Quote from: Dumarest;999200If anyone who has played the Buck Rogers game wants to start a thread about why it's awesome or sucks, I'd love to read about it. I've never seen the game. Is it based on the old stories or the TV series or Buster Crabbe serial or what?

None of the above.  It was its own completely original setting.  Honestly, Buck Rogers, Wilma Deering, Dr. Huer, et al. were rather superfluous.  So much so that the line name eventually changed to just "XXVc."

The mechanics were based on Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2E, with an added percentile skill system and a seventh attribute, "Tech", which showed how adept your character was at using technology.

In 1999, the United States and the Soviet Union (this is the late '80s and early '90s remember) enter a nuclear war.  At the end, Earth is mostly a hellhole and what is left of the world divides up into blocks.   The three main blocks are the Russo-American Mercantile ("RAM"), the Indo-Asian Consortium ("IAC"), and the Euro-Bloc Faction ("EBF").  RAM goes out and colonizes Mars, the IAC colonizes Venus, and EBF gets the moon.

After a couple of hundred years, RAM/Mars gets uppity and revolts, and then eventually occupies Earth.  In the meantime, some of the people that fled Earth during all this establish a colony on Mercury.

In the 25th Century, Earth is no longer the shining jewel of the Sol system.  It's mostly occupied by the lower class of humanity that couldn't afford to move out to the moon, or Mars, etc.  Eventually, a group of rebels forms on Earth aimed to overthrow Martian rule - the New Earth Organization, ("NEO").  NEO eventually comes across a frozen Buck Rogers.  After they revive him, he helps NEO kick RAM off of Earth, and re-establish self rule on the planet.  This is basically where the game begins.

There's space pirates.  There are outer fringe colonies in the asteroid belt, and on Jupiter's moons.  There's digital personalities (AI either programmed or an uploaded human mind).  In fact, it turns out that a digital personality based on a long dead person runs RAM/Mars.  There's genetically engineered races of people for better compatibility on Mars, Venus, the asteroid belt, and Jupiter's moons.  There's inter-planetary political and corporate intrigue.

It's semi-hard science-fiction with rocket ships and ray guns.  It also may be the very first transhuman RPG, with the various genetically engineered species and digital personalities.

The rules are meh... like I said basically AD&D 2E, but it has one of the best danged science-fiction settings IMO.


An advertisement in Dragon magazine:

**didnt see this first**

It was a very enjoyable game that is one of the few times I've seen D&D (classic sense/or modern) not stretch out of shape to emulate the genre/medium. Usually with licensed properties I recommend using better systems but in this case they made a great game. It's a shame it wasn't more popular.

It's a shame I can't get one of my group to post he used to run it quite regularly.

I like the setting overall, and the novels were decent enough. I loved the fact that it was AD&D-based because it would allow for some scifi crossovers with my fantasy campaigns. (This plus 4E Gamma World, also AD&D-like.)

It's a very clean implementation of D&D.  The percentile system does what 2e should have done all along: skills are based on a stat and that stat is your base percentage, then you spend points to improve it.  It integrates non-weapon proficiencies with thieves skills in a single, consistent system.  The classes are reasonable but some of the races are hard to really use much, Storm Riders and Venusian Low Landers in particular.  All told the game is very consistent and well thought out and the setting is realistic and fun which is no mean feat.

I've read that TSR titled it XXVc. because their research showed that the name "Buck Rogers" actually reduced people's interest in buying it.

XXVc isnt related to either the original books, the comic strips, the serial, or the TV series. Its very much its own thing and shares mosrly just the character names and not alot else.

Its a great setting though and plays really well.

If you get a chance check out the two excellent SSI Gold Box PC games using their UA engine.

TSR also did a Buck Rogers Adventure Game which was a rules lite pulp game set in the world of the comics.

Sounds like a pretty cool setting to play around in. Have any of you played a campaign with this?

I'm kind of tinkering with a relatively lighthearted setting borrowing ideas from the 1981 Flash Gordon movie, the Gil  Gerard Buck Rogers TV series, the 1980s V miniseries, the original Battlestar Galactica, and some other sci fi material. No idea how it'll work out and if it'll ever get played.

The only thing is that RAM isn't that compelling of a villain.  They're a corporation and the Terrines are their merciless shock troopers but because they're a corporation first and foremost you can get them to be reasonable if you can show them the money.  There's space pirates of course but they're pretty mercenary too.  Personally I'd introduce a radical terrorist front like Cobra.  Somebody the players can really hate.

Quote from: David Johansen;999291The only thing is that RAM isn't that compelling of a villain.  They're a corporation and the Terrines are their merciless shock troopers but because they're a corporation first and foremost you can get them to be reasonable if you can show them the money.  There's space pirates of course but they're pretty mercenary too.  Personally I'd introduce a radical terrorist front like Cobra.  Somebody the players can really hate.

Well, one thing I always say is that you need actual people to be enemies worth caring about. Organizations are rather boring. Install an evil guy in charge (like Cobra Commander, Ming the Merciless, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, Dracula, whatever) and give the PCs reasons to hate him and you're all set.

Quote from: David Johansen;999267It's a very clean implementation of D&D.  The percentile system does what 2e should have done all along: skills are based on a stat and that stat is your base percentage, then you spend points to improve it.  It integrates non-weapon proficiencies with thieves skills in a single, consistent system.  The classes are reasonable but some of the races are hard to really use much, Storm Riders and Venusian Low Landers in particular.  All told the game is very consistent and well thought out and the setting is realistic and fun which is no mean feat.

I've read that TSR titled it XXVc. because their research showed that the name "Buck Rogers" actually reduced people's interest in buying it.

Yeah, Storm Riders and Venusian Low Landers are pretty much only good if you were to run campaigns firmly set on either the asteroid belt/Jupiter or Venus, respectively.

I can see that.  The game really had very little to do with Buck Rogers himself, nor the other related characters.  I initially got into the game because I bought the "Buck Rogers XXVc: Countdown to Doomsday" video game, and there were a couple of ads for the tabletop RPG in the box.  Why did I buy the video game?  Because I watched the Gil Gerard television show as a wee lad and assumed that the video game was related in someway.  I realized that it was not after playing it of course, and I therefore knew what I was getting into when buying and GMing the tabletop RPG.

So, really, it sounds to me like the biggest problem was the "Based on a Name By" aspect.  Sort of like how the Disney "Three Musketeers" with Tim Curry as Richelieu was entertaining and all, but had pretty much fuckall to do with Dumas.

Yes, pretty much.  The designers at TSR weren't really thrilled by the project to begin with but managed to slip in a pretty decent setting and set of game rules in spite of that.  It's a shame, I always found the Buck Rogers associations made it hard to get players to try it.

All respect to the actors involved, but I thought the Buck Rodgers TV show shat big chunks.  The comics were cool.

All that said, I can see where LW may honestly have thought Buck Rodgers would be profitable.  A thing known as "George's low-budget silly space movie that the studio let him make as a favor for his success with American Graffiti" turned into "one of the top grossing movies of all time," after all.

Yeah, the TV show kinda poisoned the well on that one.  There were some passable episodes and some nice space ship models but the heavy handed and corny fish out of water jokes and desperate attempt to make Buck into Captain Kirk and Han Solo's love child fell flat.

And the "cute robot sidekick" was a BAD idea.