 November 17, 2008 - 7:06pm | If anyone is playing games put out by WoTC or Wizkids you'll notice recent announcements discontinuing or not really supported. Aren't you glad for the good ole school Star Frontiers? We got some great sites, decent zine and rocket scientist!  |
 November 17, 2008 - 8:17pm | So what are they discontinuing and/or not really supporting? 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 |
 November 18, 2008 - 1:48am | I wish they would "discontinue" SF, if it meant we could acquire the rights of the abandonwear, so to speak... |
November 18, 2008 - 8:04am | All wizkids products - I was playing HeroClix. WoTC - HeroScape, nobody there knows the future of the product. |
 November 18, 2008 - 4:17pm | I have looked through the D20 systems several times. They give me a headache. They are a random mix match of ideas. I don't think they are an improvement over Star Frontiers D100 system. So, I will stay Old School. The way I like it.... At least I got to scare an alien rabbit thingy...... |
 December 15, 2008 - 7:29pm | Partly OT -- I've heard several comments defending WoTC for "saving" D&D, but I think the d20 system has stifled RPGs by encouraging most of the creative talent to waste their time on this bloated, dead horse. On top of everything else, WoTC/Hasbro has locked up the other systems like StarFrontiers or Alternity to avoid competing with d20 Future for example. It's a bad business model and it hurts themselves as much as the competition. Yes, I tried the "new" D&D (picked up the 3.5 stuff second hand), but after two sessions as a player I knew it for what it was - polished crap. I find little to like in the system. As for Star Frontiers, I loved it in the 80s until Zeb's Guide came along, then I stopped playing. Don't get me wrong, I liked parts of Zeb's, just not the fact that it changed the mechanics. I own practically everything ever published by TSR for SF (as well as Alternity), and have often wished to replay the game. The discovery of this site (and Starfrontiersman) has added to that desire. Now, if there were just more gamers in my home area (NE Oklahoma). Talen "The Buddy System is essential to your survival. It gives the enemy someone else to shoot at." |
December 20, 2008 - 12:08pm | Partly OT -- I've heard several comments defending WoTC
for "saving" D&D, but I think the d20 system has stifled RPGs by
encouraging most of the creative talent to waste their time on this
bloated, dead horse. On top of everything else, WoTC/Hasbro has locked
up the other systems like StarFrontiers or Alternity to avoid competing
with d20 Future for example. It's a bad business model and it hurts
themselves as much as the competition. Yes, I tried the "new" D&D
(picked up the 3.5 stuff second hand), but after two sessions as a
player I knew it for what it was - polished crap. I find little to like
in the system. As for Star Frontiers, I loved it in the 80s until Zeb's Guide came along, then I stopped playing. Don't get me wrong, I liked parts of Zeb's, just not the fact that it changed the mechanics. I own practically everything ever published by TSR for SF (as well as Alternity), and have often wished to replay the game. The discovery of this site (and Starfrontiersman) has added to that desire. Now, if there were just more gamers in my home area (NE Oklahoma). Talen - I feel EXACTLY the same way. These guys at Gizzards of the Coast don't know what they are doing. Too busy playing collectible card games. As you said, "polished crap." It's good to know that there are still RPG gamers out there who get it. I have many theories as to why Gizzards is so lame - one of them is that they are "upgrade happy" like some software weenies. After all, even the nomenclature of "3.5" has a softwarish sound to it. And we all know what that means - package new rule sets every 5 years to scam everyone into buying books for no real changes or improvements. I think we have the wrong nerds running the show here... When will Gizzards realize that what made D&D/AD&D great were the excellent modules? I saw a great web site that had pics of all of the TSR module covers ever made. I almost cried thinking about how much fun I had playing so many of those great adventures. The Star Frontiers modules, too, were excellent. Now, I know there are some reading this post right now saying, "yo, I never used modules. I wrote all my own stuff." My answer to that is good for you, and I tip my hat to you, but some of us like the work done for us sometimes. The amount of prep work I did on All That Glitters, for example, has been crazy. Completely enjoyable, of course, and I was happy to do it, but time consuming. I sat down for over 2 hours with a real architect to make sure that the maps for the planetoid base make sense! And that was a huge call, since he corrected about 40% of my original idea for the base. As a result, the base, I feel, is much more realistic. Now if I could just grid out the maps... I thumbed through a Gizzards module recently. They had no PC room description boxes! What kind of cheesy nonsense is that? One thing you also need to remember is the evil George Lucas in all of this. Gizzards has sold their soul to Lucas with the lame Star Wars RPG. And when that happens, no competition can be tolerated. I am certain that there is a clause in the Star Bores RPG deal that tells Gizzards to repress all other game systems. Hence, Star Frontiers remains in a coma, just where Lucas wants it, so RP gamers can be Jar-Jars and Ewoks. Your Alternity game has a similar fate, I suppose. As Yoda would say, "Total crap it is." |
 December 20, 2008 - 1:22pm | As for Star Frontiers, I loved it in the 80s until Zeb's Guide came along, then I stopped playing. Don't get me wrong, I liked parts of Zeb's, just not the fact that it changed the mechanics. I own practically everything ever published by TSR for SF (as well as Alternity), and have often wished to replay the game. The discovery of this site (and Starfrontiersman) has added to that desire. Now, if there were just more gamers in my home area (NE Oklahoma). Ironicly, I dislike the core rules, but Zeb's made it quite enjoyable for me. I also happen to like the old TSR AMSH... That said, Hasbro is likely to dump/delete a bunch of lines due to the recession, and legally, abandonware has no merit. Without explicit permission, it's still copyright infringement, a federal crime. |
 January 15, 2009 - 8:58pm | So right now D&D has gone the MMORG route to re-invigorate itself with many prophets preaching doom and destruction of 4e and WoTC and saddly 4e hasn't corrected the big headaches of 3.5 just re-polished it to look spiffy new. So whats the future of RPGs? Frontier Space? Star frontiers digitally remastered? haunting ebay for hard copies of OOP RPGs? PDF downloads you print yourself? I think its players- Evercrack and WOW all are addictive and really grab you at first and many people spend their lives there but some burnout and get pissed with Sony and evercrap and get out of that. then you go looking for a real hobby and get into wargaming and that leads to new friends and then you get back into RPGing after 20 yrs away and spend some money and say I 'm not having fun with this then you spend more money and buy old school D&D, Star frontiers and gama world stuff off ebay out of nostolgia then you say I want to play it any how and subvert your Shadowrut group cause no one else wants to GM and you really want to do some Sci-fi but not stuff about organ-jacking so you convince them to try out an old school game and they like it! The answer is new players and eventually more new players and then a grass roots wave crest and some exec says hey theres money we can make here and suddenly a company digs their heads oout of their butt and behold old is hot and back come all the old good stuff. Go ye out and preach the gospel of old school pen and paper gaming, of friends getting together having fun and convert new players! I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 January 16, 2009 - 7:54pm | I agree wholeheartedly, jedi, and, eventually SF or FrontierSpace, will have its turn again. "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 |
January 17, 2009 - 7:00am | Oh, wait, Spelljammer's crap anyway.... hah! I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
January 17, 2009 - 12:05pm | I think I would've been more receptive to it, if it just didn't seem like so much as an afterthought. "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 |
January 17, 2009 - 12:07pm | Oh, and Talen, whereabouts in NE Oklahoma? I live just off US 69, between Wagoner and Chouteau. "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 |
January 17, 2009 - 3:52pm | I agree wholeheartedly, jedi, and, eventually SF or FrontierSpace, will have its turn again. When WotC annonced an end to several settings (including Mystara), they licensed a number of individuals to maintain the value of the lines. Several boards came about due to this process. Most were non-commercial only; This site was one of them, IIRC. There is a parallel MSH/AMSH site (which Marvel hasn't gone after, either). There was a site for Athas (Dark Sun), and for Mystara (BECMI/Cyclopedia-WotI), and Ravenloft. I think there was also a Spelljammer site, but I'm not certain. All under that license were restricted to non-commercial use, but could even include copies of the Copyrighted works. if they are selling stuff, then they either are violating the license, or secured a different license, or are simply pirates. And don't get me wrong: just because I am aware and remind people that abandonware has no legal merit, that doesn't mean I think it shouldn't. |
January 17, 2009 - 6:51pm | Prolly a different kind of license, Aramis. "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 |
January 18, 2009 - 12:03am | Went and looked at their site. What they have isn't in violation of the license for "approved" websites; I found nothing for sale. (I went out of curiousity. I'm not affiliated with WotC, either. WotC had it up on their site, and I've read it.) Heck, I found nothing current on the Spelljammer site... Athas.org has some recent stuff. It's really quite telling about the fan-bases: Athas thrives, Mystara Thrives. Ravenloft did so well that it was licensed to Arthaus out from under the fans... |
January 18, 2009 - 12:08pm | Yeah, I saw that. My bad. "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 |
