Role Playing Universe

Take a personal interest - and a personal role! - in the gaming universe by taking the role of a starship officer, or of an Orion Pirate, or a travelling merchant, or an ex-marine making a living as a security expert, or a Vulcan scientist studying life forms on unexplored worlds, or ... well as just about any job or profession or dangerous mission you can imagine. And imagination is the real point. It's a big universe ...

Where do you want to go? What do you want to do?

Perhaps you want to explore strange new worlds and meet new civilizations (including some that had died out when man still lived in caves and left a lot of interesting stuff laying around).

Or perhaps you want to shoot your way into a Klingon prison and rescue your long lost brother who disappeared when a Klingon raider attacked his convoy?

You can do those things, and a lot of other exciting and dangerous things, through the Prime Directive Roleplaying Universe!

What is Role-Playing?

Role-playing games are, in effect, an organized system of playing “let’s pretend”. To make the game realistic, fair, and workable, a set of rules exists to present a reasonably consistent method of portraying your life as a character in a very different universe.

Each player-character has “attributes” or other data which indicate his strength, intelligence, dexterity, ability to survive, and other factors. Your character will also have a list of skills or abilities (called “feats” in some rule systems) which they can perform at one level or other, such as shuttle pilot, zero gravity combat, lock picking, code breaking, or just about anything else. As you move through one adventure after another, you will gain “experience points” which translate into additional skills or greater attributes. Also, anything you pick up along the way (say, a Klingon two-handed sword or a Romulan plasma pistol) you get to keep and use in a future adventure (or sell for cash).

Of course, you do not actually have to play these role-playing games. The source books for them are great to read in their own right. Consider them a travel guide to strange alien civilizations.

Pick a Game System

There are many different Role-Playing Game systems. We currently offer our manuals in two systems, and have three more systems in development.

GURPS is the Generic Universal Role-Playing System by Steve Jackson games. Our GURPS Prime Directive Core Rulebook is self-contained and has all of the rules for the system. There are hundreds of GURPS books available in stores for gamemasters to use in building strange new worlds.

d20 is the most popular Role-Playing System, although most of its adherents play fantasy games such as Dungeons and Dragons. The Prime Directive d20 Core Rulebook requires the d20 Player Handbook v3.5 to play.

We also have Klingon and Romulan “sourcebooks” for both systems. Additional books for the Federation, Tholians, and Orion Pirates are in preparation.