Pyramid Review
Aliens (for the Star Trek Roleplaying Game)
Published by Decipher, Inc.
Written by Bill Bridges, Andrew Greenberg, Kenneth Hite, Ross A. Isaacs, & Doug Sun
178-page full-color hardcover; $35.00
Much like the Starships before it, the latest supplement for Decipher's Star Trek Roleplaying Game focuses in on a particular aspect of the Star Trek setting. And just like Starships, this focus is entirely new to roleplaying in the Star Trek universe, as in previous incarnations of the game the treatment of aliens was to have them dotted here and there through all of a line's books. With Aliens, the fifth supplement for the Star Trek Roleplaying Game, there is nothing else but non-terrestrial sentient species to be found within the content of its pages (except for humans, making this a handy source of species put firmly into one single place).
Aliens is another hardback like the rest of the CODA line and the its layout is evidence that any of the niggles hampered the two core books -- Player's Guide and Narrator's Guide -- are gone. It is clean, tidy, and easy to read, though sparsely illustrated with photographs taken from all five series and the movies.
The volume opens with an overview of aliens and how they are used in Star Trek, which serves as a decent introduction. This includes a table that not only the races included, but also their attribute modifiers. Best of all, those that the authors consider the easiest to use as player characters with little or no adjustment are . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: August 1, 2003
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