Minimalist Sci Fi Gaming

I'm not sure exactly why, but I've had Star Frontiers on the brain the past couple of days. 

I know the game has a pretty bad reputation among many gamers, but it also has its ardent fans. I loved the game as a kid. And while I would probably not say I love the game anymore, I still like it and find it fun to play. Although it's been quite a while since I've tried to run it, I might still brush it off and give it a go some day. 

A few of the common complaints against the system that I find are as follows (not all inclusive, just what comes to mind right away): 

• It doesn't have starship operation/creation rules (until Knight Hawks).
• It's a "muddled" or "incomplete" system.
• It lacks realism in the skills it offers.
• The setting is under-developed and silly.
• It's a game for kids, not serious sci-fi fans.
• The tech in the game is dreadfully outdated.
  

I don't want to answer all of these criticisms in this post, but I may get around to them later. The thing that's been on my mind is the action resolution system of Star Frontiers. 

It's a simple percentile system, roll under your Attribute or Skill number. Easy peasy. 

It's the same resolution system that Call of Cthulhu uses, yet that system is not derided as simplistic. Of course, CoC has a big "comprehensive" list of skills, alphabetized on your character sheet. And having played a fair amount of CoC the past year or so, there are a whole lot of those skills that NEVER get used. In fact, one of my previous posts was basically about how I managed to make my PC's musician background relevant in the adventure, and helped out by making an Art (Jazz) roll at an appropriate time. 

Star Frontiers has a very limited skill list. There are skills for each of five or six weapon groups, martial arts, demolitions, mechanics, robots, computers, medical, environmental, and psycho-social. Each of these has subskills that you automatically gain access to when you take the parent skill. And when you improve the parent skill, all subskills improve. 

It's very minimalist in design. It features skills for things your PCs are likely to be doing (fighting space monsters or the Sathar, exploring planets and meeting alien species, and dealing with technology problems). The lack of starship content is because of the conceit of the setting. It's Aliens, not Star Wars. Starships capable of FTL travel are huge, expensive, and the province of governments and huge corporations. It's not designed to be Traveller with its African Queen style tramp-steamer starships. But that's a discussion for another post, I believe. 

Part of what makes Star Frontiers work well, at least for me, is that the eight Attributes can actually cover a lot of "skills" that aren't covered in the rules. For those not familiar with the game, the Attributes come in four pairs: 

• Strength/Stamina [STR/STA]
  
• Dexterity/Reaction Speed [DEX/RS]
  
• Intuition/Logic [INT/LOG]
  
• Personality/Leadership [PER/LDR]
  

Most of these don't affect skills. Your base weapon attack value is half of your DEX (you can use half of STR for melee/martial arts if it's better than DEX), plus 10% per level in the appropriate skill. The Technology and Bio-Social skills (everything not combat related), plus Demolitions, all have a set base percentage that you start at for each subskill. A few subskills are just set at that base percentage, but most gain a 10% bonus for each level of the skill a character has trained. 

So, people complain that the rules don't cover lots of other actions. But actually, they do. All those other actions, if they require a resolution roll to determine success, can be mapped to one of the eight Attributes. In fact, this makes the game system both rules-lite and fairly comprehensive in its coverage of actions that the system can resolve. 

Below, I've copied the skill list from d20 Modern. I'll note which ones are already covered by a skill or subskill in Star Frontiers, and which Attributes (or in a few cases other rules) could cover the action in a Star Frontiers game. 

Balance  DEX
Bluff    PER
Climb   DEX (there are climbing rules in the game)
Computer Use  Computers already covers this
Concentration  STA
Craft  A few of these are subskills, others could be Attribute checks. Crafting other than robots, or survival gear in emergencies, isn't normally part of the game, but if you wanted it to be, it could be.
     Ct:Chemical  LOG, Environmental, or Demolitions depending on the use
     Ct:Electronic  Technician, Computers, or Robotics depending on the use
     Ct:Mechanical  Technician, or Environmental for simple tools and weapons
     Ct:Pharmaceutical  Medical
     Ct:Structural  LOG or Technician
     Ct:Visual Art  INT or DEX
     Ct:Writing   INT
Decipher Script  LOG or INT, depending
Demolitions  Demolitions are already covered
Diplomacy  PER, but also partially covered by Psycho-Social
Disable Device  Technician, Computers, or Robotics depending on the use
Disguise  INT or PER depending on how it's being used
Drive   already covered by Technician
Escape Artist  DEX
Forgery  DEX or INT, depending
Gamble  LOG or INT, depending on the game
Gather Information  PER
Handle Animal  LDR
Hide   Environmental covers this already
Intimidate  LDR
Investigate   LOG
Jump   There are jumping rules that determine distance depending on local gravity that don't need rolls, but STR if a roll were necessary
Knowledge  Hmm, OK, here's an area that may be hard to cover. Lumping them all under LOG seems too broad. Some, like Arcane Lore, don't really play a part, and some others can be assumed by having other skills. A system like the Language rules (see below) might be imported if a Referee felt these sorts of determinations were important to the game. Otherwise, the closest Attribute or Skill, in my opinion, are listed below.
     Kw:Arcane Lore   not relevant
     Kw:Art   ???
     Kw:Behavioral Sciences  Pscycho-Social
     Kw:Business  ???
     Kw:Civics  ???
     Kw:Current Events 
     Kw:Earth and Life Sciences  Environmental
     Kw:History  ???
     Kw:Physical Sciences   LOG
     Kw:Popular Culture  ???
     Kw:Streetwise  PER
     Kw:Tactics   LOG, or assumed with a Military PSA?
     Kw:Technology  Technician, Computers, or Robotics depending on the use
     Kw:Theology and Philosophy  ???
Listen  I would probably go with INT for this, but it's a bit of a stretch. This is something the game assumes Referees will decide depending on circumstances, rather than requiring a roll.
Move Silently   Environmental covers this
Navigate   Environmental covers this
Perform   DEX or INT, depending on the use
Pilot  Technician covers this
Profession  There's already a system of determining pay per day depending on total skills known, used for hiring NPCs, or for pay offered to PCs for jobs. No need to make rolls.
Read/Write Language  The game contains a system similar to Skills for languages, with each level in a language costing 3XP and granting a +10% bonus to communicate in that language, starting at a 40% base.
Repair  Technician, Computers, or Robotics depending on the use
Research   LOG
Ride   DEX or RS depending on use
Search   I would probably go with INT for this, but it's a bit of a stretch. This is something the game assumes Referees will decide depending on circumstances, rather than requiring a roll.
Sense Motive  Pscycho-Social covers this
Sleight of Hand  RS
Speak Language  The game contains a system similar to Skills for languages, with each level in a language costing 3XP and granting a +10% bonus to communicate in that language, starting at a 40% base.
Spot  INT
Survival  Environmental covers this
Swim   There are swimming rules that don't involve checks, but STA might be used for endurance situations
Treat Injury  Medical covers this
Tumble  DEX

I think the case can be made that Star Frontiers actually can be a robust system, covering a wide variety of checks you might want to make with its base rules, even if they aren't covered in the Skill system. It's also a good minimalist game, focused on less serious sci-fi action, rather than hard sci-fi or more modern Star Wars-influenced sci-fi media. 

While designed and marketed as more of a kids game, compared to Traveller, it's not as bad of a game as many people seem to think.

Painting Again

 This morning, I finally got around to painting a set of the Red Hat Russian War Monk Artillery figures that I picked up a year ago. 

I'm going to teach at the usual elementary school English Camp over the winter break (starting on Monday), and one of the board games I use is Dungeon!

This year, I plan to use some of my 1/72 scale minis (20-22mm) instead of the cheap cardboard standees in the new WotC edition of Dungeon! that I use for the camp. [I don't want to risk damage/loss to my old 80s edition.] 

These were quick paint jobs, with all five done in around 2 hours. I probably could have done it faster, or better quality, if they were a larger scale or my eyes weren't as bad as they are. But still, I think these look pretty good all told. 

Maybe I'll get around to painting some of the minotaur and cyclops minis after the camp. Winter seems to put me in the mood to paint the past few years.

Looking Ahead

Happy New Year, everyone! I know it's a little early to wish everyone this, but if you look at my posting rate this month, it shouldn't be a surprise. 

2024 wasn't a great year over all, but gaming wise, it was pretty good. My TS&R Jade campaign is going well. Everyone is enjoying it. My side campaign of Star Wars d6 is also going well. We just played it yesterday, and had a good time. The Call of Cthulhu game was pretty fun, and hopefully it continues into next year [This one isn't actually a campaign, as we make new characters for each scenario]. And here and there, we got to try out a few smaller games as one-shots. 

In the realm of play-by-post, the long running 1E game had a reboot, with new PCs starting at level 1. It's not so bad, when the other option was the DM shutting the game down. I really enjoyed playing my primary PC in that game, but at times I was thinking it was time to retire him anyway. The one 5E game I still play there has been pretty slow due to the DM's real life schedule, and honestly, I keep forgetting to post there. I got into the ground floor of a RECON game, but different player styles/expectations frustrated the GM, and now maybe one of the players will take over. We'll see. 

The two games I'm running there, Gamma World and Star Wars d6, are moving along just fine. 

Looking forward into 2025, I see these trends continuing. Well, hopefully the 5E game picks up the pace a bit. Otherwise, things seem to be going well gaming wise. 

On the game design front, I'm plugging away at Flying Swordsmen 2E. Over the weekend, I made some character templates as the equipment chapter was kinda boring me. I'd been somewhat reluctant to get into the weeds of templates, but so far, it's been kinda fun trying to figure out the basics of different martial arts/wuxia stock characters within the framework of the game I'm creating. 

The other thing that's been on my mind lately is an idea I've had of converting the Isle of Dread for my TS&R Jade campaign. It would be a fairly superficial thing, but at the same time it would take a fair amount of rewriting. I'd want to change the Isle's native culture to be less Polynesian and more SE Asian in nature. And of course the wandering monster tables and a few of the encounter areas would need to be reworked to include more SE Asian style monsters along with all the dinosaurs and other prehistoric beasts. 

But do I really want to put the breaks on the local campaign to send the players off to a multi-session arc on the Isle of Dread? I mean, it's a fun module, but I'm not so sure it's the right thing for the group. Maybe I'll make some notes and then throw a few rumors/hooks their way. If they bite, I'll finish fleshing out the idea. If not, then I'll drop the idea.

My first 40 years as a role player

Today, I turned 51 years old. And, as I've mentioned on numerous previous birthdays (and probably numerous "how did you get into gaming" posts), I got my Mentzer Basic Set for my 11th birthday. So I've been a D&D and other RPGs player for four decades now. 

For the first decade, 1984 to 1994, I both ran and played BECMI with my friends and family. We also ran a lot of Star Frontiers. We also played some AD&D of both the 1E and 2E variety, but not that much. And occasionally we'd play, or at least make characters but never get around to playing, lots of other games. Gamma World. Star Wars d6. Cyberpunk 2020. TMNT and Other Strangeness. Marvel Superheroes. I'm sure there are others we tried or at least sampled that I'm forgetting. We played a LOT of BECMI D&D though. Tales of this decade are labeled as The Old BECMI Group, obviously.

For the second decade, 1994 to 2004, after a bit of interruption in RPG play due to Magic: The Gathering and not wanting to associate with the campus Gaming Guild who embodied most of the negative gamer stereotypes that were out there at the time, I got back into gaming with a group that played a mix of 1E/2E AD&D. Then I went to Japan, and by the time I got a group to game with, 3E had just come out. So we dove into the world of the d20 system, playing 3E D&D and a bit of d20 Modern and d20 Star Wars. The final few years of this era, I had moved to a different part of Japan, and started gaming on RPOL.net since I hadn't found a group to play with there. These tales are under the Evansville Group (1E/2E), and Toyama Group (initial 3E stuff) tags.

From 2004 to 2014, I got in with a group playing in Tokyo. Again, we mostly played d20 stuff, including 3E, d20 Modern, and d20 Conan. But through this group, I also got to try a variety of Forge-style story games, and also it rekindled my love of old school D&D. I also got involved (finally) with some local gamers, and we played some Abberant (an obscure White Wolf game), 3E, and old school D&D. We also developed Presidents of the Apocalypse, which I know I've mentioned many times before, but no, it will probably never get released because it's so scattershot. In the middle of this era, I moved to Korea. For a few years, the emphasis was on board games, but eventually I got some old school D&D going, using the house rules that have by now evolved into Treasures, Serpents, & Ruins. I also got to try 4E and we sampled a few One Page and microlite RPGs, played a bit of Gamma World (the 4E D&D stuff AND classic GW), Pathfinder 1E, and a few other games here and there. I continued to game on RPOL, and also got to sample various OSR offerings through online realtime play (Google Meet, when that was a thing). I also developed, play tested, and released Flying Swordsmen. You can find these stories in the tags Ebisu and Yamanashi Gamers for the Japan era, and Busan Gamers for the Korea era.

My fourth decade, 2014 to today, coincides with the release of 5E D&D, and I've played it a fair amount. As a player, it's fun. As a DM? Not so much. So I've mostly stuck to my TS&R old school D&D rules as a DM. And I've been running my d6 Star Wars game for many years now. As a player, there have been a wealth of games and game systems, that are face to face, online realtime, and play by post. While I've mostly given up on 5E (except for a really good game on RPOL), my TS&R game and SW d6 game are both going well. I've sampled lots of OSR and micro-games, both in person and online. I've recently started both a Gamma World and Star Wars game on RPOL. And very recently, just joined a game of RECON. I developed, play tested, and released Chanbara, and have recently finished up releasing everything to make TS&R a complete game that others can play. I've been too busy to post about that. These last few years of gaming can again be found under the Busan Gamers tag, as will most games I post about going into my fifth decade of gaming. 

The first 40 years of gaming have been on the whole really good. I'm excited for the next 40 years!

First Turn at Mapping, and Using His Head

 Last Sunday, I ran my TS&R Jade campaign. Only three players showed up: Steven (my 10yo), Charles, and Nate. They hired half a dozen men-at-arms, purchased a few torches, and headed into the Pits of Lao. For some reason, Nate and Charles thought it would be fun to let Steven be the mapper this time. It took him a bit of practice to get used to translating the descriptions into lines on the map, but once he got the hang of it, he did really well.

Steven had been thinking about the campaign rumors over the weeks (scheduling nightmare) we weren't playing, and he had a plan. We'd been discussing the use of his locate object spell. One rumor was from a former adventurer who had located a machine that allowed him to find a big score of treasure and retire. He wanted to find that machine. I told him that his locate object spell could help with that. 

When they got down to the second level of the dungeon (there is a set of stairs leading down from the entrance room), they bribed a group of bakuto (gambler yakuza) who collect tolls there with some wine, then went on their way. At first, the spell didn't detect the machine. It has a radius of 120', and the target was a little out of range...but none of them realized they had explored and mapped to just a room or two away from the target. Luckily for them, they decided to explore east instead of west or south, and moving to the next room allowed Steven's PC to get a ping with the spell. 

The next room had some low level Taoist mages and their ashigaru bodyguards. Reactions were positive, so they discussed trading information. I had to come up with a reason why the mages were examining the room they were in, and I decided they were doing an inventory for the Lao family (the last Lao, the crazy wu jen daughter of the Venerable Lao, having died 100+ years ago). This led to a brief discussion of the Dungeon as Underworld for the benefit of Charles, who is new to RPGs. After the game, I sent him a link to Oakes Spalding's blog, which has a copy of Philotomy's Musings on the subject. He was thankful for that. 

Anyway, the party found a well with treasure but the "water" was actually acid, and didn't try to recover it after Saro, Nat's PC, got singed. Then they wandered up and fought some giant toads, but had a surprise round so they weren't in any danger. Finally, the locate object spell led them to the Fighting Ring, an area they'd been to before, where you can summon a Level 2 Random Encounter to fight for cash prizes, while phantasmal fans cheer on the fight. They'd been here before. 

Just beyond it was the room with the Potion Transmuter machine. The machine has two settings: healing potion and potion of treasure finding. After a bit of examination and experimentation (a healing potion poured in became a potion of treasure finding, wine poured in became ruined wine). Nate's henchman had another healing potion, and he decided to convert it as well as Saro's (the first experiment). Then Saro drank his potion and off they went, trying to find treasure. 

Pro Tip: I had marked my dungeon map with gold dollar signs using a colored pencil in any room with monetary treasure, and with blue stars for any room with magical treasure. That made it easy to let them know which direction the nearest treasure was. Of course, the nearest treasure to the transmuter machine was the gold down the acid well that they had already found... But there was more treasure beyond that. 

They ended up with a really nice haul in the end. Slider, Charles' Thief, made it to Level 4, so Charles can make a henchman for him. He's considering a Wu Jen. Niko, the henchman of Citizen Snips (Steven's character), also leveled up. It was a good session, and I'm really happy to see Steven getting into the game a bit more, rather than just trying to make jokes and do silly kid stuff.

Treasures, Serpents, & Ruins Rules Reference books are available!

 After way too long of a wait, I've finally got around to adding my Rules Reference books for Treasures, Serpents, & Ruins on DriveThruRPG. There's one for Ruby and one for Jade. 

These are meant to be table reference books, with just the rules, procedures, charts, etc. that the GM might need while running the game. If you don't need all the instruction of how to run the game or how to build your adventures and world, but need refreshers on the mechanical bits, this is the book for you! 

Ruby Rules Reference (standard Euro-style setting)

Jade Rules Reference (Asian inspired setting)

They're both Pay-What-You-Want titles, so you can go grab them for free and check them out. As always, if you like it and find it helpful, why not return and throw a few dollars my way? I reinvest the money I'm making from TS&R back into the gaming community. I'm not trying to make a million on this. But a few dollars here and there is nice. 

Oh, and in hopeful news, my younger son Steven is interested in maybe trying to DM his own game. He did some crazy free-form DMing when he was 5 or so. Now he's 10, and is thinking about maybe trying to learn how to DM the "right" way. I'm gonna order him a POD copy of Moldvay Basic to read through. This could be fun!

They Lost Me

 For the past two years or so, I've been playing a mobile game called Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes. While it had its annoyances (heavily pushing in-app purchases, making the free-to-play [F2P] a long slog, requiring you to unlock characters after weeks or months of effort, then more weeks and months to level them up, etc.), it scratched an itch I've had since I was a kid. 

Growing up just barely on the good side of the poverty line, I never had many Star Wars action figures. The few that I did have were like gold to me. I loved Star Wars. Still do. And looking at the back of those figure cards, or through the Sears Holiday Catalogue (remember those?) made me wish that I had so many more. 

Well, this game definitely scratches the itch of the would-be figure collector I was as a kid. And yeah, I could be spending money on the actual figures now. But I'm too old to play with them (maybe?). And neither of my boys ever got into playing with action figures. They have a lot of my (and my brothers') old figures, but never played with them much. So I didn't have that excuse. And my wife wouldn't be too happy if I was filling up our apartment with unused toys, making it look like every cringe "nerd" channel on YouTube. 

So I found this game to be a pretty good substitute to that. I was happily going about part of my day grinding for characters, or gear, or completing challenges in the game. Building up my Mando squad. My Rebel squad. My Empire squad. Slowly, little by little, putting some effort into improving the Jedi squad. Pretty much ignoring the sequel trilogy characters as much as possible. 

But this week, the game went through a big update. Before, there was one game mode that had a F2P and P2P (pay-to-play) track. It wasn't the main part of the game. F2P was slow, but you could still make progress without handing over tons of money to EA every month. The new update makes the main game a distinction between F2P and P2P. And that looks like it will slow down that slow grind even more. It will be hard to gather the ridiculously varied types of resources and in-game currencies that are needed to unlock and improve characters. 

So, today I uninstalled the game. 

Am I going to miss it? Maybe for a while. I had quit the game last year after playing for a few months. Then I downloaded it again and was really enjoying having it back. But I think this time, I'm done for good. 

Subscription-based gaming is not something I think I'll ever be interested in.