I must admit that I was surprised to get a message earlier this month inviting me to review a new Star Trek Adventures Technical Manual 2E! So you don’t have the same rollercoaster of emotions that I had, I’ll preface this review by clarifying that this is a technical manual from Modiphius. It’s for Star Trek Adventures.
Yes, it does have some interesting images and facts about the technology of the Star Trek world. However, this is not the Star Trek: The Next Generation or the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Technical Manual. If you pick this up, thinking it will be a spiritual sequel, you will be disappointed. Keep reading; Trek Central have teamed up with Modiphius for a giveaway of the Star Trek Adventures Technical Manual 2E.
With that said, if you pick this up as a Star Trek: Adventures game master or player. Thinking that it might be a fun read. While also giving you some ideas for upcoming games. Then I think you will be more than satisfied. But you didn’t click on this just for me to tell you that you’ll like something. So, let’s get into the details of the what and the why.
What is Star Trek Adventures?
Star Trek Adventures is a tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG). We previously reviewed its Second Edition Core Rulebook, which was released last year. The game launched in 2017 and has attracted many players (including myself) since.
To briefly recap, Star Trek Adventures is built on Modiphius’ own 2D20 system, which inverts the success/fail criteria of Dungeons & Dragons dice rolls. In Star Trek Adventures, a ‘natural 20’ is bad news, whereas a natural one will result in cheers from your table as it paves the path to your crew’s success in whatever they were attempting. The Star Trek Adventures character/ship personal attributes and departmental skill sets supplement this core mechanic. A combination of a number from each category will give you your target number, which you need to roll below to succeed.
Your character building blocks
- Focuses: Your characters’ niche areas of expertise. Think Tom Paris and his knowledge of 20th-century Earth, which led him to suggest the Titanic-inspired bulkheads in Year of Hell!
- Talents: Things that your character can do to benefit their crew in a specific situation. Like Hoshi and her ability to translate languages without a universal translator
- Values: Speak for themselves. When building out your character, you build their belief systems and morality through the values system. This can then inform how you react to scenarios within your Star Trek Adventures game. A character like Worf has values that would allow him to maintain his honour while killing his brother through a ritual. In contrast, a more traditional Starfleet character would reject the request as murder.
- Finally, you have Attributes and Traits, which are then more species-specific. For example, an Andorian character would be more resistant to a cold environment than a human one!
What does the Star Trek Adventures Technical Manual offer?
I think the title of the first section in the supplement, ‘The Right Tools for the Job,’ somewhat answers this question. Alongside Modiphius’ usual delightful selection of artwork, the Technical Manual does a Star Trek Adventures-style dive into the technology of the Star Trek universe. It provides details of what technology exists, who uses it, and how it can be used in your one-shot adventures or longer-form campaigns.
The book opens under the above heading with a high-level overview of the types of technology encountered throughout the Star Trek universe. It covers everything from artificial intelligence to tablets, explaining how these technologies are typically used in Star Trek stories and pointing out how Star Trek has inspired real-life people and technological progress!
The supplement is then broken into three broad categories, mirroring Star Trek’s three divisions. Chapters 1-3 are designed for those in command. Both characters and the game master command (heh) the narrative! Chapters 4 & 5 then provide resources and information for science and medical characters and stories. Before chapters 6 – 8, round out the Technical Manual with resources for those ‘grease monkeys from Chicago’ who work in the engine room and have to clean up whatever mess the game master inflicts on the ship.
However, that isn’t to say that those in other divisions can’t use the resources in these chapters. One of the delightful aspects of Star Trek: Adventures is that it hands the end decisions to you and your group. You’re not compelled to build your character in any one specific way.
Technicalities of Command
The command-focused chapters of the book definitely have a broader focus than those that follow. The chapters detail the supplemental game mechanics that the Technical Manual introduces and the standard equipment that you would expect to see in a Star Trek story (phasers, tricorders, etc.) before giving a more character-focused exploration of how diplomacy can be used in the Star Trek universe.
These chapters introduce new technology-inspired career events for players to build into their character’s back story. It gives you a starting point to create a background where your character could have destroyed a star in a technology experiment gone wrong (wait, wrong franchise). Or something a bit lower-key, like customising a shuttle. There are options for divisions outside command, so don’t skip through!
There are also options for your starship, which can introduce radical swings in the balance between players and the game master. My favourite is the Anomaly Magnet service record option, which gives the game master an extra threat at the start of each adventure—upping the stakes!
Modiphius has done a fantastic job weaving in Star Trek: Prodigy technologies. As well as Star Trek: Discovery’s 32nd-century setting. In a way that could allow these to be part of any adventure without forcing a setting change. If you want to tell a classic time travel tale…
Diplomatic Relations
The ‘Diplomatic Assets’ chapter will likely interest players most. Diplomatic solutions tend to require a higher degree of roleplaying compared to more mechanical combat encounters. This often leads players who may not be as comfortable speaking as their character throughout an extended conversation to be a little quicker to pull their phasers.
This chapter also provides resources for the game master (so they can build a Q2-style trade dispute scenario). But as I read through, I saw a much bigger benefit for players. Especially in the ‘Think outside the talk’ section on page 51, which provides player prompts for questions they can ask of the game master about what non-verbal communication is occurring.
There is also an entire sub-section on answering distress calls, a handy resource for players who may want to build a story between receiving the call and arriving at the source. As we know from many Trek episodes, sometimes the story is in preparation!
Scientific Ventures
The manual then moves into the science and medical domains, giving short descriptions of some of the common (for stories focused in those divisions) but otherwise uncommon technologies. The details provided in these chapters will be especially useful for players who may not be die-hard Trekkies. I even found myself being reminded of some of Trek’s more obscure technologies while reading through, like Life Support belts!
These chapters provide a wide range of complications, some technology-specific (like Tricorders). A ‘worst’ outcome suggestion for a Tricorder complication (the Tricorder becomes sentient and stubborn) gave me a good laugh and could probably be the foundation of an entire story.
Modiphius doesn’t just focus on Star Trek science, though. Star Trek: Adventures is a flexible system that can run a campaign like any species, even the Borg if you want a challenge. The technical manual doesn’t forget this and includes a section on how other prominent species in the Star Trek universe approach scientific discovery.
Please State the Nature of the Medical Emergency
In my experience running Star Trek: Adventures (and RPG-X, back in the day) stories, medical scenarios are often the most difficult to build a long-term story out of. Even in Star Trek episodes, medical plots tend to run as a B story rather than the main focus of an episode.
Modiphius has really done its homework and clearly put a lot of thought into how it can make these stories easier for players to run. While I haven’t had a chance to put the information from the Technical Manual into practice, I found my mind sparking with ideas for medical plots as I read through in a way it hasn’t before.
Of particular note is the drugs and treatments table. This table matches conditions and injuries seen in Star Trek with their (often fictional) remedies. I expect this will become an essential resource for anybody with a medical character.
The Engine Room
We’ve all heard a Star Trek character throwing around phrases like ‘run a level 5 diagnostic’. Then, they just accepted that they knew what they were doing. I know that I’ve been guilty, as a game master, of suggesting a level of diagnostic to be performed while not remembering whether a high number means more or less detail. I’m pretty sure that Star Trek isn’t the most consistent with this.
The technical manual comes to the rescue again, providing a detailed breakdown of what each diagnostic level is used for and what they entail. These chapters are probably closest to the old technical manuals in their detail. However, they present the components of a piece of technology or conventional use case in a narrative structure. In an emergency, you could easily imagine an impatient Chief O’Brien (Colm Meaney) reciting the ‘transporter operation’ section to a less than cooperative Quark!
Tactical Alert
Approaching the end of the Technical Manual is a delightful assortment of resources for the tactically minded amongst your crew. This includes a full breakdown of all the melee weapons we’ve seen on screen if you want to add a bit of flair to your character’s loadout. Just consult your game master first!
There is also a helpful breakdown of the many phaser rifle variations for those playing Starfleet characters. So you know exactly what to pick up from the weapons locker on your way to the transporter pad. Your typical Star Trek story doesn’t have a significant focus on combat. This section is lightest on mechanics and story suggestions. But it makes up for this in the detail provided for the vast array of weapons that it covers.
The Warp Core
The ship enthusiasts’ bread and butter are rounding out the technical manual: the dive into starship systems. Modiphius delved deep into the lore of the Star Trek Universe when writing this manual, and it shows. The section on shields provides details of non-Federation/standard shield types. Like Chronometric shielding! It is unlikely to come up in the vast majority of campaigns. But if you run into the Krenim, it is a valuable reference.
This section isn’t just about your standard shields and phasers, though. There has been a real effort to remind the reader of all the essential systems on a starship and how those systems are typically described/constructed within a ship. The gameplay suggestions here are more game master-targeted, but that doesn’t mean that player characters can’t use them to inform how they might approach a complication in their plan.
Conclusion
I see the Technical Manual 2E becoming an essential resource for all Star Trek Adventures players. Modiphius should consider a successor to their Tricorder collectors set that includes it, along with a version of the rulebook and a few starter adventures. Below, you can enter to win a copy of Star Trek Adventures Technical Manual 2E. Thanks to Modiphius for working with Trek Central to offer this to the community.
Trek Central’s Star Trek Adventures Technical Manual 2E Giveaway!While much of my review has focused on the chapters’ overall content, the real strength of the supplement is in the information tables in every chapter. A supplement like this truly opens up Star Trek Adventures to players of all Star Trek knowledge and familiarity levels while also taking some pressure off us die-hard fans to remember obscure trivia from an episode in the midst of a gameplay session.
Suppose you play Star Trek Adventures, want to play Star Trek Adventures, or want a whistle-stop tour of the technology of the Star Trek universe; I can’t recommend this Technical Manual 2E enough!
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