Frontier Space is a great game, and you can use it for something other than just playing Star Frontiers.
I know, heresy, and isn't that what this blog is about?
You can also play in the official Frontier Space universe, which is adaptable enough to take any of your favorite sci-fi races and find them a home somewhere in that galaxy. You would be in a game that feels like Star Frontiers but is free of IP restrictions.
Of course, if you wanted to write Frontier Space adventures, you would need to steer clear of any IP owned by Wizards and in the Star Frontiers game. There may be a more significant community benefit to supporting the universe DWD Studios built and opportunities for you to write and express yourself in this space and share with fans and other creators. My OSR side is calling to me and saying it is always wiser to support open IPs so the community can contribute.
Sector Crawling
If you feel the original Star Frontiers setting was too limiting, use the one DWD created, or make your own! I can see playing a Traveller-style campaign where you explore space, create random subsectors, and have adventures on worlds in a near-infinite galaxy. This sounds equally fun as playing through the old Volturnus modules and gives you a vast DIY star map that you custom create for your campaign.
And yes, we eventually did find the Star Frontiers setting was a bit underdeveloped, and it did not support random map generation all that well. This was also one thing Traveller did way better than Star Frontiers, although Traveller's generation system needed to be less statistical and more explorational. This is one case where I could see using GURPS Space's excellent and detailed system generation system to create complete and robust system profiles, though the one in Frontier Space does a great job too.
Typically you need a reason "why" a massive area of space needs to be mapped and explored, primarily if already populated and spacefaring worlds exist as a part of the generation system. It could be the universe is pulling itself out of a long and prolonged "dark ages" and just starting to reconnect the galaxy. The dark ages could have been caused by war, a space anomaly that prevented FTL from working, or even a massive nearby star going supernova that shut down all FTL within a thousand lightyears for a few hundred years. Perhaps this massive energy pulse destroyed all electronics, computers, data storage, and power generation and sent many systems into ruin and barbaric pre-technology levels. Some civilizations may have never recovered or descended into chaos and anarchy.
The post-supernova sector crawl feels like a great campaign idea, similar to the sector crawl setup in the excellent Stars Without Number campaign. The "great silence" and following reconnecting, exploring, and rediscovery game feels like one I want to play since it is that pure hex-crawl discovery I love.
Movies or Video Games: The RPG
Frontier Space does an incredible Mass Effect-style game, and I could see getting lost in that universe for a long time with this set of rules. And yes, you could play an "Aliens" style game, but everyone does that these days. For Cyberpunk, I would look for a more Cyberpunk game, though it is possible here. Any sci-fi videogame or movie is possible with these rules, and there is a section in the Referee's guide better explaining all the options. Halo, Outer Worlds, and even Fallout are also strong options. Also, pay attention to starship tabletop wargames such as Twilight Imperium or Billion Suns. And 4X computer games in sci-fi universes are also exciting opportunities to create a new and unique campaign.
Wargame: The RPG
Honestly, this is what I am doing with Knight Hawks and my current game, but you could do this with any sci-fi wargame and use Frontier Space as "the wargame RPG."
Battletech comes to mind, and FS would make a good BT RPG. Yes, there is an official BT RPG, but I honestly like a 2d6 Traveller-like system for the RPG system (Cepheus Deluxe or Hostile come to mind). Still, FS also does an excellent job with the genre, provided you can convert skill levels between the systems to keep the wargame numbers for the BT 2d6 system balanced and mesh well with FS characters.
Would I like to see an updated Knight Hawks? Yes, I would love a non-IP limited OSR-style ship combat game with an updated combat system, ship design, and all sorts of hard sci-fi crunchy goodness using the FS rules. I know FS has a ship combat system that uses hexes, but it feels a little on the simple side at first glance.
The FS weapon list is much more exciting and varied than the KN weapon list, and it feels similar to the one we developed for our campaign. I should probably give the FS starship combat rules a try before I dismiss them entirely, but I like the hard sci-fi Knight Hawks and the almost primitive weapons they have on these ships.
We did an extensive overhaul of Knight Hawks in our game and added a ton of weapons and special equipment, but given IP and rights, releasing this could only be done as fan material.
So while I am playing my SF campaign with the Knight Hawks rules, I will likely end up in a more extensive campaign doing the FS ships and combat system once I start playing other types of games and universes with the system. For the Volturnus series, I want to stick closer to the original game's starship tech since that will have a significant impact on the endgame plot.
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