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 be changing, though - because Evil Hat Productions has applied for the trademark to 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 be changing, though - because Evil Hat Productions has applied for the trademark to Star Frontiers.


StarFrontiers-AlphaDawnBlueBox1.jpg


Some caveats are worth noting - the trademark application was made in July 2017, and it's likely that nothing will happen on it for months. At this stage, it's just an application, so there's no guarantee that it will even be approved. Speculation is what speculation is, but this is very much a "wait-and-see" situation.

So, what's Star Frontiers? It's a space opera RPG produced by TSR back in the early 80s. Many elements of the game were later re-used in various forms in Spelljammer, d20 Future, and other TSR/WotC games and settings. It was a percentile system game, set in an area of space dominated by the United Planetary Federation composed of four races - Humans, the amoeboid Dralasite, the insectoid Vrusk, and the ape-like Yazirian.

Evil Hat, of course, is the publisher of the popular ENnie-winning Fate line of RPGs, which is a flexible system designed to accommodate a vast array of settings. Whether they plan to make a Fate version of Star Frontiers is far, far too early to start speculating on. I guess we may find out more next year, if the trademark application is approved.
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darjr

I crit!
Are you sure of this? I find it rather strange that someone would be able to distribute for free titles that WotC sells on DTRPG. Also, Gamma World is Jim Ward's property, not WotC's. It isn't a subset of Star Frontiers. The legal block at the bottom of the page may not be correct.

It’s an interesting question, it’s been that way for a long time now and as far as I know a cease and desist has never been sent. Though I’m shure it isn’t public domain.

Curious how it plays out.
 

Are you sure of this? I find it rather strange that someone would be able to distribute for free titles that WotC sells on DTRPG. Also, Gamma World is Jim Ward's property, not WotC's. It isn't a subset of Star Frontiers. The legal block at the bottom of the page may not be correct.

The actual rules are not available for sale that I know of. The tweet referred to two Star Frontiers modules that have been put up to buy in pdf format. There is also a free set of blank character sheets posted by WotC. But that is all from the official game. So maybe WotC does not hold the rights to the actual game system, but only has the rights to certain items previously published for it.
 

aramis erak

Legend
Are you sure of this? I find it rather strange that someone would be able to distribute for free titles that WotC sells on DTRPG. Also, Gamma World is Jim Ward's property, not WotC's. It isn't a subset of Star Frontiers. The legal block at the bottom of the page may not be correct.

When TSR/WotC stopped supporting the old games, circa 2000, several settings were moved to fan-support, as were several games. TSR linked to those sites.

Including the Star Frontiersman site, and Classic Marvel Forever. Plus Dark Sun, Mystara, and Birthright.

Several of which SJG tried to get shut down, and in both CMF and SF cases, the ISP rehosted the site after checking the permission letters from TSR/WotC.

There's little reason to think that the ISP wouldn't call Wizards and check; the letter had a phone number (which was blurred on the copy posted online by the guy paying for CMF). Especially in the case of SF, which was still linked to at the time from a page up on wizards.com at the time (an orphaned page, which has since been removed.)

Wizards was definitely aware of the republishing. They could license it out, and even could have sold the game engine... but I'd expect Evil Hat to be doing something totally different.
 

ddaley

Explorer
If they update the Star Frontiers rules, I would definitely back that on kickstarter. I still have all of my original Star Frontiers hard copies. I have been thinking about breaking out the modules to convert to Starfinder. But, if they updated the Star Frontiers rules, that would be even better. I remember liking the percentile based system.
 


atanakar

Hero
I have no need of an Evil Hat FATE version of Star Frontiers. Evil Hat won't be able to use the races and other IP ideas contained in the setting. Without those its not going to be Star Frontiers at all. What's the point of filling for ownership of the trademark of the words «Star Frontiers»? Unless they want to make money on the back of WotC if the wish to buy back the trademark at some point.

Anyway you can download legally the original Star Frontiers Remastered PDFs for free at this address. Have fun ! : http://www.starfrontiersman.com/remastered.php
 

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