There are also rules for Phasers and Tricorders, both items the staple of any Star Trek RPG. These statistics are given for both GURPS Fourth Edition and D20 Modern, each of which have adaptations for Prime Directive. Statistics are given for all characters that appear in Dread Pirate Aldo except for the Dread Pirate Aldo himself. That said, the GM does not have to do everything. Which does seem like an awful lot of work to do for the prospective GM to do.
There are some notes about how the fiction might be changed were a GM to extract the events described in the short story and run them, but for the most part he is on his own as far as what follows is concerned. There is no actual scenario in Dread Pirate Aldo. Which all sounds like a reasonable set-up for a scenario, but this is exactly all there is to the scenario, and it is not even presented as a scenario to be played using an RPG, but as fiction. Yet the very next day, both the scout and several members of the team are suddenly missing. Arriving on the world, the survey team makes contact with the Rigellian scout, Ecirp, and prepare for their six month stay. It is the members of this team – led by an experienced Human survey scientist and comprised of his wife, an Alpha Centauran geologist and cartographer, a Human botanist and ecologist, a Human meteorologist, an Andoran medic and biologist, a Cygnan mechanic and security specialist, and a Vulcan general scientist – that the players take the roles of. The setting for Dread Pirate Aldo is an M-Class planet, its sole inhabitant a scout awaiting the arrival of a fuller survey team. It might not be uncharitable to suggest that the authors of Dread Pirate Aldo belabour this point.
In particular, it highlights the fact Amarillo Design Bureau is no fly by night games publisher that will drop its contract with Paramount leaving the gamer high and dry.
The set up is good, with the introduction explaining the background to the scenario, giving some advice for the GM on running Dread Pirate Aldo, and introducing him to the Prime Directive setting and explaining some of the differences between it and any other Star Trek game, the primary difference being that the Star Trek of Prime Directive is derived from the classic series of 1960s. You would also expect some kind of scenario, but the problem is that you get neither. With a title like Dread Pirate Aldo, one reminiscent of a certain character from The Princess Bride, you would expect this booklet to be serving up a spicy tale of high piracy amongst the stars. One of these is Dread Pirate Aldo, a release that supports Prime Directive, the RPG from Amarillo Design Bureau based on the publisher’s “Star Fleet Universe” setting, itself drawn from the Star Fleet Battles board game. Amongst the slew each year there will always be one or more hotly anticipated they will always be joined by regular releases that support existing games. Invariably they are tasters for forthcoming games to be released at Gen Con the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera.
Saturday, June 19th is Free RPG Day and with it comes a slew of new and interesting little releases.