u/Antipragmatismspot

I'm a very curiosity driven player. I get pumped by new places, want to uncover mysteries and solve puzzles. I love novelty and want to be able to make a character that matches my agenda and stop yeeting them in the direction of my fun, their motivation be damned.

Games like The Wildsea, Mythic Bastionland, Mausritter, Slugblaster, Wanderhome and Ultraviolet Grasslands have gotten close, but I yearn for more. I also played Planet of the Week and although the moves a bit too messy, the Star Trek-y feel is on point. I already own Star Trek Adventures, but have not played it.

I want a game that creates a sense of discovery. I like exploring and enjoy exploring procedures such as the ones in Dragonbane, but what makes it all worth it in the end is the content.

I want a mix of a game that allows for a character to yearn to travel and learn and a world worthy for them to be set upon.

Recently I've played Planet of the Week at the PbtA fair on their server and it good me thinking. Now, don't get me wrong. The game was an absolute blast. The GM was the actual game's creator and obviously understood the system like the back of their hand, the players were great, in particular a very funny one who managed to pull off a gimmick character without getting annoying or tiring at the table (Hi, Slowfia, you were best sloth!).

For those who haven't caught the hint from the title, this takes heavy inspiration from Star Trek, which means that you would expect it to be suitable to oneshots and be episodic in nature.

But the game has a surprising amount of moves that are pretty complicated with the players often having to pick out of several questions or choices depending on what they rolled (similar to Pasion de las Pasiones). This leads to the fact that although it felt really good in play, at least, with players that know what they were doing, we didn't have the time to both explore and resolve the mystery of the domed city, the primitive civilization around it and fix our ship, just the last. And it was so hard to remember everything!

Oh... Because of how the game is set up (roll to see if your ship sustained damage when warping out, etc.) there's a lot of lost time that is still fun time, but means that you cannot fit everything in one episode. You need a two or in the case of our planet, most likely a three-parter. And this was with the GM being really prepped and posting the move text in the server each time we triggered something. I kinda' dread to think how slow it would have been otherwise.

This has me worried about running it at my own table. Like the playbooks are fun. The author clearly knows Trek. But it's not what it says on the label. It is a system that is probably better suited for short campaigns and it's kinda' clunky tbh. If I am going to be in the mood for that, I might try it.

It's just that there aren't a lot of Star Trek with number filled-off going around for those who aren't the biggest lore buffs. There's also an Endeavour, an Agon hack that is pretty good. But idk what else. (Don't get me wrong, Star Trek Adventures is a way more polished game, but if want your own species, it requires more homebrewing). This system makes super easy to make your own unique alien.

I am someone who for various reasons has a lot of spare time. Enough to play about 4 sessions each week, sometimes more. Even so, in my whole career I have only had one true horror story. A Curse of Strahd campaign in which the DM was playing adversarially and a player turned out to be a fucking Nazi. I left upon finding out and the group seemingly disbanded the next session due to the obvious.

Besides that not much interesting stuff happened. I had a good friend who was kinda' railroading people while trying to be Matt Mercer in the Wildsea, but the dynamics between players were all good and we all knew each other. He was a better friend than GM, I suppose.

And I was also part of a Numenera campaign where the GM decided to use the system to run an investigation, but he either did not know about the three clue rule or kept thinking that players would do specific things and it just wasn't working out. The players had a lot in common, maybe a little less with me, so again, group dynamic was good and table talk was fun. (This was a very chatty table.) The campaign was seemingly patched up to include more exploration and combat after I left.

I feel like my TED Talk is really boring because while the games were not without issues, we really didn't have personality problem . Even in the first group, the rest of the players were really cool.

I'm pulling up at straws to come up with anything else, because most of the time when I left a campaign it was because of playstyle differences or growing bored of the system as it was the case with DnD.

I love playing as animals, but most games are focused on cats and dogs (no shade. I love them but I want something different). I've enjoyed Winter Burrow and Donut County. Creature Kitchen has you befriend a raccoon but you do not play as it.

I was looking at Squeakross.