A role-playing game (RPG and sometimes roleplaying game) is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting or through a process of structured decision-making or character development. Actions taken within many games succeed or fail according to a formal system of rules and guidelines.–"Role-playing game", Wikipedia, 21 May 2013.
Captain Joy's Star Trek role-playing games is played using GURPS. If you're familiar with GURPS, then you can go ahead and skip to "Recommended Resources". If you're familiar with role-playing games (RPGs) but not GURPS, then you should start at "Learning GURPS". If you're new to RPGs, then a quick read through the "Role-playing game" wikipedia page should help.
In Captain Joy's Star Trek game, you will play the role of a Starfleet Academy graduate on your first tour. All that is necessary to play is a love of Star Trek; learning GURPS is of secondary importance. If your natural impulse upon being confronted with minor/significant/overwhelming danger is to whip out your tricorder/phaser/communicator, you'll do fine. It's okay if your favorite incarnation of Star Trek isn't the original series (the setting for this game), just don't let on to Captain Joy. ☺
Learning GURPS
GURPS is a set of rules for playing role-playing games, published by Steve Jackson Games. It is an acronym for "Generic Universal RolePlaying System". A few links to help you learn GURPS are provided.
Character Creation Worksheet: will walk you through creating your Starfleet officer.
Introductory information about GURPS from Steve Jackson Games.
One-Page GURPS: a fan-created rules distillation. With this single page of rules, you can play GURPS.
GURPS Lite: official rules from Steve Jackson Games. With these rules, you will know enough to build GURPS characters. Even though these rules are free, you will have to jump through a few hoops to get them. After following the link at left:
- Click "add to crate".
- Click "check out".
- Enter an email address. (Steve Jackson Games uses your email address to send you notices about files you have downloaded, generally to let you know if they've been updated.)
GURPS Basic Set: Characters, 4th edition: the actual rulebook, primarily for players. With this book, you will game with confidence. It is not cheap. Physical and electronic versions are available.
Recommended Resources
Captain Joy makes use of the following resources. They are listed most useful to players to least useful to players. It is not necessary for you to acquire any of these in order to play.
There are two programs available that allow you to make GURPS characters using your computer. GURPS Character Assistant is the official release from Steve Jackson Games for building GURPS Fourth Edition characters for Windows. (Do not confuse it with GURPS Character Builder which is for GURPS Third Edition; our Star Trek campaign is fourth edition.) GURPS Character Sheet is an unofficial fan-created Java program. GURPS Character Assistant enjoys full Steve Jackson Games support, but costs $14.99 (as of 31 May 2017) and only runs on Windows. GURPS Character Sheet is free and runs on any computer, but is not quite as well supported.
GURPS Basic Set: Campaigns, 4th edition: the actual rulebook, primarily for game masters.
GURPS Ultra-Tech, 4th edition: full of sci-fi technology and equipment. The details of Starfleet issue equipment (e.g. communicators, tricorders, and phasers) are provided by the library computer.
GURPS Psionic Powers, 4th edition: for characters with psionic abilities. You will need this book or patients with your GM to play a psionic PC.
GURPS Space, 4th edition: for designing science fiction campaigns.
GURPS Martial Arts, 4th edition: for additional combat options.
GURPS Character Sheet (GCS) Program
The GURPS Character Sheet (GCS) Java program and the Star Trek library allow you to create and track your character on your computer. They are not official Steve Jackson Games suppliments.
Download the GURPS Character Sheet (GCS) Program
GURPS Character Sheet (GCS) is a stand-alone, interactive, character sheet editor that allows you to build characters for Steve Jackson Games' GURPS 4th Edition roleplaying game system. Go to the gurpscharactersheet.com web site and download the GCS Java program.
Getting GCS up and running on a PC is not trivial (on a Mac, it is), and there is a learning curve for using the application in general. However, once you've got it figured out, GCS vastly simplifies generating GURPS characters.
Another option besides GCS, for PC users, is to download the official Steve Jackson Games Character Assistant application for $14.99 (as of 16 Dec 2013). Unfortunately, I do not have any Star Trek files for use with that application, and none of the templates and lenses provided for download on this webpage will be of any use to you.
Or, you could do without an application all together; go old school and use pen and paper.
Or, you could tell your GM, Captain Joy, what you want; he will build your character for you.
Star Trek GCS Files
Captain Joy has put together some files for use with the GCS program. Download and unzip the Star Trek.zip (last modified: 2024 January 16 13:13) file.
These files should download to your computer when selected. If these files open in your browser instead of downloading, try right-mouse-clicking or alternate-mouse-clicking on the link and selecting "Save Target As" or "Download Linked File As..." from the menu. None of these files should end with an ".xml" or ".html" suffix; if they do, trim the ".xml" or ".html" from the filename. The filenames should end with ".gct" or ".glb" so the GURPS Character Sheet application will recognize them.
Once downloaded, unzip the Star Trek.zip file; this should create a "Star Trek" folder will all the Star Trek GCS files in it–templates, equipment, etc. Place this "Star Trek" folder in the GCS "data" folder, which is inside the GCS application folder. E.g. On my computer, the GCS application folder is called "GCS-2011.01.02.1054", and it resides in my "Applications" folder (along with all my other applications: iTunes, Safari, Stellarium, etc.). Inside that "GCS-2011.01.02.1054" folder is a "data" folder. Once the "Star Trek" folder is in the "data" folder, you should be able to access it from the "Data" menu when you run the GURPS Character Sheet application.
If you're new to GURPS, you should check out the GURPS page before continuing.
The GCS Program and Character Creation Worksheet are available to assist you in the process of character creation. Where they disagree with what you see on this webpage, the webpage takes precedence. Inform Captain Joy of the discrepancy and you might receive a "cheat chip" for the next playing session.
When building your character, you're often you're instructed to choose some subset of abilities from a broader list. To do this in GCS, just delete from your character the abilities you don't choose until you're left with only the ones you do choose. Once you're done, you should move your chosen abilities from the "choose..." container, then delete the empty container.
