SF Adventures in the Solar System?

[Paul Farquhar]

The '90s Buck Rogers XXVc game was mostly set in the inner solar system.

As I remember, it was pretty bad though.

 

[aramis erak]

The '90s Buck Rogers XXVc game was mostly set in the inner solar system.

As I remember, it was pretty bad though.

It was very different from audience expectations, because people were expecting it to be based off the then 15 year old TV show, but it was based upon the 60+ year old comics, which share the names, and the basic personality sketches, but nothing else.

The Setting description is actually quite good. Just don't take anything from the TV show nor its pilot/theatrical released movie.

The Rules are a subset of AD&D 2e with new classes that work as well as AD&D 2e classes ever did. For me, AD&D 2e was "not horrible, not great"... but I didn't find it until after I'd gotten fed up with AD&D 2e, D&D 3e, and D&D 3.5... Still, it's a lovely read and a great 20's & 30's sci-fi in-system goodness.

The books, however, are now almost unobtainium. They're not expensive when they show up, but they just don't show up much.

The other TSR Buck game is "Buck Rogers High Adventure" - Noble Knight has it for $12... it's a d6 dicepool game... but like XXVc, it's grounded in the comics, not the TV show nor the Buster Crabbe Movies.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

The other TSR Buck game is "Buck Rogers High Adventure" - Noble Knight has it for $12... it's a d6 dicepool game... but like XXVc, it's grounded in the comics, not the TV show nor the Buster Crabbe Movies.

It uses the original novella Armageddon 2419 and its sequel War Against the Han for its setting, which only the earlier comics tie into. If you're expecting interplanetary travel, swashbuckling space opera or aliens you're not getting them. It's all about US guerillas (still fighting after more than 400 years) trying to retake North America from the Han, a "race of degenerate Mongolian stock" who conquered the continent in the early 2100s and now lord over the place with a fleet of disintegrator-armed airships supported by repulsor beams. The racist twaddle is exactly what you'd expect from that setup, and TSR awkwardly tries to ignore it as much as possible without changing the basic premise. Where every later iteration of Buck (including the vast majority of the comics) lean into space opera tropes, the original is really a "displaced in time to a dystopian future" tale wearing a big thick coat of American exceptionalism and Yellow Peril jingoism woven together. Unless you're familiar with the origins of the Buck Rogers franchise, about the only familiar things here are going to be a few characters, and even some of those are going to feel off who know the IP from the TV show or the mid-period or later comics.

Also a simplistic and quite limited game system which manages to make XXVc look pretty good by comparison.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

My advice in situations where you can’t find an RPG that does what you want in a way you like is to use another RPG’s systems- one you’re VERY familiar & comfortable with- and run the campaign you want.

 

[Kromanjon]

Eclipse Phase takes place in our solar system.

 

[BigJackBrass]

A favourite of mine, Forgotten Futures II: The Log of the Astronef — A Role Playing Sourcebook For George Griffith's Scientific Romance Stories of Other Worlds, by Marcus L. Rowland is part of the Forgotten Futures series and offers a late Victorian view of exploration in our solar neighbourhood. The link goes directly to the online worldbook and the original stories, but the site also contains the Forgotten Futures rules and other settings, all free to access.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Eclipse Phase takes place in our solar system.

Mostly. There are gates to extrasolar worlds.

A favourite of mine, Forgotten Futures II: The Log of the Astronef — A Role Playing Sourcebook For George Griffith's Scientific Romance Stories of Other Worlds, by Marcus L. Rowland is part of the Forgotten Futures series and offers a late Victorian view of exploration in our solar neighbourhood. The link goes directly to the online worldbook and the original stories, but the site also contains the Forgotten Futures rules and other settings, all free to access.

Seconded. Obviously a very retro take, but still quite a captivating setting and the source of quite a few well-established stereotypes in scifi, some of which linger on even today.

I could not find that site to save my life when I was hunting for it to link to in my earlier post. Forgot it had gone to free access and I kept thinking of Heliograph's old physical printing.

 

[Kromanjon]

Mostly. There are gates to extrasolar worlds.

True. I had actually forgotten that.

 

[Umbran]

I've been having a blast playing an Alien RPG campaign. Its mostly been rather low-key, with the environment itself being a major enemy. But I feel that the faster than light aspect of the game isn't really needed. So I was thinking about role-playing in the solar system.

What I like about Alien is that though skill matters and various equipment gives relevant bonuses, you are never assured success. This makes environmental dangers feel very real.

So, I'm not sure exactly what you are looking for here.
You seem to like the Alien RPG out there already. So... why not just use those rules, tell the players, "You don't have an FTL ship", and run your adventures in the Solar System, and be done?

What about the system you are already using prevents this?

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

True. I had actually forgotten that.

They don't seem to be a universally-loved aspect of the setting, maybe because FTL feels a cheat. I've seen a couple of groups that just excised the concept entirely and replaced it with STL at relativistic speeds, which works fine when you're transhuman characters are effectively immortal.