My first exposure to Star Frontiers was an ad in a Marvel comic book. Then a friend brought their copy to a Scout camping trip, and it was ON. Interesting aliens, a simple d100 system, some cool illustrations and amazing cover art, I didn’t even notice as a player that the ship rules were in a different boxed set, Knight Hawks. But when we did get and play Knight Hawks, it was, and remains, one of my favorite fast-playing systems for big starship combat.
I rolled up a Yazirian, monkey-like aliens with light-sensitive eyes and membranes between their limbs that allow them to glide like flying squirrels. There were no classes, but their were Primary Skill Areas, or PSAs, that made some skills cost more or less. I took the Military PSA, and grabbed martial arts and energy weapons. I was gonna be a laser-toting Kung Fu berzerker monkey.
What? I was like 12. At least I didn’t roll up a Yazirian small-time gambler named “Coochaka the Bookie.”
We had a lot of fun with Star Frontiers, though it was supplanted at Scout activities by Traveller, mostly because the little black books fit better in our backpacks, and the index-cards we used for character sheets fit better, too. But we continued to play Star Frontiers at home- and there were aspects of the game I just loved. Some was equipment. The Electric Sword and Shock Glove, illustrated on the bottom of page 27 of the Expanded Rules booklet, stuck with me so much that I integrated the sword-and-glove fighting style into my MechWarrior games. The Standard Equipment Pack on page 8 of the Basic Game Rules became a charity package handed to new immigrants to the Frontier as they stepped off the ships that brought them there via cold sleep. And let’s not forget the Explorer - a giant 70s van with which to explore strange, new worlds. I found a real version in history with the Arctic Snow Cruiser, and the Soviet Union’s Kharkovchanka.
So, the game uses d100, roll-under as its core mechanic. Most skills are based on half the supporting abilities, plus 10% per level of skill. But boy, howdy, are there exceptions. Some skills have quite a few exceptions, to the point that each skill is kind of a subsystem of its own - see Psychosocial or the Computer skill. The skills list is short compared to a lot of other games, but covers decent ground. The equipment is fun, and very 80s- the Gyrojet, or cone, weapons make an appearance here as they do in many of my favorite 80s games. Let’s see who we can see.
Character Creation System:
We begin by rolling d100 for each ability pair- the score we get from the Ability Score Table will apply to both abilities in the pair. The pairs are Strength/Stamina, Dexterity/Reaction Speed, Intelligence/Logic, and Personality/Leadership. Let’s warm up the GaryCon dice, and…
- STR/STA : 45
- DEX/RS: 35
- INT/LOG: 70/70 (A double-0!)
- PER/LDR: 40
OK, so we have a character who has average strength and stamina, is a little less dextrous and fast, but extremely intelligent, and not entirely a born leader or stage persona. Now we choose a race.
Humans can add five points to any one score (not pair) due to their adaptability. Dralasites, blobs of protoplasm that can take almost any rigid shape, lose a bit of DEX/RS in exchange for STR/STA. They can also learn to detect lies in other sentients. Vrusk are insect-like, with a lower STR/STA but higher DEX/RS, and can comprehend body language cues and social customs. And then there’s the Yazirians, which we discussed before, who lose a lot of strength (-10) but gain +5 to DEX/RS and INT/LOG. Plus, they’re able to glide, see in the dark, and go into a berzerker rage. OK, I think I’ll go with my beloved Yazirians and make a berserking science type.
Skipping the step where humans adjust their abilities, we come to a point where all characters can move up to ten points out of one ability in a pair into the other ability in that pair. I think we’ll take -10 to Leadership to bring Personality up. This character is no leader, he’s a scientist with a genetically mandated temper. But he can be fun at the laboratory holiday parties.
The following step says we divide RS by 10, rounding up, to get Initiative Modifier. OK, that’s a 4. Then we move on to racial abilities, and get Gliding, Night Vision, and a 5% chance to go into Battle Rage. The following step has us designate our Yazirian as right-handed. Then we settle on a male character, and give him a name. Doctor RRawaal.
Equipment, you can roll d100+250 for starting credits. 270cr total. The option is here to buy the Standard Equipment Pack for 250, which we do, for story reasons. Huh. Interesting. I know I have to pick a PSA and skills, but the summary ends here… OK, we go to the skills section on page 11 where it says each character has to choose a PSA and then two skills in which to receive Level 1, one of which must be included in their PSA.
We’ll take the Biosocial PSA, and choose the Environmental skill. Now we get one other skill. Hmmm. We could take a combat skill for self-defense, or maybe a technological skill. Or give him Medicine or Psycho-Social and be a double-doc. Hmmm. Yeah, we’re going to take Psycho-Social and double-down on the exploration skills. So, without further adieu...
The Character:
Doctor RRawaal came to the Frontier with a credit balance of cr22 and the clothes in which he climbed into the cold sleep pod for the journey. Trained at the University of Gralgaar on the Yazirian homeworld, RRawaal wanted to see the unsettled worlds of Frontier Space, and help push the envelope of explored lands and Yazirian colonies.
RRawaal holds a doctorate in Planetology, with a minor in Deep Space Psychology, allowing him to look to the mental health of his fellow expedition members. He has expertise in planetary surveying after a graduate field assignment to a formerly inhabited moon in Yazirian space. With this practical experience, he finished his dissertation on “Team Survival Under Forward Exoplanetary Conditions.”
After losing his temper with a colleague on the field assignment, the University “offered” him transfer to the Frontier on a research sabbatical. They paid for his one-way ticket, and ensured he would be issued a set of basic belongings and a temporary room aboard station once he arrived. From there, he had two years to produce something of value to the University in the field of Planetology if he ever wanted tenure. The twist was, upon arriving and being unceremoniously given his rucksack with the pre-purchased gear, RRawaal fell in love with the idea and experience of “frontier” life.
Today, the good Doctor is looking for an exploratory crew or expedition with which to sign on, hoping to explore one of the many planets catalogued but not yet studied. Volturnus looks interesting.
My Thoughts:
Star Frontiers is a game that has fueled my sci-fi imagination for decades. It still does. It's one of my favorite go-tos for night time reading, and I keep finding little details that give me adventure ideas. Like on the table for hiring NPCs, they assign names to NPCs with the various weapon skills - Star Soldiers, Marksmen, and Space Marine. That tiny detail made me think... well, if Space Marines use laser weaponry, and Star Soldiers use gyrojet weaponry, does it then follow that there are organizations that have personnel by those names in the same way we have Airmen, Soldiers and Marines? Who are the Star Soldiers, do they belong to Spacefleet? The Landfleet introduced in Dragon Magazine? And what about the Space Marines? Are they carried on Spacefleet vessels? How many?
That's something I miss about 80s games in general. There's so much packed into the 60 pages of Star Frontiers, a simple saddle-stapled B&W book with an awesome Elmore cover. Many games were like this, one or two books of 80 pages or less that contained enough material for years of play. Star Frontiers developed a following, and there is an excellent fan magazine that comes out periodically called Star Frontiersman, it's available on DriveThruRPG. That kind of staying power says something - as does the fact that Wizards of the Coast has put Star Frontiers up for legal download on DriveThru as well.
Check Star Frontiers out, it may have a system that's definitely a product of the 80s, but even if you don't dig the mechanics, there's a lot of inspiration here for your games.
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