...that you never actually play? Whether it's a 'just collecting', 'haven't played in ages', 'can't find a group', whatever.

Me, it's Modiphius' Star Trek Adventures. After I posted the last thread about Trek games, I was able to get a good deal on most of the books; I think the only things I'm missing are the Player's/GM's Guides, the Klingon core book, and the Disco sourcebook; and I'm not too broken up about missing those. Even scored the tricorder collector's set!

Got to thinking about it because Modiphius announced STA 2E recently, supposedly back-compatible with all the 1E books, but they've already previewed a couple pretty significant mechanical changes and I'm wondering how the conversion is meant to work. Surely they'll get to that in later previews.

So many tabletop games. Such a big pile of unpainted shame.

Right now I'm working on some Warhammer 40K models. I've built a few crews for the Kill Team skirmish game over the years, and the new edition's drop with PDF rules and stat cards convinced me to take the plunge and actually turn a couple of them into full-game armies. Decided to do my Necrons in blue and gold, homaging the old WHFantasy Tomb Kings. Since, y'know, Necrons are just Tomb Kings In Space.

Going to take a break after the current squad of 40K dudes and shift gears to I'm not sure what. Maybe a lance out of the...uh...two companies of Battletech mechs I have still in the boxes.

Fair points all, TCatt. And I've read a lot of the Trek games here over the years.

Another thing I think is interesting, since you mentioned it in your third paragraph; I was reading a discussion on...I want to say the ST:Adventures Reddit, on the pros and cons of NPC versus PC captain. My original kneejerk reaction was NPC captain all the way, but I've been ruminating on it - the thought of course being so that one player doesn't hare off and start expecting everyone else to follow orders. I realized that's an awfully quick assumption that someone's going to go off the rails, and really, if an NPC is the captain the players might also start expecting to be railroaded and/or being hand-held through the GM's special-snowflake story.

It's a weird balance that I'm having to think a surprising amount about. There's another game, the Sunless Skies tie-in, that explicitly sets up that the ship's captain is - R.A.W. - both not one of the PCs and actually out of commission in the narrative to avoid both 'player power trip' and 'relying on GM handholding', and the more I think about about it the weirder that particular solution is. Not necessarily wrong, just weird.

That ramble aside, guess I just have to knock their 'winning' mindset down a peg, I suppose; that's pretty much all going to be off-table discussion. Frankly I was a little surprised that there was as much interest in this from a relatively munchkin-y group, haha. And heck, if there's any life left in this place might try some episodes for playtest.

Hi folks, long time no post. I guess this counts as a survey!

I've been off and on noodling about with the idea of a Star Trek game with some friends offline, and I'm trying to figure out how to handle a few things before polling the group and even picking things like system and era. By its nature, a Trek game will be way more narratively-driven, whether I use a rules-lite system like Far Trek or take the dive into the Modiphius 2d20 Trek.

I've played in a couple narrative-style games, but I've never GM'ed one. The friends I'm looking at playing with are 100% used to D&D style loot- and reward-based systems, with a distinct tendancy to turn into min-maxing murderhoboes with a taste for Shenanigans. At the same time, the interest is there, I'm just not sure how long a game will hold together with the group.

That said, any general advice for running narrative-type games, broadly speaking? For Trek games in general? Anything specific to online versus face-to-face play? Obviously there will be OOC discussion and setting of expectations, but I guess I'm also looking for ways to nudge them in-game. Conditioning them away from the loot-goblin mindset, if you will.

I have a couple general episode concepts in mind already, even though I'm not even in the chicken-scratch stage, and I know I want to limit the scope of things for a while. Small ship, mid-tier crew so players are neither top of the heap nor face in the crowd, and I could lean on narrative control without being too railroady.

Thoughts?

Did go see it, it was...not awful. A perfectly mediocre fantasy adventure flick with just enough veneer on it to make it sit under the D&D banner. At least they actually put it in one of the published settings this time, yet also avoided doing a massive LOTR-style lore dump at the start of it; the veneer was thin enough that the name drops and monster appearances were sufficient. The characters and plot were nothing special and the pacing was all over the place, but at least it kept moving. Rating...I have come out of longer movies far less entertained, so it's acceptably average as is.

I did catch the easter egg with the kids from the 80s cartoon in the arena cell, that was a snort.

Will say I read something after the fact that makes it a lot funnier though. The plot is paper-thin, the characters are cardboard cutouts, the dialogue is witty quip after witty quip, there wasn't a plot twist I couldn't call, and a lot of the humor was very sort of meta. So...is this movie what's going on in the imaginations of whoever is at their game table? 'cause that explains a lot.

Watch this one with die rolls in mind, it gets way more amusing.

...I didn't even realize today was Free RPG Day, I just stopped in my FLGS to pick up an order!

It's actually been years since I sat down at an actual tabletop game, between store closings and pandemic stuff, but I will always take reading material. It was pretty late when I stopped by my local, so the table was pretty thin, but I still snagged a decent handful: 5E Three-Wizard Conundrum and DCC Danger In The Air modules, always good to pick apart; the one-page A Familiar Problem 'cause it's one page and looked cute; and speaking of animals, Root is one of my favourite board games and I didn't even know they had an RPG - looks similar mechanically to a couple other rules-lite things I have files for.

Anyone else grab anything good?

Been watching a few different playthroughs of a game called "Wildermyth" on the ol' youtubes - although the mechanics are obviously different, it gives me a very vintage D&D vibe. Stumpt's playthrough is one of the playthroughs with a little more of a lighthearted vibe in the multiplayer, which was what really kicked me in the 'old D&D' feels. Definitely a game I'm keeping an eye on for eventual purchase.

Ed. finally got the link working

Okay, so this is an every-other-year thing, apparently. Still not dead. Still remember my password.