Greetings Sentient Beings! First Post
Greetings sentient beings of the worldwide web. I am Laura and I enjoy a variety of old games. I used to play D&D, Gamma World, Star Frontiers and dabbled in many others regularly in my youth. Several years ago; after not playing any RPGs for years; on a lark I decided to recollect one of my favorite discontinued RPGs from my youth. Little did I know that this one game would launch me not only back into playing again but discovering my favorite old game was alive and well in the hands of fans. Star Frontiers despite years of no official support had continued to evolve and develop. A healthy fan base still exists and new people discover it regularly proving a good fast fun game will always be around in some shape or form. I am currently playing a variety of games, however Science Fiction based games have always been my love, thus my blog title of Bubblegum Space Opera. Another surprise for me was the request by folks on the net that I start writing articles for Star Frontiers play system. This request was a true shock as I have never considered my writing skills to be my strongest academic ability. I now even look forward to working on various projects and articles for the old game.
Though I reserve the right to blog about what ever I want to, in all honesty it will be about all things Science Fiction.
First up the old 1975 TSR game Star Probe by John M. Snider. I am currently running a game to explore how it changed from it's original form to it's more complex form of Star Empires The Game of Galactic Conquest also by John M. Snider circa 1977. My ultimate play goals are to better integrate ideas from these games into the latter Star Frontiers or even update Star Empires as it is clear the latter Knight Hawk rules for spaceship combat had their origins in these two older games. This project is a bit fluid as to how it will settle out but so far has been fun which in the end is why I love games and sci-fi. I will be posting the adventures of the crew of the spaceship T'tet as it explores space for the T'zkt-klt Collective and my adventures in trying to figure out old rule systems.
Happy Gaming!
Dean Ellis' cover for the 1978 edition of Agent of Chaos (1967), Norman Spinrad
Looking forward to reading more. I have purchased the 1976 game of Diplomacy by Avalon Hill. Thinking about meshing it with Star Probe/Empires for use at the strategic level and then, as mentioned in another post, utilizing the Colonial Troopers rules by Steve Perrin and Thomas Denmark at the individual level. I love Star Frontiers and even own the original box set. If CT doesn't pan out, then I may consider switching over. My first love is fantasy, old school D&D, etc. But after reading about the Star Probe connection to D. Arneson's "Blackmoor" campaign, I decided to give SF RPGs another shot. Best wishes and thanks for starting up this Blog.
ReplyDeleteI look forward to seeing how Diplomacy works out. I will be adding things as I get to them... real life tends to slow down my fun in playing, converting and analyzing old games. I started playing D&D in my youth and honestly the oldest versions of D&D and GW are on my favorite list along with Star Frontiers. Like you I discovered the Star Probe cross over to D&D and a few other old TSR games and that started the whole crazy idea to explore them. The first old game we play tested was the discontinued Warriors Of Mars.
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