 November 12, 2012 - 6:14am | 1. suspect that the combat section of the rules from AD can be ported over whole sale. 2. the equipment list can be largely reconstucted from AD and Schicks comments, though I think we should take at look at it and consider A. items that should be included that were not on the original list or that schick did not mention like flame throwers B. we might also talk about equipment from a racial perspective or technology from a racial perspective. 3. elements of fan canon that have been developed, mostly at this site, that might make their way into this doc. Should we include any of that or not and what should we include? This goes beyond the premise of the project but it just seems to me that we aught to include yazirian honor blades and possibly other things so this should get talked about. 4. there may be more comments by Cook and Schick out there somewhere that would bear on these proceedings so these should be brought to light here. 5. an AD style write up of the Sesssu should be done and added to the documents section with pages for the other core five races, this will need a new version of the autopsy pic without the toe tage for the worm IMO 6. some new art including the worms with the core four 7. the Big Question Mark, in my opinion is, the skill system I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 November 12, 2012 - 7:35am | On #2 and #3, Gauss weapons and Flame throwers definitely could be included, as would the Yazirian weapons. Also, I would contend that the scatter guns (SFMAN #4?) would be an excellent human racial weapon. |
November 12, 2012 - 9:01am | Semi automatic pistols and rifles, do we really think that astronauts would walk around with the future equiv. of the Uzi? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 November 21, 2012 - 6:25am | I agree with everything said so far. The revelation that the S'sessu were originally intended to be part of the core material changes a lot, and a better illustration of them should be made. |
 November 22, 2012 - 11:09am | With conventional firearms, I think the generic term "slug-thrower" would be appropriate. I remembered they used that term in classic Gamma World. |
 November 26, 2012 - 4:30pm | Anything from Zebulon's Guide is OUT. Kim Eastland sought only to port Gamma Dawn over to Star Frontiers.—Not an original thinker. Kim wanted to dominate SF with his own ideas and transform Star Frontiers into something completely different than what it started as. He had no interest in the core concepts of the game. He only thought in terms of what he could "cause it to become". He, in fact, hated the Alpha Dawn rules altogether. (So why was he designing for it if he hated the mechanics and the setting???) There are some significant differences from what ended up. Also, the skills were done individually more like Zebulon's Guide. It also was never meant to have space combat, period. It didn't have miniatures rules at all. There were 5 original races planned, among which were the S'sessu, and the Sathar didn't exist. 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) |
November 26, 2012 - 4:35pm | Compiled from Starfrontiers Dave Cook interview in Issue #18 and the Lawrence Schick interview at SciCon2 in Frontier Explorer #2. Believable No teleportation Cutting edge physics Races must be more than "elves with guns", but not completely alien The human homeworld was not earth or would at least never be revealed. No space combat No miniatures Use older literary sci-fi for inspiration, not media sci-fi, including Larry Niven, Poul Anderson, Frank Herbert, van Vogt, Laumer, Silverberg, Simak, de Camp, Vance, Bova, Sturgeon, Heinlein, Zelazny, Ellison, del Rey, Asimov, etc., and more specifically Niven's Known Space stories, Asimov's Foundation series, Poul Anderson's Ensign Flandry stories, etc. Product Planning Was to be released as separate Basic and Expert sets. Races: Each species (as in most sci-fi) represented a fragment of the human psyche, exaggerated. In the original game, there were 5, not 4, PC races. Vrusk, the ideal of teamwork and cooperation. Vrusk had a hive-like society in which the group came first, and players could play off of that angle; interestingly, the vrusk were obsessed with aesthetics - ugly objects or living things could literally send them into an "artistic frenzy" in which the vrusk would mindlessly destroy the offending objects/beings. S'sessu, a wormlike race best described by Schick himself as the ultimate "amoral libertarians". The S'sessu are the diametrical opposites of the group-oriented vrusk; the worms only cooperated for mutual gain, and treachery among them was common. Yazirians were flamboyant and high-strung, given to great emotion. Dralasites were the jokesters of SF, with an odd sense of humor as described in the books. Dralasites are big on shape humor. A dralasite would find a tube very funny. Homeworlds The original idea was to release a module for each of the five major PC races. Each module would include background information – including the homeworld – of one of the races. Skills Originally there were just skills, classed A and B. A skills were simpler and cost less to gain; B skills were more complicated and cost more points. There were no subskills - the AD subskills were originally all skills in their own right, more like the way Zebulon's Guide did them. AW used unified skill list with unified skill percentages for success, instead of fixed percentages. Equipment No ray guns that couldn’t be at least semi-plausible (blasters are out) Gauss Guns Tech was drawn from literary science fiction, favoring "hard sci fi". Railguns were in the original game as artillery pieces, but for some reason replaced by Recoilless Rifles in the AD game. Shields were inspired by the movie Dune. Robots, Computers and Other Tech The game was from the start designed around what the team wanted PC's to be able to do, rather than to mirror real tech past or future. Robots and computers were kept intentionally "dumb" so that PC's had to be selfreliant. Since it is much more engaging for a player to "do it themselves" (whether it's taking out a villain, shutting down a reactor, etc.) the tech was played down somewhat in favor of high adventure. 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) |
September 7, 2017 - 7:10am | Alright, there is not going to be a retro clone of this or a recovered rule system. So I think the basic star frontiers rules should be used. an adaption of "A Skilled Frontier" and "Spacer skills Revisited" from the Star Frontiersman. Seessu/sathar as amoral PC option. And sand box setting geared for exploration. It seems to me that you do need some setting and you'll have need of Lions, and tiger and bears or rather Klingons, and Romulans and Borg, oh my. but then you get more and more into a canned setting. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
September 7, 2017 - 8:33am | Could the Basic Game be closer to Schick and Cook's Alien Worlds? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 September 14, 2017 - 8:22am | Alright, there is not going to be a retro clone of this or a recovered rule system. So I think the basic star frontiers rules should be used. an adaption of "A Skilled Frontier" and "Spacer skills Revisited" from the Star Frontiersman. Seessu/sathar as amoral PC option. And sand box setting geared for exploration. It seems to me that you do need some setting and you'll have need of Lions, and tiger and bears or rather Klingons, and Romulans and Borg, oh my. but then you get more and more into a canned setting. The skilled frontier and spacer skills revisited may work. I like the S'sessu as a PC option. Joe Cabadas |
