Modiphius’ Star Trek Adventures (STA) has to be one of those rare licensed TTRPG success stories; a whole raft of supplements for 1st edition, including sourcebooks for Quadrants, Divisions, and Discovery – and now a 2nd edition, which tidies up some of the rules (getting rid of the fiddly d6 variants) and gives, in my experience, a more streamlined gaming experience.

I’ve had a lot of fun with STA. I ran one of my longest-running TTRPG campaigns ever with 1st edition, and the rules held up well then. I’ve only scratched the surface with 2e (check out our one-shot on Unconventional GMs here) and I like what I see. 2nd edition loosens up the scope a little, rather than trying to fit campaigns into specific Trek eras, and brings a more mature, considered rules system. I don’t mind 2d20 for any game, but in Star Trek it shines – you’ll mostly have skills and extended tasks, with only the occasional ship or personal combat where you can bring out the crunch.

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And there’s a few 2nd edition supplements coming, now. How have Modiphius managed to still produce content, when all of their 1st edition supplements are backwards compatible? Well, read on. Full disclosure, I was sent these .pdfs by the publisher to carry out a review – but the views are, of course, my own. 

Exploration Guide

This is a 148-page book about exploration. It’s got a few character options focussed on this aspect of play, and guidance for sector and system generation – but the real meat of the book is the section on Planetary Biomes. Each biome has a raft of random tables for Terrain, Random Events, Organisms, and Stories/Missions. It’s clear that this has taken some inspiration from Captain’s Log, the solo Star Trek TTRPG that Modiphius also publishes – it’s a great set of inspiration tables for play. 

I threw some dice down to explore a desert planet and got this:

• Type: Coastal
• Terrain: Salt Flat (Traits: Blinding Sunlight, Dry, Exposed to the Elements)
• Random Event: Sulfur Spring
• Organism: Worm with Enhanced Tactile Sense
• Story: The water reclamation system in a desert city breaks down
• Advantage: Domesticated Animals
• Complication: Power Cells Drain

Putting that together, I’m sketching out a mission where they need to support a support colony on a desert planet – they encounter sabotage, and have to explore the sulfurous salt flats (aided by the colony’s domesticated riding worms) to identify the source of the sabotage – Romulans tempted by the rare minerals dormant in the sulfur salt.

There’s details for each random element, too – so you know that exposure to the sulfur spring is “Melee, Stun 6, Intense” when the PCs inevitably encounter it.

This is a cracking supplement if you like these sorts of random tables that you can loosely pull together. Nice touches – like relevant episodes of Star Trek series to watch for each biome – are here to aid inspiration, and while I can’t see myself bothering to generate an entire system or sector (I quite like my Trek maps to be loosely defined, where the Neutral Zone is always nearby and you can get across the galaxy in a blink of an eye depending on plot requirements), I will definitely get use out of the biomes.

Species Sourcebook

So from a book that’s mostly random tables, to one that’s almost entirely Species. There is guidance on creating new Star Trek species, but with the selection here you’ll get a lot out of the ones provided.

The species are drawn from a refreshingly eclectic range of trek series – some of which, I’ll be honest, I’ve never seen. Now I’m aware there’s a segment of the fandom that are rolling their eyes and tutting at the idea of a Jem’Hadar-Klingon hybrid in Starfleet Academy at the moment, but I’m sure we can agree that having them in a sourcebook means we can pick and choose what we want for our game.

So, alongside “classics” like the blue-skinned Bolians and Androids like Data, there’s the three-legged Edosians from the Animated Series, Kelpians from Discovery, and Lanthanites from Strange New Worlds and Starfleet Academy. Some … unusual … options are here too, like Holograms and Exocomps, and the silicon-based Horta from the Original Series (“I’m a doctor, Jim, not a bricklayer,” etc etc).

There’s also a straightforward and practical guide to creating new species which makes sense. It’s three pages of tight design advice, which might feel a bit light – but if you’re making your own species, this’ll give you enough. A selection of ready-made Species Abilities makes this really straightforward – I can’t see that you’ll be short of options with the ones in the book, but this will be really useful for GMs who want to introduce ongoing antagonists or frenemies into their game.

The Two Together

I think both of these books represent something really interesting for a licensed game. STA 1st edition sourcebooks tended to offer a selection of things from defined eras or regions of space (and they were excellent; the Beta Quadrant Sourcebook is a ‘classic’ sourcebook with loads of ideas for a Next Gen series). These feel a lot more open ended. By supporting a licensed TTRPG with a grab bag of species, biomes, and ideas, this really empowers GMs to create and live in their own stories, something that Star Trek is really well-suited for.

Will you like these two books? It depends on what you’re after. These aren’t canon supplements that will give you stats for Kirk or Picard or Lura Thok; they won’t give you adventures that let you step in the footsteps of your favourite era or Starfleet captain. Depending on what flavour of trek you like, there might well be Species in here that you don’t care for in your games – some of the Lower Decks and Prodigy species might be a step too far, and I’m sorry, Edosians are silly. 

But these have so much gamable content in – there’s bound to be loads you can use here, and they open up the extended Trek universe in a refreshingly “Trek” way. Why can’t your PC be the only Blue Orion in Starfleet? Who’s to say you won’t have a Cetacean as an Engineering Officer? And why give details for individual planets when you can offer a pile of tables to roll up tons of exciting planets and missions?

These represent something really exciting for a game licence; they open up the game universe, rather than closing them off. Highly recommended!