I’m running a Star Trek Adventure campaign and I had a player brand new to STA ask for my recommendation on what book to buy. I own 95% of the STA books/PDF’s but I’m at a loss. Would the Player’s Guide be a good recommendation for a first buy for a player? There is always the Core rulebook but I feel rules/mechanics can be learned in play.
On a first buy? Core Book, hands down. I’d recommend the Tricorder digest, though, as it includes some slight but significant updates to the rules.
After that? Yes, probably the Player’s Guide or the Division Supplement of choice.
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Free quickstart and the Players Guide. Especially if you have access to the character builder app.
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CRB for sure. It’s always good to have your own copy of the rules to learn from and double check rulings, plus I always feel that everyone who plays a TTRPG should own the game themselves. Obviously, for the first little while, you’re experimenting and seeing if you like it or not, and it’s fair to not invest during that period. However, I think it’s only fair that once you decide that it’s a game you want to regularly play, then buying the rules is your way of being honest. Not necessarily Modipihius’ position, but that’s the rule I set for myself for being honest in my dealings with creators.
I’d actually give the Division Supplements a miss, personally. They’re basically books full of what I’d describe as technical lore. They’re an interesting read if you enjoy that kind of thing, so if they do then sure. However, I found that in terms of practical gaming value, they had three parts that were good. There are the plot generators as well as NPCs, which are awesome for a GM but largely useless as a player. They then each have something else that’s pretty good - the Command book has the awards you can use for progression, the Operations book has a technobabble table and the Science has a method for creating new species for GMs - but those are small enough that I think it’s reasonable that you just need access to them rather than everyone owning a copy. It’s not like the rules where you need to have access all the time or outside of play, if you’re not a GM.
The Player’s Guide is awesome at what it is aimed at: helping those that are either new to Trek, new to TTRPGs, or new to both. If someone was brand new to both (like several members of the campaign I’m prepping for), I’d love to give them this, and it’s still really good if they’re experienced in one area but not the other. It can also be a good read if they’re not quite “getting it” from reading the CRB. Since you said that you had “95%” of the PDFs, I’d assume that you’d have this one, so I’d recommend reading it with them in mind. If you think that they’d benefit from it, then go ahead an recommend it.
Otherwise, most of the books are actually aimed more or less as the GMs. Depending on budget, may be the relevant settings guides to your game (Eg Quadrant Supplement, Shackleton Expanse, etc). They can give a nice background knowledge for your players. On the other hand, they can also discover that knowledge through play…it’s whatever you think suits your table.
Other than those, it’s all missions or stuff squarely aimed at GM. The Klingon book comes with alternate progression rules (which we use because I much prefer them), but that’s a whole new CRB that covers much the same as the Starfleet material (with some new stuff of course) for one bit that they would definitely like. So mostly, get the CRB, then maybe a Player’s Guide. Then consider dice…
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Hence my recommendation of the Tricorder digest. It includes e.g. these new progression rules of the Klingon CRB.
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Ah, I didn’t get it since I had copies of most other things, so I didn’t know everything that was in it. In that case yeah, Tricorder makes sense.
I would second the Core Book.
It has everything that is needed from a player viewpoint and also has the advantage that if they ever feel the need to try running a game as a GM they don’t need anything more.
It reduces the barrier to entry to being on the other side of the GM screen (if you use a GM screen of course 
)
The more players that can be persuaded to try GMing, even if they end up deciding it is not for them, the better.
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Thanks for the feedback! I agree if my player were going to play long term the CRB is the best buy. I think I’ll probably recommend the quick start and Player’s Guide though. My player is relatively new to Star Trek. They’ve only seen the JJ movies.
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