GM: Erik B.
Players: Sam Slaughter, Scott Hansen, Isaac Rubin, Alan Washburn, Sean Nittner, Scott Kennedy
System: Star Trek Adventures
While d20 systems don’t normally get me excited (too might time spend adjudicating mechanics and too little time spent building bonds between characters and exploring their motivations), I have to say I’ve had fun with the Modiphius 2d20 implementation for Dune, Blade Runner, and now Star Trek Adventures. I think the Momentum and Threat currency is just enough to keep it feeling like there’s a “game” there, but doesn’t dominate the play.
Game Description:
While exploring unknown space, a landing party is suddenly cut off from their ship on a post-holocaust world. Finding survivors of the world’s last great war leads only to greater questions and more complex puzzles. The landing party must discover the truth of that which survives in order to escape.
This adventure is combat light, focusing more on roleplaying and problem solving.
Gameplay Experience:
Just as it said on the tin, this was an adventure that started with a stranded away team trying to figure out how to make contact with their ship and figure out what happened to the previous ship that crash landed.
What Rocked:
- Even though there was a character in command, we all had the exact same rank, which I think dispensed with the kind of status peacocking that can sometime appear in games set with military structures. I appreciated the setup from the GM and that everyone at the table was really respectful of each other.
- Because of the electromagnetic interference, most of our equipment didn’t work, which meant we were doing a lot of discovery by talking to people and looking around rather than beepity-boops on our tricorders.
- I’ve been taking Improv classes (if you’re in the bay area and interested I highly recommend classes from All Out Comedy Theater). There are a lot of good lessons that come from Improv that I think really serve RPGs, but the one I was focusing on all con long was building relationships. Specifically, just assuming the characters know each other, are part of each other’s lives, and can be vulnerable with one another. In the first game of the con (Hard Light) I didn’t have much luck, and in the two Mörk Borg I felt like I have some good moments, but it wasn’t until this game that I really felt like the attempts at making meaningful connections really paid off. In this case it was with two characters:
- One of our Crew was “getting to old for this” and ready to retire. Since we were trapped on this seemingly idyllic planet where no-one seemed to age, we had a great conversation about what you want at the end of your life. Would you trade being left on the planet for immortality? Would you do it if your family could be sent to join you?
- At the end we had a moral dilemma…solve our problem and potentially kill everyone on the planet or do nothing and allow the status quo (i.e. being trapped). While we had lots of mitigation strategies in mind, at the end, we were still taking a gamble and I had a great conversation with our CO about owning that choice and taking responsibility for it. While the conversation was tense, it wasn’t a yelling match, it was just two people having to make an impossible decision. Loved it!
- There was a reveal at the end that I didn’t expect. I knew something was going to happen, but I didn’t expect the outcome. It was a great twist!
What could have improved:
- I think we spent longer trying to fight the premise (let’s repair the shuttle, let’s remodulate the tricorders, let’s try anything but going on the adventure) that I would have liked. I get that logically we would try using all the technology we’re familiar with to solve the problem, but I kind of wish the GM had just said “you spend a few hours exploring every possibility and there’s nothing you can do with the resources you have, you’ll have to explore the world to find another option” (a bit like cutting out the “planning” in Blades in the Dark).
