By Jim Johnson, Star Trek Adventures Project Manager
Art by Paolo Puggioni
The Star Trek™ universe is even more expansive now than it was in 2017 when first edition Star Trek Adventures was released. Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek: Lower Decks, Star Trek: Prodigy, and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds are all now part of the Star Trek canon; collectively they presented dozens of new character species, capabilities, and perspectives—Federation and non-Federation alike. With the franchise more diverse now than ever before, we felt it appropriate to add more diversity into the game. To that end, we implemented a number of changes and enhancements for characters, mostly centered around species options and talents.
Character Species Options
Over the seven years we developed first edition of Star Trek Adventures, we’ve added more than 60 playable character species to the game to supplement those offered in the first core rulebook. One of the key items on my developmental wishlist for second edition was to broaden the scope and diversity of the new core rulebook experience and offer players more character species options as well as a selection of non-Federation species.
The new core rulebook includes fourteen playable character species, among them most of the best-known species present in the franchise: Andorian, Aenar, Bajoran, Betazoid, Cardassian, Denobulan, Ferengi, Human, Klingon, Orion, Romulan, Tellarite, Trill, and Vulcan.
Character Talents
With the second edition system changes came a follow-on need to review and revise the long list of character talents available in the game. We took the opportunity to refine character talents, including:
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A more robust list of character talents, grouped by department and type for ease of reference. The second edition core rulebook boasts more than 130 talents characters can choose from beyond the slate of species talents available to them. This should help to further diversify characters, even those serving in the same department.
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Revised species abilities and talents to account for the changes in gameplay and to help balance them against each other. Many talent names from first edition have been retained in second edition, so if you’re porting a character over from first edition, it should be a simple matter to replace the talent text.
Other Character Bits
We’ve made a few other tweaks and changes related to characters, including:
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A significant expansion of the sample focus list (now grouped by department) and the addition of a robust sample values list based off requests for more examples to help spark player creativity and to help characters stand out.
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More lifepath options and character roles, particularly for civilians and for characters serving in an exploratory organization other than Starfleet. Future products will provide additional lifepath options, including more options for Career Paths and Career Events.
Pre-order your copy of the second edition Star Trek Adventures core rulebook now in standard format or one of three limited edition covers!
2nd Edition Core Rulebook (Command):
2nd Edition Core Rulebook (Sciences):
2nd Edition Core Rulebook (Operations):
Thanks for reading this article, and thank you for your interest and support of Star Trek Adventures! Keep frequencies open for news about other upcoming Star Trek Adventures product releases. Live long and prosper!
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