Star Trek Captain’s Log
Is a solo role playing game by Modiphius The book is roughly split into three parts:
- Star Trek lore
- Game mechanics
- How to tell a story
The game mechanics remind me of Ironsworn: Player facing rolls and moves (called actions) like “Theorize” that consist of the player’s attributes (like “insight”) and disciplines (like “science”). Everything looks very well-rounded.
The “how to tell a story” part is even greater. Throughout the whole book, the Modiphius crew explains how to tell a story using:
- three act structure
- the hero’s journey (very simplified)
- plot hooks
- scenes and transitions
- Chekhov’s Gun (how fitting)
- …
Even if you have never written a story, after working through the book you should be able to not only play an exciting game but also be able to tell a story that can captivate an audience. Besides that, the book has a plethora of random tables to spark one’s imagination.
My nitpickings are the rather enthusiastic writing style: “Maybe one day you will write a Star Trek comic, novel, game adventure, or television show.”, some obvious mistakes and the call to “just make 20x20x20 boxes on graph paper to map these stars”. That one is still in the latest revision of the PDF, and I love it.