Quote from: GhostNinja on April 29, 2023, 11:41:30 AM
I was looking on Ebay and I saw the original Box set for Star Frontiers and I was wondering if it's a fun game and worth picking up?

I know that WOTC it back and is selling it online on Drivethrurpg and you can no longer get it for free.

One one hand getting it online can be a bit expensive, but I would have the print version (no interest in .pdfs) and WOTC would not get a dime.

On the other hand I could get it cheaper on Drivethrurpg, get it printed but WOTC would get money from me.  Which I do not want to do.

So my questions are:

1) Is it worth picking up?
2) Should I get it on Ebay or Drivethroughrpg?

Thanks

Buy it Drive-thru for $10, and if you like it, then look for a copy on Ebay. It was fun in the 80s, but there are better sci-fi games out now.

Quote from: GhostNinja on April 29, 2023, 11:41:30 AM
I was looking on Ebay and I saw the original Box set for Star Frontiers and I was wondering if it's a fun game and worth picking up?
1) Is it worth picking up?
2) Should I get it on Ebay or Drivethroughrpg?

Yes. Fun little game, but Knight Hawks is essential. They really blew it not having ship rules in the original set, that hurt the sales and long term interest in the game. Ironically I repeated the mistake with my own Colonial Troopers sci-fi game, and fixed the problem with an expansion book called ... wait for it: Knight Hawks.

Get it on DriveTHRU. I mean the box is cool when it still has all the maps and tokens, so sure get it if you can.

Is there a retroclone or something?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 30, 2023, 09:57:56 AM
Is there a retroclone or something?

Space Frontier from DWD upthread, you can hunt down a d20 conversion on line and Microlite20 did a supplement for their M20 modular, the last two are free to download.

As other folks have said, Star Frontiers IS more about its nostalgia.  The system is percentile based and each combat round you are going to be blasting each other round after round ticking off Stamina points just like hitpoints.  It's very easy for someone to look at Star Frontiers with its cool artwork from Elmore, Easley, Parkinson, Caldwell and the other TSR artists and think that the game might have something different than other games.  As other folks have said, it doesn't. 

You could play Traveller or the Cepheus system or Stars Without Number or perhaps many other games and do the same thing as Star Frontiers.  It literally brings nothing different to the Genre.  The Knight Hawks expansion is very crunchy.  To me it felt like the old Star Fleet Battles tactical ship game.  Knight Hawks is pretty much a game in itself. 

Several years ago I did a Savage Worlds conversion of Star Frontiers.  I included everything from the original game and just changed the mechanics to Savage Worlds.  I included all the original artwork including the covers, did a character sheet, and converted the first adventure titled 'Crash on Volturnus'.  I contacted Wizards of the Coast, told them what I was doing and they DID respond.  They said that it was okay for me to do this because they had "no intentions of doing anything with Star Frontiers in the future." 

So for me Star Frontiers has a place in MY gaming history, but to be honest, there are other games out there that will do and have anything that Star Frontiers is. 

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 30, 2023, 09:57:56 AM
Is there a retroclone or something?

There's always Frontier Space.

I think Irridium from Precis Intermedia is a derivative of Star Frontiers, but I'm not quite sure, the designer is certainly a fan.

I would argue that Star Frontiers does offer something other games don't.  The top down, on the grid, hex and counter inspired out look on combat.  Knight Hawks is really a separate game, a tactical starship combat sim.  Yes Traveller had some side games of the sort at the time but has long since wandered off from that structure.  Star Frontiers also offers a very tight technological pardigm.  It's not about tech levels and advancement.  There's also something to be said for not having grown into a massive 800 page monstrosity over the years.

To my mind the biggest downside is the need to buy all the modules and dig up all the Dragon articles to get the whole thing.  But that in itself is something of a quest.  The fans used to have it all in one place but WotC made them take it down.

Quote from: Cathode Ray on April 29, 2023, 07:20:30 PM
I like Star Frontiers.  Keep in mind I am old-school.  The premise is that it is set towards the center of a galaxy, so stars are a lot closer together, and the distances between star systems is much shorter.  There are four playable species.  I actually have little experience with RPGs, but I enjoyed playing Star Frontiers.  I would try it.  And even if you don't like it, you have a nice piece of collectible RPG history, or could resell it for a good price.

Thank you for the information.

Quote from: Tod13 on April 29, 2023, 09:04:27 PM
You might consider DwD Studio's FrontierSpace -- an homage to Star Frontiers.

It's a decent if crunchy (to us) system. And the writer is going to be publishing spaceship creation rules soon. Ignore the "d00lite" designation.

Player's Handbook
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/222633/FrontierSpace-Players-Handbook

Referee's Guide
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/225299/FrontierSpace-Referees-Handbook

Thank you for the links.

How is the system?  Is it easy to learn?

Does it have the feeling of Star Frontiers?

Any other information you can give me?  I am interested and may consider this as a cheaper way to go since there are a lot of people speaking against Star Frontiers and it would be a cheaper way to go.

Thanks.

Quote from: Aglondir on April 30, 2023, 02:18:21 AM
Buy it Drive-thru for $10, and if you like it, then look for a copy on Ebay. It was fun in the 80s, but there are better sci-fi games out now.

Can you name some of the other games I should consider?

Quote from: Greg Bruni on April 30, 2023, 11:02:16 AM
Several years ago I did a Savage Worlds conversion of Star Frontiers.  I included everything from the original game and just changed the mechanics to Savage Worlds.  I included all the original artwork including the covers, did a character sheet, and converted the first adventure titled 'Crash on Volturnus'.  I contacted Wizards of the Coast, told them what I was doing and they DID respond.  They said that it was okay for me to do this because they had "no intentions of doing anything with Star Frontiers in the future." 

So for me Star Frontiers has a place in MY gaming history, but to be honest, there are other games out there that will do and have anything that Star Frontiers is.

Thats a thought since I love Savage Worlds maybe I will just get the information, create a Savage World Version of Star Frontiers and just go that route.  It's a thought.

Quote from: GhostNinja on April 30, 2023, 11:44:53 AM

Quote from: Greg Bruni on April 30, 2023, 11:02:16 AM
Several years ago I did a Savage Worlds conversion of Star Frontiers.  I included everything from the original game and just changed the mechanics to Savage Worlds.  I included all the original artwork including the covers, did a character sheet, and converted the first adventure titled 'Crash on Volturnus'.  I contacted Wizards of the Coast, told them what I was doing and they DID respond.  They said that it was okay for me to do this because they had "no intentions of doing anything with Star Frontiers in the future." 

So for me Star Frontiers has a place in MY gaming history, but to be honest, there are other games out there that will do and have anything that Star Frontiers is.

Thats a thought since I love Savage Worlds maybe I will just get the information, create a Savage World Version of Star Frontiers and just go that route.  It's a thought.

That's a great idea. The draw to SF is the four alien races. It uses a not so great percentile system, where atts don't affect skills.

Quote from: Aglondir on April 30, 2023, 02:15:16 PM

That's a great idea. The draw to SF is the four alien races. It uses a not so great percentile system, where atts don't affect skills.

The easy solution is to just change all the skills to 1/2 stat +10 / rank and turn the subskills into modifiers by subtracting 50.

Weapons are already 1/2 dexterity +10 per rank so it's an easy patch.

You can speed up combat by having any attack that does more than half a character's current stamina knock them out. 

Small changes.

Quote from: GhostNinja on April 30, 2023, 11:41:18 AM

Quote from: Tod13 on April 29, 2023, 09:04:27 PM
You might consider DwD Studio's FrontierSpace -- an homage to Star Frontiers.

It's a decent if crunchy (to us) system. And the writer is going to be publishing spaceship creation rules soon. Ignore the "d00lite" designation.

Player's Handbook
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/222633/FrontierSpace-Players-Handbook

Referee's Guide
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/225299/FrontierSpace-Referees-Handbook

Thank you for the links.

How is the system?  Is it easy to learn?

Does it have the feeling of Star Frontiers?

Any other information you can give me?  I am interested and may consider this as a cheaper way to go since there are a lot of people speaking against Star Frontiers and it would be a cheaper way to go.

Thanks.

You missed the SF revival heyday. Bill Logan (DWD studios) took SF, added better art, and gave away the pdf for free. Then he started Star Frontiersman, 20 or so monthly pdfs. I think you can still get those for free on drive thru, and they have tons of ideas. He had to yank the original rules though, when WOTC decided to sell the original (pdf).

Bill went on to create FrontierSpace, which was his version of SF. He cleaned up the rules and created his own aliens. I never bought it so I can't say much more. DWD created a few other d100 games, like Bare Bones Fantasy and Covert Ops. I've heard good things about all of them, but if i wanted to do percentile based fantasy I'd use Mythras. Regardless the DWD website is worth a visit, check it out.

Quote from: David Johansen on April 30, 2023, 11:03:24 AM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 30, 2023, 09:57:56 AM
Is there a retroclone or something?

There's always Frontier Space.

I think Irridium from Precis Intermedia is a derivative of Star Frontiers, but I'm not quite sure, the designer is certainly a fan.

I would argue that Star Frontiers does offer something other games don't.  The top down, on the grid, hex and counter inspired out look on combat.  Knight Hawks is really a separate game, a tactical starship combat sim.  Yes Traveller had some side games of the sort at the time but has long since wandered off from that structure.  Star Frontiers also offers a very tight technological pardigm.  It's not about tech levels and advancement.  There's also something to be said for not having grown into a massive 800 page monstrosity over the years.

To my mind the biggest downside is the need to buy all the modules and dig up all the Dragon articles to get the whole thing.  But that in itself is something of a quest.  The fans used to have it all in one place but WotC made them take it down.

Is there a retroclone that retroclones all that material so I don't have to go hunting because stupid WotC threw a hissy fit again? I'm still bitter they took down Alternity from drivethrurpg in 2008 and still haven't restored it. WotC owns a ton of IPs they aren't using or trying to preserve. I really hate the company.

I'd love to make retroclones of their discarded IPs, but quite frankly that would be way too much effort for too little investment. I want the old games back. I don't want to jump through the stupid hoops created by overly long copyright terms mandated by Disney just to recapture the damn magic and rebuild the dying community.

Did you know the original writers behind Alternity snatched up the trademark when WotC let it lapse and tried to recreate the game? They failed and it spectacularly exploded in flames because they realized too late that they didn't actually have the rights because of copyright law.

Copyright law needs to be reformed. If publishers aren't keeping their products perpetually in print, then they should lose their rights to it after long enough out of print. Copyright law was invented to protect authors who wanted to profit from their work for a time before giving it to the public. The law was never intended to lock down content until all records had been lost. The evil Disney corporation has perverted the law and ruined it for everyone else.

Argh!

EDIT: Here's some scientific research about how long copyright is anti-preservation: https://www.law.berkeley.edu/files/How_Copyright_Keeps_Works_Disappeared_-_Paul_Heald.pdf

EDIT: and a proposal for reform by authors: https://authorsalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/Documents/Authors%20Alliance%20%7C%20Principles%20and%20Proposals%20for%20Copyright%20Reform.pdf

Quote from: David Johansen on April 30, 2023, 02:32:48 PM

Quote from: Aglondir on April 30, 2023, 02:15:16 PM

That's a great idea. The draw to SF is the four alien races. It uses a not so great percentile system, where atts don't affect skills.

The easy solution is to just change all the skills to 1/2 stat +10 / rank and turn the subskills into modifiers by subtracting 50.

Weapons are already 1/2 dexterity +10 per rank so it's an easy patch.

You can speed up combat by having any attack that does more than half a character's current stamina knock them out. 

Small changes.

Sure that works, but its one of 5 issues with the game that Bill breaks down in Star Frontiersman issue 9 ("A Skilled Frontier") with proposed solutions. Which I think started FrontierSpace.