GURPS Star Trek - Campaign Development

Stardate...today.....

I am a huge Star Trek fan, and I've been itching to run a Star Trek campaign in GURPS. 

A good place to start is with GURPS Prime Directive (GPD). That is a conversion of the RPG Prime Directive set in the Task Force Games Star Fleet Universe which began with Star Fleet Battles - a miniatures combat game for starships - in 1979. It diverges heavily from the current canon, adapting the entirety of The Original Series (TOS) and some of the elements of The Animated Series (TAS), before adding a great deal of material and creating its own timeline.

GPD is a useful source book for the rules and weapons in a Star Trek game, yet it does not acknowledge official canon based on post-TOS/TAS movie and television programs.

Captain Joy adapted Prime Directive further with the addition of Star Trek canon elements. Check out the website that presents their adaption: Captain Joy's Star Trek.

Also provided are a comprehensive series of GURPS Character Sheet GCS) templates that support the development of a Starfleet character in GURPS as well as two source books explaining the process. This makes the character creation process a fun mini-game.

My Approach

For new players that are not as familiar with GURPS, or Star Trek, this can seem a bit daunting. After reviewing Captain Joy's work, and GURPS Prime Directive, I opted to compress a lot of this into a single Star Trek GCS template that built on the previous work mentioned above.

The result is shown here. This simplified template allows for faster character generation.

1 - Species Selection

 Each Species has its own combination of traits - advantages and disadvantages. Note that there are corresponding Species Specific Skills that can be taken.

One of the players in the current game asked that I include a species from GURPS 3E Aliens. With the Markann included, I felt it worthwhile to add a few more species from Star Trek lore. All are playable and reflect the traits displayed throughout their various media appearances.

Note that keeping the races comparable in point costs was not feasible - Vulcans have telepathic powers, Klingons are tough as nails, Aurelians can fly. Humans can buy the Talent (Jack of All Trades) as compensation. 

2 - Starfleet Template

Using the Starfleet template is fairly straightforward. 

1 - Officer Standard Traits

• These are the traits all officers have, including a Duty and Sense of Duty, as well as a Patron (Starfleet).

2 - Rank

• Rank in Starfleet is similar to the system used in the United States Navy. In GURPS terms, the first two Rank levels are equivalent to two Starfleet grades.
• Rank 1: Ensign and Lieutenant Junior Grade. No cost.
• Rank 2: Lieutenant and Lieutenant Commander. 5 Points.
• Rank 3: Commander. 10 Points.
• Rank 3: Captain. 15 points.
• Rank 4: Commodore. 20 points.
• Rank 5: Admiral (NPC only). 25 points
• Note that each Starfleet grade has skill minimums.

3 - General Starfleet Appropriate Disadvantages

• The Disadvantage limit for the campaign will be reached with just the standard Disadvantages from the species and the Officer Standard Traits. If more are needed, this is a list of those appropriate to a Starfleet officer.

4 - Career Path Traits

• The career paths shown here include advantages and disadvantages for the specific role. Note that these include Talents, where appropriate.

Starfleet Skills

1 - Standard

• Pick a single skill from a small list that serves as a pre-Academy development. 

2 - Required Academy Skills

• These are all the basic plebe skills that you pick up outside your career skills.

3 - Additional Skills

• More skills that hone your capabilities.

4 - Career Path Skills

• Once you select a career/department each skill container provides the list of skills you would need to serve in that particular department. 
• You can take additional Command skills (there aren't many) once a character achieves Department Head status. This is intended to fill in any gaps from the Career Path Skill list.

Further Skill Notes

Rather than using Wildcard skills I opted to use Talents and some adjusted general skills. 

• Engineering, Electronic Operations/Repair and Mechanic skills all default to a new general knowledge skill for those areas - Engineering (Starship), Electronic Operations/Repair (Starship) and Mechanic (Starship). 
• This represents the comprehensive training a Starfleet officers receives in their areas of expertise aboard a ship. Any officer can use a Starship skill as a substitute for any related area skill with no penalty for that particular starship class. 
• On Starfleet ships of a different class (Miranda vs Constitution), a -2 penalty applies but can be overcome with an additional minute of focus per -1. Each 10 hours of use reduces this penalty by 1 for each specific system (Sensors, Force Shields, etc.).
• On other ships designed around similar system principals (Miranda vs Klingon D7 cruiser) a -4 penalty applies. Each 10 hours of use reduces this penalty by 1 for each specific system (Sensors, Force Shields, etc.).
• For truly bizarre and alien vessels whose design principles are obscured, penalties vary and are up to the GM.

There are some additional home brew rules in play here. 

• I like Languages as skills. To support that I added these skills:
• The Language Talent advantage was modified. For 10 points per level, each Language skill and Linguistics receives a +1 to the skill level. 

Next time I'll cover the use of Phasers and other Trek tech in the Foundry VTT GURPS 4e system module.