I have wanted to run a Star Trek campaign for a while, love to homebrew content for my games, and have grown to be quite fond of the Genesys system. So when you put that all together, the answer was obvious... homebrew Star Trek into Genesys!

I've come with a sort of first draft of what the skills would be, and how they'd be organized. I would be interested if anyone has any thoughts, either as Star Trek fans or just as people with some experience in Genesys.

General Skills: Athletics, Computers, Cool, Coordination, Discipline, Perception, Resilience, Skulduggery, Stealth, Streetwise, Survival, Vigilance

Combat Skills: Melee, Ranged (Light), Ranged (Heavy)

Social Skills: Charm, Coercion, Deception, Leadership, Negotiation

Starship Skills: Conn, Engineering, Medical, Science, Tactical

First I should explain the thinking behind the Starship Skills. This started out as being for "fluff" reasons, as Starfleet is organized into these departments. There is, in the lore, also the "Command" department but I feel that is less of a skill than a position, and most of what it would entail as a skill is covered already by the Leadership Social Skill. Captains would also have come up through the ranks developing their skills in one of the other departments. These Starship Skills take in several other ordinary skills:

• Conn takes in Piloting, Driving, as well as Operating and Astrocartography in certain contexts
• Engineering takes in Mechanics, as well as Operating and Computers in certain contexts
• Medical takes in Medicine
• Science takes in a broad set of Knowledge, as well as Computers and Astrocartography in certain contexts
• Tactical takes in Gunnery in the context of vehicle and starship combat

These have raised for me a question mark over how to handle Knowledge Skills. Most scientific knowledge would be covered by the Science and Medical skills. Most technical knowledge would be covered between all the five skills. This leaves the question of whether any Knowledge Skill is necessary at all?

Anyway, I'd love to hear peoples' thoughts.

from the 2d20 Star Trek Adventures:

Tactical/Command
Conn
Security
Engineering
Science
Medical

If you figure it out, let me know:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ucppheq5nkjk9jo/StarTrekGenesysCharacterSheet.pdf?dl=0

I really like this list of skills and how you've broken them out. Well done! Security is one area you might be missing ... isn't that where all the "red shirts" came from? 😃 You could roll Skulduggery and Streetwise into Security, maybe.

So ... Knowledge. Tough call. Toss it out completely! Bare with me and consider this list ... https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Academic_disciplines ... Science could be a General Knowledge check and maybe allow the player to pick a number of Science (<academic discipline>) skills equal to their ranks in Intelligence to get a free rank in. These checks can only be made with at least 1 rank and should be on stuff very obscure that a layman couldn't search for ... you have to have studied it or something. Say you want to recall or search for an ancient Klingon myth, you'll need a rank in Science (Xenomythology). It could promote a coordination / cooperation within the party at character creation to cover many science disciplines. Just a thought!

1 minute ago, Zszree said:

I really like this list of skills and how you've broken them out. Well done! Security is one area you might be missing ... isn't that where all the "red shirts" came from? 😃 You could roll Skulduggery and Streetwise into Security, maybe.

Thank you.

I went back and forward a bit on Security because I wasn't certain what skills areas it would encompass. Although I suppose it would reasonably take in things like squad tactics, technical knowledge of personal weapons and equipment, and mechanics/computers in the specific context of security systems. I hadn't considered its applicability for streetwise, but I suppose that would allow it to take in a kind of "military police" vibe in terms of their expertise in personal safety.

5 minutes ago, Zszree said:

So ... Knowledge. Tough call. Toss it out completely! Bare with me and consider this list ... https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Academic_disciplines ... Science could be a General Knowledge check and maybe allow the player to pick a number of Science (<academic discipline>) skills equal to their ranks in Intelligence to get a free rank in. These checks can only be made with at least 1 rank and should be on stuff very obscure that a layman couldn't search for ... you have to have studied it or something. Say you want to recall or search for an ancient Klingon myth, you'll need a rank in Science (Xenomythology). It could promote a coordination / cooperation within the party at character creation to cover many science disciplines. Just a thought!

I like where this idea is going, actually. The option of having essentially a player-made skill to flesh out their character and personality could give exactly the kind of breadth that one wants in a set of Knowledge Skills, without having to come up with a limited range of them.

I could see this having value even for a character that isn't normally knowledge based. A security officer with a special knowledge of explosives and demolitions could use this to represent that specialization. Or a medical officer with a specific specialization. Even if it weren't attached to the character's normal "career" it would make an interesting way to put a personal twist on the character.

15 hours ago, Terefang said:

from the 2d20 Star Trek Adventures:

Tactical/Command
Conn
Security
Engineering
Science
Medical

Yes I have looked at Star Trek: Adventures, which is why I settled on trying to achieve this in Genesys.

I found the STA books painful to use. I don't wish to insult anyone, but they aren't the best-designed the document and I wasn't too wild about the system either, compared to Genesys' flexibility.

There's not much reason for splitting Ranged into Heavy and Light. I'd just use Close Combat (combining Brawl and Melee) and Ranged Combat are enough.

I would use a set of Systems Operation skills, such as Systems Operation (Flight Control) and Systems Operations (Tactical) plus about 3-4 more.

On 1/17/2020 at 1:47 PM, drainsmith said:

If you figure it out, let me know:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ucppheq5nkjk9jo/StarTrekGenesysCharacterSheet.pdf?dl=0

I think this is pretty solid. Make Conn, Engineering, Medical, Science, and Tactical careers instead of skills and you're set.

For Knowledge skills I'd probably go fairly general-purpose with Knowledge (Science) and Knowledge (Starfleet), but I do like Zszree's specialist Knowledge idea as well. I'd probably let each player have a unique Knowledge specialisation of their choosing

I just went through the same process and landed in a very similar place, with almost the same list. (And for the same reason -- deeply unimpressed with 2d20 and Star Trek Adventures.)

I based my changes on what we see the characters do in the show. Thus I deleted Computers, on the grounds that the usage and operations side of this skill seem irrelevant in the show -- everyone can use and program them with ease -- and the construction and repair side is covered by Engineering [INT], which replaces Mechanics. Engineering is everything we see Scotty, LaForge, Torres and O'Brien do.

I dropped Driving and Astrocartography (which becomes part of Helm/Conn [INT]), and I merged the two Ranged skills, but kept Piloting [AG] for small craft.

I kept Operating but called it Starship Operations [INT] (i.e. Ops), which is essentially operating sensors, transporters, holodeck programming, tractor beams, remodulating shield frequencies etc. Basically everything you see Harry Kim do. Engineering is distinct from this in that it involves fixing and modifying said systems.

I added Science as a knowledge skill (Spock, Data), as well as History/Archaeology and Law (both for Picard ), all [INT].

I added Animal handling [PR] and Investigation [CUN] (for Tuvok), EVA/Environment suit [AG] . Instead of Gunnery I have Starship Tactical [INT].

I thought about but rejected a Gambling or Gaming skill -- you could just use Deception .

All other skills I kept.

Now I'm working on species archetypes, careers, equipment and ships.

@blasterbabbett I like you. Let me do the graphics for whatever you end up writing.

One thing I stole borrowed from the current ST:RPG, is incorporating the stats from the ship. Each ship has 6 System Stats (Communications, Computers, Engines, Sensors, Structure, and Weapons). These are used as the "characteristic" and the player's skill comes into play. For example, you had a Galaxy class with weapons 4, and your character has Gunnery 2, and you wanted to fire at that pesky Romulan Warbird, you'd roll 2 Yellow, 2 Green. Spock has a high science score of 5, but the old Enterprise has poor sensors of 1. This means you'd roll 1 Yellow, 4 Green.

I think this makes the ship itself more... integral to the rolls.

I use it in my games, and it works out very well.