 June 12, 2009 - 10:15pm | Lets agree on a few things: 1. Zebs guide races get bashed more than any other 2. many of us choose to ignore the Zebs guide background rather than deal with its problems 3. some people really love Zebs guide with an zeal approaching that of religion so obviously they dont have a problem. So what would it take to turn this around, to 'redeem' the Zebs races and gain them greater stroy share in our games? This is a thread to suggest tweaks, changes, or rewrites of the Zebs races to 'Something' that you'd find more palatable for acceptence to your campaigns and games So we can all benefit from each other's ideas. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
June 12, 2009 - 11:16pm | First at bat- 1. the Humma- my favorite of the Zebs races The big criticism of them seems to be they're just a yazerian by a different color I dont see this as a big issue to have 2 out of 7 races with a strong warrior tradition. With the yazerians taking a negative mod to STr during character creation yet having the battle rage they kind of present the image of a small skinny scrappy kid that turns out to be a tough customer in a fight. there is actually room for a warrior race that goes in a different direction (even wookie-ish) I've heard them bashed for looking like a kangeroo but the vursk look like a preying mantis so...? 2. Ifshnits- certainly a poor choice of name but one that can be fun to mis-pronounce! My big problem with these guys is "dwarves in space" - if you kept their cultural characteristics but changed their look I'd be happy. what comes to mind for me is the rat like Vihm race, in appearance from Frontier Space, If you combined thier appearance with the weaselly merchant side they work for me and suggest some adventure & RP ideas to me. 3. the Osakar:I probably like the name of this race best but the biological description is blauh! this would be the one race I'd like to see changed wholesale but I dont really have an idea as to what. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 June 13, 2009 - 3:11am | I have a rewrite of the Ifshnits drafted. In a nutshell, so far I have the following: Capellans (Ifshnits) > Limited to 1/3 STR encumbrance (as opposed to the standard 1/2...after all they average only 30kg) > Limited to pistols and shorter melee weapons (knives, stunsticks, etc), although standard rifles can be used with bipods with heavy weapons restrictions. > Body hair is predominant on males, females only have hair on their arms and legs (no beards), both typically keep body hair braided according to clan traditions (I plan on belting out another clan list, not as extensive as my yazirian clans though since they're native to only one system). Speech is a quasi-Celtic accent (as opposed to the "cute" high pitched piping sound as described in Zeb's). > Dislike of the name "Ifshnit" (much like citizens of Clarion dislike the off-worlder name "Gollywog"), prefer the "Capellan" name instead. > Racial abilities - Flash Blindness protection (inner eyelids, as described in Zeb's), Appraisals @ 1/2 LOG score (failure equals a +/- difference in roll, say you needed a 50 and rolled a 72, the failure rate appraises the item at plus or minus 22% of actual value). Successful appraisals will be within +/-5% of actual value, or dead on for a 01-05 roll. Haggling & Persuasion skills, automatic at start of play...5% each or pick one at 10%, increase possible up to 90% via XP expenditures (can add the secondif one opted at 10% at start). So far my only revisions to the Osakar entail their feet. Since their feet are biologicvally designed like their hands (at least inthe picture) I opted to permit them to use these appendages as hands, much like chimps and apes etc. This opens the door to using three weapons at a time and some serious martial arts bonuses. I've dabbled with the idea of ambidexterity, but that would ultimately unbalance them with those aforementioned bonuses. |
June 13, 2009 - 6:25am | Shadow: I love the yazerian clans article and I suspect if there was a Capellan clans article that we'd see more Ifshnits popping up! Which would probably do more for the race than this thread! to me is seems that the problems with the Ifys is that they fall inbetween the 2 poles of Dwarves in space (or gnomes) and Ewoks. I suppose if they were more covered in hair with a sofisticated society (that the ewoks didn't have) it could be platable. Maybe I just need to play an Ifshnit in an online game to reconcile myself to them. Though Hasselfreeminiatures has some great, and I mean great, dwarves in space miniatures- though they're all clean shaven some even have some high and tight crew cuts for their hair and I probably only need an excuse to buy and paint them. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 June 13, 2009 - 10:05am | Your all's wish regarding the Ifshnits is my command. I already wrote a revision of the Ifshnits that mostly involves redoing their appearance in images to actually reflect their description in Zeb's. They are not describeds as gnomes in space in their description. Their description more closely resembles H. Beam Piper's Little Fuzzies, which takes up the Ewok/Mini-Wooks angle. Their image now looks like traders and is much more pleasant to look at than an ugly midget from Amsterdam. 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) |
June 13, 2009 - 11:43am | I'd really love a hand full of pics that didn't make them seem to be borrowed from SF's bigger brother Dungeons and Dragons. Not that there is anything wrong with D&D, some of my friends play dungeons and dragons. Its just that lousy pic from Zebs Guide sticks in my mind and everytime I think of mixing in Zebs material I decide against it. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 June 13, 2009 - 12:26pm | Why are you bothering? They are terrible and ill-conceived. The whole book was bad. If you want races, take them from the modules - Saurians, Eorna, Ul-Mor, Kurabanda, Mehmne, Notui, Heilopes, Edestakai, etc., etc. The sooner we forget about them, and that crappy, ridiculous timeline, the better. |
June 13, 2009 - 3:02pm | Tell us how you really feel about Zeb's  I already wrote a revision of the Ifshnits Got a link? |
June 13, 2009 - 4:05pm | It should appear in Issue 12 if it gets included. I also provided a player character revision of the Zethra. 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) |
June 13, 2009 - 4:37pm | [digression] Why are you bothering? They are terrible and ill-conceived. The whole book was bad. If you want races, take them from the modules - Saurians, Eorna, Ul-Mor, Kurabanda, Mehmne, Notui, Heilopes, Edestakai, etc., etc. The sooner we forget about them, and that crappy, ridiculous timeline, the better. Yeah, we all got that a long time ago. There's not a thread that you don't jump into to say you hate anything that goes beyond "core" races of your choosing or the 80's conceived tech. It's kind of old. A new trick would be if you actually didn't do that. It's one thing in a project that you are actually helping to develop to say you don't like something on those grounds, but to jump into something that you have no interest in to announce your feelings on the matter for the quadrillionth time is kind of sad. Is it really so hard just not to jump in and just let others have their fun? (Please, don't answer that; it's rhetorical.) Except for the Eorna and Ul-Mor, the rest of those you named I think are crap, but I don't go announcing it every time they're mentioned. In fact, pretty much everyone on this site has races they don't like, but you don't see them jumping into threads they have no interest in to announce it at every opportunity. It's just not kosher. It's like you're trying to make all of us feel like crap for having ideas different than your own.[/digression] 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) |
June 13, 2009 - 4:42pm | Why are you bothering? That is the point of the thread to generate talk and ideas to see if anything can be done, needs to be done, or maybe not to bother. But since some people use Zebs material, some seem to want to use it and others are afraid to use it, it wouldn't hurt to see if there were revisions or changes that would rehab the races into a place of greater acceptibility. My thinking on this is ZEbs suffered from good intentions of game designers trying to roll it out the door (for the benefit of the players) before the witch who bought out Gygax could totally kill SF in favor of her own family's Buck Rogers IP. The SFman zine is great and I totally love it. BUT we have to use phrases like "canon material" because no matter how good a fan creation is its still optional material and the base common denominator in this great game we love is the 'canon material'. Yet there is obviously a disconnect where some use ZEbs and some dont and some just use the equipment. It is after all the last official material released and technically fits the canon material. If we can address some of the issues with Zebs and gain it greater acceptance then we increase the base common denominator that we work from. I for one dont use the race, timeline, resolution system, skills system (I play SF2000 or AD) and a lot of the equipment. Yet I watch shadow in an online game playing an ifshnit and it doesn't really seem to hinder his fun. I my F2F games I'm the GM so most Zebs material in out by GM fiat. It stikes me as limiting that I divorce myself from so much possible material. Personally I see scope for writing some adventures involving Zebs material. My problem is that my imagination must be really engaged to doso and things that bug me about Zebs prevents that. I would really like explore the Rim a little. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
June 14, 2009 - 5:45am | Zeb's is the "bastard child" of Star Frontiers, it has a lot of great ideas to fuel a campaign but at the cost of what many consider as an epic failure with the execution end. Still, there are a few people out there that consider it better than the core stuff (Aramis comes to mind) and would probably change very little from the ZG, and I would safely say such folks would prefer instead to convert the AD/KH stuff to Zeb's instead. By far, I would say most folks that don't agree with Zebs will side on the new races being the weak link (with the time line being the other major contender). If breathing new life into the three ZG races can offer something attractive to the core lovers, more power to them for trying to enhance the boundaries of the game. |
June 14, 2009 - 6:31am | Ascent - I dislike new tech? When did I say that? On the races... Ok, - I see your point. "If you don't have anything nice to say about the Rim races, don't say anything at all." Fair enough. If it seems tedious, it's only because I feel so passionately about it. |
June 14, 2009 - 12:36pm | Concerning the yazerians vs humma: would not any other warrior race just be another yazerian? unless it was a wookie? even then a wookie is just a nother yazerian. Honestly having the humma as the least liked and race able to literally eat shyte and having a spring charge ability doesn't really feel like a yaz to me. yaz's are pushy but dont necessarily look for fights while a humma isn't neccessarily pushy but looks to fight for entertainment. as for the Osaka that whole religion thing rings false to me- with planets of populations of millions and each one practices his own religion? it really seems silly to me but I suspect that the designers thought that might be fertile ground for role play. Though some things would just irritate the snot right out of me like an Osaka Jehovah Witness- sorry if any follow that persausion or if I played in a game where a player played an osaka just to poke fun of a particular religion he had an axe to grind against- that would just be tasteless. plus I just dont buy their physical construction as a result of evolution unless it was the result of special creation  . ]The ifshnits work if you ignore both the physical description and the lousy artwork. I suppose if you made them an off shoot of humanity that evolved into a smaller pygmy stature due to environment pressures then I could go with that or if there was better artwork that made them look more alien and less fantasy dwarfish I could go with that. Ideas for tuning the Rim races: 1. Steal an idea & art work and simply call it by the Rim Race name- Vimh from frontier space come to mind 2. make one a methane breather like in a C J Cherrith novel (see Pride of Channur) 3. grab a whole new earth animal and simply write a new race based off that like taking a preying mantis and making vursk or a 1/2 monkey & 1/2 flying squirrel and making a yazerian. 4. grab some other sci-fi staple like blobs and make a race like drals. 5. find some kick butt line of alien miniatures and use them as one of the zebs races and I'd, at least have few complaints! 6. keep the original art but rewrite the race Some thoughts: why do people play a particular race fantasy or Sci-fi: 1. thet can identify with it 2. it as a special ability they like and want to play. 3. it has a really cool background with lots of potential for role play (it catches their imagination Concerning a rewrite of Zebs aliens: it would be less important to have a scientifically plausible evolutionary path and or explanation- though having that doesn't hurt. But if you match special abilities with a neat background plus something in the creature that people will or can identify with than it will be a successful race or alien. IMO I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
June 14, 2009 - 2:18pm | For an Osakar in movies, look no further than Star Wars's Yarael Poof, althogh he has only 2 legs instead of 4. Shadow Shack, someone already did a nice revamp of the Humma (at least one I appreciated). jedion's last paragraph is on the nose. 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) |
 June 14, 2009 - 3:28pm | re: Dwarves in space.... When first contact occurs, they'll be Elves with 'wands' throwing 'fireballs', and their engineers will be Gnomes.... But no Dwarves... ;-) |
June 15, 2009 - 5:10am | For an Osakar in movies, look no further than Star Wars's Yarael Poof, althogh he has only 2 legs instead of 4. Feh, he's just a dude with a really long neck LOL What spearates the Osakar is they have five fingers and a pair of opposing thumbs. Nasty for martial arts, being able to thumb someone in the eye socket from any angle without twisting the wrist. And their double knee-joint legs can make for some nasty kicks as well. Talk about some reach... BTW that is a slick rewrite of the Humma. |
 June 15, 2009 - 8:02am | I guess I must be one of the few that liked the races of Zeb's right out of the book. What I did not like is the rewrite of the combat system. Osakar are my favorite. |
June 15, 2009 - 10:20am | Interesting that shaodw's revamp details 3 clans and the Humma home system has 3 habitable planets; kind of tempting to just use his 3 clans as the over all society of those 3 planets. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
June 15, 2009 - 5:21pm | The revamp actually belongs to Webtroll. And sure, I could see that, but I personally would find it more interesting to have variety within the homeworld. Yazirians themselves have a system of clans divided by the planets they're on, so in whatever way we can differentiate the Humma from Yazirians is what I would go for. To me, Webtroll's clans would all be friendly to each other and interlinked. Perhaps the occasional skirmish occurs between them to keep their edge sharp, but they don't take it personal, seeing each other as brothers. The warrior priest class, after all, are their spiritual leaders. My view of them is like an early Israel (Davidic line, Levites, and the warrior tribes [Namely Ruebin, Dan, and Gad]) and Yazirians as Greece/Rome/Sparta. Humma are less refined and are primitive while Yazirians contain high culture one side of which has remained steeped in tradition and the other side of which has become disillusioned. Now what could result from the Humma's steadfast hold on tradition is a culture that is devoted to its leaders so that their allegiances with the other races of the Frontier and Rim would be fragile based upon the prejudices of their leaders. It would be a constant political struggle for the Frontier to maintain its peace with the Humma, and perhaps there would be constant upheavals between the Humma and the Mechanon similar to the struggle between Israel and Palestine. Except in this instance the Mechanon represent modern Israel, for its intrusiveness on soil (the Rim Coalition; compare Fertile Crescent) that does not naturally belong to them. 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) |
June 16, 2009 - 3:35am | Yeah, I'd like to take credit for that fine rewrite had it been mine...it is a good one. Loved the artistic rendition too (especially the "kangaroo kick", even if it does lend itself to the popular kangaroo bash of the species it's still more innovative than the original description offered) |
 June 18, 2009 - 9:02pm | The Humma revamp by Webtroll was fantastic! Up until reading that I had been partial to a reinterpretation of the Humma based upon the Mantrin from the movie Titan AE. The character Stith, voiced by Janeane Garofalo, was a great and fiesty example of what I thought best represented the Humma (so what if the Mantrin had an extra knee and lacked a tail - they were great!). Now I'm leaning toward Webtrol's revamp. It is much closer to the original concept. Great art and description! Now if someone could just tinker with the Osakar: they are my favourite of the Zeb races. [I prefered to picture them with a slightly shorter, thinner neck, with the humanoid upper body nixed (just a center mass), with only 3 legs (or lower arms), and three upper arms (just like the lower ones). I can just envision one of these things perfectly at home in the zero-G environment of a starship's engineering area; effortlessly moving along the machinery and access panels with a spider-like grace.] Cheers |
June 18, 2009 - 9:39pm | I've been contemplating an Osakar revamp for some time. I didn't make much progress in the conceptualization until this thread. Keep talking. Any other ideas come to mind regarding the Osakar? They definitely need a height readjustment. As it is, their height restricts them from movement in most buildings and vessels. I don't agree with renumbering their limbs, but I am conceptualizing them with more maneuverability and spider-like agility. My goal is always to maintain the original description absent from the preexisting art while adding cultural descriptions and enhancing (not cutting or altering) their physical description where possible. 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) |
June 19, 2009 - 4:55am | Well, there are several things I noted in the Osakar description as I was attempting to redraw them. First, there is no mention of their having hands on their feet. However, in the absence of a foot description, one naturally assumes that if they have near human hands, then they have near human feet, but no matter how I drew it, this looked ridiculous. So I went ahead and gave them hands, and no matter how you draw that, it just seems right. I contemplated hooves or Vrusk-like feet, but again, this would just be conjecture, as it's not mentioned in the description. So since the hands for feet are established in the art and regular feet look ridiculous, I didn't think it appropriate to change that up from the art. Second, they are barrel chested. This means the art does not properly depict the description. The art presents a twig, not a barrel. Third, their necks are not described as ridiculously long or snake-like. In fact, their neck is described as "thick" and "muscular", suggesting that it is human-like, but long and its muscles clearly defined, which brings into question the size of its scales if its musculature is clearly visible. Fourth, an Osakar's scales are not as big as shown in the art. In fact, their scales are not scales at all. They are "cells", plantlike in nature to be exact. So these cells (not scales) merely produce a course effect, rather than a scaled effect. Fifth, their faces are flat, so the artist's depiction is slightly too diverse. Kim intended for all Osakar to look alike, so making the face have any features that could deviate from Osakar to Osakar would be inappropriate. Sixth, their eyes are given no other description than being black, suggesting the artist took liberties with the eye size that apparently weren't intended in Kim's description. Thus normal-sized eyes were likely intended. Also, eyes of the size depicted by the artist would change the shape of the face significantly so as not to be "flat". So properly recessed eyes of regular size are likely. Finally, their knees are depicted in the wrong direction on the art. The artist assumes them to be like animal legs, but the problem with that is animals, like humans, only have one knee, and judging by Kim Eastland's descriptions, he would know this. So their being described as having two knees literally means they have two knees. They bend in the opposite direction to the art, because it would be impossible for them to fold up as described and still be able to walk (as is the purpose to their ability to fold down to 2 m height). So their legs go straight down from their body and then the knee bends outward, then the other knee bends down again, giving them a 4-legged spider look. So other than the hands for feet, these are signifigant divergences from the art. 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) |
