Resistance Is Futile. You Will Be Assimilated.

 Over the past couple of years, I've slowly been drifting into the headspace where I don't want to play the currently popular rules lite RPGs. Black Hack derived, PbtA games, Into the Odd, etc. I mean, for a one-shot or a short arc, they aren't bad. But they don't capture my interest that much. There's enough system to handle individual encounters, of a wide variety of types. But there doesn't seem to be a lot of staying power. Even the ones that have levels or some other advancement mechanics, like PbtA milestones/achievements just aren't holding my interest. And even if you do get to level up or improve every so often, the games usually don't have a campaign advancement system. You don't get to "grow up" and evolve to some sort of end game. It's still more monster hunting in dungeons, or another mystery/monster of the week, which is the biggest weakness of WotC versions of D&D in my opinion. 

And then we get into the art-punk stuff. I've mentioned before that Mork Borg may be a perfectly cromulent game, but the clashing fonts, disjointed layout, and purposefully garish art suits the genre it's going for, but makes it a pain on my old man eyes to read. 

Yet, if you've gotten the connection to this post's title, I did indeed try out Mork Borg a couple of weeks ago. Keith (who ran Cyberpunk Red at our game con last fall) ran a couple of sessions, running the same adventure for two different groups on consecutive days. I was in his Saturday group (the second game, the first obviously being on Friday). 

And honestly, the mechanics made sense when he explained them to me, they worked well for the adventure, and I sure had a ton of fun with it. Of course, it helps that my PC was the last one standing, after Scott backstabbed Martin, Craylin's PC died, then I backstabbed Scott's PC. :D Yeah, it was that sort of game. 

We did mostly randomized character creation. Keith let us pick our class and name (we could roll for that if we wanted), and if we didn't like a random roll result we could reroll once.  Or maybe it was twice? Anyway, being a one-shot, I wasn't super invested in making a bespoke PC, so I just went with my random rolls for my dirty old lives under the bridge hermit. 

Yes, I enjoyed it. As a more beer-and-pretzels or event (con) game, it seems really good. I don't see the long-term play aspect of it, although with just a one-session designed as a one-shot, I honestly can't judge it yet. But if it's like most of the other rules-lite OSR offerings of the past 10 years or so, I doubt it does lasting campaigns well. 

Of course, I'm becoming the old fuddy duddy who wants open campaign sandboxes that eventually turn into either a domain game, a plane-hopping series of grand adventures, or both. The way Gygax intended! Harumph! 

Jesus, I'm only 52 and stared gaming in 1984. Yet I realize I sound like those dudes who were already well along in their 20s or early 30s back in the 70s when the game debuted. 

But don't fear, loyal readers. This Saturday, Justin is running a one-shot of Mythic Bastionland. And I'll be playing in it. I don't have time to organize and run a game of Pendragon right now, so this is probably the next best thing. 

And Scott has invited me to a one-shot centered Discord server. I haven't joined it yet, but I might. We'll see. I'm not craving these rules-lite games per se, but one-shots or mini-campaigns (3 to 6 sessions and done) seem to be what's popular these days. 

Anyway, since I'm going on and on about evolving a game to a different endgame state, I should probably think about what to do with Missions & Mayhem at higher levels. How could I adapt domain level play to a modern or near-future setting game? Shouldn't be that hard. But that's either another section of game to create for the core rules, or another supplement to produce for the game. 

Is Star Frontiers Mimimalist? Is it Lite?

What exactly defines a minimalist game is subjective, as is what makes a game "lite." Some people go by page count, with 1-page RPGs the epitome of minimalism. I've seen some people say it's bare minimum dice types, bare minimum ability scores/traits, and bare minimum word count. I've seem people say that it's a universal mechanic and plenty of space for players to do things not on the character sheet. I've seen various combinations of the above. I'm sure there are other qualities I'm overlooking at the moment.

So, how does Star Frontiers (Alpha Dawn) actually rank as a minimalist RPG? 

Page Count: 16 page Basic Rules, 60 (or 64?) page full game. 

This would count as minimalist in relation to doorstop games like Pathfinder, but still pretty hefty compared to many indie games. Fairly minimalist, for the time it came out.

Dice: Only d10s. 

Definitely in the minimalist camp here.

Resolution Mechanics: d% resolution for most actions, Xd10 damage, 1d10+modifier initiative, a few oddities like 2d10 bell-curve resolution tables for vehicle damage. 

Pretty tight, but not as light as it could be. 

Abilities/Traits: With eight abilities, but these grouped into four pairs, it's fairly tight. The fact that the scores (or 1/2 the score) are also the % chance to make a check is streamlined design. Alien species' special abilities are also % based. 

That is again pretty light mechanics load, but not as streamlined as possible. Not bad, but could be simpler.

Character Options: Four alien species (one human), three primary skill areas, 13 skills. Five of the skills have no subskills and are Ability dependent (weapon group skills), and all others have two to nine subskills at set levels which are learned as a suite. Only the Martial Arts skill has unique mechanics (increased Punching Score and knock-out chances). 

This isn't very heavy. With basically four die rolls for Abilities and three choice points (not counting Ability adjustment and selecting starting gear), you have a character. Roll Abilities. Select Species. Select Primary Skill Area (PSA). Select two starting skills, with at least one in the PSA. You're good to go. 

Creatures: Aside from descriptions and special ability rules, most creatures are represented by seven descriptors/numbers: Size, Number (appearing), Move (given in general categories), Initiative Modifier/Reaction Speed, Stamina (health), Attack (%), Damage. 

I've seen games where there are fewer stats for creatures, and something like D&D you can get by with fewer actual numbers most of the time (AC, HD, HP are enough for most encounters), but this isn't a lot, either. The game also provides typical stats for herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores of each size category, to make creating your own alien creatures simple. 

Again, it's almost minimalist, and for the time it came out, it's again pretty light. 

Combat, Movement, Etc.:  The basic combat resolution is dead simple. Roll d%, if you roll lower than your chance to hit, you deal damage. But there are a LOT of modifiers, for melee and ranged combat. The vehicle combat isn't too complex, but it does add new subsystems (like the vehicle damage rolls, mentioned above), acceleration, and turning radii. Movement rules are generally simple, until you add in things like modifiers for planets' gravity, rough terrain, and species' movement rates. 

There's a minimalist core there, but also just enough crunch to make things interesting and pay some attention to the science side of science fiction. This is one area where the game stops being minimalist, but it's not maximalist to make the hardcore science nerds happy. This is, I would wager, one of the things that really makes people dislike the game. It's too complex in certain ways, too simple in others.

Equipment, Weapons, Etc.: The game uses "credits" as money. There aren't a whole lot of items on the weapons, defenses, equipment, or vehicle lists, and those that are are one-size-fits-all. There's only stats for "laser pistols" not XM-03 Blast-all and Zerk-tech Laserific Pistols, with fiddly distinctions between what are essentially the same weapon. All ground cars share the same stats, with no distinctions for make/model/species it's designed for.

Robots and Computers are the two areas where there can be a lot of customization, but even then, the options available are limited and streamlined. This is again an area where hard sci-fi people, and gearheads, are going to be disappointed that the system's gear is so bare-bones (and the computers presented were obsolete not long after the game was on shelves), but things are just fiddly enough that it can't be called minimalist. 

There are no rules for building, buying, or operating starships. This is again something that many people deride the game for, but again, this isn't something that's actually necessary (or realistic). There are rules for FTL travel, and prices for PCs to book passage. You just can't own your own ship. This is actually both more realistic, and more minimalist. But it rubs many people the wrong way. I'll go deeper into this in a future post. 

Setting: The Frontier Sector is fleshed out in small bites throughout the rules, with a lot of information in the Basic Rules book, and small details scattered across the Expanded Rules book. All in all, though, it's a skeleton of a setting, with lots of room for the referee to flesh it out as they please, and plenty of uncharted star systems on the sector map. 

This is a pretty light setting, but it gave my friends and I enough of a structure to flesh things out, with inspiration from various sci fi books, TV shows, movies, and games. Again, I'll post more on this particular point in the future. All in all, it's not minimal, but it's a very light setting with just enough meat on the bones to not be useless. 

THE VERDICT

Is Star Frontiers minimalist? No, but then it wasn't trying to be. That wasn't even really a thing back in the late 70s/early 80s when the game was designed and published, as far as I know. 

Is it a lite game though? I'd say so. It has its complexities, but from experience it was pretty easy to ignore a lot of these rules when we were young and didn't care that much. And even as we grew older and got more proficient with the core mechanics, it wasn't hard to add in the extra complexity of the game, because it never gets THAT complex. 

The thing is, I think that it COULD be a minimalist game, if stripped down. The Basic Game is already pretty minimal, but it's also a bit more of a board game than a proper RPG. Still, using it as a base, and selectively including only the bare necessities from the Expanded Rules, you could play a very minimalist space opera/exploration game.