The Inside Scoop on Gaming

I'll admit it right now.

I'm a Star Trek fan.

Not the ravening, phaser-carrying, comm-badge-bearing, vulcan-ear-wearing, haven't-bathed-since-I-got-to-the-convention fanboy that the statement usually conjures up in the mind of an average citizen, but a solid, somewhat detail-oriented fan none the less.

I'm also a gamer, so when Last Unicorn Games published its Star Trek: TNG RPG, I immediately snapped it up, and although it had a great system and art, I always felt that it was missing several things, like a breakdown of how Starfleet was organized, or the fact that it only featured five types of ships (Galaxy, Ambassador, Excelsior, Nebula, and Oberth).

Five types should have been enough, but only three types of starship were represented (two Explorers, two Cruisers, and one Surveyor) out of the seven or so types listed, and two of those were admitted by the text to be outdated.

Ordinarily the ship thing wouldn't bother me, but since the ships are to be the main setting for adventures and, knowing myself, my players were doing to have to duke it out with the Romulans or Cardassians at some point.

"Oh well," I thought, "LUG will probably publish a supplement or two to fix that."

So a few weeks ago, when I found _The Price of Freedom: The United Federation of Planets Sourcebook_ at my local store and flipped through it, I grabbed it up as quickly as I could. Making back to my home with the book burning a hole in the car seat next to me, I got home and devoured (figuratively, of course) the contents therein:

Chapter One: History, deals with the history of the Federation, oddly enough. We get a treatment of the five original member worlds, with each Species' ancient history, first experinces with space travel, etc. Also included is an overall history of the Federation as an organization, from its ratification to the events that tested Federation principles in the latest movie, Star Trek: Insurrection.

Chapter Two: UFP Structure & Government details the Federation constitution, its drafting, as well as the various branches of the Federation government: The President, The Federation Council, and the Federation Courts. Various other agencies are covered here as well, such as the Diplomatic Service, the Federation Intelligence service, and the Press and Information Bureau.

Chapter Three: Member Worlds and Colonies explains the rights and privilages of being a member of the UFP, as well as how to join the Federation. Federation colonies are also given equal treatment, explaining the various colony types, and how they are set up.

Chapter Four: Diplomatic Relations gives us a list of other political powers that the Federation deals with, ranging from the Borg to the Tholians, detailing a brief history of relations, threat assessments, and diplomatic relations with each. A number of Federation treaties are also discussed.

Chapter Five: The Federation Merchant Marine details a 'new' organization, the Merchant Marine. Sort of a civilian starfleet, the Merchant Marine deals with the mundane aspects of Federation space travel: trading, cargo transport, and repairing damaged spacecraft among other duties that Starfleet is too busy for or ill-equipped to deal with on a large scale.

Chapter Six deals with the organization everybody thinks of when Star Trek is mentioned: Starfleet. this chapter details the organization and agencies of the UFP's military and exploratory service. The different fleets and their admirals are discussed as well as agencies such as the military courts, science divisions, and Rapid Response Teams (formerly known elsewhere as Starfleet Marines).

Chapter Seven: Technology, gives us some commonly used devices of the twenty-fourth century, including the phaser compression rifle, flight vest, and gill pack.

Chapter Eight: Starships, serves up a wealth of information on the vessels that make up Starfleet. The seven classifications (or types) of starships are examined in greater detail as well as listing the various class ships for their type. In addition, statistics for over a dozen vessels are given, including the Akira, Steamrunner, Saber and Sovereign classes.

The book is then rounded out with a size reference chart for the new ships and an appendix listing the description and statistics of the featured cast/crew of Star Trek: TNG including the regulars, O'Brian, Ensign Wesley Crusher, Ro Laren, and Liutenant Barclay.

Evaluation:

Overall, I liked this book very much. The layout of the book is logical, and the sidebars are placed in appropriate locations, which was a big step over the somewhat haphazard layout of the tables and sidebars in the core TNG book.

The chapters on Federation government and Starfleet are put together very well, allowing you to get a clear picture of how each organization is run, and allowing the players to finally know exactly where their characters fit into the grand scheme of things, while the included overlays for the various professions within both the UFP and Starfleet allow more veratility for the players as well as the Narrator. The only flaw I could find in this section was that only a single paragraph was devoted to Starfleet Medical. The only medical type overlay was the Field Surgeon (essentially a combat medic), found with alongside the overlays for the Rapid Response teams. I personally would have liked to have seen more information on running a medical series, possibly in the vein of M*A*S*H or ER.

The Merchant Marine provides a wonderful alternative to those who want to adventure in the Federation without military trappings. The detail provided for the Merchant Marine is great, especially the depictions of the uniforms and comm badges. The Marine overlays provided are appropriate to the jobs they do aboard ship, and the achetypes provided are serviceable.

The Chapter on Starships stands out along with with the Government and Starfleet chapters as the shining jewels of this book, with the one exception of the write-up for the Saber-class starship, which is good, but doesn't quite make sense. They classify it as a cruiser, but it is written up as a small, well-armed, vessel designed for easy mass production, that can take on vessels much larger than itself and come out on top. By both this sourcebook and the core book's definitions of cruisers, which are fairly large multi-purpose vessels. To me, this doesn't read as a correct classification for the ship, as the role of Escourt or Frigate would have suited the design more appropiately.

The only other problem I found is that the material cannot quite agree what time period the game presents: One of the book's touted features is that it contains information from Star Trek: Insurrection, and it delivers, with the statistics for the Sovereign-class Enterprise-E and information on the Son'a as well as a blurb about the events of the movie in the UFP history chapter, but a side-bar on page 81 states the the Enterprise-D is part of the 16th Fleet. Huh? I thought that the Enterprise-D was destroyed in _Generations_. There is also descrepency in the fact that all characters depicted in the book (save the Merchant Marine sailors) are depicted in the old TV series uniform except for Chief O'Brian, who didn't wear the new, post First Contact uniform until years AFTER he had been transferred to Deep Space Nine. Apparantly LUG needs to appoint an editor in charge of continuity.

Overall:

I give this book a strong thumbs up. The Price of Freedom is an invaluable part of ANY Star Trek Narrator's collection. I would have given it a 5/5 but due to the continuity errors, I've got to dock it a point from both style and substance.

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)

The Price of Freedom: The United Federation of Planets Sourcebook
Author: Brian Campbel, et al. Category: game Company/Publisher: Last Unicorn Games Line: Star Trek: The Next Generation Cost: $25.00 US Page count: 160 ISBN: 0-671-04003-0 SKU: 25100 Capsule Review by Niles Smith on 12/09/99. Genre tags: Science_fiction Far_Future Space	I'll admit it right now. I'm a Star Trek fan. Not the ravening, phaser-carrying, comm-badge-bearing, vulcan-ear-wearing, haven't-bathed-since-I-got-to-the-convention fanboy that the statement usually conjures up in the mind of an average citizen, but a solid, somewhat detail-oriented fan none the less. I'm also a gamer, so when Last Unicorn Games published its Star Trek: TNG RPG, I immediately snapped it up, and although it had a great system and art, I always felt that it was missing several things, like a breakdown of how Starfleet was organized, or the fact that it only featured five types of ships (Galaxy, Ambassador, Excelsior, Nebula, and Oberth). Five types should have been enough, but only three types of starship were represented (two Explorers, two Cruisers, and one Surveyor) out of the seven or so types listed, and two of those were admitted by the text to be outdated. Ordinarily the ship thing wouldn't bother me, but since the ships are to be the main setting for adventures and, knowing myself, my players were doing to have to duke it out with the Romulans or Cardassians at some point. "Oh well," I thought, "LUG will probably publish a supplement or two to fix that." So a few weeks ago, when I found _The Price of Freedom: The United Federation of Planets Sourcebook_ at my local store and flipped through it, I grabbed it up as quickly as I could. Making back to my home with the book burning a hole in the car seat next to me, I got home and devoured (figuratively, of course) the contents therein: Chapter One: History, deals with the history of the Federation, oddly enough. We get a treatment of the five original member worlds, with each Species' ancient history, first experinces with space travel, etc. Also included is an overall history of the Federation as an organization, from its ratification to the events that tested Federation principles in the latest movie, Star Trek: Insurrection. Chapter Two: UFP Structure & Government details the Federation constitution, its drafting, as well as the various branches of the Federation government: The President, The Federation Council, and the Federation Courts. Various other agencies are covered here as well, such as the Diplomatic Service, the Federation Intelligence service, and the Press and Information Bureau. Chapter Three: Member Worlds and Colonies explains the rights and privilages of being a member of the UFP, as well as how to join the Federation. Federation colonies are also given equal treatment, explaining the various colony types, and how they are set up. Chapter Four: Diplomatic Relations gives us a list of other political powers that the Federation deals with, ranging from the Borg to the Tholians, detailing a brief history of relations, threat assessments, and diplomatic relations with each. A number of Federation treaties are also discussed. Chapter Five: The Federation Merchant Marine details a 'new' organization, the Merchant Marine. Sort of a civilian starfleet, the Merchant Marine deals with the mundane aspects of Federation space travel: trading, cargo transport, and repairing damaged spacecraft among other duties that Starfleet is too busy for or ill-equipped to deal with on a large scale. Chapter Six deals with the organization everybody thinks of when Star Trek is mentioned: Starfleet. this chapter details the organization and agencies of the UFP's military and exploratory service. The different fleets and their admirals are discussed as well as agencies such as the military courts, science divisions, and Rapid Response Teams (formerly known elsewhere as Starfleet Marines). Chapter Seven: Technology, gives us some commonly used devices of the twenty-fourth century, including the phaser compression rifle, flight vest, and gill pack. Chapter Eight: Starships, serves up a wealth of information on the vessels that make up Starfleet. The seven classifications (or types) of starships are examined in greater detail as well as listing the various class ships for their type. In addition, statistics for over a dozen vessels are given, including the Akira, Steamrunner, Saber and Sovereign classes. The book is then rounded out with a size reference chart for the new ships and an appendix listing the description and statistics of the featured cast/crew of Star Trek: TNG including the regulars, O'Brian, Ensign Wesley Crusher, Ro Laren, and Liutenant Barclay. Evaluation: Overall, I liked this book very much. The layout of the book is logical, and the sidebars are placed in appropriate locations, which was a big step over the somewhat haphazard layout of the tables and sidebars in the core TNG book. The chapters on Federation government and Starfleet are put together very well, allowing you to get a clear picture of how each organization is run, and allowing the players to finally know exactly where their characters fit into the grand scheme of things, while the included overlays for the various professions within both the UFP and Starfleet allow more veratility for the players as well as the Narrator. The only flaw I could find in this section was that only a single paragraph was devoted to Starfleet Medical. The only medical type overlay was the Field Surgeon (essentially a combat medic), found with alongside the overlays for the Rapid Response teams. I personally would have liked to have seen more information on running a medical series, possibly in the vein of MAS*H or ER. The Merchant Marine provides a wonderful alternative to those who want to adventure in the Federation without military trappings. The detail provided for the Merchant Marine is great, especially the depictions of the uniforms and comm badges. The Marine overlays provided are appropriate to the jobs they do aboard ship, and the achetypes provided are serviceable. The Chapter on Starships stands out along with with the Government and Starfleet chapters as the shining jewels of this book, with the one exception of the write-up for the Saber-class starship, which is good, but doesn't quite make sense. They classify it as a cruiser, but it is written up as a small, well-armed, vessel designed for easy mass production, that can take on vessels much larger than itself and come out on top. By both this sourcebook and the core book's definitions of cruisers, which are fairly large multi-purpose vessels. To me, this doesn't read as a correct classification for the ship, as the role of Escourt or Frigate would have suited the design more appropiately. The only other problem I found is that the material cannot quite agree what time period the game presents: One of the book's touted features is that it contains information from Star Trek: Insurrection, and it delivers, with the statistics for the Sovereign-class Enterprise-E and information on the Son'a as well as a blurb about the events of the movie in the UFP history chapter, but a side-bar on page 81 states the the Enterprise-D is part of the 16th Fleet. Huh? I thought that the Enterprise-D was destroyed in _Generations_. There is also descrepency in the fact that all characters depicted in the book (save the Merchant Marine sailors) are depicted in the old TV series uniform except for Chief O'Brian, who didn't wear the new, post First Contact uniform until years AFTER he had been transferred to Deep Space Nine. Apparantly LUG needs to appoint an editor in charge of continuity. Overall: I give this book a strong thumbs up. The Price of Freedom is an invaluable part of ANY Star Trek Narrator's collection. I would have given it a 5/5 but due to the continuity errors, I've got to dock it a point from both style and substance. Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 4 (Meaty)