#RPGaDAY 2019 - DAY 14: GUIDE

Ewoks! Yub Nub!! Cool custom Autocratik dice by www.chimericdesigns.co.uk

Day Fourteen of #RPGaDAY 2019 is the word GUIDE. It could refer to anything! A Guide you've had in one of your adventures, your old copy of the Dungeon Master's Guide... what do you think?

Well, I never had the Dungeon Master's Guide as a kid. It was an unwritten rule in our group (which was really three groups that morphed and merged multiple times) that if you weren't going to run AD&D you didn't need a DMG... in fact, a couple of the DMs even said we weren't allowed to look in them (and I didn't mind - the game was better if we didn't know how many hit points the monsters had, or how they'd put the game together). I didn't really look in a DMG until 3rd edition!

Nope. I ran other games. Never Dungeon Mastered in my life, but I GM'd loads of other games. The"GUIDE" that had the biggest impact on me (and probably got more use than any other book I had) was this...

Zeb's Guide - a massive revision of the Star Frontiers rules

Zebulon's Guide to Frontier Space (Volume 1) was a bit of a shock to the system (or rather, to the game system). After years of playing Star Frontiers, along comes this new Guide that changes the game system to add weird colour coded result charts to be more like Marvel Superheroes and the Indiana Jones RPG. It added new species to play, masses upon masses of new tech, and our heroes were quickly suited up in powered armour like Gavin the Walking Battleship... (10pts to those of you who got that reference).

Without the internet, I didn't realise that Star Frontiers fans worldwide were generally unhappy with the changes to the rules. Personally, I loved it. Star Frontiers was my go-to game for most of my teens, and any new material was read until the covers went bendy. I kinda miss my old copy... I wonder if it's aged well?