In 1994 Decipher, Inc. acquired the rights to create a customizable card game based on the Star Trek property. They released the game under the name of Star Trek: The Next Generation Customizable Card Game. This game requires players to lay out a spaceline of missions, then play personnel and ships to outposts and those personnel fly the ships to missions to win the game. Each player tries to defeat their opponent by setting dilemmas under their missions or battling them to blow up their ships. Originally, Decipher only had access to Star Trek: The Next Generation, but as the game grew in popularity and more sets were put out, they got access to five TV shows (The Original Series, Deep Space 9, Voyager and Enterprise) and the first ten movies (The Motion Picture through Nemesis). By 2001 it had become apparent that the complexity of the game (and several broken decks) was causing players to leave the game in droves. The decision was made by Decipher to reboot the game in a Second Edition. The end of 2001 saw the last expansion of First Edition.
In late 2002, Decipher released Second Edition. This new version of the game featured a streamlined version of the rules that addressed some of the concerns about the original game. Second Edition produced fourteen sets between 2002 and 2007. At that point Decipher lost the license to Star Trek and discontinued the game. The Continuing Committee (CC) was formed in December 2007 to continue the production of Second Edition. Eventually, the CC started producing new sets of First Edition in 2008. The Continuing Committee has now produced more sets of cards than Decipher did.
Oh, wait, what about this Tribbles game? Well, in 2000 Decipher released the first set of cards using images from the original Star Trek. At this time they produced a side game called the Tribbles CCG, which was meant to be a fun, fast Uno-style game that parents could play with their kids. You could also use Tribbles cards from First Edition with the basic Tribbles game. The Continuing Committee started producing new Tribbles cards in 2009, with new sets coming out about once per year.
There are some very big differences between First Edition and Second Edition. The decision to play one or both games depends on what style of game you like to play. First Edition has often been described as a Star Trek Role-Playing Game featuring cards. Second Edition has been described as a card game that features Star Trek.
A large part of First Edition is the seed phase. You lay out a line of missions (the space line) that you share with your opponent. Then you place dilemmas under those missions. You play facilities, which allow you to play personnel later, and several other types of cards that allow you to do specific things. After the seed phase is the play phase, for which you use your draw deck. You have one card play (free plays are allowed as well) to get personnel, equipment, ships and other cards into play. Then you can fly around the space line to attempt your missions. Once you overcome your opponent's seeded dilemmas at a mission, you can try to complete it to score points. At the end of your turn you get one card draw. You need 100 points to win the game.
Second Edition still requires you to win the game by completing missions and scoring 100 points. However, the seed phase doesn't exist in this version of the game. You lay out at least one Headquarters mission, which allows you to play personnel, ships and equipment, and then up to four missions and you start the game. There is a cost system that allows you to spend counters at the beginning of your turn to play or draw cards from your draw deck. You still attempt missions, but instead of dilemmas being set at the beginning of the game, your opponent chooses combinations of dilemmas from their dilemma deck to try to prevent you from completing your mission.
Everyone should play Tribbles because who doesn't like fun?
Play all three! Seriously, though, you can go to our forums and ask about each game or look up to see if there's a player base near you. Oftentimes, local groups will focus on First Edition or Second Edition exclusively. Check here to see if there's an ambassador in your region who can help you out.
While it's still possible to buy physical cards from a variety of websites, the Continuing Committee has made it possible to print every card from every set, virtual and physical. You can do this in two different ways. Every virtual set has an associated high-resolution PDF file that you can print for personal use. Each Decipher-era expansion has a low-resolution file that can be printed in this manner as well.
Alternatively, you can build a deck in the deckbuilder for each of the three games. When the deck is done, you have the option to print the deck. The deckbuilder will generate a low-resolution PDF file of your deck that can again be printed for personal use. When you print from the deckbuilder, you can choose to generate the PDF as a page that is 8.5×11” or A4 size. You can also choose to tweak padding between cards from Minimal (almost no white space between images) to Traditional (a little white between cards) to Expanded (about a mm between cards).
The Continuing Committee never charges for virtual cards.
In 2017-18, Executive Officer jadziadax8 ran the Spotlight Series, which highlighted the features of each affiliation in both First Edition and Second Edition. This series contained articles designed to show off a beginner-friendly deck for each of those affiliations. You can access those articles at this link.
For starter decks of the specific game, visit the First Edition FAQ and Second Edition FAQ sections.
Try playing online! Forum member and Code Monkey eberlems maintains plugins for the program Lackey that allows us to play online. Instructions for installing Lackey and getting the appropriate plugins can be found in the forums. Click on this link to access the First Edition plugin. Go here to get the plugin for Second Edition. The Tribbles plugin can be found here.
Once you get Lackey installed onto your computer, watch this demo video on how to use it with First Edition.
A similar video exists here for Second Edition.
You can also put your name down in this thread on the All Things Trek forum as a potential online player.
Since the first fanzine was published in 1967, Star Trek fan works have been consistently non-commercial. Even when fanzine editors had to charge readers for printing and postage costs (a matter of no small controversy in 1980s fandom!), they were careful not to keep a penny of profit for themselves. For decades, this arrangement has worked well, and Star Trek's owners have always treated fan creators with enormous trust and respect. From the day in 1968 when Gene Roddenberry made the Star Trek writing staff read Spockanalia and ST-PHILE, to the modern flowering of fan films, the warm relationship between Star Trek's owners and its fan creators remains the envy of other fandoms.
The Continuing Committee strives to carry on this tradition. Star Trek and all related marks, logos and characters are solely owned by CBS Studios Inc. Our activities are not endorsed by, sponsored by, nor affiliated with CBS, Paramount Pictures, or any Star Trek license-holder. The Continuing Committee is an incorporated non-profit, and every staff member contributes on a 100% volunteer basis. Our fan-made cards are produced by volunteers and distributed non-commercially. No commercial printing or distribution is authorized or permitted.
Please do not do this. The Continuing Committee discourages all players from creating cards that could be confused with Decipher-era cards. We do not want CBS/Paramount to take notice of our operation, and players making virtual cards that look real is one way for us to come to their attention.
Additionally, cards printed on card stock are not tournament legal. Virtual cards must be sleeved with a physical card in order to be used at a tournament. (The type of physical card doesn't matter if the sleeves are opaque and cards cannot be distinguished from each other.)
Please don't do this! It will bring down the wrath of Paramount/CBS on us. No one likes a Cease and Desist letter.
The Continuing Committee would very much like to make use of this source material in our virtual cards. However, we feel that using these properties would tempt fate in terms of copyright complaints. Decipher had the license to five TV shows (The Original Series, Deep Space 9, Voyager and Enterprise) and the first ten movies (The Motion Picture through Nemesis). Additionally, we occasionally use images from The Animated Series. We feel that since even the newest of these properties is nearly twenty years old, it's safe to continue to use them. The newer properties are making money for CBS/Paramount right now, and we feel that they would be more likely to send us a Cease and Desist letter for making use of them.
The Continuing Committee is a non-profit organization registered in Washington state in the USA. We are governed by a set of Bylaws that can be found here. The Committee is administered by a board of seven Directors. These are the Director of First Edition, the Director of Second Edition, the Director of Organized Play, the Director of Operations, the Director of Communications, the Executive Officer and the Chief Financial Officer. The Board is chaired by one of these directors, who takes a one-year term starting after each year's Period of Review.
Each year the members of the Board of Directors are subject to the Period of Review. In January, a set of threads is created where forum members can ask questions of the seven members of the Board of Directors regarding their performance and that of their respective Departments. The Board members generally answer these questions via a streamed YouTube broadcast. Then between February 1st and 8th, the Voting Members (those people with an active Premium Membership) can vote to retain each individual Board member.
We have several revenue streams; Regional Championship fees (our largest source of revenue), tournament kits, general donations and Premium Memberships. Each of these can be purchased in the Promenade. General donations will get you a forum badge. More information on the benefits of a Premium Membership and how to purchase tournament kits can be found in later questions in this FAQ.
The Continuing Committee never charges players for virtual promos.
We run organized play for all three games, maintaining a player rating system and organizing large tournaments, including the World Championships, for all three games. Tournaments are played at physical locations (organized by local players) or online through the Lackey CC software. Additionally, we have an achievements system, run raffles for hard-to-get promos and generally promote the games through a series of articles. Overall, there's a lot of great stuff on the site.
In the Beginning, there was the Star Trek CCG, and it was Good. Then Decipher released the Voyager expansion, which began the Time of Breaking. The Holy Hexany and Vic Fontaine brought down the game and it was Bad. Even All Good Things could not stop evil from spreading. The Dark Times came. Then, in 2010, the CC restored the game to its earlier glory with the Modern Rules, a set of rules (including a ban list) that have been successful at curbing the most abusive strategies in the game. This is now the preferred format among most players and is used at most sanctioned tournaments.
No. After converting many 2EBC cards to 1E templates, the Continuing Committee retired the 2EBC conversion rules in 2018. 2EBC cards are no longer supported, nor are they legal in most organized play. (Retired 2EBC resources may still be found here. A few events, called "Legacy" events, specially allow their use.)
That's just fine! You're free to play with the Traditional (Decipher-only) card pool and rules, or you could even use Traditional cards but Modern rules. (Both sets of rules are explained in the Rulebook.) Just decide in advance whether you plan to use errata or "play-em-as-printed." Forum member SudenKapala has put together a list of Traditional decks found here.
We have several options for products for new players. On the First Edition side, we highly recommend that new players read the basic Rulebook and download the four starter decks that are found in the Coming of Age set. These four decks are balanced against each other and come with a quick start guide on the first page to help you learn to play. After you and your friends feel comfortable with these decks, you can start upgrading these starters. One easy upgrade has been submitted by forum member Armus, where he added The Squire's Rules and changed out the dilemmas for all S/P dilemmas. Please see this link to find those variants.
The most common constructed format is Standard. All cards are legal in this format. There is no ban list.
Hall of Fame is a newer constructed format where a list of popular cards that are at least 10 years old have been retired from play. Each year players from the community nominate and vote on cards to be retired in the Hall of Fame format. You can find the current list of retired cards in this thread on the 2E Gameplay forum. You can also use the filter in the Premium deckbuilder to help keep these cards out when you try to build a deck.
Other constructed formats include Traditional (only Decipher-era cards allowed), virtual (only virtual and virtual promo cards allowed, plus proxies) and Academy (only common, starter and virtual rarity cards allowed, plus proxies). For more information on all limited card pools, please see the Organized Play Guide.
Designer edgeofhearing has built a set of eight balanced beginner decks based on winning builds. These decks and their associated articles can be accessed from this main article. Additionally, he created a series of four how-to-play videos that can be viewed starting here. The individual deck articles describe how each deck can be upgraded for more individualized gameplay.
Guess what! You're a TD! And you're a TD!
Seriously, anyone can run a tournament.
The Organized Play Guide outlines all the procedures for running both in-person and online tournaments.
Go to the main page of the website and click on the link at the top of the page that says Tournaments. Under the banner you should see a link that says Add Tournament.
Any TD who has hosted a sanctioned event in the last six months can order prize kits from the Promenade. Eligible TDs can order up to four kits of each type at a time. You must have a PayPal account in order to place an order in the Promenade. In order to get a kit, you must first purchase a TD Pass. This pass gives you access to the kit and allows the CC to keep the price of the kit low to account for Customs charges for our players living outside of the US. After you have paid for the TD Pass, you will be able to access and pay for shipping on the kit itself.