Star Frontiers

[@Dracopol]

I love Star Frontiers, it is still my favourite system. Percentile rolls, you always know what your odds are. It has rules with combat modifiers to handle melee, ranged, vehicle and aerial combat all at once. For many decades it was kept alive by fans and there were even complete fan reprintings of the rules (allowable if no profit was made). But now that has been discontinued and WotC sells reprints of the originals. The game works great, but talk to fans to clean up a few errata. 9:00 The combat modifiers were learnable because not every type of modifier applied to the situation, and nothing much changed from round to round either. People could get used to the system and run combat that was both super-fast AND could adapt to new combat conditions (cover, cover removed, pursuing a target in a vehicle with fast movement that made shots harder, which made the thrill of connecting with a target in mid-air so much better). It really worked. Combat was buttery-smooth.

[@sharpmountaingames9303]

Thanks for watching! Always nice to find someone else with great memories of Star Frontiers.

[@JamesJoy-yc8vs]

Star Frontiers was the 2nd-most-played RPG among my teen friend groups in the 80s (D&D being of course #1). I remember it being a great introduction for non-gamers, since sci-fi was a more approachable genre, and the percentile dice system more intuitive than AD&D's myriad action-resolution mini games. And the Basic intro game was a wonderful transition tool for bridging that board game/roleplaying game gap. The most enthusiastic group lasted into the Star Hawks release and a few years after. We ditched the far-off frontier for a loose Larry Niven/Jason Of Star Command pastiche, with the asteroid belt as the frontier (kept the aliens & equipment). We ended up with alternating RPG and space combat sessions. Individual hero characters, and named vessels. Including some that would acquire their own "character", and maybe even named crew members - assuming they survived that long, our fleets had *massive* losses and casualties! Thank you for invoking some good memories! I'm tempted to get a reprint to introduce to some current friends now

[@sharpmountaingames9303]

Those are GREAT memories to invoke! Thanks for watching. And percentile feels "right" for harder sci fi games anyway.

[@parkpunk2]

Had the box sets, never really played it. Loved the art work and the alien races.

[@sharpmountaingames9303]

And it's still playable (or just play in the setting with another ruleset).

[@whiskeyvictor5703]

I agree that TSR didn't really playtest this much, if at all. They wanted it out the door ASAP to compete against Traveller. That was our assessment forty years ago.

[@sharpmountaingames9303]

Agreed. Someone needed to look at how difficult it was to advance (unless you were playing everyday). But the alien species were really fun. Thanks for watching.

[@DMTalesTTRPG]

I never picked up Star Frontiers back in the day. Thanks for the overview!!

[@sharpmountaingames9303]

It's a game of it's day. I'd love to see a second, cleaned up edition. But that'll never happen. WOTC owns it and they have NO interest in anything but D&D.

[@Dracopol]

@@sharpmountaingames9303 The FrontierSpace RPG from DWD Studios draws its rules system inspiration from Star Frontiers (percentile rolls, skill-and-subskill lists), since the author was a fan. If you take the Player's Handbook and the Referee's Handbook from that game and put them together, the artworks line up (and the Player's Handbook has a "crashed shuttlecraft" motif similar to Star Frontiers. In fact, this motif also appears in the setting book STRANGE STARS as well).

[@RHampton]

I am 99% sure I will use WhiteStar as my system. But I can def see some use for pulling in some of these adventures, races, and equipment.

[@sharpmountaingames9303]

If you are using White Star or something similar, I'd consider pulling in the protective suits and screens. That will help with PC survivability. Thanks for watching and commenting.. Have a great day!