In Praise of FASA Trek... Sort of... 

Return to Axanar is notable for having The Four Year War supplement. Strider Incident has the Regular Deck Plans supplement and "Old Soldiers" has The Romulan War history supplement. Critical pieces of in-game history there.

I had the privilege of meeting (and having a beer with) John Theisen a few years ago. Super nice guy. He gave me some fascinating insight into the 'wild west' days at FASA working with Trek. I asked him how he came up with all those fact/figures/backstories in his adventures, and he told me he and his team were literally making it up as they went along. He said one of his biggest gripes (that he still can't get over) is the misspelling on the cover of The Four Years war supplement.

Love the FASA Trek lore!! The iconic art on most of the covers was by David R. Deitrick & he shares some of the stories about creating those covers on his blog... check it out. Also, the Tricorder/Sensors supplement was his idea from the ground up.

FASA Trek was one of the first RPGs I ever played, I also own most of the LUG and Decipher Trek books so this was a nice nostalgia bomb. Unfortunately not many of my group are big Trek fans so I've never had the chance to run those. Instead I ended up running 7th Sea. I would love to see what you've put together for your own Trek setting.

The player characters of that game were wonderful, one could faithfully recreate the career of the officer and leave it wherever one wanted and the characters of the players were left as what they should be, the best that "humanity" could have to show, it is true that the years of career were noticeably barbaric, but at the end of the day, the characters embodied that Star Trek spirit that Starfleet officers are the best humanity has to offer. My youth was shaped by Star Trek, Star Wars, and Battletech. The first two gave me two unique role-playing games (in Star Trek a strategy game on the board), along with Battletech (which apart from the board gave me a role-playing game) I can only say that they were years better. And if I add the Exo-Squad series, it is difficult to receive a more humanistic and ethical education (apart from that of my mother, who has always been a very empathetic and self-sacrificing good, perhaps too much for her own good). I've had the rest of the Star Trek RPGs and I've felt more and more disappointed with each edition of each of the houses that took the franchise Of course, the Last Unicorn Games gave us the best starship builder in the galaxy, even if it was free and downloadable. because they ceased to exist.

I'm late to this! Back in the 1980s, I was a DM running D&D. Having talked to Gary Gygax, I learned that his groups private sessions (and if you really read their published modules) were science fantasy campaigns. Sooo I too ran such and added Star Trek elements to adventures above 7th level. I also added Lovecraft, Smith, and Howards stories, too. When the players' investigations came to realize they were on a downed starship, Klingon D7, they were ecstatic!!! When they realized the big boss was a fully armed Klingon, well ...

Hey Bear - fellow Gen-X'er.... love the shirt too. FASA was amazingly good at the time, I bought it then, then again off Ebay for nostalgia's sake.

Came across FASA in 1984 or 85 and I like it better Tham Star Fleet Battles, also I have just about all their (FASA) books as well as their ships wish I had someone to play the game with

This was such a great game

15:50 Have a search over at Internet Archive for "jack photon, star trek" and my 40th anniversary Revision, Reconciliation and Recompilation project is being mirrored there. The "Jack Photon 4.0th Fantaversary Revision" reconciles 1st/2nd edition, patches holes, smooths clunks, expands on missed opportunities such as OER affecting term assignments during creation or the near 30 pages detailing all the psionic tv show happenings, nearly100 TOS/TAS instances overall, categorized with framework rulings threshed out. Tractor beams, transporter accidents, even integrating the stardate articles in-line so that the warp engine failure, Bridge and critical starship hits are there with normal 1st/2nd edition rulings or that Robots are now under Strange worlds and new Civs. All the relevant Stardate material plugged in proper. Book 1: Lifeform Readings, everything to roll an officer, enlisted or Fed citizen replete with medals, life path events and more. Book 2: Piece of the Action, Mostly game mechanics. Mostly. Book3: Memory Bank Alpha, the Federation Appendices for character background and in-world information. All the source books, rule books, supplements and stardate articles laid out and lined up in new formats. Some are done, many still to go. I'm reconciling 1st/2nd edition klingons at the moment.

The Federation is likely the most significant source book they released. Trek IV was big too. I loved STIII update, but looking back it was on the weaker side comparatively.

I love all the Trek from original series through Voyager. Playing original series era seems a bit more dangerous/fun. No replicators, medicine slightly less miraculous, and no peace treaty with the Klingons.

7:44 What magazines are those and are they FASA Trek specific?

1st Edition is better for TOS/TAS. 2nd Edition is better for ST I - VI. Neither edition works for any other series whatsoever. You must go to the other game systems for other Trek series.

I want to hear about your version of trek. My favorite era is the first movie era. I loved playing fasa trek But I was never in love with this system, The lower was unbelievably good. I really enjoyed the icons trek the best As a RPG.

Not terrible adventures I long for those days

It certainly makes for a fun alternate take on the universe. Don't have to worry about fitting things into canon post-1980s. Gonna track down a copy and at least create some characters. As for the franchise overall, I'm a big Trekkie. TOS and TNG are my comfort shows. I can always go back to them and forget all my troubles.

Local gamestores on the peninsula didn't carry a fraction of those adventures...SF Bay Area.

Enjoyed this back in the day but recently ive I've used whats old is new, (W.O.I.N N.E.W), to run trek using both fasa and modiphius adventures

TNG 1st year sourcebook makes Vulcans publicly weep on their knees while tearing at their robes. TNG Officers Manual -= Ugh! ... TNG 1stYr SB =Double-Ugh!

We had so much fun with this, my group in college in the 80s and after had our own continuity built up over years, ...since we had the space it pretty quickly got to be a semi-LARP at least of bridge scenes and the like (It made sense to arrange people by where their stations were and more acting ensued. :) ) The game system ended up pretty streamlined in practice, for us, but d100 is pretty simple that way. (I also rather liked later LUG Trek's worldbuilding, generally, especially their Andorians, though I never really got handy with that game system itself so it's hard to compare. ) A lot of it stayed with me in my personal Trek world, though, certainly the notion of a pretty big fleet, what of some of the history fits, (Hashed out some plausible idea of Starfleet Marines and why we don't seem to see them much, that was pretty much just as controversial then as ever. (The general idea is most of em are combat-trained Corps of Engineers helping build up the colonies and outposts for a living in peacetime. It's a galaxy that can use Seabees and people out there with that skillset. :) ) (Also when we saw MACOs in Enterprise I was like, 'Yeah, Earth-style buttkicking. That's what we're talking about.' :) Anyway, fun memories associated with that.

I have never played a Star Trek RPG but have always wanted to, I just know it isn't something my normal play group would be interested in. I played a number of Trek videogames, going all the way back to 25th Anniversary on the NES and most recently the MMO, though I think I logged the most time on Starfleet Academy. Hell, I even played countless hours of the old Starship Commander's Tactical Battle Simulator. I guess the closest I ever came was playing an old play by post Trek game back in the early 2000s. I have a handful of RPG books but they're Last Unicorn not FASA. This definitely makes me want to look into FASA and maybe check out Modiphius's Trek game as well.

I would absolutely love to learn more about ultimate trek. Unfortunately, I was never able to play FASA Trek since that was a little before my time--in fact, I don't think I've ever played a Star Trek roleplaying game before... so I would definitely be very interested in that. As far as FAVORITE Star Trek, I try not to have a favorite in that regard; I want to make sure I keep an open mind with most Star Trek shows so that I can appreciate the elements that do well, though I haven't been a fan of the stuff that has been released in the last 10 or so years. I enjoy the Originals, Next Gen, DS9, and parts of Voyager. Watching the movies you recommended to me definitely made me fall in love with the older series though. Looking forward to hearing more about your Ultimate Trek!

If it's not too late, be careful on the 2nd edition boxset, Bear! There are two versions, the Deluxe and the Limited Deluxe. Their contents are different, their covers the same except for the word 'limited'. If I recall, the STIII TacCbt Sim boxset is itself better than the deluxe or limited deluxe versions. I may be wrong on that. Lot of money grabbing in the end by FASA.

This is my favorite rpg. I’ve collected and repurchased the starship combat game over the past 30 years

This version of star trek. I wish I had it in my collection. Unfortunately durunfortunately during High school and college, my budget was Limited, and fool that I was, I thought fassa would never go under. I would love to know how and why at some point. Either Way, I was never able to get this into my collection. I get what you're saying about the mechanics but that's where the nostalgia is and mechanics are only the entry level to a game setting. You can easily make more or less of it

That sounds cool I’d like to know more about ultimate star trek. I dig movie era but DS9 is my favorite. The era I would want to play in would be post tos but pre motion picture or during.

There is no sort of.. It was the best of times playing that in the 80s.. The greatest version of Trek..

ToS is my favorite.

I have a curious question you might have an answer to. I’ve been looking for the artwork that advertised the Orions and it looks like it was going to be the cover, but they clearly decided not to do it. Needless to say, I can’t seem to find it anywhere on the web. They only have ended up on the cover.

Love FASA Star Trek. Love classic Trek, but I lose interest with the Berman-verse and don't care for any of the other verses. I have all the Star Date magazines except one.

I've been a hard core Trekkie since the 70's. I love it all! But, I admit because of nostalgia I have a soft spot for TV TOS era in particular. (Last time I played a Trek RPG it was in TOS movie era, we were on a Miranda class, the Stellaris.) I think it'd be easier to play in the Next Gen era, though. Is Fasa Trek based on the old Star Fleet Battles license? I was always fascinated at how that version took the setting into the future, yet maintained the TOS aesthetic. I remember having fun with Fasa Trek when it was current. However, I DO have a great appreciation for the new 2D20 Trek. I'd probably play any system as long as I got to play Star Trek. ;) I have BBF, so I may look into FrontierSpace.

I was fortunate enough to acquire the Deluxe box game with RPG rules and Starship Tactical Combat Simulator last year. It's a beautiful set in excellent condition, but it's the 1986 one you showed, so doesn't have the adventure booklet. Which is something I really wish I had. I ran Decision at Midnight years ago and it was fun. I really want to get my hands on A Doomsday Like Any Other. I also love the idea of the Triangle. A lot of the time though was six of us playing massive fleet battles, which might not be terribly Star Trek, but we had a great time with it. I LOVED the Winged Defender. I'm hoping to get a FASA Star Trek game going again soon.

I'd love to hear about your Trek. My only experience with Star Trek RPG (dunno if that was FASA, sorry) was a perfect storm of bad things that weren't as much about mechanics, but how the GM used it. The first session began with handing us pre-gens (I got LTJG *Clauzevitz* tactical -- so *very* generic pre-gens you'd normally have set aside in case of character death) because he wants us to play from the get go. OK, cool, I can get behind that. I was pumped as hell, Star Trek is my jam, let's roll! What happened next felt like five straight hours of going through flowcharts, doing six rolls where -- if it were my game -- even one would be an optional rule for advanced players. It was by far the most tedious combat of my life, and when I went over the events later, this probably would have taken two minutes in the show. So, while it likely wasn't the fault of the system, a GM with serious Hermes Conrad energy killed it. Still, it's been years and I'd give it a go. With how much can be automated on roll20 or foundry, you can probably macro-out the boring bits the players don't really get to decide on anyway.

Sounds to much like ultimate Spiderman, yikes

What is your take on Star Fleet Battles by Taskforce Games?

My favourite things from the game were the section that helped you design diseases and the Trader Captains and Merchant Princes booklet. I liked the stock market system and used it for other games, too.

Have you ever found the gold box set yet ? If interested I have one lmk

I still have my copy of the game, actually preparing a Klingon campaign set between the Organian treaty and StVI Undiscovered Country timeframe

does anyone know where i might find pdf's of the out of print stardate magazines

​Have you made major changes to Ultimate Trek from the TrekRPG days?

I pretty much retained all my fasa Trek stuff. I got the original boxed set in 1983, hunted down the Klingon boxed set that summer and I was so pleased to get the ST3 sourcebook update that Christmas holiday. Those were heady days.

STII TacCbtSim rules. I hated them! I may still do. However, they recently tasked me. They tasked me and I chased down every last redundancy and over-complicated piece of nonsense like the basic/graduate/whatever schooling crud. Fully cut over 20 pages of pure redundancy, recompiled the remainder into a straight-forward, far easier to read and understand version of itself. All related rules together, not spread out and reworded several times to make publishing guideline page-count minimums. Editor John "page-padder' Wheeler was a genius in that regard. Over at Internet Archive, search "STTRPG 4.0: S14 STTac Cbt Sim Redux".

Love FASATrek. Hate (hate!) The Chandley!