By Jim Johnson, Project Manager
Art by Marc Bell
The new Star Trek™ Adventures second edition game supplement, the Exploration Guide, presents a robust system for gamemasters and players to generate their own space sectors, planetary systems, and planets. Let’s talk about these new options now!
In the Shackleton Expanse Campaign Guide, we provided a few pages of optional rules that enabled gamemasters and players to create original sectors, systems, and planets. We expanded on that system in the Captain’s Log Solo RPG by revising those tables and adding more random generators for cultures and their motives.
For the Exploration Guide, we took the sector, system, and planet generators and expanded upon them, adding more material on stellar phenomena and planetary classifications. These chapters and the advice and random tables they contain enable you to create entire solar sectors (Chapter 2), populate those sectors with planetary systems and spatial phenomena of all kinds (Chapter 3), and fill those systems with a variety of classes of worlds (Chapter 4). Collectively, Chapters 2, 3, and 4 enable you and your crew to create your own version of the Star Trek Galaxy to explore. There’s even a handy flowchart on page 25 to help guide you along the way.
We start at the sector level in Chapter 2. Following the guidance and random tables in the guide (and steps 1–5 on the flowchart), it’s possible to create an entirely original space sector with a variety of solar systems and stellar phenomena. Check out the following example.
For step one, I’ll roll a d20 for the number of notable systems located in our new sector. On a roll of 17, I find there are nine notable systems in this sector. This suggests that perhaps this sector of space is probably located toward the core of the Galaxy, as more densely populated sectors tend to be closer to the core. I also want to include a stellar phenomenon in this sector (step two), and roll a 15; there’s a radiation storm in the sector, and I randomly assign it the class value of III. Perhaps it’s something worth my crew exploring; or perhaps there’s some unknown species or artifact hidden within.
Step four is naming the sector, so I’ll use the handy name generator in Captain’s Log (page 315) and come up with Esteffi as a name for the sector. I’ll make one of the notable systems in the sector carry the same name. Finally, for step five, I roll 3d20 to fix the coordinates of the Esteffi system, and establish that within the 20x20x20 light-year square that is the Esteffi sector, the Esteffi system is located at x 5, y 12, z 9. If I wanted to plot that on a map or chart for my players, I could do that with paper or an online mapping tool.
In the matter of a few minutes using the Exploration Guide, some judicious d20 rolls, and my imagination, I’ve created a brand-new solar sector teeming with story potential. I can now continue on to Chapters 3 and 4 and steps six through fourteen of the flowchart to populate that sector with more notable systems, phenomena, and worlds.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this delve into Chapters 2, 3, and 4 of the new Exploration Guide. How are you planning to use the contents of the Exploration Guide to create new sectors, systems, and planets for your crew to explore? Head over to the official Modiphius Discord and share your ideas with your fellow fans!
Preorder the print edition of the Exploration Guide now and receive the final digital edition right away. Print copies are expected to ship in October 2025 worldwide.
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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