With the exception of a very few more miniatures sets, this post will wrap up my coverage of Heritage Models and Star Trek adventure gaming. Frankly, I'm surprised I've managed to get this many words out of the subject. At this rate, it may take me 4 years to cover FASA!
As I detailed in my two part review of Star Trek Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier, the game's biggest weaknesses were that a) it didn't feel like Star Trek, despite all the name-dropping, and; b) there are virtually no rules covering themes of exploration, character building, starships and starship combat. In the age before the Internet, it would require some fan-written works published in a magazine called Different Worlds.
Different Worlds began publication in 1979, amongst other adventure gaming magazines at the time such as The Space Gamer, Dragon, White Dwarf, Journal of the Travellers Aid Society and, shortly after, Ares. Despite the fact that it was published by Chaosium (Call of Cthulhu, RuneQuest), it remained remarkably independent in its focus on fantasy, sci-fi and horror games regardless of publisher, thanks in no small part to the vision of its editor Tadashi Ehara. It's also the only gaming magazine I remember that had a wonderful industry gossip column, "A Letter from Gigi". For someone like myself who was 15 years old at the time, it was really the only way I knew who was who working for whom on what way back when. Did I mention there was no Internet yet?
In Issue #4 (Aug/Sept 1979, above) DW published "A Star Trek Scenario Report: Kirk On Karit 2" by Emmet F. Milestone. The three-page tongue-in-cheek article is a little bit review of STAGFF, some background on the one-shot adventure the author created to run at DunDraCon IV, and special rules he created for STAGFF.
Kirk has Spock run a survey scan of the space surrounding Karit II. The sensors show the presence of a Klingon scout and an entirely alien vessel which appears to be a derelict from its utter silence on all the EM bands. Kirk decides that investigation of the geological disturbances has top priority, so he leaves Scotty in charge of the Enterprise and beams down to the planetary surface with Spock, McCoy, Lt. Uhura, and four security guards. The landing party materializes in front of the only entrance to a huge white dome.
As the people of the starship accustom themselves to the new environment of Karit II, the great double doors of the dome burst open and a group of figures comes flying from within. Three giant humanoid insects are obviously pursuing the lead entity, an orange floroid resembling a carrot, all using jump harnesses. The insects open fire with their disruptors and scorch the plant-man, who dives for cover.
The insectoids, it turns out, are Dreenoi from the 1974 sci-fi miniatures game Starguard (a game which still lives today!). Milestone provides STAGFF statistics for Dreenoi Warriors and Brain Bugs as well as the carrot of Karit II, Karitan Alpha. The noble crew of the Enterprise must infiltrate the mysterious dome, fighting off Dreenoi and Klingons, and repair a machine before the planet destroys itself. And along the way, Kirk may have to seduce a female Klingon lieutenant. In order to pull this off, Milestone created two additional mechanics for STAGFF, "Falling in Love" and "Making a Pass", noting that "Kirk never has luck in love, and can't add his Luck modifier" to his scores as a result.
In Issue #18 (January 1982, right) DW published the more serious and useful "Star Trek: Beyond the Final Frontier" by Paul Montgomery Crabaugh, one of the most prolific writers of gaming articles at the time (see Jeff Rients' Gameblog for two posts about the late, great Mr. Crabaugh). The article almost accomplished more in its six pages than STAGFF did in its 30+ pages. How much?
Written to supplement Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier role-playing rules, this variant covers a wide range of topics including Experience, Skills, Aging, Salaries, Price Lists, The Referee 's Role, Chain of Command, and World Generation.
Not only that, but Crabaugh included tables for determining crew member species, rank, bonuses and skills, type of starship, warp speeds, department assignment, tech levels and about a hundred more pieces of equipment. In short, Crabaugh single-handedly managed to take STAGFF and transform it into a role-playing game, one worthy of campaigns rather than one shot, landing party dungeon crawls. It's an amazing achievement, eclipsed only by the fact that FASA's Star Trek The Role Playing Game would come out later that same year.
In fact, I would go so far to say that STAGFF combined with Crabaugh's "Star Trek: Beyond the Final Frontier" resulted in the first true Star Trek role-playing game as we know it.
Things coming up on Groknard: FGU's Starships & Spacemen, ADB's Prime Directive series yesterday and today, more FASA and Citadel miniatures, another surprise, two hybrid "role-playing boardgames" and -- in two weeks! -- my inevitable reviews of the new Star Trek film and its CD score by Michael Giacchino. Today, however, I'm off to EndGame in Oakland for their 6th Annual EndGame Auction!
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Heritage Star Trek and Different Worlds
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Heritage's Star Trek RPG In-Depth (Part 2)
Today I'm going to wrap up my in-depth review of the rulebook for Heritage's 1978 Star Trek Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier (STAGFF), then move on to fan written works that added to the original game. In Part 1, I covered the Basic Game rules and scenario. To sum up my findings so far:
- STAGFF is better organized and presented and more playable than its predecessor, Space Patrol.
- The Basic Game is based upon using the classic Trek characters (Kirk, Spock, Koloth, etc.) and provides stats for them.
- For the most part, the Abilities -- Strength (ST), Dexterity (DX), Luck (LK), Mentality (MN), Charisma (CH), and Constitution (CN) -- are each applied to only one or two specific tasks with modifiers. No Skill system is given.
- The game suffers from unnecessary complexity.
- The Basic Game provides a brief Scenario called "The Shuttlecraft Crash" and includes a map.
- Even in comparison to the few other RPGs of the time, STAGFF feels more like a wargame, and feels nothing like Star Trek itself.
Over 1,000,000,000 years ago the Slavers ruled the Galaxy. They died off when one of their subject races rebelled with sufficient ferocity. The only known remains of the last Slaver Empire are Stasis boxes. These are special force field boxes in which time stands still. These boxes can be opened using a magnetic probe and they often contain artifacts, devices and other remains of the lost Empire. Just such a box gave the Federation its anti-gravity technology used on starships. Another stasis box contained a super-weapon that was lost due to Kzinti intervention. The slaver stasis boxes are the most sought after archaelogical treasures in the known universe.
The scenario opens with the ENTERPRISE shadowing an alien vessel traveling in unknown territory. The alien vessel, possibly a Kzin or Klingon ship (this is at the discretion of the Mission Master. Any aliens can be used. When aliens are mentioned in this scenario they will be called aliens, but the Mission Master can fill in whatever aliens he thinks would be appropriate) makes a landing on a small Class M world near a partially ruined building. The alien crew, numbering 8 individuals, are seen getting out and entering the building. The ENTERPRISE sends down a party of 6 crewmen to investigate.
The planet has been seeded by the ancient race known as the Providers and has animals from many parts of the Galaxy. The building in the ruins is an ancient Slaver outpost and contains 4 stasis boxes hidden within its walls along with various creatures and the searching alien landing party. The Star Fleet crew must prevent the stasis boxes from falling into the hands of the aliens. The walls of the building are made of a Slaver alloy which prevents the operation of the communicator (and thus the Transporter) and tricorder readings are only partially effective through its walls. Doors in the building are sliding doors requiring a strength of at least 13 to open or can be burned down by a phaser set on Dematerialize. The aliens are hostile and will attack the Federation crewmembers on sight.So that's kind of cool. A sequel of sorts to the 1973 Star Trek animated series episode "The Slaver Weapon" by Larry Niven, and author Michael Scott even got Kzin/Kzinti correct! And an adventure on a planet seeded with the remnants of both Slavers and Providers? All it needs are the Ringers from the Enterprise RPG scenario "The Drifting Ring", and we'll have all the Ancients covered.
In all seriousness, a few things worth noting. First, the "dungeon crawl" nature of the mission is pretty obvious: kill the Kzinti, find and take the treasure. It feels more like a D&D adventure than anything actually inspired by a Star Trek episode. Second, here is evidence that as early as 1978, the question of how do deal with the Transporter in a Star Trek RPG is identified as problematic (and still discussed today, as shown in one of this week's more popular threads on RPGnet). Prospective GMs take note: "Slaver Alloy" as an alternative to "Ion Storm". Third, I do find it interesting that there are some similarities between this Scenario and the one included with the Japanese RPG Enterprise (ancient race, stasis devices)... I wonder if Tama Yutaka had actually seen this game before he was inspired to write his own years later?
The Scenario is more interesting than the one in the Basic Game, and much more deadly. It makes use of the elements from the Advanced Game such as Psionics and some of the new creatures listed later on including the Capellan Power Cat, the Vulcan Sehlat and... the Mugato! Those whacky Providers.
The Scenario is followed by a brief section on custom Character Creation, which basically consists of rolling various dice for the six primary Attributes, the all-important Size attribute (right down to the centimeter) and Movement. The rule for awarding experience essentially amounts to two sentences, encouraging the Mission Master to award Attribute points and new equipment training for a successfully completed scenario.
The section on Psionics makes it clear that, with the exception of Vulcans and the Kziniti, characters will rarely have a Psionic power, determined by a roll (1% chance). If the roll succeeds, they roll to get Empathy (with a rule for Gem-like healing), Telepathy, Telekinesis, Clairvoyance, Precognition, Mind Control or Teleportation. Again, this section is very similar to the PSY Talents section in Enterprise. I suspect the list was influenced by Traveller Book 3 - Worlds and Adventures, but the random generation method looks to be Michael Scott's own, later borrowed and further polished by Yutaka. It's definitely not the Psionics of Eldritch Wizardry.
The next section is on Familiar Star Trek Life Forms, a list of nearly 50 alien races and creatures from both TOS and TAS. Examples (note the use of the generic AR - Ability Rating - for creatures as opposed to alien races, as detailed in the Basic Game; note also, typos are not my own):MUGATO - Great white horned ape of Neural with poison fangs. They mate for life and will avenge mate's death. Basic move: 12, Basic size: 250 cm, AR 18.
TELLARITE - Pig-like humanoids, they are members of the UFP and can be members of a Star Fleet crew. They are very argumentive and alcohol only makes them more so. Basic size: 175cm, Basic move: 10m, CH -2.
VULCANS - Pointed-eared humanoids of great emotional control and logic. Their blood is based on copper salts and they have protective nictating membrances to protect their eyes from dirt and glare. They have limited powers of telepathy and empathy in that they usually have to be in contact with a subject for the powers to operate. Once every seven years they must mate or die. Basic size 200cm, Basic move: 11m, ST +3, DX +2, MN +3, CT +4. They are members of the United Federation of Planets (in fact, one of the most highly regarded members) and are found throughout Star Fleet's crews. The Vulcan Spock is a successful hybrid of Vulcan and Human heritage.
Rules are also provided for Creating Alien Creatures, based on Space Patrol's random attribute generation method (3D6 for AR) and a series of tables: Type and Shape, Size, Special Capabilties, Size Modifier and Basic Movement.
The next sections are the Advanced Equipment Table and a 4-page List of Equipment and Weapons, many based on Star Trek items (ex: Lirpa, Phaser Bore, Phynburger (sic), Universal Translator, five types of Tricorders), and the rest corresponding roughly to that provided in Space Patrol. These are generally just descriptions with little or no detail as to their effects, provided later in the Advanced Game Weapons Tables that are part of Advanced Combat.
The Advanced Combat Rules don't add much to what was outlined for ranged and hand-to-hand combat in the Basic Rules. In fact, despite the four pages they occupy, the Advanced Rules really only add three things: a modifier for Initiative (or, as it's called throughout the book, "Initiation"), tables for the use of all the weapons previously introduced, and rules for the use of Armor and Shielding (in short, the value of the Armor Rating is subtracted from the damage when hit).
The book starts to wrap-up with simple instructions for creating custom Scenarios, re-uses Space Patrol's types of scenarios, and throws in a few Trek-ish bones into each such as this:
You may have realized that the players of a scenario do not have to be Star Fleet crewmembers. They could be Klingons, Romulans, or some other race. Think how nice it would be sometime to be able to solve a problem technologically and not be hampered by the Prime Directive restricting your every action. Admittedly the Star Fleet crew has the harder job, having to play by the United Federation of Planets' rules and still get the job done. But Kirk seemed to manage from week-to-week, and you can too.
It then gives some advice to the prospective Mission Master on how to keep players engaged by emphasizing the mystery to be solved in the story, and how to deal with players in general. This also leads to one of the stranger passages of the book:
(T)he Mission Master does not volunteer answers to questions that are not asked... Suppose that Spock was using the semi-sentient talking computer of the ship systems to scan an area . He asks for the computer to report any relevant dangers. It would be asking too much of the computer to understand Spock's unreasonable fear of the Groupies at a Star Trek convention. Thus, unless our favorite Vulcan asked, the computer would see no reason to mention his adoring fans waiting in the landing area.
Both of these excerpts are examples of a few places in the game where you may sense a little disdain for Star Trek itself, but I think it's worth noting that STAGFF is really a product of its time.First, it was 1978 and, in the wake of Star Wars, repeats of Star Trek were starting to feel a little dated. Yes, a big film was on its way in late 1979, but little was known about it. Star Trek and "Trekkies" were seen as cheesy and as objects of derision, even more so than today (for example, the 1976 SNL sketch with John Belushi as Kirk, and Mad magazine's Trek parody later that same year). The way I recall it (and I was only in my early teens in the late 70s), it really wasn't until the films and the Next Generation shows that Trek (even TOS) began to gain some wider respect in pop culture.
Second (and I've mentioned this before), 1978 was early for RPGs, which were still growing out of their wargame origins. The fact that STAGFF was created (probably on the cheap) only to help Heritage Models sell its Star Trek miniatures emphasizes that "role" was still being defined in gaming. At that time, it was probably inevitable that such a game would turn out to be "let's phaser things and take their alien treasure!" As a result, STAGFF is really just a great big list of things to kill, weapons to kill them with and the mechanics to do so.
I'd argue that things haven't improved much in this regard over the past 30+ years. Despite the noble efforts of FASA, LUG and Decipher to emphasize elements in their games such as diplomacy, the Prime Directive, character skills and "the needs of the many", the fact remains that the Trek games that have survived and done best over the years (tabletop or computer-based) are those that are focused on starship combat and "let's phaser things and take their alien treasure!" There have been a number of online discussions lately as to whether Trek is really suitable for roleplaying at all, especially when you have players (and GMs?) that focus on Trek-nology and do things like transport a photon torpedo over to the enemy's bridge (RPGnet thread).
I'm not trying to philosophize (not yet, that'll come later). I'm just pointing out that the easiest criticism to level at STAGFF -- that it's "not very Star Trek" -- is still true of Trek games today. In 1978, I'm not sure that mattered or offended all that much. And despite these strange passages in the rulebook, their are other places where you can tell that the author must have loved the show. For what was probably supposed to be a simple miniatures game, he went a little further than just slapping the name "Star Trek" onto his Space Patrol rules.
The rulebook finishes by referring the reader to the best merchandise available at the time: books! In the days before VHS and The Google, references such as The Star Fleet Technical Manual, The Star Trek Concordance, The Making of Star Trek, and the novelizations of TOS and TAS would be a Mission Master's best friend. At the bottom of the page was the "Star Trek Catalog" of Heritage Models: the list of 31 packages of miniatures, half of which would never go into production.
The most notable elements missing in this Star Trek game are the things that Michael Scott would later remedy somewhat in Star Patrol and Starfleet Voyages: the themes of exploration, character building, starships and starship combat. Although a comprehensive approach wouldn't show up until FASA's 1982 Star Trek The Roleplaying Game, this is not the end of the STAGFF story. Two fan-written works published years apart in Different Worlds magazine would take two very different approaches to extending STAGFF, and make it more like the Star Trek game they wanted it to be. I'll look at those in the near future.
But wait! There's more.....
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Heritage's Star Trek RPG In-Depth (Part 1)
Heritage Model's 1978 Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier (STAGFF) is not nearly as unplayable as Gamescience's Space Patrol (upon which it's based) and much more polished than that game. But it's still riddled with unnecessary complexity that makes it one of those games where you would constantly have to refer to the rule book for exceptions. The 38 page rulebook is divided into a 7 page Basic Game, 19 pages of Advanced Game rules and 12 pages of tables, maps and lists.
As I said previously in my "first impression" post, it's only fair to note that the game's real purpose was to help sell Heritage's line of 25mm Star Trek miniatures. Nevertheless, it was the first officially licensed Star Trek RPG, so in this two or three part series, I'm going to review it in that light. First, I'll take a look at the Basic Game.
The book opens with an Introduction, going into background on Star Trek itself; the concept of a role-playing game (at one point the book refers to itself simply as The Final Frontier, which doesn't appear again in the book); and a plug for Heritage's line of Star Trek miniatures.
Next, the concept of the "Mission Master" and game preparation is introduced, but without really explaining the concept of a game master as opposed to players and characters. The author assumes that players are already familiar with the concept, perhaps a little prematurely for 1978. The game requires "one set of percentage dice, one set of polyhedra dice, and plenty of regular six-sided dice." The requirement for "polyhedra dice" is the first example of unnecessary complexity in the game. Virtually everything in the game is resolved with 6-sided dice or 20-sided percentage dice. Others (4, 8, and 12) are rarely used and there's no real consistent game mechanic. It also mentions that the game is best played with 6 or less player characters "because the standard Star Fleet Transporter only has 6 places".
The Basic Game section outlines the game as played with the standard Trek characters (character creation is covered in the Advanced Game) and limited equipment rules. Each character has six abilities with a value between 3 - 18: Strength (ST), Dexterity (DX), Luck (LK), Mentality (MN), Charisma (CH), Constitution (CN). There is no Skill or Talent system. Instead, each of these abilities applies to the resolution of specific tasks as you would expect, except CN which is really a hit point metric.
Next is the list the available player and non-player characters ("Star Trek Personalities") of the Basic Game: Kirk, Spock, Scotty, McCoy, Uhura, Sulu, Chekov, Rand, Chapel, M'Ress, Arex, Captain Koloth (of the Klingon Battlecruiser DEVISOR), Lieutenant Korax (Klingon), Standard Klingon Soldier, Sub-Commander Tal (of the Romulan Star Empire), Standard Romulan Soldier, Basic Gorn, Chuft Captain (a Kzin), Kzin Warrior, and Standard Star Fleet Security Guard.
Example Character:
Lieutenant Korax
ST 12.......DX 14
LK 9........MN 9
CH 8........CN 13
Class 3 Hand-To-Hand
+2 to Initiation
+5 in Hand-To-Hand
- Disruptor
- Communicator
The section on Characters wraps with brief rules about the use of Psionics, Saving Rolls (through the LK attribute), and how the Mission Master should deal with the "magical Transporter". There's really no reason for Psionics to be included here as they don't come up in the Basic Game, and no further details are provided until the Advanced Game section.
Next are the Basic Game Combat Rules, though it really covers all Basic game actions. Each round is divided into four phases: Decision, Initiation, Execution, and Record Keeping. Simple rules are provided for Movement, Hand-To-Hand Combat and Ranged Combat.
The section on Hand-To-Hand Combat is a perfect illustration of the unnecessarily complex rules (although they are somewhat simplified from the original Space Patrol rules). Here's an excerpt:
Each Hand-to-Hand (H-H) Combat consists of the attacking character rolling 1 die and modifying the number rolled according to H-H Class, Strength, and Dexterity. The defending character rolls 1 die in the defense and modifies the number rolled according to H-H Class and Luck. The defense roll is subtracted from the attack roll. A positive result affects the defender and a negative result has no effect.
The attacker's die roll is modified plus 1 for each number above 12 and/or minus 1 for each number below 9 in Strength and Dexterity. (This modifier has already been determined for you in the prepared characters described earlier.) The attacker's die roll is further modified plus 1 for each H-H Class rating. Captain Kirk has a ST of 13, a DX of 14, and H-H Class of 2. His total H-H combat modifier would be 5. If Kirk rolled a 4 for H-H Combat, the roll would be modified to a 9.
The defense roll is modified plus 1 for each number above 12 and minus 1 for each number below 9 in Luck and is also modified by the character's H-H Rating. Thus Lt. Korax would have a defense modifier of 3. If Korax rolled a 2 in defense to Kirk's attack, it would be modified to a 5.
If Kirk made a H-H attack on Korax with the die rolls described above, the result would be that Korax would take 4 hit points of damage (9-5=4).
Damage points affect the character's Constitution. Lt. Korax's CT would be reduced from a 13 to a 9. If a character lost one half or more of their current CT points in one attack, the character is knocked out, and falls to the ground.
A character may only attack towards the front. For purposes of this game, the front of a character is considered to be up to 90 degrees from straight ahead, to the left or right. If a character makes an H-H attack from behind another character, the attacking character may add an additional 4 to his or her die roll.
Phew.
Ranged Combat, on the other hand, is a fairly simple DX check with modifiers, rolled against a Hit Probability Table. Now I know why Indiana Jones just shot the gun.
The rules proceed to outline Creatures who only having one rating known, the Ability Rating (AR). An example from the Basic Scenario would be the "cat-like creature" that can move up to 14 meters per turn, has an AR of 10 and long talons that do 2 dice (6-sided?) worth of damage.
Next is the Basic Weapons Table -- Phasers with three settings, the Disruptor, and a Sonic Disruptor -- and the Hit Probability Table for ranged combat. The section finishes with Basic Game Equipment Rules for the Tricorder, Communicator, Medikit, and the amazing "Klingon/Romulan Communicator" which "works the same way as a Star Fleet communicator but can also be used to scan for energy sources in the same way as a Tricorder." And it slices and dices.
The Basic Game wraps with a very brief Example of Play, then the three page Basic Game Scenario "The Shuttlecraft Crash". In it, the Galileo 7 has crashed (again) on a nearby Class M world, and the characters must find some Dilithium in a maze of canyons in order to repair the shuttle. Players will have to confront exciting alien forces such as the aforementioned "cat-like creature", humanoid with spear, a snake and a giant reptile. They must also beware of traps like rockfalls, quicksand and purple grass. A Basic Game scenario map is included, though it's actually the map for the Advanced Game scenario (the Basic map is included a few pages later).As you can see, there's really nothing in the rules related to role playing, and this doesn't change in the Advanced Rules Section. Like many games of the time, STAGFF is very "wargame-y" and doesn't inspire personality-based role playing in the same way that games like Dungeons & Dragons and Traveller did.
Unfortunately, it also isn't very "Star Trek-ey". It isn't much worse in this respect than the 1983 Japanese Trek RPG Enterprise, but Enterprise's use of Alignment was a nice extra step that helped in both respects. Fortunately, many of these weaknesses are addressed by some wonderful fan-written works published later in the excellent Different Worlds magazine, with "A Star Trek Scenario Report: Kirk On Karit 2" by Emmet F. Milestone (Issue #4, Aug/Sept 1979) and "Star Trek: Beyond the Final Frontier" by Paul Montgomery Crabaugh (Issue #18, January 1982).
In the next part of this review, I'll take a look at the Advanced Game rules of Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Comparing Character Stats (Part 1)
Some of the folks over at TrekRPGNet were nice enough to admit reading this blog, and took some interest in my article on the Japanese Enterprise game I posted about earlier this week. Calastir over there has recently worked up some CODA character stats for the TOS Bridge Crew, and wanted to know how they compared to the classic character attributes in Enterprise.
Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott
Ensign Pavel Chekov
Lieutenant Uhura
But wait! There's more.....
Monday, January 12, 2009
Heritage Trek RPG - 2nd Edition Cover
I meant to include this with yesterday's post. At some point after the initial 1978 release of Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier, Heritage released a 2nd edition with a revised cover. I've seen it mentioned in a Heritage miniatures collector group, and this image can be found on the Star Trek wiki, Memory Alpha.
I'm don't know what year this was released, but I suspect it was as late as 1981. The January 1982 issue of Different Worlds magazine featured an article entitled "Star Trek: Beyond the Final Frontier" about STAGFF, which would be strange if the game hadn't been re-released fairly recently. I don't have this version myself but if any readers do, or simply know when this version came out, feel free to chime in below!
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Heritage Models' Star Trek RPG - First Impressions
Welcome back. I'll start off with the first officially licensed Star Trek roleplaying game, Heritage Models' 1978 release of Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier (STAGFF) by Michael Scott. Michael Scott is actually Michael Scott Kurtick, who co-authored Gamescience's 1977 releases Star Fleet Battle Manual wargame with Lou Zocchi and the Space Patrol RPG with Rockland Russo. Despite the use of the pen-name, the STAGFF rulebook does state that its rules are based on Space Patrol, and that the games can be used together. Kurtick would continue to revise and polish these rules over the years culminating with the 1982 Terra Games release of Starfleet Voyages. With the exception of STAGFF none of these were official Trek games per se, but its influence is obvious throughout, as we'll see throught the course of this blog.
In his 1982 Designer Notes (Space Gamer Issue#51) for the third iteration, Gamescience's Star Patrol, Kurtick talked about how Lou Zocchi had approached him in 1975 to create a "Star Trek D&D", and the potential pitfalls associated with it. In the end he and Russo decided to go broader, and Space Patrol was the result. But that was only the beginning, as he wrote:
"Soon after the publication of Space Patrol, I did get the chance to do a Star Trek role-playing game for Heritage, who had managed to acquire a license to do both games and figures. Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier was essentially a clone of Space Patrol, concentrating on the elements of the Star Trek universe. The figures were poorly sculpted and the advertising campaign promised by Heritage never materialized. Paramount withdrew its license."
I'll return to the details of these other games in future updates, but that sets the stage of how STAGFF came to be published in 1978. There may be some truth to Kurtick's contention about publicity for the game. Looking back, I vaguely recall Heritage's 25mm Trek miniatures on the well-stocked shelves of my local game store at the time (Hobbyland North in Columbus, Ohio), but I never saw the rulebook (pictured above) there or at any other store, or at any of the science fiction conventions I attended at the time. I also can't find any advertisements in gaming magazines from the period, though I haven't combed through them extensively. Fortunately, someone invented a time-travel device called the internet, and I was able to obtain the game through the wonderful folks at Noble Knight Games.
Once I had STAGFF, I was almost afraid to open it. Some has been written about the game -- virtually none of it flattering -- on RPGnet and other gaming forums, and it even has an extensive entry in Wikipedia. I was prepared for the worst, especially in light of the primitive layout and typography typical of so many games at the time. The cardstock cover is certainly not very inspiring, though no worse than many Trek fanzines and game supplements of the period.
Imagine my surprise (go ahead, I'll wait) to find that the STAGFF rulebook is rather attractive, easy to read and at first glance appears to be fairly well-organized (although the "Index" at the back is really a Table of Contents, which should have been my first clue of trouble ahead). In fact, the layout reminds me very much of one of my favorite RPGs, Metagaming's 1980 The Fantasy Trip releases. It was certainly an improvement over the layout of Space Patrol.
The rules are divided into two sections: an 11 page Basic Game (4 pages of which are mostly tables and pre-defined character stats), and over 20 pages of Advanced Game rules and tables. There are virtually no graphics with the exception of two maps, confusingly listed as "Basic Game Scenario Map" and "Advanced Game Scenario Map". Confusing because the layout of the two maps is swapped and, further, the Advanced Game Scenario itself is placed back to back with the Basic Game Scenario before the Advanced Rules have even been detailed. Mr. Spock does not find the layout of the rules at all logical. He does, however, appreciate the inclusion of the blank 1/4" hex paper at the back, because I suspect we'll be wanting to create more interesting missions than those provided.
The Index details how the rules are broken down, and what is covered:
The first things that jump out are what is missing: Space Exploration. Starship Combat. The Enterprise itself. Even the UFP and the Prime Directive are only mentioned in passing ("You may have realized that the players of a scenario do not have to be Star Fleet crewmembers... Think how nice it would be sometime to be able to solve a problem technologically and not be hampered by the Prime Directive restricting your every action." ugh!).
The starship omissions struck me as the most unusual, and I wondered if it were perhaps due to some type of licensing limitation. I believe Lou Zocchi had already released his Star Fleet Battle Manual and miniatures at that point, but those appear to fall under that grey area of "under license from Franz Joseph Designs" and the Star Fleet Technical Manual. In addition STAGFF's parent, Space Patrol, suffered from the same weakness.
In the end it was likely considered unnecessary because (as the final section of the rulebook reminds us) the game's real purpose was to help sell Heritage's line of 25mm Star Trek miniatures, which I'll discuss soon. Before that, however, we'll go back a year and examine Space Patrol, its mechanics and Trek references in it that helped form Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier. I'll return to STAGFF for a closer look at its rules and a playtest in the near future.
