STACL Review

The game is too easy, I constantly found myself making it harder to succeed, for example by requiring both dice to succeed instead of just one. And it is imperative to constantly use the momentum/thread mechanics to introduce more story elements. Speaking of story elements: During preparation, I read the TOS and TNG writers guides, which explicitly state not to write stories about religion or whole civilizations. I tried both, of course, and it was a lovely endeavour to play myself out of the problems that created.

The book itself was definitely written by a hyperactive squirrel on speed. I needed to constantly flip through it and use a lot of index markers to jump to the right places. In the end I created a short reference document that contains tables, graphs and instructions for the main mechanics:

• Game Mechanics
  • Probability Matrix
  • Values
  • Foci
  • Task Roll
    • Momentum
    • Threat
• The Scene
• Game Loop
• Personal Conflict
• Starship Combat

Modiphius fixed most of the (reference) errors in the PDF, but it still asks you to “choose a mapping software of your choice or just make 20×20×20 boxes on graph paper to map these stars.” Sure, let my fetch my 3D-graph-paper.

All in all, I wrote nearly 25 pages of Star Trek story and enjoyed myself very much. I will undoubtedly play it again.