Spes Magna Games; Resources for Stars Without Number

I've been following several posts of late over on the Spes Magna Games blog, there are some cool alien beasties and such, but in particular lately there have been several posts about a new campaign in the works dubbed; Tiamat's Throne.  It reminds me just a bit of Dragonstar, and I mean that in a good way.  I'm always wanting to mix and match stuff in my RPG's and being able to add magic, elves and such into my SWN games has definately got me interested.

Dragonstar : Smuggler's Run

Well I have finally completed my Dragonstar collection.  I was missing the Smuggler's Run module/accessory. Found it for 3 bucks, couldn't pass it up for that price.  While it is 3.0 edition, I still have fond memories of the Setting and wanted to have the complete run of books that they did for it.  All I am missing now are the Living Dragonstar Adventures that they did for the short lived Living Dragonstar Campaign, I haven't been able to find those anywhere.  But I at least have all of the official published books and adventures.

Here is the blurb about what is in this book,
"Take Your Adventure to the Stars. At the edge of civilized space or in the shadow of the Dragon Empire itself, the citizens of the galaxy need foodstuffs, technology, clothing, and contraband. This is the role of the intergalactic free trader, delivering important, secret, or illegal cargo to the richest spires of the Empire and the deepest pits of the Outlands. It's a career full of tough choices, bad breaks, and risk, but it's yours. Smuggler's Run has everything you need to a play smuggler or free trader player character in the Dragonstar campaign setting, plus the tools players and DMs both need to make a privateer's campaign fun and easy. New prestige classes, new feats, new spells, and new starships expand and define the markets of the Dragon Empire. Simple new rules for commerce, supply, and demand focus the smuggler's business on its exciting choices and adventure possibilities. To demonstrate it all, this book describes a new, remote corner of the Dragonstar universe that's easy to place into any campaign: the Smuggler's Run."

Dragonstar Motivational Poster

Found this on the net, thought it fit nicely with my recent posts about Dragonstar.

Ode to Dragonstar Part II : Starfarers Handbook

Thought I'd continue my earlier post about the Dragonstar RPG, and talk a little about the core books of the setting.
First up is the Starfarer's Handbook.

It is basically the Player's Handbook of the setting, BUT you have to have a copy of the 3.0 D&D Player's Handbook to make full use of the Starfarer's Handbook. 
Chapter one is in color and gives a nice intro to the Dragonstar setting to enable players to get a feel for what it is about, you get a good handle about the Dragon Empire and such.  Chapter two goes into races; dwarves, elves, gnomes are all in there with some notes on integrating them into a sci fi setting (example: elves get a +2 bonus on Freefall checks).  Then some new races are covered; Drow (the secret police of the Dragon Empire), Orcs, Half-Dragons (often times the royalty of the setting), and a completely new race Soul Mechs (robotic constructs that have been animated with a sentient soul).  Chapter three is about classes, all the core classes are present with notes on how to integrate them into the setting, then some new classes are included; the pilot and the mechanist (I remember one of my players triple classed just so he could call himself a Rogue Fighter Pilot (LOL). Prestige classes are then discussed with notes on how to integrate core rules ones into the setting. Some new ones are included, The Gundancer in particular sounds cool but I never got to play one. We get chapters on Skills and Feats for the setting (Two-Gun Shooting, Starship Piloting, Speed Load and more).  Then comes the equipment,  everything from Blaster Rifles to Shock Armor. I would have liked to have seen more covered in the robot section but there are some example bots included.  The chapter on combat goes alot into Firearms and how they work in the 3.0 rules. Chapter eight is about magic, I love the concept of the Spellbook software, Kindles weren't even around when the rules came out, but how cool would it to be to tote your spellbook around on a Kindle instead of some musty bulky old tome?
The rest of the book touches on some new spells, vehicles, vehicle combat and some example starships.
     Reading my above entries makes the game sound rather dry.  Not at all, it has some great stuff in it. I like the artwork for the most part, in particular the art does a good job of capturing the setting (dwarven asteroid miners, drow commandos,  etc.).  I'm no longer into the whole 3.x game mechanic, but back in the day when we were playing that edition of the rules this was a setting we very much enjoyed.
Some may ask why not just play Star Wars? For me and my group we didn't really want to play Star Wars, we liked the concept of D&D in space and Dragonstar more than met that expectation. Meeting up with a swarmy halfling informant at the Ugly Umberhulk Cantina only to get into a firefight with auto-gun toting Bugbear gangsters is just waay cool!

More Lulu Orders En Route...

 I started a new job this past week, the good news is its a big career move for me, the bad news is it will take up most of my free time for awhile as I get a handle on everything.  Soo my posts may be infrequent, but  have no fear (LOL) I'm still around. To celebrate, I placed another Lulu order today, I had to order the new Labyrinth Lord supplement: Realms of Crawling Chaos it just looks too cool to pass up (plus it has rules for White Ape characters!!, and you all know what a Simian Fan I am!) I also spotted a new Tunnels & Trolls supplement: New Khazan. Sounds like Tunnels & Trolls in Spaaace!

 It was a whim purchase, but you all know from my earlier posts how much I loved Dragonstar back in the day, this seemed like a perfect match/resource for that setting.  I'll post about both products when they arrive. Later,
 -B

*Update* 2/5/11
Well both products have arrived.  Realms of Crawling Chaos far exceeded my expectations.  It's a great resource for injecting some Lovecraftian coolness into your LL/MF campaigns.
However, regarding New Khazan...I'm rather disappointed.  For the $19.99 price tag, I don't feel like I got my money's worth.  There just isn't enough to it for one thing, the art goes from ok to fair to poor, and the editing is rather poor. While I am in no way a spelling/grammar nut, in some places the grammar is so poor that its hard to even understand what the writer is trying to say.  There are some nuggets scattered here and there in the book, but I've seen way better out there for cheaper or even free.  As for using it as a resource for Dragonstar like I had hoped, there are a few items in there, some of the planets will work, a few of the critters/beasties are useable, but to be honest I see this as being a better resource for an Encounter Critical game than anything else.  It even has a brief reference to Planetary Apes er, I mean well you get my drift.

Star Frontiers Remastered!

 I placed an order with Lulu the other day and it came in today.  For $10, I couldn't resist picking up the print version of the digitally remastered Star Frontiers RPG. Nice looking product for a good price.  Even if I don't get to run a straight Star Frontiers Campaign, I can loot stuff from it for a Stars Without Number game or Dragonstar or some other Sci Fi RPG.  + it's just cool to have it on my shelf.
-Good Gaming!

Ode to Dragonstar

While I'll admit moving away from 3.X based games a bit ago and returning more to my gaming roots mechanics-wise, one campaign setting that came out towards the end of 3.0 was one that I had a blast playing/running and wish had continued longer. That setting was Dragonstar by FFG.

We played the heck out of Dragonstar back in the day.  We fought Bugbear Gangsters, Drow Space Pirates, Void Trolls, Halfling Star Commandos and had a blast!
     Sadly I think timing was what killed the setting. 3.5 came out right after it was released and I believe d20 Modern as well, which caused the mechanics to perhaps be seen as "dated" by the masses.  Some of the later books for it were not as good as the original books, but I grabbed everything I could for it and even worked up my own stuff.

 We had a ton of fun with the game.  It came at a good time for our gaming group, we had been playing "regular" 3.0 D&D for quite awhile and this setting really scratched an itch for us in a way that d20 Modern just didn't do.  I'll never forget when I unleashed a group of Hobgoblin Bounty Hunters geared out in armored dusters and blaster rifles with their cyborg Carnivorous Ape "pet", the high level cocky fantasy party just about had a TPK, they knew they weren't in Kansas anymore.  Good Times!
Sure it was "D&D in Spaace!" but why is that a bad thing?  LOL