Star Trek Adventures Second Edition Starter Set review – Out of this world amazing

Welcome to the final frontier. Star Trek Adventures is a tabletop role-playing game set in the world of Star Trek. I have reviewed multiple tabletop role-playing games based on a property, and this one is by far the best. In this game, you travel to the edges of known space, to colonies in need, and the borders of neighboring galactic powers. Brace yourself, because this game takes you boldly where no one has gone before. 

Components 

The starter set contains everything you need to play with 3-7 players, so says the back of the box. I ran the game for four players, and we had a fantastic time. As a side note, if you’re new to these kinds of games, I do not recommend running for a group of 7 for your first game. 

The box contains: 

• Rules booklet: 48 pages of everything you need to know to play this 2d20 game. 
• A campaign booklet that is 60 pages. 
• Ship sheets and character sheets. 
• Reference Sheets. 
• Five twenty-sided dice in a unique color set that is exclusive to this box. 
• Six momentum tokens. 

The dice are gorgeous. They come in a beautiful blue color and, frankly, match the game extremely well. I’m partial to using my favorite set of hot pink dice, but now these are the only dice I’ll use with this game. The tokens are high quality as well; they’re not going to bend and break on you through hours of playtime. 

The rule book and the campaign book are beautifully made. The artwork is stellar, and the binding has held strong. I fold the books, pass them around, and they have survived without any issues. They’re strong too, the pages will not easily rip or fall apart. The character sheets, ship sheet, and rules cheat sheets are all made with the same quality as the rulebooks. We used these non-stop, and there hasn’t been any ripping or tearing. I am thoroughly impressed with the quality of the materials provided. As a side note, the box is gorgeous, and the box itself is surprisingly strong. I dropped my RuneQuest boxset on it by accident, and it held up nicely. 

Playing the Game 

Star Trek Adventures 2e is a d20-based rules system that employs a variety of rules for specific tasks that make playing this game feel different from other d20-based games. The rulebook is hefty for a starter set; it’s 48 pages, and I highly recommend that every player at least skim this book. Once you do that, be sure to keep the rules reference sheets on hand; this game does have a lot of rules, and while they’re not overly complex, it is easy to mix them up. 

I will not be going over all of the rules in this review, but there are quite a few that I want to mention, starting with personal Weapon Qualities. These rules generally are cause and effect for attacking or something similar. Once you get these rules down, you’ll notice that your game is speeding up significantly. We got a lot of use out of Hidden X, which allows you to use a minor action to conceal a weapon. Any search for the weapon requires an Insight or Reason + Security task with a Difficulty of X. The other rule we got a lot of use out of was AREA: When you succeed at an attack, additional targets in the same zone may be hit by spending 1 Momentum for each additional target (Repeatable). Though many of these rules are fun, my favorite is CUMBERSOME: You cannot attack with a cumbersome weapon unless you take the Prepare minor action on the same turn. This rule created a lot of fun moments, well, fun for me at least. Though the reactions from my players were pretty great, too. 

With all of that being said, in the back of the rules book, there is a chart of example difficulties that you’ll want to read. Numbered 0-5, this chart is an extremely good resource for both new and veteran GMs (Game Masters) alike. Difficulty is at the heart of this game and is set by the game master. To succeed at what you’re attempting to do, you must first select an attribute and department that best fit the desired action. Add them together to establish your target number, and after that roll the 2d20 or sometimes more. You want to score equal to or under the target number, and if you do that is how you succeed. I also like that the higher you roll, the greater the chance of putting your character in danger becomes. Games that add a consequence for degrees of failure are among some of my favorites. 

Attributes are up next. Your character has 6 Attributes rated from 7 to 12. Your Attributes go as follows: Control, Daring, Fitness, Insight, Presence, and Reason. Attributes are paired with Departments, and the Departments go as follows: Command, Conn, Engineering, Security, Medicine, and Science. Finally, you must choose a Focus, which is a specialized subject about which your character has more precise knowledge. For your greatest chance at success, I do not recommend too much double stacking, spread out your stats, and choose wisely. Though we did run a game with all medics, and that was pretty fun. Conn: Your character's ability to direct a crew or lead a team came in handy a lot, and my players loved using this department. From the Attribute side of things, Daring: A character's bravery and quick thinking, or acting without hesitation, was my players' favorite to use for exploration. 

I’ll shift gears here for a second to talk about another aspect of this game that I really enjoy: combat. The combat rules are straightforward, but there are a lot of them. There is a combat cheat sheet included in the box, but I’d make sure to read the rules in the rulebook as well. The major thing with combat is Momentum, and it is glorious. Momentum is generated during combat and allows you to perform a variety of different options. Some options are repeatable and others are not. There is a whole chart of Momentum spends to work with, but my favorite is Alter Train, which allows you to create, change, or remove a trait in the scene. This change must be related to the task completed. I like this because the players found really creative ways to change things as we progressed. Star Trek Adventures 2e has well-thought-out and creative combat rules that make you feel like you popped out of the TV show. 

There is also starship combat, and frankly, a lot of rules revolving around starships. The included starship sheet is a must-use to make playing on one feel as good as possible. I have played Traveller and Starfinder and adore both of the games. But Star Trek Adventures has my favorite feeling of starship combat because it is not bogged down with too many rules. I love crunchy systems, but it seems that many times, when a game has any kind of vehicle, the mechanics tend to get bloated. I am happy to report that this game does not suffer from the same kind of bloat that I am used to seeing; it doesn’t have bloat at all, really. The cheat sheet is all you need after you read the rules to make this portion of the game run smoothly. 

The Campaign 

I will not be spoiling the campaign in this review, but there are a few things that I’ll call out. This is a mini campaign called “Infinite Combinations,” and it is fantastic. It will guide you through essential game mechanics and does a really good job at teaching you how to play and be the game master. 

There are three different parts, and the game expects that you'll be selecting one of the pre-generated character sheets. However, I did let my players run through it with one that they made instead, and it worked just fine. The campaign is well laid out, and there really isn’t too much for the game master to fill in. I also appreciate how easy it is to follow the flow of the game and get the campaign back on track if there is any deviation. I am a fan of the series, so I could easily answer any questions my players have, but don’t worry, this won’t bog you down in the lore of things. 

Final Thoughts 

The Star Trek Adventures Second Edition Starter Set is the perfect introduction to Star Trek Adventures. The components are strong, and everything inside the box is well-made. The included campaign is very fun to play through and is well written, the layout is great, and you shouldn’t have any issues getting through the campaign. 

The rules didn’t leave us wanting more, but in a good way. The rulebook covered everything that we figured could be important. The rules have the same flow as the campaign, with the same excellent layout and design decisions. They also don’t suffer from bloat, with each rule feeling like there was a purpose behind the design or decision to include it.