About
From FASA Corporation
Licensee 1982 through 1992
(nothing was printed until late 1982 and nothing new was released after 1989,
but FASA continued to advertise upcoming Star Trek products into 1991)
FASA went on to produce many more great games, then the
FASA Corporation closed its doors January 25, 2001.
"After 20 happy-and difficult-years in business"
Last updated on 09/09/07
In the 80's, FASA had the license to produce the Official and Authorized role-playing game set in the Star Trek universe. Today, the game is much maligned by Star Trek fans, others are improving or supplying the game, rounding out its inaccuracies while showing off the best parts of the game. At its peak, it was the number two game, though quite far behind the giant number one Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. Before going out of print, FASA's Star Trek RPG attained great success and spawned an impressive number of supplements. It did eventually come to an end...
The Core Material
The FASA Star Trek RPG('83) is a licensed product from Paramount from 1982. FASA's Star Trek RPG started design after the Star Trek II movie was released('82). Its not the first Trek RPG, but the first Official. The core rulebook is primarily based on the TOS and TAS series with rule supplements released there after. Although the Core Rule books contained Klingon Characters and information, a race supplement was released separately. This covered primarily the TOS Klingons('83), although it did contain the new imperial Klingons and new information that was known by STII. A Romulan Sourcebook('84) was released that covered the TOS period and onto the time of the star trek movies. The first movie sourcebook was released after Star Trek III('84), the book carried the same name and it covered the first three movies. Then Star Trek IV another movie sourcebook('86) was released which used the same name. This covered elements from that movie and any corrections from previous material. That was the end of sourcebooks dedicated to movie releases. After that a new second edition Klingons rule supplement('87) was released and it covered the race upto STIII. An Orions rule supplement('87) was also released. Some of the adventures and other rule supplement books released between and after the movie sourcebooks contained various updated information and sometimes rules. Some of the material covers Merchant Trading and other social structures only hinted at in the series. I personally remember wanting the Star Trek V sourcebook that never was released. I wanted to know how the Enterprise traveled so quick to the center of the galaxy and which route they took and all the other unexplained instances of that movie:) Fandom solved most of the problems, basically the movie needs some new footage, most of it could be done with cgi. Apparently Shater was willing to do all this for a DVD release, but Paramount said no... They have the money now, so do it already.
Accuracy Then...
You have to think, at the time Fantasimulations Associates(Die Hard Trek Fans) and FASA were making the first set of books('82) all they had was the existents of the original television show, the animated series, and the first two films, no STIII Klingon BoP yet. They also used a library of Fandom and Official Star Trek Information they have gathered from the '60-70's and early 80's to use for the RPG, there was also communication back and forth from Paramount and Staff, first hand knowledge and hands on material. This information was gathered when GENE RODDENBERRY and his crew where still around making for the best information available. This was during a transitional period, when the Trek universe was laid open and plans to continue to grow where set in motion. FASA made sure the material followed Star Trek as accurately as possible resulting in books holding some of the most basic details of the Star Trek world, all Officially Approved material. Its a big insight to what Desi Lu and the TOS production were doing, and Paramount later, developing and changing during those days.
FASA Writers
However there were gaps that needed to be filled in with new material from
Fantasimulations Associates / FASA authors that Paramount didn't have available, and this
was understood between the two companies; such as Klingon fusions and The FASA timeline.
The official book(at the time) The Final Reflection by John M. Ford was used and fits
perfectly with FASA's The Klingons. Fans found that this FASA/Ford combination of the
Klingons at times seems superior to that of the Next Generation Klingons. For the Romulans
FASA only had just three episodes of the original series (Balance of Terror, The Deadly
Years, and The Enterprise Incident, The Deadly Years was just used as stock footage) to
make there sourcebook. But keep in mind that what they did was canon at the time(80's),
and was widly accepted as so. Fantasimulations Associates philosophies and speculations
about the history and technology of the Star Trek Universe maintained good standings with
Paramount, they remained true to the view(the majority) of the Star Trek Universe that was
presented to us on TV and Film as closely as possible.
Paramount Writers
After FASA had released several established books, Paramount distinctly ignored established FASA work in the new movies and made designing the game and references awkward. Paramount simply failed to remain consistent with FASA's material and/or failed to live upto FASA's understanding of the agreement that FASA material would be 'official' Trek material that would be incorporated in the later Live Productions. FASA was probably bent on Paramounts behavior at this point but continued to provide more material and corrections despite this. FASA could only say to the fans that "anything we published later is the correct source" even if alot of the earlier work was from Paramounts Records and Staff directly. There hands where tied, little did they know back then how much more Paramounts Star Trek would consistently contradict itself over and over.
FASA Militarizes
FASA on the other hand later without Fantasimulations Associates started focusing on the Military aspects of Star Fleet after they moved the focus of the game to the movies. This called for much speculation and generally this wasn't consistent with what the Star Trek Universe is, or atleast seen on screen at that time. The Military part of Star Trek was always something that wasn't shown on the screen. However TOS and Early Movies always did have a small undertone or hints at Star Fleet being some sort of Military presents. But It never was really officially established how that presents existed and always seem to be something the ST writers avoided. Perhaps to concentrate on the other goals they had in mind.and focused primarily on cold war and diplomatic situations, exploration and human interaction. (Keep in mind that the movies certainly seemed more militant than the tos television show). Most of the early FASA Starfleet adventures made the assumption that the characters were the crew of the Enterprise or one of her sister ships. Later adventures had the characters on warships that where on long-term patrols.
Starship Combat Games
The STII('83/'84) version contained more than one system of play; the very successful starship combat game introduced a tactical boardgame system while expanding on the role playing Starship Combat System. It offered players the chance to sit at "consoles" for the various bridge stations and perform their duties by allocating power to various systems, setting course, activating the shields, and firing weapons. The First Edition Core boxed set included both the role playing rules and a role playing style starship combat system that remains fairly unique among game systems today. Players where capable of controlling one or more ships, more so in a tactical game. Subsequently, the combat system was honed as more products were released. When The First Edition Core Book Starship RPG Game is compared to later versions of FASA's Starship Combat Rules, it appears as an "abbreviated system" in comparison. FASA's Starship Combat Games are still very popular, probably more so than the role-playing system. This game completely militarized the forces in the Star Trek Universe. (The TNG series/era later when broadcasted, adopted these ideas.)
Paramount's Wishes
Ultimately Paramount wasn't satisfied with FASA's change of direction in
there later material, FASA was designing new major alien races to produce more options for
battle scenerios, Paramount wanted FASA to use existing aliens and stay with the
non-violent defensive positon of the Star Trek theme. Gene Roddenberry after returning
from a long break from Star Trek, began work on the new TNG series and reviewed FASA's
later products(and other ST material/movies etc) and seen the change in the way FASA was
pursuing the license. Gene Roddenberry basically took an overall review of how ST has been
doing in his absent and he wanted perhaps to get ST back on its core ideas and momentum.
This even applied to Official Paramount Movies, not just FASA. Staff at Paramount was
being shuffled around aswell to add to the confusion.
To Early For TNG
Apparently at one point FASA even went as far as selling a TNG book; 2012 Star Trek: The Next Generation Officer's Manual('88), that wasn't approved of yet/or properly and Paramount wasn't pleased at all, The book is somewhere between a gaming supplement and a technical manual. It didn't quite succeed at either. It was published immediately after the first season. To add insult to it, most of it was contradicted quite rapidly in the live TNG series. I really think that FASA probably included too much of there material in the book and Paramount wasn't ready to except such restrictions yet, even the ones that Paramount had created. It was too early in the production of the new TNG series for anyone to start collaborating data to make this type of book and produce acceptable results. Just to much information to cover a TV Series that didn't yet have a chance to grow on its own.
Shortly after this Manual was pulled and recalled, FASA, in response to Paramount's order to pull the Next Generation Officer's Manual off the shelves, produced and put out the newly approved 2227 Star Trek: The Next Generation First Year Sourcebook('89) which represented material directly lifted from the first season. This was much simpler, but also highly improved. It dealt with just the first season, and cut down on assumptions. It did have the strange insistence on Bridge Officer Specialist instead of Conn and Ops and the stats for the Enterprise-D are questionable. Paramount at this point was restricting the material that FASA can publish for ST:TNG, which basically means that FASA can only deal with material that has appeared in either the TV shows or Films. No more speculation on the part of FASA, even if it is just for the gaming universe. All future publications on the TNG era where to be based strictly on filmed events, extensive authoring or speculation on FASA's behalf was limited.
FASA Continues
Unfornatly by '87-91 FASA was to release several new module/rules supplement but they never arrived, only the two TNG books made it in '88 and '89 - and nothing new since then. FASA's official response is: STAR TREK is and continues to be an active license for FASA. We currently have 3 products in development for the line and intend to document the Final Frontier for our gaming audience for as long as we can. FASA at this point(April 1990) did have plans to release a full set of Galaxy-Class deckplans, A sourcebook for all information for the first five movies, and second and third TNG season sourcebooks, and a Star Trek V Book in '91.
FASA Unbuckles
Shortly after FASA submitted some more militaristic type of material to Paramount for review it apparently was rejected. FASA at this time may have been fed up with Paramounts restrictions and simply didn't continue there Star Trek line. Can't say I agree with this, If I was FASA I would have considered this as a means to continue the FASA Trek line and remain Ideal to the 'true' nature of ST, I can see that ST needed some background on the military properties and FASA would have attracted a new set of players to the game if they had. Gene Roddenberry finally called on Paramount to put a halt on the material.
Fans of FASA's game then sent letters of to the studio, and to science-fiction magazines such as Starlog and GDW's Challenge magazine complaining about the end of FASA's ability to continue to make Trek Material. Writers of the TNG series in the end only used ideas from the books instead of adopting the thought-official work in its entirely.
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