What is it with Star Trek that makes you want to roleplay in it?

Star Trek is a bit of an odd duck in my RPG collection. I tend to roleplay to explore different mindsets, more exploratism than escapism, so I tend to prefer settings with a moral different from ours and not have characters matching our modern values (unless it is our world with a twist, like Buffy or Star Gate). I just don't want to feel that the game makers, or the people around the gaming table, share any of the values we might explore in the setting (which might be things like sexism, racism, homophobia). If I roleplay i Roman, I want to argue what is the right way to handle slaves; not playing someone opposing slavery.

Star Trek is a culture I would like to live in (well, I wouldn't mind having access to the technology as well :D ). The UFP has its flaws as people has flaws, but it is fairly free of the prejudice people still are suffering from in our own world. In Star Trek, I feel I can explore things from my own point of view. A conflict isn't won by a fight, but by understanding the opponents way of seeing things and find a solution. Sometime, force has to be part of the equation, but never the solution.

So... What is it about Trek that makes you want to roleplay in it? :)

Basically the same thing as you: the fact that the Trekverse is a place where I would actually like to live, hence the appeal of roleplaying there (even though it's been a decade since I have not roleplayed Trek :()

Another point of interest for me as a GM was the diversity of the universe: it is quite possible to have very different types of adventures, which make for varied campaigns. And it's not even very difficult to emulate plots from different sci-fi setting without needing a crossover, as Trek is that varied.

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Either you're pretending to be on a spaceship travelling to new and weird planets, or you get to imagine you're making an episode of Star Trek.

Because not every solution to a problem comes from the end of a Phaser or a Torpedo Tube

I like the idea of working together to solve a problem, helping those in need, and the idea of exploring the universe and learning new things.

I do like the concept of a hopeful future, and that we do get get past our problems to explore new worlds and let idealism and common sense work together

Investigation, exploration, growth (both racial and personal), the unknown, teamwork, bravery, determination.

All these themes (and more) are foremost in my mind when I write and run a ST RPG. My personal period is TOS, for which I find the FASA game an ideal system. I love the whole frontier/cowboy mentality -you are the only ship in reach, and too far away for an answer from higher authority in time, so you had better get on with it, make a decision, act on it, and hope it's a good one!!

1) Figure out how to tweak your scanner to map the contours of person's face entirely from passive sensors, and thus take a "picture" of the man behind the darkened faceplate of an EVA suit without violating suit integrity.

2) Use your natural charisma and diplomatic training to present a reasonable alternative solution to a problem, convince all opposing parties to get on board and work together to make it happen, and achieve the objective with an unexpected degree of success as a result.

3) Calculate oxygen reserves in a wounded, heavy-breathing teammate's environmental suit versus distance hiking, at double time, to reach an extraction point before you're late for your shuttle and fail the training exercise that suddenly turned into an alien invasion. Discover your teammate will suffocate before reaching the extraction point.

4) Successfully revive from CPR by teammates once aboard the shuttle. Get bonus experience for refusing to slow the team down and voluntarily suffocating to unconsciousness fifty meters from the shuttle while double-timing it.

5) Pickpocket another teammate's blood samples they took from that dead body a couple of hours ago. Because the blood sample might reveal there's a common ancestry between Vulcans and Romulans. Because the Enterprise era Starfleet doesn't know that. And, also, you're a Romulan agent posing as a Vulcan.

6) Get to space, take the bridge and blow the crap out of some stuff. With phasers and torpedoes.

*****

#1-5 all happened during the first gaming session of our Earth-Romulan War campaign this weekend. #6 is scheduled for our next session.