Star Wars vs Star Trek as RPG campaign settings(is either post scarcity?)

[Adam Reynolds]

As what is probably the two most widely recognized science fiction settings, it would make sense that both would be fairly popular as settings for role playing game campaigns. Though in actuality, Star Wars is vastly more popular in this sense. Anecdotally, Star Trek has more stories of people who try and break the genre. While a character playing as a Jedi could fall to the Dark Side or just stop being a Jedi and become a smuggler, someone in Starfleet who does something equivalent same makes no sense as a main character.

Does Star Wars have more depth to it, or is there something about Star Trek that makes it less effective? On the depth issue, I think part of it comes down to the fact that Star Wars feels like reality in some sense. Having everything feel used causes the setting to feel real in a way that Star Trek does not, which helps smooth over the problems with the setting.

I think one problem is that the standard RPG is often close to a combat simulator. Star Trek doesn't work as well in that sense as a result of the fact that combat should be the last resort. One interesting system that is nearly Star Trek, albeit with a different actual setting, is the Gumshoe system Ashen Stars. It uses a mystery based system to represent the fact that classic Star Trek was about discovery.

Another discussion that cropped up was the idea that Star Trek is post scarcity. While at least partially true, it led me to the question of whether Star Wars was there either? While we don't see replicators in Star Wars, they have the potential for sufficient droid labor to make organic workers irrelevant. And yet we see human and droid waitresses working together. While anti-droid prejudice explains some of this, especially in customer service roles, we even see humans doing menial labor. Which is rather hard to justify.

Hyperdrive is the other element that reduces the incentive for something like a replicator. As fast as they are, it reduces the demand for locally produced parts. Especially if fuel is relatively cheap, as it largely appears to be.

[NecronLord]

Star Wars is actually just more popular. Pulp is also generally the foundation of a lot of pen and paper RPG systems; D&D is a lot more popular than Blue Rose.

[Elheru Aran]

Star Wars has the *potential* to be post-scarcity, and I wouldn't be surprised if you could design a planetary or system economy to gradually become post-scarcity within that universe. It's possible some already are, such as Naboo or Clone Wars' portrayal of Mandalore.

Trek... is iffy. The Federation likes to *act* as though it's post-scarcity. The Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians etc aren't. Certainly Earth and the primary Federation worlds are probably post-scarcity to some degree.

As RPG settings, both have been done, several times. As a versus, no, never.

I do take issue with what you say about "While a character playing as a Jedi could fall to the Dark Side or just stop being a Jedi and become a smuggler, someone in Starfleet who does something equivalent same makes no sense as a main character"-- you do actually see stuff like this happen on (admittedly rare) occasion. Someone decides they have a problem with how Starfleet or the Federation are doing things, object, get told to shut it and get with the program, decide they don't want to, and so forth.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Someone decides they have a problem with how Starfleet or the Federation are doing things, object, get told to shut it and get with the program, decide they don't want to, and so forth.

The Maquis, for example, though most of those were either re-integrated into Starfleet, or left to hang by Starfleet.

[Elheru Aran]

Someone decides they have a problem with how Starfleet or the Federation are doing things, object, get told to shut it and get with the program, decide they don't want to, and so forth.

The Maquis, for example, though most of those were either re-integrated into Starfleet, or left to hang by Starfleet.

Hell, you could argue that James Kirk is a borderline example-- he flagrantly violates Starfleet rules right and left, and only gets away with it because he manages to win. Sisko is another good example of a Starfleet officer that doesn't always follow the rules. I hate to bring up Voyager, mostly because I've never watched much of it, but IIRC Chakotay would be another example.

Yeah, I think it's quite possible to have a Starfleet character that decides they have a problem with the faux-utopia that the Federation tries to project, and goes from there.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Hell, you could argue that James Kirk is a borderline example-- he flagrantly violates Starfleet rules right and left, and only gets away with it because he manages to win. Sisko is another good example of a Starfleet officer that doesn't always follow the rules. I hate to bring up Voyager, mostly because I've never watched much of it, but IIRC Chakotay would be another example.

Yeah, I think it's quite possible to have a Starfleet character that decides they have a problem with the faux-utopia that the Federation tries to project, and goes from there.

And, Wesley Crusher. And Worf. And, Admiral Ross, all of whom escape consequence-free. And, Tom Paris(while we're on the subject of Voyager), who, while serving time in the Federation pokey for negligent homicide, ends up living happily, consequence free, ever after(to the admiration of Trekkies everywhere).

Kirk and crew, on the other hand, do turn themselves over to the Federation Council for judgement for their actions in STIII(and, IRL, the worst you can do to an admiral, barring prison or forced retirement, is bust him down to captain). And, Kirk, for once, accepts responsibility for what he did.

And, let's not get into hypocritical Federation policy, willing to conduct lethal genetic experiments on Darwin Station, while threatening Bashir with dismissal for something his parents did, out of love for their kid.

[Elheru Aran]

Right. So, idealistic gloss that TNG tried to buff on it aside, the Trekverse has a lot of dark potential to explore, as any good RPG setting should have.

It doesn't have to be all dark though. Could have a PC, say, trying to discover a cure for some virus afflicting a colony on some backward world or something, and he has to make friends with an alien AI-piloted ship in order to do so... something like that.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

Right. So, idealistic gloss that TNG tried to buff on it aside, the Trekverse has a lot of dark potential to explore, as any good RPG setting should have.

It doesn't have to be all dark though. Could have a PC, say, trying to discover a cure for some virus afflicting a colony on some backward world or something, and he has to make friends with an alien AI-piloted ship in order to do so... something like that.

*

Shades of Anne McCaffery.

Of course that could work for the 40K verse as well. Even it's not all grimdark and Chaos spawn all the time. Only three weeks out of every month.

*"Earth is poor, and Feds are shit. And, that is all. There is to it. That's what you're all ignoring. That's what's so bloody boring..." With apologies to Berthold Brecht and Kurt Weill

[Simon_Jester]

One nice thing about Star Trek is that the antagonists have a lot of diversity- whoever you play as, there are several candidates for enemies, and you're not stuck in constant battle against a monolithic bloc of enemy forces.

[The Romulan Republic]

As what is probably the two most widely recognized science fiction settings, it would make sense that both would be fairly popular as settings for role playing game campaigns. Though in actuality, Star Wars is vastly more popular in this sense. Anecdotally, Star Trek has more stories of people who try and break the genre. While a character playing as a Jedi could fall to the Dark Side or just stop being a Jedi and become a smuggler, someone in Starfleet who does something equivalent same makes no sense as a main character.

Does Star Wars have more depth to it, or is there something about Star Trek that makes it less effective? On the depth issue, I think part of it comes down to the fact that Star Wars feels like reality in some sense. Having everything feel used causes the setting to feel real in a way that Star Trek does not, which helps smooth over the problems with the setting.

I think one problem is that the standard RPG is often close to a combat simulator. Star Trek doesn't work as well in that sense as a result of the fact that combat should be the last resort. One interesting system that is nearly Star Trek, albeit with a different actual setting, is the Gumshoe system Ashen Stars. It uses a mystery based system to represent the fact that classic Star Trek was about discovery.

Not going to comment on the post-scarcity question right now, but a few points:

1. Grittier doesn't necessarily equal better. But if you want gritty Star Trek, there's quite a bit of that over on Deep Space 9 as I recall.

2. The idea that violence is supposed to be the last resort in Star Trek is an overgeneralization, I think, and in any case is only applicable if you are playing Federation characters. There is nothing stoping you from playing Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians, etc. as far as I can see.

3. Much the same is true for your argument that it wouldn't make sense for a Starfleet character to fall or quit Starfleet. Its a point that's only applicable if you're playing Starfleet, and in any case belied by the numerous crazy/corrupt captains/admirals and by the existence of Section 31, among other examples.

Anyway, me, I'm just disappointed that this thread isn't about doing a Star Trek vs. Star Wars crossover as an RPG.

[Formless]

I have never tried roleplaying Star Trek, but I have done Star Wars D20. Frankly, I'm not sure why but it has never been as fun as playing in fantasy settings like in traditional D&D and Pathfinder. However, that might have to do with the GM I've played with being a bit slow and missing opportunities left and right. Its a long story, but I never got the feeling like Star Wars D20 was a bad game or a bad setting, and playing as a droid has lead to a lot of fun times and clever plays. Its fun to have a fully modable chassis, and in the current game I'm playing I've actually got quite a bit of ambition for where the character is going. Its just a bit tedious getting from point A to point B, especially when you have a GM who clearly both does and doesn't want to railroad you onto a specific plot. Don't ask how that works.

I've also contemplated writing (crossover) fanfiction for Trek, and in contemplating I realized that at least 24'th century era Trek feels really stifling. I don't know how to put it, but there is something about how the characters within the universe behave that feels rigid and conformist even if they aren't part of Starfleet. I think its the Utopianism and the Roddenberry Ideal, because it was the same feeling I had the one time someone asked me to make a Warhammer 40K character using that RPG system. At the time I looked to see if it was possible to create a Jhon Criton type character who is out of his depth in a grim dark work, but able to be good due to naivete. The game and setting however runs on a definition of Grimdark that makes me want to throw a brick through someone's window, because all available backgrounds basically wouldn't let you make a character who wasn't either tainted by Chaos, working for the goddamn Imperium, or just plain dumbshit crazy thanks to the Warp or the kind of planets you had to come from. The dystopianism made it stifling, boring, and bland even though the person who asked agreed that the character should sort of be possible (although the Warp is a major factor and we disagreed about that). It didn't just dictate where you came from but who you were. I should have some say in that, shouldn't I? All settings are going to limit character diversity to some degree (characters in fantasy don't usually carry ray guns for instance), but the greater the degree of the limitations the harder it is to create new fiction within it or roleplay within it. How are you going to roleplay within Star Trek without being a member of Starfleet? Or the Klingon military? Or the Romulan military? You almost can't, because as a rule these are the people who get to run starships, and freelance adventurers just don't exist for the most part. Or at least, they aren't shown in the franchise like they are in Star Wars. For some people, that isn't a problem because being Captain Kirk is exactly what appeals to them, but what if you don't care for playing The Man *? Or what if your gaming group has problems with letting one person be The Captain and giving orders to everyone else? Some players cannot be trusted with having that authority, and other players are going to have difficulty accepting that someone who is a friend and an equal out of game is effectively their boss in game. Its just not a fun situation unless all players are up for it and understand the dynamic really well. Remember that even in the show it is no coincidence that the main character of TOS was the Captain, followed by the second officer, and that while TNG (eventually) gave the rest of the senior staff a larger role, that otherwise remained the way Star Trek was written.

In contrast, classic RPGs like D&D get around this issue using the class system-- no one specializes in "bossing around the other players" in D&D even if they get the Leadership feat. They can boss around NPC's, but other players have their specialty and if you want everyone to have fun you don't step on their toes. And this is true even if you are technically playing a game without a class system, like GURPS or Mutants and Masterminds. The expectation is that you will play more like a superhero teamup than a military hierarchy. That is how most players relate to their gaming group; if you want to feel like The Boss, you can always be the GM instead.

But moreover, the culture of Star Trek TNG just isn't my forte and I realized that writing those characters or those kind of characters felt deeply boring, and you will never read the few test passages I wrote to see if the fic would be any good. It wasn't. In fact, the character I found most interesting to write for was-- and I'm not joking!-- Wesley Crusher, because as a character who left the show and under the circumstances that he left it under I could simply ditch a lot of the stuff that feels so annoying about Starfleet officers; the love of bureaucratic process, the specific way of talking, the smugness, the tendency to command the boots on the ground rather than being the boots on the ground (unless it specifically makes no sense, in which case by all means they will be the first to step on a transporter pad), and so on. I'm just not that kind of writer, nor that kind of roleplayer. Maybe the Kirk era stuff would be more fun, although its just as focused on Starfleet and its processes. I don't know. I'm not interested in finding out. Note that this is not a slight against the Trek franchise, just that I can't get into it as a writer or roleplayer the way I can as a member of the audience.

* i09 once ran an article comparing and contrasting Star Wars with Star Trek and basically concluded that narratively the main difference was that Star Trek was about the struggles of being The Man without being corrupt, while Star Wars was about rebelling against The Man which is undoubtedly corrupt. I highly suspect that this has a lot to do with Star Wars' greater popularity among gamers. The former is a situation that can be difficult for a writer or roleplayer to imagine themselves being in, while the latter is so exciting no one even stops to think about the fact that the Rebellion has its own generals and bureaucracy. Roleplayers tend to think "those jobs are boring, lets play as commandos!" And unless their name is Tim Zhan, that's how the people writing the books tend to think as well.

[The Romulan Republic]

Following up on my earlier post, if what you want is gritty Star Trek with dark characters but still playing as the Federation, just play as Section 31 Operatives in the vicinity of Bajor/the Badlands/DS9/Cardassia during the Dominion War. Problem solved.

[Formless]

Playing the villains doesn't solve the problem, dude. I think that most people want to play in a Grimdark setting because it makes the contrast between their own heroism and the villainy they are surrounded by quite a bit greater and easier to see. Or they think that the complications of a grimdark world are more interesting because complications in a utopia more frequently involve lawyers, bureaucrats, and diplomats. In other words, boring windbags.

I mean, WH40K and World of Darkness seem to be exceptions, and from what I've heard some WoD players can come off as downright sociopathic, but I don't think that's the norm. And I don't understand why people play those games at all.

[The Romulan Republic]

Playing the villains doesn't solve the problem, dude.

My point is not "play villains", exactly. I've never been of the "darker=better" persuasion anyway.

And for what its worth, I've seen a fair number of people who would defend Section 31, at least to a point.

Personally, I think they're scumbags, but no more than any other intelligence agency is likely to be. Its a nasty, morally dubious line of work, with dark deeds done in the name of necessity or the greater good.

Or play Marquis, or members of the Bajoran resistance, if you want something a bit grittier but Section 31 doesn't appeal to you.

I think that most people want to play in a Grimdark setting because it makes the contrast between their own heroism and the villainy they are surrounded by quite a bit greater and easier to see. Or they think that the complications of a grimdark world are more interesting because complications in a utopia more frequently involve lawyers, bureaucrats, and diplomats. In other words, boring windbags.

Those are fair points.

Edit: My point, basically, is that Star Trek doesn't have to be all clean and shiny and pure if you don't want it to be.

[NecronLord]

There's also the fact that some, though not all, gamers enjoy the sense of character equipment progress. If anyone's ever been on STO and looked at all the guys running around with power-suits and force-field armour and gone "that's not star trek" they understand the problem there.

[The Romulan Republic]

Hmm, that's a fair point, to a point.

Though again, operating outside of Starfleet creates opportunities for non-standard equipment. And intelligence agencies like Section 31, which are not explored in great detail, might well have classified tech. beyond the standard.

Edit: I wonder how much of this is just a TV vs. film thing. Star Trek may not have the budget to show the variety of tech. that Star Wars can.

[NecronLord]

Shows like Battlestar Galactica (old and new), Lexx (!) and other such things managed to display more military hardware.

[Adam Reynolds]

Anyway, me, I'm just disappointed that this thread isn't about doing a Star Trek vs. Star Wars crossover as an RPG.

It's almost certainly not actually what you meant, but as a part of my project to tell any conceivable story within Star Wars I did come up with a general plot for a Star Wars version of Star Trek:

The crew of the New Republic survey cruiser Enterprise(though one larger than a Star Destroyer) are on a mission to pave new hyperlanes after the fall of the Republic and Empire and the corresponding loss of information as their record systems collapsed. Though their actual mission is really closer to that of the Great White Fleet. They are really showing that the New Republic is there to stay within the Outer Rim. Because if the New Republic just wanted better navigational data, they would have just used probe droids of some sort. Which could be an interesting plot point as various characters realize this at different points and disagree on what they should actually do. It would be interesting to have a conflict between soldiers who are out to fly the flag and show strength, which likely even includes a GCW veteran or two, and the civilian scientists that are simply out to recover data. What could also be an intersting conflict is if part of the crew is ex-Imperial and part is ex-Rebel Alliance as part of a program showing the amazing value in reconciliation.

It would really be a fantastic structure for a random events sandbox plot, as you encounter various struggles as a part of the mission to wave the flag as well as actually trying to carry out your original mission, which could put you in conflict with the First Order as they are out to find Luke, or the mysterious Knights of Ren, if it is before the creation of the First Order. One crewmember could also have ties to the Resistance, depending on timing.

What would be especially interesting would be to play this game using Lame Mage's Kingdom, a somewhat unusual game in which it is all about struggles in a system of leadership in a GM-less system. The way it works is that characters battle for narrative control by proxy of political power by splitting the GM roles, allowing players to either choose a course of action, dictate consequences for said action, or decide how the community feels about that action. It actually works quite nicely in that respect with the right group, though it requires everyone be willing to contribute rather than putting the workload onto the GM.

Though, now that I describe it, that power trio is somewhat reminiscent of a certain Star Trek series.

[NecronLord]

If I wanted to keep wholly canon for firepower, and do a ST-v-SW RPG in the classic vs scenario style, I'd have it set in the STO-verse (or based on it) in order to get transwarp and slipstream drives, and set it with a Romulan warbird or some other fast cloaked ship (maybe a Defiant) and have missions be based around preventing an Imperial invasion, obtaining technology, subverting officials, that kind of thing. At some point the invasion would happen and you'd also want to aid a resistance.

A straight resistance game would basically be like playing rebels in a star wars game though.

[Captain Kruger]

I decided to start running a big sci-fi RPG for my gamer friends 20 years ago. While all but two of them preferred Star Wars over Star Trek, I decided to set my campaign in the Trek universe. My reasoning was simple: story diversity. Star Wars, despite its enormous scale, tends to be Rebels vs Empire and Jedi vs Sith. In an RPG setting, that can get kinda old. (Also keep in mind this was 1996 - 3 years before the SW prequels started). I decided that the multi-polar setting of ST would make for a more interesting campaign. I created a new group within Starfleet Intelligence that acted separately from the main organization and crewed its own ships, and they were tasked with doing the ugly things to protect Federation space that regular Starfleet didn't wanna dirty their hands with (this was in the TNG era). Most of the Federation characters were part of this group. They had a thankless job, especially since regular preachy Starfleet officers from the Picard school of thought tended to look down upon them. Pretty much a naval version of Section 31.

Things got interesting right from the get-go because I didn't tell any of my players in advance that I would be introducing two new major factions to the galaxy. One of them was powerful enough to give the Borg a run for their money in a straight-up fight, no technobabble needed. The other faction was strong enough to kick the Borg's ass handily and was a close match for Species 8472. The big fear factor in the campaign was that the more powerful of those new factions was extremely unpredictable - no one knew who they would target, or when, or why. The first major battle between PCs and these guys, they took 90 Federation and Gorn ships against 14 of the enemy - after a mutual retreat, the enemy still had 6 ships left while there were only 3 Starfleet and 2 Gorn survivors of the original 90. Ouch.

Much of the campaign was about the characters desperately trying to head off disaster with these new factions in play, particular the crew of a new Sovereign/Defiant hybrid dreadnought that was the flagship of that new Intelligence branch. Stragglers from another ancient race had contacted the Federation and offered to help by upgrading Starfleet's technology as fast as they could while the Space Section 31 characters got creative in holding the line against their technologically-superior enemies. And of course, they had to juggle this with the neverending minefield of Klingon, Romulan, and Cardassian relations as well. And no one knew how the Dominion would take advantage of all this.

It ended up being a hell of a fun campaign for that usually Star Wars-loving group, running for about 6 years. Definitely the dark side of Trek!

[Ralin]

For years now I've been kicking around the idea for a dark comedy Paranoia style game where the PCs play crew members of the starship Voyager struggling not to die in the various fights and mishaps that the mad Captain Janeway keeps sending them into. The idea was to play up every single thing I've heard here about how incompetent and evil she was (I never actually watched the show for more than an episode or two, so I'm going off second hand impressions) to parody levels. Sadly I never managed to get my usual group on board for it.

[Adam Reynolds]

I decided to start running a big sci-fi RPG for my gamer friends 20 years ago. While all but two of them preferred Star Wars over Star Trek, I decided to set my campaign in the Trek universe. My reasoning was simple: story diversity. Star Wars, despite its enormous scale, tends to be Rebels vs Empire and Jedi vs Sith. In an RPG setting, that can get kinda old. (Also keep in mind this was 1996 - 3 years before the SW prequels started).

I have never even remotely had that problem. Though I have only played games after the prequels came out. having only seen Star Wars when TPM came out, I was nine at the time. My first RPG experience was those old Star Wars Adventures choose your own adventure books, using the character, vehicle, and weapon cards to tell original stories. Which in hindsight wasn't a very good system, but at the time I had no exposure to any better ones. My most memorable experience with that system was when the entire party made up of the OT gang was taken out by a single stun baton. It was just as stupid as it sounds, with Chewbacca and R2 as the only ones left standing.

Also, didn't anyone in your group want to be Boba Fett or Han Solo before the events of the films? Even before the prequels characters outside of the duality of Rebels vs Empire or Jedi vs Sith were among the most popular.

[Captain Kruger]

For years now I've been kicking around the idea for a dark comedy Paranoia style game where the PCs play crew members of the starship Voyager struggling not to die in the various fights and mishaps that the mad Captain Janeway keeps sending them into. The idea was to play up every single thing I've heard here about how incompetent and evil she was (I never actually watched the show for more than an episode or two, so I'm going off second hand impressions) to parody levels. Sadly I never managed to get my usual group on board for it.

LOL!!! Great!!!!

[Adam Reynolds]

Now that I think about it, that actually sounds like a RPG version of Redshirts, which was an amusing novel.

[Captain Kruger]

I decided to start running a big sci-fi RPG for my gamer friends 20 years ago. While all but two of them preferred Star Wars over Star Trek, I decided to set my campaign in the Trek universe. My reasoning was simple: story diversity. Star Wars, despite its enormous scale, tends to be Rebels vs Empire and Jedi vs Sith. In an RPG setting, that can get kinda old. (Also keep in mind this was 1996 - 3 years before the SW prequels started).

I have never even remotely had that problem. Though I have only played games after the prequels came out. having only seen Star Wars when TPM came out, I was nine at the time. My first RPG experience was those old Star Wars Adventures choose your own adventure books, using the character, vehicle, and weapon cards to tell original stories. Which in hindsight wasn't a very good system, but at the time I had no exposure to any better ones. My most memorable experience with that system was when the entire party made up of the OT gang was taken out by a single stun baton. It was just as stupid as it sounds, with Chewbacca and R2 as the only ones left standing.

Also, didn't anyone in your group want to be Boba Fett or Han Solo before the events of the films? Even before the prequels characters outside of the duality of Rebels vs Empire or Jedi vs Sith were among the most popular.

We had a ground rule that no one was allowed to play as a major character from whatever franchise the game was set in. We did have original smugglers and bounty hunters in our Star Wars campaign though.