FASA Star Trek

[Snake_Plissken]

who used to play the FASA Star Trek RPG? What did you like about it- what did you dislike about it?

go!

[qerlin]

gads, it was a clunky system. character creation was the most fun about it. i still prefer coda

[StyroFoam Man]

This message has been removed on request by the
poster

[Sho-sa Kurita]

I always thought it was pretty cool. A service path system that didn't get you killed during generation like that other sci-fi game (*cough*Traveller*cough*). Percentiles are easy and I know other people don't like it, but I enjoyed the combat/movement system.

As far as the Tactical Combat Simulator, heck, I still play it. It only took a few patches to fill in some holes (like tractor beams), and off you go.

-- Daniel

[Sea Tyger]

Man, I loved FASA at the time. I grew up with that game, and played it for years and years. Of course, I went with the better systems as they came along (first Icon, now Coda...never liked SFB/PD), but I still have my books and pull them out from time-to-time.

[REG]

I like the character creation part, albeit geared toward making an officer of the Federation Starfleet, or Klingon Defense Force (in the Klingon supplements).

My dislike? The three phases per turn in the Combat Simulator.

[tmutant]

I liked the character creation and starship combat (detailed but faster and more 'cinematic' than Starfleet Battles.) With the rule supplements, you could make Klingons, Orions, Romulans, and Civilian trader/explorers. I wish Paramount had given it real support, especially when TNG came out. We could be playing FASATrek 3rd edition by now. Sigh. I always had alot of fun with that game.

[Ramage]

I prefered FASA to Icon -- then again, I always knew I was in the minority. I never really liked the "6 as Max" for stats level. Gradations and shadings all went away. The personal combat felt a bit odd at first, but I quickly grew to love it as it felt very much like TOS combat. I LOVED the space combat! The biggest problem I had with the game were the "uber-races" created in some of the later supplements.

FASA's Character Generation system had a lot of room for tweaking. Equally, despite the trend in rpgs, I like having some random elements in creation process. As I have seen far too often in this world, some people get the breaks, some don't.

I like the CODA system, no problem there, but there are a lot of changes I made for my (short-lived) game to fit the tastes of both myself and my players.

Actually I had someone ask me the other day if I would like to be in a game that actually used the FASA rules. I may take him up on it.

[Lord Kjeran]

Chello!

Loved it and grew up on it also. Only real problem was with the AP system for movement and actions in combat.

Still the only ST RPG to print a Klingon supplement (and it had 2 editions-both of which I have!).

Tony

[Don Mappin]

"Action Points..." *shudder*

Loved chargen, however. Lobbied to mimic it in Coda but got shot down.

[Sheliak Bob]

Actually, I found FASA to be the easiest of all the Trek games to run and ran multiple campaigns for years. System wise I think it's still my favorite.
My main complaint with FASA was with the creative people working on it. AFter a while the line slipped into a "Men's Adventure/Espionage novel" mode. All the stories were covert ops and counter-espionage blah blah blah. Creeping Crypto-Fascism was FASA's worst problem in general. (don't get me started).
Their philosophical excesses polluted the Trek line and functionally killed it. Pity.
I love the attitudes of the ICON Trek and had a great trust for the personalities behind it. They knew what "Trek" was supposed to be, demmit!
CODA? bleh.
CODA ain't done nothin' yet to win my heart.

FASA gave us our first Klingons games, Romulan characters, even a whole suppliment on Orions! (what nifty fun! Still prefer parts of that background to anything else done on the Orions. What little there's ever been since...) The later suppliments were vastly inferior to the earlier ones, but overall, it's probably the most complete and easiest to run Trek system ever published.

I shed a tear for it, I do.

[Ineti]

Never cared for it. My players and I rapidly created our own homebrew based off it, then never opened the books again. Once LUG and CODA replaced it, I sold all the FASA stuff off.

For some odd reason, I still have the TNG First season sourcebook. Need to do something with that.

[REG]

How much are you selling for the TNG First Season Sourcebook?

[Karg]

1st RPG i ever Gm'ed, Loved Character creation and Ship Combat (And Ship design system), Rules were ok, character advancement was awful, AP's sucked. Great backround material!

Loved some of the species they created and map of the Federation they created

[Dan Stack]

FASA-Trek is one of the games I suspect I got the most mileage out of in the 80's - we used to play that a lot. I was a huge fan of it. I keep thinking I should sell my old stuff but I can never bear parting with it...

Like others, I was very fond of character generation. I tended to ignore APs, though I admit I prefer them to the attack action, full-round actions, and 5-foot steps of D&D 3E.

My only beefs with the system were...
- During character generation, very hard to gain new skills outside your speciality - you tended to only improve
- No rules for unskilled or default use of skills


I also liked the FASA incarnation of Doctor Who - nice simple game, easy to play.