Tuesday, March 11, 2025

Star Frontiers Commercial (1983)

10 comments:

  1. "Star Frontiers Game"

    Real "What is this I don't know how to write copy for this thing" vibe.

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  2. It was....well, better than I expected!

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  3. It’s like if one of those commercials for L. Ron Hubbard’s “Dianetics” smashed into a commercial for K-B Toys.

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  4. The copy of this ad is almost identical to the Star Frontiers ad that ran in comic books at the same time - https://comicvine.gamespot.com/profile/cbishop/lists/star-frontiers-comic-ads-61/61075/

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  5. "Products of your imagination" is it? I thought we all decided the notoriously nonexistent (but well advertised) Imperial Earth was the imaginary game of choice around here? :)

    https://grognardia.blogspot.com/2020/09/a-harsh-sentence.html

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  6. Living as I did in the UK I had no idea there was such a thing as TV commercials for RPGs.

    Those graphics are fancy for 1983. Now I need to find out who the agency was and who rendered it.

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    Replies
    1. Living in the USA during that time period and I had no idea there was such a thing either.

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  7. Off topic but speaking of ads, way back in 2020 you did a post on the blog about the much-advertised but never seen Anywhen system and its Fireland and Imperial Earth settings.

    https://grognardia.blogspot.com/2020/09/a-harsh-sentence.html

    I was noodling around today and found a 2006 thread on the Purple Site that offers a lot more info on what when on with that whole situation. It's all anecdotal stuff from folks who lived near the (non)publisher when the ads were running and/or saw the empty booth at GenCon when it was due to release, but I don't see any reason to doubt them. You can read it all here:

    https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/anywhen-by-k-society.290458/

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  8. That was fantastic!

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  9. It's not terrible, in that the alien may be a Vrusk (it is more clearly so in the comic ad). The Frontier has no connection anymore to the homeworlds of the four species, but it could be they had a way back, and ONLY on forbidden Earth could they acquire the Star Frontiers game that explains the Frontier.

    TSR was at least trying with their advertising, in a time when nobody else really reached past "Boris illustrates another sword guy/gal posing" in gaming magazines where you already knew about RPGs.

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