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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8244534" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 52: March 1990part 3/5The Living Galaxy: Roger continues to talk about general worldbuilding in spacebound sci-fi games. If you're not careful, you can wind up with too many underdeveloped options, leaving the PC's wandering around the universe with no clear goal or attachments. Better to create a smaller number of inhabited planets with clear and distinct identities and relationships with each other to travel between. While you can use "planet of the hats" style stereotypes as a starting point, you should always add at least one twist to make sure it isn't a straight rip-off of a real world thing. This is all pretty general stuff, familiar from many other columns of advice over the years. The sample worlds are a pretty mixed bag, some cool, others boring. Not too bad, but aimed too low for me to gain any more XP from it.Into the 25th Century: Ah yes, the multiple attempts by TSR to create a Buck Rogers RPG, even though the general public had little interest, because Lorraine :wolves howl, thunder rolls, organ music plays: was heir to the property. They gave it a hard push in Dragon 157, and it looks like Polyhedron isn't escaping promotional duties either. Mike Pondsmith was apparently a huge fan of Buck from childhood, and despite being just a freelancer, he got put in charge of the project straight away when he asked about it, which shows how little enthusiasm the actual TSR staff had for it. What he came up with was a surprisingly dark and hard sci-fi setting that sticks to the solar system rather than embracing all the pulp ridiculousness (and making the main villains nazi analogues rather than chinese ones, because anti-racism.) of the original serials, paired with a system that's pretty close to the standard AD&D one with sci-fi themed classes. This is an odd pairing, as it's hard to get any kind of realism with a class/level system, and I'm not surprised it left most people indifferent. Just who are they trying to target as an audience? It's definitely not the people who want to play adventures like Buck's original ones, or who liked the most recent TV incarnation from the early 80's. It's all a little baffling. What was the thought process that led to the final product, and how much of it was caused by executive meddling, then the writers having to do the best they can within the boundaries they were set?</blockquote>

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