I love me some Star Trek and am tentatively excited for the new series, after the disappointment/ missed opportunities of Voyager and Enterprise. Star Trek Beyond… less so.
There have been a few different Trek RPGs done over the years, but most seem to get far less attention than D&D or even Star Wars. Currently, the FFG Star Wars system is one of the top 5 selling RPGs, while the best selling Trek RPG ever would likely in the middle 50. In general science fiction gets a lot less love at the game table than fantasy or science fantasy.
I think there are a few reasons reasons for this. First is science & technology: it’s hard on the DM to write plots and scenes that fit are scientifically accurate. Game tables have a distinct lack of scientific advisors, and it’s hard for players to know what technology is or is not available. I ran a game of Eclipse Phase a while back, which stumbled because the players expected sensor scanning, artificial gravity, and FTL.Trek alleviates these problems because we all know the tech (even if not a fan of the show) but it introduces a new complication: a firm chain of command. It’s tricky because one player is formally the captain and able to boss around the rest of the crew.
Still, I’m planning on boldly going into the universe eventually. Likely running using the N.E.W. flavour of the W.O.I.N. ruleset.
This reminds me of the times I’ve had ideas for a campaign that require some sort of “main” character or two in the party. The best solution I’ve come up with is to have the players vote (using a preferential voting system) on who will play that character. But even so, this isn’t something I’d want to try until the group’s been playing together for some time, and is very comfortable with each other.
I’m in a group of people who spent the last 20 years playing, and many of us are engineers, physics or matematicians, so the tech knowledge isn’t an issue. We played many notable campaigns of Star Wars, since the time it wasn’t D20 and required a bulkload of D6. But the campaigns I enjoyed the most were those spent playing Cyberpunk, the last of which was set in 3030 rather than 2020, and comprised many epitomes of all the sci-fi galaxy (including BSG, Wing Commander and even Futurama).