 February 8, 2016 - 6:02pm | I'm throwing this question open to the general populace here. There are, apparently, some SF afficianados who think that any updating or modernization of the state of SF represents an offence against "hard science". While I do get that SF has a certain "feel", such as the "no artificial gravity fields" idea, and I support that, apparently in the opinion of some, fusion tech in general, or the idea that a tracked vehicles that perform the same role as a wheeled one are of the same type some how is the same thing as introducing "lightsabers" and "Star Trek" into the game. Oh, and computer data exchange is still limited to the old DARPA-net level of capability (so "No Internet for you!"). At the same time, hand-held lasers that can actually hurt you operating off a power source the size of a pack of cigarettes, and AI robots are just fine, because they're "canon". Am I the only one that finds such a rigid, dare I use the term "canon-Nazi" approach a bit "Wha?" |
 February 8, 2016 - 8:20pm | I say whatever makes your game work with your players. The game as written lends itself to house rules, what with the limited and vague definitions provided for the overall setting. I don't know if you got to see my Chemical Drives reboot before it was taken down at the wiki site (for the third time now), but it appears that someone with authority there thinks the vague canon presentation is better than a detailed presentation. After all, one load of fuel for X credits makes one journey, with no restrictions to the ADF:1 use. And at the same time, an Ion Drive with the same ADF:1 can achieve jump velocity. And canon, without a single explanation, says "chem drives CAN'T jump" despite sharing the exact same rules as a similar performing drive that can. I suppose there are those who feel "canon or the highway" is the best way to go, and maybe these types only participate in sanctioned tournament play. I don't, so I tweaked my game accordingly. |
 February 8, 2016 - 8:36pm | Actually I don't think you are the only one thinking what you term a canon-Nazi is strange. We have groups that are caught on one aspect of SF or another, but never someone that reads the very limited rule set as, "This is all there is and there is nothing more!" This is a fan site and community and everyone expands the universe in one way or another and shares their expansions with the whole. Then everyone takes what they like and leaves the rest without complaint. Oh, there are spirited discussions at times but most understand that this is a game and each of us makes our own universe as we like it. The rule books as published by TSR are so limited that none of us back in the 80's or beyond actually played the same game and universe. TSR made a framework with the limited rules and let us make whatever we wanted after that. The Expanded rule book actually states this intention on page 3, "Although the STAR FRONTIERS rule books contain detailed rules, the special quality of a role playing game is that players are not limited by the rules." Then if you read at the end of the book starting at the how to referee section and then the settings section and also the back inside cover there is plenty of encouragement to MAKE THINGS UP. All the books suggested as reading on the back inside cover are so setting different from SF that players who pulled items, races, settings, etc. from them would be making a new frontier different from the rule book and that is why the authors put these reading suggestins there. I am guessing that the angst you are feeling comes from the Wiki site. I have never contributed there but I suspect that the source of the problem is that posts are too easily deleted. Wikipedia initially had this problem and they had to put ownership on some articles to keep wiki wars from happening. I don't know, but maybe the SF wiki site has this option and it is not utilized. What I like about SF.US is that it is like a pot luck dinner where everyone brings their latest creations and we eat what we like and even copy and blend recipies from each other. It has been a long time since someone had a two-year-old tantrum and tried to push the serving table over or keep the table only for their dishes. Toppling the table or pushing our all the other dishes is not easily done the way this site is created. About the worst I've seen is taking your own dishes and going home. -iggy |
February 8, 2016 - 8:51pm | I suppose there are those who feel "canon or the highway" is the best way to go, and maybe these types only participate in sanctioned tournament play. I highly doubt there is "sanctioned tournament play". Likely the closest it ever came were some module game sessions at GenCon that were not followed by the majority population of D&D players.-iggy |
February 8, 2016 - 9:05pm | Wow, now there's a serious glitch...a quintuple post. Yeah, I highly doubt it as well, I was just speculating why anyone would want to resort to canon only. Frankly, I've never played any RPG with any group that didn't get house ruled in one way or another. |
February 8, 2016 - 9:21pm | Yup multiposts hasn't happened to me in a long time. However, I think I know how it happened so I sent an email to Tom with my theory. I know someone who is very imagination limited and plays RPG like war games. He is always in the rule books trying to use the rules to beat everyone else and focusses soly on the fighting. Story is lost too him unles he is winning. However, even he is open to creating new things to max his character out and beat everyone else. Yet this same guy is the first to rules lawyer to limit others so he can win. -iggy |
February 8, 2016 - 9:31pm | Well, moving beyond the wiki issue, I think the broader topic of technological stasis is a valid one to explore. I first ran into this issue when I was working on some of my vehicle stuff. We have right now EVs, for example, whose performance blows the doors off canon SF (except for range...the Frontier batteries are still tons better). We also have advances in fusion research, a much better internet than the old DARPA-net, a "warp drive" that works (on paper), and the "Cannae drive" (which seems to be a reactionless drive system) or at least the beginnings of it. So is it really violating the "hard science feel" to move the tech forward a bit? Or should we just leave the game where it was when first published? That's the question that interests me. |
February 8, 2016 - 9:38pm | Yup multiposts hasn't happened to me in a long time. However, I think I know how it happened so I sent an email to Tom with my theory. The site was glitching about that time, I couldn't navigate it/it froze up on me, I closed my browser and couldn't get back in for a few minutes. I'm sure it had a lot to do with that. I first ran into this issue when I was working on some of my vehicle stuff. We have right now EVs, for example, whose performance blows the doors off canon SF (except for range...the Frontier batteries are still tons better).
I mentioned it elsewhere, but even the EV performance back in the 70s/80s was in league with or better than the SF vehicles. I would postulate the low performance figures as a game balance issue for the Port Loren map, you really would have a tough time dealing with higher speed vehicles in such play settings, mostly due to the lack of decent straight stretches to attain higher speeds...there's simply too much cornering involved and you either hit them at safe turn speed at best or risk wiping out. |
February 8, 2016 - 9:42pm | True. That would have been better solved by making more out of the "autmated traffic enforcement" hinted at in the mini-adventure. |
February 8, 2016 - 10:08pm | The sad fact is even if you increse turn speeds & decel speeds to match higher top speeds, you simply end up in a situation where your chits are making multiple laps around the map each turn. Perhaps the best approach to this is to assume the electromagnetic traffic controls in the basic game exist in every city and have two stats like D&D: slower city speeds and faster "wilderness" speeds...something that is actually supported by canon on p19 of the Expanded Rules where highways permit a 1.2 modifier for ground vehicles and 1.4 for hovercraft. |
February 9, 2016 - 12:58am | I don't view it as technological stasis but rather practicality. Lasers exist but slug throwers persist. Hover craft exist but wheels persist. Also, things not conceived during the writing of the game are now taken for granted. There have been several discussions about the humble chronocom. In the books it is not much more than a watch phone. Now most view it as a super smart phone. There is a Starfrontierman article with updates to the chronocom where it projects holograms in mid air, connects to a neural interface, and more. Then there is the stuff that referees don't bother to write rules around but just asume exist in the setting. Many referees just state that they have worldwide core netowrks that connect to every other world via sub-space. So if your PC is on a developed world or in town on a colony, talking to another world is just a mater of calling your friend or searching the core for information. However when in the new worlds there is no satalite link to the core and the luggable sub-space radio comes back into play. -iggy |
 February 10, 2016 - 11:38am | Wow late to discussion, love the recipe analogy Iggy. To me the purpose of canon is that it's a base langauge we all speak. Langauge gets modified in use but the base facilitates communication. In PA people use "awhile" in a particular way, in New Orleans they'll say, "I'm going to the store to MAKE groceries." Meaning buy groceries. And in New York they'll say, "I'll go stand on line." And in Great Britain there's more, heck they don't even get the middle finger right.
I think we should be mindful of of cannon but not limited to it. And then there is the question of canonicity: what's canon?
AD- sure, Modules? Yeah guess so. Zebs? Maybe, depending on who you talk to. Dragon mag articles? Perhaps. What about Ares mag and Polyhedron mag articles? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
February 10, 2016 - 2:13pm | And then there is the question of canonicity: what's canon?
AD- sure, Modules? Yeah guess so. Zebs? Maybe, depending on who you talk to. Dragon mag articles? Perhaps. What about Ares mag and Polyhedron mag articles?
> Boxed sets - definitely canon. > Modules - ditto, save for 2001/2010 which, from what I've gleaned (I don't own either), would be canon material in a non-canon setting. > Zeb's Guide - this is a slippery slope. Personally I would liken it to canon if canon AD&D was just the Players Handbook while the DM Guide or Monster Manual books were ever published. Despite what my opinion of the book is, the fact remains that it is an incomplete system. As such I see it as "optional canon material a GM can add to the campaign". > Dragon - Probably not. Even though much of the material was penned by TSR staff, until the age of information it wasn't readily available (and as far as SF goes, that availability happened well after the game was nixed). For example, the mag was on spinner racks at hobby stores but if you went to Sears for RPG stuff it wasn't there. Also noteworthy, once the next issue shipped the previous one was removed, which limited the GM to back issue availability. Meanwhile, those boxed sets and modules were regularly available on a monthly basis. > Ares & Polyhedron - less so than Dragon. IIRC you could only get those by sending in subsciption forms from Dragon, I don't recall seeing them on spinner racks (which is not saying that other hobby shops did have them). |
 February 10, 2016 - 10:42pm | I personally have a reference towards Tech Eras, where each era within the SF setting is set and styled to different eras of sci-fi, and with it, each era includes differing levels of available technology. Each era, would have their own items, but common items would differ within each, were they become smaller, and/or incorporate new features. That is, The Age Adventure (a project that I was working on) is a pre-UFP/pre-Sathar era with the look and feel of classic Pulp-Era sci-fi. Much of the technology is Alpha Dawn, but with the look and feel of pre-transistor hardware. Something like a Poly-Vox is a bulky chest apparatus with a sizable speaker, a funnel mic (akin to a radioman form a WWII bomber) and a slot to hold tape decks of different languages. Spacers dress in silver or leather spacesuits, and fly around in rocketships. On the other hand, the far-future setting that is inspired by the 111FY era in Zeb's timeline (which I have no name for) would be presented, by me, as a slick, glossy contemporary sci-fi akin to Galaxy Quest or the Star Trek reboots, were EVERYTHING looks like an iPod. In fact, the iPod-mentality carries itself to the equipment, were devices can to almost anything, to where they make the Sonic Screwdriver look like Stone Age junk. Being a hyper-advanced era, technology works all kinds of magic not thought possible in the default AD setting. Spacers dress in tight, colorful body-stockings, and fly round in spaceships that look like something commissioned for the Naboo fleet. Shame I never got around composing such a list... nor hammered out the sub-settings. |
February 11, 2016 - 1:17am | I'll confess that I waver a bit over tech eras (fictionally speaking) in terms of aesthetics. On the one hand, the majority of the imagery I've been using for the game I'm running right now has been rooted in HALO, Mass Effect, Star Citizen, etc., but I have a big soft spot for my "native" SF era, which is the 80s aesthetic as evinced by the original pink boxes themselves, mixed with movies like Aliens, and contemporary animation like GI Joe, Centurions, StarCom, and so forth. But I'm still wrestling with the idea of whether or not the capabilies of SF tech need to be brought more into like with 2016 understanding of "hard science". I gave a list of things on our "hard science" radar that the 1980s would not have even dared to take as candidates for a true hard science-based sci fi. |
February 11, 2016 - 6:31pm | When I started playing, I kept to the '80s aesthetics as seen in the books. Everyone looked like extras form the Buck Rogers and (the classic) Battlestar Galactica TV series. That, and I find the tight jumpsuits to be sexy. ;) There was an issue as to how ship gravity was handled. While Knight Hawks stated outright that ships are oriented to where "down" is at the aft, Alpha Dawn had ships with a configuration much like a lot of sci-fi shows, where artificial gravity is a fact of life. I liked the idea presented in KH, that I stuck with it. Although, I could see the SW2 Era as a time where artificial gravity is slowly coming into its own, and with it, a means to sustained fusion (by focusing high-levels of gravity into the plasma chamber) And after that, spaceships with AG-deck plating and fusion engines would be commonly available technology. |
February 11, 2016 - 6:47pm | I consider the BR/BSG "look" to be more of a late 70s look. The other primary look from the 70s being the Space:1999/UFO "art deco/minimalist/futurist" look. |
 February 12, 2016 - 7:23am | I don't think you have to update the technology although you can if you want. It's a different development path - more into the bio sciences and materials sciences than the electronics side of things. It's just really a setting choice. There's a thread or two here on the site about tech evolution in the Frontier that I'll have to dig up. As the developers of the game said in an interview, many of the tech choices were made to leave the descision points and success or failure in the hands of the players. Thus the computers aren't super slick and all powerful and the robots super strong and amazing. Otherwise their capabilities would overshadow that of the players. I like this idea and I like the non-super tech the setting. But I've also devoted considerable brain power to exactly how I'd update those things to be more like today. Another thing to consider is the lifespan of the races. Even the short lived Yazirians live to be 125 years old on aveage. Dralasites live to an average of 250 years. This means that almost anyone that was alive and invovled in the First Sathar War was there for the second one. And will be around for many years to come. Most of the people alive when the UPF was founded still are at the 111 fy celebration (if you have that in your setting). This long lifespan has a couple of impacts. First, people have more time to spend on research so new ideas may come faster as researchers are "up to speed" longer. But on the other hand, with a longer lifespan there is less "rush" to life and people are willing to take it a little slower. Plus people tend to be resistant to change so "Luddites" have even more influence since they are around longer. 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 |
February 12, 2016 - 12:53pm | Check out the Adventures in History project, I whipped up a lot of "reduced effect" stats for vintage versions of AD/KH equipment for that game. on the other hand, with a longer lifespan there is less "rush" to life and people are willing to take it a little slower.
We call those types "Non-Player Characters".  |
February 12, 2016 - 3:46pm | We call those types "Non-Player Characters". Yes, but they are the ones inventing new tech.  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 |
February 12, 2016 - 4:03pm | Crash on Volturnus would have been so much more fun if the PCs had found the remains of a vintage era frigate on the planet, and had to repair, refurbish, and recharge vintage equipment before taking it into combat. Thematically it could have been like "a Japanese fighter crashed in the jungle" And by it I mean random salvaged equipment not the frigate which has deteriorated from sitting in the bachandra Forrest. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
February 12, 2016 - 7:06pm | That would have been interesting indeed. |
February 13, 2016 - 2:00am | Crash on Volturnus would have been so much more fun if the PCs had found the remains of a vintage era frigate on the planet, and had to repair, refurbish, and recharge vintage equipment
I did that albeit with a crash landed pirate scout ship. I even recycled the ship in my reverse Volturnus game where the players are pirates. |
 February 15, 2016 - 3:33am | The way I see it is that the world of Star Frontiers is it's own universe, and not our universe. It's similar, but different. Therefore, trying to bolt on various things from our modern age tends to be a bit of a kludge and isn't guaranteed to work smoothly. Sure, SF is a version of 80s technology bolted onto a sci-fi setting, but if one simply runs it as is it still actually works. So, computers and various other things (for example) in the Star Frontiers work in the way described in the rulebooks. If that seems clunky to our modern eyes, fair enough, but that's just how their technology is. It's not our universe, it's their universe. Similarly, our universe is not the same as that as shown in Star Wars, but no-one seems to be trying to bolt our modern technology onto that. This is because were simply working with various fantasy themes. Of course, one is free to add our modern stuff to the stuff of Star Frontiers, but at the same time one can still play the game as is and as described in the core books and Zebs Guide. I say this because this is still how my RPG group plays Star Frontiers. The only 'issue' we've had with playing it recently is the whole computer thing, as it's a different set of ideas to relate to when comparing things to modern computer technology. But hey, that's how things are in the Star Frontiers universe. It doesn't make the game unplayable - far from it. In fact, sometimes the chunkiness of things such as computers in Star Frontiers makes for interesting play. Players can't assume that it's all just the same as what we have now, so they have to think around such issues. As an example, in our most recent game (Friday night) several players had to get computer-related data from where it was kept in a mainframe at a facility that was being evacuated. One player who was new to the game said, 'Let's just take it out and carry it with us...', only to be told that there was a different set of challenges to consider with some Star Frontiers computers This revelation didn't break the game for him - he just had to take on board that things are a little different in the game, and worked with the others to get the job done. |
February 15, 2016 - 7:43am | Similarly, our universe is not the same as that as shown in Star Wars, but no-one seems to be trying to bolt our modern technology onto that.
Lucas tried, it was called the "Special Editions".  To this day I still use "data cubes" in my game from the original Basic Port Loren game. |
February 15, 2016 - 7:48am | Crash on Volturnus would have been so much more fun if the PCs had found the remains of a vintage era frigate on the planet, and had to repair, refurbish, and recharge vintage equipment before taking it into combat. Thematically it could have been like "a Japanese fighter crashed in the jungle" And by it I mean random salvaged equipment not the frigate which has deteriorated from sitting in the bachandra Forrest. I had something similar in an adventure I created for my players back in the 80s. In that, the idea was that it was an old Tetrarch ship and bits of it was being used by the local intelligent life form to make tools. They had no idea what it was (their technology was more akin to the stone age), but it was up to the players to figure out what it might be. The ship was vaguely disc-shaped and had a large engine at its centre. |
February 15, 2016 - 8:18am | KRingway, you had very forgiving players. What you say is true enough if your "audience" is receptive, but "zeerust" is a real phenomenon in science fiction (including games like Star Frontiers). http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Zeerust Not everyone can get their heads around the ides of sci-fi as a weird sort of "period piece". |
February 15, 2016 - 9:01am | People who can imagine playing aliens but can't imagine slightly retro computers because they're not 'realistic' are... odd It's not so much that my players are forgiving (they're usually very quick to spot flaws in plotlines and logic), it's that they understand how the game and the setting works. And it is a game, in a particular setting, and it's not really based on what we have now in terms of technology. And anyway, anyone looking for something more realistic and modern will also have to suffer from zeerust in 5 years or so... It's not a simulation, it's a game. If Star Frontiers was a future version of our universe, obtuse players might have a point. But, like I said above, Star Frontiers is it's own universe and isn't ours. Some things from ours might apply, but not all. |
February 15, 2016 - 12:42pm | ^True enough, if that's what you and your players are comfortable with, by all means...not that you need permission from anyone. ;) Rule #1 is always in effect, after all. |
February 15, 2016 - 3:29pm | I think 'canon nazi' is a bit of an unfair moniker to apply. The game and the things in it have certain themes and flavours, and perhaps going outside of that makes it less Star Frontiers-y to some, and perhaps more so to those that are trying to maintain a cohesive set of themes for the game in the decades since it was first published. At worst it could become too diluted and contrdictory, and so one ends up with a vague mess that doesn't resemble the original. Maybe trying to mix in other themes, even on a basic level, might mean that canon becomes a bit unravelled and untidy. At the same time, for one's own games anything can be possible, of course. |
