Hi everyone!! Just wanted to show people what a Captain’s Log session can look like! I kind of struggled at first and gave myself a lot (maybe too much) prep-time, but once I started writing out what was happening it honestly felt like I was creating a Star Trek episode in my head!

My player character is Kurel Elias, a half human and half Bajoran First Officer of the USS Aronnax (NCC-11441, Akira Class) in 2379.

Captain’s Log is really great at giving you all the tools to craft your own adventure, and its very VERY flexible, letting you play for any era, adjust rules how you’d like, and so forth. I’ve opted to flesh out my fellow bridge crew as well by giving them each their own character sheets, especially since I did not give myself the luxury of playing as a Captain LMAO. But, you can just opt to using your ships stats/probability matrixes to conduct task rolls for NPCs too.

Anyways, I’m enjoying it! I just have Act One Scene One done so far, but just wanted to put my adventure out there so people can see where they can take their own adventures! Lmk if you have any questions and enjoy!

CW: mass casualties, descriptions of bodies/death, brief trauma imagery.

STAR TREK: ARONNAX

Season 1, Episode 1: What Remains

“First Officer’s Log, Stardate: 56036.7.”

“It’s been one week since the Aronnax’s refit, and since we left Antares Shipyard in the Bajor Sector. We’re en route to Starbase 237– formerly the Cardassian station, ‘Kelvok Nor’, now temporarily operated by Starfleet ever since the Treaty of Bajor re-adjusted territory lines between the Federation and the Cardassian Union. Starbase 237 acts as a vital relay station along shipping lanes headed into Cardassian territory for reconstruction efforts in the region. Captain ch’Varek informed me a few hours ago that Starfleet Command wants us to establish the status of the starbase as they’ve been unresponsive for close to three days. We’re to determine the cause of the communications blackout and restore the starbase to operational functioning if need be. I’ve asked Operations to review the station’s most recent traffic and Engineering to prepare damage-control teams in case we arrive to find an accident rather than an attack. There’s been enough instability in this region since the war that I’m reluctant to make assumptions. A silent station could mean anything. We should know soon enough.”

COLD OPEN

“So, tell me, Elia—Commander. What interests you about Cardassian war games?”

Dr. Monias Vell gingerly lifted a Kotra piece from the axe-head-shaped board and moved it into position opposite one of Kurel’s.

Kurel broke into a soft smile as he considered his next move. “I’d hardly call a board game a Cardassian war game, Doctor.”

“Oh, but it is! What better way to test one’s tactical readiness than repeated bouts of strategy with no stakes? You can learn quite a bit about the Cardassians through it, too.”

“Is that right?”

Kurel finally moved a piece forward.

Vell immediately plucked up one of his own and waved it between them like an excited teacher illustrating a particularly important lesson.

“Cardassians admire a bold maneuver, Commander. Hesitation gets you nowhere in Kotra.”

Dr. Vell had invited Kurel to several lunches that week, each accompanied by some new game or activity. Kurel had found the gesture considerate and, initially, felt somewhat guilty that Vell had beaten him to it. As one of the few members of the previous crew still aboard the Aronnax—and as its First Officer—Kurel felt some responsibility to break the ice with the ship’s new arrivals, especially his fellow senior officers.

That guilt had begun to fade as the Bolian doctor’s questions grew increasingly personal.

By their second lunch, Vell knew the names of every pet and girlfriend Kurel had ever had and had proceeded to rank them all on the same list, despite Kurel’s objections and Vell’s complete lack of context.

The chirp of Kurel’s combadge interrupted Vell just as he opened his mouth to ask another question.

“Bridge to Commander Kurel.”

Kurel set down his Kotra piece. “Kurel here.”

“We’re approaching Starbase 237.”

ACT ONE SCENE ONE

Kurel stepped onto the bridge as the Aronnax dropped out of warp.

Pulsing yellow light washed across blue-and-grey LCARS displays. Heads turned toward the viewscreen, where Starbase 237 hung against the stars.

One of its upper docking pylons had been torn apart. Metal beams jutted from the ruptured structure like the splintered ends of a snapped branch. Shattered hull plating, severed cables, and fragments of machinery drifted outward in a slow-moving cloud. Only as the Aronnax drew closer did Kurel make out the bodies among the debris.

Around a quarter of the starbase had been obliterated.

What remained was in better shape only by comparison. Fractures webbed across the hull. Black scorch marks surrounded whole sections of plating, and several decks stood exposed to space. The station had power enough for a handful of running lights, but no thrusters corrected its slow, lifeless drift.

ORACLE: Are there people still alive aboard Starbase 237? Somewhat Probable — 17, NO.

ORACLE: Did personnel escape aboard escape pods or other craft? Probable — 14, YES.

ORACLE: Starting population approximately 550. Did roughly 500 survive? Somewhat Improbable — 8, NO. Did roughly 300 survive? Somewhat Probable — 4, YES.

For several seconds, the bridge was silent. Kurel watched the debris field rotate slowly across the viewscreen and noticed that everyone else seemed to be staring at it.

Everyone except Captain ch’Varek.

“Life signs.”

The Andorian’s gravelly voice brought the bridge back to motion. He turned from the viewscreen and settled into the command chair, already entering commands into the console built into its armrest.

Kurel moved instinctively toward an unoccupied science station.

“Beginning scan.”

He brought the Aronnax’s forward sensor array to bear on the station.

TASK: Sensors 10 + Science 2. TN 12. Roll: 8, 9 — TWO SUCCESSES. SUCCESS + 1 MOMENTUM.
Momentum: 1

Readouts flooded the console. Noise.

Kurel narrowed the scan, starting with thermal sources. Most vanished as the computer identified fires, overloaded EPS conduits, and exposed machinery. He filtered next for bioelectric activity, then metabolic activity, cellular chemistry, respiratory traces. Anything.

Contacts disappeared from the display one after another until nothing remained. Nothing living.

The computer continued cataloguing biological material throughout the debris field and exposed sections of the station. Kurel studied the final count.

“Captain. No life signs. I am detecting humanoid remains, approximately one hundred ninety-seven bodies.”

ch’Varek’s eyes remained fixed on the station.

Nobody spoke. Kurel looked back at the sensor display. Something didn’t fit.

Starbase 237’s personnel manifest listed roughly five hundred and fifty people assigned to the facility. Even allowing for visitors, transfers, and inaccurate records, there were nowhere near enough bodies.

His fingers moved across the console again.

“Wait.”

ch’Varek looked toward him.

“The station’s escape-pod complement.”

Rows of indicators appeared on Kurel’s display. Most were empty.

ORACLE: Are there signs that the station’s escape pods launched? Somewhat Probable — 2, YES.

“Most of the escape pods were launched,” Kurel said.

ch’Varek’s antennae angled forward. “Trajectories?”

Kurel was already working.

Four days of sensor noise, stellar drift, impulse exhaust, and decaying telemetry sat between him and the answer. He pulled the station’s last surviving flight-control records into the sensor analysis and began reconstructing the departure vectors.

TASK: Reason + Science. TN 11. Roll: 1, 12 — ONE SUCCESS. SUCCESS.

One by one, Kurel projected the pod trajectories forward until they began to converge.

ORACLE: Did the escape pods reach a nearby inhabited planet? 50/50 — 11, NO.

ORACLE: Did they head toward a nearby Class-M moon? 50/50 — 1, YES.

ORACLE: Is the moon within Federation space? Probable — 11, YES.

“Got them.”

The viewscreen changed, Starbase 237 disappearing behind a tactical map of the local system.

“The pods launched approximately four days ago. Their trajectories converge on Uwabe II—a Class-M moon orbiting the system’s outer gas giant.”

ch’Varek stood. “How far?”

“Forty minutes at full impulse.”

“Helm, lay in a course for Uwabe II. Full impulse.”

“Aye, Captain.”

The stars shifted across the viewscreen as the Aronnax came about. ch’Varek looked around the bridge.

“Nearly two hundred people are confirmed dead. More than three hundred are still unaccounted for. Whatever did this may still be out there.”

His voice remained level. “I want answers.”

Kurel watched the officers around him return to their stations. Some had served through the Dominion War. Others had come aboard only recently. Most were still learning ch’Varek’s rhythms, but Kurel was beginning to understand them.

There would be time to mourn the dead. Right now, there might still be people to save.

The chirp of ch’Varek’s combadge broke the silence.

“ch’Varek to Meran.”

“Meran here.”

“Work with Commander Levy. I want a preliminary analysis of the damage to Starbase 237: weapon signatures, structural failures, anything that tells us what happened. Twenty minutes.”

“Understood, Captain.”

“Bring it to the senior staff briefing.”

“Aye, sir.”

ch’Varek closed the channel. “Ops, maintain Yellow Alert. Keep long-range sensors watching for anything that shouldn’t be here.”

“Aye, Captain.”

ch’Varek rose from the command chair. He glanced toward Kurel, then tilted his antennae toward the ready room.

Kurel understood and followed.

At the threshold, he stopped. For an instant, the ruined starbase vanished—the scattered wreckage, the bodies turning silently through the dark—and among them he saw his father, drifting alone in space.

“Commander?”

Kurel blinked. ch’Varek stood inside the ready room, watching him. The image was gone.

Kurel stepped through the door, and it closed behind him.

END SCENE ONE

So... you have the chance to play in a campaign in any era. The caveat is you must play a MINOR canon character as your Main Character.

Who is your #1 pick?

For me: Hranok Zar (DS9 era) was the Bolian tactical officer who dragged Sisko to safety on the Saratoga. I think it would fascinating to play a normally good natured Bolian as a shell-shocked survivor of Wolf 359.

I’ll start off by saying that I don’t have much experience with RPGs; mainly historical combat simulations. I plunged into the deep end with Captain’s Log, STA 2e and several supplements. I was excited about playing as part of a starship crew within the ST universe. My first CL mission wasn’t the best, which was to be expected when learning to play by playing. It got better towards the end when I realized I wasn’t writing for a grade and allowed myself to relax and have a bit of fun. However, I realized that the element of mystery that I was looking for was missing due to the fact that I had to play GM as well as player and in most cases knew what was coming next. I started off thinking I wanted a writer’s room experience and ended up realizing that might not be the case.

I’ve been toying with the idea of using Mythic GME to act as my GM during CL play. Being a novice, I enlisted the help of chat gpt to help with the initial playtest my first time through. I think this might be my system going forward as this story has had more than a few twists and turns and really caused me to think about my next move as it relates to the mystery in front of me and not in light of the story continuity. However, I feel like I’m still missing something to make these sessions feel complete. I feel like I want a bit more crunch to my games. I know that CL was designed to be a stripped down version of certain aspects of STA 2e, but I found when playing previous combat simulations, I like the level of detail involved. Sometimes that detail impacts the gameplay decisions on my part as well, making it a bit more realistic.

My question to the community and to those who have way more experience playing and playing STA/ CL than I do, is has anyone combined STA and CL with Mythic or another GME? What advice do you have as far as what to keep from what and what to ignore and why? I plan on using STA/ CL to handle what the characters are capable of within the game universe and Mythic to handle information the characters can’t or couldn’t know. I appreciate everyone’s time and thanks in advance!

It is the calendar year 2394, stardate 71720.6 at start of play. The star for the Romulan home world and seat of the Romulan Star Empire went Nova 15 years ago followed by the dissolution of the empire itself. It has been 9 years since the disaster at the Utopia Planitia ship yards, resulting in a complete ban on synthetic life forms (synths) in the Federation (UFP). All is disturbingly quiet in the Alpha quadrant and as far as anyone can tell, most other parts of the galaxy as well. Nothing has been heard of the Dominion since the war. Where have the Borg been and what are they up to? Who is behind the mysterious Fenris Rangers? The Romulan Neutral Zone was supposedly disbanded but is still more or less routinely patrolled by the new Romulan Republic - old habits die hard. Finally, there seems to be time for Starfleet to get back to it's central mission - exploration. Yet there is an uneasiness that has settled over many parts of the Federation.

Please be over 30+. The current players are 30+,

Game will be played over my Discord server on a video channel, but camera is optional.

Game night will be every other Thursday evening at 7:00pm est. You must be free to make this commitment.

No role playing experience necessary but it sure helps.

Please be a Star Trek fan! Respond with your favorite ST series and favorite character.

Let's chat!

Hello! I’m looking for a beginner-friendly game to join. I’m already a big Star Trek fan, but just learned about ST Adventures at STLV a few weeks ago when I saw promotion for the new products. I don’t have any TTRPG experience but have watched enough play throughs on YT to know generally how it works.

I’m posting this because the LFP posts I’ve seen here are quite old or not geared for newbies. I plan to look on RD20, but if you all have any advice on where to go to find some games, let me know.

I originally posted this in r/Solo_Roleplaying as an example of actual play for Captain's Log, prompted by a question about how much journaling is involved in CL. The short answer is not very much, but in demonstrating this by posting my example of actual play I felt I needed to set the scene if people wanted to read through the actual play posts. I have posts about the starbase, the cold open, and Acts 1, 2, and 3 that I'll post here to follow up this post on my PC.

https://preview.redd.it/qh67e9uj35hh1.jpg?width=3664&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0018ee3feb08108264ed4945bf0320f6dd73464f

I've mentioned Captain's Log a few times here so I thought I would share what I've done with the game.

First up is my PC, CMDR Tatiana "Tania" Mason, whom I originally played as part of a Decipher Coda Trek campaign from 2015-19. She's a sixth-generation Starfleet brat and started her career as a propulsion specialist. The in-campaign start date in 2396, which is 19 years after Voyager returned from the Delta Quadrant. Tania was one of the first wave of Starfleet Academy-trained engineers who were Quantum Slipstream Drive specialists. She graduated from the Academy in 2384 and has only recently made O-5.

I tried my best to construct a faithful conversion from the Decipher Coda version of the character, but it was kind of tough because the Decipher version of Trek provides a lot of character points for background skills and talents that don't translate all that well to Captain's Log. This is why she has the Chess Prodigy trait. She has a much more mercantile attitude towards life than is typical for humans in the late 24th century, which is where the Queen of the Side Hustle value comes from.

In early 2395 a wormhole was discovered in the Delta Quadrant, with the other end leading to the Triangulum Galaxy, often referred to by its Messier Catalog designation, M33. It was Tania's idea to construct a starbase near the entrance to the Delta Quadrant side of the wormhole. The base was a variant of the 24th century version of Jupiter Station in which three Galaxy-class saucer sections were arranged in a cloverleaf formation around a central tower. After the whirlwind design and kitbashing she was made the station's XO and Operations Manager, but was swiftly promoted to CO when the originally assigned CO, a Captain from the Starfleet JAG division, exhibited a lack of command readiness.

In mid-2395 a host of adversaries moved on DS M-33 with the intention of destroying it, so the crew decided to go through the wormhole and slam the door behind them. The campaign starts six months after this event, with the crew feverishly searching for a way back to the Milky Way. I've only managed to run one episode, back in September of 2023, but maybe I'll pick this up again soon.

Since this is a continuation of a long-term campaign there is a lot more background info than is strictly necessary to run any solo game, but since it's available I've incorporated it into my Captain's Log play.

I’m running a large group (11 including myself) one-shot with six-hours to play in a few weeks. I have a mix of seasoned TTRPG players and newbies. Still pending our sessions zero, but we’ll be a mix of bridge officers, junior officers, civilians, and maybe a spy or diplomat.

Are there any existing briefs you’ve played that can blend a “Lower Decks” type of challenge with a classic TNG-era storyline? Instead of a single “episode” I’m going to treat this more like a movie with overlapping A & B plots.

Even if there’s a resource which gives the broad strokes of existing briefs would be great. Of course, willing to wing it a bit but wanted to seek advice from experts.

Obviously, we all have Trek eras we ❤️ and feel strongest running a game in. Mine is TNG/DS9/VOY

Question I want to ask is what era is out of your comfort zone and what sort of story/campaign might run if you did so in it that setting?

For me, the DIS era is distinctly out of my comfort zone. But, if I had to run a game in that setting, I’d probably run a patrol vessel campaign doing support for ships on the frontline of the Klingon War.

What about you?

A bit late out of the starting gate but finally got a chance to review the latest sourcebook for Star Trek Adventures: the Allies and Adversaries sourcebook!

As is usual for STA 2e releases, this book has value going way beyond what you expect to find based on the title alone.

I’d love to hear what everyone here thinks about this addition to the game.

Hi there good folks,

I'm looking to run the episode "Viral Battlefield" from the "Shackleton Expanse Campaign Guide" and would like some help/suggestions on a system I want to try and employ in order to give a real sense of tension to what could otherwise be a rather onerous set of combat encounters paired with an Extended Task.

My idea is this : the medical team have an Extended Task to try and find a solution to the engineered virus the Dominion have unleashed. However, I would also like to have a countdown for the number of allied forces that dwindles as the virus kills them. But, in order to give the non-medical PCs something to do, the Jem'Hadar will be conducting attacks to take advantage of the dwindling allied forces, so the PCs get to do things like rally troops, help repel attacks, and repair defences. So, I would like some kind of system in place to represent the attacks and the allies' defensive actions, which itself gets affected by the number of casualties inflicted by both the Jem'Hadar and the virus.

I'm taking a look at the Command Division supplement to see if anything in there can provide inspiration, but you lovely people have often come up with creative and ingenious solutions I hadn't thought of, so I thought I'd also throw it out to yourselves to see what clever ideas the Star Trek Collective comes up with.

As ever, any and all assistance given is greatly appreciated,
~M@