Favourite FASA module?

[Capt Daniel Hunter]

So just out of curiosity, what's everyone's favourite FASA module. You can pick anything; adventure, combat sim, sourcebook, or other.

I have to say, I'd be hard pressed to pick a single FASA product, since many of them really were excellent. Sure, FASA had their weak products, but most of them were wonderful ,and they brought out some of the best Trek adventures I've ever had the pleasure to play or run.

I especially loved A Doomnsday Like Any Other. I must have run that particular adventure at least half a dozen times, setting it in different eras, once even using a damaged Borg cube in place of the Doomsday Machine.

The Starship Combat Simulator was also one of my favourite games back in the day. We spent hours battling each other, designing our own ships, coming up with custom rules, and generally having fun.

These days, I don't get to game as much as I used to. On the rare occasions I do, I use CODA Trek, which is a fine system, and undoubtedly better than FASA (IMO of course). But none of the games I've run have ever been quite as much fun as those old FASA Trek campaigns. Of course that probably has nothing to do with the system, and everything to do with nostalgia, since FASA Trek was my very first RPG.

Happy memories.

[Publius]

Ah memories. I had the first edition of the Star Trek Game, when it came in a one book format and the delightfully cheesy cover. I loved the various ship construction manuals (I have the first and later editions). They really got me started in my love of ship design (okay, maybe after Traveller wet my whistle a bit first). The Combat Sim was very nice, got a lot of play out of that when I was a kid.

As far as FASA systems are concerned, I really liked the percentiles for skills. It seems like there are very few percentile systems created any more (i.e. new designs). I kinda miss them because the percentiles were always cool (first roll 0 and next is a.... 0!). CODA is all right, but there are some problem spots there. I do like most of it on the whole, but I think that the same could be said of the FASA system.

Heck, I even liked FASAs old Dr. Who and other percentile systems like Chaosium's Ringworld game, those were actually very cool as well and you could strip/adapt components from them to use in your Trek games (like the open strike rank system from Ringworld which can get nasty in longer combats).

Edit: oops, left out part of a sentence

[IceGiant]

I think The Vanished is a good module. And Pub you're right about the system in Ringworld. Ages ago a fellow board member(can't remember his name now ) started work on adapting ster trek to ring world. Didn't go very far but it had alot of easy potential.
I have 80% of the stuff FASA put out of various editions.

[Cpt. Lundgren]

My only contact with FASA was as a player, and we only completed char gen. But after 15 years do I still have my Science officer lying around somewhere. To bad we never got around to actually playing it. But the char gen, and the board game module where the different ship stations was divided among the players, gave me a lot of inspirations to later games.

[Capt Daniel Hunter]

Oh The Vanished is a great module. Denial of Destiny is another brilliant one. Most of the FASA adventures we pretty good, IMO.

[Publius]

One of the things I liked the most about the FASA game was not a supplement at all but something that was in the 2nd edition game. It was that story that they had tracking the Starfleet officer, what was his name? Sterling or something I think. Anyway, they were like the beginning of the chapter vignettes in some of the ICON stuff. I loved that, it may look a bit more cheesy now, but at the time made me really want to start writing my own Character stuff and thus fueled my long-term interest in writing fiction.

[RaconteurX]

John M. Ford's The Klingons was by and far my favorite FASA supplement. I still consider his novel, The Final Reflection, the finest Trek novel ever written (with Spock, Messiah a close second).

[Captain Blake]

Originally posted by Capt Daniel Hunter
These days, I don't get to game as much as I used to. On the rare occasions I do, I use CODA Trek, which is a fine system, and undoubtedly better than FASA (IMO of course). But none of the games I've run have ever been quite as much fun as those old FASA Trek campaigns. Of course that probably has nothing to do with the system, and everything to do with nostalgia, since FASA Trek was my very first RPG.

Happy memories.

Dunno if it's nostalgia, but I'm noticed the same thing.

I ran FASA back in the good ole late 80s, just as TNG started. Everyone just loved the idea of making up characters and playing in that "new era".

So, I got the FASA system, and the TNG Officers manual (with all it's made up information, but little actual system stuff) and kluged together a TNG variant of the system.

Played a couple of prefabs (Doomsday, and Where has all the Glory gone).

The players were enthusiastic, they were all pretty hardcore trek fans. We had tons of fun, until Graduation took the entire exectutive staff away.

Now, well, players aren't so enthusiastic, they aren't so hardcore. More jaded, perhaps, more disillusioned with life and/or Trek.

It's not quite as much fun to run, despite having much better systems to use.

Might be nostalgia, might be the same general malaise that seems to have affected trek in general.

Alex

[Owen E Oulton]

"John M. Ford's The Klingons was by and far my favorite FASA supplement. I still consider his novel, The Final Reflection, the finest Trek novel ever written (with Spock, Messiah a close second)."

Rumour control time: Ford was not the primary author of the Klingon supplement. He contributed "colour text" in the form of the quotes from An Informal Guide to the Klingon Empire by Dr. Emil Tagore, and is listed first because the names were in alphabetical order.

The game developers for FASA were a working group called Fantasimulations associates, consisting of Guy W. McLimore Jr., Greg K. Poehlein, and David F. Tepool. Ford had been McLimore's roommate and had introduced him to gaming in the first place. Since both were working independantly on Klingon projects, the naturally began to share research and background. Ford was brought in to contribute to the RPG book, and The Final Reflection used material developed for the game as background. Neither was developed from the other - they were developed together, much like the Arthur C. Clarke novel of 2001 and the Stanley Kubrick movie. The entire story is related in the introduction to the Klingon game book on pages 5-6.

[Capt Daniel Hunter]

The Final reflection is a wonderful novel, and a great guide to playing Klingons in the Original Series era, canon not withstanding.

[Karg]

A Doomsday like Any Other. Great module

[Don Mappin]

A Doomsday Like Any Other. Love that module. Used in twice in Icon. Lots of fun.

(Bonus, get to pull out my soundtack of that episode and play the Doomsday Machine music! W00t!)

- Don

[Capt Daniel Hunter]

All the cool kids like Doomsday.

[Owen E Oulton]

A Doomsday Like Any Other is pretty good, but I have a soft spot (some say between the ears) for The Vanished.

[RaconteurX]

Of the FASA adventures, I find Ghosts of Conscience still has the power to send shivers up people's spines. The morality of the situation hits most people fairly hard, even today. That's quality Trek...