 November 19, 2016 - 10:52pm | http://dgsociety.net/podcast/cosmology-david-zeb-cook-dgs-episode-27/ enjoy |
 November 20, 2016 - 6:51pm | And then the next one, or maybe the one right after that, was all Star Frontiers. 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 23, 2016 - 8:38pm | Thanks for posting this link. I'll have to see what TerlObar is talking about. Joe Cabadas |
November 23, 2016 - 8:44pm | Remembering Star Frontiers with Cory Gahsman — DGS EPisode #29http://dgsociety.net/uncategorized/talking-star-frontiers-cory-gahsman-dgs-episode-29/
Joe Cabadas |
November 23, 2016 - 9:02pm | Some things I got out of the Zeb Cook podcast: It seems that TSR was "winging it" with a lot of their modules, so when we get into the debates about how Zeb's destroyed the Star Frontiers timeline that the company didn't necessarily have this kind of outlook. And, Sathar is pronounced "SAY-thar." I had thought it was sah-thar. I've started listening to the cory Gahsman interview. Joe Cabadas |
 November 25, 2016 - 2:49pm | Cool, I will get the 2nd one when I do my weekly podcast roundup! I liked the 1st one, as well as many of the DGS casts. |
 November 25, 2016 - 5:54pm | People who pronounce the first "a" of Sathar like the "a" in "sat" drive me nuts. The only remaining issue is that the podcast hosts were pronouncing it with an unvoiced "th" instead of a voiced "th." RPGers have a number of idiosyncratic (wrong! I mean wrong!) pronunciations that make me bonkers. It's ATtributes, not atTRIButes. It's "one dee ten," not "one die ten." One of the podcast hosts kept saying "yazarian" instead of "yazirian." GAAAH! |
November 26, 2016 - 8:37pm | I always thought the difference in pronounciation of "attributes" depended on which meaning of that word you were using: AT-tri-butes for the qualities or properties of the subject in question, as in "This vase has all the attributes of an early Ming..." at-TRI-butes when you are associating to or with the subject, as in "He attributes his success to clean living..." As for "one dee" vs "one die", I've heard both used more or less equally. |
November 27, 2016 - 6:26pm | Yes, ATributes is the noun; atTRIbutes is the verb. I'm talking about the alternative name often used for ability scores (i.e., the noun). |
November 29, 2016 - 6:06am | People who pronounce the first "a" of Sathar like the "a" in "sat" drive me nuts. The only remaining issue is that the podcast hosts were pronouncing it with an unvoiced "th" instead of a voiced "th." RPGers have a number of idiosyncratic (wrong! I mean wrong!) pronunciations that make me bonkers. It's ATtributes, not atTRIButes. It's "one dee ten," not "one die ten." One of the podcast hosts kept saying "yazarian" instead of "yazirian." GAAAH! Or how about is it catsup or ketchup? Tah -MaY-AY-Toe or Toe-Mah-Toe for tomato? Wah-shur or Wahr-shur for washer? Poh-Tay-Toe or Poh-Tah-Toe for potato? Hey, I'll go with the game creator's pronounciation ow that I know what it is. Though on some backwoods Fronteir planet it will be Sah-thar.... hee, hee... Joe Cabadas |
November 29, 2016 - 8:55am | These are not regional variations. These are errors. |
November 29, 2016 - 1:44pm | These are not regional variations. These are errors. Oh, yes, I agree. Humor doesn't always translate well when written. Joe Cabadas |
November 30, 2016 - 7:47am | One thing that struck me about the Zeb interview was when he said that they wrote the rules intending adventures to be set in urban centers, but then Tom Moldvay comes along to write the first module and sets it in the middle of a desert waste. Thinking back to the rulebooks, we have the following (presumably pre-SF0, though parts of the rulebook were obviously written after Moldvay had written the module) adventures and adventure seeds:
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 December 16, 2016 - 10:24am | Cool to learn that Dwellers of the Forbidden City was the 16 page adventure sample write up that Cook sent to TSR as part of his application. Interesting that Isle of Dread was split between Tom Moldovay and Zeb Cook; outer island is Moldovay and inner part is Cook. Cook's comment "I liked Oriental Adventures" It was written because Random House said, "We like these hard backed books because they sell." Cook spent 3 months writing like crazy because it was in addition to his regular job. Working at TSR taught you game design as factory work. Cook says they were game design hack writers in many ways. Cook, " Star Frontiers has a complicated and tortured history...." Damn STraight! I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 December 26, 2016 - 9:35pm | SF Basic Rules were Moldvay Basic D&D while the Expanded Rules/SF Volturnus Trilogy was Cook Expert D&D.  Zeb's Guide was the unpublished Companion Rules mentioned in Cook Expert. Sadly what we got instead wasn't as good as the resulting Mentzer BECMI sets that followed Cook/Moldvay B/X. |
December 27, 2016 - 8:02am | Except the Companion that was never published would undoubtedly have been a million times better than Zebulon's Guide. Anyway I must disagree with your analogy. Basic D&D is to Alpha Dawn as Expert D&D is to Knight Hawks. Basic/Alpha Dawn is a complete game with the full nuance of an RPG, while Expert/Knight Hawks expands the horizons of the players tenfold. |
December 28, 2016 - 8:33pm | While it may not compare directly, Basic offered the initial rules for play in a city, much like Basic D&D offered initial rules for dungeons only. Expanded Rules, like Expert D&D, added more environments aka "wilderness", more skills aka "spells", more equipment aka magic items/weapons/etc...and you could go so far as to say Knight Hawks was the Companion set. FWIW there isn't an AD game that can't be played with Basic Rules. The modules may need a little tailoring (much like, say...the G-series AD&D modules could be easily tailored for boxed set basic/expert play) and resolutions may take a bit longer to resolve, but it is certainly doable without ruining the gaming experience. |
December 29, 2016 - 10:45am | Alpha Dawn basic rules aren't limited to cities; they just placed them in one city because the made a huge map and counters. The section on creating your own adventures focuses on a desert adventure, also mentions making a map for an island. If you really need an analogy, try Mentzer's D&D Basic Set, which started off the reader with programmed adventures—just like the Alpha Dawn basic rules. Once you were comfortable with this, you went on with the full game. |
