Star Trek LUG Conversion

By Atrusino, in Your Settings

I loved the Star Trek LUG from way back when! It was always quite complicated, though. That said, I picked up Genesys a couple weeks ago and wanted a project to get my started creating setting before i move in to create my own. I've chosen to do a conversion of LUG's Star Trek RPG including Steve Long's Spacedock for my local gamers.

I've been GMing in the FFG system for years now, but I'd like to get a couple of players who are more experienced with the system who can help me tweak things into place. For copyright reasons, this document will not be distributed outside of testing purposes.

I remember the LUG books from back in the day, though I had the Star Trek RPG from Decipher, which was also crunchy and complicated in that 3.X/Pathfinder sort-of-way. More recently, I preordered the Modiphius Star Trek Adventures RPG and noticed how similar it is to SWRPG/Genesys in apparent design and intent.

Turns out that Star Trek Adventures uses the 2d20 System designed by Jay Little, who also designed the Star Wars Roleplaying game upon which Genesys is based .

You can see the similarity between the two systems, particularly in the STA gear lists and species stats (screenshots below). In addition, STA has lists of Talents which could be near-directly ported into Genesys.

I don't mean to discourage converting from LUG or Decipher if you own the books already, but if I can help by churning out lists of gear/species/talents based on the Modiphius PDFs I own to combine with other stuff you work on from the LUG version, drop me a line here or on reddit (same username). I'd definitely be excited to collaborate and/or play test anything you come up with!

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Edited by sfRattan

I've been GMing in the FFG system for several years and have played a few times, too. I also have access to and a deep love of the LUG Star Trek RPG so I definitely would be interested in assisting, but I do not know if I qualify as sufficiently "more experienced." Still, I will offer whatever help I can.

There is only mild self-interest in this as I've also been kicking around a Star Trek hack for Genesys ever since I was part of the Modiphius Star Trek beta test. My more experienced players kept giving a response of "So in Edge..." and, in all honesty, I at least partially agreed with them in the great majority of cases. I'm still stealing the social conflict rules, though.

Hey, thanks guys! Forgive the delayed response. I never got a notification that there replies to the topic.

sfRattan, you can't discourage me lol. This is definitely a pet project. I've done some reading on STA, haven't really looked into it, though.

The driving force for this (a side from just wanting to play around in Genesys) was actually getting a comprehensive starship design system ported in. This is fully inspired by Steve Long's Spacedock.

Admittedly, I'm a bit stuck on talents. I have all 3 of the Star Wars core books as well as Genesys, but I have yet to decide if I want a straightforward career path or Career/Specialization like in the Star Wars games.

No problem--I'm just glad to hear anything on this. The desired focus on that sweet, sweet Spacedock definitely increases my interest, too.

I'd argue for the Genesys-style talent pyramid as it offers greater flexibility in mechanical reflection of narrative character development and diversification. With a Career/Specialization you technically can get to ideal talents quicker, but only so long as they fit within the Specialization's take on the concept. Changing or expanding focus by getting an additional Specialization has an effective surcharge to get access to the new talents and you possibly have to purchase an additional set of undesired lower-level talents to get to the ones you want. Having more freedom in talent selection makes it easier to represent having a dedicated side interest (e.g. Picard's deep interest in archaeology) or a change in focus either in the past (Sisko having started as an engineer and gone back to that in the wake of Jennifer's death or Garak going from Obsidian Order spy to skilled tailor and merchant exile) or during the course of the campaign(s) (Worf going from conn operator to security chief to the more command-focused strategic operations officer).

Also, on a practical level, I'd argue the less structured talent pyramid better reflects how the ICON System did point buy: you start with templates but can go wherever you want from there.

On a tangentially related sidenote, no matter which way you decide regarding Specialization trees there are talents from the three Star Wars core books not reprinted in Genesys that I think may be worth bringing over.

Craaaaaazy week at work lll.. do you use discord?

A little, although likely more soon as a friend of mine is about to start a campaign on there. Just have to re-enable some notifications.

i did a homebrew conversion into Genesys, based on LUG trek for characters, and I used Decipher Trek for starships.

I'm making a Star Trek game as well, and I have a skill that I thought everyone might find helpful.

Engineering (Int)

This works just like a technological version of Alchemy.

Your character should use this skill if...

  • your character wants to identify an unknown technology
  • your character wants to know the materials required for a certain technology
  • your character tries to prepare a certain piece of technology with "magical" effects.

Your character should NOT use this skill if...

  • your character tries to repair a piece of technology
  • your character is attempting to use a piece of technology

I think this works really well for the "feel" of Star Trek. This covers the ability to overload a Phaser to turn it into a Grenade, or have a Comm Badge create a personal Forcefield (See Fist Full of Data).

Let me know what you think.

Jareddw, thank you for the input. I've been working with Atrusino on the conversion (currently on hold due to real life) and in converting and revising the skills I used your suggestion as one of the potential conversions of the LUG engineering skills--actually my favorite.

There were multiple competing factors that made the engineering skills difficult. The number had to be reduced to better fit with Genesys' usage of broader skills and to avoid a skill tax on engineer characters. On the other hand to fit the setting there were many different actions and activities that fell under engineering as an general field so you had to avoid making Mechanics too powerful and/or broad in scope and since skill-based encounters were a greater focus the number of skills with their associated cost had to be balanced with that in mind. Lumped into this was a skill called System Operations, which covered using and manipulating various systems on a starship.

The solution I like most so far (although am not attached to) is to split engineering into two skills: Mechanics to cover repairs and smaller scale alterations (an EPS conduit, a sensor pallet, personal equipment) and Engineering to cover manipulating and creatively using whole systems and new designs (rerouting the EPS grid to distribute an overload, altering the sensors to detect a new phenomenon, designing a starship clasd upgrade).

Any and all feedback would be appreciated as this area is still under development and, honestly, Icm still unsure about this solution.