Search
Review of The Sciences Division
Blurb from the publisher: 'Fascinating...
'It is the unknown that defies our existence. We are constantly searching, not just for answers to our questions, but for new questions.' - Commodore Benjamin Sisko
The Sciences Division supplemental rulebook provides Gamemasters and Players with a wealth of new material for use in Star Trek Adventures for characters in the sciences division. The Sciences Division supplemental rulebook includes:
■ Detailed description of the sciences division, covering both the science and medical departments, Starfleet Exploratory Division, Starfleet Science, and Starfleet Medical.
■ An expanded list of Talents and Focuses for science and medical characters, as well as new character creation choices for cybernetic and genetic enhancements.
■ Guidance on creating truly strange and unique alien species, as well as advice on including spatial anomalies,parallel universes, the Q, and time travel in your adventures.
■ A list of medical equipment and pharmaceuticals, and rules for their inclusion in Star Trek Adventures.
■ Advice on creating plot components that focus on their scientific and medical Player Characters, as well as information on including counselors in a campaign.
■ Rules for creating new, truly alien species, introducing hazardous and hostile environments into scenes, and new mechanics for suffering or curing diseases.
■ Detailed descriptions and game statistics for a range of Science and Medicine focused NPCs and Supporting Characters, including Carol Marcus, Noonian Soong, and Zephram Cochrane.
The Star Trek Adventures supplementary rulebooks and sourcebooks require the Star Trek Adventures core rulebook in order to play.'
What you get: Your EUR 29,99 or USD 33,99 or GBP 24,99 will buy you The Sciences Division, a 132-page full-colour hardcover sourcebook for Star Trek Adventures, along with its pdf edition.
The pdf version alone costs EUR 13,99 or USD 15,99 or GBP 11,49. It is comprised of two different pdf files: one 140-page version identical to the physical one, as well as a printer-friendly version.
Contents: Just like the previous division books, The Sciences Division is comprised of six chapters. The introduction discusses the differences between the medical, counseling and scientific staff of Starfleet, as well as how to use the personnel in a game and what scenarios to compose around it.
Sciences Division distinguishes between the Science and the Medical Department, and provides a bit of history for such personnel finding their way onto spaceships. The Starfleet Exploratory Division is overall about protocols: exploratory, survey missions, first contact, scientific mysteries, lost starship, and temporal missions are further discussed. Also expect some paragraphs on mitigating exploratory mistakes and follow-up missions. Starfleet Science is a sub-chapter on science missions and the surveys and vessels they use. It also tackles other Federation Science Organizations with more lines devoted to the Daystrom Institute. Starfleet Medical on the other hand is about the unsung heroes with the duct ta- the medical tricorders that will patch you up in no time. The sub-chapter tackles medical missions, counselors, and medical ethics. It is followed by a short exposé on the cadets of the division.
Sciences Division Characters is divided into the Science and the Medical School. Both include more precise instructions on how to create relevant characters, while also providing additional focuses (16 for sciences and 16 for medical personnel) and talents (11 for scientists and 13 for medical personnel). There is also a page on genetic and cybernetic enhancements, as well as discussion on how to combine different disciplines in the same character.
Research and Development covers a swathe of issues. Medical Equipment covers 13 important and common medical devices like the Biobed and the Stasis Unit. Drugs does the same for another 14 substances that can be used by the medics of the future. Unusual Lifeforms is mostly about non-corporeal lifeforms, of which it describes five, like the Dikironium Cloud Creature and the Organian. Scientific Mysteries touches upon issues that still haven't been resolved in the 24th century, like parallel universes, psychic powers, subspace corridors, sentient evolution and subspace rifts. The Q Continuum is a sub-chapter dedicated to the Q. It discusses the organization and the philosophy of the continuum, how it interacts with humanoids, the two most notable Q of all, as well as running a mission with a member of the continuum. At a length of 10 pages, Time Travel is one of the book's longest and meatiest sub-chapters. Fans of the series will recognize many of the incidents it recounts, as well as the Federation's approach towards time-travel in the setting's past, present and future.
Using the Science Division is a chapter about storylines focusing on the blue-shirts, distinguishing again between scientists and medical personnel and how each can be entangled into different kinds of scenarios. Plot components are divided in red, gold and blue, depending on whether they favour diplomacy, combat, or science. The first include diplomatic missions, first contact, political situations etc. The second may relate to defense, escort and espionage, amongst others, while the third may relate to deep space exploration, medical issues, research etc.
Spatial and Planetary Phenomena is a sub-chapter on all those phenomena that make space a little less empty. Amongst others, it covers nebulas, ion storms and black holes. The 3-page Ship's Counselors sub-chapter is devoted to those who want to follow on the path of Diana Troi, the most famous Counselor in Starfleet, while the 7-page Creating Aliens sub-chapter provides a structured, four-step approach towards creating friends and foes alike. Hostile Environments and Hazards on the other hand touches anything from atmospheric conditions to biological hazards and weather.
Sciences Personnel includes five major NPCs, six notable NPCs (Science Councilor, Terraformer etc), and four Minor NPCs (Professor, Science Officer etc). Zechran Cochrane and Dr Noonian Soong are amongst the former. Nine more supporting characters are provided which will probably see a lot more use inside a starship. These include the geologist, the nurse, and the Emergency Medical Hologram Mark II.
The book ends with a three-page index.
The strong points: The Sciences Division in many ways feels like a Dungeon Master's Guide of yore. It tackles a very high number of subjects, most of them superficially, in order to delineate the range of options that a GM has for his Star Trek game. The parts relating to the Q and the temporal phenomena were widely expected, and can provide quite a few ideas about running them on either the background or the forefront of an ongoing campaign. Other parts of the book add strongly to the commonly laughed at but ultimately lovable technobabble, like the list of common drugs and medical substances. Those feeling comfortable with an article-like presentation and a wide (and at some times disparate) range of subjects in the same book, will enjoy The Sciences Division profoundly.
Like in the previous two books of the line, I found the chapter on scenario creation and how to involve everybody irrespective of Division one of the book's strongest points. All in all, everything that could be immediately used in my STA game found its way in. Supporting characters deserve a honorable mention. It is templates like this that a GM is most likely to use in a game, and even more so if his group always swaps the regular protagonists for thematically appropriate staff depending on the circumstance.
Once again, the art has good and bad moments. The fact that the three different Division covers can be united to a much larger picture is a big plus, even though, tactically and strategically speaking, how these men and women are placed and what they are doing makes zero sense. I found some of the simplest drawings to be the most evocative, seeing how the touch the core of what Star Trek is. The Hindu nurse examining an Andoran, or the boot-wearing, short-skirted scientist near the end of the book that comes out of the disco school of sci-fi design are prime examples. Idem for the totally surreal two-page image on the cover's interior. It doesn't have much to do with Star Trek aesthetics, it is however impressive. Other images are not as impressive. All in all, I admit that I am let down by the series art-wise.
The pdf is of a high quality. It is clean and easy to read, not to mention easy to print. Thumbs up for the publishers like Modiphius who understand that not everybody can print books with dark backgrounds. The printer friendly version is much appreciated. The bookmarks go three levels down. The table of contents has live links, the index on the other hand doesn't. A good job, all in all.
The weak points: The Sciences Division suffers from the issues that plague the whole 'Divisions' line of books. The fluff is not always Star Trek specific and does not necessarily further the reader's understanding of the setting. Most of the sub-chapters provide impossibly generic information, presented through a theoretical lens. It might help the GM to understand a thing or two, none of it is immediately usable however, unless one does deeply into exposition mode and starts narrating instead of adventuring. In fact, this is probably the Division supplements' biggest failure: that they do not provide immediately usable texts that can be printed and handed out, and which would enrich the players' knowledge of the Star Trek setting, as opposed to generic knowledge about, say, solar flares in any sci-fi setting. The answer to the question 'what should be included in this rulebook or the other?' doesn't always find its target. I have no clue how a scientist's or medical officer's usual day looks like, and that is a very serious problem when you are the GM. A GM that wants to highlight the background as strongly as he wants to emphasize the plot will have a lot of work in his hands.
If you were expecting more spaceships, and in particular, ships oriented towards scientific and medical missions, you will be disappointed. I am ambivalent about this to be honest. As much as I would have liked to thoroughly visit a few purpose-built starships, I was not happy with the approach of The Command Division which brushed through them. On the other hand, with just a bit of tinkering, most classes of starship would work ok for almost any mission. Oh, well. The Memory Alpha Wiki and other Star Trek publications outside of the current RPG will save the day... again.
Once again I am not happy with the writing when it comes to the reports, letters, excerpts and what have you. Simply put, there is no content to them. Take the excerpt on Terraforming from the Starfleet Corps of Engineers, or the Relieved of Duty Personal Log where a doctor was obliged to relieve the captain of his duty. They rehash, in a rather generic way, things that one has seen in at least a dozen episodes in all the Star Trek lines, without offering anything new. There are a couple of narratives that are mildly entertaining and provide ideas and adventure hooks, when it comes to practical information however expect a non-functional bare minimum. What if the doctor wants to relieve a captain and everybody in the senior staff and the crew disagrees? How is it remotely possible that the doctor who relieves a captain is actually the person to take command of the ship, instead of the senior crew member? Administratively speaking, many of the processes do not make sense, and if anybody complains about Star Trek not being a series about bureaucracy and stamped forms, I'd retort that it is to a large extent a series about duty. A piece of paper cannot distinguish between right from wrong. If you don't however know what your duties are, up to where your authority extends, and how you can do things, how can you roleplay the nuance between orders and morality, the conflict between the complexity of events against the standard procedures that the Starfleet officers probably know by heart and which are overall supposed to follow? Without such fundamentals Star Trek loses quite a chunk of its soul.
I noticed a couple of typos, yet nothing that serious.
I have already stated in the review of the Core Rulebook my misgivings concerning LCARS. It is a nice nod to our geeky sides, but as a reading format on paper (or a screen) it leaves a lot to be desired. This isn't an intuitive layout by any stretch of the imagination. Too much space is wasted while it's not always obvious where a piece of text continues. Many of the LCARS images are utterly pointless. One feels that they actually show something, yet they are nothing but a title and an image, surrounded by random numbers that allegedly mean something to a native LCARS reader. Unfortunately, the line does not show any willingness of changing its approach.
Conclusion: The Sciences Division is substantially more generic than I would have wanted it to. It is not that the material it presents is outright bad; on the contrary, some of its pieces are bound to be particularly inspiring for involved, fully thematic Star Trek campaigns. I fear however that it lacks focus, and that the most of the information it presents needs to be distilled multiple times before it reaches the players.
For more info on The Science Division visit the Modiphius Entertainment website at http://www.modiphius.com.
Shameless plug: for more gaming news and content (including, for example, pictures of The Science Division that I am unfortunately not able to upload on RPG.net for the time being) and to better keep track of my reviews, subscribe to my Antonios S facebook and twitter page.
