Why I am Planning a Star Trek Game
I am on this Star Trek kick right now. I have always loved Star Trek, but I grew up in a time before DVRs so I often missed episodes growing up. But ever since Netflix added the original series, the animated series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise to their streaming media service I have been watching Star Trek pretty much everyday. The movies are DVD only through Netflix, but I have all of them in my queue as well.
I am in a state of sci-fi geek bliss!
There are cool aliens, and awesome star ships! Amazing planets, and colossal stellar events! All bound together in this one highly detailed fictional universe. I am so nerding out as I wake up each morning and do my exercises while watching Gene Roddenberry’s incredible vision of the future unfold before me in an easily digestible 45 minutes. What a great way to start each day!
Seriously, Star Trek is a great way to start each day because it shows us something that we as a species must always be aware of and too often lose sight of – our potential. I do not consider the Star Trek franchise to be a mythos. I consider it be a blueprint for our future. Not the technology, but the ideology. If people practiced the ethics and morals demonstrated in Star Trek today the world be in a better place.
And you know what the best part about all of this is? While the technology may not ever be within our reach the ideology is! Thoughts like that make me smile. That is why the campaign that I am planning right now is a Star Trek game. Because when I hear the words "Live long and prosper." I do not think of silly hand gestures and pointy ears.
I think "Why not? You too, my friend, you too."
During the summer, when I was much younger, my mom would stay up late with me to watch the Twilight Zone. There was this hokey sci-fi show called Star Trek (the original series) that would come on right before it.
Soon enough I was tuning in earlier to watch this awesome show from the start and I was no longer just trying to keep my eyes open to see Rod Serling, but to explore the outer reaches of space.
Later in life this lead into the other series. I can only say that I consistently watched TNG, but not watching the others was based off my focus on school and not so much my disinterest.
Regardless of how cheesy it sounds, it would be fantastic if our future ideology as humans on a shared planet came close to the one presented in the Star Trek universe.
I’d love to hear later how your game turns out. As I mentioned before, I’ve never played a Star Trek RPG, but exploring the outer reaches of the unknown universe definitely sounds exciting!
Although not specifically Star Trek, I saw this game the other day and it has definitely peaked my interest.
@burnedfx: I’m going to run the first part of the campaign using Where No Man Has Gone Before 2.0 which is a Microlite20 game.
Have you every had a chance to play Bob Portnell’s EZFudge Final Frontier? I like how skills are handled with profession templates, although the ship-to-ship combat rules seem a little sketchy. All in all, it seems like it would make a great set of rules for a one shot game session.
@cataath: Thanks for the suggestion. I will be sure to check Final Frontier out.
[…] was already planning this campaign, but now I am even more psyched to run it than even before thanks to the launch of NYNG. This […]