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Just got a copy of Starships & Spacemen from Lulu, and it will probably be the next game I run.

What I am wondering, is how many players should I recruit? On a television series you can afford to have a Capt. Kirk, Mr Spock, Dr. McCoy, Scotty, Uhara, Sulu and Chekov because the show is scripted, not played.

I'm wondering how many plyers to invite, and what positions on the ship must be filled by PCs.

Any help is much appreciated,

Thanks in advance

From the few games I have run, here's my opinion.

You can go with the ST theme and have the PCs playing the important officers on the ship. It is not necessary for anyone to be the captain, as that is a position that is best as an NPC. The obvious choices for PCs that end up doing interesting things are science officers, medical officers and security officers. Fire control officers and navigators are good for ship-based sessions as they get interesting things to do. Engineers and communications officers are very limited. However, if you plan on running a lot of starship combat games, you can find interesting things for them to do. I would say no more than four or five for this type of game.

Alternatively, you can go with the Prime Directive theme, where the PCs are the equivalent of a special forces team. In this case, you can get away with just about any role being useful, depending on the mission. You can never have too many military specialists for this one, but technical specialists should always have something to do. Run this type of game for as many as you feel comfortable with.

Thanks for the response, it mostly mirrored my assumptions, but the verification is much appreciated.