STARFIRE the Roleplaying Game

[Capt JT Kohonez]

I'm sure at least some of you have heard of STARFIRE by SDS originally put out by Armarillo Design. It's also a series of by books by David Weber and Steve White.

 

Has anyone considered turning this into a full blow RPG universe?

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: STARFIRE the Roleplaying Game

 

Nope.

 

 

It could work. If you wanted the PCs to be involved in ship-ship combat I think you'd have to change some things, or go through characters quickly. And scaling things down to more "Star Trek"-ey sizes concerning #'s of ships floating around would be better IMO than the Weberesque thousands of ships/side in some battles.

 

But the basic universe is a good one.

 

Could even have players make up races, do a New Empires-type game for awhile, then run an RPG in the resulting universe.

[Old Man]

Re: STARFIRE the Roleplaying Game

 

SSSSSSAAAAA(BbS)GG(I)LR(II)RMgH(CIC)(I)(II)LhQ(I)(II) [6/3] ?

[Edsel]

Re: STARFIRE the Roleplaying Game

 

A couple of times I have thought about using some of the galactic maps I have generated in Starfire into an area to run Star Hero games. But that is about as far as it went.

[Archon]

Re: STARFIRE the Roleplaying Game

 

SSSSSSAAAAA(BbS)GG(I)LR(II)RMgH(CIC)(I)(II)LhQ(I)(II) [6/3] ?

 

It's been awhile, but I'd say that's a light command cruiser. Maybe a command destroyer design. But you forgot the missile defenses. Oh, wait, it's pre-point defense.

[Edsel]

Re: STARFIRE the Roleplaying Game

 

45 Hull Spaces, It's a CL.

[BobGreenwade]

Re: STARFIRE the Roleplaying Game

 

I've actually been pondering for some time going in the opposite direction: using HERO to represent entire civilizations, with or without individuals, fighting using the Mass Combat rules (and using other extensions of the existing rules for other functions).

[Curufea]

Re: STARFIRE the Roleplaying Game

 

I've got Starfire - I mainly bought it because it was by the same company that did SFB (at least at one stage in their lives) and it looked like a simple system. Plus it had ship design rules and interesting campaign rules.

I hadn't realised that people had set stories in that universe though. I'll have to look them up now.

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: STARFIRE the Roleplaying Game

 

I've got Starfire - I mainly bought it because it was by the same company that did SFB (at least at one stage in their lives) and it looked like a simple system. Plus it had ship design rules and interesting campaign rules.

I hadn't realised that people had set stories in that universe though. I'll have to look them up now.

 

Of the books, Insurrection is my favorite. Crusade is pretty good too. The others get a little too ridiculous as tech and #s get absurd trying to top the previous books.

 

Loooong time ago, got to hang with Steve Cole a bit and even play Starfire with him at our local game store. He was a total bastard with fighters.

[Spence]

Re: STARFIRE the Roleplaying Game

 

I still enjoy the tactical game. Never cared for empire building on paper. It is actually the big reason I am still (yes, still as in not yet but looking) looking for a small scale series in mini's. Small enough so I can field a lot of them and generic enough I can designate then to be any class I need.

[Curufea]

Re: STARFIRE the Roleplaying Game

 

Have you considered paper models or counters?

I did a nice series of Farscape counters for Babylon 5 Wars.

[Edsel]

Re: STARFIRE the Roleplaying Game

 

Be warned this is a very long post.

 

The Recent History of the Starfire Game System: A tale of woe.

The following is based on my own observations and assumptions. I may, and probably do, have some things wrong, but I think it is generally accurate.

 

Starfire, if you are familiar with the system, started life as the other space game produced by the Task Force Games. In the beginning it was a simple game that came in three zip-lock packages. Starfire I was basic ship building and combat. Starfire II introduced strikefighters and their carriers. Starfire III was a set of campaign rules that told how to randomly generate star systems, generate income and how to spend that income to build your navy and empire.

 

A second edition was introduced that expanded on the game while at the same time putting the whole system into a single boxed release (at least that’s what I remember).

The game enjoyed enough popularity that a third edition was finally released by Task Force that came in two boxed sets. Starfire had all the ship combat and building rules (including fighters and carriers). The greatly expanded Imperial Starfire had rules for building star systems (single and binary) while greatly expanding rules for generating random non-player races, political interaction and economics and supply.

When Task Force Games reorganized the Starfire line was sold off to the Starfire Design Bureau owned by Marvin Lamb.

 

Several supplements were released for the game. Insurrection and Crusade were based on the novels by Steven White and David Webber. The Fourth Interstellar War was based on the war the rest of the galaxy fought against the Arachnid Omnivoricity, eventually this war was put into novel form in the books On Death Ground and The Shiva Option. Interestingly the books and supplements really do not follow in chronological order. The supplement were released in order: Crusade, Insurrection and 4-ISW. Chronologically and technically speaking the pseudo-historic order of these events and technology is: Crusade, 4-ISW and finally Insurrection.

 

Since these supplement, and a few others, introduced new and revised rules a new set of the combat and construction rules, Starfire 3rd Edition Revised, was released. This book did a lot to unify things up to that point. The Imperial Starfire rules were left alone since they had changed only a little (a supplement called Sky Marshal 2 had a few changes).

Marvin Lamb had been working on a major revision of the rules which was called Starfire Fourth Edition, or Galactic Starfire. This release made sweeping changes in the game, IMO it gave the game a much more generic feel. The Starfire community was split. A large portion of the old fans did not like the new version and so they continued to use the 3ed Revised rules, while some of them and most new players moved on with 4th Edition rules. At this I sided with the 3rdR faction, I simply did not care for 4th Edition, it was almost like a whole new game.

 

Enter Steve Whamsley and the Starfire Assistant program. Mr. Whamsley is (I think) a software designer living in England. For many years (at least a decade or so), he had produced and maintained a fan written utility that vastly reduced the paperwork needed to run a full-blown Starfire campaign. This program is actually a highly detailed and automated Access Database but the GUI (compiled from Visual BASIC) is so advanced it is hard to tell it. This program makes running a galactic campaign simpler by several orders of magnitude. The game can get very complex with thousands of ships and dozens of player and non-player race empires to keep track of. IMO without a program such as this the difficulties involved become almost insurmountable.

 

Whamsley and many of the older guard wanted to continue with 3rd Edition Revised. Part of the reason may have been that the new edition made the Assistant program useless. In talks with Mr. Lamb and agreement (all verbal) was made that allowed Steve and about 50 members of the old guard to continue working on and supporting the 3rdR rules. This group was called the 3DG (Third Design Group). The 3DG, all unpaid voulinteers, would work up products and submit them to Mr. Lamb, the copyright owner, once he approved them the products would be made available for sale with all proceeds going to Mr. Lamb’s company (the Starfire Design Bureau). The 3DG was given complete freedom to design whatever they wanted and beta test anything. Mr. Lamb agreed to take a hands off posture and allow them complete freedom. (Again this was all verbal agreements.) For years things went well. Fourth Edition, pushed by Mr. Lamb seems to have sold reasonably well and the 3DG kept the older system running and popular. It should be noted that by this time the game had, and remains, a mostly internet based PBEM game system.

 

At this point I will have to mostly follow the developments of the 3rd Edition Revised rules since those are the ones I have gone with and are familiar with. I bought the initial release of 4th Edition, didn’t like it, and have not kept up with its progress. I do know that 4th Edition has had at least two major product releases (called Elite and Ultra) but I know little about them.

 

The 3DG made several modifications to the game system, far more subtitle that the 4th Ed rewrite. They also introduced several new technical systems. Eventually the 3DG produced their first product. The Unified Technical Manual put all of the new and revised technical systems in a single volume and unified all of the construction rules. It was a well received product that was needed. As with most products by this time it is a purely electronic (PDF) product.

 

The next product that the 3DG tackled was the Unified Rules Manual. The URM would follow on where the UTM left off. It was an ambitious project that would put all of the rules (tactical and strategic) and all the technology from the UTM into a single volume. For the first time all the rules for the entire system would be in a single product. Mr. Whamsely was the driving force behind this product and the chairman of the 3DG. After a couple of years work and revisions (typical committee design problems), they were getting very close. But work slowed down dramatically since Mr. Whamsely seemed to have almost quit his work with the 3DG for about a year. IMO this was understandable since Mr. Whamsley was also maintaining his Starfire Assistant program by updating it each time a rules change or new technical system was introduced. Apparently some of the customers of the Starfire Design Bureau began to question Mr. Lamb about the lack of progress. This is, I think, what let to the schism.

 

Apparently Mr. Whamsley had personal and business issues which were preventing him from taking as much of an active part in things as he would have liked to. Mr. Lamb attempted to step-in and take charge of things, but about a week or two after that Mr. Whamsley once again was able to resume an active role. Many members of the 3DG took exception to Mr. Lamb’s (in their opinion) intrusion into their work, Mr. Whamsley was very opposed to this. From their point of view Mr. Lamb was going against their agreement in which he had said he would not interfere. Mr. Lamb felt he had no choice but to intervene since the group’s progress had slowed and he had customers crying out for new product. But there was more to it than that.

 

The members of the 3DG and many of the fans of the 3rdR rules had always suspected that Mr. Lamb resented them. They believed that since Mr. Lamb had been the inventor of 4th Edition and its chief proponent, he resented them since they never accepted his ideas and doggedly continued to play 3rd Edition. From what I saw Mr. Lamb did little to allay these suspicions. Arguments between Mr. Lamb and his supporters and the members of the 3DG and their supporters erupted. Mr. Whamsley was back and once again working hard and considered Mr. Lamb to be an interloper. Things went from bad to worse. The whole house of cards collapsed.

 

Mr. Lamb revoked the verbal agreement with the 3DG told them to dissolve their group. The 3DG stating that they had no written or binding legal agreement refused. Mr. Lamb told them they had no right to release anything that involved his game. They in turn told him he had no right to anything they had produced which had not been released yet. The two sides became armed camps with each threatening lawsuits. To make it even more spicy these would be International Copyright lawsuits since the chairman of the 3DG was a British subject living in Britain. Mr. Lamb was in a bad situation since he had nothing in writing, and had not bothered to enforce his copyright for about 10 years. He had knowingly allowed the 3DG to do whatever they wanted and to distribute whatever they wanted on the internet. This was all very tragic for the players since the URM was in its final layout and essentially ready for release, and this pretty much assured that the completed product would never be released.

 

Mr. Lamb told Mr. Whamsely he could no longer produce any updates for his freeware Starfire Assistant program. He could not cause him pull the program from availability but he could prevent him from working on any updates or even bug fixes for it. Mr. Lamb in the mean time had entered into a legal agreement with a web company to develop and market a web-based program to run 4th Edition campaigns. The company did all of the number crunching for campaigns and the players participated via a website to run and play campaigns. Apparently part of Mr. Lambs agreement with this company was that he had to revoke Mr. Whamsley’s permission to support his program.

 

As it stands now Mr. Lamb and the Starfire Design Bureau still produce stuff for 4th Edition. He has a new group of people working on stuff for 3rd Edition but they have not produced much. All of the solutions and ideas that the old 3DG came up with cannot be used since the members of that group pretty much copyrighted it for themselves. They can’t release it without being sued by Mr. Lamb but Mr. Lamb can release it without being sued by them. Therefore the Starfire Design Bureau has to try and come up with new solutions for problems that have already been solved, but whose solutions they can not use. Apparently there is still a high enough demand for 3rd Ed stuff though because why else would the Starfire Design Bureau be making the effort.

 

For a few months Mr. Whamsley pulled his program from the market. However after seeking legal opinions he has resumed work on his program and continues to update it as well. Apparently his legal council is of the opinion that Mr. Lamb can do nothing to stop him since he had, in essence, not been enforcing his copyright for about a decade. If it ever does come to an international legal battle I am pretty sure that Mr. Whamsley is financially much more able to afford better quality legal council. Mr. Whamsley continues to produce his program and make it available free of charge.

 

I do not know much of the recent fortunes of Mr. Lamb and the SDB since I was one of those who prefer the ideas of Mr. Whamsley and the 3rd Edition Revised set of rules. I was never a member of the 3DG and was not involved in their legal wrangling or in the writing of any rules or materials. I was just a fan/player of the game that was involved in the discussions and later flame wars that occurred. I tried to write this in as neutral a stance as I could, but I was far from neutral in my feeling about what when on.

 

Here is a link to the Starfire Assistant program web site if you want to check out how that version of 3rd Edition Revised is doing.

 

Here is a link to the Starfire Design Bureau if you want to see how they are doing. You can also purchase 3rd Edition materials here that were released before the schism. Up to and including the UTM.

[Spence]

Re: STARFIRE the Roleplaying Game

 

Have you considered paper models or counters?

I did a nice series of Farscape counters for Babylon 5 Wars.

 

 

I don't have any problems using standard counters of chits. In fact I have the huge hex in a hex maps they put out in the day. But I am trying to get newer gamers into things. And unless the is a cool "lump o lead" on the table you don't catch their eye.

[Spence]

Re: STARFIRE the Roleplaying Game

 

Be warned this is a very long post.

 

The Recent History of the Starfire Game System: A tale of woe.

The following is based on my own observations and assumptions. I may, and probably do, have some things wrong, but I think it is generally accurate.

<<<<>>>>

I tried to write this in as neutral a stance as I could, but I was far from neutral in my feeling about what when on.

 

 

Some things I knew, a few I didn't. Thanks for the info, it does explain a lot. I went oversea's for a while and when I came back it appeared the game had died, and I never really dug that far. I still have 3rd and Gal, and like to run set peice battles. I wouldn't mind a real campaign, but I just never had the players.

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: STARFIRE the Roleplaying Game

 

I still enjoy the tactical game. Never cared for empire building on paper. It is actually the big reason I am still (yes' date=' still as in not yet but looking) looking for a small scale series in mini's. Small enough so I can field a lot of them and generic enough I can designate then to be any class I need.[/quote']

 

Maybe small plastic pieces, like from the Buck Rogers boardgame?

 

http://www.sciplus.com/category.cfm?subsection=1&category=1

[Spence]

Re: STARFIRE the Roleplaying Game

 

Maybe small plastic pieces, like from the Buck Rogers boardgame?

 

http://www.sciplus.com/category.cfm?subsection=1&category=1

 

You never know. I have never seen the BR game so I don't know what the ships look like.

[Dauntless]

Re: STARFIRE the Roleplaying Game

 

Interesting info.

 

Many moons ago I bought (I think) the 2nd edition Starfire rules (since it wasn't ziplocked, nor was it boxed), and found the rules to be interesting. I never did have a chance to play it though since the rest of the group were all die-hard SFB'ers.

 

I just recently (2 weeks ago as a matter of fact) bought the Ultra Edition of Starfire to check it out. I've been itching for a grand strategic space game, and this seemed to fit the bill. Another game I've been looking at is Victory By Any Means (which I've also just purchased). However, it seems that the VBAM stuff is quite a bit more expensive than Ultra Starfire. For just $21, Ultra Starfire seems like a good deal to me.

 

There's lots of good rule systems for Tactical Starship combat...Full Thrust, Starmada, SFB, for example. But there's not too many that do strategic or even operational combat (Empires at War coming to mind). You have to think differently in strategic battles and you have to plan your battles carefully. Me personally, I'm tired of the "you get X amount of points to build your fleet/army, and I get X amount of points to build mine....and we duke it out". That's just not the way battles work in the real world. Strategic games which can scale down to operational and tactical combat will take this into consideration, but tactical only systems leave it up to the players to design interesting scenarios.

 

In that sense, I agree with Jon Tuffley who did not wish to create a point cost system for his game Stargrunt II. He thought such a design only reinforced the notion of the "line em up and march forward" mentality not to mention excite all the munchkins and power gamers.

 

In some sense, I'm starting to move away from the whole point cost mentality even in the Hero System. Wargames are more formalized and were designed to have "winners". Thus, I can see the usefulness for having a value calculus. But the older I get, the more I see such a value calculus for roleplaying to be detrimental.

 

But I'm straying way too far off topic now. It would be interesting to see the Starfire universe adapted to the roleplaying level, even though I can no longer remember the various factions involved. In Ultra Starfire, there are no pre-built races, you have to roll your own. Thus, there's no background or history involved.

[Outsider]

Re: STARFIRE the Roleplaying Game

 

I used to play a lot of SFB, but over time the rules kept getting more and more convoluted, which really robbed the game of a lot of its fun.

 

A thought I'd had to rescue it from itself was to streamline it... get rid of a bunch of the really obscure systems that get used once in a blue moon (Stassis Fields, I'm lookin at YOU!) and then do something about the profusion of bookkeeping tasks. Of course, I've heard that ADB has actually come out with something like this (a 'cadet' version) but I havent looked at or read about it beyond hearing that it may exist.

[Edsel]

Re: STARFIRE the Roleplaying Game

 

The ADB recently released a version called Federation Commander. This is basically SFB light. They have tried to streamline the system as much as possible. In fact they streamline it to the point you no longer need to fill out power allocation forms. The game also has two scales built into to, a standard game and a fleet action scale which is even more simplified to allow large actions. I have a copy of the new game but have been too busy to read the rules very closely.

[Nyrath]

Re: STARFIRE the Roleplaying Game

 

The ADB recently released a version called Federation Commander. This is basically SFB light. They have tried to streamline the system as much as possible. In fact they streamline it to the point you no longer need to fill out power allocation forms.

Yes, it's a breakthrough. Those "tax forms" were a major pain in the posterior.

 

The new system is a "pay as you go" method that speeds the game up something wonderful.

[Spence]

Re: STARFIRE the Roleplaying Game

 

The ADB recently released a version called Federation Commander. This is basically SFB light. They have tried to streamline the system as much as possible. In fact they streamline it to the point you no longer need to fill out power allocation forms. The game also has two scales built into to' date=' a standard game and a fleet action scale which is even more simplified to allow large actions. I have a copy of the new game but have been too busy to read the rules very closely.[/quote']

 

Recently got a chance to play a game at ConquestNW. It was just an intro "duel" between a Fed Heavy Cruiser (me) and a Klingon D7. I will not get into a discussion if it is a "new" game or an "adoption" of SFB. But I will say it was a lot of fun and extremely easy to get the hang of it. Old time SFB players (like me) may have a hard time adjusting. I got my ***** handed to me when things didn't play out like I expected. The new streamlined system makes subtle but very real changes that most definitely change tactics. SFB was all about power management. FC isn't, at least not in the same way.

[Spence]

Re: STARFIRE the Roleplaying Game

 

Interesting info.

 

 

Pretty much ditto. I did enjoy the strategic part of Starfire. Just not the big world building part. The last strategic game of SF I played used a watered down version of the empire rules. Basically we took the shipbuilding, refit and repair rules plus a "supply" system. Each player started with a star map of "known space" which consisted of several systems and warp points. There he got to place 2-5 military bases in "his" systems and designate the 3-5 warp points that led to "home". He had x points to construct his support (defense stations, ship yards, etc.). and x points for his initial ships which he had to split into units. He then got a referee draw of ships pre-built for x points that way he didn't know exactly what he would be have. Plus there was an initial draw of ships "in the yard". At a predetermined cycle of x turns the player would receive a convoy carrying supplies. The players were fleet admirals on the frontier when war breaks out. Their orders are to defeat the enemy but defend the doorway to the empire. The amount and frequency of supplies could vary and no more reinforcement would come.

 

So it boiled down to exploring toward the enemy. Trying to conserve your ships and resources until you could force a decisive action. Yards allowed some repair and refit, but that could remove ships from the line for several turns.

 

The best part was a complete loss of politics and economic stuff.

[Nyrath]

Re: STARFIRE the Roleplaying Game

 

Going a bit off topic, there was one thing that annoyed me with StarFire's starship combat system as compared to Star Fleet Battles: Firing Arcs. StarFire didn't have any. (for those who haven't played, in Star Fleet Battles, each starship mounted weapon has specific hex-sides that it is allowed to fire through. That is, a weapon that is mounted on the port side cannot fire at a target on the starbord side because the hull is in the way)

 

This ment that the only combat variable was the distance between attacking starships. Which means you could play the game on a single hex-row, or on a ruler.

 

In games like Star Fleet Battles, with the addition of firing arcs and specific shields covering each arc, it becomes a game of maneuver.

[Edsel]

Re: STARFIRE the Roleplaying Game

 

I had a buddy one time who dubbed Starfire ships "Cigar Ships." Because, generally, you start shooting off right side of the ship's display and work your way left.

 

Maneuver tactics in Starfire are pretty elementary. The real strategy comes in designing your ships intelligently and in making the right purchases. After all the game is all about fighting large battles. Things have to be kept simple when you've got 30 or 40 ships running around on both sides of a tactical battle. Many Starfire players are more interested in the Strategic Empire-building than in the tactical battles.

[Doug Limmer]

Re: STARFIRE the Roleplaying Game

 

Going a bit off topic' date=' there was one thing that annoyed me with StarFire's starship combat system as compared to Star Fleet Battles: [b']Firing Arcs[/b]. StarFire didn't have any. [...]This ment that the only combat variable was the distance between attacking starships. Which means you could play the game on a single hex-row, or on a ruler.

Did you only play one ship vs. one ship games? I've found that Starfire does pretty well for multi-ship battles (and has far less to keep track of than SFB).