A TSR Announces a Star Frontiers Reboot

One of the new TSRs (yes there are now two TSRs!) has announced a reboot of Star Frontiers, the sci-fi game made by the original TSR back in the 1980s. Star Frontiers was a percentile dice roleplaying game set in a galaxy with four races (Human, Dralasite, Vrusk, and Yazirian) which were re-used by WotC in d20 Future in 2004.

Happy to announce that in addition to our flagship new world and game system by James M. Ward & Dinehart, GiantLands, and Justin LaNasa's children's RPG Tales & Tots, our next internal project "Star Frontiers", a reboot of the original, is currently in preproduction and has Larry Elmore attached. Stay tuned for more details!

It appears that one of the new TSRs registered the trademark in April. More if I hear it!

You can currently buy the game from WotC on DriveThruRpg, so I'm not sure how that works. When asked about this on Facebook, one of the TSRs answered:

Of course, Evil Hat Productions registered the Star Frontiers trademark, too, back in July 2017.

Is Evil Hat Republishing TSR's Star Frontiers?

Last year, Sasquatch Game Studio announced that it had acquired the trademark for TSR's old Alternity science-fiction game. At the time, it was mentioned that they did not have the Star*Drive, Dark*Matter, Gamma World, StarCraft Adventures, or Star Frontiers, properties owned by WotC. This may...

www.enworld.org

 

[darjr]

Wait? So who has the trademark?

 

[Maxperson]

Wait? So who has the trademark?

Who knows! If it was really expired in 2004, re-trademarked in 2017, and then abandoned in 2018, it could be the new TSR.

 

[Aldarc]

Following this sort of news, I half expect an announcement that TSR plans on re-opening Blockbuster Video.

 

[Marc_C]

Yep, I remember reporting that!

Is Evil Hat Republishing TSR's Star Frontiers?

Last year, Sasquatch Game Studio announced that it had acquired the trademark for TSR's old Alternity science-fiction game. At the time, it was mentioned that they did not have the Star*Drive, Dark*Matter, Gamma World, StarCraft Adventures, or Star Frontiers, properties owned by WotC. This may...

www.enworld.org

That is the episode that sent WoTC on a rampage sending cease & desist to StarFrontiersMan (2017) to stop distributing the remastered version of Star Frontiers they had been handing out for free because WoTc had given them the permission to do so several years before, in a letter. It killed the community at the StarFrontiers.us forum.

Starfrontiersman had to remove all SF products they had remastered and remove any SF art from their Star frontiersman fan magazine.

That is also when Wotc put Star Frontiers for sale in drivethru rpg to show they still did business with the IP.

 

[Maxperson]

Trademarks have to be maintained every 10 years through a filing. Continued use by itself isn't enough. If WotC failed to file that document, the trademark could have expired and now be up for grabs.

 

[Marc_C]

Trademarks have to be maintained every 10 years through a filing. Continued use by itself isn't enough. If WotC failed to file that document, the trademark could have expired and now be up for grabs.

Yes, the words 'Star Frontiers' could have been snatched. But the content of the game (setting, races, unique equipment) are not up for grabs.

A new version of Star Frontiers without the setting would not work for me. Just like Alternity 2.0 by Sasquatsh Games.

 

[Maxperson]

Yes, the words 'Star Frontiers' could have been snatched. But the content of the game (setting, races, unique equipment) are not up for grabs.

A new version of Star Frontiers without the setting would not work for me. Just like Alternity 2.0 by Sasquatsh Games.

Yes, but if TSR owns Star Frontiers and WotC owns the content, neither can use the product by themselves. That could be strong incentive for WotC to license the content to TSR, since WoTC isn't doing anything with it and extra money is good.

 

[darjr]

I think it’s OK to lean on your fathers legacy. I would be thrilled to hand such a thing to my three sons.

Still this so far with Star Frontiers a bit of a fiasco.

 

[darjr]

That is the episode that sent WoTC on a rampage sending cease & desist to StarFrontiersMan (2017) to stop distributing the remastered version of Star Frontiers they had been handing out for free because WoTc had given them the permission to do so several years before, in a letter. It killed the community at the StarFrontiers.us forum.

Starfrontiersman had to remove all SF products they had remastered and remove any SF art from their Star frontiersman fan magazine.

That is also when Wotc put Star Frontiers for sale in drivethru rpg to show they still did business with the IP.

As I understood it the original agreement had as a part that WotC might take them back, and as they showed up in drive thru the links to the free PDFs came down and were repointed to drive thru on that site.
And as far as art in Star Frontiers magazines there was a new one with new art that is definitely WotC IP, I can only guess they have permission somehow from WotC.
But I wasn’t steeped in the community at the time, so I’ll defer there.

it is too bad about the remastered PDFs, they were great.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I think it’s OK to lean in your fathers legacy. I would be thrilled to hand such a thing to my three sons.

I don't disagree. And I think most people would. I bring it up in the context of a) because your dad ran a business and created all this stuff doesn't mean you're any good at it (evidence proving the contrary as a matter of fact), and b) this doesn't just seem to be leaning on his dad's legacy. This seems to be using that legacy to be deceptive, as it is very much not the old TSR coming back.

"I was there when my dad did all this stuff" is not a big selling point to me. YMMV of course.