By Aaron M. Pollyea, STA Contributing Writer
Waste water recycling technicians, warp core ejection port cleaning crew, and the person having to spray disinfectant on all the shoes for the ships’ six-lane bowling alley. Who doesn’t want to work on detailing out the lower decks life? Of course I jumped at the chance to work on the Star Trek: Lower Decks Campaign Guide for Star Trek Adventures. It’s a show that makes me laugh and freeze-frame to nab screenshots more than any other show currently on the air. The attention to detail makes fertile ground to mine for ideas. Thankfully, some of the ideas I was able to sneak into the book (giant Spock bones style) were things I’d been toying with for a while.
The starships are something obvious to toss to my way, and I got to play with a lot of ideas. My inner fantasy roleplayer got to come out for the ‘goode shipe’ Monaveen, and I spent hours upon hours purposely mauling classical sonnet iambic pentameter to write a small piece of badly made Hysperian poetry. I also spent far too much time coming up with misplaced and inappropriate names for ships’ systems that could easily be found in a Monty Python movie. While all the starships I worked on for the book (California, Obena, Parliament and more!) have my passion in them, Monaveen made me giggle.
Rules for the Packled Clump ships, and how to make your own are also included in the book, so if you ever want to make your own Tholian-Federation-Holographic Snake God Frankenship with a Pakled twist, this is the book for you.
But starships aren’t the only thing I tend to work on for Star Trek Adventures – science and technology are things I have a hand in as well. If you want to know what the classic SPOCK Helmet really does, make sure to pick up this book! Describing that was easy compared to trying to justify Tendi’s medical shotgun, or determining what game benefits wearing Kahless’s Fornication Helmet may provide.
And the science! If you would like to know the dangers of entering a black hole’s accretion disc, read on, Macduff! Why grey goo is a problem even for the Borg, don’t ask Badgey, because here it is. I also worked on rules for players to create critters on all the strange new worlds that your characters may be forced to eat in a survival situation or fight against for the last hot banana split.
Even with all of this, I’m just touching the surface of the wild things I was able to slip in the book for all of you. To me, Star Trek works best when it’s a serious drama exploring what it means to be Human in a vast universe, but let’s be fair, the Human condition includes a lot of laughter. Star Trek: Lower Decks shows that we can have our characters laugh, be silly, and still be heroes. And with this book, Star Trek Adventures can have it too.
Now, who would like to join me for zero-g shuffleboard on the starboard nacelle at 0630?
Preorder the Lower Decks Campaign Guide, right now and receive the digital edition immediately! Purchase the Star Trek Adventures RPG core rulebook or the starter set and get started right away!
Star Trek: Lower Decks Campaign Guide:
Thanks for reading this article, and thank you for your interest and support of Star Trek Adventures! Keep frequencies open for news about the Lower Decks Campaign Guide and other Star Trek Adventures product releases. Live long and prosper!
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