Since after quite a bit of research and still having no luck finding a solid Star Trek ttrpg I thought maybe it’d…

Since after quite a bit of research and still having no luck finding a solid Star Trek ttrpg I thought maybe it’d…

Since after quite a bit of research and still having no luck finding a solid Star Trek ttrpg I thought maybe it’d be fun to try and hack Baldes into a Star Trek setting. I’m running into a few problems.

Thinking about Playbooks, I’m not sure whether to make the playbooks based off of different species or different crew positions. Crew positions certainly makes the most sense, however different species’ abilities play a huge role throughout the series… actually, I could add that into the xp section, adding a marker like “gain xp if during the session you played into one of your race’s traits” which I think would be rather cool. Great, solved my own problem. Somewhat. Might come back to that.

Having coin doesn’t make any sense if it’s a federation Star Ship for the crew playbook, so I was thinking something along the lines of “commendations” or “respect”. This makes sense to me, as the ship and crew advance, they requisition upgrades not with money, but with respect from Starfleet. As for other crew types, a Cardassian ship would probably trade in blackmail, a Klingon ship in Honor, and a Romulan ship with Intel or secrets. A Ferengini ship would obviously be Latinum but not sure if anyone would want a Ferengi roleplay.

I think entanglements would be a ton of fun in this setting, because these would be the episodes of the series where, for example, the away team returns from the mission only to find the entire crew asleep due to a macrovirus, and have to wrestle their way to sickbay to find a cure.

Another thing I’m worried about is attributes. The entire “Prowess” section is unnecessary in a Star Trek world, with most problems are solved with careful teamwork, diplomacy, and the occasional phaser or fist. But on the whole, actual combat is seen as a last resort. I want this hack to make the focus of play working with the other members of the crew to find solutions to problems in a diplomatic or otherwise nonviolent way. I have no idea what I’d replace any of the attributes with yet, but I know I’ll have a skill for being able to generate techno-babble on the fly. Perhaps a section for skills relating to running the ship, a section of skills relating to interpersonal contact, and a section of skills for scientific knowledge? It’s all workshop right now.

I’m not a game designer, I don’t know how to work programs like indesign or illustrator, actually turning any of this into an actually usable playset is bit beyond my capability alone. Which is why I would love to see if anyone else would be interested in collaborating on this project to me. I’d ideally like to get enough people together to be able to playtest whatever it is we are able to get running, or at the very least sit down a couple times a week to throw around ideas and work on developing useable materials. People with ttrpg hacking experience or game design experience would be much appreciated

24 thoughts on “Since after quite a bit of research and still having no luck finding a solid Star Trek ttrpg I thought maybe it’d…”

  1. One thing I’m really worried about is hacking Blades to the point where it’s not really a Blades system anymore. the reason I’m worried about this is because a lot of the ideas I have for incorporating the Star Trek universe with blades seem to involve developing new tools that Blades doesn’t currently have

  2. There’s a dark corner of my head that’s like: “Why don’t you just develop your own ttrpg system” and that’s a little more than I can handle, on my own at least.

  3. “I’m not a game designer.”

    Bullshit, of course you are. You’ve just spent several paragraphs talking about how to hack Blades

    “I don’t know how to work programs like InDesign or Illustrator”

    Abso-fucking-lutely irrelevant. Check out the 200 Word RPG Challenge for over a thousand perfectly playable RPGs written in nothing but Notepad.

    You want to collaborate because you think that’d be fun, cool, go for it. But you absolutely have the skills to make a playable game on your own. Plenty of gatekeepers already, don’t be one for yourself.

  7. Heh thanks. A number of reasons i suppose. Main one: I didn’t share it in this community, because I want Star Trek fans who’ve never seen Blades to evaluate it (Which.. I lost my test group when Mophidius started testing their new Star Trek game). Also this was written about a year ago, preceding the final version of Blades.

  9. Mark Cleveland Massengale I was looking at Mophidius’ game, but it just didn’t gel with me the way the Blades system does. I prefer d6 systems, and an emphasis on partial successes.

  13. Have you tried Lasers and Feelings? It’s also by John Harper. Don’t get me wrong, I love blades, but if you think it’s not working you could always try hacking it in the PbtA style.

    Though I wouldn’t worry too much about hacking blades until it’s not blades anymore. As long as you keep the core of crew + PC sheets, flashbacks, stress and resistance I think the game will still feel like blades.

  14. Lol you should tell Kirk or Worf that most problems aren’t solved with prowess rolls.

    There was a second Star Trek hack I saw with colored playbooks somewhere around here. I suggest you run a search and see what posts pop up – this is a popular topic for hacks! ^_^

  18. Stras Acimovic a very good point, I just don’t think ground combat needs a dedicated 4 out of 12 actions, when I think social and technological actions should take more priority. I’d like the focus of the hack to be about using teamwork to confront psychological, sociological, and philosophical problems through diplomacy, smart thinking, and yes the occasional phaser, but that was never what made Star Trek special for me.

    The reason I think Blades as a system works well for this goal is its ability to encourage player interaction with various different forces, has robust action focused dice rolls, and a clock system that means the game is more about overcoming obstacles, not whittling away at health. Oh, and the idea that the player should are supposed to succeed at what they’re trying to do- but at a cost.

  21. Ryan Wright​​​ Re: ground combat. I 100% agree, and perhaps that’s why I have the four Fitness actions in Final Frontier a bit more.. flexible? And framed away from combat stuff. Is also why I mention ground based anything very little. Those four actions purview bleed into handling ship controls, getting into cover and across dangerous environments, snatching weaponry, laying down cover fire etc more than being a brutal combatant. You could probably Battle to do similar things (a Logic action), but a Fitness based action might be better

  23. Ryan Wright​ your post was originally about collaboration. I’m a graphic designer, and have a ton of spreads in the works. In that spirit, if interested in talking more, add me to your circles and we’ll talk more about it (I tried to add you to mine but couldn’t do anything but follow it seems)

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