That 1-5 stat is how many dice you roll for a skill check, then you take the highest die and add it to your skill rating (also 1-5) and that's your total. I also was not impressed with the die mechanics.
STAR TREK RPG LAST UNICORN ART PLUS
On the plus side it did keep a sort of lifepath/background generation system and it added in Hero/GURPS style advantages and disadvantages which could add some flavor to a character beyond their stats, skills, and service record. It also had a much shorter skill list which also seemed limiting. LUG's Trek worked on a 1-5 scale for stats & skills which seemed incredibly narrow and limiting at the time. My standard of comparison was FASA's Trek game and it was a percentile roll game with a large skill list, an action point personal combat system, a fairly detailed ship combat system, a Traveller-esque character generation system, and in general a lot of simulationist crunch, to use the popular phrasing. Mechanics-wise I was somewhat disappointed.
Even sticker shock and general stinginess can be overcome with the right content and presentation. Remember the D&D 3E books that came out in 2000 were $19.95 full-color hardbacks, and later jumped up but only to $30. The next impression was (not coincidentally) the price - it was $35! This was by far the most I had ever paid for a single rulebook and it was a shock, but the presentation - and the subject matter of course - won me over and I picked it up as soon as I could. LUG's Trek stood above all others in look and presentation.
STAR TREK RPG LAST UNICORN ART FULL
The closest comparison I can make is with Underground and it's use of color to mark different sections and full color art throughout the main rulebook, but even it didn't have photos to draw on like this. This new Trek book was way past that, with full color photos from the show all over the place and LCARS borders in different colors. TSR had gone sort-of full color with the 1995 AD&D 2E revisions (the black cover PHB-DMG-MM) but even then it was mostly black text on white pages with some red headers and some art here and there. Even their Trek game was not overstuffed with photos - the main rulebook was, but the supporting material mostly used line art. Game Systems 2300AD | 7th Sea | Aftermath | Albedo | Alternity | Amazing Engine | Amber Diceless | Ars Magica | Atlantis | Babylon 5 | BESM | Bloodshadows | Boot Hill | Buck Rogers | Bushido | Call of Cthulhu | Car Wars | Castle Falkenstein | Central Casting | Champions | Changeling: The Dreaming | Chill | Chivalry & Sorcery | Compleat supplements | Conan | Corum | Cyberpunk | Darwin's World | Daredevils | Dark Conspiracy | DC Heroes | DC Universe | Deadlands | Delta Force | Dr.To continue with the visuals I had a lot of experience with FASA products, from Trek and Traveller in the early days on into Battletech and Shadowrun where they entered their "art is everything" phase, and even they did not publish full-color rulebooks. Parts and pieces can be found in the Boneyard
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