''Starfaring'' was the first science fiction

role-playing game A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of player character, characters in a fictional Setting (narrative), setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within ...

(RPG) published, released by

Flying Buffalo Flying Buffalo Inc. (FBI) is a game company with a line of role playing games, card games, and other gaming materials. The company's founder, Rick Loomis, began game publishing with ''Nuclear Destruction'', a play-by-mail game which started the pr ...

in August

1976 Events January * January 3 – The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights enters into force. * January 5 – The Pol Pot regime proclaims a new constitution for Democratic Kampuchea. * January 11 – The 1976 Phila ...

. Although it was the first to market, it didn't attract an audience, and was soon superseded by the much more popular '' Traveller'' published the following year.

Description

''Starfaring'' is a two-player science fiction RPG "loosely based on ''

Star Trek ''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the eponymous 1960s television series and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has expanded into vari ...

''" that is set 700 years in the future, after humanity wins a war against robots. The world government loans money to adventurers so they can buy a small spacecraft and travel through a nearby stargate to explore space. The book includes information on: * creating scenarios * building ships * creating crews and characters * weapons and conflict * rewards * stores * psionic powers * hazards * random star locations, star sypes, star systems, and planetary types * life among the stars

Gameplay

Two people are required for play: #The

gamemaster A gamemaster (GM; also known as game master, game manager, game moderator, referee, or storyteller) is a person who acts as an organizer, officiant for regarding rules, arbitrator, and moderator for a multiplayer role-playing game. They are m ...

designs adventures, and then runs them. #The player creates a ship and its crew. Unusually, the ship, not the crew, becomes the primary player character.

Shipbuilding

Ships have the following attributes: Size, Warp Drive, Brahma Crystal Power Supply, Shiva Crystal Weapons System, Vishnu Crystal Shields, and Instrumentation Computers.

Character creation

Character creation uses random rolls of three six-sided dice to generate Mentality, Psi, Physique, and Health.

Publication history

As game historian Erdei Jacint noted, following the successful launch of the first fantasy RPG, ''

Dungeons & Dragons ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (commonly abbreviated as ''D&D'' or ''DnD'') is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (RPG) originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by TSR (company)#Tactical Studies Rules ...

'' in 1974, "many small companies started producing fantasy RPGs, hoping to get rich. Clones rapidly appeared." Game designer

Ken St. Andre Kenneth Eugene St. Andre (born April 28, 1947) is an American fantasy author and game designer, best known for his work with ''Tunnels & Trolls'' and ''Wasteland (video game), Wasteland''. He was born in Ogden, Utah, and has been an active member ...

was part of that movement, quickly designing several fantasy RPGs and supplements, including ''

Tunnels & Trolls ''Tunnels & Trolls'' (abbreviated ''T&T'') is a fantasy role-playing game designed by Ken St. Andre and first published in 1975 by Flying Buffalo. The second modern role-playing game published, it was written by Ken St. Andre to be a more accessib ...

'' (published by

) and ''

Monsters! Monsters! ''Monsters! Monsters!'' is a role-playing game first published by Metagaming Concepts in 1976. Description ''Monsters! Monsters!'' is a fantasy system in which the player characters are monsters who prey on adventurers and the civilized world. ...

'' (published by

Metagaming Concepts Metagaming Concepts, later known simply as Metagaming, was a company that published board games from 1974 to 1983. It was founded and owned by Howard Thompson, who designed the company's first game, ''Stellar Conquest''. The company also invente ...

). But as Jacint noted, "Due to the enormous amount of games with similar themes, the market started to stagnate. The time had come for a change. St. Andre took the first step in this direction." St. Andre decided to move away from fantasy and created a science fiction RPG titled ''Starfaring'', which was published by Flying Buffalo in August 1976. As game historians Shannon Appelcline,

Lawrence Schick Lawrence Schick is a game designer and writer associated with role-playing games. Early life and education Schick attended Kent State University Kent State University (KSU) is a public research university in Kent, Ohio. The university al ...

, and Pascal Martinolli noted, it was the first science fiction RPG on the market, appearing several months before the publication of TSR's science fiction RPG ''

Metamorphosis Alpha ''Metamorphosis Alpha'' is a science fiction role-playing game. It was created by James M. Ward and originally produced by TSR, the publisher of ''Dungeons & Dragons''. It was the first science fiction role-playing game, published in July 1976 ...

''.Martinolli, Pascal (2018).
Timeline Tree of Tabletop Role-Playing Games
" ''Donjons & Données probantes''. The first printing of ''Starfaring'' in 1976 was an 80-page saddle-stapled

mimeographed A mimeograph machine (often abbreviated to mimeo, sometimes called a stencil duplicator) is a low-cost duplicating machine that works by forcing ink through a stencil onto paper. The process is called mimeography, and a copy made by the proce ...

softcover book with a black & white illustration by Ernest Hogan on the cover. More artwork by Hogan appeared in the book. A second printing that same year had a black spiral binding. The book did not make much of an impact on the market. In a player poll of 28 RPGs in the October-November 1976 issue of ''

The Space Gamer ''The Space Gamer'' was a magazine dedicated to the subject of science fiction and fantasy board games and tabletop role-playing games. It quickly grew in importance and was an important and influential magazine in its subject matter from the la ...

'', ''Starfaring'' received the lowest rating. As Lawrence Schick explained, "''Starfaring'' shared 'Tunnels & Trolls''s loose and whimsical approach. Unfortunately, looseness is not a valuable commodity in SF games — to be credible, the technology and how it affects society must be clearly explained." In 1977, Game Designer's Workshop released another science fiction RPG, ''Traveller'', featuring professional typesetting, illustrations, and graphic design. It quickly proved to be far more popular than ''Starfaring''. In a 1980 international listing of several hundred

s and gaming groups that appeared in Issue 33 of ''

Dragon A dragon is a reptilian legendary creature that appears in the folklore of many cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but dragons in western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depicted as ...

'', over one hundred identified that they played ''Traveller''. In contrast, only two played ''Starfaring''. In 2007, Outlaw Press published a revised and expanded second edition of ''Starfaring'' packaged as a 76-page digest-sized book. Ernest Hogan's original cover art was used, this time in full color.

References

External links

* * Flying Buffalo games Role-playing games introduced in 1976 Science fiction role-playing games {{rpg-stub