As a lifelong Trekkie AND a big fan of TTRPGs, I was honored to get to chat with Jim Johnson, project manager for the Star Trek Adventures TTRPG and get to nerd out a bit about both the game and Star Trek itself.  Jim shares his experiences in getting onto the project, what it’s been like working on an IP he loves, and how Star Trek Adventures holds true to the core of what Trek is.  

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What is your back story? What cool stuff do you do and what have you worked on? 

I’m Jim Johnson, and I’m the Star Trek Adventures project manager and line editor.  I started off way back in the day when I was a newbie writer, and I got into the Star Trek Strange New Worlds fiction contest, which Simon and Schuster ran for 10 years with Pocket Books.  

They were soliciting short stories from the fandom, basically from anyone who thought they could write a professional grade short story, up to 7500 words.  Their panel of editors would review them, and pick around 20 stories to publish in an anthology.  I got three stories in three anthologies, and then that was the limit. 

That was really exciting because, as a lifelong Star Trek fan, it was an opportunity to add to Star Trek, but also, because they were professional writing credits, I was able to use that to get membership into the Science Fiction Writers of America for a while and continue to build my writing career from there. 

At the same time, I am big into roleplaying games and have been playing games for as long as I can remember, and a lot of them have been Star Trek RPGs, whether they were FASA, Last Unicorn, Decipher, or homebrew.  My group and I tended to do a lot of our own homebrew games because the official ones were not quite what we wanted, and the licensed RPGs couldn’t keep up with the series that were on TV.  We would watch Enterprise, but none of them covered Enterprise because they didn’t have the license yet. 

In the early 2000’s, I got into Decipher, and Decipher Inc had the license for the Lord of the Rings RPG and the Star Trek RPG.  I was a playtest coordinator and freelance writer on the LotR RPG, and I was just about to start transitioning into their Star Trek RPG when the company folded… and the opportunity went away. 

I went on to do other professional writing and self publishing, but kept my foot in the door of the RPG world doing some small freelance stuff for other RPG companies.  

In 2016, I had gotten word that Modiphius had received the license to do Star Trek Adventures, and I was super excited because I wanted to get involved.  I started working there as a freelance writer, and because they were a lean organization at the time, as a freelancer, I made myself invaluable in different roles. 

In 2019, Sam Webb, who was the project manager for Star Trek originally, moved on to other roles in the company, so I accepted the project manager position of the Star Trek line, and I’ve been doing that ever since!  It’s been 9 solid years working on this game, and we just released the 2nd Edition. 

That’s the big stuff I’ve been working on, at least in the TTRPG space. 

I just recently took on the project manager role for the Fallout RPG line as well, and I’m kind of wrapping my head around that. 

Can you tell us a bit about the Star Trek Adventure TTRPG?   This can be what it is, what it was like working on it, wherever you want to go. 

Star Trek Adventures, the official TTRPG

Star Trek Adventures is the current officially licensed Star Trek RPG.  While there are a lot of other licensed Star Trek games out there (board games, card games, video games, etc), there is only one RPG right now.  

We’ve been doing this for 9+ years, and we’re still going strong with that 2nd Edition release. 

Focus on story structuring

Star Trek Adventures is really focused on bringing a Star Trek episode to the table.  If you’re familiar with Star Trek, the episodes have a 5 act structure, there’s a teaser or cold open, a progression through different story beats, subplots, and so on.  You’re going scene to scene investigating the story and then come to a natural end point.  

We tried to structure the game mechanics to facilitate that so the scene economy would be really important.  

It’s more focused on storytelling, problem-solving, interpersonal relationships, and teamwork.  There’s a teamwork mechanic that I really love; you can assist other characters, and your starship or computer or spaceship can assist as well. 

Mechanics specific to Star Trek

It’s a 2d20 based game.  Unlike D&D and other games out there that use 1d20, Star Trek Adventures uses 2d20.  The 2d20 system is Modiphius’s in-house system that we’ve used for Dune, John Carter of Mars, Fallout, Star Trek, and a couple others.  

We use that 2d20 base and can adapt it to other IPs so it doesn’t feel too much like a boilerplate.  We really customize the guts of it to really fit the game.  It’s 2d20 at the core, but there’s enough nuance and difference to make it feel like Star Trek or Dune, and they feel different from each other.  

There’s also a great troupe-style mechanic where you can play a supporting character.  If your main character isn’t in the scene, like the away team goes off to do something, it’s OK to split the party here.  It’s almost expected or a trope.  You’ll have some people on the ship or the space station or planet or alternate universe… some people trying to get them out of the alternate universe.  

Splitting the party is VERY common, so, to facilitate that, instead of having players be like, “Well… my character’s not in the scene, so I’m just going to sit here and watch…”, you can actually pick up a supporting character, like a security or medical officer who goes with the away team.  You can play your main character in part of the game and a supporting character in other parts; you can always be engaged, if you want to be.  

I’ve found that a lot of players, if they’re invested and it’s a good group, they may just want to sit back and watch!  They’re invested in the other player characters, so they don’t have to  be playing in every scene… but Star Trek Adventures does provide that flexibility.  

Star Trek Adventures 2nd Edition

1st edition was out for about 7 years, and 2nd Edition just came out, and we were very intentional to make 2nd Edition an iteration of 1st Edition, so it’s not a completely new game. 

Everything from 1st Edition is completely compatible with 2nd Edition with the exception of a few tweaks.  You need to adjust a little in the stat blocks, you don’t need the challenge dice anymore, we made some refinements under the hood as we’ve done through the life of the game and in the company.  Nine years ago, we didn’t know as much about game design as we do now, so we’ve been able to iterate on Star Trek Adventures over the years.  

We did that when we released the Klingon Core Rulebook and the Tricorder Edition, we were constantly tinkering with it as we went, and 2nd Edition is now a more full representation of what we started 9 years ago.  We’re really glad to have the opportunity to continue to refine it.  We always have ideas percolating.  

Game designer brain naturally does that!

And the great thing is that we’ve had a very engaged fan base from the beginning, so all of their feedback has helped influence what we’re doing with the game.  2nd Edition is really as much a fan game as anything else. 

Working on Star Trek Adventures

Being a lifelong Star Trek fan, I remember in ‘94, I was doing a homebrew Star Trek RPG, and my group had a tradition where after every season of 15 episodes, we would have a cast party. We had a conversation about where we see ourselves going, because we were all graduating college and preparing to go into the workforce… I said that I’d like to be writing Star Trek novels!  Who knew!

Looking back on that, I managed to get several short stories published, not quite novels, but they’re short stories, and I stumbled into RPGs!  I never would have imagined being in the position where I am now, being responsible for continuing the Star Trek Adventures line and setting up what might happen with this in the future.  

Star Trek Adventures is the first RPG to actually embrace the totality of the Star Trek canon, because we have access to all the series and all the movies, which other RPGs didn’t have before!  We can play with it and add stuff for EVERYTHING.  It’s a complete Star Trek RPG versus being the Next Gen RPG or the DS9 RPG.  

Being in this position is a dream really.  Every day I work on it, I can’t turn it off.  I’m constantly thinking about it and what else we can do to improve the game, what can I make for the fans… it’s a constant churn of thought and work.  

Star Trek as light in the darkness

Looking at the social challenges we’re facing now, since 2016 when Trump went into office, things have been pretty bleak in the world, and to have Star Trek and Star Trek Adventures to lean on, not just as a support but just to have something fun to work on, it was a light opposing the darkness. 

I know a lot of fans have appreciated having Star Trek to have something positive to focus on versus always the news.  Being part of that experience has been hugely rewarding in ways that I never would have imagined. 

Star Trek just generally has that utopian, hopeful vibe.  It can get dark sometimes, but it’s generally uplifting and something to take solace in. 

How do you see games like Star Trek Adventures helping people connect? 

Representation in the material

I think that it’s that optimistic throughline that Star Trek has always had, even from the 60s.  We’re looking at 60 years of Star Trek now!

In 60 years, in that total body of work, there’s a consistent throughline of optimism.  Certainly, the Dominion War got dark, Section 31 was pretty dark, there’s the Borg.  There’s pockets of darkness and challenges, but there’s always also bright colors, optimism, teamwork, and DEI.  I think that consistency is what really makes Star Trek powerful.  

We try to bake as much of that as possible into the game.  This IS Star Trek.  It’s not a stock science fiction game with Star Trek bolted onto it. 

I think it really helps the older fanbase to see their Star Trek reflected most of the time in this.  Some of the things about the 60s that were unfortunate artifacts of the time were not focused in Star Trek Adventures, but a majority of Star Trek is there. 

I try really hard to connect with fans on social media, so I’m on social media monitoring what people are saying about the game and what questions they have.  It was eye-opening to see the different fanbases within the fanbase.  I don’t think Star Trek is quite as fractured as like… The Star Wars fanbase… but even then, there are some old-school Star Trek fans that are very 60’s mindset, and we’re not really catering to those with STA.  Some of those elements are a bit dated, and we’re kind of moving on now.  

For instance, sorry you don’t feel there’s enough white-male representation in Star Trek, but we’ve had our time, and it’s time to move on.  Some fans are more resistant to that than others.

I mean, Star Trek is, and I say this in a good way, kind of woke, even looking at TOS.  They had a very diverse cast, and they didn’t shy away from talking about topics that were relevant to the time. 

Absolutely, and I’ve embraced that fully.  Once I got to be project manager, I really made an effort to highlight that in our artwork and in the team working on the project. I don’t know how to say this without sounding like virtue signaling, but we’re hiring people because they’re great people and write great Star Trek.

I don’t think you’re virtue signaling, and from my perspective as a neurodivergent queer person, I can say that, for me, it really helps to see representation both in the work AND on the team.  You’re also going to get a whole bunch of different perspectives, and that’s going to give you a much better game by having that diverse group of people.  It makes sense for both the community and the quality of your product

Yeah, sometimes I’ll look at a panel and it’s all white guys talking about Wonder Woman or Ben Sisko, and it doesn’t make any sense.  I co-host a podcast that talks about Star Trek Adventures, and we try to make sure, for that reason, that our panels aren’t just all old white guys.  Myself and others have agreed that for conventions, we’re just not going to do panels if they’re not representing the community well.

The newer generations that grew up on Discovery, they’re seeing the more modern-day progressive approach, where I’m trying really hard with my art director to focus on not just making the words inclusive, but making the artwork inclusive as well.  We’re making sure we’re representing different body shapes, body colors, body types, species, genders, ethnicities, sexual preferences, sexual orientations.  There’s such a huge number of spectrums that we’re trying to cover, not to check boxes, but to make sure that anyone can come to this game and feel represented and not excluded.  

I think that helps people connect.  When they look at the game and see themselves in it, that helps make a connection!  

The game, because it is really flexible, open-ended, and inclusive, in gaming convention scenarios where you don’t know who will be at the table, you at least know it’s Star Trek, so there’s going to be a base connection with the other people.  Just saying it’s Star Trek, it’s almost a genre itself at this point, and for the most part, it will be PG or PG-13, and there’s certain consistent things about Star Trek that people will come together on. 

Telling stories beyond the game

We also did a solo version of the game two years ago called Captain’s Log, which you can play on your own or as a group, and you use the procedural tables in the book to help tell your story.  

We had no idea how that would land, because there weren’t that many licensed solo RPGs out there.  Most are indie.  The One Ring RPG had a solo component that you could add to the game, but it wasn’t a dedicated solo revised rules system. 

What we saw with Captain’s Log was that even though people were playing by themselves, they were with other people online to share and read each other’s stories.  It was creating other connections in ways that I could not have imagined. 

Star Trek, by its nature, is a very connective franchise where people know a common language for a conversation that’s already built in. 

Working to connect with younger audiences

For young kids, pre-teens, they have a little bit of a challenge right now because there’s not a lot of Star Trek that’s oriented at them.  Prodigy was a great series that I wish had gotten renewed and had been better marketed by Paramount because it was so great, but it hasn’t been their target demographic.  With the recent announcement of that new series of animated shorts (Star Trek: Scouts), I think they realize there might be a fanbase there.  The current fanbase is aging out, and we want to share this with our kids. 

As much as I love the legacy series like Next Gen, Voyager, DS9, the way they were filmed and paced is different from how television is filmed and paced now.  In some places, they feel a little slow, even though I hate to say that because I love them so much. 

My 9 year old son struggles to get engaged sometimes because it’s not fast enough.  He wants it more crisp.  Discovery and Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks, especially, are faster.  He can handle that, but some of his friends who are younger might have trouble with Lower Decks… it’s certainly not intended for really young kids.  

I think Star Trek as a franchise could work on the younger generations. 

At my son’s school, we’re talking about using RPGs to help kids learn leadership, teamwork, problem-solving… we’re trying to avoid the combat-heavy games and focusing on storytelling games like Numenera.  I’ve been talking to the teachers about if they think we could do Star Trek because it’s full of leadership, diversity… so many great things you can learn from it!  But, are they going to want to do the Star Trek style story, so we’re still working on that.  TBD to see how that works out.  Hopefully we get somewhere there. 

Accessible mechanics

I also want to mention that the core mechanic for Star Trek Adventures is really straightforward: you add an attribute and department to get your target number, you roll 2d20, and if you roll less than or equal to that target number, you get a success.  Your game master tells you how many successes you need, and you’re done. 

You can add in momentum, threat, and other mechanics, but that core, basic mechanics is so simple that if you’re running it at a convention or with a group who is trying it for the first time, just doing the basic simple mechanic to give people an easy entry.

If we’re talking about how this can help young players connect, you CAN run it lean and focus on the play.  It’s hard to ask a kid to pick up a 300 page core rulebook because they’re going to bounce right off that.  

Yeah, you need a 1-3 page start, then once they’re hooked, you give them the big book!

Yep, a 1 page starter or even a ½ page card is enough.  I look at the board games and card games that are coming out right now that can summarize their entire ruleset in a 2 page pamphlet or a couple cheat sheet cards, and they’re doing it!  

Star Trek has something like 800 to 900 hours of content, and each series has a slightly different tone.  What was it like to navigate that, making it into a totally different medium while having it ALL feel like that particularly Star Trek vibe.

That was a really important design decision, especially for 2nd Edition.  When we did 1st Edition, we really only had the legacy series and legacy movies to worry about, and they were all pretty consistent since they were all made within the same 25-30 year timeframe. 

Like we said before, there’s a consistent optimistic throughline even though parts got dark. 

Then, we bring in Discovery, Strange New Worlds, Lower Decks, Prodigy, and Picard, you’ve got tone all over the place!  We looked at that totality of work and were like… how do we condense all of this down into one core rulebook? 

We didn’t want to do a TOS version, a VOY version, etc.  In the current economic realities, it doesn’t make sense to make 10 different core rulebooks.  Who could afford them?  Who can print that?  You’d be appealing to niches of niches.  We want to appeal to Star Trek fans, not just DS9 fans, for example.

We defined a baseline for Star Trek and provided a lot of advice in the books for how to incorporate different tones.  Star Trek is amazing in that virtually any genre of story that you want to tell can fit into it.  We’ve seen horror episodes, we’ve seen musicals… there’s so many different things we can do!

We boiled that down into general game master and player advice about how to establish a session zero to discuss what kind of Star Trek this is going to be.  Is it boldly exploring like Strange New Worlds and Next Gen with something different each week?  Is it going to be more DS9 where you’re rooted in one spot with recurring characters?  Is it going to be a blend?  Is it going to be like Voyager where you’re off in the middle of nowhere coming home?  Is it like Picard where you’re more exploring specific characters? 

It was tricky to find the right balance point to see how far down we wanted to go with that.  We didn’t want to get too prescriptive.  It’s like writing – there’s as many different ways to write as there are writers.  There’s different ways to GM as there are game masters. 

We tried to just provide good solid advice built off of canon.  

Go make your Star Trek yours.  Your Star Trek is going to be any bit as valid as what you’ll see on screen or in a novel. 

We’ve had 60 years of novels, short stories, comic books, video games, RPGs, audio plays… There’s so much Star Trek content out there, and, while it may not all be canon, it’s valid and fits in the Star Trek universe.  

We wanted players to feel empowered to make their own ship and crew and go on their own adventures and be their own Kirks and Picards and Janeways.  

Especially with 2nd Edition, we were more intentional about providing advice to players about what to do if they didn’t want to play a Federation game.  Why not play a Ferengi or Romulan game.  Star Trek is infinite diversity and infinite combinations.  In 2nd Edition, we really expanded on non-Federation species too, adding Cardassians, Kilingons, Ferengi, and Orions.

We did provide some guidance where we talk about, if you want to play a game where your player characters are more from a dictatorial regime or something, it’s your game, but just be aware that the further away that you get away from the Star Trek ethos, the less it will feel like Star Trek.  That’s about as far as we went.  We’re not going to prohibit that, but go in with care.

One of my favorite characters in DS9 was Garek, who was a Cardassian.  His whole story was teased out over time, and it was particularly special.  It’s an example where being encouraged to explore other characters opens up so many possibilities.  

Are there any particular Star Trek Adventure missions that you’d recommend for a first time player? 

I’m going to push the Ferengi in me back and say that the absolute best thing to start with, before you spend any money, is the Star Trek Adventures Quick Start, which is free to download.  We were intentional about writing it so it teaches you the game as you go, so you don’t have to puzzle through it. 

It teaches you all the basics of the game system, the core mechanic that we talked about earlier, and the actual mechanics of the game.  It has a whole adventure in there plus a bunch of pre-gens.  

In the 2nd Edition Quickstart, there’s an option for combat, but it’s really focused on teamwork and problem-solving.  

If they’ve already invested in the Core Rulebook, there’s a quickstart adventure in there that would be good to use. 

In the 1st Edition, there’s a Federation focused quickstart, and a Klingon focused quickstart, so you have a couple options.

Those initial quickstart adventures will give you a taste for the game, the way the game is constructed around scenes, and the style of playthrough for a Star Trek episode. After that, there’s a wealth of material to explore; if they’re already familiar with Star Trek and Star Trek systems, there’s the Mission Briefs that are 1-page episodes broken down into three major beats with side plot possibilities and an ending.  

I don’t know if I have any specific ones to recommend, since they’re all at the same level.  Star Trek Adventures doesn’t have leveling, so they’re all fairly consistent in their difficulty level and challenge.  Game Masters are free to modify that if they want, but we never really intentionally built beginner versus advanced level adventures. 

Do you have any final shoutouts, or is there anything that we’ve missed talking about?  Any advice for folks who are thinking about trying the game?

Giving a different system a try

Star Trek Adventure is an interesting alternative to other RPGs, particularly some of the more well known ones.  On social media, I see people looking for alternatives or that maybe don’t know there are alternatives out there. 

Sometimes my friends and I want to play a game where you bash in doors and kill dragons and steal loot, right?  Even though I’m older, I still like to do that because it’s a way to escape. 

But I usually prefer something more thoughtful and more with a storytelling dynamic.  That’s why I’ve always gone for the Star Trek RPGs or even Marvel FASERIP, which was great because it let you tell great comic book stories.  

My advice would be to give it a try, if you have a passing knowledge of Star Trek or have seen a couple episodes and dig it, give it a try because it’s almost 180 degrees different.  You’re rolling the dice differently, going for low instead of high.  There’s no need to worry about leveling, so you don’t need to worry about being chumps in the beginning until you’re not – why not just be highly competent in the beginning?  

Across 60 years, the main characters in Star Trek are super competent in what they do, so the game gives you opportunities to do cool stuff, succeed more often than not, and instead of failing at things, you’re creating complications.  You’re making the story more challenging, which, hopefully, is more fun.  Because it’s such a different experience, some folks might bounce off of it, but others might enjoy seeing what RPGs can do. 

I’ve seen a lot of fans say, “I didn’t know there was a Star Trek D&D”.  D&D has become kind of the Kleenex of RPGs.

Every Star Trek is represented, so whether they love Enterprise, Lower Decks, the movies, everything can fit.  Any character you’ve seen on screen, you could create within Star Trek Adventures.  The mechanics are not that difficult, so if you don’t see a particular species that you want to play, it’s not that difficult to create your own.  Then we have a list of supplements coming out in the next 3-5 years that will help fill any gaps.  

Shout outs!!

I do want to give a shoutout to all the Star Trek fans from the last 9 or so years.  Their feedback and support for the game has helped shape it to where it is now.  All their feedback has been absolutely invaluable.  Their conversations on reddit, discord, facebook, and all the other connection points – it’s great to interact with them, and I’m really grateful to have that opportunity.  

We make an effort to reach out to the fans because without the fans, we wouldn’t be doing this. If they’re not buying the books and enjoying the games, we can’t make more.  

I also want to thank everybody at Paramount.  They’ve been so awesome to work with, and they’ve been really happy with what we’re doing to carry forward the brand and franchise.  They’re also very aware that the novels and comic books and games are what keep the franchise moving between major cinematic releases.  There’s new TV shows coming out, but the fanbase wants more stuff.  I know that any time we release something new, they want to know what’s next because they just want more.

Thanks to the fans and everyone running actual plays and talking about it on twitch, youtube, and online.  I’m working on this game a lot, and when I need a brain break, I go online to find someone playing the game.  It might even be in a language that I can’t understand.  There’s a strong contingent of Star Trek fans in Germany, Poland, and South Africa, and I might not speak their language, but I can see them at the table and know the vibe.  

They’re clearly having a good time, and fans need to be aware that we’re watching and appreciating all the effort that they’re doing.  It’s supporting the game and getting other people into it, and you never know who’s going to be inspired by it. I’m grateful for everyone who is taking time to record and post.  It takes a certain special type of game master and group to actually record it and post online for other people to enjoy.   

I appreciate them so much. 

And folks like you as well, who are taking time to do interviews and articles.  Thank you to you too.

Thank YOU for chatting!  People want to hear about this.  I think folks who are running games can learn a lot from designers, and other designers need to learn from each other.  I appreciate you taking the time to talk about the process involved here and about the care you’ve put into making this game.  It shows in the final product, and I’m glad we got to talk.

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