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Post by crimhthanthegreat on Nov 22, 2007 22:14:13 GMT -6
Hey Fin or anyone else how about a summary when you have time thank you!
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Post by Finarvyn on Nov 23, 2007 16:08:54 GMT -6
These two games were the first of a proposed trilogy, but the third (as far as I know) was never written. Both were pamphlet sized, as per most of the other TSR products of the era. Both were designed to be long term campaign games, and not one-shot playing experiences.
Star Probe was a simple game of exploration. It was a really thin book, only 36 pages which makes it the same thickness as Men & Magic. Not so much a RPG, the player ran a starship trying to explore places in the galaxy.
The "star map" was pretty generic with staggered squares instead of hexes (around 24x20, if I'm counting accurately). Each square had little dots with + or - numbers, representing the height above or below the plane of the map. (Oooooo. 3D star maps back in 1974!) Each square had anywhere between 1-5 or so dots, so there were hundreds of systems to explore.
Star Empires was a 72 page book designed to expand upon Star Probe This book had more of an emphasis on military actions -- ground troops and starship conflicts. It came with a similar star map (although not as high quality and mine is starting to yellow with age) and a tiny card of you-cut-em-up counters with some generic starships on them.
Lots of potential, and I bought both because I was the "SciFi guy" while my friend was the "Fantasy guy" and bought all of the D&D stuff. I never really played this much.
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Post by grodog on Dec 8, 2007 21:41:55 GMT -6
I haven't been able to find these at affordable prices either. (For those not in the know, I've been collecting the non-D&D TSR stuff for awhile now, to build out an Acaeum sub-web on that material).
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Post by Finarvyn on Dec 9, 2007 9:13:45 GMT -6
Honestly, I haven't looked to see what the going rate is for either game.
At one point I had tossed them into a pile to go to Noble Knight for sale, but some of the action in these very boards have caused me to pull them back out of the pile and keep all of my old TSR pamphlet-sized games together on my shelf.
Maybe I can figure out a way to contribute information to your sub-web project. The Acaeum is a great place to get information!
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Post by grodog on Dec 10, 2007 19:20:09 GMT -6
Thanks Fin. I (finally) bought a scanner several months ago, so I should be able to start in on the work side of the sub-web sometime in the spring or so; I've picked up most of the books/games I've been able to find cheaply, so that just leaves the tougher nuggets to crack. So, I'll definitely hit you up in the spring for scans on the SP/SE once I'm working on the project in earnest. Thanks for the offer
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Post by coffee on Dec 11, 2007 3:09:10 GMT -6
Um, you guys are going to let the rest of us know when this sub-web goes live, right? I'd love to take a look at it.
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Post by Finarvyn on Dec 11, 2007 23:01:24 GMT -6
Here is the basic link to look at: The Acaeum. This place is basically a museum of D&D information, and the folks that run the place even have begun a Judges' Guild sub-web area. Grodog is talking about trying to collect old TSR non-D&D materials and posting information there as well. The Acaeum has lists of old D&D modules, some pictures of same, often quotes general price ranges said modules might go for, and so on. The people who run the place are trying hard to build a warehouse of D&D information and it's really worth a look.
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darneson
Level 3 Conjurer
Co-Creator of OD&D
Posts: 56
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Post by darneson on Nov 2, 2008 11:08:12 GMT -6
John, the author, was anoter of the original group. He had outlined a whole seriesof books and maps. SP and SE suffered from the NIH problem that killed TEKUMEL.
Dave Arneson "Dark Lod of Gaming"
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Post by rick krebs on Mar 31, 2009 16:33:25 GMT -6
Actually found both pouch games stored away in the basement. Will let them air out and probably post on Ebay in coming months. Funny thing is that they were stored inside a copy of SPI's Universe.
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Post by geoffrey on Mar 31, 2009 22:23:16 GMT -6
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Post by greentongue on Apr 17, 2009 6:03:13 GMT -6
I played Star Probe some back in my Navy days. It was a fun little game. Now it would make a good cell phone app. =
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busman
Level 6 Magician
Playing OD&D, once again. Since 2008!
Posts: 448
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Post by busman on Apr 17, 2009 19:35:31 GMT -6
I missed out on a Star Probe today on Ebay. It went for less than $30, but I just can't swing that right now on collecting stuff right now, which is a shame, really. That's a steal for a good condition Star Probe.
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Post by Finarvyn on Apr 30, 2009 18:57:24 GMT -6
A copy of Star Probe just hit e-bay and at the moment it's pretty cheap. (About $1 with 6 days left....)
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Post by rick krebs on Jun 17, 2009 13:38:38 GMT -6
My (c) 1975 edition of Star Probe has 1 ship counter sheet. Yet have seen versions with 2. Unfortunately, no components list in rules book. Any ideas ?
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Jun 17, 2009 14:15:13 GMT -6
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Post by Finarvyn on Dec 21, 2009 7:26:08 GMT -6
Since there has been some chat in the Blackmoor section about both games, I thought I would post a review found on Grognard.com
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Post by deodanth on Dec 22, 2009 6:08:43 GMT -6
I saw from the Blackmoor boards that one or more of our members had been in contact with Mr. Snider. What are the chances of getting him to open up about the Star Probe trilogy?
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Post by greentongue on Dec 22, 2009 7:27:31 GMT -6
Interesting that STAR EMPIRES included an advanced tech device to create Tekumel. =
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Post by castiglione on Apr 12, 2010 9:23:07 GMT -6
Seems like it was an interesting computer game waiting for the invention of an affordable home computer. It's too bad the RPG part of it was never published.
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Post by Finarvyn on Apr 12, 2010 14:21:00 GMT -6
Interesting that STAR EMPIRES included an advanced tech device to create Tekumel. = I don't remember that. I'll have to go look. Seems like it was an interesting computer game waiting for the invention of an affordable home computer. It's too bad the RPG part of it was never published. I agree. Of course, the RPG might or might not have been particulary innovative. Keep in mind that most of TSR's RPGs of the era were offshoots of D&D (both EPT and MA were very OD&D-like!). On the other hand, it's possible that a TSR-backed SciFi RPG might have really taken off "back in the day." (I only sort-of count MA since it was never really supported at the time.) A Star Probe RPG might have been serious and OD&D-like and might have captured much of the market which was taken over by Traveller. Idle musing, of course, but fun.
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Post by castiglione on Apr 13, 2010 22:18:16 GMT -6
Interesting that STAR EMPIRES included an advanced tech device to create Tekumel. = I don't remember that. I'll have to go look. Seems like it was an interesting computer game waiting for the invention of an affordable home computer. It's too bad the RPG part of it was never published. I agree. Of course, the RPG might or might not have been particulary innovative. Keep in mind that most of TSR's RPGs of the era were offshoots of D&D (both EPT and MA were very OD&D-like!). On the other hand, it's possible that a TSR-backed SciFi RPG might have really taken off "back in the day." (I only sort-of count MA since it was never really supported at the time.) A Star Probe RPG might have been serious and OD&D-like and might have captured much of the market which was taken over by Traveller. Idle musing, of course, but fun. I don't think the RPG part of Star Probe/Star Empire being derived from D&D would have necessarily been a bad thing; based on what TSR did in the past (MA, GW, EotPT), the base D&D system was always modified enough to accomodate the new milieu instead of just blindly porting the system over so I'm sure a Sci-Fi "version" of D&D would've been a pretty good game.
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Post by harami2000 on Apr 14, 2010 6:24:30 GMT -6
I don't think the RPG part of Star Probe/Star Empire being derived from D&D would have necessarily been a bad thing; based on what TSR did in the past (MA, GW, EotPT), the base D&D system was always modified enough to accomodate the new milieu instead of just blindly porting the system over so I'm sure a Sci-Fi "version" of D&D would've been a pretty good game. I doubt that would've been based off D&D since it had nothing to do with D&D (TSR) in the first instance. (aside: TSR didn't really "do anything" with EPT - that was a tangential development by Barker, with a small amount of further input, and handed over to TSR pretty much "ready to print").
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Post by Finarvyn on Apr 14, 2010 11:53:11 GMT -6
My point was mostly that back "in the day" there was really only one major RPG model to follow, which was OD&D. After more RPGs had been developed, it's possible that a SP/SE RPG might have gone off in a different direction, since there would have been additional models to pattern itself off of. Of course, if SP/SE was really developed totally seperately then it's possible that it wouldn't have followed the OD&D model anyway. And I agree that the early TSR games were pretty neat. My favorite TSR games were the early ones.
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Post by harami2000 on Apr 14, 2010 16:46:44 GMT -6
Yep; second paragraph. SP/SE's RPG element (both in campaign gameplay and intended publication) forked off the development tree before Gygax's D&D compilation and John Snider said nothing at all about following that, back in the day. Should be easy enough to get 37-years-after-the-fact input from the man himself, fwiw, but that's what the chronology and early-1974 letter would appear to indicate by default...
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Post by DungeonDevil on Feb 25, 2012 3:15:41 GMT -6
Arise mouldy thread! I've recently gotten a copy of the Star Probe rulebook, but, alas, the map is missing. I've seen poor/grainy photos along with a few small details of the map over on boardgamegeek.com but no decent scan. Does anyone know where I can get this missing map? If not, then I suppose I could just make it up if there wasn't anything critically important on the original.
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tec97
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 157
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Post by tec97 on Oct 12, 2012 14:44:02 GMT -6
A couple of months ago, I got my hands on a copy of Star Empires... I'd never even heard of it.
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jun 11, 2014 5:26:48 GMT -6
Can anyone who has a copy of Star Probe tell us if there's a printing date on the inside cover? We know it's '75, but often the TSR booklet will also say the month.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Jun 11, 2014 6:43:07 GMT -6
Can anyone who has a copy of Star Probe tell us if there's a printing date on the inside cover? We know it's '75, but often the TSR booklet will also say the month. My copy just says Copyright 1975. The Intro by Gygax is dated 01-SEP-74.
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jun 11, 2014 7:00:12 GMT -6
My copy just says Copyright 1975. The Intro by Gygax is dated 01-SEP-74. Great info, thanks @dubeers:)
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tog
Level 4 Theurgist
Detect Meal & What Kind
Posts: 148
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Post by tog on Jun 29, 2014 20:16:58 GMT -6
Arise mouldy thread! I've recently gotten a copy of the Star Probe rulebook, but, alas, the map is missing. The copy I have has the same missing map; maybe it was easy to lose back in the day? SP/SE use only three types of stars on the main map; hot (O-A), medium(F-G) and cool(K-M). There are about a billion systems out there for creating a new set of stellar systems; I'd personally use a big sheet of blank hex paper and work with that. It won't really affect the game play at all, as I recall.
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