 November 17, 2014 - 8:42pm | Hello Everyone, I am new to the fourms and to star Frontiers, but I have been gaming for about 30 years. Is there a 'players handbook'? Something that has the character creation rules and nothing else? I want to run a play by post and it would be nice to have the players download a book without any of the adventures in them. Is there a beginning adventure, something to let me cut my teeth and the teeth of my players? I was looking at the adventure in the old basic book. The security breach one, but if there is something more simple then I might run it. Anyways, Thanks in advance for any and all help. |
 November 17, 2014 - 9:03pm | Welcome to the Frontier! There really isn't a player's book per se. If you're going the play the Basic Rules you could just give them the two pages (3 & 4) from the basic rules book on character creation. If you're playing the Expanded Rules (my preference) then the Expanded Rule books servers as both the Player and GM book and there aren't really any adventures in it except the little one pager toward the back. You need at least, pages 4-9 and the sections on skills and equipment. If you have access to a program like Adobe Acrobat (full version not Reader) that can edit PDF files, just grab the files from http://starfrontiers.com and toss out the pages they don't need and send them the edited document. If you don't have a program that can do that I could probably whip something up for you. Send me a PM here on the site and we can figure it out. 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 17, 2014 - 9:08pm | As to simple adventures, The Hydra encounter is a good one for teaching the combat system. You can run it with either the basic or expanded rules. Also check out the following projects for some adventure ideas that might work for you: Refer to: Adventures for Beginners Refer to: Adventure Writing Forum Refer to: Basic Plus Also this one: Refer to: Star Frontiers Kids might have some ideas for adapting things for simple adventures. 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 17, 2014 - 9:12pm | The Port Loren Raiders is one of my all time fave SF games. I've run it in PbP format as well and it's a good one for that. |
 November 18, 2014 - 6:18am | Welcome to the Frontier Ultimately your players will be able to down load all of the published module off the net as well as the rules as they are available in scanned and digitally remastered versions. Typically if you ran a published module for the PBP a player in the know would play it straight without using knowledge of the game though. The SFman is a great resource both for the magazine archive and the digital remasters. Frontier Explorer magazine as well but the archives of both zines represent years of fan published material so it can be a lot to absorb at first. Ask questions if you're looking for specific help we can probably point you to a specific magazine article for example: SFman #1 has an article on entry level weapons ie a semi automatic pistol instead of the automatic pistol of the equipment list as well as some stepped down beam and gyro-jet weapons which are great for starting out characters- allows some room to grow into bigger guns. One thing you will find is that combat can be handled very fast with these rules. I've run two combats in 1/2 hour and then sat in a D&D 3.5 game where the combat took 3 hours to run its course. What sorts of RPGs have you played? The published modules Crash on Volturnus was the bundled adventure that came in the Alpha Dawn box set. Its a bit of a rail road but it also is a campaign starter with the sequels: Volturnus Planet of Mystery & Starspawn of Volturnus. If you do use material from the Volturnus Campaign you might mine this project for ideas: Refer to: Volturnus Revisited Mission to Alcazzar is a great adventure but probably best used with more experienced characters. Bugs in the System is a great one shot module. Sundown on Starmist is also a one shot module Warriors of White Light is the bundled adventure that came with the Knight Hawks box set which introduced spacer skills. All of its encounters are episodic in that you can effectively use any or all of them pretty much in any order you choose. Its designed to get the players going with space combat and yet is has some hand to hand combat encounters. Probably not a good choice for starting new players unless you are using a fan developed skill system (A Skilled Frontier -Sfman 9 or Spacer Skills Revisited Sfman 10) as by the book spacer skills require level 6 skills from the Alpha Dawn rules. Dramune Run is a great module but with some rail roading, it has a Jabba the Hutt like gangster and the PCs can end up with a ship of their own as a story reward. Mutiny on the Eleanor Moraes is a campaign starter for the Beyond the Frontier campaign. sequels are Face of the Enemy and War Machine. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 November 18, 2014 - 9:23am | Welcome to Star Frontiers. The above posts are all good guides to find what you need. Feel free anytime to post questions. |
 November 18, 2014 - 11:38pm | @ Ebon Pharos, Glad to have you join the site. The guys above have posted a Thanksgiving dinner's worth of material for you to cover. I just made a folder on my hard drive and grabbed everything. I go back and forth between the documents getting what I need for my campaign setting. Then I post to the forums here to get ideas and puzzle out how I am going to do thing in game. As for a first game session I suggest using the Port Loren adventure ideas from the basic book and Shadow Shack's Port Loren Raiders stuff. -iggy |
November 19, 2014 - 2:44pm | Thank you all for the help. I went through of of the projects listed above and became a member. jedion357: I have played D&D AD&D 1 - 3. I have run a few games of D&D. I am currently running a Labyrinth Lord play by post. I have been looking at Star Frontiers for a couple of months trying to decide if I wanted to try it out. I like what I see, so I downloaded everything. All the old stuff and the remastered books. I also downloaded all of the Star Frontiersman and Frontier Explorers. That is what made me decide to try Star Frontiers. The price was right and I didn't have to scower the internet for the books. O.k. next question: The Port Loren, that Shadow Shack talked about is the one in the old basic book that reads like an old Chose Your Own Adventure? I like that one as I could run it with not much prep work, however I might be able to take it and expand it a little. I also liked the Baslisk Adventure too as it is along the same lines. little prep work, but could be fleshed out. I will further probe the above projects and see what I can come up with, as well. I like the Basic plus project. I think I could (at the very least) copy that info into a document and use that as a players guide. I haven't really looked in depth so I am unsure + I don't want to do something illegal. I will ask if I have any more questions. Thank you all again for the help. I think I may have a second favorite forum. |
 November 19, 2014 - 2:49pm | The nice thing about the hydra adventure is that you're given a bunch of tables to randomize the creature, to let you replay the adventure. You can use this to make sure your players don't get any advantage by reading the adventure. The last two pages of the basic rulebook give very useful instructions on how to design your own basic-rules game, including four suggested adventure outlines. |
November 19, 2014 - 8:32pm | The Port Loren, that Shadow Shack talked about is the one in the old basic book that reads like an old Chose Your Own Adventure? Aye...that be the one, matey. Loaded to the gunwalls with fun, legal it can't be. I rewrote it with expanded rules using the expanded skills and...expanded it. Works just as well with the same fun factor. |
November 19, 2014 - 9:28pm | One final comment (not really but...) Since you mentioned Port Loren: use the search feature on this site an look for PGC tower there is a thread discussing this feature of the Port Loren map. Iggy produced some nice Sketchup images of the PL downtown. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
November 20, 2014 - 6:07am | And I'm working on a faithful digital recreation of the original map. It's probably about half done. I need to add the arrow on the roads, some of the shadows and shrubbery and the labels. It might be useful to you if you're going to run a play by post or virtual table top game. Guess I better get to work and finish it. If you want to see it as it stands, PM me with your e-mail. 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 20, 2014 - 6:51am | And I'm working on a faithful digital recreation of the original map. It's probably about half done. I need to add the arrow on the roads, some of the shadows and shrubbery and the labels. It might be useful to you if you're going to run a play by post or virtual table top game. Guess I better get to work and finish it. If you want to see it as it stands, PM me with your e-mail. Interesting. This time of year Staples has a roll of lower quality paper available for those people that wish to print their own Christmas wrapping paper. This is significant because its cheaper to print posters on this if you are intending to laminate them (which I usually do with game materials). Otherwise you will spend more money on the standard poster paper. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
November 20, 2014 - 10:58pm | TerlOrbar, I think I sent an email instead of a private message. Sorry. I am still figuring this out. |
November 21, 2014 - 5:25am | Well I don't seem to have gotten either, which is strange, I usually get all the e-mails. So try again, and an e-mail is fine as well. Edit: Never mind, I found it. It seems to have gone into my spam folder. Stupid G-mail. Luckily as the site admin, I can look up people's e-mail. I need to go see if there are others I've lost this way. 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 22, 2014 - 11:55am | TerlObar, I got the email. Thank you very much. I look forward to seeing the finished copy. Shadow Shack, I swiped the info on the Basic Plus Project and dumped into Word. I want to spiff it up a bit and turn into a PDF. Is this o.k? I wont work on till I hear from you. I do not want to make anyone mad or steal Anyones ideas or violate any IP laws. I can delete the file if you need/want me too. Just let me know. |
November 22, 2014 - 6:46pm | Go for it. Unlike Colonial Chrome, when I post things I want people to use them.  |
