 May 26, 2009 - 1:47pm | I'm working on this for my own games but the back and forth here on the forums helps me to find things I've over looked: So since the Zebs timeline doesn't seem to fit the implied/suggested history of the modules 1. What would it take to fix it? 2. what are the key inconsistencies? 3. In fixing the timeline should we address the origins of species ie. the core four and where their homeworlds are. Personally, for just running AD and ignoring ZEbs you can ignore the timeline after the Blue Plague entries and delete the contact with the Cappellan merchants as being a latter event. I like the idea that with the founding of the UPF and the stopping of the Blue Plague a period of adventure and exploration is set off for 20-30 years as people feel more secure and confident. entries on Zebulon/Volturnus have to be adjusted if you're to keep the Volturnus series of modules. if you worry about the origin of species then you need to tinker with the beginning of the timeline. EDIT: maybe we could let it ride that Volturnus's discovery and hence the modules are prior to the founding of the UPF and wrap up the Battle of Volturnus with some eorna fighters pulled from cold storage and manned by PCs and Mechanons- it works but I dont like it. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 May 31, 2010 - 2:19am | My humble opinion is that Zebs Guide (first Printing 1985) was a misguided attempt to rewrite the Game do to an internal Power struggle at Tactical Studies Rules (TSR, Inc.), At the Same time A lot of D&D and AD&D Material was also being Revised and updated. Gary Gygax the Creator of D&D and The Greyhawk Campain setting And Gen Con and Chainmail, was no longer the Majority Stock holder. Unconfirmed rumor was that his X-wife was now the Majority stock holder (Nasty Divorce). He Actualy Left the Company In 1985. A lot of things Changed, the Games became more colorful in the Artwork, Many New and different campain settings were published. The Plots and storylines Became deeper. They Hired Profesional Writers to Write Novels about the Game. and other things. But the Games like Star Frontiers and Gamma World became Less Important and eventualy were discontintued in Favor of D&D. What Am I saying here. Zebs Guide has it's Uses, But It is Not the original Game, The rules changes make it look like Marvel Superheroes in Some respects with the skill rolls and Column Shifts. I use it as an Expansion I dont use the Timeline in it because it does not make any sense. How can a King on Planet Clarion be Leotus the XIX. (reference Warriors of White Light) They Would not name every King The same first Name and even if they did That could Still Cover Several Hundred Years of Rulers. Think About this "Whte Light System Discover in 60 PF" Thats Zebs Guide, Thats not a small thing. The Line of Kings and Queens on Clarion must Go Back at least 1000 years so how could it be discovered so recently. Lack of Attention to Detail, Or Just part of Rewriting the Whole Game. So I humbly Submit that Zeb's Guide can not be counted as Canon. The Only Time Line in Canon is in Knight Hawks and it Gives a Short History with no Specific Dates, This leaves the Questions open for interpretation by the Referee, Q: How long Ago was First Sathar War? A: Decades. Q: When Was Second Sather War? A: It Ain't Happened Yet. (its an Adventure Hook). Stop Worrying about the Zeb's time line. In my opinion It was wrong headed in the first place. The bombing starts in five minutes. |
 May 31, 2010 - 5:12am | I dont think I had ever used the Zeb timeline as scripture - hell, I dont use the rules nor the background as directed - but I love the debate no less! I also agree that it should be up to players to make up their own history. I notice folks find out the hard way, the folly of keeping up with meta-plots (Dream Pod 9, as an example, put dates on the back of the books, and use Chess pieces to mark the historical importance each and every NPC has on their respective setting), otherwise I find some historical context to be really useful. I dont find the Zeb timeline to be a total write-off, as I really enjoy this entry: 110 f.y. A human assassin fails in his attempt to shoot Queanee Kloonanu, chairman of the Council of Worlds. A small bioform is found attached to the human's back. Scientific studies show it to be some kind of intelligent, parasitic organism with the same genetic make-up as Sathar specimens. Authorities believe it to be a new Sathar method of controlling agents. See-through apparel becomes fashionable almost immediately. How is that? Can you imaging that chick in the Crash on Volturnus cover dressed in tight saran wrap? ...I can, and it would look like this, but clear like this! Damn that is hot! =D |
May 31, 2010 - 12:15pm | @ dmoffett: I cant speak to Gygax getting a divorce but the turn over at TSR stemmed from years of the Bloom Brothers (Gygax's partners) reckless spending (hiring family and giving them limos etc) and Gygax made a play at getting his company back under control. He brought in Lorraine Williams who was a bit of a financial wiz but she cut a deal with the Bloom Brother to buy them out and Gygax sold out his shares in disgust and went to GDW Lorraine Williams gets credit for the novels and if it hadn't been for the novel the company would have gone under long before Wizards stepped in. Since her family owned Buck Rogers IP she decreed that TSR would go with this and SF got the axe- no doubt Gamma world was shouldered asside as well. Hence the rush to kick Zebs out the door while it was still unfinished. She got paid a royalty for every BR product that was printed not for what sold and since it was a dog that didn't sell she bled the company. She also was the archetech of having lawyers send cease and disist letters to every 14 yr old kid who put up a harmless web site about his D&D campaign, she also sued GDW after the new rules that gygax had wrote for them were advertised as Gygax's Dangerous Demensions (D&D) the prolonged lawsuit hurt GDW but in the end Gygax settled for a payment from TSR for the rights to the game that was far and above over what he would have sold it for outright though as per the settlement he never said what that ammount was though he did go on record that they had paid too much for it which seemed to please him. As for the multiple campaign settings that actually hurt TSR too- because ultimately it fractured their customer base. since each individual line cost the same amount to develope and each began to take in a smaller portion of the market some got eventually axed and customers went elsewhere. Lorraine Williams also decreed that there was to be no play testing of anything and all their products but the novels suffered. with the fracturing and abuse of the customer base (described above) this time of proffessional writers and artist actually MADE other RPG start ups! and that time was certainly a grand time for role players with Car wars, Gurps, Palladium, and etc being available. In the end she sold the company after draining it and its rumored that Wizards, who bought it got stuck with huge debts that she managed to hide from them before the sale. When people at wizards were asked about this they responded with "No Comment". Of course today its owned by Oprah Corp which is probably better than being owned by some other mega corp. /end rant However you are right about just treating it as a resource and not authoritative. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 May 31, 2010 - 3:01pm | Again, I'll cite the lifespan. WW1 was fought long before any of us began drawing air, as was the Civil War. As such, it (sadly) becomes easier to rewrite those events. But to put it into perspective of lifespans, let's try rewriting some more recent history. Since humans ion SF average 200 years and humans on earth are lucky to see 100, let's take a 20-30 year old perspective here on earth and translate that to equivilent 40-60 year old history in SF: after the U.S. won the Vietnam War, Nixon got re-elected. Nixon was then able to ammend the Constitution and served three more terms afterwards, thus defeating Ford, Carter, and Reagan (both times). Now there are some blithering idiots out there that might actually buy into that, but too many of us know better and Jimmy Carter is still alive to challenge that rewrite. Yes, the Heroes of Volturnus may not be recognized everywhere (just as Carter may not be credible these days LOL), but there is still an entire population in Truane's Star to back up their claims just as most of us have memories of Ford, Carter, and Reagan serving as presidents --- not to mention some degree of recollection of how the Vietnam War really ended. So to convince someone after the second Sathar War that the Volturnus expendition really happened 150 years before the first Sathar War (rather than some point between them as has already been proven), I doubt that's going to fly with the general population because with the general consensus tht the Volturnus deal happened somewhere in FY:40-50s, there's going to be a lot of people with actual recollections of what really transpired, just like most of us have recollections of the Vietnam War and the actual chain of presidents that followed. That's the perspective I'm getting at: the history simply isn't old enough to successfully rewrite it/pass it off... |
May 31, 2010 - 5:31pm | Lorraine Williams' is reviled by fans - to the point of being seen as the "Devil of All Nerdom" - and her management was subpar (q.v. "dawizard"). She was never a hobbyist, and pride herself on "never playing D&D". To my knowledge: Gary found her in Hallywood (while doing the D&D cartoon), when he befriended her brother Flint Dille (who writes books and cartoons - but not the D&D cartoon). After hearing the mismanagement of TSR from Gary, he suggested his sister because she was education in business management. Gary did not what to replace both of the Bloom brothers - just the younger brother - and Lorraine was seen as his replacement. In the falling out, the Bloom brothers sold their share to Lorraine. Gary sued to prevent this, but failed, and left the company in protest. You might think they gone on their separate ways, but TSR later sued Gary Gygax for copyright infringement, for producing his own fantasy RPG. The lawsuit (and the Judge) was a joke, as much of the suet was based on the most common and cliché fantasy tropes, but TSR was successful. By the way, this is the legal history of TSR - it is vary insightful! (I know it all moot now, but bashing Lorraine Williams never gets old) |
 June 22, 2010 - 2:52pm | Actually, there's absolutely no need to re-write history. If you want the average tv watching family to believe your version of history - get hollywood to make a film out of it! Sounds absurd, but it works - after all, look at some of the films that get made that do re-write history and get away with it, and are then taken to be the truth. U-571 is a good example - ask a teenager how the allies got hold of an enigma machine and they'll tell you it happened just like in the film, not the real, historical version. Zeb's guide timeline is a 'movie theatre' version, sort of "How the Frontier was won" popular drama! |
June 22, 2010 - 10:03pm | LOL, well if technology promotes idiocy (re: we think less with it - seriously how many poeple today are capable of performing basic math without a calculator, such as the one included in their cell phone?), and comparing what I see as a result in real life to the tech that exists in the fantasy setting of SF...I imagine the "average Joe" in SF is pretty gullible. Unfortunately, Zeb's was penned during more modern times with less tech. Mankind was much smarter back then. Hence this discussion.  |
June 24, 2010 - 3:30pm | LOL, well if technology promotes idiocy (re: we think less with it - seriously how many poeple today are capable of performing basic math without a calculator, such as the one included in their cell phone?), and comparing what I see as a result in real life to the tech that exists in the fantasy setting of SF...I imagine the "average Joe" in SF is pretty gullible. Unfortunately, Zeb's was penned during more modern times with less tech. Mankind was much smarter back then. Hence this discussion. Ever watch the movie "Idiocracy" My wife describes it like this: You may not want too watch it, once it starts its like a train wreck. You dont want to see but you can't tear your eyes away. Because its sooo dumb! Its meant to be tongue in cheek of course. back to business The Only timeline written with dates I can find is in Zebs guide. The other more general history in the AD and KH books I can find states that one thing happened then another, with No dates given. Its up to each GM to build his/her own campain. Just My humble opinion. I dont need to be constrained with dates and such. If I want to crash on volturnus , and do Drammune Run and go Beyond the Frontier with a new set of players all in one shot I can. Or I cut in or out anything I want. Or if the (place new alien name here) invasion starts who is to stop me. The bombing starts in five minutes. |
June 24, 2010 - 8:41pm | No, I haven't seen the flick. But I need to... Just My humble opinion. I dont need to be constrained with dates and such. If I want to crash on volturnus , and do Drammune Run and go Beyond the Frontier with a new set of players all in one shot I can. Or I cut in or out anything I want. Or if the (place new alien name here) invasion starts who is to stop me. That's beautiful. Seriously, it's the idea behind SF in the first place: let the GM define his/her Frontier. If there should be any "official time line", it should only list an order of events and let the GM decide exactly when it all happens as far as specific dates go. With the only exception (that pretty much anyone should agree on) to be set in stone --- fy:1 should be when the UPF is formed following the first sathar war. Barring that, the rest should simply be loosely defined. Very loosely defined, such as "humans enter the Frontier some time after vrusks and dralasites" (as found in the core SF AD rulebook), "the Volturnus adventure happens during the fy era" (as can be determined by reading/analyzing the Volturnus modules), or "Dramune Run occurs in fy:61" (there's an actual ship log with dates) and such since that backstory info is penned in the canon material. But there's nothing that says the second sathar war should happen before or after Dramune Run. Nor is there anything that says there can't be a third sathar war a year after the second one... To "officially" define everything and anything, well...it would no longer be Star Frontiers, it would become just another Star Wars or Star Trek or Traveller etc clone. And to hae everything set in stone, there would be no room for a GM to create his own flavor. My entire Dominion campaign would never meld with an official time line, even though I rewrote some of the Zeb's timeline to create the events in my game they would simply conflict with Zeb's if Zeb's were to be considered "official". |
June 25, 2010 - 7:50pm | To "officially" define everything and anything, well...it would no longer be Star Frontiers, it would become just another Star Wars or Star Trek or Traveller etc clone. And to hae everything set in stone, there would be no room for a GM to create his own flavor. My entire Dominion campaign would never meld with an official time line, even though I rewrote some of the Zeb's timeline to create the events in my game they would simply conflict with Zeb's if Zeb's were to be considered "official". I dont know if I aggree with the statement that having an official timeline would make SF another Star Trek, Star wars or traveller. Those products are different because they have different timelines. and lets face it Shadow's Dominion Game is Shadow's Dominion Game and everyone gets that it isn't official just a really interesting take on the original. (Shadow really ought to right a article that amounts to a setting guide for the Dominion setting and submit it to SFman IMO- something like what you'd expect to from a setting book- timeline, system notes, major NPC profiles and adventure ideas/ campaign outlines) I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
June 26, 2010 - 3:15am | In hindsight, I may have been a bit premature claiming it wouldn't be SF with an "official" time line. Still, I like the take that a GM should make his/her own, moreso if he/she simply doesn't happen to have all the canon material. After all, should a GM put the entire game on hold until that missing module in the specified order of events can be acquired? There are some folks out there that simply prefer to play SF with the AD ruleset, no KH at all. Which would work great for an "age of exploration" campaign, but again those GMs would be better off defining the order of system exploration based on their personal flavor in their games. OTOH, my D&D collection has taken off in recent years, and I simply have no desire in making a timeline for it. For starters elves live for a thousand years, and my SF timeline is patterned so that any player starting off with the basic scenarios that can survive to the "bitter end" will see everything I have laid out (and average SF races live for about 200 years). At which point I would probably have to coin a "part two" time line for any second or third generation characters...but the point I am getting at is no timeline would feasibly be explored completely by a single group, unless you had no job and could find time to play every day and night, and even so it would take quite a while to explore two hunrded years worth of game time. Case in point, most of my groups (where we had regular weekend sessions) elapsed game time averaged 20-25 years (averaging three years of play time, with occasional "other game" breaks along the way). To run my Dominion era from start to finish would span about 40+ years worth of game time, or a total of six years worth of play time (again assuming every weekend and including "other game" breaks). Long story made short, the love I have for SF is the fact that very little of it is actually defined (I would guess that the entire published material doesn't even cover 1% of the Frontier, and that includes the debateable Zeb's stuff too), thereby encouraging a GM's creativity to take over. Whether that creativity runs with "conventional canon" or drifts into "something else" is all part of the fun, as I cn attest to the fact that I have just as much fun running my Dominion game as I do playing in Beowulf's "Lost Worlds" game or Jedion's "several generations in the future CRM game" or Terl Obar's "Terl Obar Enterprise" game or Parriah's "melting pot" game or Will's take-over of my former "Space Rats" game or the old days of live play here at SF.us when I was running "Basically Speaking" (I think I covered 'em all, and now I really long for a new PC so I can jump back into them!), as not one of them follows any given official plot line and most of them use variations of rules (and parriah's actually ties a couple of them together). Each one has its own unique flavor and each one is just as much fun to participate in, I probably wouldn't be able to pick a fave if I had someone holding a gun to my head. P.S. I began a Dominion series in the SFman...the intro was in the last issue IIRC. I don't remember if a timeline was included with it, I don't have those files at the moment (I'm between PCs right now LOL) but once I get this problem hammered out I'll continue with that storyline. I don't foresee anything for the upcoming issue though. |
July 8, 2010 - 11:51pm | I had an idea for an alternative timeline that incorporates the Zeb stuff: Use the extended Zeb Guide map, add lot more systems to it, and make that the Age of Exploration (I can totally see this as a retro Buck Rogers-styled age, with a more early Space-Age style in the earliest age). Then choose a number (any number) of systems that got quarantined until the cure was found - this would also isolate some non-quarantine systems. This would be something of a Dark Age, as space travel would grind to a snail's pace. (I see this as more of a gritty age that looks more like Space Odyssey, but with sweetly grease monkey for techs - like Star Wars or something) After the cure, the Frontier slowly recovers from the Blue Plague because reduced population stunts expiation, and population density moves towards the core worlds. This would be The Age of Recovery. (I can see this at time there isolation made the core worlds slightly decadent and folks have a casual and stylish look about them, like Logan's Run or the first Star Trek movie) Once the Frontier stabilizes and expiation continues, a new threat appears - The Sathar! They came out of nowhere, and worlds fell before them! Now this is where you use the classic SF maps and adventures. This is a time of war, and paranoia is in the air - a mix of WWII-styled navel battles, and cold war politics. (there is a holdover of style from the last age, but there is also a more push for utilitarian, like the 80s Buck Rogers and Battlestar Galactica shows) After the Sathar gets pushed back to their home worlds, the Frontier is more unified, and it becomes safer to explore. New routs (like the Rim) and old (the ones lost by invasion or outbreak) are mapped, and there is much to find or rediscover. This would be an Age of Rediscovery (I can see this as a more conservative age where things look more clean-cut, like ST:TNG and Babylon 5). After that, think of something else to shake-up the setting, or make the Frontier decadent or corrupt (like with Firefly). |
