Unlike previous installments of Star Trek Adventures, this volume is dedicated to players that may not have the option to play with others either due to location, scheduling, or other reasons but still love tabletop gaming. To that end, Modiphius has created a resource that allows players to play alone, with another player, or even in small groups and uses the core ruleset of the original Star Trek Adventures TTRPG as a template to do so. If you’re already familiar with the original game, this is a scaled-down version that uses most of the same concepts but rearranges them in such a way that it allows for near-infinite modular redesign of the game based on your individual needs.
The Captain’s Log is much more than just a simple rules modification of Star Trek Adventures though. It’s a guide to approaching single player gaming, a style guide that helps players and GMs write more interesting adventures, a complex set of matrices and modifiers that enhance gameplay and remove personal bias from game choices, and even a style guide to both writing and screenwriting for beginners and enthusiasts alike. The volume is broken up into six chapters and each chapter has a number of complex sections but you’re not just jumping into gameplay here. There’s a certain amount of background required to play Captain’s Log and it’s provided throughout the book.
The first two chapters of Captain’s Log serve as background establishment for the Star Trek Universe and establishing your game focus respectively. There is over 60 years worth of content to draw from and condensing all of that into an accessible volume is no easy task. It certainly wouldn’t hurt to have the Core Rulebook as well, but if your goal is solo playing and not exporting characters, you won’t need it as the Captain’s Log is a self-contained volume for the purposes of play. Thinking about how to play and what aspects to focus on when playing alone is a challenge for many players and Chapter 2 does an admirable job of clearing up how to approach Star Trek Adventures from this perspective.
By the time you get to Chapter 3, you should have a thorough grounding in both lore and game concept and it’s time to start building a character. There are two distinct pathways to do this, a roll-as-you-go shorter method that meshes character development with gameplay and a more formal character development process that is time consuming but noticeably more detailed. Either one is fine but the overall approach to gameplay in Captain’s Log favors the roll-as-you-go method a bit more. The idea of having a character that isn’t firmly established and fleshing them out through the course of gameplay that is unpredictable thanks to the matrices you’ll use is certainly appealing. In fact, this is possibly the coolest thing about Captain’s Log. You simply do not know what’s going to happen. With old Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books and single-player gamebooks, you can just fudge the numbers to get the result you want and many of us did. But the Captain’s Log offers a series of complex tables and charts in its appendices that make it more appealing to not know what’s going to happen and as a result, effectively encourages fair play in a way that no single player gaming book has ever done before.
You might end up with a character and backstory you had entirely not considered and your job at that point is to start to try to think like your character in a variety of situations. That’s a challenge that’s both interesting and unpredictable, making for a compelling and immersive experience. You might not even know what ship you’re on or how your character reacts under pressure until the situation arises and you’re forced to reevaluate what you thought you knew on the fly. That’s definitely not the standard recipe for a TTRPG by any means. Species, education, backstory, and even personal moral guiding principles are all considered here and the Captain’s Log has charts, tables, and reference information for every single bit of it. Even different eras of Star Trek are considered and you can choose or roll alternatives based on which era you’ve chosen (or rolled as well).
The same can be said of your ship, home base, or station. Everything is on the table in the Captain’s Log and your ship or station can be easily rolled up using 2 D20s. Even starship quirks have been included, allowing for an impressive amount of customization. There’s a simplified listing for every Federation ship, unique ship modifications, and even directions on how to upgrade and choose registry numbers, not to mention expanding things for a starbase. The rules for ships are streamlined from the main Star Trek Adventures rules and are also generally guidelines allowing players a wide degree of latitude. That’s a pretty neat approach and one that takes the pressure off of players who aren’t craving a high degree of complexity. For those that want a more technical approach, the Captain’s Log accounts for inclusion of the main Star Wars Adventures rules at the preference of the player and encourages you to tailor your campaign approach to your personal tastes.
Chapter 5 is where the meat of the game you may have expected to be at the beginning resides. Everything before this was setup and prep work but here we get detailed flow charts of how each portion of gameplay lays out and should proceed. These are detailed examples that really break down the general approach players should take to the narrative structure of the Captain’s Log. These include a tracking system for personal tracking of scene success, how to use probability matrices effectively, plot structure and how to complicate it to make the game more interesting, and how momentum, threat, values and more can be approached during gameplay. There’s also a detailed explanation of combat and ship combat as it pertains to solo gaming in the Star Trek Adventures universe and a series of flow charts and action options for both personal scenes and ship-based ones. Finally the inclusion of collaborative elements is tossed in for good measure, allowing for the expansion of a solo campaign into a slightly larger one that is still modified from the standard game. That’s a lot, right?
What’s interesting up to this point is that the entirety of the Captain’s Log is focused on immersing you deeply into the lore and storytelling of the Star Trek universe. All the information and development is laid out carefully for you and then once you are thoroughly grounded, the mechanics are clearly and simply distilled. It’s a step-by-step guide that initially looks chaotic and confusing but following through the Captain’s Log clears up almost any misconception a player might have, even with a casual perusal. By the time you get to the final main chapter in the book, you’ll be ready for the most important part of Star Trek Adventures – storytelling.
The final main chapter of the Captain’s Log not only lays out how narrative structure and traditional hero’s journeys work but also how you can plan out your story without ruining it for yourself using the tools provided in the book itself. Common screenwriting techniques are explained as they relate to Star Trek and a variety of references to episodes are supplied as well to reinforce the lessons in the volume. The real focus however is on writing a Captain’s Log. Just like in Star Trek, one of the key activities in a solo game is actually chronicling your adventures in a facsimile captain’s log just like the TV series. There are guides to how to write journal entries and supplemental entries, how to structure the gameplay loop, and even how failure can be incorporated into story and character development as a plot device. In short, it’s a condensed Star Trek themed screenwriting course!
Now if you’re not a writer and you have no desire to write stories down, you could just take bullet points, record your thoughts, or otherwise find an alternative. But write you must in some form as the Captain’s Log approaches the Star Trek TTRPG as a storyline that builds upon previous experience and if you’ve rolled up a bevy of adventures and plan to come back, having that reference will be key and the final storyline will be something that would not look out of place in a lore section of a Star Trek video game or Wiki article. But let’s be honest, this won’t appeal to everyone. Some people just don’t like to write and if that’s you, you’re going to struggle with the Captain’s Log, especially as a solo player.
That’s not to say that the Captain’s Log is bad or doesn’t do what it’s supposed to, it absolutely does. But there’s a certain type of person who will thrive under a system like this one and if you’re not creative, it will be a bit of a struggle because the entire game is designed to have you personally serve up a narrative experience that’s less focused on stats and numbers and more focused on excitement and storytelling. That’s a heck of an approach and it makes for some potentially interesting gameplay experiences, especially if you genuinely don’t know where the plot is heading and you’re legitimately using Modiphius’ 2D20 system to make key choices.
Regardless of your approach, whether it be more detailed or off the cuff, the Captain’s Log is a hell of a well designed system. The entire rest of the book is taken up by a bevy of complex matrices for almost every conceivable need as well as a handy index, some character and ship sheets and some quick reference materials. Everything has been thought of and seen to here and once you learn your way around the pages and bookmark the stuff you need the most, this book will serve as an effective tool that you’ll want to utilize even if you’re not playing solo! Just using the storytelling information and matrix events alone are enough to warrant a purchase of this volume and there’s a lot more besides that here, plus there are different covers for different eras of Trek (though the interiors are the same). Fancy!
The Star Trek Adventures: Captain’s Log Solo Roleplaying Game is an essential volume for both Gamemasters and players. Not only does it provide an exhaustively detailed slimmed down campaign design schematic for individual players, the training within its pages also has the potential to help Gamemasters refine their approach to narrative storytelling within the Star Trek universe and its versatile handling of various game systems and clear explanations of how to modify them for your personal tastes and needs is simply excellent. This is a a must-have volume for TTRPG gamers in the Star Trek universe and it’s worth every penny of the $40 or so you’ll pay for a physical copy or $20 or so the digital copy will run you. Modiphius has outdone themselves on this one and you won’t want to miss it!
This review is based on a physical copy of Star Trek Adventures: Captain’s Log Solo Roleplaying Game provided by the publisher. It is available directly from Modiphius here and on PDF here, as well as at select fine gaming, book, and TTRPG retailers.
Nate Van Lindt has been a gamer since the days of yore (aka Commodore 64), and has played a bit of virtually everything out there. He's also an avid comic book collector, both vintage and current, and reads a fair amount of sci-fi and fantasy. On top of that, he watches a fair number of movies and TV shows as well. Oh, and he has a family, a full-time job, and lives somewhere in the urban wilds of Southwestern Ontario, Canada, foraging for old video cables and forgotten game soundtracks.