It’s only taken 50 years but there’s finally a rpg for my second favourite childhood sci-fi series. The Space:1999 rpg is out, with a free Quickstart Guide (including an adventure) out for pdf download, and pre-ordering the Core Rulebook (out in May) gives you the full PDF too. It uses the Modiphius 2d20 system similar to their Star Trek Adventures rpg. Not that I’m likely to get to play it, but it is making for a cracking and nostalgic read.
I enjoyed the series, but so much of it has been taken for other RPGs that I’m not sure a faithful rendering has much to offer. (And I still don’t really get 2d20, though I’ve played a bit of Star Trek here.)
Well it has very cool rules for when you crash land your Eagle…
And very cool rules for when Moonbase Alpha is bombarded from space by alien warships etc.
Both those game mechanics are trying to make sure lots of players at the table are having fun/rolling dice. Like a PC in the Command Centre can do an “air traffic control” roll to assist the Eagle pilot.
Space 1999 is a LOT simpler than 2d20 Dune, and also simpler than 2d20 Star Trek. They are going for narrative first, then work out what you roll. Also mooks go down in one hit, but unstoppable killer robots will still take a lot of damage/cunning plans to take down. The cunning plans will still whittle away at its ‘hit points’ (spirit), even if they are not damage inflicting plans. Like you lock it in a freezer… it’ll spend Spirit to batter its way out.
Original Buck Rogers, as put out by 1990s TSR under pressure from their owner who had the rights her grandfather had stolen from the creator, was apparently pretty playable— @bigjackbrass may be able to say more.
I don’t think anyone has tried to publish a game of 1980s Buck Rogers. (Skills must include “Wear Metallic Jumpsuit”.)
TSR did two Buck Rogers RPGs in the late eighties / early nineties:
Buck Rogers XXVC was the earlier and fairly successful one, which I know very little about.
High Adventure Cliffhangers Buck Rogers Adventure Game from 1993 was a large boxed game with one boxed supplement, aimed at newer players. Lots of maps and cardboard figures, based on six-sided dice and generally rather well done. Its chief success is also its massive failing: As an adaptation of the original comic strips it works well and is full of pulpy action, biplanes, and anti-gravity belts… and is also authentically, horribly racist. The Han, the main enemy, are grotesques, a bellicose Yellow Peril threat, to be shot first and questioned not at all.
So, it’s a mixed bag, you know? Not sure I’d actually run it without effectively creating my own version of the setting.
