Well we started the Star Frontiers game today. I thought it went well. The scenario I put together was/is pretty big. But hey got through more than I expected. It kept our attention. As it was kind of like o'crap its 5 o'clock. Well we'll wrap it up here for today. It was a good place to stop anyways.
First off lets talk about the players characters.
Ryan is playing Omar an aggressive Yarsian mercenary.
Scott is playing Loran a Human, disgruntled former UPF military man.
Robert is playing Octvian a Vrusk businessman. Assigned to the ship.
Pat is playing Gesh a Dralasite medic.
The fellas are supposed to flesh things out better in a back story. Which they will be getting me this week. (Hopefully)
Together with Billy (NPC) their pilot they are the crew of the "Chubby Virgin". A small container freighter. Which means the ship carries its cargo in containers/pods outside of the hull. Much like a container ship in reality. They have a corporate contractual lease. What this means is that. The characters are leasing the ship from a company. The company takes a larger portion of the profits. Because part of the money is going toward purchasing the ship. Sort of a rent to own deal. It also give the characters the backing of the company to purchase cargo. o that they can deliver it to wherever they can get the most for it. The company they are in contract with is a small Vrusk shipping company named Prospect Shipping. Prospect has offices a couple different systems.
The characters are delivering food stuffs, and toiletry's. To the planet Mahg Mar in the Waller Nexus system. They are delivering to the space station. The planet itself has a small educational/research center. The station orbiting the planet is mainly a distribution center between transports, and the planet. The station is named the "Arcas". It a small station. But it has a little of everything. Including restaurant's, shopping, health club, and a small hotel. It is a cylinder which ships can dock at. Near the top there is the ring. This spins giving gravity. This is where the shopping and stuff is located. The command center being at the top of the cylinder.
As they approach the station they receive an automated docking message. Which the pilot remarks as being a little strange. They also see a lone ship leaving the station. It is a lone Indiaman class freighter. Named "The Star of Dramune". So they dock and enter the station.
Everything seems fine, except that it seems deserted. Till they get half way up the cylinder on the freight elevator. The notice something strange on the air lock door. They stop and investigate. Its blood on the door and floating in the air. As the cylinder is zero g. they try to use the intercom to contact security. But all they get are goofy automated messages.
They continue up the elevator. With the goal to go to the cargo wholesale office in the shopping area. Get their money and get out. So they get to the elevator room and head to the shopping center. As they are riding the elevator down they notice some strange slime on the floor. When the doors open they see a slime trail to the right. The players decide not to follow this and head to the left toward the cargo office. Its very strange there are no sounds of activity. As the shopping center is usually far busier than this. As they head to the cargo office. They notice in the first shop. which is a clothing retailer, someone moving around in the back. Behind a counter. They go to see who, or what it is. When from behind the counter comes out a reptilian humanoid. That seems to have cybernetic attachments on its head and back. The creature has an auto pistol. Which it raises as soon as it see the characters. They shoot it out with the slavebot. They fairly quickly take it down. They take the extra magazines of ammo off its corpse.
As they move closer to the office. They see no one. The restaurant across from the shopping area has table pushed over and is generally in a state of disarray. They finally get to the office. Finding it empty. With no way to get paid. They decide to go to the control room. But not before they raid the sporting goods store next door to the office. They find some ammo for the auto pistols. Along with a couple semi-auto target/sport pistols. They also liberate a baseball bat, a cricket bat, and a golf club.
They get to the elevator and see the slime trail again. they decide to follow it. They get up to the restaurant. Which has a glass wall separating it from the hallway. they see a large slug like creature. About 2-3 feet high. And about 4-5 feet long. It appears to have cybernetic attachment mounted in what appears to be its head. The characters open fire on in through the glass. It returns fire with a flamethrower. Striking Octavian hurting him pretty bad. The characters one by one charge the slug. Stabbing it with a sword (Octavian), and bludgeoning it to death with the bats and the club.
They decide to high tail it to the control center. So they take the elevator back to the elevator hub. To get to the control center they must pass through the shuttle lounge. Which is where to arrange and wait for a shuttle to take you down planet side. As they com in to the lounge. They find them selves in a cross fire from two of the slavebots with auto pistols. They battle taking a fair amount of damage. Gunning one down and charging the other beating it to death. They regroup and Gesh the groups medic heals them up a bit.
They then bypass the lock on the door and enter the command center. There they find a cyboslug, and a strange pedestal bolted to the floor. With a clear top with electronics and bio organic stuff inside. They engage the slug in combat. Stabbing it to death. (the slug had the worst rolls ever and missed every time it attacked.)
As they turned their attentions to destroying the pedestal. It mocked them and started a countdown. Well Omar defused the bomb. It talked some more trash and they felt the station start to shift. The box had started to move the station to crash it into the planet. The killed off the pedestal and regained control of the station. Putting it back to orbit. After they destroyed the pedestal and regain control. Multiple system started to come back up. They saw that a shuttle was heading up to them from the planet. They hailed it. Deputy Agent Tom of Star Law responded.
They greeted him at the docking bay. Deputy Agent Tom looked like R. Lee Ermey. (The drill Sergeant from Full Metal Jacket). He seemed angry wanting to know "What the hell is going on hell!" and held them at gun point till he saw the evidence of the slavebot corpses. He wasn't alone though. With him were a dralasite named Sancho and a human named Petey. Both armed with rifle style weapons. Tom the group went back up to the command center. Tom in his expert opinion figured this looked like the work of Sathar agents. They checked the station records. The Star of Dramune was the only ship to have been at the station in the last two days. Figuring they must be the source of the slavebots and such. Determining that Deputy Agent Tom deputises the group. Commandeering their ship to chase after the The Star of Dramune. That's where we left off. Next week "The Chase".

Sounds like a great game!  I haven't had a chance to play Star Frontiers in years, but your post is getting me in the mood...


TGA

excellent game, ronin!  brought back memories of star frontiers games i've been in.   good times:D

It was a lot of fun. I think it was one of the best sessions we've had in a while. I know Scott really is diggin it. As well he should, as hes the one that introduced me to the game. Something like 18 years ago. (Wow I suddenly feel old:eek: )

SEU's, gyrojets, PSA's, ships with no artificial grav, "us vs. the sathar"--gonna have to hit that star frontiers website.  lost my copy of the rules ages ago

Quote from: beeberSEU's, gyrojets, PSA's, ships with no artificial grav, "us vs. the sathar"--gonna have to hit that star frontiers website.  lost my copy of the rules ages ago

Yeah we were in the same boat as you. Star Frontiers.com has the originals you can down load. But the Star Frontiersman has the remastered versions. Which are all the original rules, nothings been changed. Its just been laid out better. It is very nice. Scott had Kinkos print and bind the main three books. (Alpha Dawn, Knight Hawks, and Zebulons Guide) Cost him like ten bucks a book. It was totally worth it. Its super nice to have the info right at the table. (The books turned out good too.:win: ) Between the sites they have the majority of the modules, and dragon/ares atricles for download too. Plus the Star Frontiersman puts a semi-regular zine. Full of Star Frontiers goodness. Its all definitely worth a look.

This really makes me want to break apart those chits finally from the box sets I purchased I few years back of e-bay.

i found all mine recently!  it seems i took all of the "space" chits and put them in the same box:  star warriors, by west end games.  also inside

the star frontiers ships,
aerotech fighters.  i think my plan at the time was to use them in one massive galactic free-for-all :keke:

Well as you may remember from last time. Deputy Agent Tom of Star Law has deputised the group. In order to go after the freighter "The Star of Dramune". Well before they could do that Loran voiced so concerns of not dropping off the cargo and getting paid. Tom assured him he would get paid. Regardless if cargo came into damage. Loran didn't believe/trust him. Had him forge a deal before they would go after the ship. While loran was being played in character. As he doesn't trust the military, or Star Law. So he demanded to get paid in advance for their cargo. Which honestly wasn't what I had in mind for the scenario. But since I was going to make sure they got paid for their cargo regardless. It wasn't a big deal. Then Kane (who plays Loran) wanted to know what was their incentive to chase after the ship. Because chasing down the evil that had invaded and f'up the galaxy twice, evidently isn't enough incentive. So Deputy Agent Tom told them they would get their ships engines overhauled for free. Again this was not a big since I was going to give the characters this as a reward anyways. It just pushed up its appearance in the story. This was enough to get the boys on board. Before they left Tom gave them two automatic rifles, and a gyro-jet rifle. Along with a frag grenade each.
Well they climbed aboard the "Chubby Virgin" and quickly caught up to the "Star of Dramune". As the "Star" is equipped with ion engines, and the "virgin" is equipped with atomic engines. They stayed to the rear of the "Star" and docked with it entering in the aft engineering section. Octavian stayed on the "Virgin" as his player didnt show up so his character stayed on the ship with Billy the pilot. They immediately encountered two robots. Humanoid in form with an auto rifle built into their right arms. Well they battle and destroy these combat robots. They then disable the ships engines. Then while exploring the deck they find a workshop it looks like the robots were assembled in. They proceed up the main access to the forward engineering deck. They fight another robot there. They climb to the next deck. Which is the aft crew quarters. They don't find any more robots just dead bodies of the crew. The bodies look like they have been there a couple weeks. That look like they were murdered. The next deck they find another pair of robots. They dispatch these quickly. The find more bodies of the crew. They move on to the avionics deck. In the computer center they encounter not robots. But a human Sathar agent, and, a Sathar! They shoot it out with them and kill them both. (Just as a note I wish they would have just wounded the sathar and tried to take him prisoner. So they could watch him shoot itself in the head. As opposed to being captured.) So they secured the ship and headed back to the station "Arcas". When they arrived they found it a startling change. It was full of personnel. Things where being made right. As the ship was being over hauled they were flown by shuttle to the planet Mahg Mar. Before they could leave though. They had to give the rifles back. As rifles and heavy weapons are not aloud on planet. With the promise of a free return trip. They were flown to the only city on the planet. Mahg Mar city. The eastern portion of the city consisting of the University of Mahg Mar. The planet itself is a rough place. Hot and dry. Mostly barren dirt or sand. With Rock outcroppings. The only vegetation being spots of prairie grass and small scrubby trees. As soon as they hide the surface they start looking for places to spend there hard earned credits. They find an Army/Navy surplus store. Where they buy skein suits and ammo. From there they proceeded to the nearest bar. It was mostly deserted. They were approached by a man who recognized them as the men who helped to free the space station. He came to them with a proposition. We ended there to continue next week.

Well we ran the third session today. There were only three players again. But that's OK. So once again it was Omar the Yarizian Merc, Gesh the Dralasite Medic, and Loran the former military man. They are approached by a man in the bar they are hanging out in.

 This man here. He has a simple proposition. He would like to hire the characters to deliver six crates no questions asked. To a mining camp out in the wild lands. He offers them 3000 credits up front and 3000 after delivery. They bargain with him and he pays them 4000 credits up front and 2000 after delivery. He gives them directions to a warehouse on the outskirts on the city. Tells them to talk to Roy. Well they go across the street to Crazy Ralphy Mays Rental Center. Who as you can guess is quite a character. Hes a large dralasite that wears an oversize foam cowboy hat. They negotiate with him. He shows them a hover truck and some other vehicles out back. While talking with him they see his guard pigs which are huge hogs with big tusks. Finally they rent a ground car, a PGC Escort sedan to be specific. They finally proceed to the ware house. Its a large tan stucco building. Out front is a human in a blanket poncho and large hat leaning against teh wall. They approach him and he turns out to be Roy. Roy unlocks the door to the building, shows them the crates and returns to the front of the building. Seemingly going back to sleep. They enter the building. Which seems to be filled with years worth of boxes and junk. In one corner are six green crates. They proceed to load the crates into the car. Half way through the process. Another car pulls up. Three men dressed in grey suits (similar to the type wore by Mao Zedong). They tell the characters to give them the crates. The players are less then responsive, as you can guess. Well the gangsters pull guns. So the characters respond in kind. A shoot out ensues. Two of the gangsters are hit by a needler pistol. Knocking them out. The last is killed by gunfire. They search the gangsters and find some ammo. Then take their watches and a big gold ring. They lock the two knocked out gangsters in the trunk of the gangsters car. Telling Roy that he might want to get rid of the car. They finish loading up the car and head out to the wild lands. Following the coordinates they are about half way. When they see a vehicle approaching them. They stop the car and get behind it using it as cover. A hover bike zooms up on them. With a rider dressed in green helmet and leathers. Spraying the car with bullets from an auto pistol. They return fire. Injuring the rider. Causing him to lose control. The hover bike noses down. Tumbling, sending the rider rag dolling across the hard pack desert. They search him recovering several ammo magazines for an auto pistol. They get back in the car and continue to the mining camp. Once they reach the camp it is not like any other mining camp they have seen. It is surrounded by a chain link fence topped with razor wire. Behind that they also have the beginnings on a burm. Being constructed, using the dirt dug up from the mine. On the main gate there is two guard towers. Equipped with machine guns. They are told to halt by security. Which look to be mercenaries dressed in brown Merc Co uniforms. They are armed with gyro jet rifles. they are checked out then let in. They are directed to the main building. They are greeted by a head guy. He inspects the crates. Revealing that the contents were a sonic devastator and a heavy laser. He tells them that he will contact Rolento. To let him know that they successfully received the crates. So the characters can go back to him to get paid. As the characters are going back to the car. They see something headed toward the camp. The head guy tells them its nothing to worry about. As they have been raided a couple times. That they are ready for them. Suddenly the fence explodes. It appears they didn't expect that. Four hover bikes rush in. Piloted by men in green leathers and helmets. Each one has a rocket launcher mounted to the bottom. One of them heads right at the characters blowing up their rental car. They engage the biker. They hit him but he moves out of range behind some buildings. Another approaches which they kill. The hover bike slamming into the burm exploding. Explosions happen around the camp. The characters acquire a hover truck. They then play chicken with on of the hover bikes. They miss him with the truck. But get a shot off on him as he passes. Sending him careening into a building. The Merc Co, guys seem to have things under control at this point. The characters examine the bike and body. The guy in green leathers has Galactic Task Force Incorporated markings on them. GTFI is the enemy of Streel and Merc Co. GTFI works for the Pan-Galactic Corporation.

They are approached by this woman. Who appears to be the head of the camp. She is very rude and short with the characters. She gives the characters the truck to replace their car. Then pretty much tells them to get the hell out. So they do. They return to Magh Mar city. They head to the warehouse that they picked up the crates. They wanted to pick up the gangsters car. So they could give Ralphy May a car back. But the car is not where they left it. They ask Roy about it. He tells them that he put it around back. They go out back to find the rear end up on blocks with some kids stealing the wheels. This angers Omar a great deal. He pulls his pistol. The kids run. Omar fires a burst killing one. The other immediately gives up. They make him put the wheels back on. They ask him what he is going to do with the wheels. He tells them that they were going to sell them to Wild Bills Pawn Emporium. After the kid puts the wheels back on. Omar gives him the ring he stole off the gangster. He tells the kid he owns him. That he owes him. And will ask him to do something, someday. Then tells him to get his friends body out of there.they check on the gangsters. They are still in the trunk. They then question them. Asking what they were going to do. They said that their boss was hired to get the crates by a man in green leathers. Our boss sent us to get them. Then take them to a warehouse on Green street. They close the trunk and drive the car, and hover truck to Crazy Ralphy Mays. They give him the gangsters car in lew of the one he rented them. As its blown up. Ralphys a little hesitant at first. But then agrees. As hes checking out the car. He finds the gangsters in the trunk. He says and I quote "Hey fellas you forgot your luggage." Or if you want I can get rid of it for you. For a nominal fee of course. So they pay Ralphy to get rid of the gangsters. They also sell him the hover truck. They ask Ralphy if he knows a good pawn shop. He tells them he sure does. His brother Wild Bill of Wild Bills Pawn Emporium. They then go across the street to the bar where Rolento is waiting for them. Rolento greets them. Gives them some line about easy money. This sets Omar off. He punches Rolento. Who responds by hitting him with his stun stick. Knocking him out. He pays the characters the remaining amount of money. Telling them to get the hell out. They do so. They then hail a cab. Being picked up by a Rastafarian Yarizian. He drives them to the pawn shop. They arrived at the pawn shop. they are greeted by Wild Bill the Dralasite. He buys the watches from them. For 30 credits each. They then haggle with him over some magnigoggles. They tell him hes asking to much money and leave in a huff. They then decide to check out the warehouse on green street. So they hail another cab. Which is driven by a human with a bronx accent. He takes them to green street. Its now getting to be dusk. So they wait till night to approach the warehouse. The warehouse is built out of corrugated steel. It looks as old as the city. Theres an overhead door and an entry way door. Both have a mercury lamp above each. Omar takes his needler and shoots out the lamps. A guy in green leathers stick his head out the entry door to see whats happening. Omar tries to shoot him. But misses. So he quickly ducks back in. They go up to the front of the building. Omar picks the lock. They open the door and gesh tries to throw a grenade inside. But it ricochet and lands at there feet. So they dive around the corner of the building. It explodes. Omar looks around the corner and sees the overhead door opening. So he tries to throw a grenade, and misses like Gesh. So it explodes out front. Then several hover bikes fly bout of the hole now in the front door. they throw a tangler grenade at them but it misses the mark. (everyone seems to have problem with grenades today) They have no vehicle so are unable to pursue. So they check out the ware house. Its full of crates with ammunition, weapon parts, a hover bike, and drums of something. Well they start to check out the place and discover a bomb. Well they high tail it out of there. An explosion destroys the warehouse in a fiery blast. The characters decide to cut there losses and hail a cab. Returning to their hotel.

more fun, thanks for posting it, ronin!

where's the whip-woman's pic from?

Quote from: beebermore fun, thanks for posting it, ronin!

where's the whip-woman's pic from?

Shes from the King of Fighters video games series. I was cruising wikipedia, and snagged a bunch of pics for my game. King of fighters had a bunch of good ones to borrow.

ah, i thought the art style of the face looked familiar.  thanks!  i think she'll be the lead pirate in my traveller adventure tomorrow night! :keke:

Star Frontiers was a favorite of mine years ago. I haven't played it in a long time, but have fond memories of the system.

How did the actual rules work out for you in play? Did you houserule stuff? Did you feel there were enough options? Did anything strike you as particularly broken or in need of an update?

I'm giving serious consideration to going back to this old classic and am curious what your opinions of it are from a system or mechanics perspective.

Quote from: GoOrangeStar Frontiers was a favorite of mine years ago. I haven't played it in a long time, but have fond memories of the system.

How did the actual rules work out for you in play? Did you houserule stuff? Did you feel there were enough options? Did anything strike you as particularly broken or in need of an update?

I'm giving serious consideration to going back to this old classic and am curious what your opinions of it are from a system or mechanics perspective.

Well I used the straight normal system. I have Zebulons Guide which is really a new editin of the game disguised as a supplement. But I just use the equipment, new races, what not, and fluff from it. I dont use the new resolution system or skills. The basic game really is pretty rules lite. Which fits my play style. One of the things I changed imeadiatly was the range modifiers for ranged weapon combat. The correct rules are that for every range past point blank is a negative ten modifier. (The rages being point blank, short, medium, long, extreme) Well with a starting out character with only say somewhere int he neighborhood of a 35% chance to hit. Then add omdifiers you cant hit shit. So I use my best judgement. Appling modifiers I feel appropriate to the situation. Now later on I my go back to the rules as is. But right now it makes it to difficult. Some things you want the characters to roll on dont really have a good thing to go by. When one of my players want ed to run down a hover cycle, playing chicken. I had him roll as if he was using the technician skill. Which is 40% + 10% per skill level. Since he has no levels in technician. He just had to roll under 40%. I probably could of had him roll under his dexterity. But at the time, the tech thing seemed to be the way to go. So I guess stuff like that is fiddly. But that fits my gaming style. Which is very laid back, going with the flow.
As far as your question about options. I'm not sure quite what your asking. With characters I think they can be a little broad. as the skills each cover a lot. Leaving only a few skill choices. But thats where a good concept comes in. Something that probably can be aspired to in most games. But if you use Zebs guide, you have eights races to pick from. Characters in genereal are quick and easy to make. Which is nice you can make characters up and play a biig session. (Unlike the ninjas and super spies game I was running before. We spent an entire session just making characters.)
Theres tons of resources out there for SF too. All the remasterd books of the Star Frontiersman plus the zine he puts out for SF there, Starfrontiers.com has all Dragon and Ares articles, and between the both of them they have all the adventure modules. So there is a great deal of resources out there. I dont really see anything broken with either. But like I've said. I'm pretty laid back, and despise rule lawyering. But I think it holds up amazingly well in all its aspects.
Hope thats helpful. If you have any specific questions about stuff feel free to ask here or PM me.