases, and you should feel free to add or subtract material as it suits you. Data like this was added with as much care as we could take, trying to come up with answers that made sense in the context of the larger STAR TREK universe.

An example of such material is the Gorn hand weapon. We only see one Gorn in the live-action series, and he carries no arms.

(Arena) Surely the space-travelling Gorn have energy weapons, but of what type? If we want to make viable Gorn adversaries available in the game, we must create some of the Gorn technology, such as ships and hand weapons. We hope you will find the ones we developed to your liking. If not, develop your own speculations and send suggestions to us c/o FASA.

A lot of basic design work must be done right at first, which then shapes the entire game system. The results of these decisions have affected every piece of material in this first package, and will affect all material to come.

There are three basic systems that must be planned first -character creation, -character tactical movement/combat, and starship tactical movement/combat. We'd like to briefly discuss each system and the reasons behind our design decisions for each. These systems do not just happen accidentally, nor are they selected without a lot of forethought and compromise between playability and realism.

From the start, it was evident that we would have to limit somewhat the choices of character race for player characters.

Early on, the decision was made to limit player characters in the basic game package to Federation Star Fleet crewpersons.

Playing Klingons, Romulans, Gorn, etc. would be a lot of fun, as STAR TREK's villains were among the best characters in the series! (Witness William Campbell's portrayal of Captain Koloth in David Gerrold's episode The Trouble With Tribbles. Koloth is designer Guy McLimore's favorite STAR TREK villain, and Tribbles his favorite episode...) But putting all the material necessary for such play into the initial package was impossible!

Klingons as player characters implies a completely detailed background for the Klingon Empire, details on Klingon Fleet organization, Klingon ships of all types, Klingon rank and promotion, Klingon training programs and skills, Klingon arts and culture, Klingon personal habits of dress and grooming, etc. In other words, we would have to create a whole cultural heritage practically from scratch!

This is not to say that we aren't going to tackle the project!

(A whole culture or two to speculate on ...are you kidding? Of course we're going to do it)! But it wouldn't go in the package at any reasonable price. Instead, we have provided enough material to use Klingons, Romulans and the like as non-player races, or to do some limited campaign work as player characters, if you desire.

Meanwhile, we are preparing material for extensive supplements for the Klingons, the Romulans and perhaps other non-player races. These packages will contain complete background histories, character creation systems, plus new skills, ships, weapons, equipment -everything you need to play the crew of the dreaded D7 Battlecruiser Klothos, or whatever you desire. (If you have suggestions, research material, or speculations you would like to see considered for these expansions, write the designers c/o FASA).

The player character races that were selected for the basic game are the races we know the most about from STAR TREK.

There are bound to be other Federation races that serve on Star Fleet vessels, but only these were ever shown in enough detail to build a character profile for them.

STAR TREK was hampered by the fact that -although you might like to have some totally non-human crewpersons -it is extremely hard to fill a casting call for a non-humanoid being: The animated series brought forth some help in this regard, but 22 half-hour episodes is too little time to provide much background information. It is here where the gamemaster should begin to use his own imagination. What are Andorians, Tellarites, etc. really like? We'll be doing more later in this regard as well, both as expansions and as part of adventure material.

The Academy procedure for character creation came out of a need to have the player characters in decision-making positions, and a desire to provide some background for character role-play. It takes a bit of time to generate a character in this game, but we've tried to make the procedure as easy and fun as possible. There may be those among you who desire a more elaborate system, providing more background data on the characters. If so, let us