To Boldy Go

Introduction

This is a game based upon the Star Trek television series and movies. Players play the parts of regular cast members on the show. Most, but not all, player characters will be part of Starfleet, the organization dedicated to exploration and defense of the United Federation of Planets.

To Boldly Go can be used with any Star Trek setting, from the established ones of the Original Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space 9 and Voyager, to a setting entirely of your own creation. If you are unfamilliar with Star Trek’s themes or content, a few weeks of watching the show and some footwork on the internet should give you the general idea of how it works. A list of web resources is provided in the appendices.

If you are unfamilliar with roleplaying games, To Boldly Go may not be like any game you’ve played before. There is no board, no way of keeping score and no way to win. Instead, it is a group of people getting together to tell a story with the rules to tell them how things work out. One person, the Narrator, creates the episode and describes the flow of action to the players. The articles "What is Roleplaying?" by Negative Space and "An Introduction to Roleplaying" by Wizards of the Coast both provide excellent introductions for newcomers.

To avoid confusion, “he, him,” etc., are used to describe a player and player character (PC), and “she, her,” etc., are used to describe a Narrator and non-player character (NPC). The Narrator is sometimes also called "The Great Bird."

Trait Levels

Most traits are described by one of seven adjectives arranged in a scale of quality from Terrible to Superb. This scale represents the levels a trait may be at, with Fair as the median value.

• Terrible
• Poor
• Mediocre
• Fair
• Good
• Great
• Superb

Results worse than Terrible are written as Terrible-1, Terrible-2, etc.. Likewise, results above Superb are referred to as Superb+1, Superb+2, etc..

Fudge Dice

This game uses Fudge dice, available at your local game store or from Grey Ghost Games, to determine results. Fudge dice are six-sided dice with two sides marked +1, two sides marked -1, and two sides marked 0. To use them, roll four of them (abbreviated 4dF) and total up the pluses and minuses. The result is a number between -4 and +4.

Alternately, you can make your own Fudge Dice by coloring regular six-sided dice with markers or paint.  Color two sides green and two sides red to represent +1 and -1, respectively. The uncolored sides count as zero.

If you do not have fudge dice or are playing this game in a non-dice friendly environment, you can substitute a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors instead. This method (abbreviated 1dRPS) quickly determines a modifier between -1 and +1. While this method lacks the range of 4dF, it captures enough of the statistical range to be an adequate substitution. Players may also opt to press their luck and exactly simulate 4dF with four quick games of Rock-Paper-Scissors (4dRPS).

Performance and Difficulty

To determine how well you perform an action, roll four fudge dice and adjust the trait level in question by the resulting modifier. If your character is a Good Painter and you roll a +1 result, you’ve created a Great painting. If you had rolled a -3, your character would have painted a Poor painting and should probably try again with a fresh canvas.

Every task has a difficulty associated with it, a minimum level of performance needed to accomplish it. The Great Bird gauges how difficult the task is and assigns a difficulty level. When two characters oppose each other over an action, like in combat, the difficulty level is determined by the performance of the other character.

If the performance level meets or exceeds the difficulty level the action succeeds. The number of levels between the two is the degree of success and is a measure of how well a character succeeded at an action.

The Narrator may also opt to set difficulty levels based on how crucial the task is to the story.

Dividing Attention

Sometimes it becomes necessary for a character to try to do two (or more) things at once. Whether they are trying to play tongo and match wits with Quark or trying to maintain sensor lock on two ships at once, the character suffers a -1 penalty to all rolls for each action attempted beyond the first to every action attempted.

Characters

Character creation is subjective in that players make up their own traits and assign them levels as they see fit, with the implicit undertanding that the goal is to create a believable, interesting and compelling character.

There are three major roles that characters play in Star Trek: the Hero, the Sage, and the Outsider. All of these roles are essential to Star Trek; each role may be embodied in different combinations, but to shirk one, or elevate one over the others, is folly.

• The Hero is a character who’s actions are of critical importance and who reveals what we value. Most of the characters in Star Trek fill this role at one time or another, but some are especially larger-than-life; Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Janeway.
• The Sage is the speaker of collective common wisdom that grounds the hero in the real world. They provide an inside perspective on the human condition, often in opposition to the Outsider’s views. McCoy is the Sage of the original series, though many later characters filled this role from time to time.
• The Outsider provides wisdom to the hero through perspective and distance from the human condition, commenting on it through different eyes. Perhaps the most critical role in Star Trek, Spock first defined this role as a completely logical Vulcan dealing with emotional humans.

Each of these roles are essential to a balanced Star Trek cast; players should talk to each other about the characters they would like to play with an eye towards these roles and with the Narrator to make sure that their characters will fit in with the setting. The Narrator should describe their setting and the flavor of the show as best she can to the players so they can choose characters suited to that setting; Quark, DS9’s barkeep would be a poor cast member of TNG.

No matter if you set your episodes in the one of the established Star Trek series or you create your own world, one thing is constant; the Crew - the main cast of characters - are always heroes who work together to explore the unknown.

Attributes

Attributes are your character’s inherent qualities; how fit, smart, understanding or lucky he is. Every character has the following six attributes in some degree or another; rate your chatacter in each on the Terrible…Superb scale. If you’re not sure what they are at a particular attribute, they’re Fair.

Fitness

Fitness measures your overall physical condition and how well your body performs. You use your Fitness for any action involving physical strength, speed, endurance, like arm wrestling, chasing folks down, or eating gagh.

Coordination

Coordination measures your overall large- and fine-motor control, quickness, manual dexterity, and flexibility. Coordination is used to avoid getting shot, drawing your weapon quickly, or eating gagh with chopsticks.

Intellect

Intellect represents your overall intelligence, perception, deductive reasoning, technical acumen and mental agility. You use your Intellect to figure out puzzles, research things you don’t know, knowing to avoid eating gagh, or for any mental or knowledge-based test that isn’t covered by a skill.

Empathy

Empathy measures how well you relate to, get along with, and understand others. Your Empathy helps you to make friends and influence people, to bolster someone’s self-confidence, to handle yourself well at social functions, or to empathize with the gagh.

Presence

Presence represents your courage, willpower, self-confidence and charisma. Use Presence when in command, to win friends, frighten people, or avoiding panic when gagh is served. High Presence can get in the way of successful conselling.

Psi

Psi measures your psionic strength, focus and skill. Telepathy, empathy, and sharing memories through mind-melding are all common manifestations of psionic powers. Use Psi when using your power. Not all species have Psi; non-psionic characters always have Terrible Psi. Gagh - thankfully - has Terrible Psi.

Skills

Skills represent the learned qualities of your character. There is no set skill list in To Boldly Go; you are free to come up with whatever seems most appropriate for your character. Any sort of activity that you figure you’d be good at is fair game.

When you take a skill, rate it on the Terrible…Superb scale and describe your character’s knowledge; does their Fair Operations skill cover sensor use, medical tricorders, or the tactical station? If you don’t take a skill you’re assumed to be Poor at it.

Note that skills are not related to attributes.

There are a few skills you may not take:

• Command Skills. Even though your character may receive formal training in it, this is covered by your Presence attribute.
• Counselling Skills. Even though your character may receive formal training in this, this is covered by the Empathy attribute.
• Dodging. You roll your Coordination, just like everyone else.
• Psionic Skills. Psionics use your Psi attribute.

Some examples of skills you might consider:

Art

Harry Kim plays the clarinet. Will Riker plays trombone. Data paints. Ben Sisko cooks. They call it art, and so can you.

Combat

Combat skills can be as broad or as narrow as you choose. You can specify the type of fighting style or weapons used, like a vulcan lirpa or klingon bat’leth. Some races have special forms of combat usually known only to them, like the vulcan nerve pinch.

Engineering

Fixing the warp core, repairing shipboard systems, unjamming a phaser, and inventing new technobabble are all in a day’s work for an engineer. Use this skill to fix technology.

Language

With the advent of universal translators this skill is out of vogue, but some folks still speak languages other than Federation Standard. This may represent your skill at a particular language or languages in general; some species are quite adept at mastering tounges.

Medicine

Medicine represents years of ardous training in learning how to fix people. Use it when diagnosing patients, healing injuries, curing diseases, applying first aid, or impressing people at parties.

Operations

Operations measures your skill at using technology, from operating a tricorder to running a bridge station, be it sensors, ops, conn or tactical. Most Starfleet officers are at least Fair in Operations related to their job duties. For a doctor this would include biobeds, hyposprays and medical tricorders; for the Chief Conn Officer it would involve navigation controls and helm. For areas unrelated to your specialty you’re at -2 to all tests.

Phasers

Phasers covers your skill with ranged weapons. Use it when shooting someone.

Science

Most scientists tend to specialize in a particular field, but most Star Trek characters - espeically the Science Officers - have a pretty good grasp of a wide range of knowledge. Feel free to describe your specialties.

Tactics

Good for tactical officers, essential for Captains, Tactics covers your knowledge of small unit, starship or even wide-scale strategic operations. When Starfleet Command puts you in charge of planning the invasion of Cardassia Prime, use your Tactics to avoid a slaughter.

Story

Your Story is that something extra that makes your character unique. You often get asked what your story is in the first episode. Maybe you’re a terrorist. Maybe you’re an android trying to be human. Maybe you’re an ex-con trying to make good, or blind and use a gadget to see, or a displaced Klingon serving on a starship with a big chip on your shoulder, or maybe you’re normal. Whatever it is, that’s your Story.

You only get one Story, and you’ll need to work out the details with your Narrator. Here are some examples from the series to inspire you.

• I’m the Captain - Life is good, although you don’t like children and those brats keep showing up on your bridge and saving your ship. Then you meet Q. Hilarity ensues.
• I’m the First Officer - Life is good, although you’re not sure about serving next to someone with whom you had a relationship years agao. Then you meet Q. Then you become a Q. Hilarity ensues.
• Damnit, I’m a Doctor, Not a … - You’re a doctor, but you’re constantly asked to be something you’re not. Like a bricklayer. Or a psychatrist. Or a counterinsurgent.
• Tin Man - You’re a positronic android looking to become more human. The plus side is that you’re fantastically strong, you never tire, you can speed read and speed type, you can survive without air, and you’re fully functional in a variety of pleasureable techniques. The down side is that you want to be human and would give it all up for a chance to experience real emotions.
• Genetically Altered - Your intellect and coordination were enhanced at a young age, enabling you to outstrip most of your peers. You’re a whiz at darts and a phenoenal doctor. The down side is that genetic engineering is highly illegal in the federation and you’ve been hiding this secret for your entire life. You even made sure you graduated second in your class from Starfleet Medical to keep suspicions down.
• Ex-Everything - First, you were kicked out of Starfleet. You joined the Maquis only to be arrested on your first mission. You were sent to a penal colony only to be hauled out to track down your former commander, only to get yourself tossed into the delta quadrant, 70,000 light years from home. Some guys have all the luck… and some guys get one last shot at redemption. Don’t blow it.
• The Drone Formerly Known As… - You were a little girl when you were assimilated by the Borg. Then you met this ship in the Delta Quadrant and were thrust back into the world of individualit - in a catsuit, no less. Pluses: ruthlessly efficient, amazing amounts of knowledge in your cortical implant, Harry Kim has a crush on you, you’re dating the Executive Producer. Minuses: Harry Kim has a crush on you. The Borg want you back.

Combat

Combat takes place in rounds. Each round, determine who is attacking whom. Attacks and defense occur simultaneously. Both combatants roll their appropraite combat skills; the character with the higher roll hits the other. A tie indicates a standoff (for melee combat) or a miss (for ranged).

The minimum difficulty to hit someone is determined by the range of the attack.

If you roll worse than the minimum difficulty, you miss no matter what your opponent rolls.

Your attack roll may be modified by the following conditions:

• Surprise. If one opponent surprises the other, both the attacker and attackee roll their Coordination. If groups are involved, use the highest score of the group. If the attacker wins, he gets a free shot at the surprised attackee by making an attack against a difficulty of Poor.
• Unarmed vs. Weapon. If you are unarmed and facing someone with a melee weapon you suffer a -1 penalty to your combat test.
• Disarmed. If you drop your weapon you have to spend a round to pick it up while your opponent gets a free shot at you. You can try to dodge by rolling your Coordination, but if you get hit your weapon stays on the ground.
• Multiple Opponents. Whenever two or more people gang up on someone, the outnumbered someone takes a -1 penalty to his combat skill test for each extra opponent after the first. Everyone rolls as normal; any opponent who rolls higher scores a hit, but the outnumbered person can only hit one opponent no matter how high they roll.
• Defensive Stance. You can forgo your attack and spend the round concentrating on defense. You get a +1 to your fighting skill and do no damage. If you have something that you can block with, like a chair or weapon, the bonus is +2.
• Dodging. You can forgo your attack and dodge out of the way. Roll your Coordination instead of your combat skill. Beating your opponent means you don’t get hit. You don’t suffer penalties to your Coordination for dodging multiple opponents, so this can be an effective tactic when outnumbered. You suffer a -2 penalty when dodging arrows, bullets and energy beams, though partial cover reduces that to -1 and total cover negates it.
• Aiming. A shooter using a rifle who spends an entire uninterrupted round aiming lowers the minimum difficulty by one level.
• Narrator Discretion. The Narrator may take into account other tactical factors and assign bonuses or penalties accordingly. A +/-1 represents a minor advantage or disadvantage, +/-2 a major one, and +/-3 an overwhelming one.

The outcome of the round is determined by the degree of success between the combatant’s performances. Your degree of success is the number of levels by which your combat skill performance exceeds the result of your opponent’s combat skill performance.

Damage

The damage of an attack is equal to the attack’s degree of success, plus the attacker’s Damage Factor, minus the defender’s Toughness Factor.

Damage = Relative Degree of Success + Damage Factors - Toughness Factors

The Damage Factor of an attack is equal to the attacker’s Fitness modifier plus any bonuses from the weapon. Attacks with firearms do not include the Fitness modifier.

The Toughness Factor measures the charcter’s resistance to injury and is equal to the defender’s Fitness modifier plus modifiers from any armor worn.

The Fitness modifier is based on level of the Fitness attribute:

The result will be a number that represents the severity of the wound received according to the following table:

To record these wounds, every character should have a chart like this on their character sheet:

When a character takes a wound, mark off the box below the appropriate level. If the wound is a Scratch or a Stun, put an S in the box; these go away after the combat is finished. If all the boxes are filled for that level, go to the next most severe level and use that one.

Setting Phasers to Stun

While both phasers and disruptors can be used to disintegrate matter, it’s not a good idea to go about randomly vaporizing your cast members. Fortunately, energy weapons can be set to Stun an opponent instead.

Energy weapons like phasers and disruptors usually are variable-setting weapons; the character can set them to a emit a pre-set amount of energy calculated to safely render humanoids unconscious. Phasers set on Light Stun will inflict a maximum of Stunned, Medium Stun has a maximum of Very Stunned, and Heavy Stun can cause up to Incapacitated. Disruptors may or may not have stun settings.

Stun damage is figured the same way as normal damage, except that the opponent is not permanently harmed. The damage wears off after the combat is concluded.

Characters may choose to inflict stun damage with their hands or melee weapons; damage is figured normally but stun results apply.

Healing

Scratches heal after a battle, as do Stuns of any severity.

Healing more severe wounds requires the use of the Medicine skill and time. A Good result on a Medicine skill heals all wounds one level (Hurt to healed, Very Hurt to Hurt, etc.). (Scratches do not count as a level for healing purposes. That is, a Hurt wound that is healed one level is fully healed.) A Great result heals all wounds two levels, and a Superb result heals three levels.

Healing takes time: the success of the roll merely insures the wounds will heal, given enough rest. How long this takes depends on the medical resources available and is up to the Great Bird.

Starship Combat

Combat with starships uses the same general mechanic as regular combat. Characters on both ships roll against their appropriate skills to determine the outcome of the naval battle. However, because so many people are required to operate these ships, more explanation is required.

The following events usually happen on each ship in a combat.

• The commander may come up with a brilliant plan and outsmart the opponent.
• A lock may be established by the person operating the sensors, usually the Tactical, Science or Ops officer.
• The Chief Engineer may be able to increase power output of the engines.
• Ops may reroute power to weapons, shields, or some other system.
• The Conn may try to avoid fire with evasive manuvers.
• The Tactical Officer fires weapons, rolling against both the minimum difficulty and the opponent’s pilot’s dodging, if any.

The base minimum difficulty to hit someone is determined by the range of the attack. Each weapon should be rated for distance with these ranges.

The minimum difficulty to hit can be modified by the following factors:

• Relative Size. The bigger a ship is, the easier it is to hit. Each ship is rated for size (see Starships, below). Compare the ratings of the two ships and apply the difference to the minimum difficulty to hit. A size 6 Galor-class Cardassian ship firing on a size 4 Sabre-class Federation ship at medium range has a minimum difficulty of Great. The smaller Sabre-class vessel, on the other hand, only needs a Poor to hit the attack cruiser.
• Aiming. A tactical officer who spends an entire uninterrupted round aiming lowers the minimum difficulty by one level.
• Evasive Manuevers. Each ship’s pilot can elect to try to manuver their ship out the harm’s way. Just like regular dodging, attackers must defeat both the pilot’s Operations: Helm skill result and the minimum difficulty level to hit the ship.

If you roll worse than the minimum difficulty, you miss no matter what your opponent rolls.

The Tactical Officer’s roll may be further modified by the following conditions:

• Sensor Lock. If the character controlling the sensors makes a Fair Sensors skill test, he can acquire a sensor lock on the opposing ship. For every level beyond Fair the Tactical Officer receives a +1 to hit on his attack. However, the converse is true; for every level under Fair the Tactical Officer receives a -1 to his attack. This sensor check needs to be made every round.
• Multiple Opponents. Outnumbered ships don’t take additional penalties for additional opponents. The Tactical Officer may start taking Divided Attention penalties, however.

The Tactical Officer then rolls and tries to beat both the minimum difficulty to hit and the opposing pilot’s skill. If a hit is scored, determine the relative degree of success.

The following Damage Factors are then added to the result:

• Weapon Strength. The strength of the weapons used.
• Multifire. The Tactical Officer may elect to fire a spread of photon torpedoes or several phaser batteries at once.
  • With photon torpedoes, every level of relative degree indicates another hit; if the target’s shields are up this translates to an additional +1 damage for each additional torpedo. If the shields are down, calculate damage for each torpedo that hits separately.
  • With phasers, each shot must be paid for separately from the ship’s Power. Once the Tactical Officer has announced the number of shots, they either all hit or miss with results similar to photon torpedoes, +1 for each beam against shields and full damage against the ship.

The only Toughness Factors that apply are the shield rating (if the shields are raised) and the hull resistance rating (if the shields are down).

"Wounds" to the shields are determined as follows:

Damage to the shields is recorded just like damage to characters, though it’s a good idea to say that the shields are at a certain percentage of full strength.

Once the shields are down, damage is done directly to ship systems.

Of course, the following table comes in handy:

Experience

At the end of a major chapter in a campaign you may make a skill roll for each skill that you used successfully, or at least tried really hard at, during the game. The object of this roll is to roll low: if the result is Poor or worse, you may place a check mark by that skill. When you accumulate four check marks by a single skill, you may trade the check marks in and raise the skill by one level.

Legal Notices

About FUDGE

ABOUT FUDGE Fudge is a role-playing game written by Steffan O’Sullivan, with extensive input from the Usenet community of rec.games.design. The basic rules of Fudge are available on the internet at http://www.fudgerpg.com and in book form from Grey Ghost Games, P.O. Box 838, Randolph, MA 02368. They may be used with any gaming genre. While an individual work derived from Fudge may specify certain attributes and skills, many more are possible with Fudge. Every Narrator using Fudge is encouraged to add or ignore any character traits. Anyone who wishes to distribute such material for free may do so - merely include this ABOUT Fudge notice and disclaimer (complete with Fudge copyright notice). If you wish to charge a fee for such material, other than as an article in a magazine or other periodical, you must first obtain a royalty-free license from the author of Fudge, Steffan O’Sullivan, P.O. Box 465, Plymouth, NH 03264.

Disclaimer

The following materials based on Fudge, entitled To Boldly Go: A Star Trek Roleplaying Game, are created by, made available by, and Copyright (C) 2001 by Brett Peters, and are not necessarily endorsed in any way by Steffan O’Sullivan or any publisher of other Fudge materials. Neither Steffan O’Sullivan nor any publisher of other Fudge materials is in any way responsible for the content of these materials unless specifically credited. Original Fudge materials Copyright (C)1992-1995 by Steffan O’Sullivan, All Rights Reserved.

Copyrights

To Boldly Go copyright ©2001 Brett Peters. All rights reserved. Permission granted to copy and print this document for personal use only.

STAR TREK™, ® & © 2001 Paramount Pictures. All rights reserved. STAR TREK and related marks are trademarks of Paramount Pictures. Used without permission.

To Boldly Go is loosely based upon the Star Trek: The Next Generation Roleplaying Game, the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Roleplaying Game, and the Star Trek Roleplaying Game by Last Unicorn Games, ©1998-2000 Last Unicorn Games.