CHARACTER CREATION CHALLENGE 2023: Star Trek Adventures (3 of 6)
THE GAME: Star Trek Adventures (2017)
Star Trek Adventures Core Rulebook
Our Star Trek series is taking shape. We know the year in 2360, and the Cardassian War is still dragging on after at least 13 years. As our series begins, the ship has been savaged by Cardassian vessels, resulting in massive casualties. The young Lieutenant (j.g.) Demetria Leucothea finds herself serving as Executive Officer due to the death of several more senior officers. The Chief Medical Officer, Doctor Talas, an Andorian, was decorated for bravery during the battle and its aftermath. So, who are the rest of our crew?
Character Creation Sequence
Step One: Choose Species
Step Two: Choose Environment
Step Three: Choose Upbringing
Step Four: Attend the Academy
Step Five: Career Thus Far
Step Six: Career Events
Step Seven: Finishing Touches
Step One: Choose Species
And we have another Human, I think starting with this character, we’ll figure out name from the beginning. Thanks to Fantasy Name Generator, we get Kang Yo-Han. Since we’re not sure where on the ship Kang will end up, we’ll boost Kang’s Attributes randomly. Presence, Fitness, and Daring. Random Talent comes up Collaboration: Engineering.
Step Two: Choose Environment
Kang Yo-Han comes from an Isolated Colony. He receives a +1 Insight, and picks up a point in Medicine. Growing up in an isolated group, and learning something in insight and medicine, we’ll go with “To care for others, you’ve got take care of yourself.”
Step Three: Choose Upbringing
Business or Trade. Very interesting. Especially in the TNG time period, as the show is so crazily contradictory about how the Federation’s economy works. Kang rebels against his family’s business focus, and gains +2 Insight and +1 Reason. We randomly select his Discipline, and get Engineering. Interesting, his randomly generated Talent is Cautious: Medicine, which generates an extra d20 when he uses Momentum to buy any other extra d20s. So, he seems to know something about Medicine and Engineering. A very unusual combination. He also gets a focus, so we’ll mix the two and choose “Life Support Technology.”
Step Four: Attend the Academy
Randomly, Kang gets assigned to the Science track at the Academy. The dice say he chooses Science as his Major, and at this point we step in and bump Engineering and Medicine, so that he’s a bit of a polymath with 3s in all of those Disciplines. He gets three focuses. We’ll choose one from each Discipline he’s studying. We take Structural Engineering, Sensor Operations, and Primitive Medicine. He gets the Talent Testing a Theory, which allows a free extra d20 on a Task if there had been a success with that field earlier in the adventure. This works for Science or Engineering. He gets a new Value. “Expertise is not limited by the color of one’s uniform.”
Step Five: Career Thus Far
Ah, Mister Yo-Han is also a Young Officer. Excellent. This continues the narrative of the ship being staffed by some younger people who have stepped up to fill vacancies caused by the war. Where in peacetime these youngsters would have years in junior positions to grow into senior staff jobs, they are now in a sink or swim situation. He takes the Value “You’ll never know unless you try.” and receives the Untapped Potential Talent.
Step Six: Career Events
As an Ensign, Kang Yo-Han was present for first contact with a new species. He gets a +1Presence, and learns a bit about Command. He picks up the Cultural Studies Focus.
His second event is Mentored, so a highly respected officer has taken him under their wing and given them some help. He gets +1 to Reason, +1 to Conn, and another Focus. We’ll say the mentor was the ship’s original Chief Science Officer, Commander Zensha Gahlan, a crusty Tellarite who had a reputation for being prickly and swift to scold the Ensigns for their many transgressions. For some reason, Commander Gahlan took a liking to Ensign Yo-Han, and saw to it he got plenty of time on the bridge rotating through the various watch stations. Commander Gahlan was killed in the recent action against the Cardassians, one of the many vacancies in the ship’s company the new crewmates must ascend. We’ll give Kang a Focus applicable to the helm, since Conn was what went up, we can assume he spent some time manning that station under the watchful eye of Commander Gahlan.
Step Seven: Finishing Touches
Mister Yo-Han has been shaped by his life experiences. He learned at a young age that the community must be able to support itself, and that each individual contributes to the survival of the whole. Commander Gahlan taught him to be well-rounded, knowing a little bit about everything and “Thinking outside his shirt color.” So, we bump Control and Reason to give each Attribute either a 9 or 10. We put one point into Security so it’s at 2, and then a point into Science to raise it to 4. Kang now has no Disciplines at 1. He takes the Value “What would Zensha Gahlan do?” reflecting his desire to make Commander Gahlan proud of him.
So, as our story begins, Kang Yo-Han has just been promoted to Lieutenant (j.g.) and moved from junior Science Officer to Operations Officer, and is finding himself in quite a bit of demand from the Science and Engineering departments as the crew struggles to get the ship ready to return to service.
