Hi, I’m CC, known as LoneSpelunker on the STA Discord channel. You mentioned wanting to feature some of my write-ups for Captain’s Log on Continuing Mission.
Included below are the first three missions of the USS Curie, captained by Captain Xue Liao.
They were played as missions for the “Captain’s League” solitaire league we’re playing on a separate Discord server. The idea is that we set up wide-ranging “endeavors” which will take multiple captains and multiple missions to resolve, and we work together in a shared universe to complete them. You might find it a source of other stories to feature on CM. If you want an invite, just let me know.
I should give a disclaimer that I am not a knowledgeable student of Star Trek lore. Careful readers will almost certainly discover anachronisms or contradictions with Star Trek canon, technologies, protocols, etc. Apologies in advance.
Also, I’m house-ruling some things in Captain’s Log to suit my style of play. For instance, my captain is very hands-off on the away missions, so rather than rolling on the ship stats all the time, I went ahead and statted up all the bridge crew, and give them opportunities to make rolls. And I draw upon random tables from other sources besides “Captain’s Log” to help me generate stories, such as the oracles of “StarForged” and the generators of “Welcome Aboard, Captain”. I tried to note those places in the text.
The three episodes are:
Incident at Kappa IV
An outbreak of a pathogen at Blackwell medical station sends Captain Liao on a mission to a ruined Orion outpost for answers. But things quickly get complicated when the past is dredged up.
The Icarus Garden
The USS Bondareva has gone missing, and Liao is tasked with discovering its fate and affecting a rescue if possible. But when the trail leads the USS Curie to a sinister alien presence orbiting a volcanic planet, it becomes clear that it’s more than the Bondareva which is at risk.
Revenant
Heading to a mining facility that sent a distress call, the crew of the Curie encounters a malignant new intelligence created in the chaos of an attack. When its nature raises questions along the shadowy edges of the Prime Directive, Liao makes a tough decision that changes her forever.
On a personal note, thanks for working on Captain’s Log. I wrote a Star Trek like solo RPG (but with some influences from other shows) a few years ago – the “Welcome Aboard, Captain” game mentioned above – mainly because Captain’s Log didn’t exist. Now it does! I’m really happy that it’s available, and that it was created with a careful approach to make it suitable for solo play rather than just porting the STA rules over directly. This really is a seamless and approachable system for solo play, that still remains compatible with all the STA materials, and I think your team all did a great job threading the needle there.
I’ve been listening to the podcasts you’ve been doing with Jim Johnson about the game – those are great listens by the way – and it sounds like there are no plans to develop supplements for Captain’s Log. It makes sense since it’s so naturally compatible with STA.
But I’d like to suggest that there’s at least one other product Modiphius could make for Captain’s Log that would really be a boon to players: a spiral-bound companion reference document, like the one produced for Starforged, which collects all the probability matrices (and maybe some new ones!) into a sturdy, spiral-bound book that can lay flat on the table.
When I play Captain’s Log, I use the random tables from all three games mentioned above, but it’s honestly more of a hassle to use the Captain’s Log tables because I have to pick up the book and flip to the page every time. I’ve even found myself propping the book up between other books so that it stays open on a certain page because it won’t lay flat. A spiral-bound companion document with the probability matrices would solve that hassle and be a great improvement to the play experience of Captain’s Log.
Anyway, great work on the game. Hope it’s a big success.
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