My husband loved that game. I have heard many exciting tales about Star Frontiers ;) That was well before my time though, from a gaming perspective. I didn't start playing RPGs until I was in college.
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Surely I can't be the only one who played and enjoyed Star Frontiers.
Had it. Never played it. I hate to be a booger, but I balked at the player races. Sorry. I guess they were going for "really alien" but they ended up looking goofy to me. Mind you, I was a sarcastic, mean little bastard back then, so ...
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TigerDave, I agree that most of the races were silly, but they did have so pretty good ideas too. Take the Humma for example. What says fun more than a race of bad tempered kangaroos with a prehensile tail? Or the Yzarrians, a race of flying monkeys that the Klingons would be proud to call friends? Still I have fond memories of playing the game as a young lad.
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Somewhere I saw a website with free PDFs of all the rulebooks.
Ah. That would be this site. I took the opportunity to download everything he had to offer. Mayhap now that I have learned to TRY the broccoli before chanting eternal emnity, I may actually have fun!
I'm with the "had the game since it came out but never played crowd". Made quite a few characters with it but never got the chance to play until recently when some gamer friends of mine all realized we had the game. We broke it out and played a modified version of the "Crash on Volturnus" game that came with the box set. It was fun...and the rules weren't too bad at all.
M
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I loved Star Frontiers when I was a teen, we never got to play, but I must have read everything 10 times, and made 60 characters...
It was interesting that they inserted the races into Spell Jammer with 2e. Changed the names, but they were definitely there...The Yazirians even made it into 3e...Stormwrack I believe.
I may have to drop a crashed ship into Golarion with some Star Frontiers survivors. Perhaps they'll mount an expedition to the "Barrier Peaks" to recover some tech to get back to the stars...
I still have both the Alpha Dawn and Knight Hawks boxed sets (including the three Volturnus modules and the three Beyond the Frontier modules); as well as the "revision" (more of a new edition) that was Zebulon's Guide to Frontier Space. The Alpha Dawn rules are pretty straightforward and fast in play; unfortunately, they leave a lot up to the GM's judgement, compared to d20. The Knight Hawk rules are useful if you want to run space combat (ship-to-ship or just vacuum/zero-g).
Overall, it's still a decent system. The Alternity rules and the Star*Drive setting are (IMO) better designed, though. IIRC, there was even a Dragon issue that gave Alternity stats for the Star Frontiers races and tips on running Star Frontiers using the Alternity rules.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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I loved Star Frontiers,
yes, a lot of rules required, um, GM intervention.
From a small game I played in.
Player 2 "Ok, we have truth serum right?"
GM "Can you administer it?"
Me "Nope, plan B."
GM "What's plan B?"
Me "Parabattery, jumper cables, and sensative parts of the bad guy."
Ahhh, Memories.
Overall, it's still a decent system. The Alternity rules and the Star*Drive setting are (IMO) better designed, though.Star Frontiers: 1982
Alternity: 1998
Star*Drive: 1998
Well, yeah...
You'd hope a publisher would learn to make a better product in 15 years...
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There is a webpag where you can download all Star Frontiers Books digitally remastered and hopefully legal as a PDF:
Starfrontiersman.
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There is a webpag where you can download all Star Frontiers Books digitally remastered and hopefully legal as a PDF:
Starfrontiersman.
Completly legal and authorized by WotC.
(Sniffs..sniffs again... Starts doing a mournful banshee wail)..
Alas! Alas! Where art thou classic RPGs of yore!
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Sweet, gonna download all that happy happy good times tonight...Now if there was a resource like this for the old Gamma World editions.
I'll prolly run it for my boys, they actually have the Villains of Volturnus Choose your own adventure book from the old days, I bet they'd love to play that module!! LoL
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I was thinking that Gamma World would probably fit better into 4e instead of 3.5 being that 4e's powers and weapon schemes are more modular.I saw that. I was just wishing for things like Gamma World 3rd edition.
I actually meant the third edition of Gamma World. I have the 3.5/d20 version. I was not impressed. A 4e/Saga Edition version would be excellent.
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I actually meant the third edition of Gamma World. I have the 3.5/d20 version. I was not impressed. A 4e/Saga Edition version would be excellent.I was thinking that Gamma World would probably fit better into 4e instead of 3.5 being that 4e's powers and weapon schemes are more modular.I saw that. I was just wishing for things like Gamma World 3rd edition.
D'oh!
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I actually meant the third edition of Gamma World. I have the 3.5/d20 version. I was not impressed. A 4e/Saga Edition version would be excellent.I was thinking that Gamma World would probably fit better into 4e instead of 3.5 being that 4e's powers and weapon schemes are more modular.I saw that. I was just wishing for things like Gamma World 3rd edition.
Yeah 4E rules seem a much better fit for Sci-Fi and Supers than Fantasy...Although they might work OK for the Earthdawn Legends setting, that RedBrick has decided to do, since Earthdawn was already power based effectively...
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Wayfinder, PaizoCon Founder
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I loved Star Frontiers. Especially with Zebulon's Guide. Roll, Cobalt damange!!!
I took the big map of the city, Port Loren, transferred it to normal graph paper, and then expanded it out to twice its size. Had a spaceport, residential area, and many more stores. And expanded a monorail system. I had a notebook that had a key to each and every building, grouped by location and then by store type. All by hand...before computers.
I also remember creating a Terminator/Robocop adventure where the new police/security computer system became corrupted and began enforcing law and order by exterminating citizens (as they were the only beings capable of law-breaking). The adventure slid into a pathetic state when I supplied the characters with an Airwolf gunship.
Yes, Dominic and Hawk were....NPCs.
There is a webpag where you can download all Star Frontiers Books digitally remastered and hopefully legal as a PDF:
Starfrontiersman.
Better Question ...
Can we get them converted to ... Pathfinder Beta?
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How did I miss this thread?
I LOVE Star Frontiers. Waaay back in 1983ish (?) it was THE game that got me first started into role playing. It was only after falling in love with Star Frontiers that I went out and got the "blue book" D&D and the "red box" Basic D&D.
Just a couple years ago we dusted it off and played about a year long e-campaign. I can happily say it was JUST as much fun as I remembered. :)
-J
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Star Frontiers - still one of my favourite SF RPG's. Lighter than Traveller with a better "space travel" system. Making ships in Knight Hawks was a great way to kill a rainy day. The "board game" of Knight Hawks still has to be one of the best space combat games (without taking it too seriously physics-wise).
Love it!
S.
Hiya.
Star Frontiers *rawks on toast*! Got it when it first came out. We played a campaign in it for, oh, 2 to 3 years IIRC (with little side-treks to AD&D 1e, Basic D&D or GammaWorld for a couple games).
As a matter of fact...I'm running a campaign in StarFrontiers right now (going on month 3 now). We play every week, so I get my SF fix regularly now. :)
I actually 'converted' the first adventure (and notes on the next two) of the Age of Worms campaign to be a SF campaign. I figured, "Worms? Sathar? Sure, why not!". Alas, the players ended up going in a COMPLETELY different direction...and leaving the planet to boot. Maybe I'll see if I can "sneak 'em back into" the AP without them knowning....hmmm....raises one eyebrow and rubs his chin melevolently as a wry smile crosses his face. :)
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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The Knight Hawks rules (the ship-to-ship dogfighting game) still hold up after all this time as a terrific example of clear game design and rules presentation. Somebody put a lot of thought into "How can we teach people this game?" and it shows.
Zebulon's Guide adds a lot of depth to the game, but makes the universe substantially darker and grimmer. I introduced its material gradually into my campaign, way back when, and that was probably the right idea.
Hiya
As a matter of fact...I'm running a campaign in StarFrontiers right now (going on month 3 now). We play every week, so I get my SF fix regularly now. :)
Damn. Spoke too soon. Just finished our game; I got a TPK. :( But I can't take all the credit...one character killed the dralasite knife-fighter with a panicked and misplaced grenade. *BOOM!*...dral innards all over the station corridor. Of course, the fact that the PC's also 'tape-welded' two doors behind them so they couldn't be attacked from behind didn't help when the last two non-combat PC's were running for their lives...
Ah well, still a helluva ride! :)
^_^
Paul L. Ming