What is Star Frontiers? 

Its interesting as a woman having someone offer me a checklist of things that my demographic wants and realising that pretty much none of it appeals to me. I don't want animal familiars, I don't want to play a ranger, I don't much care if I'm an anthropomorphic animal, while I like flexible solutions to conflict...the sword is often quicker than talking, I don't want to play fashion week. I like randomised character generation instead of always roleplaying myself. I'm boring, I play tabletop to be someone else...that's the point. I like ttrpgs for what they are, because what they are appeals to me. I always find it suspect when the publishing company, or other people in general, try and market things to me; not understanding that if I needed to be marketed to, I wouldn't be here in the first place

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” - Arthur C Clarke

Its not spelljammer, but its good for the same purposes.

It's easy to reach a perfect compromise with rules and settings, it's called home brew. If the DM knows their players, the game can and should be catered towards their desires and preferences.

Really insightful video. As somebody firmly in the new style of table top gamer I do think though that more people should try rolling up a character and trying to roll play them rather than making a character to suit your wants as a player, atleast just to try it and as a creative exercise

Its sounds like AJ just doesn't like the spelljammer's setting and is trying to make up reasons to avoid that cosmology EXCEPT star frontiers is annoyingly generic. Tell me why I should play that setting as opposed to Stars Without Numbers, Star Wars, Cyberpunk literally any other sci-fi setting. Spelljammer is unique, no one else has a setting like it yes it is based on ancient Greeks (and other cultures) conception of the universe which I find amusing and interesting, it rewards those who read classics and can understand a mindset that isn't entirely literal and science based, so I would be angry if WoTC didn't use spelljammer at some point.

"Que 80's Music" Excuse me while I grab my white, wrap around, slatted glasses.

I dont mind that new content is not specificly for me, I mind that the marketing strategy is have only content aimed at specificly not me. This has been the trend in every company that values the nebulous term "inclusion" at some point, tho I admit that WotC is still a long way from it, and the support for homebrew may delay this future, if not indefinetly, at least for long. In my experience inclusion only starts with new people and if the old dont like it that they are not included as well, they are told to leave... not very inclusive. Sure, make stuff to attract more people, but if you dont make content that originaly atracted the core audience, dont expect them to stay with you. Thats the quitessence of my opinion on inclusion being the marketing strategy. Dont forget the people who made your product possible, and they wont forget about you. Thats that side of the issue from the point of view of company-community interaction. From the intracommunity side, its their job to make the community welcoming, and that by definitions means gatekeeping. I found that a lot of the people championing inclusion say that the tool is universaly harmful, yet they employ it very liberaly when they want to exclude people who will inevidibly disagree with them. Gatekeeping is a tool like any other, it can be used by the racist and sexists to sho away people who would be intrested in the same stuff, but it can also be used to exclude the same jerks from ruining your personal games. Its also the perfect tool for keeping bad faith actors from subverting the community and the product - the very thing that is happening right now. With new people come those not atracted by the product, but by the success of the product, they get in, they say that they like it but would like some changes, the changes never end untill they take over the community and/or the company. Then they turn around and say that if you dont like it, leave, and that they are just making it more accesible to everyone... while making it less accesible to you. All with a final goal to make the product under their control to turn into just another corporate preaching machine. And that by chance, almost always ruins the product (in this case, the game, and the worldbuilding that is put out). Thats the conundrum we are facing. This is a very simplified version of the problem. All I can say to the community is this: welcome the new people who came in to have fun with you, but dont welcome those that do not, this includes all the people who are acting like jerks. Either they wont stop acting like that, create an insular microcommunity, or lose intrest. Either is a good result for you, but the last option is the worst for the people in question. That is all. This is not directed at you AJ, but at the situation youve stumbled on.

Well that took a sharp turn. Bit heavy-handed on the judgments there.

I'm still hoping for classic Spelljammer. Love your channel. I just disagree. 😊

I personally really dig taking old world thinking like phlogiston theory, or plato's celestial spheres and trying to extrapolate/reverse engineer them into an entire setting but I know that's not for everyone. Happy to see the editorial voice at the end. I always enjoy when a youtuber isn't afraid of their own opinion or lending their voice to important ideas. For the record I identify as he/him but still get burnt out on overly complex combat rules pretty quickly, and much prefer noir storytelling to stark black/white good/evil stuff.

Yes! Let's sacrifice everything for money! Oh, wait

Meh. Diversity and inclusion would best be handled by the DM and homebrewed campaigns.

Do understand (and even agree) on the difference between male/female play preferences _at large_ but did not get the point why because of it the Star Frontiers has to change to be published again? There are women who love lore and complicated mechanics as much as men do. Neo-DnD brought those women here, in the TTRPG space, and they would appreciate a setting that supports their "nerdyness".

early 1980s, my small friends group loved playing DND, but we were frustrated with the rules . . . and then very much enjoyed playing "Star Frontiers" and "Top Secret", among others that we tried

Love it! Your judgments are apros pos. Why would we not want our wives, girlfiends etc. to be a part of this creative outlet?

Looks like a fun setting! I got a weakness for thri-kreen in any setting. Had a bit of a laugh at your he/him bit after pointing out over 90% is male viewers for you, not a lot of ladies to get mad about it in the first place. As for your point about that I agree with you, it seems like a good thing to get a more diverse group in here. Even if I had a problem with the diversity bit, there is nothing stopping me from running an all human setting or even having premade characters for my group, where the bad guy is blatantly evil all on a close to home setting with no pets allowed. That setting even has it merits, but I might not get a nice full group interested in such a setting, so I say diversity it is!

Traveller was the go to for sci-fi games.

AJ, your videos have been keeping me sane through this lockdown (Aucklander here), and your stance on the progression of the game and how it has evolved to be more progressive made me so damn proud to support you. You're a great loremaster, and you're also a good person. Keep it up, my guy, we love you ❤️

Good stuff. Reminded me of the contrapositive of Clarke’s third law: Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced. The spinning cassette was a nice touch.

And a game I was just reminded of of when replying to someone else..if you're looking for pulp-era Steampunk in Spaaaace, I might point out the Space:1889 game? I mean, it was a tabletop game well before the computer game ever came out...

Pretty please, could you do a video on Car Wars, please? 🤔

Having magic in a setting automatically makes space travel possible. Because magic can solve all the problems that we solve with technology.

WoTC has already done a d20 version of Star Frontiers. The expansion of d20 Modern, d20 Future has the Star Law Rangers and species adaptions.

I have never heard of this game!

It would make far more sense to make a seperate female rpg.

Representation is not something you need to "fix". Yes, sure, you might want to expand (from company standpoint you get more money, from community, you get more ideas in, more variation), but if you have a mindset that you need to "fix" the gender representation in your hobby, you are on a war path with people who are already represented. And Ive seen a lot of that mindset in the past 5 years, and it never ends well. I hope WotC sees that soon and wont go down the purity spiral road.

I think that roleplaying games have come a long way from their journey from point A to point B. Being welcoming to players of all types isn't forcing diversity, it's giving the opportunity to people who may have been output by or intimidated by the complexity of rules coupled with gatekeeping. D&D is for everyone...except for assholes.

Great stuff other than the unasked gender preaching, new rules for more flexible and enjoyable playstyles is always welcome but corporate marketing campaigns designed to alienate the current userbase if they don't start abiding by the new PR policies and Ad campaigns is not only a Fantastic way to drive off the more aware and paying customer base but to aggravate and antagonize those less aware who might not enjoy being told off as if by a parent. Roleplay and enjoyment of the game and the people you are playing with is the most important thing here and adding all sorts of things which traditionally appeal to women in no way shape or form means men won't too enjoy the heck out of looking at the rules and say RPing their own Pokemon Trainer or something else they make up, after all the "A Boy and his Dog" is an old trope for a reason! It seems that while yes creating a character that is simply there to express some personal desire of ego or wish fulfillment and to embark on an RP campaign that is nothing more than cheap fun and laughs rather than a dedicated and deadly dungeon crawl is Enjoyable, however, what there Ever anything that prevented such play? Seems old hat honestly. "X% of my customers are A, what can be done about this?" seems like a terribly detached way of looking at things as if the company NEEDS to change their customer base. Everything commercial these days is about attracting women's wallets into intellectual properties which were originally built to harvest the products of men's wallets and it's doing so by, quite successfully I might add, by telling the old customer base that THEY are Immoral for not abiding by the corporate messaging in a fast enough fashion and causing a scene.

Found a Star Frontiers Boxed set at my friendly local gaming store. It was 100$. It's still there....

I have been watching your videos for over a year and half. This video was highly offensive. Just because something is 90% male does not make it bad. Not everything has to be changed to accommodate new people or players. I understand that WOTC likes to makes boat loads of money because of their addiction to magic the gathering money making cow but some things are sacred. Trying to get more people involved through cosplay and the idea that you should role play yourself is awful to me and will lead to me alienating D&D. The whole idea of D and D is to escape and play not you. As for cosplay there are groups for that already. I already don't like the superhero version of this game WOTC has set up. There is no hate towards the other sex here. I love when the group is mixed and made of all kinds of race and different genders. However the idea that the game has to bend accommodate people is terrible. There is a reason TTRPG's have been popular for decades. Lets not change that recipe to accommodate a certain group. Let them adapt to the game not the game adapting to them. I will of course continue to watch your videos because I'm not a baby and I enjoy your content. I just cant stand what you said in this video. Its just more devices political crap that pervades society these days. I come to your channel to escape not to think about societies problems and how Wotc can make more money by ruining the game. My opinion as to why there are less females in this social interaction game is because of gender norms parents lay on their children. The reason we are seeing more girls playing these days is not because D&D has changed. Its because parents are not so heavy handed with gender norms when raising their children anymore. If a girl wants war toys for Christmas parents don't start thinking she is a lesbian. Even better most progressive parents would not care if their daughter grew up to be a lesbian and would embrace their child happiness. This is a significant change in how children are raised. Hence why I think more females are playing D&D these days. The idea that Wotc should play any kind of social engineering is so offensive that it may require a Boycott for 5.5.

In my experience there hasn't been any problem or issue with being inclusive to anyone other than guys in the TTRPG(or RPG's) scene. For themes and topics like sex and violence, I always keep it on a MINIMUM (no rape, no gratuitous sex scenes and such) or none at all, but yeah, I'm always pleasantly surprised that i find some of my female friends being chill with it. My number 1 rule is, dont make your players uncomfortable and respect and have fun.

Thanks for the great history. I like the science fantasy approach because it feels more out there, where you don't understand it because you can't.

Your inference is spot on, about the inclusion. Totally the direction theyre headed

Star Frontiers was the very first science fiction role-playing game I and my original main gaming group played. We played it so often and with so many ideas, TSR simply didn't have enough material to cover all the time we played for the 2 decades we played it and we all had a hand in home-brewing the f^ck out of our SF universe, taking in aspects of every science fiction trope, show, movie, and even toy. You know that star map, even the expanded one, with the 4 major races and the few others? That's a tiny aspect of our star map... it was called the "White Light Nebula" and the "Major Race (Species)" there was called "Nebulans"... that term covered all the sapient species in that, including Humans. It's the only place in our larger star map that had more than one major sapient species in such a small area. Well, more than one that spawned off of separate worlds. The Nebulans were shocked when they used a newly built stardrive (Wormhole Spawner) to create a wormhole latched onto a far away stable natural wormhole... Its nearest habitable world had native Humans with several terraformed planets in a system called "Sol". The Terran Corporate Empire responded to the player's arrival in their really expensive (OP armed for its size) exploration ship/freighter/mining ship as if it was the first wave of an invasion. The Terrans didn't have much in the way of long-range space travel capability but eons of in-system infighting made their most basic weapons and defenses extremely dangerous. In exploring that area, it was discovered that Sathars met them first as their first alien contact. TCE were immediately hostile despite being outnumbered and out-tech'd. The "primative primate terrorists" ended up defeating the Sathars right before they were about to win, highjacking everything they had in their exploration/mining flotilla. The TCE immediately turned to reverse engineering Sathar technology, mining/terraforming Sol at a newly accelerated rate, and invaded the Sathar home system before the Sathars could finish deciding what to do. The Sathars went nearly extinct fighting the humans (TCE) back into their home system and adopted a cultural singular philosophy of what modern Sathars are now, conquerers who usually use asymmetrical warfare with top-tier espionage and the most unscrupulous technology. To keep up the fight against the constantly antagonistic Terran Corporate Empire, they started sending task forces to conquer and-or destroy beings from other worlds. The Nebulans (the player's group) found out from Sol's other neighbors that everyone from Sol is a bad neighbor, they are like Sauron's forces from the Middle Earth fantasy world... space orcs. And you know what made the player's diplomatic efforts so problematic? Most of the ship's bridge crew and marines (security officers) were Humans (native to the White Light Nebula). Nebulan Humans just didn't "look ill", Humans of Sol were slightly shorter on average, physically imperfect due to bad lifestyle choices, older-appearing because of their average lifespan being only about a mere century, often visible having bionics (cybernetic implants) to augment them or reduce the effects of aging/lifestyle/war, often visibly mutated via descendants of Genies (genetic engineered people) or war wastelands, etc. They figured out that the human mutants of Leesti (Leestians) were castaway descendants of Earth and realized why they went hostile as soon as they could. Vrusk Doctor: "Wait. Are you telling me that pounding our ship limped away from was from an empire of Leestians? I thought the Sathars were bad." Dralasite Xenologist: "From what I read from Sathar ancient comstars, they didn't use to be that bad. They..." Vrusk: "I get it. Nobody is allowed to get mad at anything I say about Humans anymore, okay?" One of my players, new at the time, chastized me about how I was being way to cynical about future humans. I told him to name me one thing, one technology, one resource, one cultural advantage, that Humans of Earth didn't exploit until it caused very bloody blowback. I told him to do that with history, anthropology, sociology, political actions that were actual actions and not just words, religion/philosophy with the same rules as politics... anything he wanted without using fiction, especially Star Trek. He left our group for three days and came back with a few books. Before he opened them up I asked "Were any of those permanent in any way without any sign of regression or getting worse?" He put the books aside and just let Sol be as I imagined it. He had his own part of the galactic map he had creative ground in... and he didn't want me to argue because he was more idealistic while I was cynically realistic. Here's the irony, he pretty much recreated TNG Klingons and Tholians.

YAAAA!ASSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!! Back in the age of ADND my favorite DM mixed this awesome gem into his campaign! It was a perfect blend of science and sorcery that allowed our barbarian to have a frigging light saber! I was playing a halfling thief who got a BFG that did massive damage that had a plus 3 bonus and 3D10 damage! Darn gun only had 5 shots a day then it had to recharge! Still a potential 33 damage blast was awesome in a barfight heck of a recoil it would knock me back five feet after firing it! Lol! That was one of my favorite campaigns!

A interesting video as always! Also since everyone taking about space rpg can you do a video on starfinder please? I got the starfinder core rule book a while ago and really like it!

My wife often watches your videos over my shoulder, normally with warnings that I better not add that monster to our game. So consider my views 50% female.

'Assemble a character to fit the role you want to play'...you mean a build system like GURPS/Hero(Champions) has had since their creation, the point-based rather than class-based system? (That may have been another point of contention about Zebulon's Guide, actually...it was trying to move more towards a fully skill-based inclusive system, as opposed to the class-style 'PSA's of the original...defining a character more on what they can do and learn to do, rather than defining them by what their class *isn't* able to do, same as old D&D classes.)

Although I consider myself a d&d'er, the first table RPG I ever played was, Star Frontiers !!!!!

Star Frontiers is still my favourite RPG. The staff of TSR was told to innovate and do something a little different from D&D in the SF realm. The combat system has rather large tables of melee and ranged modifiers, so in that aspect you have to "go to school" but you are rewarded with a fast, flexible combat system handling melee, ranged, vehicle and aerial combat all at once in furious six-second turns. I think this system out-Car Warsed Car Wars. TSR was also interested in mass-marketing TTRPG, spreading it far and wide without the need for intimate word-of-mouth from existing groups. A kid could pick up one of TSR's boxed games, read all the secrets about designing and running an adventure which Star Frontiers just GAVE AWAY, and have a decent chance of "getting it" about RPGs and spread the hobby to their friends. You went into an aside about women in gaming de-emphasizing combat and playing dress up (?) and the need for "inclusion" but what's the point of RPG if it doesn't have adventurous elements to it? A "less-represented" group whines and whinges but sooner or later has to DO something, make some EFFORT and excel at something. We need to preserve the old-school approach to RPGs. We don't need theater kids, but people who can add two-digit numbers together.

I loved this game!!! Played it back in 1985. Dralasite engineer On a cargo freighter being raided by bandits, and no weapons available. I rigged a holographic fireworks projector with a crate of laser rifle clips to take them out

Played Star Frontiers waaaaay back in the day. Had a 1st edition copy.

that rant had my abs hurt from laughing

I have a sudden craving for a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster.

I will tell you you are wrong. I will tell you this by asking you a simple question. The question is this. Why do you feel it is wrong that men and males find D&D more appealing than females do? Whoever reads this answer here in the comments please.

Feel a bit bad I slept on this back in the day. Thanks for the great video!

Actually played star frontiers as a kid. Loved the sci fi dnd setup.

I love the esoteric stuff you talk about. It brings TTRPGs deep history to the forefront. So much gaming had happened before I knew about DnD, around 1998.

The nerd gang I ran with in the 80's had been playing Traveller for a long while when Star Frontiers came out. It was (according to popular opinion) a "Science Fantasy" un-like Traveller which we agreed was "Science Fiction" (based on real current understanding of 70's science) both games were fun but required very different play styles. At the time we were all somewhat proud of our Geek, Nerd, Brainiac designation by those who were not and relished the challenge of Traveller's difficulty. I still own and run both games. The New Geeks(New Mutants X-men reference that none of them get) are my kids and their 20-something buddies. They like Traveller but have alot of difficulty living through more than one-off Traveller games. Star Frontiers, on the other hand, they run all over and demand a little more Star Wars-y flavor each time they make characters. I'm still trying to get them into a James Bond game from the 80's but I think our (time) distance from WW II and the cold war makes it a little less engaging to them. The "weird" color charts system in Zebulon's, Marvel and the 3rd..4th? edition of Gamma World was judged too hard to navigate or get excited about and this was by a group that tore through Iron Crown's MERPS endless charts and did the backwards math plus weapon type versus armor type charts of OG and 1st/2nd ed D&D. I agree with you on the Science as a backdrop point wasn't there an OGL game called Dragon Star that converted Tech/Magic in a Similar way back in the 3.5 days? I seem to remember A "dark Elf in space" character I played back in the late 90's early 00's at the game store in Pgh (pittsburgh,pa). Regardless I'd love to see Planescape, SpellJammer, and Gamma World/ MA get some modern reboots and new material. Side note to the other He/Hims Who cares if it is "supposed" to be about dressing up and getting a date for magic prom, home brew your own magic school adventures by horribly perverting the material in fact do that with all of the published material and your favorite movies, tv shows, novels, and video games. Take your inspiration from wherever it comes, you control the content at your table and that goes double for the newbies of other pronoun designations make your game run your way! "They" can't stop you, and you might get a little satisfaction out of using "Their" material for your own sick enjoyment, us old heads always did.

Very cool concept for a universe, sounds fun for sure!

Rasta-pedes sound like a Jamaican themed Pokémon.

I was so close at buying Star Frontier, but I decided to spend my money on Gazetteers for the Known World, (Mystara), instead… I've never been much of a Sci-Fi fan - well, except for everything Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy related!

is it more Sci-Fi than Sci-Fantasy? i do like a good blend of sci-fantasy if its done well =P

My longest lived rpg group (white wolf, battletech, and gurps) consisted of(not all people were at every session. 5 Women 6 men, though one went trans and became a woman, and one was gay The ladies liked the horror, and political intrigue stories most The guys liked the combat and puzzles most

AJ, you make some great points here. I've been playing since 2e and somehow I have never heard of Star Frontiers until now, so thanks for that. I agree with you that (particularly with 5e) it's really easy to just reskin stuff that already exists to make it feel like technology or sci-fi rather than magic and fantasy. I ran a brief 5e sci-fi campaign that basically just made a few minor tweaks to a few classes to emulate them using technology instead of magic and that seemed to work quite well (this was even before we had artificers). Another thing about D&D that really lends itself to doing sci-fi is the plethora of different playable races and alien-like monsters (including most aberrations of course - but whose to say you can't have dragons in space!?) I personally like the idea of a setting that has both magic and technology, where much of the advanced technology is powered by magic or by materials that are innately magical. Instead of having all of these interesting races from other planes, couldn't they just as easily have come from other worlds or perhaps some combination of the two. Maybe some worlds have a particularly strong connection to the feywild or shadowfel... anyway, this is turning into a tangent. I just feel like there's so many possibilities for interesting science-fantasy gameplay in D&D, and in 5e it's pretty easy to just re-skin things to get whatever the feel of the setting is that you're going for.

“I’m not going to pontificate…” (Proceeds to pontificate and berate his audience) “90% of you are male, what can we do about that?” “Oh I know, I can berate them and then they’ll just leave!” (Modern problems, modern solutions.)

I was mowing lawns in the summer of '80 .... saved up to buy SF thinking it would be the new DnD and I would be "in front". never happened

0:22 Answering the title question: Is it a spin-off of Heavy Metal? 5:20 . . . I need this painted on a van

One of the reason,s why I like your Channel so much is because you don't talk about politics in your video,s I got to deal with being told I,m garbage almost every where else I go you going to drag that noise in here too ?

I see no reason why women can't play dnd as it is . All that needs to be done is to break down some sterotypes about dnd and get them to try it

Although we're used to the term "Steampunk", and yes it's a more catchy term, i sometimes use and consider "Gaslamp Fantasy" as something more appropriate to fantasy settings, where "Steampunk" more akin to science fiction. But thats just me. 😅

I just hope we dont break dnd by chasing the wider audiance. (Unlikely) I prefer a deep community over a wide one. Though both is better.

Star Frontiers returned as part of the d20 Future expansion of d20 Modern in 2004 from Wizards. All of the races named were updated to 3.5ed D&D. Part of the fun of d20 future was they had multiple different types of FTL travel from ion drives (The Expanse) to jump gates (Babylon 5) to jump drives (Battletech) to warp drives (StarTrek) to teleportation portals (Star gate). This gave you rules to build your SciFi universe however you wanted.

I have to admit. I saw the title and did a little squeal (not the most masculine thing I done). This was an absolute favorite of mine growing up. Still have a lot of the original material in storage.

Space Jammer 2.0

Now do Gamma world.

It won’t be Spelljammer. It’ll be called Spelljammer but it won’t be. Original Spelljammer is a very weird thing that very few people ever got or liked. A lot of people hear the elevator pitch of “D&D in space” and let their imaginations run off with that, then are disappointed when Spelljammer is this much different than that. Wotc being soulless and corporate will likely make exactly what the normies expect and call it Spelljammer, rather than do anything as unique as Spelljammer. They’ll ruin it like they ruined Ravenloft. That’s fine, I pretty much ignore all D&D lore post 2008 anyway. What bothers me is that from now on when someone looks into Spelljammer they’ll find new Spelljammer first and are a lot less likely to find original weird Spelljammer and be charmed by it. This is the same reason I hate that stranger things show, cos now when I look up “Demogorgon” and “Mindflayer” I get results about that show first rather than the actual monsters. The obscure old thing I love shares a name with a popular new thing I hate, but then again that’s been my entire D&D experience since 2014.

I just got a packet with mats from Big Pockets/AJ Pickett - and they’re awesome!

Hmmm, maybe I should go scour the used bookstores to see if I can find an old copy of Star Frontiers somewhere. Interesting breakdown and nice video overall... until you got to "the current day". Like others have pointed out, Wizards actually did do something with the IP since buying it from TSR, it was one of the micro-settings in the "d20 Future" supplement for D20 Modern. You could be forgiven for forgetting about it though, it was less then a page of the book, sandwiched next to Alternaty, and buried under a bunch of other micro-settings that weren't all that good. Much like Modern in general, Wizards hasn't done anything with the IP since. And given how the 5E Spelljammer supplement basically flopped and Wizards has gone completely "persona non gratis" in a matter of months in most of the hobby space, that's probably just as well. Regarding "the list"... god this was painful to watch. The "Age of the Neckbeard" was not a happy time for me in the hobby but if this is "progress" then maybe I'm better off with Gary Gygax Jr. after all. As for where you go wrong; you start off with a Disney Princess. Your first couple items are literally classic princess troupes so classic I'm surprised Disney isn't suing you. First coherent item on the list and we're technically at "chainmail bikini" levels of impracticality if not sexism as well. Does the hypothetical class have a capstone ability where the princess summons a Prince Charming to save her from her problems? "Anime furry girls" Okay yes I am paraphrasing here but at the same time you are clearly just throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks. Granted, more options are (usually) better then fewer but what do Nekos and their counterparts have to do with femininity and being more accessible? And why stop short of full furries? Is someone scared of having "strange feelings" for a living cuddle toy? =P "More options for conflict resolution and less railroady Good versus Evil adventure plots." Quite possibly the only intelligent thing you said in this whole unnecessary segment and it still falls very short. Flexibility in resolving conflict is called "being a competent GM" and while it would certainly help the hobby, it is not really Wizards' responsibility to educate game masters in how to "not suck." And after the OGL and Pinkerton controversies of 2023, Hasbro-Wizards definitely doesn't have the RIGHT to set a standard for competence, let alone morality, in the hobby either. As for railroady adventures... again, that's called "being a competent GM." And honestly, the most railroady adventures I've played or read are Paizo's Starfinder Adventures, adventures which rarely have anything to do with classic Good versus Evil morality plays. Seriously, where do they get some of those writers... "More Diversity and Inclusion is good." If it's at the expense of Competence and Talent, like it has been, then no it's not. Besides, those words have become empty buzzwords, corporate speak uttered by soulless suits guilty of the same sins they accuse others of. "If you have trouble accepting this..." So not only do you have no argument but you have no maturity as well? Good to know.

As someone who spent much of last year GMing a 5E campaign rigged and improvised to fit a sci-fi setting-- I feel like Fantasy has the luxury of Magic being all-encompassing for supernatural abilities and clearly distinct from the mundane; wherein an SF setting could have psionics, Clarke's 3rd Law Tech, etc. The party's de facto leader was a Ranger class archetypal space smuggler who could use Pass Without Trace; but because we had been using space-age tech to justify most magical effects, the "Except By Magical Means" bit became "detectable by everyone in this higher-tech planet". It was always something that could be worked around, to be sure; but I think 5E's rules stratify its specific High Fantasy Kitchen Sink setting(s) in a way that puts a kind of gravitational pull on any attempt to stray too far from it.

You can pick this up on drive thru rpg. I played this game when I was a teenager 😊 ty for bringing this rpg up 😊

Sadly, another book that's not my cup of tea.

I'd be thrilled to see some Dark Sun content. There is very little about DS monsters that I've been able to find online. With psionics, even monsters with animal-like intelligence become endlessly complex, like the megapede, or gaj.

Love this, I'm super for inclusion and your outro here really gets the brain firing for home brewing whatever WotC do next to make it more appealing for our players.

" .. the final frontier will not be found in the stars, but within ourselves, it is just among the stars is where we will find ourselves." Paraphrasing Captain Kirk.

I played Star Frontiers back in the day when I was a kid, so I was really excited to see this week’s UA. Definitely going to play the race that is the DnDized version of the Dralasite.

I don’t see how dungeons and dragons or any game catering to men is a problem, if they even do that. D&D is just a system for telling interesting stories. You don’t even need most of the rules in any of the books to play. I think worrying about how people perceive a product is a slippery slope since you can’t control how people interpret what you say and do and emphasis on presentation can detract from quality.

Great. I still have a set from the 80s, along with Top Secret. I remember it being fun but it didn’t have a wide following.

Okay, I sorta remember this. Didn't play a game, but I remember reading... stories? My memory is cloudy, but I remember books. Either choose-your-own-adventure or stories based on the game. I definitely remember the flying-squirrel-monkey dudes.

WE made our own ship to ship combat rules, because you know. Space Pirates. =D

Had a tremendous blast playing Star Frontiers (just realized the "SF" abbreviation is no longer exclusive in the hobby) Only played in one campaign but it lasted about 22months. I played some kind of flying squirrel/ape gunslinger.

Yes, what is Star Frontiers?

ooohhh, are we going to be dipping into the grey pages of the Ares section of Dragon?

Hey aj I have a odd question for you. Do you consider the minsc and boo journal of villainy canon?

10:00 .. " Science fiction with actually science." Start with 3e, few years before 3.5e. Wizard creates a Wall of Iron into a tube, follow with hammering copper or iron plates on it to create another tube of metal that can not just be Dispel. The tube has separate chambers within it. One has a magic item that creates Wall of Ice, another magic item creates Wall of Fire and Lightning Bolt. So without showing any art work you just created a Steam Thrust Power Rocket. With WotC D&D3rdE/Star Wars given items hardness/hp .. per .. cm/in of material needing to break or destroy such as a shield, blast door, or rock wall. We applied that into turning a Wall of Fire into a tight spiral to melt through a stone wall or iron door. Fire that hot will separate hydrogen from oxygen with extreme heat and under pressure create .. plasma. Take a Sphere of Force and within it create a Wall of Ice/ sphere or thick chuck of ice wrapped with a Wall of Fire, couple of Fire Balls and to agitate it with Lightning Bolts. Now you have a Plasma Ord just waiting to go off under pressure. This is dealing with 10th-level arcane spellcaster using 5th-level spells or under. 2.) Stage Two, with 7th-level magic creating a Reverse Gravity trap. a.) Plasma cutting torch made from a Spiral Wall of Fire with Lightning Bolts traveling down its center. b.) Then Reverse Gravity draws the destroyed vapor into the Orb/Sphere of Force. Compress under multiple gravity fields. c.) Once the Sphere is over loaded it turns into a Plasma Nova.

Pan galactic gargle blaster

I completely agree regarding "using magic as technology." I've been a fan of that idea ever since Eberron was released (accept of course Eberron is more magic INSTEAD OF technology)! 😆

This video straight made me 😊. Thanks AJ.

So basically it's spelljammer

i had one of those books somehow. did one come as a sample in the old dnd boxset?

(I made a promise) "Grognarg... I will never let go"!!!! (Grognarg is one-hit KO'd by the bottom of the chasm)

Just spent five minuets reading through the comments. Wow, these boys seem really high strung, almost looking to get offended. Tip of the cap to you for putting out so many amazing videos, and for having the patience to put up with all the dross. Keep going you are really appreciated.

Would love to get retro with this.

I was unfamiliar with this, but somehow it made me think of Mass Effect but with an eighties vibe. And considering that BioWare never made a secret of their love for tabletop RPG's (like DnD) I wouldn't be surprised if Star Frontier inspired them.

The crystal spheres of Spell Jammer are just Dyson spheres.

There're people who like being railroaded?

"Dungeons & Dragons Plus."

Omg Star Fontiers!!! Gotta dig out my Vrusk and Yasarian

Tbh with you aj, I'm kinda exited to see this setting and spelljamer Being added to 5e. But at the same time in kinda expecting it to be at best a mixed bag with dumbed down mechanics and lore. Here's hoping it's good or atkeast results in good lore vids and homebrew And in my limited experience tabletop isn't hurting for girl players. And sense you brought it up; He/they. Gay. And my introduction to this hobby was a girl in highschool back in 2013 who dmd a 2e campaign. Also the dragon lance books. I just don't trust corpos