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

 

[aramis erak]

Now we are talking about the title, but the IP, the characters, races, monsters and factions, all that is by WotC, aren't they?

WotC has the US copyrights to the original Star Frontiers, acquired as part of the purchase of TSR.

 

[Morrus]

Yeah, registering the trademark for a name (or logo) and the copyright to the actual content are two different things entirely. The copyright remains with WotC unless they sell it or it expires 70 years after the creator's death (so no time soon -- actually it was almost certainly work-for-hire, so I think that's even longer). The trademark for the name expired, and was registered by one of the TSRs back in April. Same with the TSR trademark -- use of the name doesn't give you access to the associated catalogue of work.

 

[mikeawmids1]

Alternatively, you could just buy the excellent FrontierSpace RPG from DWD Studios.

 

[Remathilis]

You don’t acquire companies who steal your IP; you sue them. That’s what will happen here if there is not some undisclosed licensing deal.

Ergo the joke; after WotC sues TSR for everything they got, they will "acquire" them again...

 

[wicked cool]

I'm sure theres some deal out there

Fond memories of Star Frontiers

Whats next Gang busters

 

[pemerton]

Yeah, registering the trademark for a name (or logo) and the copyright to the actual content are two different things entirely. The copyright remains with WotC unless they sell it or it expires 70 years after the creator's death (so no time soon -- actually it was almost certainly work-for-hire, so I think that's even longer). The trademark for the name expired, and was registered by one of the TSRs back in April. Same with the TSR trademark -- use of the name doesn't give you access to the associated catalogue of work.

I think that, as @aramis erak posted not far upthread, there's an additional weirdness in this case: the new TSR seems to have registered, as Trade Marks, various logos in which WotC presumably owns the copyright as images. It's a bit unclear how the new TSR is able to do that legally, and will be able to legally publish those symbols on the books it releases, unless WotC has given it permission.

I don't think the logos are so generic that they couldn't be the object of copyright on WotC's part.

But maybe there's some other aspect of the interaction of IP principals here that I'm not across?

Now we are talking about the title, but the IP, the characters, races, monsters and factions, all that is by WotC, aren't they?

I think WotC owns copyright in all the Star Frontiers texts. Some of the names in those texts may also be trademarks, depending on how WotC is using them in the publication/promotion of its Star Frontiers files.

So whatever the new TSR is going to publish, it presumably will not be a version of the WotC texts. (Assuming no licence.)

 

[VelvetViolet]

That's what has happened with Alternity, 2nd Edition, and I really loved the first version and have bought several of the books for the 2nd Edition. Of course, that was more a rule system than a setting.

I was disappointed that the original settings weren’t making a comeback. The original books were taken down from Drivethrurpg in 2008 after WotC’s hissy fit and never came back. I would have bought them legally if they were available.

 

[Ghost2020]

A second nod for FrontierSpace, and conversion stats for the Star Frontiers aliens to FrontierSpace are in Frontier Explorer mags, issue 23, all on DriveThruRPG.

Why cling to the past?!

FrontierSpace is an updated homage, and all the SF scenario books work with the system without too much trouble.

 

[darjr]

What is the FrimtierSpace game system like?

 

[BigJackBrass]

If they can't use any of the existing Star Frontiers IP, what will make it "Star Frontiers?"

You can replace "Star Frontiers" with "TSR" there and it's still a valid question.