Best SF Memories

Shadow Shack's picture
Shadow Shack
October 14, 2009 - 8:33pm
I "appropriated" this idea from the SF.org forum. It isn't an active topic over there but it sure is a decent one, so I'm ressurecting it here:


What is your fondest SF memory?


We used to have sleep-overs every weekend or two for the sake of RPG-ing until dawn.

But I'd have to say some of my fondest memories originated when we moved here (Vegas), back in early June of 1983. For about six months, we lived in a travel trailer at Sam's Town RV Park while waiting for our house to get built. The owner's son (Frank) was a few years older than me and was an avid AD&Der. He and a couple of his friends were always playing in the lobby of the RV Park office so it didn't take me long to shmooze my way into their gaming.

Turns out it was actually a common thing, having visitors in the park popping in for a session or two or three. But hey, I was going to be a resident for a while so why not?

Anyways after a few of their "ultimist" AD&D games (they were all playing LVL:20+ characters) I popped SF on them. They all got into it initially, but the two friends eventually left the game. However, Frank was hooked from the get go. He & I would play every day, dawn to dusk, until the office closed. And we had a few other visitors join in from time to time, we would play the Omicron adventure each time. We ended up with a third "long time resident" named John and we spent the remainder of summer playing Star Frontiers, eventually drafting up our own starship rules (which was pretty much an overhaul of what I brought with me from Texas).

Unbeknownst to us, KH had been released during all this, and I finally discovered it one day at a department store. I brought it home. I had to, the box set was named after the ship I had created under our house rules! Soon we were playing by official TSR SF ship rules.

Even after school started, we would still occupy the lobby with our SF sessions on the weekends. Frank ended up enlisting in the Air Force, but John and I would continue each weekend in the lobby until he and his family finally left the park, just before we did to move into our new home (a few days before Thanksgiving).

I had found a new group by the end of the school year, but to me those 12 hour sessions in the lobby with Frank and/or John were "it".
I'm not overly fond of Zeb's Guide...nor do I have any qualms stating why. Tongue out

My SF website
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jedion357's picture
jedion357
October 14, 2009 - 9:57pm
My foundest SF memory was in a play by post game where the GM had us detail where we were in Port Loren and what we were doing at a particular time. then he sprung the Giant Slug escaping from the zoo from the basic game on us as an interlude between modules.

My character carries a laser but I went through the motions of discovering the slug's secret where lasers are concerned. Knowing that the basic adventure said that the PC's would have to borrow weapons from an NPC I stepped back into the barber shop detailed on the map put up by the GM and  asked for a weapon. then I wrote 3 different post leaving it to the GM to choose one.

In one; a customer waiting to get a hair cut had a pistol of some sort in his brief case and lent it to me: ho hum not very exciting

In the next the barber pulls open a drawer and offers me specialized folding razors for doing the out of style punk spacer cut which came in small, med, and large, but the large folding razor would qualifiy as a dagger or knife. my least favorite idea.

then I wrote up this cool post where the Yazerian barber was a Yazerian Civil War re-enactor. and had a uniform and muzzle loading rifle in the closet and lent the muzzel loader to me. (I'm a bit of a American Civil war fan).

The Gm came back with this compiled post where the barber offers me the folding razors (and my heart fell) but then the customer says, "Oh come on, Harv, show him the other thing you have."
The barber opened a closet door and there is the muzzel loader.

Naturally my character has no skill with it so I totally miss the first shot and now I have to reload and the slug is moving away from me and I'm playing a Dral who runs slow. But another character had rented a hover car and they backed up and picked up me and another PC dralasite. So I write this post where I'm standing up out of the sun roof loading a muzzle loader and reciting a poem my character memorized in college before he became an adventurer. The Poem was an yazerianized version of Charge of the Light Brigade (a personal favorite) called Charge of Clan Renegade (see Port Loren Public Library project for a copy). I broke the poem into portions and interspersed the loading steps as the hover car circled around the center rotary in Port Loren to come at the slug head on. It was massivily cool.

Some of the PCs had run into the hotel to get weapons and I thought, "they'll never make it in time to use them" but the one that was a yazerian went running toward his balcony and dove off and glided across to where the action was and the human PC with him called him a Show off; that was cool too.

I was so on the edge of my seat for two weeks waiting to see what would happen (all over a that silly little Basic game scenario), first whether I would get the muzzle loader then to see what would happen with the poem post. I practically logged into the game every day to reread the post, especially the one with the Charge of Clan Renegade.

That was a ton of fun.
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

Will's picture
Will
October 14, 2009 - 11:15pm
So, did you get the slug or what?

"You're everything that's base in humanity," Cochrane continued. "Drawing up strict, senseless rules for the sole reason of putting you at the top and excluding anyone you say doesn't belong or fit in, for no other reason than just because you say so."


—Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stephens, Federation

TerlObar's picture
TerlObar
October 15, 2009 - 7:51am
@jedi:  I loved that scene as well.  I've just been watching that game but then that happened I was laughing my head off.  It was great.
Ad Astra Per Ardua!
My blog - Expanding Frontier
Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site
Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine
Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine

jedion357's picture
jedion357
October 15, 2009 - 10:39pm
Yeah we got the slug and even one of my bullets scored. It really was a lot of fun got me hooked with on line play and I really liked the character I was playing. With that game stalled out I keep getting tempted to just use that character and port him over to another game.
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

umungus's picture
umungus
October 17, 2009 - 10:17am
Cool guys!! I have been chicken to get involved in a PBP game. Sounds like I'm missing out.

Like a lot of you guys, I had a blast as a kid playing SF. A lot of good memories.
My best SF memory is pretty recent though. I wrote a game report about it:
http://starfrontiers.us/node/3017
Everything just came together on that adventure. It had a good combination of stuff that everyone was into. At the end the tension was high. We were all having fun. My Wife and Son were playing. Then it hit me that my Son is the age I was when I started playing SF. My Wife and I got to share it with him. Deffinately without a doubt my best SF memory.

At least I got to scare an alien rabbit thingy......


TerlObar's picture
TerlObar
October 17, 2009 - 3:49pm
umungus wrote:
Cool guys!! I have been chicken to get involved in a PBP game. Sounds like I'm missing out.
Your PC is still available in the Obar Enterprises game if you want to pick him back up and join in. Smile
Ad Astra Per Ardua!
My blog - Expanding Frontier
Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site
Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine
Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine

jedion357's picture
jedion357
October 17, 2009 - 4:14pm
TerlObar wrote:
umungus wrote:
Cool guys!! I have been chicken to get involved in a PBP game. Sounds like I'm missing out.
Your PC is still available in the Obar Enterprises game if you want to pick him back up and join in. Smile

The Royal Marines are still looking for a few good beings.
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

Shadow Shack's picture
Shadow Shack
October 17, 2009 - 5:15pm
And Dominion has plenty of unclaimed PCs available, that game is firing up the "reel 6" portion of the adventure entailing a daring boarding action versus a prison ship operating under a militant regime that had taken over the Frontier some 30+ years before the game (none of the characters have direct knowledge of the UPF, it never existed in their lifetime).

Quote:
Then it hit me that my Son is the age I was when I started playing SF.


Well, that definitely qualifies!
I'm not overly fond of Zeb's Guide...nor do I have any qualms stating why. Tongue out

My SF website