We begin our story as the ship has just undergone extensive repairs and a full-crew turnover before being sent to the "Triangle," a wild region of space bounded by the Federation, Klingon, and Romulan Empires (based off a conceit from the old FASA RPG).
#Star trek adventures rpg pdf series
Star Trek: Those Old Scientists (the name is a riff on Lower Decks-if you're not watching that, you really should be) follows the adventures of the Hermes-class starship USS Scheherazade, back in 2272, sometime between the Original Series and the Motion Picture. I'm pleased to report that so far, Star Trek: Those Old Scientists has been an unmitigated success, due in no small part to the framework provided by some of these published adventures. My schedule got busy again, not least because I started running the Star Trek RPG that all of this reading was preparing for. The redeeming factor in this one is a scene midway through in which the crew is caught in one or more rickety submersibles (potentially of their own design) 20,000 meters deep within an angry, sentient ocean. The adventure concludes with the mining ships bombarding the ocean while the ocean fights back using tetyron bursts, and I think the players are expected to join in the fight one on side or the other in ship combat-the adventure presents no other options-but it's never really spelled out, and they do rather seem like the junior partner no matter which side they join. but then her Yridian sidekick will just do it anyway. The players can convince the Ferengi to not attack the planet. When push comes to shove and the planet inevitable reacts to the abuse, though, the rails truly begin to show on this one. The plotting requires a bit of a bait-and-switch to work: while it is the planet that sends the distress call, it is ultimately the Ferengi leader of the mining facility that moves the plot forward by assigning the players a mission, and it seems a little strange that they would do her bidding-I suppose a rescue operation is a rescue operation, as far as Starfleet is concerned. Where Footfall leans on the biblical, though, A Cry From the Void is pure science fiction, with a suitably weird purple planet as its key location. In both, a godlike planet entity reacts in pain and confusion to the humanoids who have rooted on its surface, threatening destruction unless it can be reasoned with and the conditions surrounding its pain change. My Thoughts: This adventure has a lot in common with the previous one, albeit with very different trappings. But when they discover the ocean is a massive life form, can they protect it from the miners from one another? The Premise: When the player crew receives an unusually powerful distress signal, they find an off-the-books mining facility on a crystalline world covered by a vast, amethyst ocean. In the balance of things, I'd say Footfall is a bit more tightly written and more grandiose in scope, while The Shephard has more opportunity for player agency and a much stronger ending. The adventure invites obvious comparison to The Shephard from These Are The Voyages. All of that being said, though, and despite a truly impressive scene at the fulcrum of the plot, there isn't all that much for the players to do here other than follow the plot to its conclusion, which is a fairly low-key conversation with the planet entity. While the adventure leans a bit too heavily on Abrahamic faith-based religious imagery for my tastes, it would be easy enough to pepper in other types of "demons" and "angels" using ideas from these prelude scenes. I think that with the right group, these scenes could be quite meaningful and could set the tone for some surprising interactions throughout the mission. Also, many of the missions thus far have suggested a "prelude" before the main action of the adventure, sometimes as simple as "read this text" or "talk about this character," but Footfall goes above and beyond in suggesting an exploration of each PC's religion.
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On the surface, I love the epic scope of this-the mid-point climax sees the crew rushing to help civilians as a full-on celestial battle between angels and demons rages above them, and that's pretty awesome.
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It's confused about all the mixed messages, though, so it's going to send a little apocalypse out to clear things up a bit. The schtick here is that the planet is a telepathic life-form, and sufficient religious pilgrims have visited its surface to convince it that it is the god(s) they're praying to. My Thoughts: This adventure is a mostly railroad, but boy is it a fascinating one. But when "unruly citizenry" escalates to "demonic attack" and then "full-on apocalypse," can they placate the wrath of an apparent angry god? The Premise: The player crew arrives at a planet at the locus of several religions with orders to keep the peace. On with the reviews! Picking up right where we left off in Strange New Worlds a month ago, today we have.