1978: Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

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It is often forgotten that Star Trek: The Role Playing Game, published by FASA in 1982 was not the first Star Trek roleplaying game. It is often forgotten that Call of Cthulhu, published by Chaosium, Inc. in 1981 was not the first licensed roleplaying game. The very first licensed roleplaying game and the very first roleplaying based on Star Trek was Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier, published Heritage Models, Inc. by in 1978. It was best known for its miniatures and besides manufacturing fantasy miniatures for Dungeons & Dragons, it also produced miniatures for the rulesets it published, including both John Carter, Warlord of Mars: Adventure Gaming Handbook and Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier. In the late seventies, it was a major company in the growing hobby market, rivalling TSR, Inc., but by the beginning of the eighties, it was out of business.

Being published in 1978, means that Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier is based upon just the two sources—the original Star Trek series from the sixties and Star Trek: The Animated Series. Consequently, this includes the inclusion of the Kzinti from the Star Trek: The Animated Series episode, ‘The Slaver Weapon’, which would mark the first inclusion of the Kzinti in a roleplaying game a full six years before the publication of The Ringworld Roleplaying Game by Chaosium, Inc. However, the roleplaying and play in Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier is limited to landing missions, and there are no rules for starships or space travel whatsoever. The style of play emphasises exploration and especially combat, essentially ‘dungeon crawl’ or ‘sandbox’ style adventures or missions across planetary surfaces or inside alien structures, all played out over a hex grid. Despite this, the designer admonishes potential players that, “Combat should be the last resort of an officer of the Federation…” Even so, the majority of the rules are devoted to combat and if truth be told, Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier is still more miniatures combat game than roleplaying game with rules primarily designed to necessitate the use, and of course, purchase of miniatures, all available from Heritage Models, Inc.

Play in Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier primarily revolves around the Star Trek personalities, at least initially. Numerous members of the bridge crew and other crew aboard the Enterprise are listed, as well as numerous ‘villains’ such as the Klingon, Captain Koloth, and Sub-Commander Tal of the Romulan Star Empire. Just the basic stats though. There is no background given for any one of these personalities, let alone the Star Trek setting itself, so in coming to play or run Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier, both player and Mission Master—the roleplaying game’s term for the Game Master—need to know the stetting and the characters. On the plus side, Star Trek is so baked into the cultural zeitgeist—and was in 1978—that anyone coming to Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier should have more than a passing similarity to both, if not the nuances.

Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier is divided into the Basic Game and the Advanced Game. The Basic Game covers the basics of Personalities, the basics of the rules and combat, and a Basic Game scenario. The Advanced Game includes its own scenario, rules for character creation, expanded combat rules, familiar Star Trek life forms and their creation, expanded equipment, guidelines for creating scenarios, and notes for the Mission Master. So, in the Basic Game, the players take the roles of the Personalities from original Star Trek series from the sixties and Star Trek: The Animated Series, the Bridge Crew and other members of the Crew. A Personality in Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier is simply defined by his six abilities, all of which are self-explanatory bar one. That is Constitution, which works as a Personality’s Hit Points.

Captain James T. Kirk
Strength 13 Dexterity 14 Luck 15
Mentality 14 Charisma 16 Luck 13
Command
Phaser II
Communicator

Class 2 Hand-to-Hand
Plus 2 to Initiation
Plus 5 in Hand-to-Hand

Mechanically, Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier uses the rules from Space Patrol, published by Gamescience in 1977. If a player wants his Personality to undertake an action, he rolls three six-sided dice and if rolls under the appropriate ability, his Personality succeeds. Luck is used as a general saving throw. Combat takes place over Turns of a minute long, divided into Action Phases of two to five seconds long. Each Action Phase consists of four steps—Decision, Initiation, Execution, and Record-Keeping. Of these, Initiation is actually initiative, which is done in descending order of Dexterity. Decision is when the players decide what their Personalities do, and Execution is when their Personalities do their actions. This includes a full move, half move and attack, attack, reload, or stand up or lie down. Hand-to-Hand combat is handled through opposed rolls of a single six-sided die plus modifiers. Hand-to-Hand and modifiers above twelve and below nine for Strength and Dexterity for the attacker, and Hand-to-Hand and modifiers above twelve and below nine for Luck for the defender. In Ranged Combat, the attacker and the defender again one die each. For the attacker, the player cross-references his Personality’s Dexterity with the range and roll under the result. If hit, the defending Personality’s player applies modifiers above twelve and below nine for Luck and the resulting number subtracted from the damage, the end result deducted from the defender’s Constitution. This can reduce the damage to nothing, but weapons can also stun. Creatures do not have the same abilities as the Personalities and characters, but just a simple Ability Rating.

The Basic Game also includes rules for basic equipment and even includes an example of play. The scenario in the Basic Game is ‘The Shuttlecraft Crash’. Essentially, this is a rerun of the classic episode, ‘The Galileo Seven’ in which the Personalities have crash-landed their shuttle and must search the area for dilithium deposits in the face of attacks by large, spear-wielding humanoids and other natural hazards. Strangely, the Advanced Game begins with the second scenario in Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier rather than the advanced rules. ‘The Slaver Ruins’ is partially based on ‘The Slaver Weapon’ episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series and sees the Player Characters investigate some ruins and try and stop the ancient technology hidden there from falling into Kzinti hands. Although both scenarios have strong exploratory elements, neither is really a roleplaying scenario by today’s standards since they consist of objectives for the Player Characters to achieve within a limited space and possess little in the way of story or plot development.

The Advanced Game introduces character creation. The default species for Player Characters is Human, but the list of ‘Familiar Star Trek Life Forms’ includes various playable species, such as Andorians, Caitians, and Vulcans alongside Tribbles, Horta, and Sehlats. Abilities are rolled on three six-sided dice and Player Characters have a one percent chance of possessing a single Psionic ability. Psionic ability rolls use the Mentality ability. In addition, a Player Character also has the Size and Movement abilities, the former modified by a roll of a twenty-sided die, the latter by the Player Character’s Strength and items carried. Besides the ‘Familiar Star Trek Life Forms’ lists there are rules for creating creatures as well as a greatly expanded list of equipment. In terms of characters, there are no rules for skills or progression or rank, so no sense of progression in the roleplaying game, at least mechanically.

Unsurprisingly, the Advanced Game also expands the rules for combat. So, Initiation is now a die roll modified by Dexterity and weapons now include an Initiation modifier. Weapons now take into account rate of fire, rounds, reload time, and so on. There are rules too for armour and shielding, from chainmail and kite shield all the way up to energy and kinetic shields and the Klingon armour vest. Grenades include the effects of Phaser weapons on overload as well as high explosive, sonic, and photon types.

Whilst the introduction to both Star Trek and roleplaying in Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier can be best described as rudimentary, the advice for the Mission Master in terms of creating her own scenarios and notes is surprisingly good, amounting to roughly three pages between them. The Mission Master is advised to give her creatures motivations—such as the Horta protecting her young—and several scenarios are discussed, such as interstellar police and space salvage. There is even the suggestion that the players roleplay Klingons or Romulans instead! The notes cover both how to take inspiration from the source material and how not to, warns the Mission Master to be a fair arbiter and designer of scenarios, and lastly warns that if the Mission Master fails as a script writer, then just like Star Trek itself, her game will get cancelled!

Physically, it is difficult to judge Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier, since what is being reviewed is a facsimile rather than an original copy of the game. On that basis, it is surprising to see that it has an index, but there are no illustrations and the two maps, one for each scenario, are serviceable rather than attractive. However, on that basis, Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier very much needs an edit, because otherwise, no one will look at Commander Spack quite the same way ever again (though this turns out to be the result of poor OCR for the original document which this facsimile is based on). The writing in general is concise and easy to understand for anyone coming to the hobby for the first time.

Another surprise is that the facsimile of Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier includes two extra articles, both of which are reprinted from Different Worlds magazine and are the only coverage that the roleplaying game received. ‘Kirk On Karit 2’ (Different Worlds Issue 4, August 1979) by Emmet F. Milestone is primarily a play report of a scenario that he wrote and ran at DunDraCon IV, but it includes an overview of the game plus rules for romantic entanglements, which of course, plays a big part in James T. Kirk’s activities, as well as other Personalities in the series. Of more use is ‘Star Trek – Beyond the Final Frontier’ (Different Worlds Issue 18, January 1982), as it expands the rules and arguably rounds them out. Paul Montgomery Crabaugh’s article covers rolling for Player Character species, provides a Rank and Experience Point table as well as discussing Rank within the game, and adds rules for skills and shipboard assignments, including starship type and department. Lastly there are basic rules for creating planets and their populations and level of technology, as well as guidelines for travel at Warp speed. These are well thought out and greatly flesh out Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier, making it much more of a roleplaying game than the miniatures combat with roleplaying elements it was published as. However, Paul Montgomery Crabaugh’s greatly needed article came four years too late. FASA would published its highly regarded Star Trek: The Role Playing Game that same year as Crabaugh’s article and it would include just about everything that article did. Plus of course, it had photographs from the series and more importantly, rules for starship combat.

Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier dates from the early days of the hobby when its ties from wargaming had yet to be truly cut. Thus, this is far more of a wargame than a true roleplaying game, although there are rudimentary roleplaying elements present. The emphasis on combat also means that Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier is a poor Star Trek game, although in the hands of a good Mission Master and players knowledgeable of the source material, that could very much change. By modern standards, Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier is not a good, licensed roleplaying game, not really satisfying the interest of the average Star Trek fan, and neither is it a good roleplaying game. Yet it is not truly terrible, nor is it unplayable, even today. If someone was to run this at a convention as a wargame, complete with miniatures and terrain, it would be accepted as a slice of nostalgia. As a roleplaying game, it be less likely to be accepted as something that was playable. Then again, even in 1978, it is likely that Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier would have been regarded as no more than a serviceable game. Of course, we have since been spoiled with numerous and better Star Trek roleplaying games since 1978, but Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier deserves at least to be remembered as the first Star Trek roleplaying game and the first licensed roleplaying game.

1978: John Carter: Warlord of Mars – Adventure Gaming Handbook

For over a century, fans of Science Fiction and planetary romance have been thrilling to the adventures of John Carter, American Civil War veteran and prospector on the alternate Mars known as Barsoom as he won himself a place as a warlord—or Jeddak—and won the hand of a Martian princess, Dejah Thoris of Helium, as well as delving into the mysteries of the dying planet. This is a world at war, between the city states of the Red Martians, each of which stands guard against attacks by the barbarous, four-armed Green Martians, whose great tribes fight amongst themselves. It is also a world of mysteries, much of it dating back into Barsoom’s long past and ancient civilisations. The eleven books in the series, penned by Edgar Rice Burroughs and starting with A Princess of Mars, have long had an influence upon gaming, most notably its inclusion in E. Gary Gygax’s ‘Appendix N’ of the Dungeon Master’s Guide for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, but also upon roleplaying games set on Mars such as Game Designer’s Workshop’s Space 1889, Adamant Entertainment’s MARS: The Roleplaying Game of Planetary Romance, and Onyx Path Publishing’s Cavaliers of Mars. Plus of course, it serves as the direct inspiration for Modiphius Entertainment’s John Carter of Mars - The Roleplaying Game, the recent roleplaying game to be based directly on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ stories. It was though, not the first.

The influence of A Princess of Mars on E. Gary Gygax cannot only be seen in its inclusion in the famous ‘Appendix N’, but also five years earlier with TSR, Inc.’s The Warfare of Barsoom in Miniature, Rules for individual and large-scale land and aerial conflict, co-written with Brian Blume. This though, was an unlicensed game, and as much as the book has become a collector’s piece, it was always an unofficial set of rules and it would be another publisher who released the first set of official rules for gaming on Barsoom. Two years later, in 1976, Grenadier Models, Inc. also released a line of ‘John Carter Warlord Of Mars’ miniatures, but they too were unlicensed. It would be Heritage Models, Inc. in 1978 which published the actual first, official gaming product based on the John Carter of Mars series of books. A year later, SPI (Simulations Publications, Inc.) would publish its highly regarded John Carter: Warlord of Mars board game.

Now better known for publishing Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier, the first Star Trek roleplaying game—also in 1978, and later the fantasy roleplaying game, Swordbearer, in 1982, Heritage Models, Inc. was primarily a publisher of wargames and miniatures. Indeed, it would also release a line of miniatures to support not the one new set of rules, but two. One was the Barsoomian Battle Manual: Wargame Rules For Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Classic Science-Fiction Series, which provided rules for mass combat on Barsoom and aerial combat between the flyers used on the planet by all nations. The other was the John Carter, Warlord of Mars: Adventure Gaming Handbook.

The John Carter, Warlord of Mars: Adventure Gaming Handbook offers ‘Miniature Man-to-Man Adventure Gaming’ stating that, “Here is action with a single man or small group of men pitting their abilities, skills, and courage against other men or fearsome Beasts in settings from dank, poorly lighted underground dungeons to the swirling, desperate hand-to-hand battle raging on the deck of the flyer a thousand feet above the ground. The clash of naked steel. . .the test of manhood and courage. . .this is the essence of a life on Barsoom!” Certainly this sums up life on Barsoom for its brave men and women, the planet being filled with dread creatures like the Great White Apes, the Apts, and the Banths, let alone attacks by the barbarous Green Men, whilst the dungeons mentioned are the little known mazes of tunnels and rooms beneath the planet’s many cities—inhabited and abandoned—built long ago by the ancients. It also provides help with ‘Painting and Organizing Your Miniatures’. What you have here then is not a roleplaying game per se, but more of a set of wargames rules with rules for single figure or character action, whether that is combat, exploration, or roleplaying. In this, it echoes roleplaying’s first steps with the original Dungeons & Dragons from 1974.

The sixty-four page John Carter, Warlord of Mars: Adventure Gaming Handbook begins though with a guide to the inhabitants and creatures of Barsoom. In turn, the Red Men, First Born, Therns, Yellow Men. Assassins, Green Men, and more are described in detail, as are many of the planet’s dangerous wildlife. The descriptions vary wildly in length and depth, for example, the Red Men and Green Men of Mars have three and four pages devoted to them, whereas the Yellow Men and Toonolian Marsupials barely two paragraphs each. This though, reflects their prominence in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ stories rather than lack of diligence upon the part of the author. What is noticeable about each of the entries is that they are all prefaced by listing describing their appearance. So for the Red Men this includes the colour of their skin, hair, and clothing, their boots and harnesses (from which they hang their awards and medals), and what weapons they carry. These details are not just included for colour, but serve as the painting guide for each of the different races and creatures upon Barsoom. Along with a guide to the Barsoomian environment, weapons of Barsoom, flyers—the main form of transport on the planet, and its cities, this all takes up roughly half of the John Carter, Warlord of Mars: Adventure Gaming Handbook.

Characters in the John Carter, Warlord of Mars: Adventure Gaming Handbook are defined by seven attributes: Swordsmanship (Attack and Defense), Strength, Finesse, Luck, Accuracy, Constitution, Morale, and Quickness. Swordsmanship is rolled on three six-sided dice—both Attack and Defense, as Constitution, but everything else is rolled on two six-sided dice. Modifiers from Strength, Finesse, and Luck adjust a character’s Swordsmanship values. There is little acknowledgement of race in the process except for adjustment of the Accuracy value for Red Men and Green Men. Indeed, selecting a race is not actually part of the process. 

Parthlan of Manatos

Swordsmanship: Attack 20/Defense 20

Strength: 9 (+2)

Finesse: 9 (+2)

Luck: 9 (+2)

Accuracy: 7

Constitution: 14

Morale: 10

Quickness: 6 (-1)

In terms of rules, the John Carter, Warlord of Mars: Adventure Gaming Handbook does not provide a skills system or a resolution mechanic, instead focusing on combat. This includes movement with a surprisingly high chance of tripping over and the use of a Combat Results Table to determine attacks. This requires Swordsmanship ratings to be compared, the values modified by the combatants’ stance, position when attacking, wounds suffered, and so on, the difference determining which column is rolled on using just two six-sided dice. If successful, this generates a modifier which is added to the result of two ten-sided dice (or percentage dice as the John Carter, Warlord of Mars: Adventure Gaming Handbook puts it) and the outcome determines how many Wound Points and what type of wound is inflicted. If Wounds are inflicted, then the defender rolls on the Swoon Chart to see if he is incapacitated, the chance determined by how many Wounds he has lost.

For example, Parthlan of Manatos is aboard a flyer which has been successfully boarded by pirates. So far he has cut down several pirates, but as the battle on the deck swirls around him, the lead pirate raider steps forth and singles him out. Fighting stalls as this duel plays out. The raider leader has a Swordsmanship of 16, so comparing that to Parthlan’s Swordsmanship gives him a difference of +4 and rolling a 9 on that column on the Critical Results Table gives a modifier of +1. A roll of 6 and 6 plus the modifier for a total of 13 and the raid leader has suffered a moderate wound to the head and five Wounds.

The raid leader has a Constitution of 13 and so can suffer 13 Wounds before definitely being knocked unconscious and potentially dying. So far, he has suffered 5 wounds, or 38% of his Constitution. The Judge rolls a ten-sided die and the result of 2 indicates that the raid leader is stunned and at a -1 penalty to attack and defence on the next turn. This means that the raid leader is at a disadvantage when it comes to his attack and may need to be more aggressive to counter the effects of the wound he has suffered. Either that, or retreat…

Some tactical options are provided, such as stance—Attack, Defence, Normal or Web of Steel—and position when attacking, enabling combatants to counter better opponents or the effects of wounds. Missile combat uses similar mechanics, as does mounted combat, the latter allowing for loss of control of the notoriously surly Thoats in combat, whilst the rules for flyer allow for simple aerial engagements but still focussing upon the characters.

The objective in John Carter, Warlord of Mars: Adventure Gaming Handbook for the player characters is two-fold. One is to get better, primarily by accruing Adventure Points which can be spent to improve a character’s attributes. The other is to achieve status. This is done by achieving military rank, rising from nothing up to Jeddak’s Chamber Guard, by achieving social status as a prince, and then by further adventuring, by improving his appearance with jewels and medals, and so, he can accrue ‘Princess Points’. The aim here is to make a good impression, but the random events when meeting her, such as dancing with her and repeatedly stepping on her foot, singing her a sweet love song, staring and drooling at her, belching loudly, or getting to dance with her repeatedly, will temporarily modify a character’s total Princess Points. Then of course, a roll is made on the ‘Princess Response’ table, the results ranging from “Who are you, have we met before?” to the eye-opening “MY PRINCE, FIREWORKS, THE BIG TIME, HUBBA HUBBA!!”.

By modern standards, these mechanics are both clumsy and misogynist. Yet they are both a product of their time—after all, the John Carter, Warlord of Mars: Adventure Gaming Handbook was published forty years ago, and based on a source of its time, A Princess of Mars having been published sixty years earlier. So romancing, even wooing a princess would be perfectly in keeping with the planetary romance genre of the books. Yet just as in the four decades since the publication of the John Carter, Warlord of Mars: Adventure Gaming Handbook, sensibilities towards the genre and how it should be approached have changed, so has game design, with roleplaying games like Chaosium, Inc.’s King Arthur Pendragon handling both the male and female roles within its genre with subtlety and consideration. Here the approach feels immature, at least in some of the writing.

For the Judge—as the John Carter, Warlord of Mars: Adventure Gaming Handbook terms the Game Master—there is advice on the types of scenario which can be run, such as protecting a cultivated area, going on a Banth hunt, or looking for an assassin in Jeddak’s palace, but there is an emphasis on interacting with the Princess. Whether that is rescuing the Princess from the villain who has kidnapped her, rescuing the Princess from Green Men who have captured her, rescuing the Princess from the villain who has kidnapped her and plans to marry her, and— None of which should be seen as the Princess’ fault, but of course, it is up to the player characters to rush after her in order to rescue her. So that she can get kidnapped again. Then rescued again. Then kidnapped again. Then wooed. Kidnapped and rescued again. Wooed again, and so on, until her fair, red hand is won. Which will still not prevent her from being kidnapped and needing rescuing again.

One option not covered in all of this is playing men of Earth. Now stats are given for the eponymous character of the John Carter, Warlord of Mars: Adventure Gaming Handbook—John Carter, but is here presented as the only NPC in the book. He is also invincible in that he cannot be killed. Nevertheless, no means are provided for playing characters from Earth, and really, there is all but no advice on playing any of the different races in this game.

Physically, the John Carter, Warlord of Mars: Adventure Gaming Handbook is a book of two halves. The first half, the source material and the painting guide is reasonably written and in general a good guide to Barsoom. The second half is a muddle, the rules written with little, if any clarity, and little in the way of proper organisation. The need to flip back and forth to access both rules and tables can only hamper play. Beyond the book’s vibrant colour cover, the John Carter, Warlord of Mars: Adventure Gaming Handbook is completely unillustrated.

At the time of its publication, John J. Nutter reviewed the John Carter, Warlord of Mars: Adventure Gaming Handbook in ‘Barsoomian Options: System Additions & A Review of John Carter, Warlord of Mars’ in The Space Gamer No. 24 (September-October, 1979), stating that, “Mr. Matheny has built a sound combat system and role-playing game which captures much of the flavor of the novels.” Hindsight was less kind though, Lawrence Schick in his Heroic Worlds: A History and Guide to Role-Playing Games (Prometheus Books, 1991) describing the rules as “poorly organized”, adding that “Players unfamiliar with the concepts of role-playing games would probably be unable to use them”.

By the standards of the day, the John Carter, Warlord of Mars: Adventure Gaming Handbook was unsophisticated, one note, and clumsy. Today, it feels too grounded in its wargaming roots and undeveloped even in comparison to the Dungeons & Dragons of 1974 with the constant focus on rescuing the princess never less than jarring. Ultimately, the John Carter, Warlord of Mars: Adventure Gaming Handbook is a gaming curio, an attempt to create a hybrid between roleplaying and wargaming, but one that fails to succeed at either.