 September 9, 2011 - 10:22am | About two weeks ago I learned an interesting nugget about the design team for Star Frontiers. I was at a friend's house (my old GM from when I was in high school) and we were talking about wikis. So I showed him the Star Frontiers Network Wiki that I had set up as something I could do for his wiki if he wanted (He's creating a wiki for his game world which goes back to before the creation of D&D - it's a very long story). When I got to the website his comment was "Star Frontiers. That's Tracy's old game." I asked him what he meant and he said that Tracy worked on desiging the game. The Tracy in question is Tracy Hickman of D&D fame. Turns out he was on the design team for Star Frontiers as well. I don't know how involved Tracy was in the design but he apparently worked on it. I'll see if I can find out more. As for how my friend knows Tracy Hickman, they went to (at least) high school together and my friend is the one who introduced Tracy (and Sandy Peterson, original author of the Call of Chuthulu RPG) to role-playing in the first place. 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 |
 September 9, 2011 - 11:57am | And did you know that Sandy Peterson actually dated Kevin Bacon in high school?!?!?
:D I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 September 9, 2011 - 5:46pm | I have not heard the name before but that's awesome. Did he write SF for Dragon or Ares? Wonder if we could get an interview for Star Frontiers from him. :-) A more complete wiki is here. I'm also (in my spare time) working in making this sites documents into a wiki. Remastered and Frontiersman projects but might combine them into one wiki. The Frontiersman is kind of an extension of AD/KH/Zeb's. :-) |
 September 9, 2011 - 6:48pm | Far out. You came "that close" to meeting your hero and never knew it... |
September 9, 2011 - 6:58pm | @w00t: Tracy, along with Margaret Weis, wrote the original six Dragonlance books for TSR as well a a slew of other books in the D&D settings. As far as I know he only wrote fantasy, so hearing that he worked on Star Frontiers was quite a surprise. He still lives here in Utah (closer to iggy than me). I might give him a call and see if I can talk to him about his time working on SF. If I can, it can be an article for your 30th anniversary issue of the SFMan. 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 |
 September 9, 2011 - 7:35pm | in one word... ...Niiiiice!!!  Oh humans!!  We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
September 10, 2011 - 10:27am | @w00t: Tracy, along with Margaret Weis, wrote the original six Dragonlance books for TSR as well a a slew of other books in the D&D settings. As far as I know he only wrote fantasy, so hearing that he worked on Star Frontiers was quite a surprise.
Yes it would be good to get an interviewHe still lives here in Utah (closer to iggy than me). I might give him a call and see if I can talk to him about his time working on SF. If I can, it can be an article for your 30th anniversary issue of the SFMan. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 September 12, 2011 - 10:20am | TerlObar, This might be a nice time for that meet-up we've tried to do a couple of times. The two of us could interview Tracy. -iggy |
September 14, 2011 - 6:55am | Tag Team Interviewing Only on the PGC Tri-Vid channel! |
 September 15, 2011 - 12:48pm | I've forgotten why we need two Star Frontiers wikis. View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
September 15, 2011 - 2:32pm | We don't really. There just happened to be two set up (at nearly the same time) and probably with slightly different focuses. The one at The Star Frontiers Network site was originally intended to support the PBP games running in the forums on that site. As such you can put the name of a wiki page inside a [wiki][/wiki] BBCode tag and it will automatically generate a link from the forums to the wiki page in question. This allows a referee to put all his background information, new equipment/weapons, character sheets, etc. in the wiki (which is better suited for those types of material) instead of in different forum threads. Plus it makes it easier to share material between games if desired. The one at http://starfrontiers.wikia.com was set up, I believe, just to be a general SF wiki, although the person who set it up (I don't remember who that was off the top of my head but I think it was Malcadon) may have had a specific purpose in mind as well. In any case, neither of them are very active in terms of adding new content. The wikia.org one has 300 pages and the one on starfrontiers.info has 476 (were between 175 and 200 of those are Star Frontiersman articles) and none of them have been edited in at least over a month  .Obviously, I'm biased toward the one on starfrontiers.info since I set it up, it is running on my server, and integrated with my forums. I can modify it and add features and functionality as needed or desired. It will be around at least as long as I keep my site alive (and I have no intention of shutting it down anytime soon). However, others may like the one on wikia.com better. Use whichever one you like the best. 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 |
February 11, 2012 - 1:08pm | Just spoke with Tracy Hickman at the Life, The Universe, and Everything conference that has been going on here in town for the last three days. He was one of the speakers today. (LTUE is a conference about writing and publishing. It used to include a gaming component but hasn't had that in years. This is it's 30th anniversary as well.) Tracy was more than happy to do an interview about his experiences with Star Frontiers and writing in general so I'll be putting together a list of questions/topic to send to him and arrange a time to do the interview. My plan is to have this one go into Issue 19 of the SFMan later this year. 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 |
 March 4, 2012 - 10:48am | As a fan of star frontiers for the last 30 years and a history buff, I am very happy to see these developments. I think it's important to obtain interviews and documentation about the origins and development of the game before more knowledge is lost thru the passing of time. While this type of information may not affect our enjoyment of the game itself, it's something worth preserving for our own curiosity. A very warm and hearty thanks to all that are working to preserve and document. |
