Star Trek Adventures Living Playtest…

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As you might know by now, Modiphius Entertainment will publish the next official Star Trek RPG in 2017. Right now, they are testing their game in an alpha test called the "Living Playtest". You register with your gaming group, choose one of four ships to play with, and get your adventures from Modiphius' mission control. You play the game and send a debriefing to the publisher. They in turn use the debriefings to optimize the rules.

The playtest started last Friday with a TNG-era introductory adventure called The Rescue at Xerxes 4, hurling 3 to 7 Starfleet cadets on their way to Starbase 364 "Narendra Station" into an ion storm and a planetside adventure.

Being a fan of maps and minis, like us all, I couldn't resist, to fiddle a map for the first scene (and later in the adventure). I used the wilderness set from Heroic Maps, my Type 6 shuttle, and a little Photoshop magic…



Feel free to download the 60 x 60 cm (around 36 by 36 inches) map from here: bit.ly/2fHwoqp

Also, stay tuned for more stuff. ^^

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MORE STUFF!!!

I've been working on them for weeks... the four hero ships for Star Trek Adventures' Living Playtest. Even though they play no part in the initial adventure, the characters of each group will finally end up on one of four ships:

- USS Lexington, a Constitution Class ship from the TOS-era
- USS Venture, a Galaxy Class ship from TNG with a mostly diplomatic mission
- USS Thundershild, an Akira Class cruiser from TNG with a military mission
- USS Bellerophon, an Intrepid Class ship from TNG with an exploration mission

I had my group decide, what kind of mission they wanted to play. They agreed on three things, 1) exploration is best, 2) Intrepid Class is cool, and 3) Bellerophon is a stupid name for a starship… Well, they'll have to deal with that, since no one can choose the name of the ship he's posted on. ^^

I made minis for all four of the ships. Download the PDF here: bit.ly/2gOwL3Y
Scale as usual with my ships: 1/5170

Photos of the ships to follow…

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So... Had our first real Playtest game night, yesterday. And what shall I say, even with the very reduced rules set for this first adventure "The Rescue at Xerxes 4", and my group seeing through the plot at first sight of the first encounter, it was a blast!

While flying through an ion storm with their Type 6 shuttle "T'Prynn", the group – 5 cadets in 4th year on their way to their final cadet cruise – picked up a distress call from a science outpost on Xerxes 4. Changing course immediately to respond to the call, the shuttle got hi by a plasma charge and went down. After the group crashlanded their shuttle on Xerxes 4 (cf. the map above), they got out and were immediately attacked by a small group (4) of creatures looking very much like neanderthals. They hrled rocks at the crew and one of the creatures shot once with a phaser. However, after the first round of combat, two of the creatures were stunned and the rest ran off into the woods...

The crew then started their march to the science outpost some kilometers to the west. After several obstacles, they reached the building that looked like it had been stormed by an enemy army. Since I had set the (dateless) adventure after the beginning of the Dominion War, the crew started to discuss, whether it was possible that some Jem'Hadar could have attacked this outpost. Xerxes 4 being half a quadrant away from Bajor or Cardassia, this seemed at least very unlikely, but if it had not been Dominion forces...
The lower level (hangar/parking area, generator room, storage) was basically turned upside down. A shuttle and a ground vehicle parked there were torn apart, in the storage rooms, all crates and containers had been thrown around, opened, and searched. The generator room had not much damage, the matter-antimatter-reactor was turned off, all isolinear chips had been ripped out of their sockets and scattered around. While crew technician Cdt. Ella Newman started to puzzle, the rest of the crew checked the next floor – the living quarters.
There was the same amount of destruction to be found as on the ground floor. No bodies, but also no furniture still intact. Furthermore, all communication devices had been smashed.
Finally, the crew reached the top level – Operations. There they found in the locked recreation room the last two scientists in the station. Both were changing into those neanderthal creatures. A strange effect caused by the unique nature of the planet in combination with the raging ion storm. (The crew had already guessed this.)

The operations level of the science outpost, patched together by yours truly. You can download it here: bit.ly/2fW2NWT

To cut a long story short, the crew did their thing, and managed to find a cure for the degeneration (that by now of course affected them, too). Here are some photos I shot during the session. Sadly, I missed out the beginning, but I had to juggle with the new system (Modiphius 2d20)...


Command Specialist Thiaranest Zharath, Pilot Malik Demir, and Medic Hanor Toma enter the operations level via the access shaft.


After finding the two surviving scientists, Toma uses his medical skills to investigate the cause of the degeneration, while Cdt. Demir stands guard by the infected.


After getting a clue as to what might help, Technician Newman beams out Zharath and Security Specialist Zhao Wen to collect some plant samples. However, the ion storm is growing in strength and causes nasty side effects (meaning Newman rolled a nat20 on one of her task dice)...


...so that while beaming out her crewmates, Newman at the same time beamed in a giant, some 15 to 20 m long snake. Being quite witty and smart, she immediately activated a force field around the transporter platform.

Next week the adventure will continue. The crew needs to find and cure the other scientists, bring them to their shuttle, repair "T'Prynn", and escape from Xerxes 4 before the ion storm strikes the planet, killing all living beings (fauna AND flora) on it. They have 18 hours left...

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The hero ships of the Star Trek Adventures Playtest Campaign (left to right and top to bottom):

USS Lexington, Constitution Class (TOS)
USS Venture, Galaxy Class (TNG)
USS Thunderchild, Akira Class (TNG)
USS Bellerophon, Intrepid Class (TNG)

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On next week's weekend (April 28 to 30), we'll be playing the TOS adventure of the playtest, called »Adrift«, in one huge session...

OK, I admit, we take naps from about 3 to 8 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday morning. Nonetheless, it's gaonna be what we call a RPG-weekend, starting Friday at 6 p.m. and ending Sunday at about noon.

My group didn't want to play with the Lexington, however, and decided on a somewhat sleeker ship…