Star Trek Adventures: Gamma Quadrant – A First look

A while back Modiphius offered me a review copy of their latest Star Trek Adventures sourcebook, Star Trek Adventures: Gamma Quadrant. Since I haven’t touched Star Trek Adventures since I got the core rules when they first came out, I initially didn’t take them up on their offer. This weekend I watched the first episode of the new Star Trek: Picard series on Amazon Prime. With my interest in all things Star Trek renewed I decided to have a look at Modiphius’ new release after all.

Star Trek Adventures: Gamma Quadrant, is – as the name suggests – a sourcebook about the Milky Way’s so-called Gamma Quadrant. The Gamma Quadrant has initially been unreachable by Federation ships because of its distance. Eventually a stable wormhole near Bajor (and Deep Space 9) was discovered which opened up a whole new region of space for exploration. The events leading up to and following this discovery were the subject of one of the most popular Star Trek series: Deep Space Nine.

At this point I have to admit that while I watched some episodes of the series, I never watched it in its entirety. So if I get something wrong regarding the accepted canon, please don’t be too harsh.

Star Trek Adventures: Gamma Quadrant is a 128-paged book or – in case of my review copy – a 128-paged PDF containing all the information you need to run a game set into the Dominion War era. That’s right, you don’t just get information on the mayor players in the Gamma Quadrant, its species, etc. but the sourcebook also moves the games’ default setting’s (which is TNG) timeline up a few years. If you want to run a game in earlier eras this book might not be as useful, but creative GMs might still be able to get their money’s worth out of the book.

The production values are on par with other Modiphius products and with what you’ve come to expect from the Star Trek Adventures line. The LCARS-like look is definitely pretty but is not particularly printer-friendly. Luckily the digital version of the book comes with a printer-friendly version.

The majority of the book is taken up by Chapter Two: The Dominion. The Dominion is the major power of the Gamma Quadrant, a millennia-old nation, controlled by the so-called Founders. Chapter Two of the book describes the Dominion in some detail including but not limited to its history, its political structure, and the major Dominion races like the the Founders, Vorta or Jem’Hadar. There are detailed descriptions of the major Dominion worlds, as well as the Dominion’s allies and enemies.

The biggest section of Chapter Two gives an expansive overview over the Dominion War, from the Cold War before even first contact between the Federation and the Dominion was made, till the end of the war in 2375. The book gives hints on how you can use especially the Cold War era as a setting for your adventures. Especially if you are into cloak-and-dagger stories, this might be an interesting era to play in.

Chapter Three is all about the species of the Gamma Quadrant. Argrathi, Changelings, Dosi, Drai, Karemma, Lurians, Paradans, Rakhari, Skreeaa, Son’a, Tosk, and Wadi are added to the already quite extensive list of playable species in Star Trek Adventures. To my surprise neither the Jem’Hadar nor the Vorta are given that treatment, especially since these species – aside from the Changelings – are the only Gamma Quadrant species I recognize from the few episodes of DS9 I watched. Unfortunately I couldn’t find an explanation why these species were omitted. Perhaps they just weren’t considered fitting for a roleplaying game where you’re supposed to play the “good guys”. On the other hand it’s possible they were already included in one of the earlier sourcebooks.

Chapter Four provides players and GMs with a slew of new starships from both the Dominion and the Alpha/Beta Quadrant species who fought them in the Dominion war.

The book concludes with Chapter Five called “Encounters and Adversaries”. This chapter provides the GM with a lot of hooks for their own games and a slew of non-player characters fitting the kind of game they want to play. Two themes of play are provides here: a game focused on exploration of the Gamma Quadrant and one focused on the Dominion War.

Star Trek Adventures: Gamma Quadrant contains a two-paged index, and the PDF is fully bookmarked.

So, what are my thoughts on this sourcebook? If you are a fan of both DS9 and Modiphius’ Star Trek Adventures, this is a must-have. But if you are more interested in earlier eras of the Star Trek universe you might not get that much out of it. Even then, about 14€ are a fair price for the amount of material players and GMs get with this book. You can get Star Trek Adventures: Gamma Quadrant directly from Modiphius, your FLGS, or digitally from DriveThruRPG. The printed book is about €30, while the PDF sets you back about €14.