That's a concept the game's first major supplement -- Raiders, Renegades and Rogues -- tries hard to develop, but the results say more about the limitations of the Star Trek universe than the possibilities of unsavory characters in it.

The book is certainly comprehensive. Large sections explain a variety of shadowy occupations, including piracy, thievery, gambling, mercenary warfare and assassination.

Whole chapters are devoted to equipment, ships, safehouses and notable rogues. A chapter on character creation offers players a variety of new races and occupations, and another chapter on gamemastering presents ideas for running a Star Trek campaign devoted to shady characters.

Each section is competently written and informative, yet the book as a whole seems strangely generic.

Except for occasional mentions of characters from DS9 and TNG episodes, most of the chapters could easily be used in any other science fiction game. A pirate seems to be a pirate no matter what universe he's in.

There are also signs that the writers had trouble finding good examples of rogues in recent Star Trek. A great deal is made of "Ardra" -- the con artist pretending to be a demon in the TNG episode "Devil's Due" -- and of the Varon-T disruptor, a weapon used by collector Kivas Fajo in the TNG episode "The Most Toys".

These two examples crop up over and over again in the text, seemingly because there weren't many others to use. This leads to a strange shortage of DS9-related examples in this DS9 supplement, despite the presence of a proudly dishonest Ferengi in that show's regular cast.

Then again, maybe it isn't that surprising that Raiders, Renegades and Rogues rarely alludes to Quark's exploits. The appeal of pretending to be outlaw characters is in vicariously getting away with their shady behavior, but Odo almost always thwarted Quark -- or worse, someone convinced the "unethical" Ferengi to take the moral high road..

There lies the heart of the problem. The Star Trek universe is not friendly to the morally challenged.

There's certainly plenty of brilliant criminals and scurrilous troublemakers in the universe, but they're all villains. And while they may make the heroes' lives difficult for a while, they always lose to the good guys in the end.

The near-magical abilities and moral rectitude of Starfleet makes it almost impossible for rogues to enjoy success and glory. And while it's possible to reduce or even eliminate Starfleet's influence, the result doesn't feel much like Star Trek any more.

In the end, a Star Trek roleplaying game is more suitable for hunting pirates than being them. Raiders, Renegades and Rogues is a solid book -- but in this case, the subject matter hasn't lived up to the game supplement.