Ancient History: Buck Rogers XXVc

When I returned to roleplaying after a long hiatus, I wanted to know what happened to two games that had originally captured my imagination: Buck Rogers XXVc and Space 1889. My research must not have been very thorough, because what I found out about Space 1889 was that they released the originals from the early 90s as PDFs and some new novels in the 2000s. It took a fortunate coincidence to learn that not one, but two setting adaptations had been prepared in the meantime - "Space 1889: Red Sands" for Savage Worlds, and an adaptation by the German publisher Uhrwerk.

So there was much rejoicing. Digging into the history of Buck Rogers XXVc revealed something else, though. This one remained quite dead, and has done so for almost 20 years. What's worse, there's little chance it will ever see the light of day again...

Buck Rogers XXVc (short for "Buck Rogers in the 25th century," whereas XXVc became the trademark name) had been a short-lived fad in the early 90s. The release of the "Buck Rogers XXVc: Countdown to Doomsday" for the ancient 8-bit Commodore 64 home computer had spurred my interest. I was also into roleplaying games back then, and lo and behold, I was lucky enough to find a copy of the original "Buck Rogers XXVc" roleplaying game in my local game store - an English game box in a store which carried at most one tiny shelf of roleplaying games at all, mostly Germany's popular "The Dark Eye." In fact, the shelf was shared with products for (then FASA's) popular BattleTech tabletop. So, finding XXVc was sheer tremendous luck, and it kindled an interest not lost during the years to come. I cannot even say how often I've re-read the setting description for this one!

The World of 2456

So, what I had at my disposal then were three things: The XXVc game box, the "Countdown to Doomsday" computer game and an English novel accompanying the game, "First Power Play." This was my entry into the XXVc game universe, and that was what stuck. I like the world the authors of the basic XXVc game created - based on our actual solar system and what we knew about it at the time, mixed with some concepts of science fiction that don't stretch credulity too much.

In 2456 mankind has long since colonised (and partially terraformed) many planets, moons and asteroids, and sometimes the space in between. Genetical engineering has produced organisms called "gennies" - mixes of genes of different species for specific purposes - be it a new kind of animal to close a gap in a designed eco system on another planet like Venus, be it a genetically modified super warrior of human descent. Space travel is common (enough), interplanetary propulsion is done by massive nuclear fusion engines, though ships retain an aerodynamic design for atmospheric flight. Colonies can be found as far as Jupiter and Saturn, and scientific expeditions are said to have reached even Pluto.

The most important fact of life in this world, however, is RAM. Originally known as the Russo-American Mercantile, RAM is the superpower in the solar system, using both its vast riches and its military strength to meddle with almost everything. Its power base is Mars, the biggest prize amongst the original colonies, and back in the late 23rd century RAM rebelled and conquered Earth - now a polluted and ruined backwater.

Resisting Mars are the Venusians, descendants from an Asian power bloc on Earth, many free-spirited individuals and especially NEO, the New Earth Organization. NEO wants to free Earth and rebuild it, and the only way to do so is by removing RAM's grip on it. This is the central defining conflict of this setting, and it is intensified by a singular event - the unexpected return of 20th century legend and space jock, Anthony "Buck" Rogers. Buck turns out to be an important rallying point and an excellent military leader, and he will shape this conflict and maybe the future of the solar system altogether.

Buck Rogers

While Buck Rogers is in some ways used to define the setting, he usually has no impact on gameplay. You don't play Buck Rogers, you just happen to be part of a band of heroes set in the same world as he is. The novels "Arrival" and the first trilogy about Earth's rebellion, all released by TSR, make heavy use of Buck as character, but the average roleplaying session will not be concerned with him. He's the grand scheme of things, and you are the ones deciding facts on the ground, hunting down goons and henchmen, thwarting evil plots and securing important artifacts.

In fact, reviewers commented that Buck Rogers seems crafted onto the whole thing. The gaming universe is a total reboot of the original Buck Rogers, with nothing left but him being a man out of time and his passionate fight for Earth. I'm quite glad this is so because frankly what they did with this game is an interesting setting of its own.

And while I have no beef with Buck as a character, his presence created another conflict - one of intellectual property. When TSR created Buck Rogers products it was led by a CEO with family ties to the Dille Family Trust, the owners of the Buck Rogers intellectual property. The same CEO is also tied to TSR's commercial failure by many. All in all also the whole product wasn't received well. And this whole mess would probably also prevent any Buck Rogers setting for other systems, and (in my opinion) that's a real shame.

The Game

XXVc is a spinoff product from the AD&D 2nd edition engine. As such it has classes, the infamous To-Hit-Armor-Class-0 (THAC0) system for resolving fights, saving throws, hit points and attributes. The saving throws were adapted to reflect dangers encountered in the space-faring age, such as radiation or suffocation. The attributes now include technical proficiency. But in general, nothing changed much from the basic Advanced Dungeons and Dragons mechanics, except for one thing: skills. (Okay, there's a system for creating space ships, travelling with them from planet to planet and for fighting with them, but the same basic mechanics apply here, too.)

XXVc utilises a skill system described in percentage points, though high-level characters can have skills higher than 100%. The mechanics are easy: The success chance for an easy roll is the skill value is double the skill value, for an average roll it is multiplied by 1, for a difficult roll, the value is halved, and for an "impossible" roll it is quartered. So, a really high-level character with a skill rating of 200 still would have a 50% chance to make that "impossible" roll.

Some skills are "class skills." These can be raised indefinitely and each rise in level gives 40 additional points in those to distribute. "General skills" only get 20 points for distribution, and are capped at a rating of 80. So, you can be a good pilot, but to be an elite pilot you have to be of class Rocket Jock. The medical skills are almost all only available to the Paramedic class. You can also be a Scout (specialist for surviving in and exploring alien environments), Warrior, Rogue and Engineer.

A skill cannot be raised by more than 15 points per level, including the first level. As soon as you invest any points in a skill, the associated attribute is added once - so, given that some lucky ones may start with very high attributes of 20 and above, depending on chosen race, an initial skill rating of up to 37 is feasible, which means a beginning character has at most a 74% percent chance of success on a D100 roll for easy actions. And scouts get an additional +5 per level on their class skills.

The list of skills is rather detailed and befits the setting, but altogether the system is one thing - boring. The character gets an increase in skill and hit points, sometimes an increase on THAC0, basically never an increase in attributes (set in stone as usual in early D&D), and that's it. There's nothing defining the character for roleplaying but its basic occupation. Even alignment has been omitted. (Though most won't mourn it, given the criticism it tends to attract.)

I have to say, in my personal opinion the system screams for a setting adaptation in Savage Worlds - for more interesting and capable initial characters and for adding edges and hindrances to flesh out the character and overcome the problem of boring level increases. While a D20 conversion might have seemed like the natural way to go forward, it never truly happened and would probably leave most problems with the game engine unsolved.

Of course the system predates even D20, and was actually a step forward when compared to AD&D 2nd edition. But whereas AD&D players would learn interesting spells and uncover fascinating magical items, the options in XXVc are much more limited. In fact so limited that the designers of the computer games tried to introduce magical items through the back door by establishing +1 up to +4 bonusses on THAC0 and damage for weapons according to their quality of manufacture - Terran or regular would receive no bonus, Martian +1, Venusian +2, Mercurian +3 and finally Lunarian +4, which is a bit arbitrary given the setting description. By doing so the designers of the two XXVc computer games ("Countdown to Doomsday" and "Matrix Cubed") basically acknowledged the lack of advancement in the regular system and the lack of equipment options.

The Expansions

Nothing but the original XXVc game box is needed to play. It contains ample world description in form of the "World Book" and the "Tech Book" (which also describes the basic equipment options). Also a rules book is contained. This is all you need to start with, and in general well-designed and beautifully made. This self-contained box describes a basically plausible universe with realistic dangers. (The hit point dynamic of AD&D is of course not realistic, but that's immanent to the system itself, and not the setting.)

Where it gets decidedly less enjoyable is with the published expansions, which in my opinion deserve being called chaotic. There are additional source books and adventure modules. It is not initially clear what is what - "Mars in the 25th century" is for example the source book for Mars. "NEO in the 25th century," however, is an adventure module, not a description of NEO as an organisation.

There are source books detailing additional information on Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars and "The Belt" (the asteroid belt beyond Mars' orbit). Because XXVc got cancelled rather early on, there exist no source books for the Jovian and Saturnian systems, probably the most interesting locations from the original books. At least Jupiter is referenced in adventure modules. The information has editorial issues and seems largely uncoordinated between several authors, resulting in serious issues. Two examples:

The source book "The Belt" for example details that the whole asteroid belt has altogether less mass than Earth's moon Luna. The biggest object is Ceres, about 500 miles in diameter. According to the extension there are 300 million people crammed into that object. That would not only constitute almost all inhabitants of the Belt in one spot, whose larger objects tend to have 5,000 - 40,000 inhabitants, it would also be more inhabitants than either Luna, Venus or Mars have, all settled earlier under more auspicious circumstances! Similarly, the original listing in the basic box for Ceres is 40,000 inhabitants, suggesting little cross-checking and editorial supervision.

Even more blatant is that two extensions, "Inner Worlds" (about Mercury and Venus) and "No Humans Allowed" (about gennies) seem to introduce telepathic and telekinetic abilities, something not only not included in the basic rules, but oddly out of vibe with the original hard scifi concept of the first box. This is also the only place where an Uranus outpost is mentioned, inhabited by a gennie variation of man bred solely for cerebral superiority.

This is comparatively typical for the expansion materials (and later novels), where, whenever confronted with a lack of ideas consistent with the original concept, simply new concepts are grafted on, things even declared impossible by the original rules (whereas nothing is possible for gennies that has not been shown to exist in native life on Earth). The "No Humans Allowed" extension details that mutation by radiation is unreliable and mostly produced unviable specimens, but the "Inner Worlds" extension states that rats have developed a telepathic hive mind by exactly this mechanism in the warren tunnels - the same tunnels that shield humans from radiation...

The later novels and materials contradict the earlier ones, as if within the span of a few years the authoring team ran out of ideas. Which is really a shame, because the original concept portrayed in the original box was satisfying and rich and still allowed game masters to explore this world in their own way. The multitude of authors involved created this lack of editorial line, something which has for example not happened to "Space 1889" - where we return to our beginning.

Rest in Peace

"Space 1889" was conceived by a team of people who deeply care about it, and who were wise enough to let it survive even the fact that their original game engine did not seem to stand the test of time. Not contaged with intellectual property issues, it still appeals to gamers and authors alike and is currently experiencing a revival with new releases both for the Savage World and Ubiquity engines.

I wish the same was true for Buck Rogers XXVc. While I might adapt it for Savage Worlds and reuse some of its materials, I see no way it can make a real comeback. It seems to lack a fanbase or a dedicated creator wishing to reinvigorate it. Most books can still be had from second hand sellers like Noble Knight Games or online thrift stores, though that still leaves the issue of shipping rates for Europeans and can only last so long - 20 years already has been a long time of availability for an out-of-print product. Some materials like the expansion book "Buck Rogers in the 25th century" seem unavailable for any reasonable price. While I now possess most material ever published for this one, it is now relegated to the status of a nostalgic curiosity.

In the end it has just too many issues, not even counting in the animosity some still feel for the product, blaming it for the demise of TSR or other products like "Gamma Worlds." I won't debate that issue. I can just conclude that "Buck Rogers XXVc" may rest in peace. We barely knew you.