If I recall right, Heritage was largely a miniatures company. When I first started buying miniatures in the early 80’s I got them from a FLGS called The Citadel in Groton, CT (now in New London, CT). Heritage would make the miniatures and then produce a game to use them with. I bought a lot of Heritage’s Star Trek miniatures back in the day as they were great for modern and futuristic civilians. I needed those because Traveller was my game back then.

I never saw the Star Trek game by Heritage, but did get (and still have) their Barsoom game.

I did own the FASA game at one time and actually ran a few games of it, mostly at conventions. I think the need for having a captain is one of the big problems with the Star Trek line as well as it is a very diplomacy heavy genre.

I have heard of a group that runs a Star Trek game using the SWSE game system (without Jedi of course). Ship combat would take a little work, but the four remaining classes have enough flexibility to pull it off.

If I were to run a game like that, though, because of the level system, I would start the PC’s off as junior officers or enlisted crewmembers. The NPC captain would assign them a mission and give them the authority to execute the mission.

Another method that might work well, and this is something I did in a Traveller campaign once, is have the PC’s create 2 or more different characters, such as a troop, a junior officer, and a fighter pilot. Then, depending on the “episode” of the week, they pull out the appropriate character and carry out the weekly mission.

If you mix this with Dave the Game’s 5 x 5 method where you have a major plot and minor plot for each episode, and you have a campaign worth of fun.

I really appreciate your podcast and hope to send you a liner some day.

I found my way in the City of Doors.

Elderac

I have long used a website to post information about my campaign world and recently have started a blog. IM and Twitter helps me stay in touch with my players because none of them live within 100 miles of me. We play using mIRC and Maptools. I have experimented with Skype, but it can get real noisy here in my home office.

@Elderac