User manual GAMES PC STAR TREK GAME OPERATIONS MANUAL

[. . . ] GAMEMASTER'S INTRODUCTION The gamemaster has three tasks in STAR TREK: The Role Playing Game. He must design the encounters, present them to players, and judge the resulting action. This book contains information to help him with these tasks. Included here is a chapter giving information for designing encounters. [. . . ] In shipboard adventures, the more important officers seem to be the Captain, the Chief Engineer, the Helmsman, the Science Officer, the Navigator, and the Communications Officer. The gamemaster should encourage the players to be somewhat more realistic about landing party composition than the TV episodes were. Gamemasters should definitely nor allow the Captain and all bridge personnel to beam down for every landing party, armed to the teeth and ready for anything. If they do this too often, after all, there's always the chance something important could happen on board while everyone was planetside!Keep player-characters involved in the action, but every player character doesn't have to beam down for every landing party. Set up game situations cleverly, so everyone has a chance to do something, but not necessarily so everyone has to beam down. CHOOSING A RACE It is up to the gamemaster to decide whether or not to allow a player to have a non-Human character, and, if so, what type of non-Humans are available. In most ships, the crew is mostly made up of one race, with a sprinkling of other races. If the gamemaster decides to allow non-Human characters (not advised for beginning gamemasters, beginning players, or beginning campaigns), then he must inform the players about the racial modifiers to attribute scores, so that they may make intelligent choices about their race. Once a non-Human has been chosen, the gamemaster must be very strict about the way the player behaves. A non-Human does not behave in the same way as a Human. CHOOSING PLAYER CHARACTER RANK Most often, the player characters should be the command personnel aboard the vessel chosen. Their ranks should reflect the size of the ship that they will serve aboard. On small ships, landing parties may be made up of junior officers, possibly with a Lieutenant, jg, commanding. On larger ships like the Enterprise, however, most characters should be responsible, middle-level officers, senior officers, or department heads. In Star Fleet, department heads often go on landing parties in charge of junior officers. In a game where rank has its privileges, the gamemaster must take care that the characters have approximately the same rank, so that some players do not take advantage of 22 A Vulcan cannot be emotional, and a Tellarite should not be overly friendly. The Sourcebook gives information about each race, and it is important the the player do his best to role play that information. Psionic Potential (PSI) A character with a high PSI score will not necessarily have psionic abilities because these depend largely on cultural background. CREATING ATTRIBUTE SCORES CREATING ATTRIBUTE SCORES Initial Dice Roll The table below gives the initial rolls for each of the seven attributes. INITIAL DICE ROLLS ATTRIBUTE SCORES Attributes and Saving Rolls are the means by which the gamemaster has the player interact with his environment. They measure the character's potential with respect to the game setting. Once they have been determined, attribute scores normally do not change during the game by normal means. They may be modified by the gamemaster as a result of accident or other event during the adventure or campaign. ATTRIBUTE SCORES DATA For Average Human Minimum Score Average Score Maximum Score Attribute Roll STR END 40 + 3D10 40 + 3D10 01 40 100 INT 40 + 3D10 DEX 40 + 3D10 CHA 40 + 3D10 LUC D100 PSI D100 For Human Player Character (except LUC and PSI) Minimum Score Average Score Maximum Score For Human Player Character LUC And PSI Minimum LUC And PSI Score Maximum LUC Score Maximum PSI Score 43 57 100 01 100 70 ATTRIBUTE DESCRIPTIONS Strength (STR) A character with an STR score of 50 can carry about 50 Ibs. at length without tiring, lift about 150 Ibs. weight for a short time without exhausting himself. STR scores may be reduced at gamemaster's option as the result of an injury or illness that limits the character's potential, but it does not normally decrease as a result of combat injury. Every so often, a player will make a set of initial attribute rolls that will make it difficult or impossible for him to play the character he has chosen to be or to play effectively in a particular adventure. [. . . ] To me that's what makes role-playing live - a detailed, believable universe in which to adventure. It has been my job to oversee the correlation of facts from the TV series, the movies, and fan wisdom. I have attempted to insure that any new facts created about the STAR TREK universe were done so with great care: I felt a sense of responsibility about making them meld with what already exists. Weisman Working on a project like ST:RPG can be a jolt to your ego. [. . . ]