Setting Showcase: Star Trek - Prime Directive

Name: Star Trek: Prime Directive
Produced By: Amarillo Design Bureau, Inc/Steve Jackson Games

System: GURPS (3^rd edition)
Genre(s): Science Fiction, Action and Adventure

Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of early Star Trek tabletop gaming.

Alright enough of that, I've had my fun.

Today, we're going to talk about a very old Star Trek setting. That's right, this is slightly different universe than the Star Trek you've seen on the screen. To explain, I'm going to have to talk about the history of Star Trek and licensing, gaming, as well as canon. If you're familiar with this topic, please bare with me.

 

Set phasers to kill 'em all!

Way back in the 60's, what we know as “tabletop gaming” really didn't exist. If you want the full history lesson, I'm sure you can find better teachers than me. As such, it wasn't until the 1970s and 1980s that there was any attempt to create a game based around the property. Before 1979, there were only two Star Trek series that had aired: The Original Series and the Animated Series. And in these series, canon was a hell of a lot looser than what we have now. Hell, the Federation wasn't introduced into Star Trek canon for several episodes. As such, the people who were developing the games didn't have much to go on. They did, however, have an interesting Technical Manual (which I own) and a bunch of novels. These “beta canon” sources, as they're known in the ST community, contradict themselves, the shows, and so on. In a way, the people working of Star Fleet Battles had both lot stuff to work with and not a lot to work with.

The interesting thing about these old sources was the militarization of the Federation and Star Fleet. The Enterprise is referred to as a “heavy cruiser.” Given the military experience of people behind the scenes of the show, as well as the naval ranks and military organization of Star Fleet on screen, it shouldn't be too much of a surprise that people were easily able to come up with a wargame using Star Fleet, the Klingons, the Romulans, and so on. And this is where there's something of a conflict in the fandom. You see, Star Trek presented a happy, hopeful, very “woke” Federation and characters. The producers, writers, and actors worked to show us the best that humanity could be. While some of that is very dated and offensive now, you have to understand the times and give credit where its due.

Which is why a lot of fans of the show were less than pleased that there was a wargame with carriers, fighters, mines, and all that stuff in it. That schism gave this new game its name: Star Fleet Battles.

James Doohan was a WW2 veteran and Canadian

Now we're ready to start talking about the game itself and the setting. I'm sorry if you already knew all of that but I had to make sure that others were up to speed. And, yes, I will try to do a write up of whole SFB (Star Fleet Battles) setting game when I get around to it.

The galaxy of SFB is much more violent and contains much more combat than the one we've seen on screen, there's people who would like to play a roleplaying game in it. Much like what happened with so many games before, SFB ended up making an offshoot of their wargame setting into an RPG setting called “Prime Directive.” Using the history and lore of the SFB universe instead of the regular Star Trek setting (which I believe had already been explored by the FASA Corporation), the main idea behind PD (Prime Directive) was that you were playing Federation Prime Teams, something akin to a Special Forces/Commando team, with a priority towards ensuring the Prime Directive is obeyed. If you're unaware, the Prime Directive (or General Order #1) states that members of the Federation and Star Fleet cannot interfere with the development of pre-warp drive cultures except in the most dire of circumstances and they must avoid discovery by the people. This means that a Prime Team would have to disguise themselves among a population, figure what's going on, and then retrieve a bit of lost technology, stop the Klingons from causing problems, or whatever the mission regulars. In modern terminology, they're “big damn heroes.” Of course, if you've got a team that skilled and well trained, you're going to use them for other situations when you need them. Your team could be fighting Klingons one day, rescuing crash landed Federation science teams from primitive worlds the next, and then end your week on a zero-G fight on the outside of a ship while trying to dislodge an unknown alien from the warp nacelles. Such is the life of a Prime Team.

Now, there's suggestions in the book for other types of games but, this leads to one of our first big problems with this version of the game. That said, we'll get into that...

Before I do, I do need to point out that there's several different versions of this game. Aside from the GURPS version (the 3^rd edition, because there is a 4^th edition versions) I'm reviewing today, there's an original system from the 80's (which I don't know if I want to own), a D20/3.5 D&D transfer, and a D20 Modern version of it. I don't know how any of the others would work (although I might have a PDF of the D20 Modern version on my computer), I'm not sure if any of the systems are any better than what we're going to get into.

Let's talk about GURPS. I haven't played GURPS since 4^th edition first landed. And I had very limited experience with it before that. This version of the game is one of the “Powered By GURPS” games that Steve Jackson Games has used for licensed produced. I'm pretty sure that's because they don't have to worry about dealing with updates and the like if they lose the license.

Meet M'Ress

Of course, you'd assume that a book labeled “Powered By GURPS” would have enough of the rules to handle most everything you'd need to play a game and maybe need the core book and a few source books if you're getting into some really detailed stuff. Not with this game. Oh no. This one is a wild one, so you'd better buckle up.

This book is about the size of a normal GURPS source book, meaning it's less than 200 pages. And that's the first bad news. While the book does have the basic rules for the system, the history of the SFB setting, and all the stuff you'll need to make characters of just about every race in the setting. But, there's a lot, and I mean A LOT, missing stuff you'll want. If you want to do space combat, you've got two choices: Buy GURPS Space or the SFB boxed set. Because they don't have the rules for it the core book. Yeah. No joke. You'll need High Tech for a lot of the technology and... You get the point. You'll also want the core book for a bunch of stuff. This isn't “Powered By GURPS,” it's “you'd be better off doing your own version.” However, there is enough here to do most things out of the box, except space combat. Which you can do using SFB, so… Yeah.

Guacamole Girls are some of the best girls

When it comes to making characters, there are templates for the major Federation races seen in the original show (Vulcans, Andorians, Tellerites), as well as some from the “expanded canon” from the animated series and early novels (Alpha-Centaurans and Rigelians), plus some from the SFB setting (Cygnans, Brecon, and the space elf Arcturians, to name a few). Outside the Federation there’s stuff for Gorn, Kzinti, Tholians, Lyrans, and a whole host of others, including tons made up for the game. When it comes to Klingons, it’s the TOS smooth heads, with their slave races. These are based on the original Klingons, who were known for being much more violent and duplicitous than the ones we’ve seen since The Motion Picture. And the Romulans are also a complete 180 from what we saw in the TNG era, presented as the more “honorable” of the two major races beyond the Federation. Since the SFB universe has years of history behind it, the book can only give you an overview of what direction they went in. The nice thing about giving you all of these races is that you can make the alien equivalent of a Prime Team to have your players play or use as enemies for them to face.

Now, here’s the next part of making characters, trying to figure out what kind of campaign to run. The game is very much centered around making Prime Teams but there’s a ton of Disadvantages you can’t take, as it would disqualify you for military service. Which means you could end up with a group of very bland characters. However, there are other types of campaigns they talk about. You could make the bridge crew of a ship, a group of fighter pilots that move from war zone to war zone, a group of “trouble shooters” that take random assignments that come up or perhaps are a group of lawmen traveling around to set things right, or you can jettison the military style game and play a group of freebooters that does what they want. What kind of game you play is really up to your group but I think the best option for most would be freebooters or free traders. You could have a human, an Orion, a renegade Klingon, a roguish Prellarian, all under the command of a Romulan who pretends to be a Vulcan. It’s really up to you. And there’s plenty of of stuff to be done in this setting. If there’s an interest, I could do a Campaign Briefing on a game like this.

"Wait, is this Kosher?"

When you get right down to it, this game isn’t ready to go out of the gate. There’s so much missing for some types of play and a whole different universe than the one most people know when they think of Star Trek. That said, I do think it’s an interesting one. It’s got the “fists and phasers” feeling of classic Trek, with the imaginative imagery from the Animated Series, mixed together with tons of stuff that you wouldn’t imagine combined with Trek. Would I recommend it? Probably not. Would I run it (again)? Maybe. If I had the right group and the right campaign idea in mind, sure. Great, now I’m thinking about trying to use it for Mirror Universe campaign, switching the setting around and… Anyway. If you like your Trek with a rougher texture, maybe check out the Star Fleet Universe and see what you think. Maybe this is something you’ve been waiting to see and haven’t before.