wingnut_dc
Explorer
I never played Traveller, though I did roll a character once. I did have lots of fun playing Star Frontiers and would again if I could find a group that wanted to play it.
Traveller or Star Frontiers?
- Thread starter TheLe
- Start date
trancejeremy
Adventurer
Ranger REG said:
Maybe, no, yes, yes.
Not so much the campaign info (which you can't really expect in a tiny article like that in d20 Future), but there was a lot of gear in Star Frontiers that was not in d20 Future.
And yeah, the stats for the races were wrong (or at least different than the original ones, there was a thread on this when d20 Future came out over in the d20 Modern section)
I would have to say that Traveller is far more popular than Star Frontiers. First, there's the fact that Traveller has been published, in one version or another, since the late 1970's. It is still in print (GURPS Traveller, T20, Classic, and MegaTraveller) and still being supported. You can find hundreds of fan sites dedicated to Traveller and adapting it to various settings. I think I can count on my hands the number of similar sites for Star Frontiers (I could be wrong, however).
Why is Traveller more popular? Simple, easy to handle game mechanics; a game that doesn't require any fancy dice (2d6 is all you really need); a character creation system that, while often maligned, is still one of the most creative I have seen; and a modular system that is extremely easy to modify.
I think that Star Frontiers had potential, but it was squandered. Traveller existed from the beginning with an easy system to create and maintain your own universe. Star Frontiers seemed (to me at least) to almost require you to use their game universe.
For me, Traveller was a lot more fun to play than Star Frontiers. For that reason alone it is still one of my most favorite Science Fiction game systems. The fact that it is the one nearly every other SF-RPG is compared to tells you which one is more popular.
Why is Traveller more popular? Simple, easy to handle game mechanics; a game that doesn't require any fancy dice (2d6 is all you really need); a character creation system that, while often maligned, is still one of the most creative I have seen; and a modular system that is extremely easy to modify.
I think that Star Frontiers had potential, but it was squandered. Traveller existed from the beginning with an easy system to create and maintain your own universe. Star Frontiers seemed (to me at least) to almost require you to use their game universe.
For me, Traveller was a lot more fun to play than Star Frontiers. For that reason alone it is still one of my most favorite Science Fiction game systems. The fact that it is the one nearly every other SF-RPG is compared to tells you which one is more popular.
Psychic Warrior
First Post
I loved Traveller back in the day. T20 (the d20 version) wasn't too bad but lacked details on starship combat. Traveller's biggest drawback was some of the math involved (classic Travller's star system creation rules required advanced calculas - that that's just wrong). If you stripped it down Traveller could be a fast n' furious game but it could also bog down tremendously.
Star Frontiers wasn't really like Traveller at all. It was fun but for much different reasons.
Star Frontiers wasn't really like Traveller at all. It was fun but for much different reasons.
Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
Traveller also had, for my money, some of the best adventures ever. I really, really enjoyed running the FASA "Sky raiders" series, and their "Nomads of the world ocean", several of the GDW adventures were very cool too. I used to love the 'amber zones' in the travellers journal mag too... a two page synopsis that it was dead easy to create an adventure out of.
I looked over star frontiers when it came out, hoping that it would be D&D in space (D&D! In Space! How cool would that have been?) But it wasn't, and I wasn't convinced by the mechanics or the aliens (once Traveller got past the vargr (dog men) and aslan (lion men) they actually got into some cool ideas, and ALL of their aliens that I recall where heavily distinguished by their psychological differences. I loved the idea that Hivers found the idea of clubbing a sentient morally outrageous, but nuking them from orbit perfectly OK behaviour!
Cheers
I looked over star frontiers when it came out, hoping that it would be D&D in space (D&D! In Space! How cool would that have been?) But it wasn't, and I wasn't convinced by the mechanics or the aliens (once Traveller got past the vargr (dog men) and aslan (lion men) they actually got into some cool ideas, and ALL of their aliens that I recall where heavily distinguished by their psychological differences. I loved the idea that Hivers found the idea of clubbing a sentient morally outrageous, but nuking them from orbit perfectly OK behaviour!
Cheers
Pseudonym
Ivan Alias
I have played both, and while I greatly enjoy Traveller, in some undefinable way Star Frontiers was more fun, though I can attribute that to nostalgia.
As to the issue of "more popular", Traveller all the way. No contest. Better being irrelevent to the original question.
Star Frontiers never had the possibility to die during character creation, though. I always liked that.
As to the issue of "more popular", Traveller all the way. No contest. Better being irrelevent to the original question.
Star Frontiers never had the possibility to die during character creation, though. I always liked that.
Similar Threads
