| 'Deep Space Nine' Game Lets You Explore the Federation Frontier
By Chris Aylott
special to space.com
posted: 06:18 pm ET
20 December 1999
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Deep
Space Nine enjoyed
something unique in the three-decade history of Star Trek on television:
a definite ending. As the credits rolled for the last time, Cardassia was
in ruins, Captain Ben Sisko had transcended our reality and most of DS9's
crew had left for new assignments.
It was a good place to stop,
but the ending made it hard to resist asking, "What happened next?" Did
Garak remake Cardassia into a better world? What was DS9 like with Colonel
Kira in charge? Won't somebody please delete Vic Fontaine?
Paramount isn't likely to
answer these questions anytime soon, but if you want to explore "what happened
next?" on the space station once known as Terok Nor, the Star Trek: Deep
Space Nine Roleplaying Game is a good place to start.
Be the Bajoran
Roleplaying,
a formalized cousin of cops-and-robbers and other "let's pretend" games,
began with Dungeons and Dragons, but over the last 25 years the
adventures have evolved beyond their board-game roots to become more like
amateur theater.
This dramatic element makes
roleplaying a perfect vehicle for having fun with a favorite television
series. Spending an evening playing the DS9 RPG is like watching a new
episode of the show, except that you and your friends get to write the
plot and play all the roles.
As an added bonus, the special
effects are completely unfettered by budgetary demands. Since the sets
and spaceships don't exist outside your head, you can imagine events that
could never have happened on-screen in the series.
There's plenty to do. Adventures
that begin on Deep Space Nine can quickly lead to Bajor, Cardassia and
through the wormhole to the Gamma Quadrant. In the aftermath of the Dominion
War, things are changing all over Bajor Sector and the rest of the galaxy,
and since most of the DS9 command crew has left, your characters can believably
be the new "stars of the show."
Not interested in post-War
reconstruction? The TV series went through several distinct periods, and
the game's three credited authors provide plenty of hints for running games
during all of them. Players can concentrate on the Bajoran politics of
early DS9, the conflict with the Klingons of the middle years or
the Dominion War that ended the series.
Heroic ambitions
It's even possible to run
games that have nothing to do with Bajor Sector. The DS9 RPG paints itself
as a game about "life on the Federation frontier," with plenty of information
about other frontiers and outposts.
This is an ambitious approach,
but it goes a little too far. While the book contains pages of information
on other sectors and bases, there's not nearly enough detail on Bajor and
Cardassia. Presumably Last Unicorn is saving these core planets for in-depth
treatment in books of their own, but I would rather have had more of those
two worlds now and a book on other parts of the frontier later. Fortunately,
the station Deep Space Nine itself is treated in much more detail.
As for the game rules, they're
easy and clearly explained. Most situations are resolved with a simple
dice roll.
The game system rewards the
heroic behavior common to Star Trek characters, and spaceship battles in
particular have been carefully designed so that every member of the crew
gets involved, not just the player who's flying the ship or firing the
phasers.
Creating characters is easy,
even if it's a bit on the slow side. The process takes about an hour from
start to finish, but the rules encourage characters with strong personalities
and a bit of history behind them.
Players can even play their
favorite of the main characters from the series, as the book contains detailed
write-ups of Dax, Bashir, Kira and company.
Like the series it's based
on, the DS9 RPG will probably appeal most to a small and dedicated group
of fans. It's a good game, though, and a solid addition to Last Unicorn's
line of Star Trek roleplaying books.
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