The small Starship dodged its way through the debris of what had until a few hours earlier been a Federation Science outpost. Something big had literally taken the small unarmed outpost apart and left nothing but detrus in its wake. Whatever had destroyed this station must have had an hell of a lot of firepower.

"On Screen. Lets see what all this fuss is about!" Captain Harris sank back into her large comfortable Command chair and the view of the large ship that had attacked the Isis vanished and was replaced by another image, that of a striking young woman, perhaps in her early thirties filled the area where the ship was a few seconds earlier. The woman bore a striking resemblance to that of the Vulcan officer, well chiselled face, deep set eyes that sparked with intelligence and those pointed ears that where so characteristic of both the Vulcans and their cousins the Romulans.

"Federation ship. This is Commander Tal ‘Roclk of the Romulan vessel ‘Tigress’. I demand to know the reasons for your cowardly attack on our outpost on Cestus III?"

Then the teaser over the credits began to roll!

There is no doubting it at all, Star Trek is big money and it seems that no matter what is put out by Paramount or any of their smaller subsidiaries, as long as it has the Star Trek logo on it, then its money in the bank! A lot of the merchandise, kits and games that have come from the many Star Trek franchises over the past 32 years have been to be bluntly honest with you little more than sugar coated pap that hardly manages to capture the feel of the universe that Gene Roddenberry created way back in 1966, and its very hard to find a gem among these fading stars, but when one does the wait is all the more worth it!

Last Unicorn’s ; Star Trek the Next Generation Roleplaying Game, is the latest system to come out for the Trek Universe and it is by far the best thing on offer for a long, long time. The world of roleplaying in the Trek universe has been covered many times in the past, but not in as much detail and finesse as this excellent system, and even the late often lamented Star Trek rpg from FASA seems to pale into insignificance against this product!

Weighing in at a hefty 305 pages, most of which are in full colour and hard bound with a beautifully striking black cover sporting the crew of the most famous Starship in history the USS Enterprise D, this game grabs you right from the off. I picked my sample copy up at Euro Gen Con at the beginning of September and even after working all day doing demo games for Target/Gamecraft, selling stock and trying to grab interviews for Gamers Web. I was determined to at least take a look at the book before I sunk into my pit in the student accommodation. I got back to my room at 3.45am and after opening a luke warm soda sat back on the very uncomfortable bed and began to look through the rules, just to familiarise myself with them. A task I wish now that I hadn’t begun at such a late hour as I was so taken with the book that I didn't place it down till I had read it at 6.30am. Such is life!

The game is split into three different sections, Operations, Command and Sciences, and is laid out in such a way that even a novice to roleplaying can follow. As I said above the cover is striking and so is the interior artwork and photographs that seem to leap right off the page and grab the attention.

The Operations section of the book gives you a very in-depth overview of the history of the Trek universe, and focuses very heavily on the UFP (United Federation of Planets) or the Federation as it is more commonly known. Tracing the background from the Eugenics wars of the late 20^th century, right up till the Klingon civil war that threatened to destroy the mighty Klingon Empire (season 4 TNG) this history is fleshed out with stills from both the original series and from TNG, and gives the reader a sense of the timeline. Also covered here is the Character Generation process which is very simple.

Templates are given for Human, Vulcan, Betaziod, Andorians, Terrelites and Alpha Centurains. All of the races are given brief descriptive text and photographs, along with famous members of their species. A player just simply chooses the race he or she wishes to play, makes a note of the racial skills and abilities on their character sheet and then chooses from one of the many overlay templates that define which branch of Starfleet they are from (Command, Medical, Sciences, Operations, Counsellor ,Security and Engineering) , and what position they will hold on board a Spaceship. Then after all the basic work is done ( a case of copying the standard templates!) the player is given a number of points to assign to skills, attributes and advantages/disadvantages to really make the character theirs. The character also gets skills and other bonuses from the terms that they do in the Academy while at Starfleet, and also from the various postings that they will get along the way. When I first ran this system last week with my players I used all of these as a prelude for two of my party as they had both never role-played before and I just simply played out all of the events that happened to them as they became officers.

The entire game mechanics uses nothing more than a simple six sided die and rules for combat, Psionics, and even Starship tactics are given in full, with clear examples of the way that events should run.

The second section Command, can be best viewed as the GMs section as it covers mostly the mechanics of the system, how roleplaying should be best carried out and how to get the most from your Episodes (adventures). The characters have the chance to spend experience and grow, just as over the course of the Next Generation show, the crew became more and more human and we got to love (or loathe in some cases) them on a weekly basis. The system rewards greatly those who follow in the paths of Gene Roddenberrys vision and if your players are the gun totting kind, who shoot first, then shoot again, before asking questions, they may have to work a little at trying to keep in line with the ideals of the Trek universe.

The Command section also gives the GM a wide variety of tools for she/he to use and easy ways to introduce characters/NPC’s into the adventure. The short colour text above this review is exactly what I described to my party just before play, I even went as far as playing some background music from one of my Trek movie soundtracks as an introduction to the adventure and my two friends who had never role-played before where bowled over. In fact one of them commented that it was just like watching an episode of TNG on television, except that they had control, more or less over the story. The use of plot and subplot to drive the adventure is something that television writers have been doing for almost as long as the medium as been around, and is detailed here in great depth. As well as having your players worry about the attack with the Romulans, they will also have to contend with other situations that may at first seem mundane but will have great relevance to the characters in the long run. If an episode of any Trek show was nothing but conflict with an alien race and had no subplot, then it would very soon become either boring or unwatchable as the amounts of violence would wash over us and we would lose all sense of being in touch with the characters! A ship board romance or rivalry can create not only tension, but also relief and stops the game from going over the edge and becoming nothing more than an all out war simulation. In my first Episode I had the players meet up with the Romulans, who accused them of destroying their outpost. The situation had to be defused by the Captain ( an NPC played by myself) but along the way the characters had to cope with a rare sickness that one of the crew had contracted on an Away mission, a ship board romance that had gone wrong and had the character and the NPC at each others throats, and a problem with the ships replecators that gave the crew a great deal of laughs!( I will post the adventure here for all to see as soon as possible!)

The one thing that you wont find in the TNG rpg is character statistics for any of the famous officers who have served on board the USS Enterprise! This is a great idea, and stops players wanting to be Captain Picard or god forbid Wesley Crusher! The FASA game although set in the timeline of the original show, gave stats for Kirk, Spock and McCoy as well as a lot of the other characters from the show and if they showed up in the course of a game, the balance would be shifted dramatically. I don't know yet if Last Unicorn are planing to bring out a supplement with the TNG characters in it, I would imagine so, but I would strongly suggest that you don't let any of your group play these characters, but you can always fit them in as special guest stars in that weeks adventure.

Shakedown Cruise is the sample adventure that is given with the book and tells the story of the characters first assingment after leaving the Academy! The adventure is written simply and can be played as is or if need arise easily adapted to fit the situation. A ship the USS Discovery is provided for the adventure, as well as her full complement of crew, including the Captain, First Officer and Chief Engineer, etc, but there is nothing stopping your players from taking over some of the key positions on the ship as the character generation rules will allow players to become Bridge Officers if they would like and if its is okay with the Narrator.

The ship stats are also given along with that of many other Federation ships, and that of some of the more powerful Threat races, (Klingon, Romulan, Ferengi!) as well as a simplistic set of Starship combat rules that involve the players or can be carried out using miniatures (more on this later!).

The final section of the game Sciences, covers the technological advancements that mankind has made, as well as some of the better known systems in the Trek universe. Also provided are the rules for the bad guys for the Narrator. Klingons and Romulans seem to be the order of the day, but rules are given for Cardassians, Ferengi, and other races such as the Breen and Nausicaans, to spice up any episode. A beastry is given at the back that describes some of the more commonly mentioned creatures in the TNG show and a few new ones thrown in for good measure, rounding out the book perfectly.

Last Unicorn have not only managed to condense 32 years of television history into the space of 308 pages, but have also successfully given us one of the most playable systems around at the moment. The future looks good for the system too, as Last Unicorn have not only got the rights to the TNG universe but also that of all the other shows as well, with rule books for Deep Space 9, The Original show and Voyager all due out within the next two years. And as if that wasn't enough. Last Unicorn also have the rights to a wide range of miniatures and Starships (for an upcoming Tactical Combat game!) and even a Live Roleplaying version of the system that will allowed to be used as official at Star Trek conventions all over the world. I am very glad that I took the time to sit up and read the rule book at Gen Con, and I for one am looking forward to seeing the future products that are heading our way at warp speed! I have no qualms in giving this game my Gem of the Month award.

Last Unicorn are boldly going where others have gone before, and this time leading the way!

My many thanks go to Richard Martian of Esdevium Games Ltd for supplying the sample and to Danny Landers, and Last Unicorn for all their help. Look out for many other reviews and articles based around this system coming soon on Gamers Web!

The Star Trek the Next Generation RPG should be available from good hobby and game stores everywhere, but in case of difficulty can be obtained from

Disclaimer: All images and likeness are the © of Last Unicorn Games Ltd and Paramount Pictures, and are used only for promotional purposes. No infringement on © is intended in anyway.