By Jim Johnson, Star Trek™ Adventures Project Manager
Art by Eren Arik
The prior two blog posts have discussed what’s in the new Technical Manual at a higher level and then a little more detail about what’s available. Now, let’s talk about how to make use of all this amazing content in conjunction with your first edition adventures campaigns and materials.
One of the common elements among all editions of Star Trek Adventures and Captain’s Log is that equipment is treated as traits. Because of this, you’ll discover there are no new mechanical statistics provided in the Technical Manual for most gear. The core rulebooks for your respective Star Trek Adventures games contain that mechanical information, so you’ll be able to seamlessly use the advice and lore in the Technical Manual with any of those products.
For example, in Chapter 7, you’ll find a wealth of information about melee and ranged weapons found throughout the franchise. Because the Star Trek franchise presents weapons as being essentially identical mechanically from era to era, there was no need to provide alternative stat blocks to any of the weapons. Phasers are phasers, for example, and don’t really change functionally from the 23rd to 32nd centuries.
For the purposes of the franchise, and specifically for the game, the differences are primarily cosmetic and in how the character might acquire the item. Gamemasters and players are, of course, free to make modifications as desired and adjust opportunity costs, escalation costs, and weapon qualities as needed for the purposes of their game.
Likewise, most types of starship technology are essentially the same from era to era, and, like we see in our own lives, technology and technological devices over time get more efficient and smaller, but still largely operate as intended. A flashlight is a flashlight, even if the bulbs have transitioned from incandescent to LED, and the battery pack format changed to become smaller and more efficient.
So, for any first edition game or campaign, you can use the contents of the Technical Manual largely as written to provide additional context, lore, and ideas for your games. The new career events can be ported over as is, as well as most of the talents, though a few will need to be tweaked to account for how Resistance and extended tasks operated in first edition. The service records and starship talents may need to be tweaked as well. Mines are already presented in first edition via the Utopia Planitia Starfleet Sourcebook, and the medical shotgun on page 73 is provided in the Lower Decks Campaign Guide.
All of the lore and complication tables can be used as needed, without any changes, in first edition. Any time you get hit with a complication while using a particular device or piece of technology, the associated complication table can help with generating interesting issues to add to your narrative.
With all this in mind, you should see that the Technical Manual integrates effectively with all of your first edition products and can be used to help load your engineer or scientist toolbox with more amazing tools to aid you in telling more evocative Star Trek-style stories around the game table with your friends.
Next week we’ll talk about how to use the contents of the Technical Manual with the Captain’s Log solo role-playing game.
Preorder the print edition of the Technical Manual now and receive the final digital edition right away.
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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