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.

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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[dynath]

No they aren't. The name of anything can be trademarked. Klingon is a race name and its trademarked. The description and likeness of a race is copy-written. The name can be copy-written, particularly when used in context of the setting but if it is used as an identifying aspect of how you do business it can be trademarked. Illithid can by trademarked. All it has to be is original enough it is identified as a unique identity of you doing business.

 

[Morrus]

Here's a radical thought.... Has anyone simply asked Evil Hat what they've got in mind?

So radical that yes, I did. Fred said there was nothing to report yet other than that a trademark had been applied for -- which is exactly what I wrote.

He's also posted in this thread.

Then I speculated, as did everybody else, as a conversation is no fun without a healthy dose of speculation.

 

[Bruce Heard]

They can also be trademarks under US law.

They can, but the point is that whether some terms are or aren't trademarked, contents most definitely remain covered under copyright laws anyway. That doesn't change. Splitting hair on this issue won't alter the fact that copyrighted material still stays under the owner's control. Whoever owns the trademark "Star Frontiers" still can't use the art and materials clearly related to the game world and the product's original design. I've no idea why it's so hard for people to understand this.

 

[aramis erak]

They can, but the point is that whether some terms are or aren't trademarked, contents most definitely remain covered under copyright laws anyway. That doesn't change. Splitting hair on this issue won't alter the fact that copyrighted material still stays under the owner's control. Whoever owns the trademark "Star Frontiers" still can't use the art and materials clearly related to the game world and the product's original design. I've no idea why it's so hard for people to understand this.

Game rules are explicitly NOT protected by copyright in the US, but the wording of the rules can be (unless it's specific enough that rewording changes its meaning) (US copyright circular #1), under the process exclusion (in 17 USC §102).
Thus, a rules retroclone is doable, but won't have the races, race names, nor the setting.

Based upon what Morrus has said, It looks to me like a potential leverage for seeking a setting and/or rules literal-text license...

... not unlike what Mongoose did with RuneQuest.

 

[Bruce Heard]

Game rules are explicitly NOT protected by copyright in the US, but the wording of the rules can be (unless it's specific enough that rewording changes its meaning) (US copyright circular #1), under the process exclusion (in 17 USC §102).
Thus, a rules retroclone is doable, but won't have the races, race names, nor the setting.

Based upon what Morrus has said, It looks to me like a potential leverage for seeking a setting and/or rules literal-text license...

... not unlike what Mongoose did with RuneQuest.

So what? If you don't have what makes Star Frontiers interesting, why bother? The game mechanics per se are ok, but so are plenty of others out there that are more prevalent in the industry. Seems hardly worth it.

 

[aramis erak]

So what? If you don't have what makes Star Frontiers interesting, why bother? The game mechanics per se are ok, but so are plenty of others out there that are more prevalent in the industry. Seems hardly worth it.

Mongoose went and grabbed the trademark for RuneQuest when Greg Stafford went to get it, AH having abandoned it.

Mongoose then went to Greg and used the trademark to coerce a license for Glorantha out of Greg ... it worked. Greg got ownership of the trademark, and Mongoose got to produce a (often said to be substandard) version of RuneQuest using the Glorantha setting.

The use of Star Frontiers for a totally unrelated except in high concept setting would be no better and no worse than what was done with New BSG... lots of free press for a story that really didn't have much to do with the older one except for a few names and the high concept; the character concepts weren't even the same.

Or, going back a bit, the 1978-1980 Buck Rogers was a completely new take on the IP - the characters' personalities were retained, as was the 500 year gap, but the rest? totally different. And, for 1.25 seasons, it worked on TV...

The real question about it in a new setting context is, "Is the extant fanbase enough to generate useful spin, and not so much that it ruins the saleability?"

With Alternity, which had multiple settings anyway, and none in the core, the answer was seen to be "Yes, enough for spin, not so much as to ruin sales"...

Now, if it's faithful to the original in the setting, and reasonably close (but modernized) in rules, it might hit a sweet spot in the nostalgia market... much like S&W Whitebox does.

 

[Morrus]

So what? If you don't have what makes Star Frontiers interesting, why bother? The game mechanics per se are ok, but so are plenty of others out there that are more prevalent in the industry. Seems hardly worth it.

Brands have value.

 

[Bruce Heard]

I'll wait and see. If this has of Star Frontiers just the name, I won't bother.

 

[Sir Phalanx]

Leave it to the Internet to blow a not-yet-approved trademark application all out of proportion with rampant unfounded speculation.

Isn't this what the Internet was made for?????

 

[Sir Phalanx]

What I loved about Star Frontiers was the setting. Having played all of the incarnations (Alpha Dawn Percentile, Zeb's Guide Charts, SF2000 Homegrown and d20 conversion), the mechanics really didn't matter in any of the games I played. I did find d20 easy and fast, but that might be because most players have played D&D forever, so it was easy to pick up. The setting was closer to Hard SciFi as opposed to Space Opera. There were laser pistols and rifles, but you had to keep track of energy usage (2 full power shots would wipe out your battery), so many players use a backpack energy source to get more shots off. Have a kinetic weapons such as a gyrojet pistols or shotguns would come in handy because of that as well. There were shields to block damage, but they required energy from a power belt or backpack as well. Hovercars were common, but there were jetcopters as well, especially in the remote areas. FTL existed, but you need to get to 1% the speed of light to activate it. With a 1G acceleration, that was a 4 day ride. You would have to decelerate at your destination as well. No anti-grav plating, so the starships were more like towers. If not accelerating, you would float in space, just like real life! The core planets were hi-tech and run by megacorps, but the planets farther away were very much like the wild west. Add some interesting races with their own motivations and you could adventure in many different forms. I still haven't seen many other settings with this much flexibility in them. I hope EvilHat does it right, just don't be evil!