It was shared in The Tavern's Facebook Community that WotC has requested that the Star Frontiers rules and support material that contained articles original published by TSR be removed from starfrontiers.com and http://www.starfrontiersman.com/magazines.php
http://www.starfrontiers.com/Rules/
The Remastered Star Frontiers rules are gone along with 14 of the 25 issues of Star Frontiersman Magazine, as the issues in question contained remastered articles from TSR's Dragon Magazine and such.
Note: WotC had given permission for the sites to host the original TSR published material, but as WotC is now releasing Star Frontiers material from the TSR days as PDFs on RPGNow, having such material available for free elsewhere doesn't make good business sense.
There ARE, however, some download links that still work as of this morning:
Star Frontiers Expanded Rules
http://www.starfrontiers.com/Rules/7007%20-%20Alpha%20Dawn%20-%20Expanded.pdf
Star Frontiers Campaign Book Expanded Rules
http://www.starfrontiers.com/Rules/7011%20-%20Knight%20Hawks%20-%20Expansion.pdf
Grab them before they are gone...
Sadly they're gone..
ReplyDeleteI am not surprised by this. Companies have to protect their IP; it's part of doing business.
ReplyDeleteWotC had to do something, with Evil Hat trying to grab the name, if not the IP.
ReplyDeletehttps://inventively.com/trademarks/star-frontiers/evil-hat-productions-llc/87514096
DeleteYeah, Evil Hat made a claim
I blame them, as well. They basically forced WoC to do something like this. EH could have come up with some other name, or brand.
DeleteNothing says big company like this. Hey, we're not doing anything with Star Frontiers, go ahead and do what you want. Oh, wait, it's selling and people still want the game and material? Can't have that. Gonna shut you down so we can make and print the game again so we can make money on it.
ReplyDeleteThey have to protect their IPs and trademarks or risk loosing them forever or seeing the dilution of the brand.
DeleteTimothy Brannan is correct, they need to protect their rights. You can't fault them for that. Plus, they were kind enough to allow the two websites to host the material for *years*. Wizards are not being "the Bad Guy" in this situation.
DeleteBetter grab the Marvel FASERIP stuff off Classic Marvel Forever while you can, that'll probably be the next target. Marvel was nice enough not to make waves but if WOTC/Hasbro can make a buck PODing the game they will.
ReplyDeleteProbably less likely, as they'd have to have a new license from Marvel to sell that material again. Which is kinda a shame, as I'd love to see that stuff go to POD.
DeletePulling it down without a legitimate replacement avenue to acquire it merely encourages piracy.
ReplyDeleteYou can get it through the Onebookshelf sites.
DeleteAs the owner of the Star Frontiersman (and Frontier Explorer) websites, I'll add just a little bit more. At this point they have only asked that their original copyrighted material be removed. In the case of both sites, when I started them or took over maintaining them, I reached out Wizards for permissions to use the Star Frontiers name, trademark, and asked them what the rules were to play nice. I'm just operating under the ground rules we set up from the start. As of right now the Frontier Explorer hasn't been affected, although I'm holding off starting the next issue (#24) until I hear more.
ReplyDeleteAs others have suggested, it's my personal opinion that the release of material on DriveThruRPG and the request to me to remove the copyrighted material was spurred by the application by Evil Hat for a trademark on the name Star Frontiers. I don't have any proof but the timing would be a pretty amazing coincidence if not.
And while it is within their rights to request everything come down per my agreements with them and copyright law (it is all derivative work based on the material they hold copyright for), that is still under discussion and I'm actually hopeful that we can keep it up. I had a nice chat with my contact at Wizards and they were quite positive on the fan community and the work we had done with the magazines. If we can keep all the fan created material up, those 14 Star Frontiersman issues will be back up, just minus the Dragon Magazine articles.
So stay tuned and I'll be making updates on the magazine websites as I learn more.
http://starfrontiersman.com
http://frontierexplorer.org
We have seen plenty of very successful "fan" operations that rival the material from "professionals" (in quotes since the the line between fan and professional is often very blurry).
DeleteI am hoping that Star Frontierman does this (continues to do this). Offering some top notch support for a game we all loved.
You seem to be handling this very professionally.
DeleteI (luckily) stumbled upon these materials a couple months ago. I'm very glad I downloaded them all at that time! I've REALLY been thinking of playing; it was one of my favorite games as a kid (sure wish I never got rid of those box sets..)
I hope this doesn't keep you from publishing what you can on the "fan" side of things! In that regard, I hope that WoTC "republishing" these digitally, only gets more people playing the game, and thus more demand for fan created material!
Just wanted to say thanks for all the amazing work you've done keeping Star Frontiers alive. Your hard work is incredibly appreciated.
DeleteWotC may well insist that all derivative materials be posted at the DM's Guild, and subject to the same sort of licensing that D&D material is.
DeleteI still have my original Star Frontiers game, and the expansion, in the boxes too. Good memories.
I'd actually be fine with that as I could then charge money for some of the stuff and pay my writers, even if just a token amount. Right now, everything I do has to available for free and I can't commission anything. I have a few pay-what-you want items but emphasize that any monies paid are donations to help support the magazines (web hosting, software, etc.)
DeleteI actually asked when they launched the DM's Guild if I could publish Star Frontiers materials there and was told no. That might change here in the future though.
The other day I discovered that (in chrome) I can right click and save to Google Drive... gone are the days of bouncing files off my desktop into G-Drive.
ReplyDeleteKinda makes me wonder with the release and success of Starfinder if WOTC is thinking of revisiting Star Frontiers.
ReplyDeleteLost my copy nearly 20 years ago.... Temple of Elemental Evil was a "resource" that we often used in gaming...!!!
ReplyDeleteLooks like the old stuff, at that which isn't just reprinted TSR material, will get to stay up.
ReplyDeletehttp://frontierexplorer.org/article/end-era
I'm hoping that this means WOTC will actually start publishing material for Star Frontiers again. I've been happy with the 5E games I've played (ACKS and Savage Worlds remain my top two systems), and I'd love to see what they can do with the setting. There will still have to be dralasites, yazirians and vrusks for me to consider it Star Frontiers.