Captain's Log: Star Trek Adventures Solo RPG Review
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- Опубликовано: 8 сен 2024
- Reviewing Captain's Log, the new solo roleplaying game for Star Trek Adventures with streamlined rules for fast and easy gaming!
Don't have a gaming group? No problem! Already have a gaming group? There's something for you in here too!
This book is surprisingly packed full of information and surprises for playing Captain's Log either alone or with others!
Resources:
Modiphius US Shop
modiphius.us/p...
Modiphius UK Shop
www.modiphius....
Jim Johnson's Captain's Log Playlist
• Captain's Log Actual Play
Online Character Creator
sta.bcholmes.org/
Come join us in the conversation!
/ thefinalfm
/ thefinalfm
-- Credits --
Music: "Curiosity" by Alexander Nakarada
www.free-stock...
Opening Background Video from Mustafa Keskin on Pixabay
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HUD design provided free to use by www.deviantart...
![Star Trek Captain's Log: Example of Play [Part 1]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/qbi2NUNI--8/mqdefault.jpg)
Im excited for this, coming from a solo rpg player whose also really enjoyed all the new trek stuff recently, im thinking this would be an awesome book for me!
Definitely! Just having a portable version of STA that you can play at any time with zero prep and without a group is almost too good to be true. I think you'll love it, especially if you're already into solo roleplaying.
Thank you for this review. My copy arrives in just a few hours and I’m super excited. I love how they provide different covers so that I can get the correct, best series*.
*DS9 and I’ll fight anyone about it
Thanks for commenting! Have you started reading your copy yet? Just imagine all the adventures you’ll soon be having!
Fantastic in depth review, ive beem searching for something like this since it was announced. Modiphius should send you more books to review! I cant wait for just the PDF to go on sale because like you unfortunately the shipping to me from Modiphius tends to be more expensive than the physical book.
Thank you for the comment! I definitely know the pain of the post-pandemic international shipping rates. That's the reason why I couldn't just buy this particular book right away like I prefer to do and I'm so grateful that Modiphius stepped in to help me out with it for this review. I'll get my own copy eventually but I know I'm not going to be using Captain's Log for my STA games anytime in the near future. It's too expensive to buy a book that I know I'll barely need when I'm sure Modiphius will be releasing something that will be a lot more applicable to my game soon enough. Have to save my money for whatever that will be! (I'm hoping a Picard or SNW guide; I doubt we'll get a 32nd century book until after Discovery ends next year.)
Miniature Market and Game Nerdz has them for a great price, although only the former has it in stock.
Thank you for this very helpful video! I never played STA and am now thinking about buying Captains Log.
Thank you for the comment. I'm glad the video at least piqued your interest for the game.
I've never seen a bigger response online to any other STA product as I've been seeing all around the internet with Captain's Log. It's really bringing in a lot of new players to Star Trek. The overwhelming response has been extremely positive and a lot of people are chronicling their games on RUclips, Facebook, etc. So I think you'll find a large variety of examples of the game in action if you'd like more information about how it works mechanically.
Good review, thank you. I am not into STA, but I am a Trekkie, and have been since the 80s. I am not a TTRPG-player because of a lack of group where I live, but have been playing loads of CCRPGs, also since the 80s. This sounds like the *perfect* product for me to live my own Star Trek Adventures.
Yes it definitely sounds like it would be a good fit for you! You can live out all your Star Trek fantasies.
In addition, as someone who is also in an area where finding a group is nigh impossible, I suggest trying to get into an online group someday. Some do voice others do play by post but there are so many more options these days for roleplaying remotely than ever before. If you’d like to experience a group rpg session, I highly recommend seeking one of these groups.
I hope they are planning a couple of mini supplements regarding Klingon info, and at how to covert ships, if not a mini UP book.
I’d love a UP-style book for alien ships! UP is such a great reference for Starfleet so a companion book would be highly welcome and indispensable.
@@thefinalfrontiersmen I would just like to see conversion notes for the ships. You can port an exiting STA character over to Captain's Log directly, but not the ships.
Great review. I bought the solo based on your positive feedback.
Thank you for the kind words and for watching the video. I'm glad it was useful enough to help you make a decision.Please share the stories of your solo adventures with us!
Really appreciate this. I've been circling STA for a while but haven't dived in, mainly because I don't play these things - no group, unfortunately. But, I'm a podcaster, and starting a new one that centers on narrative-style games - mostly board games, but with the preponderance of solo RPGs out there, I figure these would be ripe sources of rich, detailed narratives that I could utilize for future 'seasons' of my podcast. I'd wanted to get the DS9 one, as that is easily my favorite ST series, but I like the look of the TOS one more, ha. Thanks again. Liked, and subrscribed.
Thank you so much for watching! STA itself is an amazing narrative game and really captures the feeling of a Star Trek series. Captain's Log takes that and streamlines it down to a solo experience. The covers are awesome, aren't they? I got the DS9/VOY cover in the PDF but I think they all look amazing. If I bought a physical copy it would be hard to decide which one to get.
And speaking of the PDF for Captain's Log, it has just been updated with the latest corrections and revisions that have been discussed on various forums since release. So no matter where you get your copy from, don't forget to download the PDF from Modiphius for the most up-to-date content.
@@thefinalfrontiersmen thank you, that wasn't even on my radar that a PDF would come with it. I'll look into it. I bought the TOS version of the book - TOS is great, but not my favorite, though the cover looks the best to me. I could be wrong, ha. I bought my physical copy at Miniature Market for $27.99; Amazon is about $10 more.
Centaur was a typo. Will be corrected in errata
Good to know! Thanks, Jim!
Thanks a lot for this. I was wondering if this product was worthwhile, and I sure sounds like it.
It definitely has a lot to offer for both solo play or group play, as well as still being useful for regular STA games. I can honestly see why the popularity of this book has simply exploded since release.
So helpful! I'm curious if it is compatible to use the stuff in the other STA-proper books in Captain's Log solo adventures? Any thoughts on that?
Thank you again for watching.
As for your question, the fact that standard Captain's Log, as written, really doesn't require any stats or mechanics that appear in any of the books means that you don't have to worry about compatibility. Everything in CL, for the most part, is resolved by your own character's 2d20 roll and the outcomes of the various random tables. There's no outright rolling for enemies, NPCs or other phenomena so none of those details from the other sourcebooks matter. But the sourcebooks still make a great resource for theme, ideas, lore and so on.
While compatibility might not be applicable in this situation, you could examine the stats of material you want from the STA books to inform *how* you present it in Captain's Log. For example, you could compare stats of starships to see which one would get an Advantage in combat against the other or use it to determine how likely it would be to succeed against it for any task.
I hope that helps give you some idea on how you can easily use the material from STA to help your CL stories.
@@thefinalfrontiersmen That's a great help, thank you. I'll keep this in mind going forward.
the character/starship options alone do make me consider it, the Rules Digest may be a good rulebook to learn the game but the character making sessions i had did disappoint some (and i'm not familiar enough with the system to feel comfortable making things up by myself)
The streamlined version used for Captain’s Log, as well as the flowcharts, really makes it a smooth process.
Without knowing exactly what gives you the most difficulty making a character in STA, I recommend using the online character creator rather than doing it yourself. I mentioned it during the review but talked about it in detail in the online resources video. I have the link for it in this video’s description. Check it out if you haven’t used it before. Makes character and starship creation so much easier.
Thank you for your answer! The video about online resources is my next watch that's certain, and that character builder sounds rather practical as well!
My gripes aren't with the execution of writing a character's stats and values and all on a sheet, but rather that some of my players (who are more knowledgeable about Star Trek than I) come up with character ideas using species I don't know and whose stats I do not have in the Rules Digest (and being a newcomer to the game, I don't see myself making up Talents and attribute increases to accomodate for that). You've named a few new ones in Captain's Log, but the images lead me to believe that a lot of others I don't know of are also present, which sounds very practical.
All in all, thanks for your continued advice and reviews through these videos!
@@percussiveseer415 Sounds like the online character creator will be a very good utility for you. It has all the species, talents, etc. built in so you don't have to go flipping through multiple books to find what your players want.
And if there are no official stats for the species your players want found in the creator, do a search on continuingmissionsta.com to see if there are any user created versions of those races.
i heard the first notes of the intro and went .. 'Livingstone!' :) #hailing_frequencies
I've never seen Livingston but I think it's safe to say they have excellent taste in free music. ;)
As usual, 👍🏽👍🏽💯
Thank you as always, my friend.
I created an entire bridge crew and roll randomly to see who the adventure is told through and who else accompanies them
That’s a clever idea! Then you can have a “Star of the week” for each episode. That could really flesh out the story of your ship. I hope you post your game sessions somewhere when you’re finished.
@@thefinalfrontiersmen I have been recording them. Going to post the full mission and the write ups will be on Continu Missions blog site.
@@werejustgaming Can't wait to read them!
I like this idea a lot!
Hi! I had a clarifying question: I'm really into Lower Decks the show (It's my first Star Trek show) and I'm into Solo RP games, if I get the Lower Decks supplement book, is it compatable with Captain's Log?
Hi! Yes, all of the STA books would be compatible with Captain's Log. Lower Decks would give you a lot of the lore, concepts and ideas for running a game set in the lower decks. But the actual stats for NPCs, Starships and so on really don't apply if you're running Captain's Log the way it's written. In case you haven't started your CL journey yet, you typically only have the stats for your own CL character and their Starship. You don't need stats for anything else, including enemies, in the streamlined 2d20 system featured in CL.
Because of this, there's nothing that would make anything truly incompatible for using in Captain's Log. For things like new Talents or abilities, there's advice in the CL book for how to utilize them as the mechanical elements wouldn't apply in most cases. Otherwise, there should be nothing holding you back from using the Lower Decks book as a resource for CL that's just as helpful as it is for STA.
May I ask what exactly you're hoping to get out of the Lower Decks book? Perhaps that will help me better visualize if there's any specific advice that applies to what you're attempting to do.
@@thefinalfrontiersmen Sure! So what peaked my interest for Captain's Log was obviously that I'm newly into Star Trek (I'm now watching Discovery, it's really good as well!) And the fact that I'm playing a game called Ironsworn: Starforged which also uses a narrative based combat system with very little crunch, so I thought it would be a good game to pick up.
For the Lower Decks book, I was hoping it would include details on the overall setting on Star Trek, as well as the Lower Decks specifically. I know the various shows cover a lot of time (like several centuries or something, right?) So I'd like to know what's unique about Lower Decks. Also, information about the different aliens and their biology/government. Like you said, the actual stats may not be as helpful except in a high level "What they're good at" kind of way, but I was hoping it would give me maybe some mechanics/etc. I kind of lied in that while this is my first foray into Star Trek, I have seen The Orville, which is essentially a comedic Star Trek parody, so I am aware that everyone has a role on the ship, and certain species of aliens have certain advantages/disadvantages when it comes to their role on the ship, and I'd like to know those (For example, in the Orville, there's a humanoid species called Xelayans that are super strong thanks to their planet's gravity being 100x Earth's, so they usually go into Military/Security. Humans are a jack of all trades, and there's a robotic people called Kaylons that are better suited as scientists/researchers given their high intelligence, but aren't good at diplomacy/first contact because they're very blunt and callus.)
I'm really fascinated with the world, and I've always wanted to jump in, but it's so big I never knew where to start. With the new shoes coming out, I'm finally able to have a good modern starting point so I can appreciate the older stuff as well (I did the same thing with Doctor Who, where I watched Matt Smith's Doctor, loved it, and now I really like watching the older Tom Baker Doctor as well.)
@@AbadonBIack The Lower Decks book really surprised me with a lot of the additional information that it included, especially discussing the "tropes" that make Star Trek feel the way it is. Something like that will probably help you get the tone right. The species added in the Lower Decks book are some of the most varied and unique species collected together for STA -- but they are far from the typical ones we're familiar with. So while you'll get a great variety, they're still not as developed as the core species from other series.
I would also recommend the Gamemaster's Guide and/or the Player's Guide as it is a very helpful crash course on the Star Trek universe. It's designed as a resource for everyone, especially new Trekkies, to get a solid understanding of all aspects of Star Trek without needing to watch over 700 hours of media content. It's one of the best sourcebooks I've ever found for any RPG and a lot of the advice goes far beyond STA.
Does this use the special D6 dice? Or just the d20s that you mentioned?
Only two d20s are needed for the entire game. No d6s in this version of STA. It’s really streamlined and designed to be able to be played on the go.
@@thefinalfrontiersmen That's awesome! Thanks!
They should’ve however, made a Klingon cover
Yeah that would have been cool. I suppose they had to tone it down somewhere or the whole thing would spiral wildly out of control.
@@thefinalfrontiersmen Absolutely. With 56 years, 11 series, 13 movies, and dozens of civilizations in the franchise, doing a unique cover for each would have been a hopeless task.