Star Frontiers

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I only ever owned the Star Frontiers rules (what a cover!) are any of the later modules good? I see Jim Bambra and Graeme Morris wrote one each.
 
I'm a big fan of Mutiny on the Eleanor Moraes (which I've run numerous times using a few different rules systems). It may be my favorite Scifi adventure produced by any publisher. I also enjoyed running Mission to Alcazzar and Bugs in the System, with tweaks to both.

I loved the Volturnus series when I was younger, and I've stolen scenarios out of it to implant into a campaign. Not sure if I'd run it in its entirety these days. It has some great scenarios and some lackluster ones.
 
Thanks, Bugs looks interesting and Rolston can be fun as he always tries something different.
 
Baulderstone said:
My take based on the Alpha Dawn boxed set is that the UPF area is basically the "town" in a traditional D&D sense. You can have adventures there, but typically you go outside the UPF to somewhere like Volurnus for the real action. For me, the ideal Star Frontiers line would consist mostly of adventures detailing new planets to explore.
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I think that was reinforced by what was offered in the SF boxed set. With the big map of Port Loren and the counters, you could start off with 'city' adventures. (IIRC, the Basic Rules provided a (solo?) adventure set in Port Loren. Corporate espionage, or smugglers, or something?). But, pretty much all of the modules focused on getting out on the frontier, adventuring, meeting alien races, and exploring alien environments. And some adventures took it further, by showcasing the bad guys, the Sathar - their secrets and their overt and covert war against the UPF and frontier worlds.

My pre-teen friends and I had all kinds of tactical adventures in Port Loren when we started playing Star Frontiers. Driving around the city at high speeds - lots of chases and reckless driving. Very much a futuristic Grand Theft Auto - decades before GTA existed. We then 'graduated' to playing through a number of modules. The Volturnus series was a big hit for us, with its blend of wilderness survival, alien race first-contacts, fights against the Star Devil pirates, and the impending invasion by the Sathar army.
 
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xanther said:
Too bad. Making you own die cut counters is difficult (done it for my own space combat game, I've attached a couple ), and for some reason the chip board to make them gets harder to find. View attachment 226View attachment 227
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I've always just made my own by printing on paper and gluing them to comic book backing board paper. Holds up pretty well and very inexpensive.
 
Apparition said:
Two more modules became available on DriveThruRPG in both PDF and PoD.

Here's a review of the Alpha Dawn and Knight Hawks hardcover PoDs by Tom Stephens (editor of Frontier Explorer and owner of a Star Frontiers fan site), including a photograph comparison to the original boxed sets.
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Very nice looking books. So glad they didn't feel compelled to "fix" the design and art and color scheme. I wouldn't mind having those. Still have my originals, though, except for the chits.
 
Voros said:
I only ever owned the Star Frontiers rules (what a cover!) are any of the later modules good? I see Jim Bambra and Graeme Morris wrote one each.
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I only have the rulebooks now, but I seem to recall the game came with a module that I no longer seem to have. Might be buried in the Star Frontiers box. I'll have to check. Anybody recall what it was called? I have a vague, possibly incorrect recollection of it having something to do with a spaceship crashing on a planet...?

I would also be curious about what modules are good...maybe I should download them from that free Star Frontiers web site and print them out at work to put in a binder.
 
Dumarest said:
I only have the rulebooks now, but I seem to recall the game came with a module that I no longer seem to have. Might be buried in the Star Frontiers box. I'll have to check. Anybody recall what it was called? I have a vague, possibly incorrect recollection of it having something to do with a spaceship crashing on a planet...?

I would also be curious about what modules are good...maybe I should download them from that free Star Frontiers web site and print them out at work to put in a binder.
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“Crash on Volturnus” was the scenario that came with the boxed set I believe.

Unfortunately I also believe that download website is no more as they received a cease & desist from WOTC before the PDFs went up for sale on DriveThru
 
Apparition said:
Two more modules became available on DriveThruRPG in both PDF and PoD.

Here's a review of the Alpha Dawn and Knight Hawks hardcover PoDs by Tom Stephens (editor of Frontier Explorer and owner of a Star Frontiers fan site), including a photograph comparison to the original boxed sets.
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Man that looks nice, I think I'll pick up the hardcover Alpha Dawn next paycheck.
 
It's a shame they aren't saddle-stitched like the originals. OBS does saddle-stitching, but only up 48 pages. The Alpha Dawn Basic Rules are only 16 pages, but the Expanded Rules are about 60. Given the total page count, it might have been cool if they had moved a chapter from the Expanded Rules to the Basic Rules just to get them both in the saddle-stitched range. Given that that resized the maps in a way that made the unusable with the counters, WotC clearly doesn't care enough to go to that kind of trouble though.

I realize that they couldn't include a large map easily in a POD product, but simply having a tiled PDF at actual scale for the customer to print-out would be nice. One of the things that made Star Frontiers such a great beginners game was having the large city map you could move your counters around. An edition of Star Frontiers with maps that can't be used in play with the counters is essentially gimped as a starter set to gift to kids.

The small counters made a much more satisfying scale for gunfights than standard RPG minis. While I love Savage Worlds, it admits it has to give ranged weapons and vehicles ridiculously small ranges to work with standard mini scale on a tabletop.

Getting back to saddle-stitching, I have been using Necrotic Gnome's B/X Essentials books (and full disclosure, doing proof-reading), which are saddle-stitched, and it is so nice to have a new book made that way. They are so much more useful for table reference than shiny hardbacks.

Alternately, it would be nice if OBS upped the saddle-stitching limit to 64 pages. That would allow most of the classic TSR saddle-stitched books to be released in their original format.
 
Apparition said:
If you simply must have saddle-stitched Star Frontiers, take a look here, here, here, here, here, and here. But... erm... I would strongly advise you to purchase them quickly before WotC notices that they're still up.
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From what I can tell wotc knows they are there. They're having them pulled only after they have something to replace them with. They seem to be working nice with the guy running starfrontiers.com.
 
Bunch said:
From what I can tell wotc knows they are there. They're having them pulled only after they have something to replace them with. They seem to be working nice with the guy running starfrontiers.com.
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That's the PDFs on starfrontiers.com. What I linked to are PoD editions of the actual books which were put up on Lulu around 2011 and are still up at the moment, but most are now available on DriveThruRPG. It's just a matter of time before they go *poof*.
 
Apparition said:
If you simply must have saddle-stitched Star Frontiers, take a look here, here, here, here, here, and here. But... erm... I would strongly advise you to purchase them quickly before WotC notices that they're still up.
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Well, I have my saddle-stitched originals. I just want everyone to enjoy that luxury. Thanks for sharing a way that they can. For now...
 
Apparition said:
That's the PDFs on starfrontiers.com. What I linked to are PoD editions of the actual books which were put up on Lulu around 2011 and are still up at the moment, but most are now available on DriveThruRPG. It's just a matter of time before they go *poof*.
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Yeah but I believe starfrontiers.com is run by Bill Logan the same guy selling on lulu.com. He seems to have a long term cooperative relationship with WotC regarding SF. I'm assuming he's been upfront about everything.
 
I took my own advice and ordered absolutely everything available on Lulu last week while it's still available, sans "Zebulon's Guide to Frontier Space." It's coming in a 7.2 pound box via FedEx tomorrow. I also ordered "Mutiny on the Eleanor Moraes" from DriveThruRPG today. So, by the end of next week I should own the entire Star Frontiers line sans "Zebulon's Guide to Frontier Space," the last two Knight Hawks modules, and the counters. I figure it should come in useful for Frontier Space.
 
Apparition said:
I took my own advice and ordered absolutely everything available on Lulu last week while it's still available, sans "Zebulon's Guide to Frontier Space." It's coming in a 7.2 pound box via FedEx tomorrow. I also ordered "Mutiny on the Eleanor Moraes" from DriveThruRPG today. So, by the end of next week I should own the entire Star Frontiers line sans "Zebulon's Guide to Frontier Space," the last two Knight Hawks modules, and the counters. I figure it should come in useful for Frontier Space.
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Awesome. I would love to have it all in print. Whether I'd ever get to use it is another story.
 
Bunch said:
I wish there was an orphan games convention where everyone played all the games they can never get their home group to play.
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If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

Start one!
 
Apparition said:
I took my own advice and ordered absolutely everything available on Lulu last week while it's still available, sans "Zebulon's Guide to Frontier Space." It's coming in a 7.2 pound box via FedEx tomorrow. I also ordered "Mutiny on the Eleanor Moraes" from DriveThruRPG today. So, by the end of next week I should own the entire Star Frontiers line sans "Zebulon's Guide to Frontier Space," the last two Knight Hawks modules, and the counters. I figure it should come in useful for Frontier Space.
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Speaking of Zebulon's Guide, it's up on DTRPG. In other odd news, they've got the Amazing Engine System Guide on there as well...

Not to derail, but they had some good ideas for AE, just not a good system to back them. Bughunters fit oddly well within the history and universe map for Alternity's Star*Drive setting when I was tinkering with campaign ideas back in the day...

Later!

Harl
 
I paid no attention to any of the AE stuff at the time. I can't really recall why.
 
Well, according to the USPS my printed copy of the "Mutiny on the Eleanor Moraes " module arrived today. FedEx was supposed to deliver the other books to my condominium on Wednesday, but said that they couldn't get into my condominium building. Funny thing is that I was home when they said they attempted to deliver as I work from home on Wednesday, and no one buzzed the intercom. Then the books were out for delivery again yesterday, only for FedEx to say that they couldn't get into my condominium building again. Now they're out for delivery again... We'll see.
 
Reminds me of the time I preordered the last Harry Potter book for my wife and the post office guaranteed delivery on the release day, we were actually home all day with the door open and just the screen door closed. Nobody ever came, bell never rang, no one knocked...

Anyway, I went to the post office the next time they were open and asked about my package. :present: The supervisor said the postman filled out his form saying he attempted delivery but no one answered. :trigger: Ha! I explained the truth and all the supervisor said was, "Yeah, we get that complaint about him a lot..." :ooh:

Of course he still works there. Fortunately I have moved and don't have to deal anymore with a lazy postman who skips deliveries when he doesn't feel like working. :thumbsup: Seriously, this is what I found out! But he's a federal employee and would have to be caught committing a murder on film before they'd put him on paid leave, let alone fire him. :crap:
 
Dumarest said:
Reminds me of the time I preordered the last Harry Potter book for my wife and the post office guaranteed delivery on the release day, we were actually home all day with the door open and just the screen door closed. Nobody ever came, bell never rang, no one knocked...

Anyway, I went to the post office the next time they were open and asked about my package. :present: The supervisor said the postman filled out his form saying he attempted delivery but no one answered. :trigger: Ha! I explained the truth and all the supervisor said was, "Yeah, we get that complaint about him a lot..." :ooh:

Of course he still works there. Fortunately I have moved and don't have to deal anymore with a lazy postman who skips deliveries when he doesn't feel like working. :thumbsup: Seriously, this is what I found out! But he's a federal employee and would have to be caught committing a murder on film before they'd put him on paid leave, let alone fire him. :crap:
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Friend of mines wife got a guy fired from the state of michigan three times for being drunk on the job. He was hired back every time, with basically no loss of position or seniority. She gave up even saying anything after that.
 
noman said:
i just want to briefly say that I'm rather pleased that people are still into SF. I think that's really cool.
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I've heard about Star Frontiers for years, mostly as the science-fiction tabletop RPG that Lorraine Williams killed off in favor of Buck Rogers XXVc. Whether that's true or not, I have no idea, but that's besides the point. From what I heard and read, the game sounded like fun, but at the same time I also heard that there was a spiritual successor in development that was supposed to be "better" and "more logical," so I thought that I may as well wait. When FrontierSpace was finally released last October, I looked more into Star Frontiers, and found a gaming community that spanned across five different websites, three different forums, and two fanzines. I also discovered that quite a few of the people that are playing FrontierSpace are using converted Star Frontiers modules. Then of course the author of FrontierSpace published a Star Frontiers race conversion in the latest issue of a Star Frontiers & FrontierSpace fanzine. It is pretty cool to see that the game still has life 35 years later, even if it may not be played using the original rules set.
 
Bunch said:
There goes Noman, derailing the thread again!
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Just doing my part for this community. :tongue:

Also, Amazon Shipping > USPS > FedEx > UPS > OnTrak. :hehe:

Ontrak and UPS can't even figure out how to ring doorbells or open doors. :irritated:
 
Gotta say, I'd have to wonder about any kid who saw these covers and didn't want to play this game!
starfron_basic.jpg starfrontiers_expandedrules.jpg 226992.jpg 230493.jpg 233011.jpg
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(Couldn't find a good picture of the ref screen, but someone made a T-shirt.)
 

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noman said:
Just doing my part for this community. :tongue:

Also, Amazon Shipping > USPS > FedEx > UPS > OnTrak. :hehe:

Ontrak and UPS can't even figure out how to ring doorbells or open doors. :irritated:
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OnTrak is balls. The worst drivers. Half the time they leave packages somewhere on the side if our driveway in the dirt and bushes.
 
Bunch said:
Agreed! My only complaint is they didn't put a dralasite in the first two covers somehow.
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Ha, that and the absence of a Vrusk always annoyed me a little, but then again it would ruin the composition and you'd need wholly different art.
 
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