Star Frontiers? Gamma World?

[SpiderMonkey]

Has anyone played either of these two? I'm kinda curious about them, and I've been on a big rules-light kick lately.

Sell me on 'em. Scare me away. Tell me what does what they do better, but with cake.

[Tetsubo]

Originally Posted by SpiderMonkey

Has anyone played either of these two? I'm kinda curious about them, and I've been on a big rules-light kick lately.

Sell me on 'em. Scare me away. Tell me what does what they do better, but with cake.

I love Star Frontiers. I thought it was a great game when it came out and I would love to see either an OGL or D20 Modern version. If you can find s copy it is very much worth a look.

Which version of Gamma World are you interested in? There have been seven of them. My personal favorite edition is the fourth. One book has everything you need to run a PA campaign. It is proto-3E so the learning curve is shallow for people familiar with 3E. One of the best PA games around. Two thumbs up.

[darjr]

Star Frontiers was two games. The original, and then the one that used the color chart that TSR used for some games. It was in the "Zebulon's Guide". Though I think the guide was incomplete without the box set.

I love that game.

I think there are elements in the D20 Future (or is it space?) book.

Also, it's available for download free.

starfrontiers.com

I think, right?

[Korgoth]

Originally Posted by SpiderMonkey

Has anyone played either of these two? I'm kinda curious about them, and I've been on a big rules-light kick lately.

Sell me on 'em. Scare me away. Tell me what does what they do better, but with cake.

Rules-light is rules-good! A big rulebook is a big pain. Fortunately, you're looking at some good stuff, especially re: Gamma World. But I can tell you about them both.

If you go Gamma World, definitely go 1st Edition. Subsequent editions just added more junk IMO, and made the mistake of trying to fill in the world and give you a setting. 1st Edition Gamma World gives you game mechanics, a blank hex map of the USA (with coast lines adjusted for post-apocalyptic conditions... sorry Florida!) and tells you to go crazy with it. So your Gamma World can be anything you want: from the bland and vaguely humorous world of misspelled 20th century names where people use stop signs for shields (the direction the official products went) to a dark and mostly alien world dominated by giant critters that look like they came from the Burgess Shale while humans eke out survival as spear-chucking primitives.

The rules are nice and minimal. You have your stats, you have mutations if you're a mutant (some good, some bad) and starting gear suitable for a post-apocalyptic neo-caveman. All of this is rolled randomly, which means that if you're a mutant you can come up with all kinds of interesting combinations of powers/defects. You can even play a sapient plant (obviously mutated) if that suits your fancy. A psionic Ficus with a ray gun and a spear, perhaps.

Besides that you have rules for combat (quite straightforward, and familiar to you from old school D&D) and some rules for figuring out high tech ("ancient") artifacts. Beyond that you've got some monsters and a few other things and then you're on your own. There is part of a sample adventure. One thing that is interesting is the advancement system: it's not really level based. Every time you accumulate so many XPs you get to roll on the advancement table, which may result in a bonus to hit in combat or some other beneficial increase. So to make an experienced character you need do no more than roll a few times on that table.

Starting characters have a lot of hit points: you roll Xd6 where X is your Constitution score. But they don't tend to increase over your career, so what you've got is what you've got. I assume all the hit points come as a result of being super-evolved... your forefathers did survive the apocalypse and the ensuing epoch of laser-beaming megafauna, after all.

Anyway, it's good, clean post-apoc fun and quite rules-light. They really just fade into the background, as they're supposed to. 1st Edition is the OD&D of Gamma World.

Star Frontiers is a different beast. It is approaching rules-medium (on a scale that calls 3.X rules-heavy or extra heavy) and it comes from a later generation of games than Gamma World. It comes with a pre-developed setting and includes a skill system (though the skills are basically focused on defining your professional accomplishments... it's not like GURPS or D20 where you have skills for looking around or climbing a tree or scratching your nose or whatever). It is still basically guided by some of the old school sensibilites, but succumbs to the trend of having lots of rules a fair amount of setting detail that some might find extraneous.

There's nothing wrong with Star Frontiers, though the mechanics might not appeal to everyone (there are no criticals and you probably won't drop someone in a single shot, even from a rifle... something that some folks want from a modern/futuristic game). It's a little more rulesy than I like, but not too much. It's better if you like the background, not as good if you don't. If you're into space combat there's a full hexmap wargame that goes with it, and despite a few warts it's not a bad game.

The other advantage to Star Frontiers is that it's free. starfrontiers.com

WOTC is, as far as I know, evidently cool with that site. Which is pretty darn cool in my book.

[the Jester]

I've been really having a nostalgia jones for some Star Frontiers: Knight Hawks lately...

Both SF and GW are great; Korgoth really did a good job of summarizing them, although I prefer GW 2e, personally.

[FATDRAGONGAMES]

Star Frontiers was awesome. You could crack open the box, roll characters, and be playing in 15 minutes. I picked up a mint set of it and Knighthawks at Origins a while back and would love to play again. The incorporated some stuff into d20 Future, but I just could never get into it.

[SpiderMonkey]

Wow. Thanks all! Korgoth, you definitely have me intrigued with Gamma World 1e. I've perused the Star Frontiers site...wow. That's a lot of material.

In regard to setting, I'm more than a little lazy and pressed for time, so I'm okay with a default setting.

Psionic laser-wielding fica? Sign me up!

[dm4hire]

Originally Posted by Korgoth

If you go Gamma World, definitely go 1st Edition. Subsequent editions just added more junk IMO, and made the mistake of trying to fill in the world and give you a setting. 1st Edition Gamma World gives you game mechanics, a blank hex map of the USA (with coast lines adjusted for post-apocalyptic conditions... sorry Florida!) and tells you to go crazy with it. So your Gamma World can be anything you want: from the bland and vaguely humorous world of misspelled 20th century names where people use stop signs for shields (the direction the official products went) to a dark and mostly alien world dominated by giant critters that look like they came from the Burgess Shale while humans eke out survival as spear-chucking primitives.

The Alternity version of Gamma World is pretty good also. It was done as a standalone book, everything you needed, and it was the only book done. I have it in storage so don't have it on hand, but if memory serves it shrunk the map down to just Wisconsin, leaving the rest of the country and world up for grabs. You might look for it and give it a try.

[The Green Adam]

Originally Posted by SpiderMonkey

Psionic laser-wielding fica? Sign me up!

Ah Gamma World! My most memorable character (i.e. the one that actually lived through all 9 sessions of our campaign) was a Spine-Covered, Seven Foot Ram with Super Strength and the ability to fire his Quills at his opponents. Oh yeah, that's the stuff.

AD
"I know! You construct a weapon. Look around, can you form some sort of rudimentary lathe?"

[JeffB]

Looks like WOTC is NOT OK with it- The Star Frontiers page that is.

[smootrk]

If you look at the last letter on that page, it seems that things are working themselves out. As a fan of this older material, I find it onerous that someone thinks that community is out to 'pirate' that material. It is just a groups of fans who don't want one of their favorite games to die out. These same guys would in fact spend their cash on an official redo of the game (so long as they kept the game largely intact)... I have been a part of the conversations where this has been spoken about before.

[FATDRAGONGAMES]

Originally Posted by JeffB

Looks like WOTC is NOT OK with it- The Star Frontiers page that is.

???

[smootrk]

referring to starfrontiers.com

[darjr]

Originally Posted by JeffB

Looks like WOTC is NOT OK with it- The Star Frontiers page that is.

Read all the way to the bottom of starfrontiers.com you'll see he is given permission to carry on until further notice. It was smart of them to put as much of the correspondence as they had up for the record.

[Delta]

Love Star Frontiers.

Kudos to Doug Niles for two of the best miniatures gaming rules I ever owned. (1) Star Frontiers Knight Hawks. (2) Battlesystem 2nd Edition.