Star Trek Captain's Log Review

[@toddlyons]

Thanks for the honest review, John. This would have been a disappointment to me as a solo-play system, especially for the price in Canada. I haven't made it through all the old Fighting Fantasy series yet, and I think that's where I'll concentrate my time.

[@sharpmountaingames9303]

You'd be better off to play an old school system like Starships and Spacemen 2E solo. I've done that with multiple characters and minimal fuss. (I've run it online for a group as well). Really, almost any OSR or rules lite system is fine for solo, you don't need a dedicated "solo" system to play.

[@OneCatholicSpeaks]

While I think the bound book looks really classy, I purchased the PDF. I am happy that I did. I thought the organization while logical isn’t efficient for game play. So, I printed out the pages and put them in a more logical order. Doing this helped me understand it better.

[@sharpmountaingames9303]

Happy solo trekkin' in the final frontier! Thanks for watching and all the best.

[@DMTalesTTRPG]

It seems almost like they were trying to tweak Traveller’s concepts for Star Trek and..got a tad lost in the process.

[@philhatfield2282]

The problem is, this product was really designed to be for "Players of Star Trek Adventures who want to play the game on their own", but they failed to mention that as a requirement for picking this up. It is more of a "toolkit" to do solo play, and a "tweaking" of the normal rules of Star Trek Adventures. They mention within this book that you can play using more of the Star Trek Adventures rules if you want more crunchy mechanics. That way you can get all the special racial adjustments and extra things that make it feel more Star Trek. Their neglecting to inform people of the requirements to understand this book is going to lead a lot of people to dislike this product. Is it a great product? No, it is laid out very poorly. Does it have a robust solitaire game system? No, it offers a way to do what I call a "roll and write" roleplaying game. Roll the dice and do a lot of writing. I pick and choose aspects from Star Trek Adventures to use when I am playing Captain's Log, and I have written 40+ pages of Captain's Logs using this book. It helps fire the imagination, and gives a Star Trek Adventures feel without bogging down in mechanics. It streamlined the mechanics out of necessity to reduce the need for automating the GM. I had such an entertaining adventure the first time I played this that, when I told my buddy about it (who also loves Star Trek and had played Star Trek Adventures with me before) and he was so interested he wanted to play and purchased the book. We are currently doing a cooperative Captain's Log game, which the book "opened the door" to the concept, but failed to provide any insight in how to do it. So we are working our way through an episode cooperatively. In fact, we are meeting tonight to continue our game! It is certainly not for everyone, and not even for experienced roleplayers, but if you know and have played/ran Star Trek Adventures, and you always wanted to play more but couldn't, this product could be for you IF you don't mind playing a "roll and write" style game, as their is a LOT of writing in this game. But it is great at giving you ideas to run with.

[@sharpmountaingames9303]

Thanks for clarifying. I didn't realize the species rules were in the main rulebook. And there are some things to like about the book in terms of being an idea mill. Thanks for commenting.

[@philhatfield2282]

@@sharpmountaingames9303 Yeah, the basic Star Trek Adventures main book has much of the things that you were saying was missing from Captain's Log. And the system is actually really quite good, as I have run a number of games of it. I know they are doing the rules in a new version, which will be based more along the lines of the Dune RPG from Modiphius, with notes from the Captain's Log version included. I will be sticking with 1st edition, as I much prefer it compared to the Dune RPG. It's nearly as good as the original FASA version that I played back in the early 1980s.

[@DMTalesTTRPG]

It seems almost like they were trying to tweak Traveller’s concepts for Star Trek and..got a tad lost in the process.

[@sharpmountaingames9303]

The lifepath system probably mirrors Traveller a bit. The system was just TOO streamlined, and putting a ton of random tables in the back doesn't help you move through a solo adventure for Star Trek. Unfortunately this sours me on their whole Star Trek line

[@DMTalesTTRPG]

@@sharpmountaingames9303 bummer.