 May 19, 2016 - 1:48pm | Here's what might be an unusual question: Have you ever run 'Star Frontiers' using a different system? By that, I mean, have you run Star Frontiers modules using a different system, or played a different system and tried to emulate a Star Frontiers-like experience? (And by 'different system', I mean something besides Alpha Dawn or Zebulon's Guide). I've done it on two occasions, 11 years and 5 years ago. The first time using MegaTraveller and the second time using Mongoose Publishing's Traveller. In both cases I used a number of SF modules to construct the campaigns. I'm considering doing it again, but this time potentially use the d6 system found in WEG Star Wars (1st edition). I've got nothing against Alpha Dawn, per se. I last used it about 3 years ago, running it for some younger gamers who'd never been exposed to it, and we all had a blast. I like d100 systems in general, so there's a lot about AD that appeals to me. And it was the 2nd Rpg I played when I was a youth - back around 1983. So there's some nostalgia, there as well. But every time I revisit Alpha Dawn I always feel like I need to make some tweaks to get what I want out of it. House rules, rules changes cribbed from Star Frontiersman. There's a lot I like about Alpha Dawn - the combat system, the weapons, the integration of personal combat with vehicle combat - but there are also things that bug me at times - skill acquisition in chargen, and skill growth with experience, for example. Whenever I approach AD I feel like I have to lift the hood, swap out some parts, do a little overhauling, and test-drive it. |
 May 19, 2016 - 5:24pm | Someone out there did a conversion for Savage Worlds: Savage Frontiers. Star's Without Number is a system that would work. It's basicly Basic/Expert D&D from 30 years ago converted to a sci-fi setting. I like how it handles skills and there is a free sample of the rukes so at most if the referee bought the rules all the players could get away with the free down load. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 May 20, 2016 - 7:06am | I tried it with Zeb's resolution system once. Once was enough. ;) |
 May 21, 2016 - 9:28pm | I was fiddling with trying to rework SF to the ideas presented in Zebs, as I get where they were going and the ideas behind the changes but it was a big pain. So I decided, I would rather convert everything closer to AD than the other way around. Maybe I will take another stab at it some day. "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
May 22, 2016 - 9:23am | Back in high school I briefly had a SF-to-D&D conversion game established where characters could swap worlds and play those respective adventures. Fortunately the appeal of dwarves with laser guns and vorpal sword wielding yazirians didn't last very long, although technically you could say I was playing SF under d20 rules. The only thing I retained from those brief sessions was a SF artillery armed KOTB that I eventually utilized on Volturnus as a Star Devil establishment turned Star Law for monitoring the Mehcanons. |
May 22, 2016 - 12:44pm | I did a D&D/GW cross over for giggles the mutants died. "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
 May 24, 2016 - 1:09am | I was toying with the idea of converting over SF to the White Star rules set. I'm currently writing an adventure for White Star, but in the back of my mind as I do so I know it would also work with SF. White Star is also handy if your players are familiar with 1E D&D-like systems, as it pretty much works along similar lines. That said, White Star is pretty much still evolving so it may not have enough setting structure for some, but one could transplant the SF universe over the top of it without too much trouble. Spaceship combat is much simpler in White Star so perhaps a KH conversion might be a little trickier. Spaceship construction isn't really touched upon - you pretty much can buy off-the-shelf ship designs that act as templates, but I'm thinking of writing up some ship construction rules to cover those gaps and hopefully to provide a bit more variety/possibilities. |
 May 24, 2016 - 4:13am | I could see playing SF using a different system. It is just a matter of changing attribbutes, and the skill resoultion system. Many games use a D20 system, and Modiphius has moved its RPGs to a more action oriented 2D20 system. |
 May 27, 2016 - 11:13am | I've used Savage Worlds for WoWL once, that seemed to go OK. I'm tempted to try a more Star Trek-feeling game soon, but I am undecided on system. I'm a fan of Savage Worlds, D6 Star Wars, and Traveller*. Recently, I've been gifted with Stars Without Number, but I haven't done anything with it yet. There's also the 5e D&D conversion kit that was in Frontier Explorer, that I haven't tried. *I hadn't been before, but once it was announced that Prime Directive was going Mongoose, I bought into the system. As for ships, I still like Knight Hawks as a quickie system, perhaps I'd consider Full Thrust as an alternate. I can't say exactly why, but Traveller's starship game left me cold. I'm a huge Star Fleet Battles fan, but that has a totally different feel that I don't really want to import into an RPG. |
May 27, 2016 - 6:21pm | I can't say exactly why, but Traveller's starship game left me cold.
I'll take a stab at this and guess "because you need a degree in vector geometry and a piece of paper the size of your living room to resolve a one on one encounter"? And throw in the fact that successful hits don't ever cause any actual damage, rather they randomly disable a system with each successive hit downgrading whatever system by another factor until it actually gets reduced to a not-system. One on one ship combat can take forever to resolve, I'd hate to try a full scale fleet battle with that system. |
June 2, 2016 - 7:43am | I think it was more that there was a lot of die-rolling that ended up in no net effect. It may be that KH is bloodier, but it sure is quicker! I tried using a variant system so that each player's character (pilot, captain, gunners) had something to do (relevant rules printed on index cards)*, but as a GM, I had to run through everyone's action each and every turn. Maybe it was more that as a group we needed to grok the rules better? This was Mongoose's version of Trav, not Classic, so there wasn't vector math: range was abstracted to bands, which bothered me. I ended up pulling out a hex map and marking bands on it, so that I could keep track of where ships & missiles were, except that when more than one object (ship or missile) is in play, the relative ranges to each is different and changeable, and thus cannot be tracked mentally. Anyway, for the same group, I swapped the system to KH when I wanted to run the big-finale battle with dozens of ships, and they picked up the rules a whole lot faster. Maybe it helped that I printed copies of the combat tables from the back cover of KH book? FWIW, my player group has said that they were fine with Traveller's ship combat as structured, it was personal combat that bored them. That I can certainly see, one PC wound up with Battle Dress, so boarding actions became: "J's Marine character and his armor that can't be touched goes over and the survivors surrender. The end." *That brings me to a tangent: who remembers the player-character stations of the FASA Star Trek game? Each bridge role (engineer, helmsman, comms, etc.) had a sheet with counters/markers to track relevant ship's systems in starship combat. It seemed like a neat idea, but I don't remember actually using it. Does anyone remember using that, and whether or not it dragged out the starship fights? I didn't think it would, but now I wonder. |
June 2, 2016 - 7:47am | Aside, looking at my earlier post: you know what I really like in Traveller? Lifepath character generation, random or not. The rest of the system is OK, but that's what I crave. If I could figure out how to bottle that and port it into Savage Worlds, I'd be a happy man. I'd run that for my Twilight:2000 diehards, for modern spy games, for historical non-fantasy action, and for space action games. It would be easy to do for Star Frontiers, I think, since both games have skills, rated 1-6. |
June 2, 2016 - 8:04am | Huh. Looking up, I can't believe I missed Cortex in my list of favorite systems. Maybe I'm too hooked on linking that to Serenity RPG. Cortex Classic, not the newer version in the Firefly RPG that I haven't tried yet. The generic Cortex rules seemed adaptable enough that one could bring in SF's aliens and technology without too many hiccups. |
