TL9 Star Frontiers

We loved Star Frontiers; the races, story, and sandbox universe were perfect for us. This game (and Aftermath) killed AD&D for us growing up. The universe here was fun, but we quickly outgrew the rules. Within a year, the game had broken down, many characters had over 100% skills and attributes, and it was clear the game was a short-term-only system.

Our love for this game was so intense that we couldn't resist the urge to push its boundaries. We experimented with various rule systems, trying to find the perfect fit. However, our enthusiasm waned over time, and we eventually lost interest.

My attempt at a GURPS conversion was challenging. I struggled to get the ship combat mechanics right, a crucial game aspect. I aimed for an Interstellar Wars vibe, but the system quickly proved frustrating. GURPS Spaceships, with its lighter-weight design and combat system, including a map-less combat option, is a promising alternative that I am eager to try.

This strange problem in GURPS is that it adopts a starship scale, sticks to huge negative modifiers for range (like -39), and gives weapons huge to-hit bonuses (like +33) on a 3d6 scale. It should all be factored out and simplified. Give me a starship combat system that uses regular 3d6 to hit numbers!

I like the SF universe and GURPS. Converting them is difficult, like any conversion.

One part about GURPS for science fiction is that it goes hard. Really hard. You can play lighter-weight science fantasy in it. Still, if you want the entire, to-the-millimeter starships made out of scaffolding, exposed engines, solar panels unfurled, fuel tanks running low, spaceplane attached, and life-support pods, hard sci-fi experience, it is right here.

This is the good stuff, TL9 hard sci-di, before 1G reactionless engines, where you take weeks and months in space travel. Where your "spaceship" isn't this made for a videogame enclosed hull, but a scaffolding holding habitation pods, engines, fuel tanks, cargo pods, and electronics bays together. You can also have military ships in this configuration with reinforced structures, weapons pods, and armor, and this isn't "movie sci-fi." These ships are floating superstructures that throw missiles, railguns, and lasers downrange.

There are no personal energy weapons in TL9, just high-tech guns. Sometimes, the game's original design overdid the attacks versus defenses, trying to match suits and screens to different attack types.

Doing a Star Frontiers at TL9 would be interesting. It would be set in an early-era frontier setting. I would put the races' home worlds on the map (Prengular, Dramune, Ktsa-Kar, and Araks). There would be UPF once the Sathar showed up and the defense alliance was worked out. No Volturnus, not yet; that is late-stage campaign stuff. This is the pre-First Sathar War era.

At this point, the four races are colonizing worlds and integrating their societies. The principal colony worlds will likely be the "places of adventure," and just exploring and finding the mysteries of those will sustain a game. Places like Truane's Star, Athor, White Light, Timeon, and others will be enough "mystery planets," and rolling the campaign back to an earlier point gives each one of those worlds a creative "reset" and allows me to create places of mystery and other exploration challenges.

Part of this galaxy's original problem is focusing too much on Volturnus and not enough on the core worlds. This is a John Carter of Mars thing, but there should be more detail and mystery to what we already have rather than making the rest of the universe unimportant compared to the new shiny.

The ships in a TL9 game would be slower, and those cool dispersed structure ships instead of the Star Wars-like "boats in space," which are getting tired these days. Give me the realistic starships of Interstellar, Ad Astra, and The Martian any day. Those are my gold standards in the genre.

I don't like the "flying hotels" that most sci-fi starships have become. They are too modern, serve as instant bases and fire support, and turn any sci-fi adventure into "fly up and blast it!" Many Traveller adventures go out of their way to say why "the ship isn't available because..." The same-old Millennium Falcon syndrome "flying space RV" sci-fi ships get stale and boring.

I never liked Traveller's Scout-Courier starship. It was too easy a ship to own, use, and land on planets anywhere players liked. The design was fun, and the look is iconic, but for adventures, it is far too easy and eliminates much of the fun of exploring and getting out of the ship. I am probably in the minority here, but these have never worked out well for our groups. Yes, a VTOL space plane is similar but much more fragile and needs to return to the mother-ship after dropping passengers off. You can't "live inside it," and you must protect it.

I would rather the "ship" be like a space station in orbit, where the best it can do is run communications when it passes by and launch space planes down to the planet's surface. The best you have is a space plane, and that is it. If sticking around is too dangerous (most of the time, leaving is safer), it flies back up to the ship, and you are setting up a camp. The space planes may also serve as the ship's "fighters," so they may have a use being in orbit, more than sitting parked so random space aliens can crawl into it.

Otherwise, hard sci-fi Star Frontiers all the way. I don't want the lasers and "defense game," which was silly. Just the races, universe, and metaplot. I don't wish to see "space RVs" and have easy space travel. Most of the adventures are planet-based. Being in a starship crew is like working in a nuclear sub.

It may split character types between "starship crews" and "away teams," with different skills needed in each area. This is where the lore and expectations of character creation split hugely. I may just want to play the "away teams" for planetary adventures and have the starship crew be GURPS Ultra Lite characters who do things in the background. Being a "generalist" who is expected to fly ships, fix things, have personal combat, be skilled in melee, and 101 other things will reduce your enjoyment of the game and put too much stress on creating a character. It is better to specialize where you can eventually become a "do it all" in Star Frontiers and Traveller in GURPS.

This is also where I went wrong on my first conversion attempt. I built a do-it-all guy, and he did nothing well. Even in the ship combat system I used, he sucked terribly, and he was not fun to play either on the ground or in space. I would rebuild him as a starship guy first and not go hard into combat, exploration, or even mechanical areas.

Exploration and ground skills? Areas for improvement. But he has to be able to fly and fight in space competently over everything else. This is GURPS; your character must do a few things well or become "so what" generalists. The heavy negative modifiers for anything challenging will take your generalist and turn them into a do-nothing and terrible character to play.

Don't fear those 18- skills! The negative modifiers for doing anything cool stack up fast.

Your "ship crew" may never see personal combat or firefights or have the skills. Pilots, technicians, scientists, medical people, sensor operators, communication specialists, weapons system operators, pilots, and robots will be there. You can play the ship crew instead of the away team; that is fine.

The ground crew will look like typical GURPS adventurers and have survival skills. Your ground-based adventures will be very survival, science, and combat-oriented. This allows you to focus on character design better and enjoy the game.