Star Frontiers Mini-Convention by Metro Detroit Gamers!
Saturday, February 16, 2008

Details:

• One-Day Event at Pandemonium Gaming Center, Garden City, Michigan. Cost is $3 per person. This pays for use of table space at the Center.
• An event by Metro Detroit Gamers, the Motor City’s 32-year-old game convention society!
• Event will run from 1 to 10 p.m.
• Sign-up now to participate. Once four persons are signed up, the con is on! Sign up by sending an e-mail to chipjamieson@yahoo.com
• Character creation information will be provided on sign-up.
• Drinks & snacks will be provided (within reason). Please feel free to bring a dish to share.
• If you are old Star Frontiers fan (the game was originally published in the 1980s), or have never even heard of this wonderfully quick, fun, wild science-fiction system, sign up today for a lot of fun!
• This is a roleplaying game of science fiction adventure. If you have never tried a roleplaying game, now is your chance! The easiest way to think of it is improvisational theatre mixed with boardgaming. You take on the role of a character in a story of interstellar danger and drama. Sign up today to learn more.
• If you would like to join in running a Star Frontiers event as a Gamemaster, please e-mail John at chipjamieson@yahoo.com. If we get enough players, we will need more GMs!

Main Event (others to be added if GMs register)

Broken Arrow
Min/Maximum Players: 4/8
Difficulty: Easy, will teach
Duration: 8 to 10 hours
Your mixed crew of SpaceFleet flight officers and StarLaw agents are called to a nearby military base, for a mission that could change the balance of power in the Frontier!
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Links:
www.metrodetroitgamers.com
www.starfrontiers.us
www.pandemonium-online.com

OK – Welcome to the Star Frontiers Min-Convention hosted by Metro Detroit Gamers. I appreciate your participation!

Character Generation

Character generation is pretty much open. We will be using some rules from the 25^th Anniversary Edition draft now at www.starfrontiers.us. I will also be encouraging, allowing some new ideas from the pages of the Star Frontiersman magazine, as detailed below.

Rules for Star Frontiers are available here: www.starfrontiersman.com. You are encouraged to download both the Alpha Dawn and Knight Hawks rules. If you are playing a person with starship skills, you will need the Knight Hawks rules (but see House Rules below). In addition, please download the Star Frontiersman collection volume 1-6.

Attribute Rolling: Please use an on-line dice roller (there is one at the Wizards of the Coast site) that tracks rolled values…you must bring a screenshot/printout of your attribute rolls.

Races Allowed: Any race (include the new ones from Star Frontiersman are allowed, with the exception of Mechanons and enemy species).

PSA, Background, Profession: Any PSA is allowed, but all characters in this game are active duty members of either SpaceFleet, LandFleet or StarLaw. Please bear this in mind. Since we have starship positions to fill, I need at least 1 or 2 persons to make a pilot and engineer. The engineer will be especially crucial. Also, skill in gunnery will be very handy.

Another hint is someone with skills in detective work and law (perfect for a Ranger).

All will be enlisted, except for one player who volunteers to be a Lieutenant. (I would suggest the player should personally be a good speaker or leader…). I will allow ONE, and only one Mentalist PC.

Since the characters are experience, please provide for 30 XP in addition to the starting amounts. I will, however, frown on skills over level 4.

Equipment: Personal equipment worth no more than 1,000 credits and 100 kg is allowed. You each have a field-issue spacesuit (equivalent to skeinsuit armor) with 5 suit patches. (Vrusk and Osakar, of course, do not have the same style uniforms), Chronocom, Military ID, and a microfiber towel.

SpaceFleet: Neat, trim dark blue Naval uniform skeinsuit with rank insignia (for ground ops), laser pistol + 1 clip, chronocom, Naval ID.

StarLaw: Gridsuit, dirty and rumpled clothing (humans usually wear a tan duster coat/cloak), wide-brim hat, StarLaw badge, one handgun of choice, 5 zip-cuffs.

LandFleet: Dark brown LandFleet duty uniform skeinsuit, blastpistol & 1 clip (see Star Frontiersman issue 1), vibroknife + 1 clip, uniform helmet (integrated visor, commlink, IR vision, rebreather).

Skills
Just for kicks, we will be using the Individualized Skills option from 25^th Anniversary rules. Although a bit more figidity, I wanted to kick the tires on this optional system as it provides a lot more customization at the expense of more paperwork. Normally, I prefer simple rules, but in this case we’ll give it a spin as the adventure I have planned is a bit more on the hard sci-fi side.

Ex. Lets created T’cchal Bensholuu, an Osakar SpaceFleet astrogator. S/he chooses the following:
PSA: Spacer*
Occupation: SpaceFleet astrogator

For the first 10 skill points, T’ccahal chooses the following (noted how I have arranged in cascade format):

Comps: Access & Operate 1 (100%)
    Comps: Display Info 1 (90%)
    Comp: Repair 1 (50%) – costs 1 pts, pre Acce & Oper
Science: Physics 1 (60%)
    Science: Astrophysics 1 (60%)
        Astro: Find Location 1 (60%)
            Astro: Chart New Routes 1 (60%)
                Astro: Plot Jumps 1 (100%)**
                    Astro: Risk Jump 2 (20%)

That pretty much cements the character down in hir profession. Now for the flavor skills (now most of these will cost more, as they don’t fall under the Spacer PSA). S/he has 10 points to spend, thusly:

Comp: Repair 1 (50%) – costs 1 pts, pre Acce & Oper
Eng: Damage Control 1 (special) – cost 1 point
Natural: Survival [Space] 1 (50%) – 2 pts
Commo: Operate 1 (50%) -2 pts
Behavior: Persuasion 1 (20%) – 2 pts
Weapons: Beam 1 (1/2 Dex+10%) -2 pts

That’s just the beginning skills for our character, fresh out of the Academy. Since this event allows for more XP, more skills may be added… My NPCS will be using the simpler system.

* Note – in my house rules the Spacer PSA does not have the ridiculous requirements as per Knight Hawks. The pre-reqs listed are all Level 1. Why a gunner would need Level 6 (!) in hand-held beam weapons before they can fire a ship’s cannon is beyond me.

** House rule: jumps take 10 minutes per light year to plot, not hours! So a 3 ly jump during a repair phase in combat is possible.

1. Variable armor. I have never liked the way Star Frontiers handled armor, but also dislike a static number to represent the damage soak. Thus, all armor soak will be based on a 1d10 x 10% to indicate how much damage is absorbed. This rule does not apply to armor such as Spacesuit Armor, Combat Armor, Polyplate and Powered Armor (which basically have a set role to completely negate incoming damage).
   1. Example: Greeko is wearing a skiensuit and is abushed by a thug who sprays him with a burst from an autopistol doing 30 points damage. The player rolls 1d10x10% and gets a 5 for 50%...Greeko only suffers 15 damage.
2. Reduced pre-reqs for Spacer skills. All pre-regs for Spacer skills are Level 1. The old rules were silly.
3. Anyone can drive a ground vehicle or skimmer at ½ Dex +20% - the majority of people don’t have specific driving skills and it does not take a skill of 90% to drive to work each day (unless you live in Detroit).
4. Gravitics…the Frontier has within the last 15 years discovered and harnessed artificial gravity. However, it is very limited (the field can only extend for several meters) and very expensive (thus government/military starships only). The gravitic tech is not powerful enough to server as reactionless thrusters, nor can it produce inertial dampeners (thus crew must be strapped down during space maneuvers). [What this really does is allow me to use all the cool deckplans I have with ships assuming there is gravitic floor plates.]
5. Void Engines: void travel is done via complex Void Engines built into the drive of a ship.
6. Astrogation: astrogation times are now 10 minutes per light year, not 10 hours. It is typical for an astrogator to immediately plot an emergency jump route upon arriving in a system. Thereafter, they have the leisure of plotting a jump to an actual destination.
7. All ships can land on planets – they do NOT use main drives, but rather chemical thrusters (a la D20 Future). Recent articles in Star Frontiersman have ion propulsion ships moving above ADF1. This is illogical and will not be used. Atomic engines are gaseous-fission drives, also known as “nuclear lightbulbs.”

Please post on this forum to give me idea of who you will play – including some background story (military history would be great) and personality. You have all been on a week-long system patrol at the far edge of the Prenglar system in a picket ship known as UPF-PR-02 (aka ‘Princess 2’). This is a *very* cramped HS 3 ship housing 8 crew and equipped with a powerful sensor/comms suite. The damn thing is so cramped that the crew hot bunks in net beds suspended on the ceilings and eats packaged rations.