Feb 28, 2016 2:16 am
So, would anyone be interested in playing a game of Star Frontiers?
Edit to provide relevant information (!):
Star Frontiers is the Science Fiction RPG that TSR created in 1982. It was the 2nd of three science fiction RPGs the company created, after Metamorphosis Alpha but before Buck Rogers. In the base game, there are four allied sentient species (PC races) who formed the United Planetary Federation: humans, Dralasites (shapeshifters called "blobs"), Vrusk (centaur-like arachnids called "bugs"), and Yazirians (gliding anthropoid mammals called "monkeys").
There are a bunch of flavors of the game: Alpha Dawn, which is little more than a miniatures battle game like Monster Slayers; Expanded Alpha Dawn, which builds out the game more by adding a GM, skills, setting information, rules for creating adventures and telling stories, and character improvement through experience. There was a closely-related product called Knight Hawks, which was a weird hybrid of a skills list expansion (incorporating spacecraft into the campaign) and a tactical space combat board game. Finally, there was an accessory - Zebulon's Guide to Frontier Space - that was actually more like a full second edition to the game, with streamlined rules for everything, an expanded skills list, and adds four more PC races: Humma (aggressive kangaroos with prehensile tails), Ifshnit (furry dwarves), Mechanons (self-replicating robots), and Osakar (quadrupedal snake plants). If there was sufficient interest, I'd be willing to run any combination of the rules, though my preference would be Expanded Alpha Dawn with the changes/additions from Zebulon's Guide.
All of this material is freely and legally available on the Star Frontiers web site. Like many TSR games, Star Frontiers never really took off the way D&D did. Wizards of the Coast has only occasionally leveraged the intellectual property in TSR's Star Frontiers products in its own (most notably d20 Future) and has never made any move to republishing Star Frontiers. Instead, Wizards of the Coast has been content to let the original game continue in the public domain with fan support.
Edit to provide relevant information (!):
Star Frontiers is the Science Fiction RPG that TSR created in 1982. It was the 2nd of three science fiction RPGs the company created, after Metamorphosis Alpha but before Buck Rogers. In the base game, there are four allied sentient species (PC races) who formed the United Planetary Federation: humans, Dralasites (shapeshifters called "blobs"), Vrusk (centaur-like arachnids called "bugs"), and Yazirians (gliding anthropoid mammals called "monkeys").
There are a bunch of flavors of the game: Alpha Dawn, which is little more than a miniatures battle game like Monster Slayers; Expanded Alpha Dawn, which builds out the game more by adding a GM, skills, setting information, rules for creating adventures and telling stories, and character improvement through experience. There was a closely-related product called Knight Hawks, which was a weird hybrid of a skills list expansion (incorporating spacecraft into the campaign) and a tactical space combat board game. Finally, there was an accessory - Zebulon's Guide to Frontier Space - that was actually more like a full second edition to the game, with streamlined rules for everything, an expanded skills list, and adds four more PC races: Humma (aggressive kangaroos with prehensile tails), Ifshnit (furry dwarves), Mechanons (self-replicating robots), and Osakar (quadrupedal snake plants). If there was sufficient interest, I'd be willing to run any combination of the rules, though my preference would be Expanded Alpha Dawn with the changes/additions from Zebulon's Guide.
All of this material is freely and legally available on the Star Frontiers web site. Like many TSR games, Star Frontiers never really took off the way D&D did. Wizards of the Coast has only occasionally leveraged the intellectual property in TSR's Star Frontiers products in its own (most notably d20 Future) and has never made any move to republishing Star Frontiers. Instead, Wizards of the Coast has been content to let the original game continue in the public domain with fan support.
Last edited February 29, 2016 6:23 pm
