Space...The Final Frontier. These are the voyages of...well...ALOT of characters! No really! There have been 8 different live action shows, 3 animated series, and 13 separate movies. Wow. That is incredible when you think about it. What other franchise has even close to that?
How do I rate these and how much do they affect my games?
Question #8 from Starfleet Commandant Miguel de Rojas.
Ah Star Trek, my favorite setting in which to run a roleplaying game campaign. I've run more Star Trek TRPG sessions than those of any other kind of game. It all originated with my exposure to the franchise before it was a franchise and my purchase of Star Trek The Role Playing Game by FASA, the first RPG I bought purely by myself with my own money. .
On to the mission at hand...
#1. Star Trek - The Original TV Series (1966-1969) Top Rated
It's hard to sum up why I love The Original Series so much. As a kid, it just pressed all the buttons I had governing my love of outer space, Science Fiction, and storytelling. It was a television series that featured people in uniforms belonging to an instituation (like my father, a policeman) that explored the galaxy (I was already an astronomy nut). What could be cooler? Plus, one of the crew members - one of the Good Guys - was an alien! Wow! Star Trek just opened up my world to all sorts of other books, comics, TV shows, and movies about space exploration and a positive future.
I am going to place the TOS Star Trek Films - The Motion Picture, The Wrath of Khan, The Search for Spock, The Voyage Home, The Final Frontier, and The Undiscovered Country - and Star Trek: The Animated Series as part of Star Trek's Original Series. These are, to me at least, an extension of the first show and intrinsically connected to it in a way none of the other iterations of Star Trek are.
Influence on my games: It's everything. I model my Star Trek campaigns on the original series; it is the template on which I build and customize what I am running for my players. I pick and chose bits and bobs from the others but The Original Series in the skeleton and musculature holding the whole thing up and keeping it together.
#2. Deep Space Nice (1993-1999) Second Favorite
Deep Space Nice is my second favorite Star Trek series, though it rarely has much direct influence on my games (see below). This is because I appreciate the series for its excellent writing, acting, likeable characters, and incredible action, especially in its epic space battles. However, since the storyline of the Dominion War runs throughout most of the shows run, the series has little direct barring on my person view of and interest in Star Trek. I love Star Trek for its exploration, big ideas, and positive view of the future, which DS9 bends and twists quite a bit. Were the show not so well done, I likely would have hated it (*Cough-Discovery-Cough*).
Influence on my games: I have taken elements of DS9 such a species, ships, and some references to the events from the series and used them for narrative purposes but the overall themes and storylines presented in the show aren't ones I often want to focus on. You'll find this a fairly common approach by me going forward.
#3. Star Trek: Lower Decks (2020-2024) Third Favorite
Anyone who knows me knows how much I love comedy. Humor to me is not only fun, its an artform. From the various comedies and comedians I've watched and read over the years I've developed skills in scene direction, timing, character development, and many other components of an entertaining story.
Aside from loving this show's vibe, characters, designs, and many other elements, its given me new ways to interpret and express aspects of the Star Trek universe.
Influence on my games: While I would love to run a long term 'Lower Decks' campaign (we've done short campaigns and one-shots), I think all of my games benefit from the change in perspective that this series provides. I also like the starships and aliens.
#4. Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994) Fourth Favorite
Now I know my placing Lowers Decks over The Next Generation is kind of odd. I get it. Lower Decks wouldn't, maybe couldn't, exist without TNG. True...but hear me out.
When TNG first came out it was...not great. Honestly it made no sense to me that they set it so far in the future from the point of the TOS Movies. They had all the sets, props, uniforms, etc. You could have just picked a new ship with a new crew and explored new stories (Ya'know, like a Star Trek RPG campaign). Then there was the characters who I couldn't get into, the stories which weren't that great, and yeah, it didn't do it for me.
Over time, The Next Generation grew on me. By the end of its run, I really liked it. Data and Picard are among my favorite Star Trek characters in the entire franchise.
Influence on my games: Original Star Trek sees us encounter alien beings who are doing something harmful to themselves or others. We arrive and help them see a better way of doing things. TNG has us encounter aliens and see in them a flaw about ourselves. Sometimes the aliens and the Starfleet characters come to terms with this and other times they teach us a lesson. That's a key difference between old and new Star Trek. While I touch on the latter sometimes, my stories tend to lean more towards the former because my players have traditionally been good, open-minded, welcoming, positive people.
Some of the aliens, worlds, starships, equipment, and ideas introduced in TNG are excellent and see use in my campaigns. All except the Galaxy Class, which is possibly my least favorite Star Trek ship design ever.
#5. Star Trek: Prodigy (2021-2024) Fifth Favorite
I joke about this with my friends all the time but Prodigy was sooo much better than it had any right to be. It was a 'kid's show' largely influenced by Star Trek: Voyager (see below). Like TNG, this took a little while to hook me but once it did, damn this series became fire (as the young people say).
Influence on my games: Like Lower Decks, Prodigy gave me a different perspective on the Star Trek universe, what can be done with it, and how to pull it off. My games have definitely been enhanced by the lessons I've learned from this show. This is especially true in terms of action and personal combat.
#6. Star Trek: Enterprise (2001-2005) Sixth Favorite
Oh Enterprise, what a wonderful show you could have been. Unfortunately, much of the potential of this series was wasted on storylines that went nowhere and trying too hard to connect it to the Next Generation time period (Ferengi, Borg, Klingons - OK, the latter Klingon material was pretty good). The show was pretty good in the very beginning and got downright excellent at the end but it was too little too late.
It did give us a lot more stories and information about my favorite Star Trek species, the Andorians, with the incomparable Jeffery Combs as the feature character of Shran. For that, it has my eternal gratitude.
Influence on my games: The main thing this show did for my Star Trek gaming was to show me how not to introduce and execute adventures. It also gave me ways to introduce and explore characters that both worked and didn't so I could get better at doing it myself.
Very few ships, aliens, and other such elements from this series play any part in my campaigns. I wasn't a fan of the Suliban or Xindi and I prefer the look of the Daedalus Class and the ships of The Starfleet Museum more than those of an NX-01 style.
#7. Star Trek: Voyager (1995-2001) was also a show.
Hmm. So...how about those Tribbles, huh? Yeah...Voyager.
I don't like Voyager. I do not activitely despise it the way I do STD and SNW but I really didn't enjoy watching it for the first three or four seasons, even though I did [watch it that is]. I remember my girlfriend (now ex-wife) saying to me after one particular episode, "Why do you watch this if it angers you so much?" She had a point and so eventually I stopped and we caught up on our Anime viewing.
Like Enterprise, the idea behind Voyager was sound. It definitely had possibilities. Unfortunately, I personally feel it never lived up to it. I never grew to like the characters (except the Doctor), didn't like how poorly handled the stories and dialogue were, the Intrepid Class USS Voyager is my second least favorite ship (Galaxy Class is still uglier), and ugh...just didn't like it. I went back and watched the seasons I didn't originally catch a few years later and it didn't help.
Influence on my games: Very little. I have used the original 'Series Bible' version of Voyager, which was quite different from what we eventually got on screen. I found some of the ideas in 'proto-show' really interesting and so they made cool NPCs for a lost ship scenario. It took nearly the whole session before one of the players said, "Wait...is this Voyager? Did you base these guys on Voyager?" That was fun and the most I've gotten out of the show.
As you can see, I haven't included STD, SNW, Picard, or anything in the 'Kelvin Timeline/Abramsverse'. That's because I don't care for any of these series or films. I don't usually think about them at all. They have no influence on my games directly, though elements might appear such as the Kelpian species or a shuttlecraft design. Even those instances are rare.
AD
Barking Alien
I have a massive soft spot for Voyager. Over the years it has become my "comfort Trek". The Doctor, of course, is one of Trek's stand-out creations and I really like Janeway. I was surprised how much Seven of Nine grew on me as well, developing from fetish eye-candy to a fully-rounded character.
ReplyDeleteTOS remains the definitive Trek, for the reasons you state, but I'm surprised you're not a fan of SNW.
Perhaps now you could talk about your favourite comic book characters, teams, villains (or films/TV/animation) etc and how they influence your superhero games?
Nice! This "31 Questions for Barking Alien" series has been a wonderful idea.
ReplyDeleteMy Star Trek tastes differ a bit from yours, but I really enjoy knowing the takes from other fans. For example, you make a very interesting observation about the different philosophies between TOS and TNG that I'd never thought of:
Original Star Trek sees us encounter alien beings who are doing something harmful to themselves or others. We arrive and help them see a better way of doing things. TNG has us encounter aliens and see in them a flaw about ourselves. Sometimes the aliens and the Starfleet characters come to terms with this and other times they teach us a lesson. That's a key difference between old and new Star Trek.
My favorites are TNG and DS9 (coincidentally, TNG was my first, which I think plays a big role). I watched TOS after them (and Voyager, I think), and it always looked to me as a weaker show in every regard. I would go so far as to say that TNG was at its weakest when it was still very similar to TOS. And yet, there is something that TOS did better that any other: the sense of danger, that "we are gonna die eaten by a space amoeba, and no one will ever know".
I also think that STD and SNW are like night and day, but that is a conversation for another day.
Thank you for your answer!
'Weak'? I've certainly heard criticisms of TOS before but I've never heard it described as 'weak' in any way. What exacty do you mean?
DeleteThat may be a slight mistranslation, hehehe. I mean acting, direction and production values are better in later shows, but also that the quality of the scripts is wildly inconsistent. When it all works, you have true masterpieces. When it doesn't, you can almost hear the producers telling everyone "We got you a set and a wardrobe, and you are gonna use them, like it or not".
DeleteAs I said, I never really watched TOS until the 2010s, and that colors my opinions.
Currently rewatching Voyager. While it is better than I remember, the spectre of unrealized potential here is just too much at times.
ReplyDeleteSo here is a question for you.
What was your introduction to RPGs like? What game(s) did you play and how did your growth change from that? Ok I guess that was more than one.
Thank you so much Timothy! Happy to have you join in the fun.
DeleteI may be endangering my good name by saying so, but I really like that first Abrams Trek. I thought it was skillfully modernized but kept enough specific nods to TOS that it did feel like it could be the same universe, rebooted. And when that timeline was tied into the main universe...I didn't know that was going to happen and loved it.
ReplyDeleteYou're certainly welcome to your opinion and I've glad you liked the first Abrams Star Trek. As I mentioned in my review of it back when it came out, I really wanted to like but it felt as if the movie was determined to make sure I didn't. lol
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