The Undiscovered Country - Gaming The Final Frontier

Periodically the online pen & paper RPG community comes alive with discussion of running Star Trek games and campaigns. Usually this is spurred on by some event in the popular entertainment media such as the upcoming Star Trek film and/or the announcment of a MMORPG.

Frequently, this is followed by numerous posts on how difficult it is to run a Star Trek game. The reasons, all legitimate in their cogitation, range from differences in favorite series and play styles, adherence to or avoidance of canon and not being able to find the right system or enough support.

While I am by no means an official authority on the subject, I have been running Star Trek RPG campaigns and pick up games for the better part of 25+ years. I was a playtester for the Star Trek: The Next Generation RPG by Last Unicorn Games and one of the supporting writers on LUG's Original Series supplement Among The Clans: The Andorian Sourcebook , getting to work with the minor deity of cool game concepts, S. John Ross. I have run more Star Trek games then any other RPG in my 30+ years in the hobby and it remains my favorite subject for a campaign.

Over the next week, I'm going to make several posts that I hope will serve as useful advice to anyone out there interested in running a Star Trek game. I will begin with an overview discussing how to set up for a Star Trek campaign and getting in the right mindset, followed by a few do's and don't's, character creation, adventure design and finally rewards and how to keep it going.

Please join me as I hope to not only help out some fellow Star Trek gaming fans but also show those who haven't tried it yet that it can be a ton of fun.

Live Long and Prosper,

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Barking Alien