 March 23, 2011 - 9:30pm | I managed to acquire a very large collection of Dragon Magazines and as I was going through them and remembering what it was like way back when, when I would rush off to the Compleat Stategist to pick up my Dragon magazines I came opon a question and answer page in Issue 92. that read as follows: Q: What were the original homeworlds of the Dralasites, Vrusk, Yazirians, and Humans of the Star Frontiers universe? A: Placement and descriptions of the homeworlds of the four races were slated for inclusion in a future product. As of this time only rough development has been done and the information is not ready for release. Now I wish that there was someway to get hold of whatever that product was that never got released to learn where the core 4 came from, and I wonder what other Star frontiers things had been in the planning stages before they pulled the rug out from under the Star Frontiers development team and forced them to work on the ill-fated Buck Rogers game. "Hey guys I wonder what this does"-Famous last words "Hey guys, I think it's friendly." -Famous last words "You go on ahead, I'll catch up." -Famous last words "Did you here that?" -Famous last words |
 March 24, 2011 - 1:41am | Maybe something in a lost files section or something some took home with. Only way I could think to find out would be contact the original developers of the game and see if they remember what happened to it all. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
 March 24, 2011 - 1:16pm | Well, talking with Rick Strebs the author of Gangbusters, I highly doubt anything of TSR's that was purchased by WOTC will ever see much light of day. They have most of that stuff irretrievably warehoused. |
March 24, 2011 - 5:00pm | It's such a shame because a lot of tha stuff should be considered public domain by now If they allowed the copyrights to expire. I have been looking over old Dragon, Dungeon,Ares, and White Dwarf magazines and finding a treasure trove of material I have long forgotten about. It makes me yearn for the days of old when I was actively running a game, rather than now that I haven't had an active gaming group in about 8 years. "Hey guys I wonder what this does"-Famous last words "Hey guys, I think it's friendly." -Famous last words "You go on ahead, I'll catch up." -Famous last words "Did you here that?" -Famous last words |
 March 24, 2011 - 5:42pm | Copryright doesn't expire the same way trademarks expire. Copyright lasts a long time. Internationally, we wouldn't see the copyright expire for another 40 years, at least. 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) |
March 24, 2011 - 6:41pm | There goes my dream of asking WOTC to do us all a favor and release all that boxed up goodness from back in the day. Probably the only way any of us will see that stuff is if they run out of ideas and decide to mine the warehouse stuff for things they've yet to mutilate into something barely recognizable. I was looking through my collection of RPG games from way back when, and there was some real gems back then, rough around the edges to be sure but really good stuff, and most of it didn't require a PHD just to understand it. and the Prices...Star Frontiers was 12 dollars for the boxed set.....If that boxed set was put out now we'd be paying what 40-50 bucks. I must be getting old because I'm getting misty eyed remembering those days. "Hey guys I wonder what this does"-Famous last words "Hey guys, I think it's friendly." -Famous last words "You go on ahead, I'll catch up." -Famous last words "Did you here that?" -Famous last words |
 March 25, 2011 - 2:57pm | Ah... Our hopes spark up once every six months or so around here with conversations about copyrights and acquisitions... I think the bottom line is that Hasbro does not want any competition in the Sci-Fi space and are purposely shelving Star Frontiers. <sigh> Such a shame. I would love to buy the game from them someday... Imagine all the awesomeness we could release just by printing some of the stuff from this site alone? Rys - I see you mentioned the Compleat Strategist... Do you live in the NYC area? |
March 25, 2011 - 6:42pm | I've been a New Yorker since I was three, but left for North Carolina in 2001, and then began living between the states and Canada in 2003. I am currently staying in the Bronx for what was supposed to be 6 months in which I was to go get a full physical and take care of some annoying little medical issues, but that has now become a prolonged ordeal, so I won't be leaving for Canada where I spend a portion of my time, until after July. So for the past 7 months I've been working on my little Star Frontiers obsession from the Bronx, and visiting all my old hangouts in New York. The Compleat Strategist is still on 33rd street like I remembered, even though my old friends that worked there have long since moved on. As for all that old TSR goodness over the years I've managed to track down almost everything that I used to have or wanted to have from them except for Gangbusters, and the Amazing engine I believe it was called, but one of these days I'll get to add those to my collection too. Lets say that I used to be an avid comics collector, but now my obsession is collecting RPG games and materials. "Hey guys I wonder what this does"-Famous last words "Hey guys, I think it's friendly." -Famous last words "You go on ahead, I'll catch up." -Famous last words "Did you here that?" -Famous last words |
March 25, 2011 - 7:28pm | Gangbusters is available as a PDF on DriveThruGames. Think they have some amazing engine also but you can check. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
 March 26, 2011 - 8:04am | We can always produce Star Frontiers material for FREE. Full modules, sourcebooks, whatever. My SF fix is the webzine and rule conversions that promote Star Frontiers locally and at Cons. Outside those two publications I have an issue not making a dime for all the hard work I would put into a product. Sure I'll whip up something, but it's always eventually for the magainze. Once we get d00 System published I'll work in a sourcebook with the community. So... I guess that's three things. :-) My point is, ppl can still make awesome free material for a game they love. Does that make sense? Ask yourself, "If I owned all the IP to SF what would I do with it?" "If someone in the sf.us community owned all the IP to SF, what would I do with it?" Would you really do anything differently if you owned the IP? Thoughts from w00t, a sentient robot filled with zeros and ones. |
 March 26, 2011 - 11:09am | There must be some great stuff that was in development that we'll never see. I was under the impression that TSR was developing rules for land combat (I know that's a project that someone is working on this site, so I hope that will yield some goodness!) |
March 26, 2011 - 3:03pm | Its fun to speculate what TSR had cooking up in the vaults for Star Frontiers. I mean there was the original Star Frontiers Prototype that was said to be very hard science fiction based, which they basically scapped when they decided to produce a version of the game that would appeal to a new o RPG crowd. There was the original concept for Zebulon's Guide to the Frontier which was supposed to be a Knight Hawks sourcebook with a spacesuited character floating in space as the front cover. And other ideas that they had floating around before things got out of control and Star Frontiers got scrapped. I guess there's tons of other material and Ideas for other games that never got made but are in the vaults as well. It's just a shame because RPG games have come a long way from those days, and in some ways they have lost some of the innovation and magic of those early games. "Hey guys I wonder what this does"-Famous last words "Hey guys, I think it's friendly." -Famous last words "You go on ahead, I'll catch up." -Famous last words "Did you here that?" -Famous last words |
 March 26, 2011 - 4:05pm | Yeah, and Zeb's guide was produced as Volume 1 - what would Vol. 2 have??? Sure, there is money to be had, but Hasbro holds a LOT of other holdings (Avalon Hill, for one) that will probably never see the light of day again, unless there is ample moola to feed their coffers. Sad, actually... "If we knew what we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?" -A Einstein |
 April 1, 2011 - 11:57am | Look for Amazing Engine on ebay. They go cheap there (like $5 a pop - sometimes as low at 99 cents if you're willing to wait). I see a lot of them go unpurchased there as well. Call of Cthulhu RPG Journals: http://www.yog-sothoth.com/blogs/2951 Other journals: http://forum.abyssalgaming.com/blog/7-maxs-blog/ http://www.penandpapergames.com/forums/blog.php/8662 |
 April 5, 2011 - 7:31pm | It's a bloody shame that so many great sources of fiction and imagination are locked away from the public domain by the 'eternal copyright' law. I wish the country could just revert back to the old "14 - 28 year" copyright instead of supporting unfair (and unproductive) business practices. |
 May 7, 2011 - 4:58pm | Any other hints as to what is locked away in the vaults? Has anyone come across information on Alien Worlds, the precursor to S.F.? I remember seeing it mentioned briefly in an interview with one of the designers, I think it was Zeb Cook. |
 May 9, 2011 - 8:53pm | Hmm... Well it won't cost me anything to send TSR (or whatever they morphed into) with the question: "What were the intended core worlds/home planets of the four major races in Star Frotniers?" I'm sure you guys may have already tried this, but what the heck, eh? My SF website izz: http://ragnarr.webs.com |
 May 9, 2011 - 1:22pm |  Amazing Engine, Call of Cthulhu, Powers and Peril, The Complete Strategist .... Oh, The Nostalgia.... I know it has been tried, but yeah, what-the-hack, maybe the five-hundred-seventy-twelfth attempt is the charm. What I recall hearing is that there was a plan to develop the homeworlds, but there had not been anything settled on in a writen definite, and it was still an ephemeral in the head of whoever was tasked with the project, which is why none of the later Sci-Fi games that have used SF mined ideas hold much of a clue. Gammaworld: the original source of the Dralasite, was a GW character that turned into a full race for SF. Spelljammer: All the Star Frontier materials were in a constant back and forth with Spelljammer. Alternity: Has used the SF material in three different ways, each slightly contradictory to the others. D20 Future: Drew heavily from Star Frontiers, Gamma World, Spelljammer, and Alternity material... but only after attempting to be an original game, and by people who knew nothing of the earlier works until it was pointed out to them that some material was older than they realized. and that is just a quick in-house list of cousins and grand-kids.... the larger list has to look at all the games that were being produced at the time, all of them took from or contributed something to Star Frontiers. The development of everything from Cyberpunk and Cyberspace to Marvel and Torg was in a mutual influence, and still I am only citing the Pop-American RPG market, the RPG market was already in full global swing while TSR was still putting out all those little boxed-sets.... TSR just managed to get all the American media attention (since most of it was negative, other publishers were happily obliging to let them take the spotlight). But in none of that material, anywhere, including the many interviews, have I seen any direct representation of the core four homeworlds. Only potential influences that the design team may have had available to reference... and by what I extrapolate from all that... never actually wrote down anywhere, but left in source form for reference. Put another way, I don't think TSR, WotC, or Hasbro ever had the information to answer the request, even for their own purposes. Add to that, there is this bit of trivia, about 70% of all data TSR had for anything pre-1982 IIRC, was lost in miss-handled and corrupt data files, during the Hasbro-WotC cascading takeover of everything RPG related in North America. TSR (and Dragon magazine specifically) lost approximately 60% of their legal contracts in the move to Seattle, and as last I saw the figures, were expecting less than a 30% recovery over the next few decades.  depressing as all that could be, there is still the possibility someone remembers something.... and is still alive to talk about it. but like the employees of all the classic RPG stores, (the ones around here too...) I don't think they work there anymore. (I have seen a few dread-pirate-roberts hanging on a few lines... but few of the originals... so, you do take your chances when it comes to these things.) 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? |
 May 9, 2011 - 6:37pm | truthfully, does it really matter, make up your own stuff...after all that is what role playing games are all about. Anyway, while I love the originals, I doubt I would have bothered with anything after Zeb's anyway. Zeb's almost sank the whole boat for me. I only use it for resource material and strictly forbid its game mechanics in any game i referee. There isn't a houserule that I have yet to encounter that doesnt puts the Zeb mechanics to shame. But I digress, there is enough creativity here that someone or a group of someones should just hash it out, if we all like it then its Canon! TSR / WTF-otc isnt going to do it or release it so just take the initiative and hammer something out. We have a big enough forum here that people could poll/vote and contribute / collaborate a project that spells this subject as well as any of the original authors. No offense of course to the original authors, their work is genius, but they aren't working on it anymore so I guess its up to us. Start with the top Five races and work your way out for those races that still havent been detailed. The most important part is to not make the details too complete because that kills anybody's attempt to make their own original spin on things. Just enough detail to flesh things out and let the referee's have a little growing room to embelish upon or diverge from. |
May 9, 2011 - 10:11pm |
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? |
May 9, 2011 - 9:45pm | I realize that a gamemaster is just as free (as always) to place the major race's core worlds wherever he or she chooses. I suppose it's more of an intellectual curiosity for me as to which worlds TSR intended them to be. To me, they should be the most heavily populated worlds marked with a Y, H, V, and D in the Alpha Dawn rules. I don't expect anything useful from WoTC in response to my email, but it's fun to think maybe, just maybe, they might toss me a bone. I tend to agree with AZG regarding Zeb's Guide. It is only at best cherry-picked by me for my campaign here. When Zeb's first came out way back when, I was jazzed. But the more I read, the more I realized (besides the obvious mechanics change) that Zeb's just didn't have that same feel as Alpha Dawn. I will admit that the Column Shift/Result Shift thing certainly speeds up combat. My SF website izz: http://ragnarr.webs.com |
May 9, 2011 - 10:31pm | , the home-worlds were somewhere else ... as far from the frontier as Earth or even further, and the trip for the humans was effectively a one-way colonization. ... similar too but NOT the Metamorphosis Alpha, was the official statement. The expectation was that physical contact would not be viable for nearly 500yrs after the colonists of the Three Races met, and possibly not viable for regular traffic for another 500yrs after that. Technically only the Yazirian, the Humma, and the Osakar are native to the Full Sector (they said 100ly flat, I imagined it as a 60ly or was it 30parsecs ... sphere ... and got approval from some WotC secretary for that ... yay, I was sanctioned  ) ... the Ifschnit overlap their small bubble of influence but their homeworld (at least originally, was to be outside that area), and the Mechanon were not counted ... nor were the Sathar, other Angel societies, or many Ape societies (the other type less-than-zeros and greater-than-twos) ...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? |
May 9, 2011 - 10:41pm | Has anyone attempted to contact Douglas Niles or Zeb Cook on the subject? |
May 9, 2011 - 10:48pm | did I mention my phone conversations? in that last post? some of the original team, and extended family are alive, many apparently hate repeatedly answering 30yr old questions... understandable.... the other reason I tried to track down all the sordid details, was for the posterity, and an attempt to eliminate such need. How long ago did I do this ... let me check my notes ... I think they are on that crashed computer in the dumpster ... ever seen office space? poor photocopier, I feel for it, really I do ... we did that to a laptop once, sometime around that time ...It was more than just an intellectual curiosity for me ... but here is the problem with knowing something ... it then puts a person in a position that makes them feel obligated to make a choice ... to answer, or to forget, that is the question, tis whether it is nobler to answer the slinging questions of passing curiosities, or swim forever in a sea of ignorence ...  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? |
May 9, 2011 - 10:56pm | Before we jump to a unsupported conclusion about how far and how long the early colonists had to travel we need to start at the source. What does SFAD, SFKH, and ZGFS say about the subject. To make the canon credible it must first be consistent with the source work. What do we know about the core four and Sathar, written not speculated info, and build from there. If we have an idea where to start the leapes of speculation and plausible assumption easier to build a foundation upon. I think that knowing where the Sathar come from could prove to be important however should be contained in Referee information and recommended for players to read as it may spoil a game plot. It's safe to assume 1. That the core four are colonists and explorers that traveled to the frontier. 2. Given the earlier state of technology the travel was long and may have been incremental or even possibly accidental. There is no supporting writtings at all in the rules or canon modules (2001 and 2010 should not even be considered) that suggest that humanity in the frontier came from Earth. It even states in the rules that the humans are like the ones from earth but are not from Earth. |
May 10, 2011 - 4:09am | Not really assumption, it was what I got from TSR/WotC, a couple of original team members, and what was said in various interviews and conventions. Also it was supported by the larger map I mentioned I had, though that was what I did, and used for my groups, for the most part it wasn't used in full anyway. My part wasn't canon, or supported per'se, but it was as 'official' as I could make it, until WotC/Hasbro used their Rule-0 option, and trumped mine, several more times. (which btw they do to everyone, and one of the common complaints that leads to these discussion of lets 'nail-down-some-consensus'.) 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? |
May 10, 2011 - 8:05am | Ow! My mind was just blown! If what you're all saying is common knowledge, I somehow missed the original game's reference to the core four races coming from somewhere else other than and beyond the frontier sector map. The Frontier Humans were certainly not from Earth; I remember Alpha Dawn stating that the game's Human were "like" the Humans here on Earth (or should I say like MOST of the Humans here on Earth). My SF website izz: http://ragnarr.webs.com |
 May 10, 2011 - 8:56am | I'm well aware of the canonical statements about the core 4 coming from somewhere else and SF humans not being Earth humans. The problem being is that due to SF being out of print and never having an official revision the places that the core 4 came from are not detailed. However, logically, these places should still be known but we just dont have them and likely no 2 SF fans will agree on non canon additions to the map and setting. So I'm a big proponent of explaining why the Frontier is all that there is and explaining why you can or cant visit the homeworlds. Doing this lets you leave the Frontier as it exist in canon (which has the benefit of maximum acceptance in our community) and gives you a rational setting without nagging little unanswered questions. Also, since parallel evolution makes very little sense from a statistical stand point, and since earth history, literature and culture gives you so much fodder to work with as both a player and a referee it makes little sense to delete earth. Thus, I favor humans as a transplant to the Frontier but with earth lost to them somehow. Yazirians are also transplants, due to the Zebs timeline entry about them "entering the Frontier" and I ususally cast them as being in an Exodus from a bad situation in their homesystem (current favored theory is the destruction of their planet by a wandering brown dwarf star forcing their relocation and penchant for terraforming- trying to recreate the Yaz that was on new planets) Fromeltar despite its dralasite name makes a lot of sense for a vrusk homeworld. IIRC the canon says the vrusk discovered the dralasites (mining expedition or colony) so I ususally make dralasites transplants to the frontier while vrusk are the resident native to the Frontier. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
May 10, 2011 - 11:54am | I think this is one of the largest flaws in Star Frontiers: the lack of a solid, historical background. It was one of the problems I had with the game when I first got it - not enough fluff. Traveller started out the same way but in the course of it's revisions and simply the amount of material that came out, the entire Imperium was eventually explored (albeit briefly) and its history laid out for everyone to see. Star Frontiers never really had that. Oh yeah, Zeb had a timeline that didn't fit with already established canon very well (making everyone simply mad) but Star Frontiers never had a solid background except "This is the frontier and there are four main races. Go." I think that's a shame. With a solid background and history, the entire setting would be stronger. Even if the players never know most of it, it helps any GM to ground themselves in the game and make it more realistic and deep. Just my 2 cents. Call of Cthulhu RPG Journals: http://www.yog-sothoth.com/blogs/2951 Other journals: http://forum.abyssalgaming.com/blog/7-maxs-blog/ http://www.penandpapergames.com/forums/blog.php/8662 |
May 10, 2011 - 12:48pm | yeah, it's in there, but it's one of those "squished between sub-paragraphs" places, I have had to look it up and point it out many times... don't feel bad, apparently it is very easy to miss... for me it was either an early assumption I made in my youth, or reading it in it's hard to find location left entered my understanding subliminally... I just listened to a designer interview, he was talking about how 'the little details' can get lost like that. sandwiched into a completely unrelated paragraph, or worse 'assumed but never printed'... yes, it does say that Humans are "ambiguously" Human, in the standard "this-is-not-reality" format that TSR was using at the time... but it was explicitly and unofficially stated, that PR was the reason for the ambiguity, Earth was the 'fictional universe' intent, and if you need them to be from somewhere else... Rule-0. well said jedion357, much more straightforward than my statement... no two will ever really agree... I was attempting to point out as, a 30yrs later... that this is one of the many reasons it wasn't officially done... the original team came into conflict on these same larger details... and the Industry started changing tactics and becoming (or at least attempted to become) more generic in what they would publish... setting specifics were back-burnered, and then abandoned... so if they couldn't agree and left it to the fans in a "if you cant resolve it then you broke it... don't blame us." state of limbo... my expectations of anyone else's success is not high... because there are so many what if's, how for's, and why not's, it frequently comes back to, "Rule-0: what does it mater?" interpretations... and because there is no reward for risk to be expected... I tend to call this project (which I have seen done, and done myself before), a social suicide... not many enthusiastic attempts are likely... I am not in it for the hamburgers, and I have already been assassinated before... nothing much to loose here... but I might gain some justification for 3-5yrs of my life spent working on it, and hanging on long distance phone-calls for support that never really manifested... The Vrusk and the Dralasite, discovered tachyon communication first, Humans were the late comers to the party-line and were invited to the meet-up, by the Dralasite. Of the core-four, only the Yazirian were local natives... The Vrusk had trouble with navigating the Xagyg, and lost part of their Colonial Trade Fleet, (they were thought of as attempting an interstellar variation on the East India Company), apparently they couldn't see the Xagyg until they were too close to make course corrections, (which says something about the speeds they were traveling) and the fleet panicked and broke formation. Whats worse, when the Xagyg was finally circumvented and the lost ships found, line of sight was reestablished with their Homeworld, and some ambiguous statements were made that those communications were fragmented and suggesting that something happened back home. The Vrusk were (had they not lost so much to the nebula) in a position to return earlier than anyone else. Humans were waiting for a new colonial ship from Earth, but it was/is late, since no specific date was given and it has been so long that most Humans are not too concerned with origins, and it could represent a destabilization to the 'generic qualities' of Star Frontiers, that was cut. Dralasites were the longest range from home, and were neither expecting to return or not to return... were neither expecting further colonials, or not expecting them... they were, out of all three, the only ones that were given a 'free-and-clear' homeworld contact and route into/out of the sector, but they are not very expansionist, and don't seem to be concerned. The Dralasite and Vrusk met first somewhere in the Fromaltar corner, the Humans and Vrusk near White-light, all three finally met somewhere around Prenglar. The Yazirians were the First Trade Partners of the First Pan-Gal Corporate Exploration Fleet. It's all in the books, somewhere.... except for what I have previously noted coming from an interviewed co-creator, or some such, information that was part of an 'officially abandond' project, or whatever...(looking back at my statments here I didn't make much notation this time... oops.) but the whole thing has been plagued with that kind of limp-projects of a dying-game afterbirth. Still, such questionable material is considered canon in Star Wars, and Star Trek, so what the heck... there is a lot of the "short line of important information, stuck in an unrelated paragraph...", and intentional ambiguity, to contend with also, and no less than three total revisions to mine for data. (did I mention, I had spent several years looking at these things, already? Playing content editor to a 30yr old game with no offical help, yay what fun... and then I had to put my neck out to the same community that requested the recompile and got the, "so what, we moved past that." ... response... but I am not bitter or anything  . really, I did it out of love, would have/could have, done it anyway. This isn't the only game, or project in general, I have worked that hard on, just to get such feedback, so either I am masochistic, or I would have done it anyway, because I love the game....)and then there is the ever present, and [imho] unrespectable Rule-0, as the catch-all official stance. Like most rules, I find it to have been abused more often than properly used... but how do you properly use a rule, that is intended to break all the rules... it's subject to it's own condition, and therefore ignorable... 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? |
